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archiewindsor · 2 years

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Gloria Steinem, the Duchess of Sussex, and Jessica Yellin on Abortion Rights, the ERA, and Why They Won’t Give Up Hope

On June 26—two days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—Jessica Yellin, the award-winning journalist and founder of the independent media company News Not Noise, called the two people she knew could put that seismic event into perspective. The first? Gloria Steinem. The second? Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.

Steinem, the face of American feminism, and Meghan, a vocal advocate for paid leave and fair labor rights for women, have been friends since 2020. After Meghan learned that they were both sheltering in place in Montecito, California, she asked if Steinem wanted to help her make calls thanking voter-registration organizers. Steinem agreed.

That connection soon blossomed into an alliance, and for the past several months, Steinem and Meghan have been formulating a plan to get the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) ratified. (“It would explicitly extend to women the rights granted in the Constitution to men,” Yellin tells Vogue. “The ERA would change the playing field for women’s reproductive rights, women’s workplace rights, and so much more. For decades Steinem has been advocating for its enactment, and now Meghan is joining in.”)

So, when the Supreme Court’s ruling came down, Yellin decided to moderate a conversation between the two advocates about their own reproductive choices, the realities of America pre-Roe and post-Roe, and, most importantly, where the country goes from here. “I entered this conversation feeling disoriented by the new reality—anxious that there is no clear path forward. Opponents of abortion built so much infrastructure over so many years. How can that be answered quickly, and how many lives will be destroyed in the meantime?” Yellin says. “For now, some women will be denied basic life-saving medical care because of a power struggle in a dysfunctional political system. But after this conversation, I was reminded that change starts with simple actions—and deadly setbacks sometimes precede transformational change.”

Read their wide-ranging conversation below.

Jessica Yellin: I hear from so many people—they’re feeling panic, confusion. They’re looking for guidance on what to do now. Let’s talk about the immediate impact of this ruling. Women in 13 states are seeing their reproductive rights vanish. And in another 13 they’ll likely be severely restricted. Tens of millions of women will have to make brutal choices, and we know that some will die. For people who were born after 1973 and have no idea what that was like, would you tell us a little about the reality of being a pregnant woman before Roe?

Gloria Steinem: There were underground networks, most famously Jane. That is where you called up a particular number and asked for Jane and that meant you needed an abortion. And there were women who bravely guided you. In my situation, I was in London, not this country, when I needed an abortion and was lucky to find a physician in the equivalent of the Yellow Pages, who said that if I promised him two things—one, that I would never tell anyone his name and two, that I would do what I wish to do with my life—he would send me to a woman doctor who would do the abortion. I dedicated a book to him. He’s no longer with us. So I thought it was okay, finally, after all these years, to do that.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex: That gave me chills, Gloria. Also that you were in the hands of someone who understood that it was your choice to create the life that you wanted for yourself. That’s so powerful.

G.S.: Yes. And I kept my promise. Without him, I would have been stopped there. I was working as a waitress in London waiting for my visa to India, where I had a fellowship. I wouldn’t have been able to do that. My life would’ve stopped there.

Meghan, for women who live in the states where trigger laws have already gone into effect, they will learn quickly what life was like before Roe.

M: This is having a very real impact on women’s bodies and lives starting now. Women are already sharing stories of how their physical safety is being put in danger. Women with resources will travel to get an abortion, those without might attempt to give themselves one at tremendous risk. Some will have to source abortion pills from unregulated pharmacies. Others who are pregnant and find themselves in a medical emergency will be at the mercy of doctors and lawyers to determine if a procedure that is needed to save her life can even be done at all. What does this tell women? It tells us that our physical safety doesn’t matter, and as a result that we don’t matter. But we do. Women matter. And this is one of the reasons that I called Gloria immediately. Because in all of it, she reminds me that when you have anger, you have to channel that energy into something that makes a difference. That’s what activism is. It’s about how we show up.

G.S.: Meghan, I owe this friendship to you because I did not realize that in California, where I was sheltering on a friend’s ranch, we were neighbors—or at least what is called neighbors in California, which means you’re, what, a half-hour away. [Laughs.] It was you who realized that and came to the farmhouse where I was. Then we sat at the dining room table and made cold calls together.

M: I was thrilled. I was nervous too. I thought, Oh my goodness, how am I going to be in front of Gloria Steinem? The [presidential] election was coming up soon and we both knew the value of women and everyone getting out to vote. The ripple effect of elections matters so much, and that’s what we’re seeing now, unfortunately.

G.S.: A big part of the problem, of course, is that we have a Supreme Court that does not represent the country. Perhaps because I’ve been here longer, which means I’ve been here before, I say we are going to do what we need and wish to do. Something like one in three American women had an abortion when it was illegal. The need and the right to govern one’s own body continues. We need to translate it into a political reality.

