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tundrainafrica · 3 years

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i really thought hange was non-binary bc the one who said hanges gender was up for interpretation was kodansha us but isayama asked for gender neutral pronouns right?

here!

I’m gonna answer all of the gender asks in one go because for one, I don’t think I wanna flood my own feed and my own tumblr with the same arguments.

I think a lot of the questions on Hange’s gender and the topic of gender and sexuality overall are kinda intertwined and I feel like for anyone who actually reads my stuff, it’s better understood as one big wall of text.

So I was wondering, is that song the absolute proof about hange's gender?

No. I think the interpretation of the song which people are using to prove that Hange’s nonbinary is very western centric. I actually did research around this song and knowing what I know about Japanese culture, I actually interpret the song as a way for Japanese people to break out from gender norms.

For people who are not aware, Japan is incredibly strict with gender norms. The LGBTQ community is not as progressive as it is in Western countries (I mean gay marriage isn’t completely legalized yet). And just looking at it from the stand point of gender roles and gender expectations, despite the progressive thinking, there are a lot of things Japanese men and women have to conform to just to be respected in everyday society. Because in Japan, the community has always been more important than the individual and it’s honestly the same for most asian countries as well.

A lot of the pressure of living in Japan, working with Japanese people is the pressure to conform and I’ve seen my friends do it through small things like getting bangs (because all Japanese women have bangs apparently), wearing make up when going out (because this is generally an accepted for all Japanese people) and always dressing your best because in that manner women are held to an incredibly high standard in Japan. And this goes similarly for men who are constantly pressured to be the breadwinner in the family. If your wife is making more than you, be ready to hear people talk. I know these expectations exist in a Western setting too but Japan is incredibly stiff as a society and this is one reason why, despite having numerous opportunities to moveto Japan myself, I am not at all entertaining that possibility. I have worked in a Japanese company and I hated it and moved to a western company right after six months. I have completely accepted the fact that there is no mobility career wise from a non-Japanese (and a woman at that) in Japanese society.

In conformity, hierarchies etc, Japan is its own monster. That’s why when songs like Jibunrashiku, Hitchcock (by Yorushika) or Shisoukan (by Yorushika) come out, for one it’s in Japanese so I wouldn’t approach the songs from an English and as a Japanese speaker and someone who is pretty familiar with Japanese culture, I can’t help interpret that song as a social commentary for the shitty parts of Japanese society and how they tend to shoot the concept of an ‘individual’ down.

But does that mean I completely shoot down the idea that Hange is NB?

NO. Yams said so himself, Hange’s gender is unknown. But at the same time, Yams recognizes the fact that in the anime and in the live action, Hange is a female. If Yams were that adamant to make Hange NB, I think he would have at least made more of an effort to police how she is depicted in the anime and in the live action.

His exact words were:　「ハンジは彼（彼女）みたいな、ちょっと浮世離れした、枠にとらわれない自由な感じで描きたかったんです。」If I roughly translated it to English, “I wanted to draw Hange as someone otherworldly, free from the confines of gender.”

Tbh, I wanted to avoid these gender asks altogether but I’ve seen the environment in twitter and the ways many people approach gender, particularly ‘nonbinary’ or genderfluid and it really just doesn’t sit well with me. For one, what’s up with all these rules on how to approach our nonbinary and LGBTQ friends? What’s up with all these accusations that if we don’t follow them to a T, then we’re suddenly transphobic or homophobic?

The fact that we’re creating all these rules on how to go about her nonbinary gender for one, just defeats the whole purpose of Hange being a free bird in the first place who wouldn’t have cared and who wouldnt’ ever have been confined to gender in the first place.

I mean the establishment of set rules and social norms on how to navigate gender, sex, sexuality and gender roles is the reason why we had heternormativity in the first place. And what I can see, yes, we did get progressive, we did start recognizing other genders, other ways of thinking but the danger in all this is that, we’re once again creating frameworks and norms about how people that identify as these genders are supposed to act. And this defeats the whole purpose of why we recognized concepts of other sexualities, other genders and breaks from gender roles in the first place.

We wanted to show these people that their feelings are valid, that the way they’re navigating their relationships and their identities are valid and the heternormative society we’ve lived in that has been condemning for so long, was flawed, was wrong.

But the thing is, with the establishment of all these social norms on how to navigate our relationships with LGBTQ people and how to navigate our own gender, sexuality, sex and role is just making us regress back to that shitty heteronormative society of a hundred years ago. Because suddenly, everyone is questioning once again ‘How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m nb?” “How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m trans?” “How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m LGBT?”

And we’re creating these abstract ideas of how exactly, being genderfluid is supposed to feel like. Am I really supposed to be going by ‘they?’ Am I supposed to be uncomfortable with CIS pronouns?

And If I don’t go through this process… If I don’t feel this way then maybe I’m not NB? Maybe I’m not Trans? Maybe I’m not LGBT? And if I don’t conform to this clear cut idea of what NB is which people set up for me, god forbid I might just be transphobic or homophobic.

And Here’s the thing, everyone’s journey to self discovery is unique and there is no exact way to go about your gender or identity. I find it terrifying actually that creating all these clear cut rules have built misconceptions in so many people already on what they are supposed to feel like when they decide to identify with a certain gender which is no different from long ago when people had to hide the fact that they liked people of the same gender because god forbid they might just be persecuted for being gay.

Creating these frameworks, these incredibly strict rules on how someone is supposed to navigate relationships with LGBTs and their own personal identities is only making it all the more dangerous for people who are in the process of discovering themselves.

Back in college, I used to accompany a friend to a clinic when he was starting HRT treatments and before he started them, he had to consult with a doctor and the consultation lasted months. Before all that, they gave him a checklist of ‘feelings,’ which if he does experience them, he checks it and if he does check enough of them and agrees with a huge chunk of them, then he might have gender dysphoria and maybe the HRT treatments and sex reassignment was for him. It was a hundred item checklist, pages full of waivers, warnings and questions about his own experiences with his gender identity. And the fact that he had to consult for months after on that? There must be a reason.

Maybe because the academe realizes, maybe because those adept on the field on gender realize that gender is too complex of a subject to have been boxed into these categories in the first place.

And this whole discourse or I wouldn’t say discourse more of like, this ‘pushing of agendas’ as to say, ‘this is how being gender fluid or non binary is supposed to feel like’ this is how being transgender is supposed to feel like and if you don’t fit it to a T then you’re not transgender or you’re not nb. Or if you don’t fit it all, maybe you’re just transphobic is dangerous for many reasons. Either it gatekeeps people who want to explore their gender further. Or it forces people to have to conform to these and force themselves to ‘feel’ all of these things in the first place.

And god, this is just the gender issue, I haven’t even explored the sexuality, gender roles or biological issue.

i mean pronouns are important but they don’t really reflect someone’s gender??? like there’s people who use he/they, she/they or all pronouns(? they just don’t conform to gender binary ahaha

Given the environment on twitter and having witnessed the bullying first hand that came with one writer who is active on twitter using she/her pronouns for Hange, I feel like my own writing and my own POV on how I go about my writing and how I approach the gender of Hange (since I strictly use she/her) might just be a ticking time bomb and I might find myself at the end of whatever hate war or ‘education’ or as I like to just refer to as bullying, one day.

I believe though I at least have enough knowledge and awareness of the LGBTQ situation and I think I did put a lot of thought already into this before I made my decision to use ‘she’ to refer to Hange.

(And tbh, you can be nonbinary and you can be female at the same time and I’ve written about that multiple times already BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT EVEN IN THE SAME CATEGORY. And creating this mutual exclusivity between being nonbinary and female just kinda invalidates a lot of those people who are still deciding where exactly they fall in this complex web of identity discovery)

As someone who generally mainly hangs out with LGBT people and i have been doing this since high school by the way, and as someone who has tried all the sexualities on the spectrum, I talked to my asexual friends about possibly being asexual, I have experimented with women and sometimes, I just had dry spells and it just so happened that in the end of all these, I fell in love with a guy but I really believe that gender is such a flexible thing and even though I am with aguy right now, I still simp over lesbians, gays, ciswomen, transgenders because simping isn’t about gender.

And these set of rules on how to navigate genders is just invalidating the experiences of people who are flitting in between the two identities and it just hinders the process of self discovery for a lot of people.

Anyway, the point is, there is only one statement I found fundamental when approaching my relationships with the LGBT community and my own perspective on my self identity.

Recognition of someone’s feelings and their journey to a gender identity and the pronouns that come with it are important.

Then someone might go “THEN WHY DON’T YOU RESPECT HANGE’s NON BINARY PRONOUNS. Because just because someone is nonbinary doesn’t mean they automatically go for they. Just because someone is non-binary, doesn’t mean I have to use every single pronoun on the spectrum. The only one who can tell me what pronouns they want used on them is the person in question.

(I actually read an argument somewhere that going for ‘they’ just because someone is NB is transphobic lmfao. Assuming someone’s pronouns is apparently transphobic too lmfao.)

AND HANGE IS FICTIONAL. And we will never hear about which pronoun she would have wanted in the first place and I think the great ‘nontransphobic’ in-between is just letting people interpret characters how they want to interpret characters in this fictional world (And Hange can be both interpreted as nb and female). It’s the policing which makes the whole process of self discovery, the process of navigating genders all the more difficult for a lot of people.

And policing how exactly people should navigate gender and sexuality is just gatekeeping. Hange is everyone’s character. The only gender and sexuality identity people have complete jurisdiction on, is their own. And this policing of what exactly certain journeys to discovery are supposed to feel like is inherently harmful for those who are still in the process of deciding for themselves where they stand.

And going back to what Yams said “I wanted to draw Hange as someone otherworldly, free from the confines of gender/sexuality/gender roles.” I agree with that.

Because even though I do use ‘she’ with Hange, I do not firmly believe that Hange is a cisgender heterosexual female either. I just believe there are so many more layers to her whole identity and I believe similarly for every single person. Just concluding for one’s self that Hange is nonbinary with a very narrow minded view of what non binary just generally defeats the whole purpose of being ‘free from the confines of gender’ and hinders a lot of discourse and analysis on Hange’s identity over all.

I mean, I don’t know if people agree with this but in the decades I have spent with my close friends figuring out their gender identities, changing pronouns, transitioning, coming out to their parents, here is one thing I noticed. They weren’t asking for a celebration of their gender or sexuality, they weren’t asking for all these policing on how people should approach them. All they wanted was for their feelings to be validated, normalized as an everyday occurrence. I think the point of all these LGBTQ discourse (and by extension race and sex discourse) were all there to just make all these different identities normalized and to completely eradicate the concept of a negative bias or an other which was generally plaguing society for a long time.

And as their friends, I have never approached them as this champion who would make sure EVERYONE RESPECTED THEM IN THAT WAY IN TWITTER THEY BELIEVE LGBTQ PEOPLE SHOULD BE RESPECTED. All these nonverbal rules I have set up for myself on how to go about being friends with them is because I wanted them to be happy and comfortable in their shoes. And what were the types of things they appreciated? Me hiding it from their parents until they were ready to come out, me helping make their relationship work with their partner, me respecting the pronouns they requested for themselves, me accompanying them to HRT when their parents refused.

And you know what, that was only a facet of our friendships. My friends’ gender identities and sexualities never dominated discourse. None of them were the ‘token gay friend,’ the ‘token lesbian friend’ or the ‘token asexual friend’ or the ‘token NB friend.’ They were all people I genuinely care about who just happened to have fallen in love with someone of the same gender. They were just people who just happened to be uncomfortable with their original sex. But I would never just describe them as just that. My friend who just so happens to identify as assexual makes a great companion on a night out drinking. My friend who just so happens to be trasngender is really great with logistics and planning and was super helpful and I was eternally grateful when we worked together on that one project. My friend who just happens to be a lesbian has the cutest picture of her girlfreind on her phone screen.

I will memorize their favorite orders, what makes them tick, what makes them such a great companion, their talents, capabilities more than I will remember their gender. And that’s the characetr song in question is called “Jibunrashiku” or in English “just like me.” Because in the end a strict society which creates all these maxims of what exactly people of a certain gender should act would of course birth songs like “Just like me” A society which puts so much emphasis on gender and sex as an identity instead of other things like personality, preferences, skills etc.

And I don’t know if it applies to everyone. But my friends appreciate it because this journey to whatever gender identity they chose wasn’t rooted in some sort of strict framework on how they should be treated according to twitter. It was rooted in their own experiences and how these experiences made them feel.

Do they feel weird in a woman’s body? Do they just don’t feel any romantic attraction to the opposite gender?

Just treat them as how you would treat anyone else you respect. Just be a decent person. Just be a good friend.

Respect their requests for their own personal pronouns. If they need help, help them to the best of your abilities.

And here’s the thing, the approach I use with navigating identities, sexuaities genders are rooted in one very simple concept which can be applied to the race discourse, the feminist discourse etc etc.

Don’t be an ass. Respect people. Don’t reduce people to one facet of their identity. And by extension, when faced with such a dubious situation, think, discern for yourself what’s right or wrong. When there are people educating you, policing you on what is right or wrong, process that information objectively.

All I have here right now is my own opinions on the gender discourse on Hange and my own opinions on the discourse overall.

If you don’t agree with it, then have a nice day and I hope you find something else that will convince you to be more openminded but...

UTANG NA LOOB HUWAG LANG KAYO MAMBULLY NG TAO POTA. MAGHANAP NALANG KAYO NG IBANG PWEDENG GAWIN SA BUHAY MO.

ANG DAMING NASASAKTAN ANG DAMING NATRATRAUMA ANG DAMING NAWAWALANG GANA MAGSULAT KASI DI KAYO NAG-IISIP. PURO TIRA LANG.

Okay thank you for listening. Do what you want with the information up there but I have said my piece.

#hange zoe #hanji zoe #commander hange #commander hanji #meta

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xz1005fanblog · 3 years

Text

2021-02-27 Some things I want to say

WARNING LONG POST

Context first, translation of his post above will follow:

Disclaimer: I have no interest in other artists other than Xiao Zhan, and I am merely explaining the situation of the fandom in China that led us to the fiasco in March 2020. I do not care for bjyx, I ship WangXian but I do not ship real people as a basic principle.

My opinion as an international fan of Xiao Zhan and as an AO3 user (yes, I am not Chinese nor do I live in China, I just happen to be able to read Chinese) is that C-entertainment industry is TOXIC and celebrities are not free targets for you to cyberbully. They are human just like you and me.

Everyone needs to learn a bit more about compassion.

I am sure all of you read about the cyberbullying Xiao Zhan went through last year. There were multiple factors that started all of this, most of which XZ doesn’t talk about in this letter because of how sensitive the topic is in China. I’ve never explained entirely what happened because I personally thought that this is not something overseas fans should worry too much about. Especially since most of you don’t have a wb or db account, there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. But since Xiao Zhan himself decided to post a letter to respond to this subject, I’ll put in my 2 cents just that so everyone is on the same page.

Basically, after The Untamed aired in China, the show fandom split into 3 groups. XZ fans, WYB fans, and CP fans (or bjyx, whatever you wish to call it, those who love shipping these two real people together - not just the characters in the drama). Of course there are still people who would watch the show without becoming a fan of the actors.

At the beginning, most people thought they were good friends with each other, with all the short BTS clips from The Untamed. However, fans slowly discovered that it wasn’t the case. Some unofficial BTS clips emerged where WYB said XZ was shooting multiple dramas at the same time = 轧戏 (which is very frowned upon and a disrespectful thing to say to an actor), whereas in reality, XZ only asked for a couple of days days off during the shooting for The Untamed because his scenes in Joy of Life had to be redone and he was bound by contract. On the contrary, WYB had to ask for most weekends off because he was participating in Produce 101 at the time. Other clips shows them fighting about somethings WYB said about WWX, which made XZ mad. So this broke a lot of CP fans’ image of their relationship, and they either stopped shipping/became XZ or WYB fans only. This angered WYB’s fans, of course, which made them blame XZ for the entire fiasco.

Other incidents continued to happen after the show which increased the friction between these 3 fan groups. XZ fans and WYB fans would fight about various voting charts, and fight with CP fans because they don’t like seeing the two actors together. In the meantime, CP fans continuously feminize and weaken XZ in order to ship the 2 actors together (it’s rather an unhealthy trend in China, I’ve been in multiple other western fandoms before - not real person shipping - but we rarely glorify weakening/feminizing the bottom of a ship, because of the underlying prejudice against real homosexuals, who are not synonymous to transgenders).

Some incidents added oil to the fire afterwards. It’ll take me too long to explain everything, so I’ll just put here the main ones to explain why there’s so much bad blood between these 3 groups of fans.

On XZ’s birthday, some CP fans found XZ’s parents’ apartment building and yelled BJYX is real. This angered a lot of XZ fans, because of how disrespectful it was towards the old couple and the clear breach of privacy. WYB fans and some CP fans were also angry that XZ didn’t reply immediately to the birthday wish on wb that WYB sent at midnight (??? XZ was busy shooting a drama, can you blame him for not being on wb at midnight? Give the guy a break.)

In November 2019, WYB filed a lawsuit against some of XZ’s fans (instead against of his own haters!) for dissing him (although I’ve never seen any proof, and a few of those fans remain active on wb now, one of whom has even defended WYB's portrayal of LWJ before...). This angered a lot of XZ fans and CP fans who didn’t understand how he could have done this to his “friend”, and further proved that their relationship wasn’t that fantastic to begin with. WYB fans felt justified in hating XZ and all XZ fans as a result, and openly bullied XZ fans on the grounds of the Nanking CQL Concert.

In January, The Untamed was named to Beijing Journal Drama award. CP fans and WYB fans were unhappy that XZ was named to the Best Male Lead category and WYB was named to the Best Male 2nd Lead. They attacked the award committee wb by spam commenting all their wb posts and the entire drama was pulled from the nomination afterward. XZ fans were especially angry that they started all this only for the nomination to be pulled out - because the only possibility was one Male Lead per drama, and anyone would agree that if chosen between WWX and LWJ, the character with the most scenes and importance in the story is WWX.

Yadda yadda yadda, fast forward to February 2020, it started with a fanfiction written by a CP fan that depicted XZ as a prostitute transgender woman and WYB as a highschool kid (UNDERAGE) = AKA very sensitive material in China. It was posted on AO3, but the author posted the link of said fic on wb and a lot of CP fans broadcasted it around, so much that XZ fans became aware of it. Due to how sensitive the material is and how badly it would taint XZ’s image for his future roles, some XZ fans started reporting the wb post that contained the link (NOT AO3) and the author’s wb page. This is common practice in fandom on wb, usually done to get the wb posts taken down. This caused panic in the CP fans crowd because they thought XZ fans were reporting AO3 and that they were gonna lose the website (which is impossible, because AO3′s servers are in Sweden and not subject to Chinese laws anyway).

Because of how sensitive AO3 was in China and how haters tried to pull in antigovernmental into their crowds, the subject quickly became too dangerous for XZ fans to get involved in. Official fan groups in China unanimously decided to ask all fans to stop participating in the online debate and stay within the fan group circle only.

Someone on AO3 made a commentary about this incident that you can find here. She dug up a lot of info on the companies feeding money to the trolls online, but as I am an overseas fan and cannot really verify her info, I will not comment on those statements.

Sometime in the middle of this fiasco, someone started spreading the notion that XZ fans hated fanfiction and were trying to report anything that goes against their image of their idol... And subsequently people who were not CP fans or XZ fans became aware of this problem when they couldn’t access AO3 suddenly because too much curious fans where trying to access it and they crashed the servers. However later on, people could access the website without any problems. I am not personally in China right now so I can’t verify these claims of the website being walled or not for real, but I know from various reliable sources that on March 1st it was only an overload of the server, and people could still access afterwards.

With this however, haters (which include previous CP fans, WYB fans, and other idol’s fans) attacked XZ for not telling his fans to stop reporting, for not saying anything. They attacked XZ’s endorsements and spammed hate speech on the products he was promoting. They would rate 1 star in all his dramas and songs on db, and then buy accounts to further rate 1 stars (yes that thing exists in China, everything can be bought in China, don’t ask me why.) The reason why I believe that all this wasn’t coincidental, is that barely the day after the fiasco started, someone posted on db the exact list of all his sponsorships, detailing exactly who to call to protest, what words to spam in the comment sections of various official brands’ wb accounts. This entire thing was too well planned to be just a normal fandom fight.

Whether it was other actors’ fans who organized this to cut down competition, we will probably never know for sure. The following year was laden with fake rumors, hate speech blasting from multiple directions. They attacked his personality, saying that his polite manners are just for show (when the reality is that he has always been a gentleman even when he wasn’t popular). They attacked XZ for faking donations to Wuhan, forcing him to show his donation certificate to prove himself. One of his friends couldn’t stand the cyberbullying anymore and revealed publicly that his grandfather recently passed away (the date on this drawing is 2020.03.03, he couldn’t post this last year).