Many of the states that are banning abortion, Meghan, are also those with the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality, especially for Black women. Across the U.S., Black women are almost three times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or childbirth, and Black infants have twice the mortality rate of white infants. How concerned are you that this ruling will have an outsized impact on those women? And what specifically worries you?

M: These issues are systemic, interconnected, and preventable. Women of color and especially Black women are most impacted by these decisions because most of us don’t have the same access to health care, economic opportunity, mental health resources…the list goes on. It’s difficult to overstate what this decision is going to do to these communities.

G.S.: When I first entered into this struggle for reproductive freedom as a fundamental human right, it was the 1970s. Ruth Ginsburg was with the ACLU and she sent me to Alabama to talk with a Black woman who had been sterilized without her knowledge or permission when she went into the hospital for something else entirely. So, you know, this was a struggle with quite a few state legislatures to keep them from allowing the sterilization of women who were on public support.

Gloria, Representative Mary Miller of Illinois was at a Trump rally this weekend, and she thanked President Trump for “the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court.” Her office insists that she misspoke and meant to say “right-to-life,” not white life, but her language does track with a strain of thought in the antiabortion movement that’s about race and demographics. Would you give us a little more context and history on that?

G.S.: There is a proportion of this country that is well aware that the first generation of babies who are majority babies of color has already been born. And that means that the country could and would become a country where people of color are the majority. Then we’ll look more like the rest of the world. But if you’re a white racist, it’s obviously frightening. So the same forces that were in favor of the forced sterilization of women of color on welfare are now frequently against abortion.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said that the court should “correct the error” of allowing for same-sex marriage, same-sex relationships, and even contraception. Legal analysts I trust argue that same-sex marriage is most at risk from this court. James Obergefell, who brought the case that legalized same-sex marriage, has warned it’s in danger. Meghan, how concerned are you not just for women, but for other groups who fought to gain rights in the U.S.? Do you think this is a canary-in-the-coal-mine moment?

M: Absolutely. We saw it in plain terms with Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion. This is a blueprint for reversing rights. The ruling is a signal about the future of same-sex marriage, contraception access, and many fundamental rights to privacy. It feels like the tip of the iceberg and is part of why people feel so scared. We have to channel that fear into action. We can start this November in the midterms. I know hearing that feels so repetitive, but we have to vote, every time, from local elections to state and national elections.

Editor’s note: “It’s worth remembering that abortion opponents did not win this victory overnight,” Yellin adds. “They formed the National Right to Life Committee in 1967, before Roe but just after the Griswold case, which legalized contraceptives for married couples. The Federalist Society, which gave legal intellectual heft to the movement, was founded in 1982. These groups and others worked for decades to elect politicians who would fill courts with anti-abortion judges.”

“When you have anger, you have to channel that energy into something that makes a difference. That’s what activism is. It’s about how we show up”

So, let’s talk about what can be done. People ask what they can get behind, where they can make a difference. Is the fight now at the state level, working for new laws and bringing challenges to existing restrictions? Is it getting out the vote nationally and electing pro-choice candidates? Where would you tell people to focus their attention?

G.S.: It depends where the person is. If they’re living in an anti-choice state or with a state that has a majority anti-choice legislature, then working politically is very important. If they’re in a pro-choice state where the clinics are being picketed or not supported, then it’s important to protect and support those clinics. But wherever we are, we can make clear that reproductive freedom is a fundamental right like freedom of speech.

M: It’s a much larger conversation about why for years, for decades, we’re fighting to get a constitutional amendment put through [the Equal Rights Amendment] that makes it clear that women can be treated equally, and how it is completely nonsensical that that’s even something we’re still fighting for. And Gloria, you know, we’ve talked about how to continue to push that through. I think now is probably the time more than ever before.

G.S.: We are the only democracy in the world that doesn’t include women in its constitution. I think we should put big billboards up in every airport where people arrive from other countries saying, “Welcome to the only democracy in the world that doesn’t include women.” Maybe that would embarrass people into action. All the necessary states have ratified [the ERA], and it just needs acceptance in Congress. So if the president made it a priority, it could happen. It means that we would be on the same standing of inclusiveness as every other democracy in the world.

Editor’s note: The ERA likely as the votes—all that’s needed now is the signature of the Archivist of the United States, who heads the National Archives and Records Administration. While proponents are calling on elected Democrats to get involved, opponents insist that the deadline to pass the ERA has expired.

Meghan, is that an issue you want to tackle?

M: Without question. Being home, seeing what’s happening in our country and feeling energized and motivated, if this is the type of legislation that we need pushed through, then this is a moment that I am absolutely going to show up for. Not just because it’s what we need as women, but it’s what we need as people.

G.S.: The ERA has been ratified by the requisite number of states and we should put the pressure on the White House and Congress to enact it.

M: Well, Gloria, maybe it seems as though you and I will be taking a trip to D.C. together soon.

There’s so much stigma around all this. I think it’s important to normalize conversations about abortion and women’s health. What do those topics bring up for you?