His friend defending him from the cyberbullies, saying that he had plenty of reasons to stay silent. That his grandfather passed away recently and his family has been planning his funeral.

(Sources also said that his mother was hospitalized a few days afterwards. And that haters went to his mother’s hospital to harass her and her nurses)

Haters saying that XZ is using his grandfather’s death to excuse himself (??? is he not allowed to grieve like a normal person???)

Haters wishing that XZ becomes depressed from the cyberbullying and kills himself, wishing that he was dead, wishing that his fans were dead too. Photoshopping his picture into a funeral portrait to curse him

Haters admitting they are cyberbullying XZ, but rejoicing in the fact that they are so many so XZ can’t sue all of them. They have also reported his upcoming dramas for various reasons just so they cannot be aired.

The airplane incident I’ve already talked about here.

A picture antis made to diss on XZ fans: AO3 can be still accessed even if it’s walled, Lofter can be still access even if it’s taken down from the app store. Your gege’s picture are still accessible even if he died.

I’ve only posted here the tamest screenshots, there are far worst ones that I won’t be posting because the amount of vitriol give me nausea just looking at them.

In all this fiasco, antis gave him the tag of “idol who didn’t manage his fans well”. But Xiao Zhan never thought fans needed to be trained, he thought of them like normal people, and their love, something to be treasured and not used. But some people in China still blamed his fans for starting all this mess, and partly him and his studio for not being able to stop it.

Below is the translation for XZ’s letter, posted on the wb post above

Some Things I Want To Say

Today, I have something to say to everyone. I’ve thought of a lot of ways to do this, but in the end, I chose the simplest way to tell everyone about all my feelings and thoughts in the past year. These opinions, maybe they won’t be able to represent anything, nor won’t they be able to change anything, but I still wish to say this today.

On this day last year, the incident happened very quickly, as if a bomb exploded on my face - endless phone calls, never ending message notifications, everyone’s opinions and questions came in like a tsunami. I wanted to say something back then, but I didn’t know what exactly. I was apprehensive of making a statement, afraid that one wrong word, or one wrong sentence would be taken the wrong way and end up adding oil to the fire. This is why at that time, I chose not to say anything.

I never thought that the online fighting would grow bigger and bigger like an avalanche, getting larger crowds involved, and gradually leaving one person’s control. Even though afterwards I made repeated statements to make amends, it could not develop as I wished it to anymore.

This life filled with broken protests and tumultuous noise continued to this day. And I felt I was going through a very dark and never ending tunnel. Unrest, ruminations, turmoil... I have also asked myself what did I do wrong exactly, why did everything after that day became as if it were an uncontrollable vessel.

I spent a lot of time to digest, and then spent a lot of time to understand, understand everyone’s words and actions. Slowly, I started to understand what everyone was criticizing about me personally. The moment that I chose not to say anything, I lost that window of opportunity to reason with everyone. So I was wrong, from the very beginning.

At that time, I wasn’t yet able to clearly understand the entire incident, to understand everyone’s feelings, nor did I know what kind of responsibility I had to carry as a public figure. Thus, I missed that opportunity to communicate with everyone, and wasn’t able to withstand the responsibility of letting these antagonizing feelings grow. Now, I can clearly recognize that throughout this year, this criticism that everyone had against me of “Idol Who Lost Its Voice”, was correct. During this year I reflected upon this repeatedly, as a public figure, I have to not only improve myself within the boundaries of my profession, but also have to carry the social responsibility that comes with my influence. To influence those who like me, who follow me, towards the right worldviews within my capacity. Even though my studio and I have already expressed some opinions through wb and interviews, but scars that this incident that brought such antagonistic emotions between different circles are still difficult to heal.

No matter how late, my own problem has to be corrected. I would like to express my first comment: Xiao Zhan, would like to apologize for “losing voice” towards those who have been affected by this incident. This is my first responsibility towards the public, face the problem and admit my faults.

Also, I would like to use this opportunity to speak with my fans. This is my second responsibility. In one of my interviews last year, I have said, I do not really agree with “managing” my fans (some celebs in China have hired people to manage fan groups in order for them to behave in certain ways for their purposes. Antis tried to spread the false rumor that XZ also had those people and that they directed their fans to start this mess), because everyone is an individual. No matter my studio nor myself, we do not have the authority to “manage” them like some would manage workers in a company. Afterwards, I reflected many times, maybe I cannot use the word “manage” to define my relationship with my fans, but I do have the responsibility to “correctly influence, and actively advocate”. So today, I would like to tell my fans, everyone has the right to like or hate something, and it should be respected and allowed within their own space. Of course this right should be reasonable, should not hurt anyone else, and remain within the boundaries of the correct values and norms. I hope my fans and friends can understand that no matter which profession, no matter what age, one’s own preferences or actions should not cross the line for one’s professional ethics or disrespect basic principles.

(Here he is referring to reports of teachers using his name in class or asking children to say his name to cheer for him. This is a problem that occurred also with other celebrities in China, and for which he has already expressed himself previously.)

No matter online or in real life, everyone should be responsible for their own words. I also hope that we are not represented tags like “xx’s fans”, that we do not set this as the basis of where we stand on a topic nor do we let this determine what’s right or wrong. Everyone have their own hobbies and interest, respect everyone’s choice and freedom of speech. No matter whether they like me or hate me is their own right. Passion, this should be a source of strength to everyone, I do not wish for it to consume or hurt anyone. Perhaps I cannot change this kind of environment, but at least for you and me, today is a new start point.

At last, I would like to talk a bit about myself. Ever since I came into this field, until today, I have always been defined by some tags. But the reason why I originally stepped into this circle was my passion for performance and music. And this is why, I will keep working on becoming a better actor and singer. The sudden criticism of “having lost voice” made me realize that, other than what I have always focused on professionally, I have to also be able to carry the responsibility of a public figure and an idol. I was born in a normal family in Chong Qing, and have lived a normal life, like many other people, for more than twenty years. Today I will also use this opportunity to apologize for the words I have said before as a normal person (I’ve already talked about it here), for the people I have inadvertently hurt. As I work hard on studying to become a better person, I will try to become a better “public figure”, so that these two Xiao Zhan can blend in together, for a better self.

This past year, no matter big or small, I have to be responsible for the incidents that happened because of me. I can demand this for myself, but I have no right to force it on other people, so I can only hope that those who really like me can really listen to me: please be a bit more reasonable for things outside of personal preferences. Live a healthy life, put more time and energy onto one’s real life, and less on the senseless fighting behind fake IDs and unreliable online world. Only to become a better self.

(Here he’s referring to an online fight that an anti called 晨小晨 started. I’ve already explained a bit here. #微博管理员回应晨小晨事件# )

Sorry for any grammar errors, this post was really long to make and I didn’t proofread. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to translate the entire thing for overseas fans since you don’t understand the entire context, and because I wanted my wb records collection tag to be complete, I felt I had to... and I got carried away trying to explain everything. Tried to summarize it as much as I could.

As a fan of Xiao Zhan and also an AO3 user, I would still like to apologize for how this bullshi*t ended up disrupting respectful and peaceful users of AO3. The Untamed tag did not contain hate fics before all of this happened, it is unfortunate that a place where there used to be only love, ended up being tainted by antis and haters.

To the anonymous person who asked me a few months ago if I supported bjyx, this is my answer: You have the right to like whatever you want within your own corner, as long as it doesn’t bother anyone else and isn’t against basic principles. I ship WangXian as characters from a novel, but I have never liked RPS as a principle.

#肖战 #肖战xiaozhan #xiao zhan #xiaozhan #zhan xiao #sean xiao #wb records collection #bjyx #i hate fandom fighting #in the end he chose to say sorry #for the innocent people dragged into this #and for the innocent fans #he chose to carry all the blame #even when none of it was his fault

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drlauralwalsh · 3 years

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You and Your Grieving Parts

Do you ever think about your...parts? No, not those parts, you mischievous little spark plug! I mean inside your mind - the parts that get weird ideas, warn against danger, are mean to you, and tell you to engage in late-night food rituals. That last part might just be me. Seriously though, I’ve been doing some research into the parts of my mind. The idea that our minds have “parts” is not a new idea. Like right now, a part of me wants to keep writing to you and another part just wants to nap. Oh the drama inside! There is one theory that explains this and it has intrigued me since grad school: Internal Family Systems.

INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS (IFS) THEORY

The IFS theory believes that the mind is made up of a number of sub-personalities or parts, each with their own set of beliefs, opinions, and responses, and that interact with each other. At the core is the Self, which has the ability to lead the parts but isn’t always up to the task. No single part is bad but like an orchestra, the parts can be in harmony or honk cacophonously like a flock of agitated geese.

Along with the core Self, IFS sorts the other parts into categories by function: Managers, Firefighters, and Exiles. Managers and Firefighters protect you from feeling the pain of the Exile parts. They have the same goals but use different strategies. Managers constrict and hold you back while Firefighters automatically react and let it rip.

MANAGERS

Manager parts proactively run the day to day operations of the system and are considered the most “acceptable” parts because they say very adult things and sound most like the core Self. They maintain balance within you through control. Managers parts are perfectionist, judgmental, self critical or people pleasing. They want to prevent humiliation and abandonment by keeping you busy, criticizing what you do, worrying, sabotaging connections, and generally being a control freak. They strongly believe in self sufficiency and are generally relentless, exacting, chastising and sometimes, anxious and depressed. They’re really good at giving you a false sense of security by telling you it’s doing it so you’ll look good to others. A typical Manager thought is, “You really should stop bothering people with your sob story.”

FIREFIGHTERS

Firefighters are your first responders. They automatically fly out the door to rescue you when something hits too close to home. They extinguish the fire of pain by smothering or creating a diversion. They attack “enemies” and get defensive in an effort to control or suffocate emotions. These are the parts that have anger issues, spending too much money, drink too much or use drugs, get obsessive or suicidal, self harm, or dissociate. They like to eat too much. binge watch TV and endlessly play video games for hours. They don’t give a crap about the goody-goody manager parts. Those weenies don’t know what it’s like to charge heroically into danger. Firefighters are really good at distracting you from upsetting, painful or overwhelming feelings. A typical Firefighter part thinks it’s better to rage than to show vulnerability - even in the privacy of your own head.

EXILES

As a psychologist, I get to see other people’s Exile parts more than the average person. I’ve developed such a knack for it that the Managers and Firefighters appear almost transparent. When I’m interacting with someone who’s leading with one of those parts, I can see through to the Exile it’s protecting. Just wish I could more reliably turn that super power on myself! Exiles are the younger parts that hold pain from the past. You compartmentalize and isolate them from the rest of the system for their safety and stability in the system. Because of their vulnerability, they also seem kind of dangerous. They’re the parts of you that are scared of being abandoned, get intimidated, experienced trauma, and feel a lot of shame. This is where the Big Four live - not good enough, too much, if you really knew me, and everyone leaves.

Exiles are desperate to tell their story but Managers pessimistically believe your pain is a burden to others. Firefighters flat out refuse to put you in danger of being hurt again. If a sad, little kid part of you revealed a disgusting longing for an authority figure’s approval during a job interview, a Firefighter part might change the subject while a Manager sabotages the rest of the meeting. Neo-exiles are the parts we hide within close relationships. Imagine a romantic partner or friend that gives you attention when you’re doing something nice but ignores your bids for reassurance. You’ll shut down the needy part of you to maintain the relationship. The message from that person you tell yourself is that only your good parts are acceptable.

THE CORE SELF

So far, we’ve been describing the orchestra - or if you’d prefer, the various departments of your business or the governmental branches of your personal nation. Let’s switch to the head of it all - the conductor, the CEO, the President, YOU. In the center of all of this is your core Self. It’s a beautiful place to be. It doesn’t need work because it’s already perfect. It spontaneously emerges when the air is clear and all is safe. It is the natural essence of who you are and is sheltered from damage or destruction by function of your parts.

You know you’re in your grounded center when you feel authentically chill. Some theories describe the Self by the 8 C’s:

Confident

Courageous

Creative

Clarity

Compassion

Calm

Curious

Connected

I know I’m in that place when nothing said or done can move me off my square. For instance, I am confident about my intelligence. If some bozo tried to lecture me about how I’m really a dummy, I might get a little irritated but he’s not going to shake my confidence. Now if the same bozo flicked some booger comment about something more vulnerable, that might temporarily knock me off-center. Note: my own managers and firefighters have censored me from revealing said vulnerability for my own protection.

WORST CASE SCENARIO

Your personal configuration and manifestation of parts was constructed to deal with your worst case scenario to date. Since we have different histories and experiences, each set of parts is like a fingerprint of the individual. While I’m currently working hard to lead with my core Self, recent events (i.e. the death of my wife) have thrown the system into a reorg process. All previous worst case scenarios were blown out of the water and my mind’s company is frantically looking for new hires in two main departments. I thought I’d give you a peek into the frenetic remodeling of my inner Self as the parts run around with their pants on fire.

Exile: [Can’t speak and just cries endlessly into the void.]

Firefighter: “Oh shit! Their wedding song started playing overhead at the grocery store!”

Manager: “It’s fine. Everything is fine. Close your ears, stop being a baby and don’t think about it.”

Exile: “But I can’t stop thinking!” [Stops responding as snot clogs up nose.]

Firefighter: “Leave the store! Leave your groceries where you are!”

Exile: [Blows nose, hides in deserted health food aisle.]

Manager: “Someone could have seen you out there. Now go check out and remember to smile at the clerk.”

Firefighter: “I think it’s a great time to call it a day and watch more episodes of Designing Women.”

These parts are obviously clueless as to what to do with this newly emerged and devastatingly sad grief Exile. She’s a little girl part of me that either pitifully weeps or gets hulk-smash rageful. She isn’t a new part; she’s come out of semi-retirement to hold my overwhelming grief. She believes that everyone will leave her and she’s left on her own to figure everything out. She thinks things like, “Why don’t people notice how sad I am???” She doesn’t know a Firefighter distracts her from feeling with a stupid magic trick while a Manager runs around pulling the curtains around her so no one sees. All the parts are trying to help but the animals are loose at the circus. Though the Exile doesn’t know it, she’s waiting for my core Self to step in and corral the monkeys. My Self knows what to do if I can only find and access it. Stepping from the shadows, my centered Self brings a soothing presence that stops the commotion and quiets the protectors. Here’s an example:

Manager: “You should shower and do a little cleaning. This place is a mess!”

Firefighter: “Honestly, I think eating a little cookie butter will make things better.”

Exile: “[Sobbing] Things are never going to get better! I don’t want them to get better!”

Firefighter: “I know! Let’s listen to Rage Against the Machine really loud in the kitchen!”

Manager: “Fine, don’t shower even though you stink. Don’t change clothes either. It’s not like anyone sees you anyway.”

Firefighter: “Uhhh, isn’t that friend coming over tonight?”

Manager: “Oh yeah! He’ll certainly notice those dishes that have been in the sink for 3 days. Just sayin’...”

Exile: “Oh no! [Hangs head in shame] People will find out how horribly disgusting I am because I haven’t run the dishwasher or broken down and recycled the Amazon boxes.”

Firefighter: “Just throw everything in the backyard!!!”

Manager: “Stack up all the piles neatly so it looks like you wanted them there on purpose.”

SELF: “Alright, let’s think about this. What if you broke down the boxes right now, put them outside, rinse the dishes, and filled the dishwasher all while listening to Rage Against the Machine?”

Manager: “That’s not enough but okay, fine.”

Firefighter: “Great ideas as always. I’m going to rest up for the next emergency.”

Exile: “Thank you for listening to me. I feel a little better and I think we can do this.”

SELF: “Great. Afterwards, everyone can take a break and zone out in front of the TV. Now put on that music and let’s get to work.”

WHO’S IN CHARGE?

As long as there’s no one in charge, your mind is a confusing and chaotic miasma of competing needs. Ideally, the Self steps up and takes over negotiation between the parts and directs the next steps. However, sometimes a part fills in the leadership role. You know you’re leading with a Manager when you feel buttoned up, intellectually sharp and emotionally numbed out. Leading with a Firefighter part feels like a continual state of irritability and agitation and keeps you ‘at the ready’ to react to danger. Exiles are rarely in charge because they’re really bad at it. They collapse the system and insist on activities like staying in bed all day.

WORKING WITH YOUR SYSTEM

As with most life problems, the first step is awareness. You’ve got to get to know your parts - their personalities, beliefs, and functions - before trying to intervene in their conflicts. Like I said before, there are no bad parts - just competing beliefs and strategies. A given part feels strongly that it’s right, sees it how it really is and knows the truth. Every thought or feeling originating from a part is trying to help you out, even if it doesn’t seem that way. The part of me that says no one wants to be around me is actually trying to protect me from rejection and abandonment. Unchallenged, that part will keep me from connecting to supportive people.

OBSERVING AND IDENTIFYING PARTS

It may be difficult to put your finger on and capture a particular part. When you’re ready, there’s a few ways to access them. Start by being curious and non-judgmental. Think of your centered self as just a researcher interested in data collection. Reassure yourself that nothing has to change as you’re presently in observation mode.

Take your emotional temperature by asking yourself how you feel right now. Ask to see what emotions are already present and how or where your body feels with that emotion. Observe those messages that are on repeat in your mind. Alternatively, you can access an upsetting memory from the past and examine it. Ask yourself, what exactly was upsetting about what happened? Did you feel afraid, sad, anxious, angry or something else? How did you react and what did you do? Did you rage, freeze, numb, avoid, or try to smooth it over? These questions will reveal clues to what was exiled and what managers and/or firefighters protected you. If at any time your brain says, “I don’t know,” consider that another protector part and explore accordingly.

STAYING CENTERED

Once you’ve got a handful of observations, pick out one voice and interview it. More than likely, you’ll be talking to a protector - probably a manager. Getting it talking by asking what it believes and it’s job in the system. Ask how old it is and what it looks like. A voice that says. “This isn’t fair,” may believe you get dumped on more than most and thinks the job is to protest on your behalf. It may show up as a finger wagging old man who suggests that something must be wrong with you because this keeps happening. What’s protective about this voice? What kind of Exile is it defending? Be gentle with digging down to the Exiled little kid part underneath. Kids are delicate and need protecting. If you find yourself continuing to have strong emotions or becoming reactive, you’ve likely run into another manager or firefighter. Interview and explore this part before moving deeper. We can’t access, validate and utilize the burdened exiles without honoring how the system set itself up to protect us.

Once you’re working with a particular part, another angle is to check back in with your calm and centered Self. What do you understand about the part? What do you think is going on? Can you find empathy and appreciation for the part? Even our nastiest parts work really hard on our behalf. A critical voice is mean but its heart is in the right place. An obsessive or addictive part is trying to soothe the system in the best and only ways it knows so far.

TRUSTING RELATIONSHIPS

Getting to know your parts is the process of creating trusting relationships between them and the Self. This is the next step in the process of converting your protectors and split-off exiles into your allies. Think about how trust is built with other people: consistent interactions, listening to and honoring what’s said, believing their words are important - even when you don’t understand. That’s exactly how we build rapport with the different parts of ourselves. It may be scary or unpleasant to get close to your inner critic or the tightly-wound explosive rage but it’s a vital step. Like a good CEO or President, once your core Self begins to get everyone on board, it’s easier to know what to do when life throws you the next curveball.

I’ve got a story for you from back when my wife was still alive. I left to go grocery shopping but stopped in at the craft store to shop for just myself. This nagging little voice kept popping up but I successfully shoved it back down at the craft store. Entering the grocery store a short time later, I could no longer ignore a little girl voice on repeat: “She’s going to be mad at you!” Sighing, I got centered and engaged it. Here’s how the conversation went:

Little Girl: “She’s going to be mad at you!”

SELF: “Okay, well, we can handle that. Why will she be mad at me?”

Little Girl: “Because you took too much time at the craft store.”

SELF: “Why is that a big deal to you? What are you feeling?”

Little Girl: “I’m worried she’ll be mad and call you selfish because you took time for yourself.”

SELF: “Okay, well if that happens, I’ll take care of it. You don’t have to explain it to her. I don’t think she’ll actually be mad but if she is, I’ll be in charge. How does that sound?”

Little Girl: “I’m still worried but I’ll try it your way.”

SELF: “Great. Thank you for trusting me. No matter what, it will be okay.”

This is the actual transcription of me engaging with a worried part. For the record, it’s not grounded in current reality. Naturally, Patty would be concerned if I hadn’t returned from shopping if it had been a few hours but she wouldn’t be mad. I already had a relationship with this part - the Little Girl. She’s about 5 or 6 and feels too small and powerless to change things in the world. She’s used to being dismissed and pulls at my sleeve to warn me about all the monsters lurking in the shadows. She’s protected by another part - my rebellious teenager. If I’m not gentle with the Little Girl, the Rebel leaps to her defense and commandeer the entire system. The Rebel says things like, “Oh no, you fucking didn’t just do that! I’ll show you!” and promptly turns off all inhibition and motivation and steers us back to the craft store to buy $100 worth of crap. I’ve learned my lesson - listen to and trust the Little Girl, or else it’ll cost me.

YOUR PARTS IN GRIEF

I’m still getting to know and lead the parts of me as they grieve. As with outside life, my internal life was thrown into disarray after Patty died. I had all the parts nicely organized, productive, and had good working relationships with all. Death took my puny little shoebox diorama on the inside of my mind and… shook it up really hard. I was so proud of my hand painted little figurines, all precisely glued in their rightful places. A manager most assuredly came up with that idea. Now, there’s a part of me that just wants to toss the whole thing and another part that’s picking up each piece, crying over its brokenness.

All I can do is be patient with myself for now as I sort through the pieces in the shoebox. I tried throwing it out but it just reappeared. I’m working on getting the lay of the land. I’m doing my best to accept and soothe the broken parts - even as they overreact, judge me for not keeping things cleaner, numb out with cookie butter, and cry at the grocery store. We are trudging down the road right now but when I get to know everyone again, I’ll call a meeting and figure out what’s next.

#grief #parts #Internal Family Systems #mind

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the-odd-job · 3 years

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Harem AU Chapter 14 - All About It

Rating: Explicit Warnings: Rape/Non-Con Category: Other Fandom: Transformers Relationships: Megatron/Sideswipe, Megatron/Sunstreaker Characters: Megatron, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Starscream, Topspin, Undisclosed Characters Additional Tags: Oral, Purging, Humiliation, Rape, Dubcon, Public Sex, Orgy, Coercion Words: 13222

( Previous )

It wasn’t always just the berth that Megatron liked to use for interfacing. A few times it had been in the lounge, on one of the very comfortable couches or armchairs there. Sometimes it was bent over the desk in the berthroom, rather than the berth. Against the wall had happened too, and of course the washracks, every now and then.

But this time…

“Under the desk, Sideswipe.”

Sideswipe started at the order, his optics snapping to Megatron. The tyrant was staring at him without any excess expression. There wasn’t even expectation there, because what would he have needed that for? Everyone did as he told them to, that was just a law of nature.

Sideswipe had gotten pretty good at that too because you couldn’t fight it any more than you could fight the existence of gravity, but this one caught him a little too badly off guard. “Uh…” he said oh so smartly, glancing at the desk. Megatron’s desk.

There was definitely room for him under there, but what the pit.

“Under the desk,” Megatron repeated, a little more firmly this time.

Making him repeat himself a third time was a terrible idea, so Sideswipe ducked his helm despite his confusion and scurried over to the desk, crouched, and crawled under it entirely.

Megatron followed after him and Sideswipe made room for the tyrant’s legs as he sat down in his chair.

Then those legs spread far enough that he could fit himself between them, and… Yeah, now he had an idea of where this might be going.

And he couldn’t say he liked it overmuch.

“Coax it out.” Wasn’t that a familiar phrase to hear. Resignation lanced deep into him and Sideswipe moved to position himself between the legs that could have probably crushed him if Megatron so willed. The mech’s power was immense.

That wasn’t happening right now, though, and hopefully it wouldn’t be happening either, ever. To that end, though, he needed to do… This. And a lot of other things, almost all of which he didn’t want to do.

But just this, in the present.

Sideswipe lifted himself onto his knees, carefully placed his servos on Megatron’s thighs for balance—a move that earned him nothing negative, thank Primus—then leaned in to gush warm air on the tyrant’s codpiece. Megatron shifted just a bit, and Sideswipe could hear the sounds of datapads sorted on the desk’s surface, followed by tapping as Megatron… Started to work? It sounded like that.

Started to work while expecting Sideswipe to pleasure him. Suppose that’s one way to make the time pass better…

Starscream probably couldn’t do this, with those wings of his.

Almost made him wish he had wings, himself.

Better get on with it before he got a warning, though. He’d hesitated long enough already, so Sideswipe was quick to get a grip of himself and press his lips against the cover that, for now, was no warmer than any other part of the tyrant’s frame. It was his job to change that, and he set to work with that goal in mind.

At least he’d done this often enough already that he didn’t need to spend that much time testing what worked and what didn’t. Megatron liked gentle brushes of lips against the span of his panel, he liked a glossa tracing along the seams, and he liked it when the seams of his hips and thighs were lightly traced with sharp claws. Every rev of his engine was a warmer, every quieting of it a colder, and Sideswipe tuned in on those sounds to guide him to his goal, repeating what worked, moving on from the things that didn’t.

He did his best to clear his mind, too. Things were always easier when he didn’t focus on them too much. Enough that he could actually perform as well as he was expected to, but… No more than that. Detach himself to the best of his ability, that was what he preferred to do. Nowadays it was pretty easy too, usually. There wasn’t that much left that Megatron could demand from them that he hadn’t demanded before, and when it was something familiar, a been there, done that, then it was doable.

Doable to let his mind wander to more pleasant things, like to what he’d do after he was dismissed. This game he was planning to play or that movie he wanted to watch, the song that he had listened to on repeat for too long already, that juicy libel he intended to follow up on.

Safe thoughts.

If he thought about things further out there, about freedom, maybe, or their continued escape planning, or any details about their life before this… Those weren’t good thoughts. They distracted him too much, made him sad.

There was a time and place for them, and while servicing Megatron wasn’t it.

His work paid off when Megatron’s cover retracted. His spike pushed partway out already and Sideswipe pulled back, tried his hardest to suppress his shudder of disgust, then leaned back in to lick along the visible length. He let his denta carefully trace against it too, because at least with Megatron you didn’t need to worry about hurting him. There didn’t seem anything that could be done to his equipment that would have hurt him.

Some denta wasn’t anything compared to the things the tyrant would do willingly.

If only that had been enough, but of course it wasn’t. “Take it in your mouth,” said Megatron. Sideswipe grimaced before he could think better of it, but if Megatron felt the expression against his spike, he didn’t comment on it. There were limits to the amount of displeasure he allowed, but Sideswipe hadn’t really ran into those. Megatron didn’t mind crying, he didn’t mind clear unwillingness as long as you did what he ordered anyway, but the things Sunstreaker was more prone to express—hate, anger—Megatron didn’t put up with anymore, as he had in the beginning.

And Sunstreaker felt it whenever he slipped, as much as he had gotten a lot better about hiding his true emotions no matter their strength. At this point he could pretty reliably hide them even when they flared because of whatever Megatron did that time.

Play pretend that he didn’t want to kill the tyrant, despite knowing there was no way he would have ever managed that feat. Megatron was too great of a foe.

It wasn’t that Sideswipe wanted him dead any less, but he had never been as fiery as his brother. Capricious, yes, but not as quick-tempered and prone to irritability. Sunstreaker handled that aspect of their spark. Sideswipe didn’t need to.

It left him with the majority of their positive emotion, the cheerfulness and… All the other things that had become a lot harder to get a hold of. He still smiled, sometimes, but even Sideswipe could admit he rarely smiled genuinely anymore.

There weren’t really a lot of reasons to, no matter what the other mates seemed to think, how they seemed to feel about… About everything.

He couldn’t and didn’t want to join in on that.

He wasn’t really given reasons to smile now either—quite the opposite. This would be just another on a miles long list of memories that would try to snuff whatever gaiety he had left.

What could he do, though, except what he was told to? Sideswipe kept his sigh to himself, but drew along the tyrant’s spike until he was back at the tip. He took that into his mouth, ignored how wide open even just that forced his jaw, and lashed his glossa against the slit at the end of the length before pushing himself further down on it. With the angle, he couldn’t take it down his throat, and slaggit if he wasn’t grateful for that.

This was bad enough.

He still let it hit the back of his throat—took as much of it as he physically could, because he knew nothing less would satisfy their Lord. He rubbed his glossa along the spike’s underside, let his denta rest against it, did these little things just to lengthen the amount of time he didn’t have to move along it–

But by now he knew Megatron wouldn’t be satisfied with that forever. Megatron was never satisfied with just some of it, he wanted all of it. He would want those little things, and he would want the rest too.

So Sideswipe began to bob his helm along the length of the spike he could fit in his mouth, ahead of getting prompted to do so. Megatron rumbled, and though the sound wasn’t quite pleasure yet, it was a solid step in the right direction.

Sideswipe could only hope this wouldn’t take too long, but he doubted there were any limits to how long Megatron could last if he wanted to. It followed that this wouldn’t end before Megatron decided he was done having his spike pleasured for one round.

And there would probably be more after that. There almost always was.

No point in thinking about all that was still sure to come, though. One thing at a time lest old despair get the better of him. That emotion was never far, no matter how he always tried to stomp down on it. It did him no good. It only hurt.

It was so hard to get used to any of this, though. And frag, did he really want to get used to this? What would become of his sanity if he did? If he started to think it wasn’t so bad, not such a big deal?

He’d be no better than the other mates.

For as long as he despaired, he was still himself, and that was a thought he clung to every time it felt like things got to be too much.

Right now… It wasn’t really too much. It was a lot, yeah—having to act under his own power instead of having his frame used by outside forces always was—but it could be worse, too. He’d take this over quite a few other things he had been subjected to.

Even if it would take a while.

And it took a while. His jaw tired and started to ache more the longer he had to keep his mouth wide fragging open around the tyrant’s slagging spike, and still Megatron wasn’t satisfied. He revved every now and then and his engine would rumble with his enjoyment of the situation, but he kept working like nothing was happening. Kept moving his dataps, kept tapping away.

And expected Sideswipe to just keep going. As long as it pleased him, to the pits with how Sideswipe felt about it.

But that was how it went. That was how it always went.

Sideswipe let his optics slip closed and continued to work his mouth on the damn spike he’d never wanted anything to do with, using one servo to pump the considerable length he wasn’t able to fit in his mouth. It was a fool’s hope to think he could somehow drive Megatron to overload, but maybe, just maybe, he could coax the tyrant to give in to one.

Sooner rather than later, preferably.

Until, suddenly, Sideswipe was hoping for later instead of sooner.

Megatron’s engine revved harder than it had so far, and Sideswipe had just the time to consider what that meant before one massive servo slid under the desk and grabbed him by the back of his helm. There was nothing too unusual about that, the only difference this time being that he wasn’t prepared for it. He squawked in surprise, twice so when Megatron shoved him onto his spike, as far as he could go. Its tip hit the back of his throat very unpleasantly, and yet Megatron kept pressing, grinding his spike tip against that spot.

It felt… Awful. He’d gotten better with his gag reflex, he really had. He could throat Megatron and Soundwave’s spikes without puking all over them. He had been pretty sure he was past that stage already.

Megatron went to prove to him that he wasn’t, not entirely. It probably wasn’t his intent, or pits, maybe it was, but that was what the tyrant did anyway—by holding the back of his helm and practically shaking it against his spike with small but fast back and forth motions. It hit the back of his throat, and then it hit it again, and then it pressed, and hit, and ground, all too fast for Sideswipe to keep up with.

He whined, vocalizer and engine both. His frame heaved, then again, but Megatron wouldn’t let up, and sure as pit didn’t let him pull back. Sideswipe didn’t even try at first, but when his body complained harder and harder, it overrode the part of him that told him to just shut up and take it.

His servos came up to push at Megatron’s thighs, trying to get enough purchase to jerk himself free of the spike, but in what reality would that have worked? Megatron had strength over him several times over. He still struggled, tried to free himself, but all that got him was a deep growl of warning. It didn’t work. Of course nothing he did worked. His vents gasped in unsteady bursts and he just wanted away–

Too much to ask for. Always too much to ask for. Megatron just kept a hold of his helm, kept jerking it, kept bullying him with his goddamned spike, and it was only so long that Sideswipe could fight his frame. He tried to push at the tyrant one more time, reason pushed aside by the desire to escape, but it was too late by then—his frame rebelled entirely like it hadn’t in quite a long time, and his tank emptied itself just when Megatron pulled him onto his spike for a last time and overloaded hard into his throat.

Energon and transfluid both were pushed past his lips to splatter onto Megatron’s plating, his chair, Sideswipe’s front, and the floor. He didn’t know when he’d started crying either, but he was crying now.

At least he’d stopped fighting. Or was that even a good thing? Pits, he didn’t know.

But it was a little too late to do anything about the whole thing now, wasn’t it?

Predictably, Megatron didn’t let him get off right away. The tyrant’s engine was rumbling with satiation, no doubt acquired through a good overload taken right out of an unwilling partner’s mouth.

Sideswipe was shivering. Not shaking, just… Shivering. He could feel the wet tracks running along the seams of his cheeks, vents cycling for air to cool his stress heated systems with. A mix of transfluid and energon was still dripping down his chin.

It made him feel even filthier than usual, and he never exactly felt clean. It didn’t matter how much he washed, he could never get the feel of interface off of him—barely even the smell, with the air of the harem wing so full of it it just tainted him all over again right away.

He could wash this off his frame too, but that was never enough.

When it suited him and no sooner did Megatron let go of his helm, and after a moment’s hesitation Sideswipe carefully tested if he was maybe allowed to pull off already.

He was. Megatron did and said nothing, just let him abandon his spike after what felt like ages. His jaw was sore. Fragging sore, and closing his mouth was barely any relief from that ache.

Sideswipe wiped his mouth with the back of his servo, the little good that did. And he knew, he knew it wouldn’t end here. Megatron never called anyone into his wing for just one round.

So. What next?

His helm hung in a way he hated, but it wasn’t before Megatron gave another order that Sideswipe could conjure the will to lift it.

Confusion was what did it for him.

“Clean that up,” was what Megatron said. Sideswipe couldn’t see his face from his place under the desk, but his optics flicked up as if he could see through the desk, anyway.

Then they dropped back down, to the mess he’d sort of made.

Clean that up?

“With… With what?”

Megatron didn’t hand him a cloth and he still couldn’t access his own subspace for a cloth of his own…

So what was he supposed to use?

“Your mouth.”

…Oh.

Of course.

“...Yes, master,” Sideswipe murmured, sighing softly. Megatron’s spike hadn’t retracted all the way, so he started there, closing distance with it all over again and running his glossa along it. There wasn’t… There wasn’t much on the spike itself.

But he cleaned off what there was, his optics shut so tight. Disgust. He couldn’t let that stop him. His revulsion was his problem, and it wasn’t to inconvenience the tyrant in any way.

If it did, he’d regret it.

From the much hated spike he moved to Megatron’s pelvic plating, running his glossa over the warm metal until there were no more splatters left there either.

He pulled away after that, or would have, if Megatron’s servo hadn’t come down to grab him by a horn with a rumble from the tyrant’s engine. “You’re not done yet, are you?”

He wasn’t..?

Sideswipe had a look at Megatron’s plating, but he couldn’t see anything. He’d been thorough, hadn’t he? Thorough enough?

Except… The chair? That was the only place where he could still see his regurgitation.

Well, that, himself, and the floor, but he expected Megatron meant the chair.

Licking inanimate objects now? Ugh.

Nevertheless, Sideswipe went back in, weaseling under the tyrant’s erect spike that he’d really gotten to familiarize himself with far too well, and went about cleaning off the damn chair too. What tried to drop off of it onto the floor, he caught with his glossa—swallowed.

And tried not to taste Megatron’s come where it mixed with the energon.

Once that was done, he pulled back again and sat back on his heels. Megatron didn’t stop him, this time.

He wasn’t satisfied yet either, though. “The floor too, Sideswipe.”

Sideswipe froze, optics widening.

The floor, where pedes tread? Pedes that had been who the frag knew where, carrying their slag around? The palace’s floors were clean enough, no doubt thanks to the servants, but they were still floors.

And now he was supposed to put his glossa there?

“The-” Sideswipe started, but couldn’t fully finish his question. Was Megatron for real?

When was he not?

“You heard me,” Megatron intoned.

When Sideswipe didn’t get to work, it was followed with a very firm, “Now.”

More tears. Sideswipe’s servos balled into fists, but he didn’t have the time to battle with himself. Megatron expected obedience, and what would he do if he didn’t get it? What would he do this time? How would he hurt, how would he disgrace and humiliate?

How could he disgrace and humiliate more than this?

Megatron would find a way. He always did.

So Sideswipe gave up with an even more quiet, “Yes, master,” scooting back until he could get down on all fours between the tyrant’s still spread legs.

The floor was… It wasn’t just his puke dirtying it, he could tell that much. He didn’t want to know what the rest was.

But despite his repulsion and full frame shudder Sideswipe still lowered himself all the way–

Steeled himself–

And licked.

Over and over again, ignoring the fact it wasn’t just energon and Megatron’s come he was tasting anymore, and trying to be quick about it.

The sooner he was done, the sooner he was done.

That moment couldn’t come fast enough, but it wasn’t any small mess he’d made. He didn’t want to swallow any of it either, but what was he supposed to do, spit it right back out?

That wouldn’t have worked, exactly.

Swallow it was, every dirty mouthful.

Clean up and swallow his tears too, when they fell to the floor beneath him.

“Good, Sideswipe,” Megatron very unexpectedly spoke up in the middle of his work. Sideswipe’s engine gave a small rev of surprise and he paused for a pair of precious seconds before he kept at it.

He… Did he want any praise from the dictator? Now or ever? That was very questionable and the words left his plating crawling, but pits… At least he wasn’t getting hit or something.

Although would that have been preferable, despite everything?

But how much Megatron could make it hurt…

Some praise didn’t hurt anything more than his pride, already a dying thing that only came closer to not existing with every swipe of his glossa along the floor. He closed his optics again. Never, not once, in any of his worst imaginings or nightmares, had he ever imagined he would become this. Someone who cleaned floors with their glossa just because they were given the order to do so. It wasn’t… It wasn’t peak humiliation. He was sure Megatron could’ve found something that hurt even worse.

That didn’t make it any more pleasant, any less humiliating. His only comfort was that there was no one else to see him.

Just him and Megatron.

That was bad enough.

He ignored the praise to the best of his ability and continued until there wasn’t anything left. He dared to stop only then, but with bated breath, without lifting himself up, waiting if there was more yet that Megatron wanted him to do. Was this enough?

Please, please say it was enough.

Megatron didn’t react at first. Sideswipe could still hear the shift of datapads, as if the tyrant hadn’t stopped working this whole time. Make Sideswipe pleasure him, make Sideswipe humiliate himself—none of that special enough to distract him.

Was there any place in the world worse than this?

“Hmm,” Megatron eventually said, and Sideswipe tensed all over again, waiting for the now what.

He didn’t know what to think when Megatron continued, “You deserve a reward for that, don’t you think?”

Did he? Should he be rewarded for something he never had a choice in doing, when his other option would’ve been something even worse?

Games. It was always games with Megatron.

“Come out,” the tyrant continued without ever waiting for him to make a sound. Megatron pushed his seat back and got to his pedes, and… Sideswipe used his newly found room to crawl back out from under the desk, coming to stand in front of the larger mech. He didn’t look up, staring at his own pedes instead.

He really, really wasn’t sure he wanted anything to do with whatever reward Megatron had in mind, but as usual, what did it matter he wanted? If Megatron wanted to reward him, he damn well would, and it wouldn’t matter one shit whether or not Sideswipe liked it.

His expectations were all but confirmed when Megatron said, “Bend over the desk.”

They’d been here before.

He could guess how this was going to go.

It wasn’t a reward.

But he wasn’t stupid enough to argue. Instead Sideswipe turned around and bent over the desk he’d just been under—presented his aft to Megatron. There were servos on it almost immediately, caressing, and Sideswipe’s helm fell to the desk’s surface as he tried to deny his damned frame’s knee jerk reaction of that feels good.

When large thumbs brushed along the edges of his valve cover, Sideswipe transformed that aside. He’d prepared before coming here. He was wet.

Megatron rumbled in approval. Sideswipe cringed.

Then there was a spike pushing into his frame and he moaned—not out of discomfort, not out of pain. That was the worst part.

It felt good. He’d already taken a spike down there not too long ago. His calipers weren’t tense, and they were long since so misshapen that it took minimal effort to get himself loose enough to take Megatron, anyway. There was lubricant. The glide in was smooth. It filled him to the brim—stretched his mesh, his calipers, in girth and length both, until there was nothing but fullness left.

He should’ve hated that, and on some level he did. On the rational level he did. He still cried because of it, silent as his tears were—over how much he didn’t want this.