M: I think about how fortunate I felt to be able to have both of my children. I know what it feels like to have a connection to what is growing inside of your body. What happens with our bodies is so deeply personal, which can also lead to silence and stigma, even though so many of us deal with personal health crises. I know what miscarrying feels like, which I’ve talked about publicly. The more that we normalize conversation about the things that affect our lives and bodies, the more people are going to understand how necessary it is to have protections in place.

This is about women’s physical safety. It’s also about economic justice, individual autonomy, and who we are as a society. Nobody should be forced to make a decision they do not want to make, or is unsafe, or puts their own life in jeopardy. Frankly, whether it’s a woman being put in an unthinkable situation, a woman not ready to start a family, or even a couple who deserve to plan their family in a way that makes the most sense for them, it’s about having a choice. It’s interesting that here you’re talking to two women: one who chose to give birth happily, and one who chose not to give birth happily. And we’re both prospering because we were able to make our own choices. Incredible.

G.S.: This is as old as human beings. I remember a couple of decades ago sitting with women in the Kalahari Desert as they showed me one plant that they used to increase fertility and one that they used as an abortifacient. This is hardly a new consideration, and in our Native American cultures here, too, it was understood.

It’s worth saying this shouldn’t just be on women. There is never an abortion without sperm. What would you say to men who support reproductive rights?

M: Men need to be vocal in this moment and beyond because these are decisions that affect relationships, families, and communities at large. They may target women, but the consequences impact all of us. My husband and I talked about that a lot over the past few days. He’s a feminist too.

G.S.: Yes—I can testify to that since I met him before I met you. He was at a big meeting I attended and he was advocating for people’s rights.

M: And his reaction last week was guttural, like mine. I know that for so many women right now, there is a sentiment of despair. But again, we have to band together and not wallow. We have to do the work.

G.S.: Also, you and I are in states where there is reproductive freedom—New York and California. So it is a state-by-state question, and unfortunately the Supreme Court has allowed it to remain a state-by-state question.

Gloria, what kind of impact does it have when people like Meghan and Harry own this issue, speaking openly about abortion and equal rights and reproductive access—a happy man and woman with a huge public platform?

G.S.: It’s very, very, very important. Because what they both have is trust. We trust them and nothing but nothing replaces trust. It is the most important quality or attribute. We can see things on television and not believe them or not trust them. But when people like these two tell us, then we trust it.

M: Thank you. That’s really kind

Gloria, I’m listening to this conversation and I wonder, are you passing the baton to another generation and a new voice to help carry forward the work you’ve done?

G.S.: Well, you know, it’s true, though I plan to live to 100.

We hope you do!

M: You will. My goodness, Gloria, I hope it’s even longer than 100. And you’ll still be wearing these incredible leather pants.

G.S.: I do have to recognize my own age, but I’m not passing the baton. I’m keeping the baton, but understanding that we each have a baton; there’s not just one.

Meghan, what do you think this moment requires?

M: This moment requires unity—really listening to people, understanding the Constitution was written at a time when women were second-class citizens. We’re not. Certain things need to change. I think it’s equally about honoring the people who’ve been doing the work long before us, like Gloria. I’m grateful that I’m holding a baton right there next to her and that we will continue to be doing this work together.

G.S.: Yes, we are chosen family. I feel just as thankful to Meghan for being the present, the future—for taking risks of criticism by standing up for what she believes in and what the majority needs.

M: I always look at things with the undercurrent of hope. If you are someone who truly believes that there can be something better, if you’re someone who sees injustice, you have a choice: You can sit there and be complacent and watch it, or you can say, “What can I do to get us to the other side of this?” That’s another reason why I called Gloria, because I knew what I was looking for. What do we do? How do we do it? How do we support each other? How do we get the necessary changes across the line? What we need, in this moment, is to start with hope.

GS: I think we need to remember that hope is a form of planning. [Laughs.] If you’re not hopeful, you’ve given up.

VOGUE, June 2022

#duchess of sussex #lili's mum #archie's mum #vogue interview #roe v wade #women's reproductive rights #abortion rights #june 2022

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jamlavender · 3 years

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Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss: Mrs Coulter, misogyny and the His Dark Materials TV show

The show went hard on misogyny as a vital part of Mrs Coulter’s backstory, and I want to talk about how they did it, and why, and how it might have been done better. This is quite long (when is anything I write not, let’s be real) so it’s under the cut. Read on for thoughts on women, power and fictional villainy.

As a quick disclaimer, though: I’ve enjoyed the show a lot! I’m so glad they made it! Ruth Wilson is mesmerising as Mrs Coulter! There’s so much to appreciate about the show overall, including many aspects of Mrs Coulter’s portrayal. But the HDM team have also made gender politics and misogyny very explicit themes of the show – particularly season two, particularly season two, episode five – and I think it’s fair to critique that.