His frame wasn’t very good at listening to that reason, though, or to any of his emotions. It had been fucked so far past the point of pain that nothing but pleasure remained anymore, even when stuffed by Megatron himself.

Especially when stuffed by Megatron himself. His spike was big enough to stroke over each and every sensor he had, fire them up when Sideswipe wanted nothing to do with him to begin with.

His wants were inconsequential, though. He knew that.

Megatron savored the heat of his valve for a moment, just circling his hips a little bit, buried to the hilt… But then he started moving, like was inevitable. Out, leaving his calipers distended, uncomfortable, in, filling him up all over again, heaven. Fast, hard, like always. Megatron didn’t do gentle.

It should’ve hurt. He wished it would’ve hurt.

It didn’t.

No, instead his frame considered it a reward where he didn’t, and he was moaning no matter his attempts to quell his sounds. It didn’t even matter when one of Megatron’s servos moved from his hip to his helm. Sideswipe had just the time to turn it to the side before it was pressed against the desk, firmly enough that he never could have broken that hold.

He didn’t even try to. All he did was hold onto the desk’s edge and bear every slam into his frame, the feeling of being trapped between a rock and a hard place. The desk didn’t and wouldn’t yield any more than Megatron would. Both were as immutable.

Caught there, Sideswipe had little hope of lasting. His frame responded, heated, made him more wet, heated some more, until he reached the peak and fell over the other side. He didn’t scream only because he cut his vocalizer into a burst of static as energy crackled all over his frame, making him arch up into the tyrant’s hold. It didn’t give, but Megatron was the embodiment control, wasn’t he? Even when Megatron himself overloaded, even when his frame tensed, his hold of his helm didn’t tighten. He could have crushed him so easily if he lost focus of how he was applying his strength—his claws did dig into his hip painfully.

But that was calculated. Everything Megatron did was calculated.

Sideswipe slumped against the desk once the charge abandoned him, drawing cool air into his vents draught after draught. Megatron enjoyed the inside of his frame a moment longer too, letting them both climb down a bit.

Sideswipe wished he hadn’t climbed up in the first place.

When Megatron pulled out, it was for transfluid and lubricant to gush from his valve, trailing down the backs of his legs. The tyrant’s engine was growling in satisfaction. Sideswipe’s was quiet aside from the uneven revving from the lingering arousal he never agreed to. He didn’t try to move, not that he really could have either, because Megatron didn’t let go of him right away.

Once he did, it was only to give another order. “Turn around.”

Sideswipe did, with some effort borne from the laxness following a good climax. As soon as it was his aft on the desk, Megatron had caught him. He lifted him up, far too effortlessly for anyone’s good, one servo holding his aft, the other supporting his back—and then lowered him back onto his spike.

Of course. Sideswipe’s vents gasped when he was spread right back open, his frame still sensitive from its previous go.

And if this time would go at all like many a previous time, he wouldn’t have the chance to give his sensors a rest anytime soon.

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

One of the guards at Megatron’s door left to accompany Sideswipe on his walk back to the harem wing. Sideswipe ignored him just like he tried to ignore the fact he was once again splattered with fluids, except this time it was more than just lubricant and transfluid. The energon he’d unwittingly banished from his frame had mostly dried on him by now.

He tried to ignore that this time the taste on his glossa was more than just transfluid, too.

Blegh.

The short walk to the harem was predictably uneventful. Sideswipe stepped through the doors when they were opened for him—and that closed and locked right behind him once he was in the dimly lit hallway.

Sunstreaker was lounging against the wall a few steps from the guards, waiting for him already. The fact Sideswipe hadn’t been as… Open, as he usually was, when things went according to the script, probably had him alarmed. At the very least his brother was definitely frowning, the expression etched firmly on his beautiful features. “What did he do?” Sunstreaker asked, pushing himself off the wall when Sideswipe walked by him to match his step. They continued along the hall together.

“Nothing major. Ugh, I need to wash my mouth…”

Sunstreaker gave him a dubious look for that and prodded at their spark a bit further. Sideswipe physically swatted him away, and gave without putting up much of a fuss at all. “Okay fine, we’ll sync right after I’ve washed. That good enough?” he grumbled with a half-hearted glare in Sunstreaker’s direction. It appeased his twin, though, as much as Sideswipe wasn’t looking forward to this particular sync. Not because it was in any way avoidable in the grand scheme of things, their syncs never were, but… Sunstreaker already had so much anger in him. This would only add to it.

What Megatron had had him do, that would only add to it.

Resentment, too. Not just towards Megatron either, but the other mates as well. They’d mostly left Sunstreaker alone, probably because he had become so growly for the express purpose of keeping everyone at a distance, but Sideswipe?

He’d done his best to stay out of the mates’ way after what almost transpired in the entertainment room, and he’d been successful enough. That didn’t change the fact shit had very nearly happened, though, or that he had gotten more propositions since then. Not just from Skywarp either, but from others too.

He never accepted them. He didn’t want to, and he never would want to. They… He and Sunstreaker, they did accept help when they were… Preparing, but that was all.

Unfortunately even that much was enough to make the other mates think that Sideswipe in particular might be down for some fragging, whenever, wherever.

He wasn’t, but they always asked, always invited him, always tried to include him.

And it grated on Sunstreaker so much.

When they entered the washracks, they, of course, weren't empty. Some of the others glanced up on their entry, and true to form, Sunstreaker sent a glare in theIr direction.

Sideswipe… Tried to get him to chill a little bit. Being angry all the time wouldn't get them anything or anywhere, no matter how well he understood Sunstreaker's emotions. They were tiring, though, so he only tried to distract his brother by dragging him to an empty showerhead. Sunstreaker didn't put up too much of a fight, and turned to him when Sideswipe turned the shower on and stepped under it.

As he'd said he'd do, he opened his damn mouth and let the solvent run right in, washing away some of the taste of grime. Sunstreaker didn't say anything despite his confusion, just took a scrub and set about washing his back where Sideswipe couldn't have reached himself.

But even with his mouth supposedly clean, he didn't feel clean enough. He'd swallowed. He'd swallowed that shit, and it was now in his tanks.

He didn't like that thought very much. "Ugh…"

Sunstreaker's confusion only deepened when Sideswipe bent over the drain and… Manually triggered his tanks to empty. Except this time throwing up was a damn relief, because it removed things from his frame he didn't want there anyway.

But he didn't exactly do this when he got fed just transfluid—although he considered if he maybe should've—so Sunstreaker didn't really know what to think anymore.

He still didn't say anything, and though Sideswipe could feel other optics on him too, the other mates didn't comment on the whole thing either.

He wasn’t sure if he imagined it or if the contents of his tanks really had a bit of a brownish tint to them before they were swept into the drain by the running solvent, but he still felt a hell of a lot better knowing none of that was inside his frame anymore. Sunstreaker was giving him a severe side-eye, but Sideswipe waved him off. He’d find out soon enough, anyway.

They washed him in silence, then buffed him and polished him for good measure, before retreating to the library. It was the least likely place for them to get disturbed in, either directly or indirectly. They made their way to the old spot at the very back of the room, behind all the shelves, on the couch in front of the artificial window casting light onto the many book files, and sat down side by side. Sideswipe opened a port in his wrist and Sunstreaker plugged in.

He immediately set about rooting through Sideswipe’s memory files that Sunstreaker hadn’t yet downloaded. Sideswipe let him, doing the same to Sunstreaker’s memories with slightly less… Enthusiasm, but there wasn’t much to see on Sunstreaker’s side. Just the usual.

But those were his memories as much as they were Sunstreaker’s. They belonged to him too.

Just as his memories belonged to Sunstreaker. It didn’t take long for Sunstreaker to get to the ones that had recorded his stint with Megatron, and he was shaking with barely controlled rage soon enough.

“Don’t…” Sideswipe said, quietly, catching Sunstreaker by the wrist to distract him just enough. His twin’s optics were too bright when they turned to him. Too aggressive.

Megatron wouldn’t have this, if he saw. ”It’s fine,” he continued, giving Sunstreaker a steady smile. Sure, he had been on his hands and knees in front of Megatron, lapping at the freaking floors at his pedes, but… Hadn’t things been worse than that, too? He wasn’t… Physically hurt.

Would he have preferred if he was?

Pits, he didn’t know. And either way, it didn’t matter. There was only what Megatron wanted. Everything else was inconsequential.

That was just how things went.

“It’s not right,” Sunstreaker said vehemently, but at least he wasn’t outright growling. That was progress.

“It isn’t,” Sideswipe agreed, letting his gaze drop to his digits. It wasn’t right and it never would be right, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

Except escape.

They hadn’t figured out how, though. Not yet.

But they would.

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

“Sunstreaker. Sideswipe.”

They both glanced up when a winged shadow fell over them. Starscream’s shadow, more specifically, as if the terse tone wasn’t enough of an identifier even without the Seeker’s distinct voice.

There was no time to ask what before Starscream was already continuing, uninterested in giving them a chance to speak. “You have been chosen to entertain at the next dinner. Get ready.”

And with that, with no hints as to what entertaining even meant in this context–

Starscream turned on his heel and marched right out of the entertainment room.

Sideswipe blinked after him, and as abrupt as the whole thing was, it took a few seconds for the possibilities to bring anxiety crashing into their spark.

But they didn’t know a damn thing for sure. Thinking about all the worst case scenarios was no good when they had no idea if there were even chances for any of them to come to pass.

The way to get confirmation one way or another was to ask. You know, from someone willing to be a bit more helpful than Starscream.

To that end Sideswipe turned around on the couch they were occupying. Topspin and some others were seated behind them, playing a card game, but they had looked up already, probably prompted by Starscream’s arrival and exit. “What did he even mean?” Sideswipe asked, frowning.

“Oh, right, this’ll be your first time, won’t it?” one of the mates asked, to which Sideswipe nodded.

And tried to play it cool. No one else looked at all bothered by this whole thing, so it was best for them to not look bothered either.

Even though they were bothered. They were very bothered. Not in a good way, either.

Not that they were ever bothered in the good way.

“Honestly, there’s a lot of things it could be,” Topspin said, looking back to his cards, picking one, and laying it down. So, apparently this wasn’t even significant enough to keep one’s attention fully on it.

That didn’t mean a whole lot coming from the other mates, though. They didn’t seem to think that many things as significant, even when Sideswipe did. “Singing, dancing, playing music, serving drinks… It all depends on what Megatron wants you to do.” A shrug. “Depends on what you can do, too. Neither of you know how to play music, right? So you won’t be asked to do that.”

Well… At least their skills were taken into account, somewhat. “Is there… Going to be interfacing?” Sideswipe asked carefully. That was entertainment too, for the likes of Megatron.

“Possibly, though not likely if you’re busy with something else.”

Please let them be busy with something else if that was true...

“Are we at least going to get instructed on what the pit we’re supposed to do and how?” Sunstreaker asked sharply, earning a glance from everyone. Sideswipe thought that was a pretty fair question. In what way was it even realistic to expect them to just… Know what they were supposed to, when this was their first ass time getting called on this kind of stuff?

Sunstreaker got more than one nod. “No worries, someone’s going to show you. Even if no one else of us is going, there will be mates from other harems. They’ll know what to do.”

So… This was a thing now. “What can you do?” one of the mates asked curiously.

“Uh…” Off the short list they’d been given? “We can sing, and dance, I think? Never played server, but could probably do that too…” he trailed off, casting an uncertain glance in Sunstreaker’s direction. Sunstreaker met his optics, frowning.

“That’s probably what you’ll be doing, then.” They were given a reassuring smile. “It’s pretty fun actually, so don’t stress it, okay?”

Fun? Sideswipe was pretty sure it wouldn’t be fun in the slightest, but he nodded anyway.

They damn well would stress it.

“Would be best to practice a bit, though. That never hurts,” they were told too. Starscream hadn’t said when the dinner would be and they had to wonder how many dinners there had been so far that they hadn’t even been aware of because they hadn’t been picked to show up in them, but… Okay.

They could do this. Somehow.

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

They did “practice”, a little bit. Skywarp in particular was very supportive of their efforts, although Sunstreaker couldn’t say he really enjoyed the tips on how to make his dancing more sexually appealing. He didn’t want to be eye candy for Megatron and whoever else would be present.

Yet that was exactly what he’d be. They had even gotten polished to perfection, thanks to Knock Out.

It turned out that only Starscream was coming from Megatron’s harem, on top of him and Sideswipe. No one else got the invitation, even though Sideswipe had wished that Skywarp would. Skywarp was helpful and always seemed to know his way around everything. He could’ve been help where they had no idea how exactly things would go.

Starscream wasn’t going to be that. He barely even looked at them as they were led through the palace by a pair of guards, taking one elevator ride and some corridors they… Hadn’t seen in a very long time. The harem wing and the walk to Megatron’s wing had become their whole world.

It was weird to stray further from that. Not unwelcome exactly—despite their anxiety over where they’d end up—because getting to see more of the palace could only be helpful in their plans to beat it the hell out of here.

But the palace was huge if their trip through it was any indication, and they probably only saw a tiny portion of it. Everything was as grand as in their living area, and as grand as they’d been during their first ever walks through the place in what felt like a small eternity ago.

Those old memories were ones that were getting called to the forefront now, and wasn’t that unpleasant. Sunstreaker didn’t want to think about their arrival here, the events that had started them down this whole damned path. There was nothing good about those memories; he wished they’d never come to exist in the first place.

Right now they’d only be distractions too, and they probably couldn’t really afford those, if Megatron was to be as demanding as they expected him to be.

To their relief, it wasn’t the room of their introduction to Megatron’s court that their trek ended in. This one was more of a great hall, with long tables that were surprisingly entirely empty. Oh, there were countless of servings of far too many types of energon set out already, signaling that the start of the dinner likely wasn’t long ways off, but aside from Starscream, there was no one present that they would have recognized. No Megatron, no Soundwave, no anyone else from his court that they had seen (and gotten fucked by).

There were mecha bustling about though, but as they looked, nearly all of them had a brand somewhere on their frames—different from the ones they and Starscream wore, but still it was easy to guess these were other mates from other harems, marked for their standing just as they were. There were guards standing along the walls, as dead to the world as the ones guarding Megatron’s harem.

The rest, those that were animated but free of a brand, were likely servants.

One of the other mates that they obviously had never seen before approached them on their entry, even as Starscream wandered off. “Sunstreaker and Sideswipe?”

They nodded. The mate smiled. “Your first time in this role, yes? I have the task of instructing you. Don’t worry, this isn’t complex. Lord Megatron has desired that today you only dance and sing. Come, follow me.” They were waved along and walked after the mate that apparently didn’t see it necessary to introduce himself, all the way to the empty center set between the tables where there was a slight raise from the main floor.

Right where everyone could see them.

Sideswipe sighed and Sunstreaker could feel displeasure curling in his core, but they weren’t the only ones there. Three other mates had spaced themselves evenly along the length of the area, and they were stopped where they didn’t break the form. “Alright, so this is how this goes: there will be music playing once the court arrives and the dinner begins,” their guide said with a gesture at one end of the room. From the looks of it there were more mates there, ready to play their instruments.

Apparently mates did absolutely everything here, then. The servants were severely outnumbered.

“You will all dance and take turns singing. Remember to keep dancing while singing.”

Their comms remained safely offline and outside their ability to online, but they got a ping anyway—one that, on a second glance, connected their vocoders to speakers in the room. The volume the connection set was rather low, and he could only assume it was to enable conversation during the dinner.

“You can dance as you please. If you have any routines in mind, feel free to perform them. And here,” they got another ping, “are the lyrics for the songs. You will each sing for a specified duration, and you will receive a ping when it’s time to switch.

“Do you have any questions?”

That was their crash course to this whole thing, then? “When do we… Start?” Sideswipe inquired. Right away? That didn’t seem likely.

“Take your cue from the mates that are playing the music. Begin when they do.”

“How long will this last?” Sunstreaker asked.

“Until Megatron ends the dinner. That can… Take a while.”

And then, “No matter what happens, don’t allow yourselves to be distracted,” they were advised, the mate holding each of their gazes for seconds that were clearly meant to drill the severity of the words into them.

That wasn’t ominous at all.

Sideswipe nodded after a moment’s hesitation. Focus on their dancing and singing.

No matter what happened.

Okay.

There was morbid curiosity over what would prompt a warning like that, but they didn’t ask. Maybe they should have just to be more prepared for what might distract them–

But they didn’t right away, and then they lost their chance when their instructor smiled at them again. “You’ll do fine. Try to have fun.”

With that the mate left. They stared after him before Sunstreaker prompted Sideswipe to take his position—an even distance away from Sunstreaker, just as Sunstreaker was an even distance away from the next dancer.

They followed the bustle for a while longer without anything happening. The music didn’t start, but the few servants and not quite so few mates were clearly preparing, stocking and picking up trays before taking positions along the walls.

Then, slowly, the activity tapered off.

Sideswipe was shifting his weight restlessly as they waited; Sunstreaker had crossed his arms across his chassis, as much as he expected a pose like that would earn him no approval points from anyone. To the smelters with everyone, though. He’d do what he needed to to keep himself and Sideswipe safe from any repercussions, but that was it.

Some of the servants left until only two remained by their calculations. It was clear the mates would do most of the work.

The music started. No one else had arrived yet, but the other mates at the center started to dance at once, each differently, each uniquely. It looked so… Practiced, natural, coming from them, and pits if they knew how many times they’d performed like this already.

The twins hesitated for a moment, but just a moment before they got a meaningful look from one of the other mates. What would happen if they didn’t dance? And sing, too?

Nothing good, most likely. Were they that willing to find out the consequences for a failure like that?

Would those consequences be public? It was a dinner, and judging by the amount of seats available, more than a few mecha would be present. It would be just like Megatron to make an example out of them in front of everyone.

The hoots, hollers, whistling, encouragement from the court during their first time with them, with Megatron… Too fresh, no matter how much time had passed since then. They didn’t want to repeat that.

They didn’t want to be the center of attention again. Not like that.

So… They started to dance.

Frag it all, it felt awkward as all fuck, twice so when moments later one of the double doors along the walls opened to begin to admit members of Megatron’s… Court. Some of these mecha they could recognize—some of them they had gotten raped by.

Others were unfamiliar faces that hadn’t been present in their introduction to Kaon.

Sunstreaker couldn’t keep his optics from wandering even as he tried to keep his focus where it was supposed to be. Sideswipe refused to even look, his optics entirely closed and only his sensors directing him in relation to his surroundings.

They got looks. Of course they did. Not just them, though—all of them dancing did. Hungry looks, appreciative looks. The mecha started to seat themselves, though whether there was a rhyme and reason to their seating order, Sunstreaker couldn’t tell.

They sat down and watched the show.

More and more mecha trickled in from the different doorways, and as Sunstreaker had suspected, many—most—of the seats were filled.

There was no sight of Megatron, though, and no one began to eat or drink. Starscream had placed himself to the very back of the room, close to the large and decorated chair at a table overlooking all the rest, nearly a throne, that could only belong to Megatron himself. He was holding a jug filled with glowing energon, his face perfectly neutral—waiting for their master, just like the rest of them.

And they danced.

Megatron only arrived a good while later, and Sunstreaker would have called it fashionably late if it wasn’t Megatron. At this point he was starting to suspect even time itself bent to the tyrant’s whims. There was no way for him to be late, not in his own domain. It was even more uncomfortable to move his frame under Megatron’s piercing gaze, as much as his optics didn’t linger on them—more they only seemed to check they were doing what they were supposed to, before he sat down in the one chair where he could see everyone and everything. Starscream stepped up to him at once, ready to serve.

With a single, dismissive wave of Megatron’s servo, the dinner set in motion. The court began to pick what they wanted of the goods on offer, the mates began to move to anyone who waved them over to hand them whatever was on their trays or fill their glasses, and as Sunstreaker followed them, it became obvious much of the other mates’ task was making sure everyone had access to exactly what they wanted, without any of the more important mecha needing to inconvenience themselves by getting up.

Primus forbid they’d have needed to exert themselves so.

Conversation began to pick up properly just when the mate dancing at the other end of their little line began to sing. The sound of it was only a background hum that did nothing to drown out the chatter, any more than music was overpowering any of it. He had a very pleasant voice though, Sunstreaker had to admit that much. And he sounded so… Relaxed.

Both him and Sideswipe doubted they could manage the same feat.

Keep dancing. While waiting for the ping that would have told either of them it was their turn to sing, Sunstreaker started to match faces and names, no matter how idiotic doing that was. Megatron and Soundwave were obvious ones, but he hadn’t forgotten Brawl, Vortex… Motormaster. He had never learned the name of the tank that had claimed the very first go at him, but he was present too.

As were so many others. As far as he could tell only two of the mechs that had been present during their gang rape were missing now, as well as the symbiotes.

Too many memories. Megatron was looking at him now, as if he could see his distraction. Sunstreaker, once again, suppressed the urge to glare, and instead averted his optics—tried to shift his focus back to moving his frame.

And forget about what so many here had done to him and Sideswipe. It wasn’t as if Megatron hadn’t done worse things to them since then.

There was no reason to get upset, and even if there was, now wasn’t the time.

Sideswipe’s turn to sing came before his, and his brother only hesitated for a second before he let his own voice fill the background of the dinner’s din. Sideswipe had a pleasant voice too, and it wasn’t that he didn’t know how to sing—how to follow notes and words right, code his words as they were supposed to come out—even in a language they hadn’t spoken for most of their life. But Sunstreaker knew his twin, and now, he could recognize Sideswipe wasn’t… At his best. There was tension in his voice that wasn’t there when he was singing voluntarily.

Did anyone else notice? He wasn’t sure. Aside from Starscream, they hadn’t heard Sideswipe sing before. Even Megatron didn’t pay any particular attention right then, conversing with some members of his court. There were grins. Laughter.

All around.

Then it was his turn. Sideswipe glanced at him, but he didn’t hesitate, and he caught Megatron’s attention, for whatever reason. He was aware he wasn’t at his best either, right then, and that Megatron would blame him if he knew as much, but could he suspect?

Or was it just that his voice wasn’t quite like Sideswipe’s, that it was deeper, rougher?

He didn’t know and he couldn’t allow himself to care right then, following the lyrics of the song the musicians were playing. Megatron watched him for a while before he shifted his focus elsewhere again.

He wasn’t the only one who was watching him, listening to him, and some of those gazes… He did not like. Not one bit.

Wasn’t he under Megatron’s protection, though? Was anyone else even allowed to lay a hand on him? He highly doubted that.

Some protection it was, but he’d take it if it meant neither him nor Sideswipe needed to deal with the likes of Motormaster ever again.

There was the second ping, and Sunstreaker silenced his vocoder again; the turn shifted to a different dancer.

Round and round they went. Time passed as he watched the other mates serve the food, the drinks, as the diners began to gain overcharge from high grade and turned louder and more rowdy. As far as he could tell, Megatron wasn’t particularly affected, but he didn’t react to the decline in his court. This was probably normal progression, then.

And yet, no one approached them. They dreaded that possibility, that even just Megatron would decide to give him his attention, but them, the dancers, singers, as well as those responsible for the music… They were left alone.

After a while, that didn’t hold true to the servers anymore.

No matter what happens, don’t allow yourselves to be distracted.

That bit of advice rammed front and center into his processors when one mech grabbed one of the servants for a predictable act that he still hadn’t expected from a goddamn dinner. The mate didn’t put up a fight, and from there, it only got worse when others decided to do the same thing.

He wanted so badly to falter, and maybe he did a little bit when there was suddenly sex aplenty, with someone riding that spike, another performing oral on this, another bent over the table others had just ate on.

None of them fought it, not that he would have expected that, at this point. If Megatron’s harem was completely under his rule, why would the others be any different with their masters? It didn’t look like they were.

And it looked like Megatron had brought Starscream along just for this purpose, because it was Starscream that was given the task of… Attending Megatron, in this way also. The Seeker looked no more put off than he ever did. If anything, his wings fluttered with genuine pleasure.

Focus. What was the worst that could happen if he didn’t? When surrounded by this sort of debauchery, now?

He had some ideas, and he didn’t want to meet any of them.

He steeled Sideswipe as well, because his twin was struggling when faced with all of this, a situation that had a fair bit more similarities to their own arrival than either of them liked. It wasn’t… No one looked as unwilling, no one fought it, but he could see more than one empty face as a mate tried to detach themselves from what their frame was going through. So. Not everyone was as used to this as Megatron’s harem seemed to be.

Sunstreaker didn’t want to see it. Sideswipe didn’t want to see any of it, and he was well on his way to the same detachment despite the fact no one was touching him, fucking him.

But the consequences if they failed at this… No. He couldn’t allow those to befall Sideswipe.

He dipped deeper into their spark, pulled Sideswipe with him—drowned himself in his brother’s essence, in their joined reality, the quiet spaces that belonged only to them–

Dove, and replaced Sideswipe with himself. Sideswipe he pushed down, and it was almost relief they felt when that aspect of them was relieved of command.

One spark, two frames. They were never truly separate, never truly apart. All of Sideswipe was him, and all of him was Sideswipe, and he blurred those lines until there was no end to where his control ended and Sideswipe’s began.

Their essence had two frames. Both of those belonged to him.

As such, what kept him from controlling both of those?

Nothing. Nothing, when they chose to do so.

And so Sunstreaker took control, the puppeteer of two bodies now. He synced their frames’ motions, released his split aspect of its responsibilities, and did what he needed to to keep them safe.

Danced.

Now, now they got optics on them. Sunstreaker knew why. There was no error in them, no move the one frame made that the other didn’t repeat perfectly, at the very same moment—exacting, absolute, faultless. Could anyone else achieve the same? Bond twins were a close second.

But they were second. They weren’t one. They were only bonded.

They weren’t split-spark.

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

“I suppose that was decent enough,” Starscream grudgingly admitted on their walk back to the harem wing. Sideswipe flashed a small smile, as much as the Seeker wasn’t going to see it, marching ahead in front of them without a single backwards glance as he was. “But there’s room for improvement. Don’t be so tense, next time.”

Easy for him to say. Sunstreaker growled from his engine, and this time Starscream looked back at him with one very evil eye.

Sideswipe nudged him, and Sunstreaker forced his engine to quiet down despite his fuming. Next time, huh? Not that that surprised him exactly.

They could only hope they had escaped before the next time Megatron would have wanted them to… Entertain. Tonight had been tolerable. The dinner had lasted forever and ever if you asked him, and to say the latter portion had been uncomfortable was a sore understatement. It was absolutely detestable to sing and dance in the middle of moans, groans, and the sounds of metal clanging against metal–

But at least no one had touched them, despite the fact that had been brought up as a possibility. It could’ve been worse still. He was in no hurry to get raped in front of an audience all over again. He’d had quite enough of that for several lifetimes, thank you.

It was well into the quiet hours when they got back to the harem wing, Starscream heading to the washracks, and the twins, having remained clean through the whole ordeal for once, creeping their way into the berthroom.

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

After asking around some, it was confirmed that the dinners weren’t that common. If they were lucky, they might just have the time to escape before the next one that would run the risk of them not coming out as unscathed as they had this time.

Not that they came any closer to forming a solid plan. There was only the burning need to get away, but the whole situation was… A lot to overcome. Just getting out of the harem wing felt a little beyond them for now, and they’d need to get out of the palace itself after that.

How the pit were they to do that?

It didn’t matter. They hadn’t found a way yet, but they kept their optics and audials open for anything they might be able to use. This place had to have some weaknesses, even just one, that they could exploit to regain their freedom.

In the meantime, things continued as they did. There wasn’t that much variation in the life within the harem, at the end of the day. There was fun and fucking—the latter that they still refused to partake in outside of their grudging preparations—as many pastimes as any of them could think of, and Megatron’s summons every now and then, whichever of the mates became the oh so lucky victim of those that time. The twins, still, didn’t get near as much attention as the more popular members of the harem.

Starscream, still, got the most attention.

He also continued to be as grouchy as he always was, at least towards them, and Sunstreaker was starting to match him. They didn’t really know what the Seeker’s problem was or if he just had that unpleasant personality, but Sunstreaker had always been temperamental. Now he couldn’t, didn’t show it around Megatron, or at least did his best not to, but there was so much anger and frustration in him.

Starscream was an easy target for that whenever the flier got particularly uppity with them.

There wasn’t much tolerance between those two left. Eventually they sort of lowkey despised each other, which made it extra awkward whenever Megatron wanted both of them together.

But if their master noticed they didn’t get along, he didn’t say anything about it, and neither Starscream nor Sunstreaker went out of his way to alert him. They behaved themselves in front of Megatron, did as told in relation to each other as well, and that seemed to be enough.

And maybe it was just because him and Sunstreaker were still the newest members of the harem, the ones that hadn’t settled in fully—and never would—but Starscream and Sunstreaker were really the only mates that were even halfway hostile with each other. Everyone else got along well enough, even if not everyone was friends.

And everyone else deferred to Starscream. Even they did too, to an extent. Starscream was the favorite, and they couldn’t just go and deny the power that granted him.

Power that he could turn against them if he got annoyed enough, for all they knew. How much draw did he actually have with Megatron? Enough to bring something unpleasant their way?

Likely. That was the only thing that kept Sunstreaker from open hostility, that kept him from fully challenging Starscream’s authority within the harem. Megatron didn’t care for him a hell of a lot. He didn’t have that kind of protection.

There was no doubt it was protection. From what, they weren’t sure, and probably didn’t want to find out either, not for themselves at least. There were… Bad places, out there—elsewhere in Megatron’s court. They could guess at that much just based on their first time, what with the likes of Motormaster and Vortex going well out of their way to hurt them. There was true sadism in what they did.

If nothing else, Megatron only got particularly violent when pushed. He’d put them through hell, but only to break them.

Once they were broken, at least by his opinion—they weren’t, not on the inside—things had evened out. They were still faced with unpleasant things on the regular, but… It could’ve been worse.

It could’ve been a lot worse.

They could endure this.

Of course, then there were the orgies too. Utter madness, if you asked them, but there was jackall they could do about them.

There, too, Megatron had stopped giving them an undue amount of attention. He’d call them to serve him sometimes, and every time they got the feeling he was testing them, their obedience and submission.

They did well enough, by their own judgment, even Sunstreaker. It was a struggle and a half for him, but he managed, to the point that Megatron didn’t find reasons to punish him further than what he already had. It wasn’t fun to learn, to be taught by him, but learn even Sunstreaker did—to please and hide his real feelings.

His real feelings never turned any less brutal, but they were forcibly shoved down time and time again, no matter what Megatron had them do.

Or so they thought.

“Lick it. Both of you.”

They were at Megatron’s pedes in the most literal way possible. The tyrant was lounging on the large berth overlooking the rest of the berthroom as usual, resting his back against the wall. Relaxed. Careless.

Just a king observing his kingdom and his subjects.

And considering their position, there weren't exactly a lot of reasons to wonder what he wanted them to lick.

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t seen others do it before, either. Those times had been unprompted, as if… As if the mates really just wanted to worship their Lord like that, but of course that was never the twins. Of course they wouldn’t lower themselves to that.

But now that was exactly what Megatron wanted him to do.

Sunstreaker was panting hard, the familiar heat in his systems making it exceptionally difficult to think clearly, but he resolutely refused to touch himself no matter how his frame cried for relief, any relief. Sideswipe was moaning into his own arm as Runamuck ate him out, Runabout in turn fragging his own brother’s valve.

And there was Megatron’s pede, right in front of them both, right between them.

Sideswipe hadn’t been crying. He had sort of wanted to, like he did every time his frame was turned against him like this–

But that order was enough to break his control. Tears escaped from his optics once again despite him shuttering them as tight as he could.

And Sunstreaker… This time, this one time he was pushed too far and he couldn’t keep himself from growling, from glaring at the tyrant.

Megatron didn’t react right away, which had to be even more disturbing than immediate anger would’ve been. The kind of serenity he wore only meant he would have the time to plan how he wanted to punish him for his insolence.

It was too late to take it back now, though. Not that he really even wanted to.

No, Sunstreaker doubled down instead, finding some of the fire he had long since buried but never extinguished. He snarled, “No.”

Sideswipe didn’t say anything, but followed his lead in not obeying.

Megatron didn’t react, even then. Sunstreaker could see a flash of familiar colors from the corner of his optic—Starscream—but Megatron raised his servo to halt him before the Seeker could do anything. Force them to do it anyway, no doubt.

That wasn’t how Megatron wanted them to do it, though. “You will,” he said, so evenly, so full of confidence that Sunstreaker couldn’t keep himself from growling again, even through the heat that made his frame too sluggish to signal his refusal in any greater fashion. Even his growling only mingled with his revving, the painful arousal his constant companion.

“Give him here,” the tyrant said next, gesturing at Sideswipe. A pit formed in Sunstreaker’s core, but before he could do more than jerk without even knowing what it was he wanted to do, Runamuck had already disengaged from the red twin and pushed his too lax frame within Megatron’s reach. Sideswipe had just enough sense left to be afraid, to try to struggle away even as his frame reacted to the proximity of Megatron’s chassis as he was pulled closer. Megatron unquestionably meant interface, and right now that was all his frame cared about.

Sideswipe arched against the tyrant’s chassis before he could stop himself, earning a chuckle from the larger mech.

Then one servo wrapped around his throat, tilting his helm back, covering his entire neck–

And squeezed.

Sideswipe had just the time to make a strangled groan before his vocalizer was pressed into nothing but quiet static. “Lick my pede, Sunstreaker,” Megatron repeated.

Sunstreaker stared at him, stared him in the fucking optic–

And didn’t do it. His lip lifted, baring his denta in a voiceless snarl. His fragging helm was swimming from denying his interface protocols for so long, but damn him if he was going to just give up, give in—even if Megatron would’ve moved to turn his frame against him more thoroughly.

But now he had Sideswipe.

It wasn’t just about Sunstreaker, anymore.

Megatron’s hold tightened. Sunstreaker could feel his brother’s pain as his parts were constricted even further, his servos shooting up to wrap around Megatron’s wrist, his digits.

There was nothing he could do to dislodge the hold, though.

Nothing he could do when Megatron stuck two digits into his valve and began to pump them–

While tightening his hold.

It hurt up there.

It felt so good down there.

And every moment only increased both sensations.

Every moment.

Were he able to and Sideswipe would have screamed as pain and pleasure soon mixed into a confusing cacophony that saw him stuck straight in the vortex of a maelstrom—so much charge from Megatron’s digits that he had to expel it, somehow, but too much pain from his abused neck for him to fall into an overload.

Sunstreaker felt rooted in place, his thoughts running so much slower than usual as he just… Watched, like witnessing a trainwreck he could do nothing about, but couldn’t look away from.

Except he could do something about this. It wasn’t out of his control—the very opposite.

He could do something about it when some of the tubing on Sideswipe’s throat gave to a small burst of energon.

Sunstreaker found the will to turn his optics away. His servos balled into fists, his claws digging into his palms painfully—but his pain was nothing compared to what was building in Sideswipe.

He could do something about it.

Megatron’s hold tightened. More energon streamed along his servo, along Sideswipe’s throat, along his frame. The digits in his valve never left, only torturing him further, but his brother couldn’t even sob, not within Megatron’s grasp. He was crying, though, tears streaming from his optics as he was stuck within a frame battling itself.

A frame being broken by external forces.

“Would you do this to your own twin?” Megatron asked when Sunstreaker didn’t act. There was disbelief in his voice. Fake.

His hold tightened.

Sideswipe began to plead to him, begging for him to do something. He would never, ever directly ask Sunstreaker to degrade himself, but he was asking for relief with all his being, for it to end—the pain, the pleasure.

The damage, the ecstasy. The conflict.

Desperate. How much further would Megatron go? Would he decapitate him entirely? Here, in front of everyone?

Everyone, who pretended to not see anything. The twins had brought this on themselves, hadn’t they? They deserved it, didn’t they? For their disobedience.

Only Soundwave was watching, present as he happened to be.

Watching how Megatron disciplined his mates.

Why did they question it? Why did they think there was anything Megatron wouldn’t do? Any length he wouldn’t go to?

Crack. Sunstreaker could hear it, he could feel it—the moment Sideswipe’s frame arched from what was nothing but agony, his vocalizer breaking apart entirely under Megatron’s grip. He couldn’t have screamed even if he’d wanted to, and pits, he would have.

So loud.

Sunstreaker closed his optics, grit his denta. He was putting his brother through this. He was denying Sideswipe relief. He was the cause of his other half’s hurt.

And for what? Because of his pride? Because he couldn’t bear the thought of demeaning himself like asked of him? Because he was stubborn?

Sideswipe couldn’t wail out loud, but he did so in their spark when Megatron never once let up, when his servo kept crushing—when he spoke vile words all over again.

“This is on you, Sunstreaker.”

And he stabbed his digits into Sideswipe’s valve.

Sideswipe’s frame couldn’t take it anymore, and finally his overload crackled over him—only for him to scream twice as hard, but only in their core. The energy of his release did nothing but burn along his broken components. All of it only tipped to pain, not pleasure.

Megatron’s hold tightened.

More blood.

There was so little coherence left in Sideswipe, but his plea would never quiet, trapped in a frame that had no mercy for him, and that was given no mercy.

How much longer?

How much further?

When would it end?

Sunstreaker felt numb. So, so numb even as Sideswipe’s suffering echoed in their spark.

He could end that.

It was all on him.

...It was all on him.

Sideswipe would never hate him. Sideswipe would never do more than love him, the other half of him–

And for his love, Sunstreaker was putting him through this.

How could he?

Sideswipe’s spine gave and the sudden silence in their spark was… Deafening. His twin was staring sightlessly in the ceiling, so overwhelmed he all but forgot he lived, and Sunstreaker–

Stubborn, prideful Sunstreaker–

He couldn’t do this to Sideswipe. Not to the one that would never leave him, that would always support him.

Sideswipe didn’t deserve this. Sideswipe deserved better than this.

They both did.

For Sideswipe.

Only for Sideswipe.

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

It was nothing Knock Out couldn’t fix, he was assured. Sideswipe’s broken vocalizer, his broken spine, broken fuel and coolant lines… All things the medic could undo.

As if they’d never existed in the first place.

As if Sunstreaker had never caused them.

But there was nothing anyone could do to the memories. His, as well as Sideswipe’s.

He couldn’t forget he’d put his twin through that.

And he couldn’t forget caving. The taste of the metal of Megatron’s pede… Was that so different from Sideswipe having to clean the floors with nothing but his glossa?

It wasn’t. Not really.

Yet, instead of just doing it…

This.

He stood by the wall next to the medbay’s doors, watching ever silently as Knock Out went about fixing the damage done to Sideswipe, his brother safely in stasis. Sunstreaker dreaded the moment Sideswipe would online and have to face memories himself, no matter how fuzzy those might be for him—of getting dropped on Megatron’s spike as soon as Sunstreaker had pressed his glossa to his pede, of getting ‘faced, hard, despite the pain tearing through his frame.

And after Megatron was done with him… Tossed to the side for Soundwave to take his turn.

Without the ability to make a sound.

Without the ability to voice his pain.

All thanks to Sunstreaker.

He knew Sideswipe wouldn’t blame him, not in a million vorns would Sideswipe blame him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt.

That the experience wouldn’t hurt him.

That what Sunstreaker had put him through wouldn’t hurt him.

Pits…

He glanced to the side when the medbay doors unexpectedly opened. Knock Out looked up as well, but dismissed the arrival just as quickly when it turned out to be…

Soundwave.

Confusion, although Sunstreaker felt far too raw to frown because of it. He felt too raw for any expressions, really. Things… He hadn’t faced all of them yet. He could admit he had about spaced out after humbling himself into the licking the pedes of the mech that had done… So many things to them. So many bad things.

Soundwave was little better. As far as Sunstreaker could ever tell from a mech that hid his face and controlled his field so well, Soundwave enjoyed the orgies. At the very least he attended them often.

And what was there to not like, for him? All the interfacing he could wish for, with a good selection of partners to choose from. He’d even fragged Starscream on a few occasions, and Sunstreaker had almost thought Megatron wouldn’t share his favorite, even with his second.

But no, Megatron shared his entire harem, at least during the orgies.

Sunstreaker didn’t ask what Soundwave wanted, what had brought him here. Neither did Knock Out, for that matter. The medic merely focused on his work.

What did that mean? That Soundwave could come and go as he pleased? He hadn’t seen him in the harem wing often, never really, outside the orgies—but he was the second. That had to grant him all sorts of privileges. Maybe going where he wanted to was a part of it.

Sunstreaker had already shifted his attention back to his brother when Soundwave’s droning voice snapped it right back to the blue mech. “Sunstreaker.”

Addressed by his name, now? Sunstreaker inclined his helm, saying he had heard and was listening without words—not the least because Megatron had taken his pleasure out of his intake rather roughly, last night. His vocalizer was still whole, but there wasn’t a part of his neck that didn’t ache. Speaking didn’t appeal to him.

As little as he expected he could escape it, if Soundwave wanted a conversation. Why he would want that was beyond him, but who was he to question his betters?

“Spirited,” Soundwave commented, and… Well, now Sunstreaker was even more confused than before.