Let’s be clear: Mrs Coulter is a villain. She murders kids by tearing out their souls. She kills and tortures friends and foes alike without a second thought. She abuses her daughter. She upholds and advances a totalitarian regime. She’s a Bad Person, as confirmed by God himself with the unforgettable line: “You are a cesspit of moral filth.” She’s fucking terrible, but, in life as in art, many of us are fascinated by how such awful people are made. What drives someone to commit atrocities? I am keen to see such questions examined in fiction, because I don’t think exploring a character necessarily means excusing their actions, and because it’s interesting (I mean, of course I find her fascinating, I’ve written a novel’s worth of fic about her). However, after a few snarky comments (“What sort of woman raised Father Graves, do you think?”) and some subtler commentary on sexuality, gender and power (her unsettling MacPhail with the key in the bra in S1E2), S2E5 drew a weird line between sexism in Mrs Coulter’s professional and academic life and her vast and senseless institutionalised child murder, and the longer I’ve sat with that the more I’m like: what the fuck?

Look, Mrs Coulter doesn’t tear apart children to search for sin inside them and poison Boreal and break a witch’s fingers because she’s experienced sexism in the workplace and in her education. That’s… a very odd thing to imply. We have to remember that there are lots of women in Lyra’s world, all of whom will also have experienced sexism, misogyny and other forms of marginalisation (many in more expansive and pernicious ways than Mrs Coulter, who’s a woman, yes, but also white, wealthy, highly educated and very thin and beautiful), and none of them are running arctic torture stations. She will have experienced misogyny, absolutely, and that will have affected her in various ways that inform how she approaches her work, but to imply that being denied a doctorate is the reason she became a sadistic killer is frankly bizarre. Here are a few of the lines from that episode with my commentary:

“Do you know who I could have been in this world?” What does this mean? If she’d been roughly the same person in our world, the answer is: Margaret Thatcher, which is probably a step down for Marisa, all things considered, because the Magisterium is far more autocratic than any recent Tory government and would be a much easier institutional environment in which to enact her cruelty. What we’re supposed to think, clearly, is that she’d have been a different person: a scientist and a mother, and she’s had this realisation because she saw a woman with a baby and a laptop and had a three-minute conversation with Mary. This doesn’t make sense. We live in our world! It’s less repressive than Lyra’s world but it’s hardly a gender utopia. If Mrs Coulter had chosen the scientist-and-mother life (which, as I’ll revisit later, she could have done in her world but chose not to because of her megalomaniac tendencies), she’d still have been affected by misogyny here too. Our world is not kind to young mothers, nor young women embroiled in scandals, nor is the world teeming with female physicists. It might be a little better, sure, but it’s hardly as if those gendered challenges would have been solved.

“What do you mean she runs a department?” This is just the show forgetting its own canon. Marisa, you ran a massive government organisation (the GOB), including a huge murder science research initiative in the Arctic. That’s a much bigger undertaking and much more impressive than running a university department in our world. Pull yourself together.

“But because I was a woman, I was denied a doctorate by the Magisterium.” This is the show flagrantly ignoring the source material to make a clumsy political point. In the books, there are women with doctorates (notably Hannah Relf, also a major player in the new Book of Dust trilogy) and at least one women’s college full of female scholars. Now, would that women’s college likely be underfunded and disrespected compared to the men’s colleges? Almost certainly. But saying that is different than saying “I couldn’t get my doctorate!” when women in Lyra’s world can. The show knew what point they wanted to make, and were willing to ignore canon to do so, which is frustrating. Also, given that there are female academics and scientists in Lyra’s world, and that Mrs Coulter is a member of St Sophia’s college, it’s clear that she could have lived that life if she so desired. But she didn’t want that, because being a scientist and academic at St Sophia’s imbues her with no real power, and that’s what she craves.

I’m not opposed, in theory, to exploring Mrs Coulter and misogyny in more depth, but I think doing so through an examination of the sexual politics of her life would have made a lot more narrative sense and been much more powerful. It’s better evidenced in the text – her using her sexuality to manipulate people and taking lovers for political sway is entirely canon, as is her backstory where genuine love and lust blew up her life – and it links much more closely with the most shocking of her villainy, which involves cutting out children’s dæmons to stop them developing “troublesome thoughts and feelings,” referencing sexual and romantic desire (and what Lyra and Will do to save Dust is clearly a big ‘fuck you’ to those aims). She even says this to MacPhail in TAS, “If you thought for one moment that I would release my daughter into the care - the care! - of a body of men with a feverish obsession with sexuality, men with dirty fingernails, reeking of ancient sweat, men whose furtive imaginations would crawl over her body like cockroaches - if you thought I would expose my child to that, my Lord President, you are more stupid than you take me for.” Don’t get me wrong, she’d have been a villain regardless, but I do believe that there’s a much stronger link between her sexual and romantic experiences and her murder work than between professional and academic stifling and child murder. It would have been a lot more interesting and a lot less tenuous.