This time he managed a frown, his vocalizer rasping into functionality. “Me?”

Soundwave nodded.

Sunstreaker snorted, shifting his optics back to Sideswipe. “I don’t think that’s a very good thing, here,” he muttered, loud enough that Soundwave could hear him. And Knock Out too, probably, although the medic looked to be pretending nothing was happening despite his usual order of be quiet if you wanted to stay in the medbay during repairs he was performing on someone else.

The second only continued to surprise him. “Megatron enjoys it.”

That drew Sunstreaker’s optics right back to him, his frown only deepening. What he wanted to say was that he didn’t give a damn what Megatron thought, and that his enjoyment was the last thing he wanted–

But maybe he had learned a thing or two by now, because Sunstreaker didn’t voice that. Instead all he said was, “It doesn’t feel like he does.”

“Megatron demands obedience,” Soundwave intoned, “but enjoys personality.”

He was becoming so fucking confused here. Hadn’t he gotten raped and beaten because of his spirit, for the absolute crime of letting his personality show?

Wasn’t he supposed to be a meek little thing that did as it was told and only as it was told, without a token of resistance or any sign of personal thought?

Soundwave was disagreeing with that assessment.

Why?

“Align with him,” Soundwave continued, and that… Sounded like advice?

What the pit did it even mean, though?

His confusion was probably written all over his face and field both, because Soundwave tilted his helm towards him and offered something like a clarification. “Align your will, with his. Want what he does.

“Stay yourself.”

Those contradicted. “How am I supposed to stay myself if I– No. Never.”

Or else? “He will break you,” Soundwave stated. Like that was inevitable.

So that was it? Bend himself to Megatron’s will, or be broken into it?

Sunstreaker closed his optics and let his helm hang, tired.

Tired of this whole thing.

Tired of what their life had become.

The ventilation he cycled was a heavy one. “I know.”

( Next )

#transformers #maccadam #sunstreaker #sideswipe #megatron #topspin #starscream #fic #2021 #harem au

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goldgalaxytea-fanfics · 4 years

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The Little Jellyfish (Asra) - Chapter 1: So hold my hand

Rating: Mature

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Multi, Other

Fandom: The Arcana

Relationship: Asra Alnazar x Reader

Characters: Asra Alnazar, Reader, You

Additional Tags: MerMay, MerMay 2020, Mer AU, mermaid au, Alternate Universe, AU, Mer Asra, Jellyfish Asra, Merperson Asra (The Arcana), human reader, Reader-Insert, x Reader, gender neutral reader, male reader - Freeform, Female Reader, no specific pronouns used for reader, Frozen (Disney Movies) References, First Meetings, Movie Night, Frozen movie marathon, Sleepy Cuddles, Couch Cuddles, Cuddling & Snuggling, One (1) forehead kiss, Mer Asra learns about the human world, Little Mermaid Elements, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Eventual Sex

Words: 1,949

Summary:

Notes:

This is the first part of a series for MerMay 2020! Each part will be a separate story featuring a mer!love interest x human!reader. There will be 6 stories in total, one for each LI! Full disclosure, each one will end in fishy horizontal tangos👀

(Chapter title from "Little Talks" by Of Monsters and Men)

Chapter 2 ▶️

Series Masterlist

Merpeople weren’t real, they were simply stories told throughout the centuries to entertain people. They were myths, legends, folklore, or at least, that’s what you thought. So when you saw a person in his birthday suit stumbling around the beach near your house, your first thought wasn’t omg what if that’s a merperson that just got legs and that’s why he’s falling over like a toddler? No, it was holy shit is he drunk out of his mind? Though since it was the middle of the day and there hadn’t been any parties nearby last night it quickly shifted to oh my god he’s either on drugs or bat shit crazy. You tried ignoring him, but it was difficult watching him stumble around like a newborn foal, especially with the adorable pout he had every time he tumbled back down onto the sand. You sighed, grabbing a towel and heading outside, silently praying that you wouldn’t grow to regret this decision.

“Hey…” Vibrant purple eyes snapped to yours, the pure wonder and awe swimming in them surprised you, he looked like a kid set loose in a candy shop. If this was a cartoon he’d have literal stars in his eyes. Seriously what the hell is up with this person? You took in the rest of his appearance, pointedly avoiding anywhere below his waist. A white tattoo of an unfamiliar symbol rested right above his heart, a stark contrast to his golden brown skin. The sun shining favorably upon him almost gave him the illusion of actual gold. White fluffy curls danced around his head in every direction, almost like a cloud had descended from the sky just to rest upon his head. He was so gorgeous he couldn’t possibly be real. What the literal fuck. This was just getting weirder and weirder.

“Um… are you okay?” Your eyes finally drifted back to his, shocked to find he had been checking you out as well. Your cheeks grew warm, but you couldn’t blame it on the warm weather. Clearing your throat and avoiding his intense gaze you hold the towel out to him. He tilted his head curiously. “You, uh, you should cover yourself. This isn’t a nude beach so you’ll probably get in trouble.” His soft lips parted as he finally spoke.

“Oh, right, forgot about that.” His voice itself sounded like the world’s most beautiful song, yet what he said was the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard. Who in their right mind forgets they can’t be nude in public? Your heart sank. Maybe he wasn’t in his right mind… You swept your doubt under the rug, he obviously needed assistance and you were determined to see this through. Besides he seemed harmless. He took the towel, long slender fingers brushing against yours. You jumped, his fingers were freezing. Worry settled heavily in your chest. You were no doctor, but it was definitely not a good sign he was cold in the middle of one of the hottest days of the summer. “Would you like to go to my house?” You spoke before you could even weigh the pros and cons of that kind of offer. He blinked. “I could give you some proper clothes to wear until you can get your own.” You offered your hand to him. He stared at you for a moment, thinking over your offer. His curious expression broke into a wide smile as he took your hand. You helped him up but refused to let go of his hand, trying your best to transfer some heat into the icy limb. He did his confused little head tilt again and your heart skipped a beat. It's not fair that he's so other worldly hot and so goddamn adorable. “Your hands are cold, I’m just trying to warm them up.”

“Thank you.” He flashed his blinding smile again. Yeah, he’s definitely going to be the death of you. The both of you walked in silence, it was quite peaceful really. Until cold arms wrapped around you. You shrieked and jumped away from him. His eyes were wide, but he refused to look at you. Instead choosing to stare sadly at his hands, like they were at fault. “I apologize-”

“It’s okay!” You quickly cut him off, not being able to stand him looking like a kicked puppy for another second. “You just surprised me.” You opened your arms in invitation. It only took a second for him to throw himself into your arms, practically tackling you. The force nearly toppled you over but you managed to keep the both of you on your feet. He nuzzled his head against yours.

“So warm…” He whispered. You laughed, trying to suppress your shivers. It felt like hugging a block of ice, this definitely isn’t normal. You speed walked back to your home as fast as you could with a half naked person clinging to you. As soon as you got in the door you freed yourself from the handsome stranger’s embrace, a soft whine escaping him as you hurried to get him clothes and blankets. You returned to him with the large pile, dumping it on the couch as he watched you with curious eyes. He hadn’t moved from where you left him. You gestured him over and he came immediately, nearly tripping over the end table.

“I got some warm pajamas for you and some blankets so you can keep warm. Do you feel sick?” You inquired. He merely shook his head and went to grab the clothes from the couch. “Wait! You’re still covered in sand.” You smacked your head, how could you forget that so easily? “My bathroom’s down the hall so you can rinse off.” You pointed in the direction. He didn’t move, just staring at you. “Do you... do you need help with the shower?”

“Yes…” He sheepishly mumbled. You grabbed the pjs and then his wrist, guiding him down the hallway.

“It’s okay! I’ll show you how to work it.” You set the clothes on the counter and showed him the shower, demonstrating how to turn it on and off and how to change the temperature. He paid full attention to your mini lesson, very interested in the shower and how it worked. Once you felt confident he knew what he was doing you left him to his own devices. Making your way back to the couch you took a glance at the time. Oh it was 6 PM already. You headed towards the kitchen, deciding to make some Chicken Noodle Soup. It would quickly warm the mysterious stranger up and hopefully help with whatever was wrong with him.

As soon as you poured the soup into two bowls soft footsteps came down the hallway. You turned to smile at him as he entered the kitchen, trying to hold back a laugh. His hair was somehow even puffier now. Without thinking you reached out to feel how soft it was. Your hand gently drifted through what you swore could’ve been a real life cloud. A pleased sigh broke you from your trance. Embarrassed you pulled your hand back as if you'd been burned. He pouted while you quickly changed subjects.

“I made us some lunch." You carried the bowls over to the couch, setting them down on the table. You patted the other side of the couch, motioning him to sit next to you. As he sat down you realized the irony of what he was wearing. You had grabbed the first pajamas you could reach, which just so happened to be Frozen themed pajamas. You laughed, earning another curious stare from your beautiful companion.

"Why are you laughing?" He was confused but your good mood must have been infectious, for he was smiling along with you.

"Your skin is ice cold and I gave you Frozen themed pajamas." You snorted at the sight of blue snowflakes and Olaf scattered all over the white fabric while his brows furrowed.

"But… those clothes are not made of ice?" He questioned. He can't be serious. You observed his lost expression. Holy shit he's serious.

"Frozen is a movie about-"

"What's a movie?" He asked. You blinked, processing what he had said.

"You're… you're not from around here are you?" You wondered aloud. That would explain why he didn't seem to understand anything. It was a flimsy excuse but it was the best you could think of. A musical laugh brought your attention back to your guest. His eyes were mischievous, like he knew something you didn't.

"That is correct. I'm from a very different place than here." He didn't elaborate.

"Okay. Well it's probably better to just show you instead then." You turned on the TV and put the movie on. His violet eyes were glued to the screen as soon as the opening sequence started playing. He paid no mind to you as you wrapped the both of you up in a large fluffy blanket. His eyes only strayed when you handed him his bowl of soup. His eyes stayed on you, observing how you ate your soup before copying what you did. He hummed pleasantly as he devoured the warm food. You tried your best to focus on the movie but it was honestly more entertaining to watch him and his reactions to it instead.

The farther you got into the film, the closer the two of you got. By the end he was pressed up against your side as he cried onto your shoulder. You held him and patted his curls in comfort. As the credits rolled you were both practically cuddling.

"It's over?" He asked, disappointment laced through his voice.

"Yeah it's over. But there's a second movie!" He perked up at that.

"Can we watch that movie too?" He gave you puppy eyes. Even if you wanted to it felt impossible to say no to that face.

"Of course! It wouldn't be a Frozen marathon without the second one!" He happily hugged you. You hid your blush by starting the next film. His attention immediately focused back on the screen, but his arms stayed wrapped around you. You didn't complain, settling your head on his shoulder. You noticed he had grown warmer. He wasn't as warm as a person normally should be, but he wasn't freezing anymore. He felt more lukewarm than anything. Despite that though he felt so comfy. You imagined this is what cuddling a cloud felt like. The softness of him against you was like a siren's song lulling you to sleep. The events of the movie faded away as you succumbed to the gentle lullaby. Soft white locks tickled your face as you realized you were hearing a lullaby. Your new friend was quietly singing along to the movie, voice soft and sweet as you felt his song pull you deeper into the inky abyss of sleep. The last thing you could recall was something soft pressing gently against your forehead.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿🐚‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

You awoke slowly, wiping the sleep from your eyes as you remembered the events of yesterday. You searched for the gorgeous stranger but he was nowhere to be found. The only trace of him was a conch shell left where he had been sitting the night before. It was as white as his hair with the same strange symbol as his tattoo carved into the smooth surface. You examined the shell’s beauty, wondering if you'd ever see him again. Your heart sank as you realized you never got his name, let alone a way to contact him. So it was not likely. It seemed that the movie night would be your only encounter with the mysterious person.

Oh how wrong you were.

Notes:

Fun fact! The Frozen pjammies in the fic are based on pjs I have irl😂

Also Frozen is one of my favorite movies so ofc I'm going to put it in a fic if given the opportunity🥰

Chapter 2 ▶️

Series Masterlist

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spnladiesbingo · 3 years

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Last edited January 30th, 2021

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funknrolll · 4 years

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WHAT IS MUSIC THERAPY? WHAT CAN MUSIC DO FOR MENTAL DISORDERS?

Hi everyone, today I want to shed some light on an extremely relevant topic that I’m sure has touched so many of us: music therapy and mental health.

In a modern society struggling with mental health is becoming more and more common. As a matter of fact, according to a study conducted worldwide by the Mental Health Organization, more than 300 million people suffer from depression. Additionally, more than 60 million people suffer from bipolar affective disorder, and 23 million people suffer from schizophrenia and other psychoses. Music has been used for self-regulation of moods and emotions for a very long time. The matter has also been subject of many investigations and studies. Through these studies, it has been possible to see all the benefits music has on physical, psychosocial and physical health. Additionally, extremely relevant are the studies conducted on the application of music as a therapeutic tool in the treatment or management of mental health disorders such as depression for instance.

There are several approaches where music has been used to promote therapy and health. The first one is Neurologic Music Therapy. This treatment is administered by an accredited music therapist with a certificate in neurologic music therapy. This approach is based on the rehabilitation of brain and behavior functions, concentrating mostly on cognitive speech, language, and sensorimotor disorders. This therapy consists of exercises to facilitate functional non-musical outcomes and to train abilities in cognition and psychosocial functions such as speech and language, motor control, emotional growth, and social skills. Another approach used is Music Therapy. This treatment is administered by a qualified and trained music therapist. The approach uses the music experiences of the patient to promote, maintain and restore health. The experiences are broadly categorized into active experiences that involve singing, playing instruments, improvisation or composition of music. The second category is receptive experiences. This involves adjunctive activities such as listening to live recorded music, for instance, relaxing music, meditating, practicing movement, drawing or reminiscing. Music therapy is focused on facilitating well-being, social relationship building, self-awareness, self-expression, communication, and personal development. The third approach is the Music Medicine. This term was developed in the 90s but sometimes it is used to describe uses of music that do not involve therapeutic process and client-therapist relationship. However, Music medicine is strictly related to music listening protocols for pain reduction, anxiety reduction, relaxation, mood induction, emotional well-being, to induce sleep and boost alertness.

It has been studied that music therapy can be helpful for many different issues that could be either physical or mental conditions. Indeed, it has been seen how music stimulates the senses and provokes a series of therapeutic responses that could lead to having feelings of familiarity, predictability and even security. Music therapy is used to help clients with mental disorders to communicate and express themselves when words fail to do that. This treatment has suggested that specific parts of the human brain are affected by elements of music. Particularly, it has been seen that for instance, some rhythmic paths appear to calm the mind and the body of the patients. In fact, it is thought that music therapy works in different ways depending on the issues that are addressed. For instance, some researches have shown that music with a strong and fast rhythm can affect the heart rate and the breathing path. This way music is broadly used as an aid with relaxation and to reduce muscle tensions. It has been also studied that music can promote the release of endorphins which are practically natural painkillers. This therapy is also helpful in assisting people in releasing negative memories and feelings. Last but not least, it has been found that music can help change behaviors and thus it can be used to reduce behavioral issues.

After all this information a question appears logic: What happens during a music therapy session? Music Therapy sessions are similar to other forms of therapy. Initially, the therapist establishes a therapeutic relationship and alliance with the patient. This will contribute to making the session of therapy a comfortable space where clients can address their issues, express themselves and work towards therapy goals. When these first vital steps are made, the therapy will involve the use of listening to music and making instrumental or vocal music and discussing the patient’s reactions during these experiences. The approach set by music therapists is also something interesting and relevant. Indeed, they normally use instrumental and vocal music strategies to help the client reach their therapy goals. For each patient it will be chosen a specific musical selection and some particular music-making activities. All of this will be based on the individual’s preferences and needs. Hence, music therapy initially involves assessment, treatment planning and evaluation which allows the therapist to select and modify them as needed based on the patient’s progress. As mentioned, these approaches may be active or receptive. Indeed, when the patient is asked to make music, that is an active technique. On the other hand, when the client is asked to listen to music and respond to it with body movements or analysis, that is when the receptive technique is used. Some patients may also be asked to write songs. Additionally, these techniques can be used during either an individual session or in group therapy settings.

Another crucial point about music therapy is that Music Therapists must be well trained in order to do their job properly. Hence, the patient must be careful in choosing the right therapist. Indeed, one of the therapist’s primary ethical duties is to consider carefully the possible risks intrinsic to each type of music experience and to share this knowledge with the patient. This will aim to protect the client and their safety, promoting their agency in the therapeutic process. Additionally, one of the primary responsibilities of the music therapist is to design and facilitate the therapeutic methods and the variations to support their patients while they face life’s trials. A good therapist has also to identify new options for acting and build on personal and collective capacities toward enhanced health and wellbeing.

Additionally, the patient should also take into consideration that every therapy session could carry some risks as well. For instance, during a group session that promotes cohesion among adults seeking mental health treatment, the patients may experience embarrassment from using their voices. Additionally, this experience might evoke unconscious memories and associations of unpleasant or even traumatizing nature. Moreover, when young patients engage in performing pre-composed music, such as a music group they might feel accomplished and proud of their work. Although, they might also experience intense anxiety, dissatisfaction and humiliation if the musical parts do not fit together. Another example is when an abused teen works with a therapist while composing an original song or instrumental piece. The energies brought to bear through musical tensions and resolutions or the moods evoked by the sonic qualities of certain instruments might be incongruous with the client’s lyrics. This may distort the patient’s inner experiences which could lead to complicating the therapeutic process. Additionally, some other risks related to music listening could include overstimulation and confusion. This could also be a major issue for those patients who experienced a brain injury or who have neurologic disorders that impact their use of the sensory input. Moreover, there is always a risk of physical injury as the listener takes in music to guide their movement schemes when dancing for self-expression or to release stress.

Furthermore, since I have experienced depression and since music has always helped me to stay balanced, I thought to shed some light on how music therapy could be useful to prove it is a valid option to treat this condition. I myself, have used music to heal when I was in need. Indeed, I can now say that music has been the fulcrum of my entire life, easing my pain during my worst years. Back in 2001, in my elementary school years, my struggle with depression and anxiety began. During those years I was bullied by my classmates and my teachers. My battle against bullies, depression, and anxiety, specifically panic attacks, went on for years and now I’m still dealing with the side effects of all that I had to endure. However, despite the pain I suffered, there is a bright side to these painful experiences: they made me discover how powerful music can be. As a matter of fact, that was during elementary school that I discovered my passion for music and in the last year of middle school I found out how powerful music can be and how it can be used to the advantage of people who suffer from mental disorders. While I was going through the harassments of bullies, music became my biggest source of happiness and escapism, to the point that I could not live without it. I started then listening to music to ease my pain and to escape from all the things I was going through. At the age of 12, I discovered that playing an instrument could give as many benefits as listening to music. Therefore, I took some guitar lessons, given the fact that I had always wanted to play an instrument. When I was in the 10th, 11th and 12th grade I took singing lessons, which helped me become more confident and raise my self-esteem. Thanks to these courses, I made music my major emotional outlet, and my safe space where I could release all my anger, frustration, rage, pain and where I could express myself. Hence, I could say that I experienced both receptive and active experiences and I can say that both of them have been extremely helpful. As a matter of fact, still, today when depression kicks in, I turn to music and it instantly gives me the relief I need.

Thanks for your attention✨ G✨

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lia-jones · 4 years

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Growing Stronger - Chapter Nine - Wild Goose Chase

I was in awe as I drove my car through the open Iron gates of Magnolia State, the venue where Diane and Goldman would be married. The enormous garden surrounding the inn and the ballroom was filled with magnolia trees, covered in blue, pink, or white flowers sparkling beautifully as the sunshine kissed the morning dew. Magnolia State was in a small fishing town located 60 miles south of Loveland called Southbay, which had suddenly bloomed when it turned to tourism. The town was lovely, keeping its old traditions visible in their restored buildings, and with a beautiful boardwalk that led to the town’s pride and joy, the Watcher, a gigantic lighthouse that stood imponent in a bed of rocks.

We would be staying at Magnolia State for the whole weekend. On Saturday we would have the rehearsal dinner and on Sunday, the wedding and the reception, which meant Diane and I had to arrive early in the morning to make some last-minute preparations for the big weekend. We took our bags to our rooms, agreeing to meet at the chapel, where the wedding planner would be waiting for us. When I arrived, Diane was waiting for me, along with Goldman and… Victor.

“We have a problem.” Goldman announced as I arrived. “Diane forgot her tiara at home.”

“I’m so very sorry.” Diane was mortified. “I made a list and everything. I simply don’t know how I could have forgotten it. Can you please go back and pick it up? Here are the keys to my apartment. It’s on a box on top of my dresser.”

“Andrea’s probably tired, she just drove an hour here. I can go if you don’t mind.” Victor offered.

“You drove for an hour too. Aren’t you tired as well?” I frowned.

“I have an idea, Why don’t you both go?” Diane smiled. “You can take turns driving, keep each other awake.”

“It’s ok, I can go on my own. I’m not that tired.” I objected.

“Your dark circles say otherwise. I bet you haven’t been sleeping at all. You are not going alone.” Victor ordered. “Either you go with me or you don’t go at all.”

I didn’t appreciate his mothering attitude, but after the mess we made at Diane’s house, I wasn’t going to start a fight.

“Sure, let’s go then.” I took the keys from Diane’s hand.

“Good. Anything else you need, Diane?” Victor asked. Diane beamed at us.

“No, that’s all. Take your time, have lunch on the way. We don’t want any of you driving too fast.”

Victor was adamant in taking his car, asserting it was the most comfortable, and that he wouldn’t risk being stranded on the highway due to mechanical problems. In short, he was saying my car was a lemon. I agreed, not wanting to start a fight, but mostly because, if it did happen, it wouldn’t be the first time my car gave me grief.

I kept silent at first, not knowing what to say. Yes, we had agreed we’d be friends, but it was still awkward. The only conversation starters I could remember could also lead to an argument. He must have felt the same awkwardness, because he turned on his radio, the sound of a piano filling the emptiness in the car.

“Debussy?”

“Clair de Lune.” He completed. “Do you like it?”

“I love it. Although I find it a bit sad.”

“It’s not as joyful as most of Mozart’s pieces, but I wouldn’t call it sad either.” Victor frowned.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was how my teacher explained it to me. He told me to imagine the moon shining over a gazebo. The moonlight loves everything it can find at said gazebo, the potted flowers, the pillars where children hide, the bench were lovers sit, but it can only touch it, it can not have it. All the moonlight can do is to dance around then and magnify their beauty, evoke the feelings that come from them, but they will never belong to the moon, just like they don’t belong to the sun. They can only be touched and admired, close and yet distant. I was a teenager at the time, and was in love with a boy, and I somehow related the song to that. Lovers that can only love, but not have.”

Victor was silent for a while, a slight furrow on his brow, probably holding that mental picture while he listened closely to the music. After a while, his poker face was back on.

“Your teacher is an idiot.” He shortly concluded. I laughed.

“Well, it’s subjective. How do you see it?”

“The moon is up, shining upon a house. The garden is blooming and taken care of, the house is clean and cozy as the moonlight comes through the window, the children are in bed, sleeping soundly. The parents are by the fireplace, holding hands and smiling, as their intimacy requires no words. And lovers outside kiss, as a young couple in love should. And the moonlight oversees it, blesses it. Everything is as it should be. Peaceful and happy.” I noticed a shine in his eyes as he spoke. It seemed he had given this a lot of thought.

“So… Bliss?” I smiled softly.

“Yes.” He glanced at me briefly. “Not that nonsense your teacher taught you.”

I sank in my seat, allowing my tired body to relax. Victor was right, I hadn’t been sleeping at all, I spent the last two weeks focusing on nothing but work, which was actually a good distraction from… other things.

“Want to close your eyes for a minute? You don’t need to keep me company.” Victor offered.

“No, it’s okay. I’m just a bit sluggish, a coffee will fix it.” I said, sitting straight.

“Have you been working too hard? You need to stay sharp if you want good results. You can’t reach the excellence you seek if you’re too tired to think.” Victor reprimanded me.

“It’s an adaptation period, I think. We grew up too fast all of a sudden. Not that I’m complaining, but now I have three times more partners, and meetings, and reports. Some of them are established overseas, so I need to travel…” I trailed off.

“You’re doing all that by yourself? You’ll bleed yourself dry. You need to delegate some of those responsibilities. And you need an assistant. You surely have the budget for one.” He frowned, slightly annoyed.

“Haven’t you listened? I barely have the time to sleep, let alone read resumes and have interviews.”

“Make the time. You can’t afford to let yourself spread thin like that, you need to take care of yourself.” He paused, seemingly frustrated. “Do I have to call the Dean and take care of it myself?”

“Whoa, call Olive? No! Look, I’m sure you are worried about your investment, but I already told you this is just an adaptation-”

“God damn it, Andrea!” Victor’s voice echoed loud in the car. “Did I say anything about the investment? I don’t care about the investment, I care ABOUT YOU!”

I visibly shrank in my seat, surprised with Victor’s explosion. After a few minutes of silence, the audible thing being Victor’s deep breaths as he tried to steady himself, he spoke again, his voice softer.

“It doesn’t come as a surprise to you that I care, right?”

I remained silent, unsure of what to answer.

“I am aware that I might have said or done some things that could lead you to believe otherwise, but I do care. Andrea, I always will. Apart or together, it makes no difference. I will always care. Got it?”

“Yes.” I managed to say. “I care about you too. We’re friends.”

His eyes remained on the road ahead, shiny with some emotion I couldn’t recognize.

There was a feeling of unvoiced truths lingering between us. Or maybe I was the one having things that I was yet to voice. I wasn’t sure, so I decided to keep silent until the trip was over. I was so determined to forget Victor and move on with my life, I did such a great job pointing out all the flaws in our relationship to convince myself I couldn’t go back again, yet all that effort slowly crumbled each time I saw him. The barriers I had built to protect my heart to break any further fell one by one, and were replaced by love and longing, an urge to have him in my arms a second time.

If I could turn back time, if I had just one more chance, I wouldn’t have walked away. If I had one more chance, I wouldn’t be scared, I would’ve fought by his side, against the media, his father, my jealousy, his past that haunted us. All those things that sounded so painful at that time, meant nothing now that I knew the pain of not having him. Not having him was the worse pain in the world. And I had gone through pain enough to last me ten lifetimes.

He cared, but the damage had been done. I had broken his heart. I knew I was already in a different category in Victor’s mental shelves, as he never allowed anyone to hurt him twice. I wrapped my heart with that truth and focused on the window, and the world that seemed to pass us by.

“Andrea.” I felt a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it softly. “We’re here.”

I opened my eyes, confused. I had fallen asleep without even noticing. Victor’s trained eyes were on me.

“Okay, let’s go.” I said, grabbing my purse to find Diane’s keys. “Let’s get that tiara.”

But as we got into her apartment, going straight into her bedroom, we found no box. I called Diane.

“I can’t see a box here. Do you think it can be in some other place?” I looked around.

“Oh no, Andy…” Diane had a grimace in her voice. “I completely forgot. The tiara is in the store for polishing… They will deliver it today.”

“You mean we came all this way for nothing?!?” I almost screamed. “Diane!”

“I’m sorry, It’s just my bridal brain. Hey, take your time, come whenever you are ready.”

“Bridal brain?” I frowned. “That only goes for pregnant women.”

“Right.” Diane quickly dismissed me. “See you later. Don’t come rushing!”

“Wild goose chase?” Victor frowned slightly as I hung up.

“Wild goose chase.” I sighed, frustrated.

Once back in the car, we fell silent again. It reminded me of when I starting to get to know Victor, always afraid to say the wrong thing, scared to aggravate him. But it was different now. I wasn’t quiet because I was afraid of making him mad. I just had a lot to say, and wasn’t sure if I should say anything at all. Well, I had one thing to say.

“I’m sorry.” I started.

“For what?” He glanced at me, confused.

“We never talked about it, and I’m not even sure we should but…” I paused, taking a deep breath, trying to muster the courage to finish. “The way we broke up… The way I just left. It wasn’t nice.”

Victor paused for a moment, seemingly considering my words.

“Nothing about it was nice. I am at fault too.”

“I was the one who left and never came back. Like you said, I abandoned you. You didn’t deserve that.” I felt my eyes start to water. Keep it together, Andrea. “Not to mention the fact that I slapped you. I mean, I’m a former victim of abuse and my go-to reaction is to smack you? How twisted is that? You must hate me for that. I would hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.” Victor’s voice was assertive. “In your defense, I said some horrible things too. I was so infuriated by the whole situation, my father, the media, the university. I just wanted to win the fight. I never even considered I was hurting you in the process. It was only when you reacted that I fully understood what I was doing.” Victor paused to let out a ragged breath. “I deserved that slap.”

“Don’t say that.” I shook my head.

“Let me finish.” Victor gripped the wheel hard, like he needed all the strength he had to let those words come out. “I was so self-righteous, accusing you of not wanting to be in my life, when I wasn’t fully allowing you in it as well. I didn’t tell you about my kidnapping.”

“Ok, let me stop you right there.” I spoke firmly. “I am a hypocrite. Truth is, if you didn’t know about my abuse, I’m not so sure I would be so open to discuss it. Honestly, how does one go about it? Hey, let me tell you about this particularly painful event in my life that exposes all my weaknesses? I know you have a hard time talking about emotions, and that subject is as emotional as it can be.” Would I admit it? I decided on full disclosure. “I was jealous. I was jealous that there was this person that knew so much about you, that shared so many stories with you, while I was still trying to fully understand you. I felt… In comparison with all you lived with her, all we had was… nothing. Barely scratching the surface.”

“Don’t say that! Don’t underrate it, like it was some fling I had with you because I couldn’t be with someone else! What we had… It was unparalleled.”

I fell silent once again, his words sinking deep into my heart. I felt the same, certain I would never experience with anyone else what I had with Victor.

There we were, sitting in his car, driving into the distance, our feelings exposed, although I didn’t know for what end. There was clearly no hatred, but none of us would throw the rope for the other to hold on to. Maybe it was just something very good that ended, and we should be thankful for having it at all. People go through lifetimes without so much of a glimpse of what such bliss could be like.

“Why didn’t you come back?” The interrogation came with an insurmountable amount of hurt.

“We were hurting each other. It wasn’t working. We were both losing ourselves in the relationship, we were getting in all kinds of trouble with your father… Let alone the fact that I can’t have kids, Victor.” And there it was, the unvoiced truth. One of the loudest, anyway. I couldn’t give him happiness, not entirely.

Victor frowned.

“That is not a reason. Andrea, when did I ever ask you for children? I was fully aware of your condition before we started dating. It never mattered.” His voice was angry, like he was being accused unfairly.

“Maybe not now, but it would, eventually. Victor, I’ve seen you with that girl Molly, and with other children, and you are great with kids, you love kids. You’d be a great father, you deserve to have that family you want so much. I couldn’t be the one taking it away from you.”

Victor didn’t say another word for the rest of the ride, seemingly lost in thought. Diane wanted us to talk, hopeful we could make up. But some things just don’t seem meant to be, and some words are better left unsaid.

Me? I was an internal mess, having all these feelings of hope and love, acceptance and closure dancing in my heart. I didn’t know what was right and what was wrong anymore. I leaned against my window, hoping the universe would be kind enough to give me answers soon.

#Growing Pains - Series #growingstronger #victor x oc #mlqc li zeyan #mlqc victor #love and producer #mister love queens choice

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grouchomarxiste-blog1 · 4 years

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Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite: Marx and Violence

Warning: A majority of this was written pre-pandemic, so please excuse my overly optimistic tone. It was a different time.

Yes, another Bong Joon-Ho film. Can you blame me? The guy’s a genius. Parasite was another one of those great films that will never leave you. You can watch the movie simply without doing a major analysis in your head and you will still agree that it’s a great movie. Which personally, is why I believe it's made its way into the major American awards season. Parasite winning Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes was one of the few decisions I’ve agreed with. I didn’t see any of the winners in the film categories besides Parasite, and I’m very much ok with that. It’s making its way into Hollywood and the favorite lists of celebrities. Elon Musk said he loved Parasite (he also turned Grimes, the former “anti-imperialist,” to the mother of his future child). Chrissy Teigen loved Parasite (a lot can be said about her, so let’s not). Obama loved Parasite (but I have some serious doubts about the authenticity of his yearly favorites list. Mainly because I can’t imagine him listening to Summer Walker). I was completely boggled at all of those tweets. How? How is one so blind? How did one watch Parasite and not feel a thing? After I watched Parasite, I rushed back to school to attend the discussion section of my Political Theory class so I could read and discuss primitive accumulation through dispossession with revolutionary fervor. I recommended it to everyone near me. I even wrote a note to my professor who tucked it into his book. But is that the problem- that all these beloved figures (not mine) end up loving the sheer adrenaline of the story and tweet to their followers about how great the movie is. Those followers, with their favorite celebrities’ seal of approval, watch the movie, not putting it together either. Bong Joon-Ho is critiquing those very figures! In every post-Parasite interview, Bong Joon-Ho has said that Parasite is about America and capitalism, but we have just reduced those statements to memes on Twitter. As funny as they are, Parasite is rich for its class analysis. The Hollywood reaction is just as important. Marx is all over this movie, there's no question about it. I also want us to understand these controversial moments from a Fanonian perspective, again all with relation to Marx. I hope for us to understand that everything about this movie is intentional and every bit of it is worth pages and pages of discussion. I nearing 11 pages as I write this. I also hope that this film can be a way for us to understand economic exploitation in the 21st century. While many celebrities have misunderstood it, it is important that you, us, the people, the working class, grasp every bit of this radical film.

I’m not going to bother with another one of my “brief summary” because I’m assuming, we’ve all seen it. It's on Hulu now and I believe Apple TV. If you don’t want to pay for either platforms, watch a pirated version online, I genuinely don’t think Bong will mind.

I want to talk about the home. I know we all had the same reaction to that beautiful home: awe, admiration, and envy. The Park’s home itself is significant, but also in contrast to the Kims’ home. The Kim’s live in a small semi-basement home, where they have to reach up in order to look out their window and see the street level. Their home is dirty, cramped, just not a place where anyone wants to be. But immediately, I thought of Fanon and the native sector. I know that Parasite isn’t about colonialism, but space is important to Marx (I’ll return to Fanon). In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels attribute many things to the process of proletarianization. To name a few: literacy campaigns and public education, the politicization of the proletariat towards the end of feudalism, expansion of media, etc. One that stands out, is the mass migration and urbanization of the proletariat. Through that, the proletariat was concentrated into the poorest parts of the city where they shared their most intimate quarters with workers like themselves (Marx and Engels, 15) One might dismiss this as a historical example specific to Europe, but if we go back to my thoughts on Memories of Murder, we’d note how Korea’s transition to a modern capitalist society, was a fairly recent one (from 1987 onwards). As the agricultural sector suffered, Koreans living in the rural provinces were forced to move into the major cities. Park (Song Kang-Ho’s character in Memories) was lucky enough to become a successful businessman, unlike the Kims who earn their livelihood by holding pizza boxes- the most insignificant work. Along with urbanization, the proletariat also occupied the small space of the factory, where they are reminded of the everyday brutality of their work. The Park’s home is not cramped, but the one scene where everyone is rushing to hide from them, results in Ki-taek, Ki-jeong, and Ki-woo hiding underneath a coffee table overnight. After that lengthy battle with Geun-sae and Moon-gwang, the Kims are exhausted. They do not want to be laying side by side hearing the Parks have sex. My friend Sef also reminded me that the Parks had weird sex as Mr. Park recalled how their old chauffeur possibly had sex with a drugged-up prostitute, a scenario that previously made Mrs. Park scream out of disgust. Revisiting this, I believe this definitely deserves a psychoanalytic analysis.

This isn’t their breaking point, but also hearing Mr. Park say that Ki-taek smells like the subway is a factor. Once making their break they run outside where it's raining heavily. They come to their home which is flooded and destroyed. Here is where I’ll start talking about Fanon. [READ NOTE]. Again, I know the colonial system is not the case in Parasite. Fanon was a Marxist and expanded on Marxist theory in the colonial context. I just want to warn you that I am using Fanon as carefully as possible, not using concepts that are distinctly racial. I know there’s probably also much more relevant work out there on spatiality and violence, but I think Fanon’s prose style in The Wretched of the Earthis quite appropriate for the film. Let’s consider the colonial bourgeoisie as the Parks and the natives as the Kims. Fanon calls the colonial world, a “compartmentalized world.” The colonists’ sector is clean and protected whereas the native sector is overcrowded, envious, and starving. Sounds about right so far.

The colonist’s sector is a sector built to last, all stone and steel. It’s a sector of lights and paved roads, where the trash cans constantly overflow with strange and wonderful garbage, undreamed-of leftovers. The colonizer’s feet can never be glimpsed, except perhaps in the sea, but then again you can never get close enough. They are protected by solid shoes in a sector where the streets are clean and smooth., without a pothole, without a stone… The colonized’s sector or at least the “native” quarters, the shanty town, the Medina, the reservation, is a disreputable place, inhabited by disreputable people. You are born anywhere, anyhow. You die anywhere, from anything. It’s a world with no space, people are piled one on top of each other. (Fanon, 4)

This becomes extremely relevant when the Kims run out of the Parks’ home in the pouring rain. I kept noticing that they were all barefoot, only focused on getting out of there. My toes curled in the movie theater watching that. Running away from that traumatic house to find your own home destroyed, relocating to a displacement camp, THEN going to work the next day for your unaffected employer who has the audacity to audibly take a sniff of you. I don't know about you, but to me, this sounds like the conditions for a proletarian revolution. Besides the literal allegory, the tone sharply shifts. One could argue that it began to change when they found Geun-sae in the bunker or when Moon-gwang hit her head but that was just some good old dark comedy for me. After the flooding, things are different. Ki-taek has this unmoving face. Things turned grim and we knew something climactic was about to happen. Fanon’s most famous chapter, “Concerning Violence,” maintains that decolonization will always be a violent event because colonialism is a violent system itself. Something that I absolutely love about this chapter is that it isn’t some dense, theoretical work. It’s a revolutionary call to arms for all colonized people. It has a strategic pace which parallels Parasite so well. He sets the scene- the compartmentalized, Manichaen world. He slowly intensifies the antagonistic relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, until this culminating point:

The colonized subject thus discovers that his life, his breathing and his heartbeat are the same as the colonist’s. He discovers that the skin of the colonist is not worth more than the “natives.” In other words, his world receives a fundamental jolt. The colonized’s revolutionary new assurance stems from this. If no longer strike fear into me or nail me to the spot and his voice can no longer petrify me. I am no longer uneasy in his presence. In reality, to hell with him. Not only does his presence no longer bother me, but i am already preparing to waylay him in such a way that he will no longer have any solution but to flee (Fanon, 10)

As corny as it sounds, when I first read that, it brought me to tears. I’m not sure if it was just because I was up for three days straight writing my midterm and I was finally breaking, or because it just meant that much to me. But that section in which the colonized discoversthat his life is worth as much as the colonizer is such a crucial moment. This parallels the infamous birthday scene. Geun-sae gets out of the bunker, stabs Ki-jung, the Park’s kid (I’ll look his name up later) has a seizure, and Chong-sook is wrestling with Geun-sae. Shit is going down. If we recall, Mrs. Park mentioned that it takes a few minutes for her son to die after a seizure and needs to go to the hospital immediately. So much is going on and Mr. Park starts screaming at Ki-taek to give him the keys. Ki-taek is immobilized at this point. His daughter has been stabbed, son attacked, wife almost killed, the Parks’ got him dressed up in some cultural appropriation, Hollywood Indian regalia. In fact, I find it very fitting that he’s dressed up as a Native American at this moment. I see this as Bong’s satirical nod to old ultra-capitalist Hollywood. But if enough wasn't going on, Mr. Park sniffed. He got close to Geun-sae, a man who’s been living underground for 3 years and audibly sniffed him in disgust. The same way that he sniffed Ki-taek. Of course, there’s probably a difference between a “subway” smell vs. “I haven't showered in 3 years” smell but at the moment it feels as if it's almost the same thing. In my initial viewing, I thought what happened next was because of that, but no. Ki-taek realized that his life was worth the same as the Parks, and their presence no longer bothers him, but he is now plotting against him, and the time of action is now. Ki-taek stabs Mr. Park and flees. Annoyingly, the YouTube section for this clip is filled with people feeling bad for the Parks and discussing how what Ki-taek did was wrong. Of course, the average viewer will view the Parks as some sympathetic rich suckers who only treated the Kims kindly. The casual reader who picks up Fanon for the first time would also dismiss his theory of violence as immoral in comparison to non-violent methods like Gandhi’s. A lot can be said about Gandhi, but Fanon says that non-violence is a strategy created by the colonizer to deter decolonization and paint the colonizer as a gentle ruler who wants peace. This is not the case. Colonialism is a violent system. Capitalism is a violent system. Colonialism can only be undone violently. Capitalism can only be undone violently. Now I don't mean to make this all about colonialism, as my friends say I often do. But the similarities are clear. The question isn’t whether the murder of Mr. Park was a justified act, but what were the conditions that forced Ki-taek to murder. Geun-sae killed Ki-jung, but no one in the comment section is having a debate on whether his murder was ethical. Because in our heads we feel bad for him, and the life that he’s lived- why don’t we feel the same towards Ki-taek? Geun-sae and Ki-taek are two sides of the same coin. Geun-sae’s exploitation is naked. He’s confined to the basement, controlling the lights of the home. A feature of the house that Mr. Park doesn't even pay attention to, never mind considering that there is someone manually operating it. A clear example of how our labor is alienated. All while blindly worshipping Mr. Park- a man who knows nothing of his existence. Honestly, I hope some of you see yourselves in Geun-sae the next time you defend billionaires online. But Ki-taek is just another exploited worker. I understand this can be hard to understand in our current understanding of the world. How is Ki-taek exploited? Him and his family conned their way into their jobs and leech off of the Parks. Again, we must return to the system as a whole to understand. None of this wouldn’t have happened if the Kims weren’t desperately poor in a capitalist society, which enables families like the Parks, to live a life of excess at the expense of the Kims. Capitalism is a system of exploitation; we cannot forget that. Quite simply, no one is rich without thousands that are poor.