However, the show is trying to be family-friendly, and digging into why this terrible, cruel woman might want to cut the ability for desire and love (and other non-sexual adult feelings, I’m sure) out of people could get dark. We know that the show doesn’t want to go there, because they’ve actively toned down her weaponising her sexuality: in the books, she has an established sexual relationship with Boreal, whereas the show made it seem like she’s been stringing him along all this time, and made it about potentially ‘sharing a life’ together rather than fucking, which was clearly the arrangement in the books. Also, I think Ruth Wilson said she and Ariyon Bakare filmed a “steamy scene” together, and given that only a single chaste kiss between them aired it must have been cut. I think they deliberately minimised the sexual elements of the text, particularly regarding Mrs Coulter (the mountain scene with Asriel, which I did still love, was also a lot less horny than in the book) and replaced that with another gender issue, that of professional sexism, as if the two are interchangeable, which they are not. This is a shame, both for Mrs Coulter’s character and also for the story as a whole, because the characters’ relationships with sex and desire are an important part of the books! (If this minimised sexuality approach means that they don’t use the TAS scene where Asriel threatens to gag her and she tries to goad him into doing it, I’ll scream). Overall, I think they missed the mark here, which is a shame because I also think it could have been done well, if they’d been bolder and darker and more thoughtful.

Why might this happen? Why might the show take this approach? Why might it be latched onto by viewers? Personally, I think the conversations we have about women and power are very simplistic, which leaves us in a tight spot when we see women seizing power for themselves (even in fiction) and weaponising that against others, not just other women but people of all genders, because we struggle to move past ‘women have overall been denied power, so them taking it ‘back’ is good,’ even if that immediately becomes a hot mess of white, corporate feminism and results in the ongoing oppression of many people. I think we are so hungry for representations of powerful women that we – producers and viewers alike – struggle to see them as bad, because it’s uncomfortable to be so intoxicated by Mrs Coulter effortlessly dominating the men around her, subverting systems designed to marginalise her for her own benefit, and generally being aggressive and intelligent and ruthless, and then realise that you are entranced by someone who is, objectively, a terrible, terrible person. It can be hard to realise that if you channelled the energy of someone who mesmerises you, you’d be the villain. So instead of sitting with that (more on this below), a lot of legwork goes into reworking her villainy into, somehow, a just act, a result of oppression, as her taking back power that has been denied to her, rather than grappling with the fact that for anyone to desire power in such a merciless way, even if they have to overcome marginalisation to get it, is really, really dangerous.

The joy, of course, is that Mrs Coulter is not real! She’s not real! Adoring fictional characters does not mean condoning their (imaginary) decisions, nor do stories exist for each person in them to fit neatly into a good or bad box so you know who you’re allowed to love. Furthermore, fiction can be a fabulous tool for exploring and interrogating the parts of yourself that, if left to bloom unexamined, might perpetuate beliefs or behaviour that cause harm to others. Mrs Coulter doesn’t need to be a feminist or taking down the patriarchy or a righteous powerful woman to illuminate things about gender, power and feminism for those reading and watching. In fact, it’s important that we explore what happens when women (most commonly white, wealthy women, as she is) continue to perpetuate brutal systems under the guise of sticking it to ‘men,’ because it happens all the time in the real world, and it’s a serious issue. Finding characters like Mrs Coulter so cool and compelling doesn’t make you a bad person, but it might tell you something about yourself – not that you want to be a villain or kill kids or whatever, but something about how you relate to your gender or women or men or power – and that knowledge can be useful! We all have better and worse impulses, and finding art that helps us make sense of ourselves, both the good and bad parts, is a gift that we should relish.

Anyway, tl;dr, Mrs Coulter doesn’t need to be sympathetic or understandable or redeemable to be brilliant – but you wouldn’t know that from how she’s been portrayed in the new adaptation.

#his dark materials #marisa coulter #my analysis #this might be controversial idk #more thoughts that no one asked for #hdm meta

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nevermindirah · 3 years

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Dorothy Freeman facts

By facts I of course mean headcanons, because Nile's mom doesn't get a first name in canon (or even confirmation that her last name is Freeman). All we know about her is the picture on Nile's phone lock screen (which is Kiki Layne's real-life mom and brother!) and a few lines that Nile tells Andy about her. I’ve been collecting my Dorothy headcanons for a while now to eventually make a post, and @mprosperossprite‘s excellent post giving non-Americans context for what it means that Nile is from the South Side of Chicago prompted me to go ahead and share this. Disclaimer that I’m white and I will absolutely make corrections if it’s pointed out that I’ve caused harm with any of this.

So here have some fun facts about the version of Mama Freeman who lives in my head rent-free:

Her family and growing up:

she was born in the mid-'60s and named after Dorothy Dandridge

I can’t decide whether she was born in Chicago or moved there later on (maybe with Nile’s dad?) and when in the waves of the Great Migration her family left the South

she came of age in the "post"-Civil Rights movement and went to college in the mid-80s when a lot of what are now the foundational classics of Black feminism were being written

she was a young adult when Anita Hill risked so much to report that a Supreme Court nominee had sexually harassed her, and as a result she HATES Joe Biden

Marriage and babies:

she met Nile's father — I can’t decide how they met and I have two competing headcanons for his name, either Gideon for the hefty Biblical masculinity vibes (Giddy for short among family, that man loved to laugh) or Carl, which started out as a shitty Carl’s Jr burger chain joke that turns out to be perfect (it means free man!), and @knoepfchen used it in the sequel to if you do take a thief where Carl is alive!! — and Dorothy was a little skeptical of his near-religious devotion to the military but he was really hot and really devoted to her and they made it work

she's a little pissed that she was right but it's unbearable if she thinks about it too often

it's going to be a long, long time before she can look back on pictures of Baby Nile stomping around the house in her dad's combat boots (this is a Gina Prince Bythewood headcanon, whyyyyyyyy can I not find a link to where she said this)

she named their second baby Indus, Indy for short (this is nearly as established fanon in Book of Nile circles as how much Booker loves eating pussy, and Indy Freeman as a young adult is portrayed by either Aldis Hodge or John Boyega I don’t make the rules)

Work:

Dorothy did some office jobs but nothing really grabbed her, and she was probably gonna have to move for her husband's career, so she decided on teaching — high school humanities

she’s been active in CTU (one of the strongest teacher’s unions in the US) her whole career and one year she was on the bargaining committee and her babies know damn well never to trust a boss, not even one who says all the right things — if she ever finds out the way Nile said "like Quynh?" when Andy promised to protect her, she will lose her mind with pride

(Nile was 18 and freshly graduated from high school in 2012 when CTU went on strike for the first time in a generation and she brought her mom snacks on the picket line)

one of her very favorite things is getting her students to laugh despite themselves at her "oh my GOD you're so EMBARRASSING" old-people jokes

she's one of those teachers who can get 30+ teenagers to go dead silent with judicious application of body language

she's known to occasionally go easy on grading subjective things like essays when she knows students are having a particularly rough time at home, but the second she gets the feeling they're taking advantage and not trying their best that shit is over and they better mind their Ps & Qs

she's the kind of person who says old-people shit like that

she gives her students assignments like "help 5 neighbors register to vote" and "write a compare/contrast table about the candidates in this local election" and "research 5 different ways you could get grant money to do X" and other practical civic-minded shit

standardized testing is her supervillain origin story, just kidding it’s Rahm Emanuel, why the fuck did Obama trust that asshole

After her husband died:

she would have lost her goddamn mind if it weren't for her church friends after her husband died, people from the church raised money so they could make ends meet while his pension paperwork was taking forever, church friends watched Indy so Nile could go out for the soccer team, etc etc

she sold her and her late husband's house and moved to a 3-bedroom co-op unit when Nile started high school, it's more affordable and it meant she didn't have to worry about household repairs in the same way, she can use a wrench if she needs to but she doesn't have time and it just makes her grief flare up (co-op housing has a long history in Chicago and other US cities (like Washington DC where I live) as a way for Black people to access decent, affordable housing in the face of entrenched discrimination)

the move meant putting a longer commute between her and church, but she didn't even bother looking for a church closer to their new home, she loaded the kids into the car on the weekends, parking is hell in their new neighborhood but it's worth giving up a hard-won parking spot to not have to wait so long for the L on Sunday mornings

Indy lived with her through college and he was gearing up to get his own place when Nile died, Dorothy was planning to move into a one-bedroom in the co-op building because she doesn't need so much space anymore, Indy took a day off from his new job (not so new anymore, her baby's so grown!) to help her sort things to donate when those dress-uniform Marines came to their door

part of her wishes she could've been home more and not had to rely on Nile so much for help with Indy, but he's turned out such a kind young man, and he's a much better cook than his sister is (was, oh God — no wait, is! she’s alive! what do you mean you’ve been alive all this time??)

some of the girls from church are encouraging her to check out this social dancing thing, nobody's pressuring her to date but there's definitely been some ribbing, and with Indy out of the house... maybe? probably not, but maybe

Her feelings and beliefs and likes and dislikes:

she's an absolute badass and also she's a soft human woman with lots of feelings

she's very, very traditional in some ways, and part of her mixed feelings about Nile following in her dad's footsteps is gender stuff, she's proud of her daughter and would never stand in the way of what Nile wants to do with her life, and if Nile came home and told her she's a lesbian she would never reject her, but if Nile came home and told her she's bisexual maybe she can just try focusing on men? “I love you sweetheart and I want you to be happy I just know how hard it is already for us in this world” type shit

she has been on team natural hair basically her entire life and one of the worst fights she and Nile ever had was over Nile wanting to straighten her hair as a pre-teen

Indy takes more after her and Nile takes more after their dad, she's so proud of both of them, but Dorothy's activism was mostly wearing her natural hair to work and daring bosses to give her shit, Indy's out there marching in the streets like her parents had and she WORRIES

she teases Indy for going to so many protests like he's using it as an excuse to meet girls, but she WORRIES

when she turns 60, she gets box braids with streaks of dark purple, subtle enough that it's still work-appropriate but it makes her smile, she may be old now but damnit she’s still pretty!

she loves Grey's Anatomy and Star Trek and she watched Bridgerton all in one day

she has a dirty-old-lady celebrity crush on Chris Hemsworth

if she's ever masturbated thinking about Donna Summer, well, that's nobody's business but her own (do non-Americans know about the queen of disco??)