The levels of the home are also this unforgettable feature. I just want to make this quick note about the issue of the ghost. Did you forget about the ghost? Da-Song didn’t (yes, I finally looked his name up!). I find the story of the ghost such an interesting touch. Not just as a way for Bong to warn the audience about Da-Song’s history of seizures. When Mrs. Park tells Chung-sook of the story, she says “they say a ghost in the house brings wealth.” This, of course, is true since the exploitation of those like Geun-sae are responsible for the wealth of the Parks, in the larger picture. I’d like to look further into this. There's a twofold meaning to this. I do believe that this ghost is symbolic to the exploitation of the Kims, and the proletariat in general, but that’s Mrs. Park’s understanding of this ghost. The way she understands this ghost, is as a source of wealth. Maybe Mrs. Park isn’t as ditzy as we imagine- she to some degree, understands her class position. But like most, she doesn’t question the ghost, or her class position. She knows that if she looks into either, it would result in the ugly truth. Da-Song, however, is just a child. He’s too young to really understand the economic and social relations which are responsible for his wealth. He’s also too young to consciously suppress any desire to investigate the matter like his mother. He is a child after all and is naturally curious. But his first encounter with the ghost was the one that resulted in a near fatal seizure. This can be his body’s reaction to the life-threatening figure of a ghost. The ghost isn’t just a threat to his mortal life, but his wealth, some may argue that these are the same. Mrs. Park pays for therapy for his “trauma” so he could forget the event, but he still knows. He saw this ghost and is the only one to seriously consider its threat. Mrs. Park knows it's real but chooses to not think about it. I want to return to the Manifesto. Let's hear these famous words: “A specter is haunting Europe- the specter of communism… Two things result from this fact: Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers itself to be a power...” (Marx and Engels, 8). Don’t think I’m just including this because he’s talking about a specter, in fact, I think this story of the ghost is an intentional allusion to the specter of communism. Da-Song represents this figure of the bourgeoisie who is in constant anxiety over the threat of his wealth. When he reappears at his birthday party, he has another seizure. Also, at this time, the family, and all of their guests are witness to the horrors of their wealth and what it's created. This naked, hideous display, this moment of confrontation is a pivotal point in the dialectic. Of course, this murderous moment is not seen as a success to the viewer with Mr. Park, Ki-jung, and Geun-sae dead, Ki-woo presumed to be dead, and Ki-taek missing. This just shows us that the bourgeoisie are their own gravediggers- to again invoke the Manifesto. On a larger scale, this would be the moment of a revolution- but we don’t. Ki-woo survives with Chung-sook and is put on probation. Ki-taek is missing to the police, but Ki-taek realizes that he’s living in the bunker in hiding. Ki-woo declares that he will make enough money to buy the home and free his father. At first, I wondered “why couldn't he just sneak him out of the house when the new owners were asleep?” “Why did he have to buy the home?” As much as I wanted to portray the Kims to be revolutionary figures, Ki-woo has the common fate of most. Instead of usurping power from the bourgeoisie, he believes he can free his dad from the home, by owning the house. Everyone who lives in the basement is stuck there for a reason, because someone is forcing them to stay there. A perfect allegory for the relations of production as I have repeatedly mentioned throughout this text. Ki-woo desires a bourgeois life (as most working-class folk do!) in order to lift his father out of the despair of poverty. He believes the only way he can save his father is to own the home, which could easily be seen as the means of production. A nice touch which I had to look up, was as Ki-woo tells us of his desire to buy the home, a song plays called “546 years”- the amount of time it will take for him to earn enough money. I wish this song title was more obvious for the American viewer. I am not trying to take away from this film by saying that, but for a viewer who knows Korean or the song title, they’ll understand the tragic nature of his dreams. Whereas the American viewers will sympathize with his dreams- as we’ve done with immigrants and “the American Dream” or the bootstrapping mentality of some people. In some way I do think Bong didn’t want an overtly revolutionary ending. I don’t think the average viewer, especially in this day, could handle an ending like that. Not to say that we don't understand class inequality and such. We are not living in, say the 60s/70s where there were Marxist movements all throughout the world. I don’t think we have the conditions for a revolution at this moment, although I do think the mass unemployment and the other severe economic consequences of this virus will radicalize the working class in large numbers, to a degree that we haven't seen in a long time. But to make my point, I feel that we are living in historic political times and we are coming to understand ourselves in a liberating way. It is my hope that films like Parasite will awaken the revolutionary potential in us all.

Note: I wanted to use Fanon’s theory of violence and diagnosis of colonialism as a violent structure, in relation to capitalist society. I don’t want us to interpret his writings as something that can be isolated from the racial structure of colonialism, but i do think it is a beneficial guide to understanding this film.

Work Cited:

Philcox, Richard, translator. “On Violence.” The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon, Grove Press, 2004.

Joon-Ho, Bong, director. Parasite. Barunson E&A, 2019.

Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. The Communist Manifesto. International Publishers, 1948.

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nerdsideofthemedia · 5 years

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Bumblebee was always the plan

After seeing a few comments on this, I made a part 2.

I’ve written about this before and I was hoping never to return to this subject, but hanging around RWBY communities has kind of forced my hand. Unfortunately, this probably won’t be the only controversial post I write about RWBY’s fandom.

Even though a huge chunk of the fandom has been convinced Bumblebee was going to happen, there were more than a few people who decided to ignore all the signs. Even after 6×12, there were still people trying to remain in denial, which is fine: you do you, but it’s amazing how then they got upset when BBers turned out not to be interested in believing in their lie. Now, I don’t intend to go through all the moments of foreshadowing for the relationship – there are tons of texts about it – but I am still going to address a few moments to prove that it was heavily hinted at, while also addressing the ignorance towards LGBTQ+ experiences.

The injury

To me, I think Yang’s and Sun’s injuries are everything I should need to prove the likelihood of BB as they contrast the two main Blake ships: Bumblebee and Black Sun. While heroes tend to save many people who are indeed just friends or sometimes not even that, there’s a reason why Superman and Spiderman usually include Lois Lane and MJ (or whoever the love interest is in said film) in the climax – it makes it more personal, raising the stakes. From this perspective, it’s easy to understand the importance given to either by comparing: what the injury was, who caused it, why and Blake’s reaction, thus allowing to conclude which couple was given more weight.

What was the injury? Yang lost an arm and suffered from PTSD. Sun, on the other hand, received a minor injury from which he had almost completely recovered from by the next episode and left no lasting damages. Point Bumblebee. Some have tried to argue that Sun was actually hit by an electric weapon, so he could have died, but, ultimately, what matters is what actually happens, not what could have been. As far as we know, he didn’t even get a limitation in movement.

Who caused it? In Yang’s case, it was Adam, while in Sun’s, it was Ilia. So ex-boyfriend vs friend whose feelings were not reciprocated. This one is a no brainer: again point Bumblebee as the first one is more associated with romance. Yang having her arm cut by Adam linked them. By the way, don’t forget Yang and Adam are foils for each other.

Why? Yang was trying to save Blake, while Sun… questioned Ilia’s being a Faunus. If you want to super charitable with him, I can give you: because Ilia was trying to intimidate Blake into giving her back her scroll. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter because neither scenario holds a candle to the first one. Point Bumblebee.

What was Blake’s reaction? When it was Adam vs Yang, she put herself between them and used her semblance to get the latter to safety. When Sun got injured, instead of putting herself between him and Ilia, she stood still and refused to comply with Ilia’s demand. If you feel tempted to say: well, that’s because Ilia’s not as dangerous as Adam, then I have to say: exactly! She could have been, but the writers decided not to do that. Pretty much like Sun could have been the one being associated with Blake’s ex, but he wasn’t. Again, point Bumblebee.

Bonus points:

The use of the Kuleshov effect when Adam says “I’ll destroy everything you love…”, Yang appears, “starting with her”. I can already hear the screeches “Love doesn’t have to mean romance”. Thanks dude, I know. This is where looking at the rest of the scene comes in: it’s why I compared the scene where Yang gets injured to the one with Sun. The writers could have chosen to phrase it differently like “I’ll destroy everything you care about”, but they didn’t. Also, in V5, they got the opportunity to associate that word with Sun and Blake, yet they went for… “classmate”. You know writers care about the words used, right?

By the way, some people tried to argue that Adam just immediately notices the deep love between Yang and Blake. While I don’t disagree that he understands that Blake cares about Yang, the point is for the audience to associate the word “love” with those 2.

More bonus points

Sun was there when Yang decided to go after Blake in V3 and put Weiss in charge of going after Ruby. This shows 2 things: 1) Blake means more to her than to Sun; 2) Yang prioritizes going after Blake over her own sister. That only changed during V4 and V5 because she felt betrayed by Blake for leaving, especially when she needed her as she was struggling with losing an arm and having PTSD.

After the fall, Sun looks at an injured Blake and Yang while the first apologizes to the latter with tears in her eyes. That shot exists for Sun to realize the connection between the 2 girls, not for him to see Blake injured, otherwise it would have been better if Yang had been kept out of the frame, not to mention that he had already seen her injured. If I had to get inside his mind, I’d say that is the moment he realizes how much Yang means to Blake and it’s the reason why he brings up Yang in V4 after his injury.

If you need proof of the romantic undertones of this scene, just tell it to a friend, but swap Yang’s gender and you’ll see just how much more impactful Yang vs Adam is in relation to Sun vs Ilia. Don’t forget to mention that Adam is Blake’s ex-boyfriend while Ilia is the friend whose feelings weren’t reciprocated. Also, Adam’s line “I will destroy everything you love… starting with him”, while our gender-bent Yang enters the scene.

Dance arc

It also accomplishes a few things:

It straight up shows us that Yang understands Blake better than anyone and can get through to her like no one else;

It has Yang flirt with Blake, phrasing her invitation to the dance as “If you feel like coming out tomorrow, I’ll save a dance” and winks;

Yang comments on how she’ll be turning heads, yet the only head she turns is Blake’s.

All of the rest of team wears a dress of their colors: Ruby-red, Weiss-white, Blake-black, yet Yang uses a white one instead of yellow. I think that was to create a yin-yang effect with her and Blake. (apparently this was the result of an animation problem).

Establishes the parallel between Bumblebee and Arkos as their scenes are intertwined, which happens again in V3

(After reading the comments on rwby wiki, I have to add: those were phrased deliberately that way. I know: writers care about how they word things... shock! If you think the "coming out" or the "turning heads" were phrased accidentally with Blake turning her head also accidentally, I'm sorry but you don't know anything about writing and filmmaking. There is no way the writers didn't know "coming out" is associated with LGBTQ+ and they didn't have to phrase that way. Also, there's this thing called "editing" where writers (and others) reread the script - if those weren't intentional, they would have been detected and changed during this phase. It's about other scene, but here you go).

Bumblebee also resembles Renora as the friendship turned more and one could easily make an argument there were no hints of romance for Renora until V4, yet no one bothers to as if there are huge double standards when it comes to straight and LGBTQ+ couples: whenever two characters of the opposite gender have an interaction that can be seen as romantic or platonic, it’s seen as the first, while if the same happens to same gender, they are put in the platonic category.

Songs

Ok, so Bmblb isn’t canon, but it was still written with Bumblebee in mind. It is full of references to bees and puns, the latter was probably like the third thing the writers put on Yang’s character sheet, which probably looked like this: 1) anger issues 2) semblance: absorb and dish out energy 3) loves puns.

Bmblb is undoubtedly a love song between Yang and Blake, unlike BS song Not Fall in Love With You which was a pop song written before RWBY was even a thing. Oh, and Like Morning Follows Night isn’t romantic, except for a few Sun’s lines, but Blake’s part never treats him more than friend. Once, I read a comment saying this song was written because Jeff hates BB and finds BBers annoying. Look, if that were true (and it’s a big “if”), then, not only Jeff would be pretty petty, he’d also be incredibly stupid (again, huge “if”), because he’d OK with queerbaiting, plus it’s pretty obvious BBers would get louder as it confirmed their ship.

Armed and Ready’s first 2 verses are about Yang losing her arm and replaying the scene in her mind and within those verses she mentions “there’s nothing I won’t do for her”, which often is associated with love (“and I’d do anything for love” – not the time to express my love for that Meat Loaf’s song? My bad).

All that Matters, which includes the lines “never thought you would stay forever/never asked you to commit your life”, that definitely have a romantic connotation. The entire song reveals just how much Yang feels for Blake, even though she feels betrayed.

Red Like Roses compares Blake to the Beast and Yang to the Beauty. Tale as old as time indeed.

I could go on, but seriously just read the posts I linked to before.

So, why did Bumblebee caught so many by surprise?

Well, that one is obvious: because it’s a LGBTQ+ couple. When it comes to those, most will remain in denial and interpret everything that can be romantic or platonic as the latter while they won’t do that for heterosexual couples. Again, Renora didn’t have to be framed as romantic until V4, yet most people did think of them that way and (almost) no one complained when they became a couple.

Yet, with Bumblebee, people chose to stay in denial until the very last episode of V6 (some even after that), though it was obvious 2 episodes before. A huge part of V6 was about Bumblebee: them mending their wounds and understanding their (and each other’s) feelings. Adam attacked Yang out of jealousy, tried to make her insecure about her relationship with Blake by claiming she had promised to stay with him and didn’t keep it and, then asked “what does she even see in you?”. In spite of this, there were still people trying to deny Bumblebee as if that question appears outside a romantic context.

After all… Blake and Yang were totally straight, right? Content warning for fragile egos: yap, we’re going to talk about heteronormativity and bisexual erasure.

What do heteronormativity and bisexual erasure mean?

In this context, heteronormativity means the assumption that everyone is straight until proven otherwise. By the way, some people like to pretend this is the skeptic’s position, but it’s not. An actual skeptic (which are much rarer than internet would have you believe, because it conflates skepticism with atheism) would assume ignorance when they don’t have the complete facts. Unless a character said they are only attracted to the opposite gender or something that makes it unambiguous they are straight, they might not be. Sorry, but I’m just a bit too old to believe in a “straight of the gaps”. Sure, most people/characters are straight, but if you assume everyone is, you’ll be wrong a bunch of times.

Bisexual erasure is the failure to consider bisexuality is a thing. To be fair, most people who do this, also fail to consider pan and asexuality. To them, people are either gay or straight. And, yes, most will recognize bisexuality exists when called out, yet still fail to consider it when making an argument. They’ll point out Blake can’t be into Yang, because she had a boyfriend as if that excludes interest in girls. Spoiler alert: not only it doesn’t exclude bisexuality, it can actually not even exclude her as a lesbian (I’ll return to this later).

Both of the comments above illustrate the problems I pointed out (with the second being pretty douchey and hilariously proven wrong now). The people above act if characters aren’t straight, writers need to show it right away. After all, don’t we all meet people by saying “My name is X and my sexual orientation is y”? Or make sure people see us check out people of the opposite/same gender or both genders to reveal our sexual orientation? Just me? Not even me? OK.

I think I’ve covered the fact that attraction to the opposite gender doesn’t exclude attraction to the same. Now, let’s take a look on Yang and Blake’s interest in boys.

The only time Yang expressed interest in boys was in episode 1×03, when she was ogling some shirtless ones. “Yeah. How do you explain that? Zing”. Hold your horses mate, here’s how:

Compulsory heterosexuality (yes, I intend to explain that too, so hold your tongue/fingers before doing a GoT impression saying “shame!” over and over again);

Episode 1×03 is pretty early on, so the writers may not have yet figured out the character’s sexuality, which is supported by an interview with Monty where, when asked about future LGBTQ+ characters, he responded they might already be there, they (and writers) hadn’t figured it out yet;

It was just a joke. I have to ask if you put so much weight on Yang being straight because of that joke, why do you not exclude her as being straight (or even bi) when she makes a joke revealing disinterest in Sun’s abs? Yang is totally straight because she likes guys with abs and when she doesn’t, it has no meaning. Sorry people, but if you put so much weight in one moment where she shows interest in guys for comedic purposes, then you have to put it in equal amount in the moment she shows disinterest in guys for comedic purposes. I may not like Sun, but eternally-unbuttoned-shirt-guy-with-well-defined-abs was definitely designed to be hot. So was Neptune, by the way, yet our flirty girl couldn’t have shown to be less interested in him even though he tried to flirt with her. Our straight girl!

Compulsory heterosexuality refers to the concept that heterosexuality can be adopted by people regardless of their personal sexual preference. Basically, heterosexuality is expected and we are raised to believe that is the normal, as a result many LGBTQ+ people believe to be straight until something or someone makes them question that. So no, not everyone who is LGBTQ+ knows it right away. Many figure themselves out during their teenage years, others find out much later.

About Blake’s sexuality, all we know is she dated Adam and might have had a crush on Sun at some point. Again, this does not exclude LGBTQ+, not even the L, since, again, she might have not figured herself out. I doubt she’s a lesbian, pan/bi is more likely, but it’s still a possibility. Oh, and asexual people can have relationships too.

I’m sure some may be thinking “she has only liked guys”, but 2 isn’t a big number (and only 1 was confirmed). Like I said, in order to assert she’s straight there needs to be evidence, which there isn’t. At most, you have evidence she probably likes guys, which again doesn’t exclude her liking girls (I may be sounding awfully repetitive, but trust me, this case warrants it).

Now, some people like to pretend to feel shamed when someone claims that “If Yang was a guy, you wouldn’t see them as just friends”. I agree with the argument because… well, it’s obviously true: most people think of relationships as involving 2 people of the opposite gender, even if they are aware others exist (didn’t we just cover that some LGBTQ+ go through a self-discovery process because of that?). However, it’s ultimately counterproductive. People who do this usually aren’t aware of it (and if they are, they’ll lie about it) and it can’t be proven, usually.

Of course, some let their masks slip away too much. The person who inspired this part of the rant constantly faked outrage when called out for their behavior. They did all of it: presumed straight until proven otherwise and pretended one can be only either straight or gay. Even after being called out several times, they constantly demanded evidence that Yang and Blake weren’t straight (this was before the end of V6, obviously), though they, of course, had to provide no proof they were. Still, when someone said the endgame pairings would be SunxBlake, YangxIlia and OscarxRuby, guess what evidence they asked for? If you guessed Yang being LGBTQ+, congratulations! You win the internet!

I think I don’t have to point out the ridiculousness of asking for that when neither Oscar nor Ruby have expressed any romantic or sexual interest in anyone, regardless of gender (in 6 volumes). According to the logic of these internet-skeptics (which means: believers in gut feeling, but in denial about it), Ruby and Oscar should be asexual and aromantic until proven otherwise. Yet, even then, the assumption is they’re straight. Again, LGBTQ+ needs evidence and absence of it means evidence of absence, straight doesn’t. No double standards at all.

I think it’s time to wrap this up: writers don’t have to tell a character’s sexual orientation in the beginning. And if two characters of the same gender have interactions that can be seen as either romantic or platonic, yet you frame them always as the second, while doing the opposite for pairs of different genders – that’s on you. And if you insist on faking outrage and shame when someone points all this out (yes, it’s fake – I know it, you know it, everyone knows it), and want to keep playing the “I’m not going to be part of the system” card (’cause it’s so brave to be part of the status quo) and throwing stuff on the ground, go right ahead. Throw a hot dog, a birthday cake, your cellphone, your computer even. In the end, it changes nothing: LGBTQ+ people exist and so should LGBTQ+ characters. If you have a problem with that and demand a ridiculous standard from them that you’d never do from a straight couple, here’s a hint: sometimes, you’re just not the target audience.