If you want to read fic featuring Dorothy:

I won't have to leave alone, 1000 words, Nile has a nightmare and decides to go tell her family she's immortal

I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore, 65k, Nile adjusts to immortality and does a lot of soul searching about what it means to "do what we think is right", Booker goes to grad school for trauma studies, the working title of this fic was Booker Reads Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and Goes Down on Nile and the final product has an annotated bibliography in the author's notes if you’re into that kind of thing, a lot of my Dorothy Freeman headcanons were born of my process writing this

Gather round the table, we'll give you a treat, 2279 words, college AU, Nile brings her Jewish boyfriend home for Christmas

a contribution I made to Shitty Old Guard Deaths: (Booker, USA, 2025, cause of death: a mother’s righteous wrath)

#nile freeman #nile's family #dorothy freeman #tog headcanons #tog meta #mine #long post

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unimpressedperson · 3 years

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Diary Entry: Sorority

I spent the year of 2020 cloistered in my home and took this never-ending time to study about the faces of feminism. Some books and articles were revisited, but like ‘The Beauty Myth’ by Naomi Wolf I read it for the very first time. Every new work I absorbed to realize how used to the injustice and pain we’re used, then it feels normal, ordinary. Men underestimating or gaslighting us feels common.

Fighting against this feeling of custom isn’t new, women have been building, dwelling and owning the concept of revolution and equity for ages, trying to be seem as a human, because that’s what we are, not a toy, a joyful little ornament to possess. Striving is a ceaseless occurrence. If we settle, then the tide takes us back to tempestuous times.

Meditating within those thoughts, it’s perfectly possible to see how far we’ve came. From having to watch many sisters die in order to have labor legislation applying in our behalf - kind of -, reading about how Suffragettes were portrayed solely for demanding the voting rights (they were portrayed as ogres, enemies, unloved creatures), the right of maternity leave, choosing to marry and take a last name or keep ours. Black women, their fights were even more brutal, seeking for the right to get a higher level of education, existing without restraints.

Their fight. Our fight. Women’s fight.

Sorority is about supporting each other in our inner-fights, on battles fought as a group and as individuals, ‘cause in the end all the results resounds on ourselves. It’s also the understanding that some of those struggles won’t affect everyone the same, for differences brought by a whole divergent set of bias (racism, transphobia...).

Sorority is what brought me here to write this diary entry.

Yesterday I heard some sad news: Jesy Nelson left Little Mix, after 9 years, in order to work on her psychological health, following years of virtual harassment.

I could feel my stomach folding and heart aching with anxiety when I read it on Twitter.

Jesy Nelson is one of the most talented people in the world. One of the most beautiful and brave women to ever set a foot in this world. Also one of those whose privileges never stopped the cyberbullying and, consequently, took the mental toll, that dimmed the light and dreams out of her.

Do you know how much virtual attack a person needs to receive in order to give up on a dream?

Jesy spent nine years of her life working with entertainment, a patriarchal industry long known for the mistreatment towards women. Back in 2011 she joined The X-Factor trying to make her dreams of working with art come true. In fact, with three other women (Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall) she hiked her way to the top and won that TV show. Little Mix became huge and from the beginning brought messages of sorority, supporting and love for who you are. However, positive messages were commonly replied with attacks, harassment, cruel words thrown effortlessly by people and received hard as a rock by them.

In theory, loving who you are, is easier said than done. A woman who loves herself is dangerous. Throughout the years, their skin grew thicker, but it’s impossible to ignore it, if from the beginning people chose to pinch your insecurities. Jesy went through hell and back because of her appearance, her weight, size, etc.

In 2019, Jesy released a documentary with BBC called ‘Odd One Out’ and talked openly about the experience as a celebrity, a public person. The whole narrative heart-breaking: what began as an unique opportunity, the Willy Wonka golden ticket for stardom, is now filled with spikes of humour, constant insecurity, panic crisis and an everyday struggling, trying to keep true to herself and healing. Watching someone whose life never been easy, sobbing about how online scrutiny ruined her dreams, that shattered every piece of my heart.

Sometimes people forget that celebrities are humans too.

I’m not a Mixer (I gave up on using fandom names it’s been years now), but as a woman whose been struggling with the consequences of harassment and bullying through 11 long years, her pain resonated. Imagine dealing with mean and destructive comments coming from all over the world, people you’ve never met or heard of, but still they had a say in your appearance, you dancing, your body, your life.

Internet created a whole new layer of problems, both for men and women, but considering we still live in an unstable society, the burden always gets heavier on a female’s back.

Suddenly peer-pressure is tempting to ruin your confidence on your appearance, intelligence, self-worth, talent, capability, your will and strength. You can get in touch with victims in similar situation, but also opens tabs for more attacks on aspects of yourself you’ve never paid a thought before. It gives you fuel to light a dream and then push you against the cold water. It gives you the right to love sex, but exposes and humiliates you when the opportunity is given. In the end, internet treat a woman’s body as if it is public domain. My body belong to myself.

The only thing we own from the very first breath in this world is our bodies. Everything else we grow up absorbing and learning.

Internet is no longer a no-man’s land - slowly laws are being created to stop cyberbullying -, but the negative content and the nightmares set previously will never be completely erased. It creates new prejudices, new concerns. Our daily fights now approaches the virtual ambience, trying to find justice.

Jesy is indeed a talented women, with an unreal stage presence, an astounding voice. However her sanity is worth more than our happiness and satisfaction. As I mentioned before, we are so used to the pain and masked-injustice, that stepping up against it seems unrealistic, but owning your fate is the best measure to recover.

I’ll always support Jesy, and every women that chooses her happiness and mental health, because in the end of the day it’s all about sorority again.

I feel that every woman loses a little bit as well when one of us gives up on her dreams, surrendering after not being capable of bearing the pressure of existing - simply existing and endeavouring - in a world that doesn’t want us succeeding.

That’s how I realize how far we’ve got to date, yet there’s still a long way down to go.

Once we fought for the right of having dreams, now we battle for keeping them. Dreams should never die.

#Sorority #Little Mix #Jesy Nelson #Perrie Edwards #Jade Thirlwall #Leigh-Anne Pinnock #venting #Diary Entry #Thank you Jesy #Feminism #Simone de Beauvoir #Naomi Wolf #The Beauty Myth #The Second Sex #Blogging #Dreams #Stop cyberbullying #Women

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lovecomedy · 4 years

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Fanfic recommendations nobody asked for

Those are my favorite wincest fic ever, just because. They are all complete. I’ll add the summaries together with my own two cents.

Consider the Hairpin Turn by cherie_morte. 27K Words

AU of 6x22: Sam's wall has shattered and the memories in his mind have splintered. When the Sam who remembers Hell tells him to go find Jess and be happy, Sam knows he can't stay while Dean needs him. But when the Sam from Hell says that Dean is already there looking for him, Sam leaves his memories of the pit behind to find him.

What he finds is a life he doesn't remember: a house that he shares with his brother (and has for years), a law career he thought he'd left behind at Stanford, and a relationship with Dean he never dreamed he could have. Life is almost too good to be true, at least until Sam begins to hear his brother's voice calling to him, begging him to wake up.

This is my favorite fic of all times. It’s beautifuly written. The way that it narrates Sam’s trauma of Hell is what keeps me coming back for more . Honestly it should be published as a book. Don’t worry, it has very happy scenes and there’s a happy ending

Welcome to the Neighborhood by ImogenPortchester. 2K Words

Dean thinks the new neighbors are interesting, but all is not what it seems.

Super short. Super heartbreaking.

Fics by leonidaslion

I mean first off, just read everything written by leonidaslion

Sing Your Hymns Like Angels In Defeat. 32K Words.

And Lucifer Fell for a second time with the burning brilliance of a star. The Flare shone in his wake, and darkness fell upon the land ...

Dean goes blind, and I love how it describes Dean’s stuggles with it. You feel like you’re blind with him. Really, really, REALLY well written. Should probably also be a book

Fumbling in the Dark: Love Advice For the Romantically Impaired. 72K

True Love really is blind...

It’s basically a character study of every single episode of the first 5 seasons, with a wincest twist. Slow burn. Holy shit, is it a slow burn.

Just Say My Name. 3K Words

Dean turns into a complete and utter nympho. It takes Sam a while to notice the difference.

Funny, lighthearted and porny

Hush. 2K Words

Motel walls are thin...

Discovery!kink. Sam and Dean try to have quiet sex while John is in the other room. At least, Dean is trying

Sam Winchester and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. 15K Words

Sometimes, you just shouldn't get out of bed in the morning ...

Fics by fleshflutter

Dark Side of the Moon. 20K Words

Cursed!Dean is deaf and blind. Sam deals.

The incestuous courtship of the antichrist's bride. 48K Words

Sam is trying to become the Antichrist in order to save the world. He has a small army of angels and demons, he has an adoring cult, he has a work of prophecy by Jack Kerouac, and he has Dean. Things are going pretty well until he accidentally signs Dean up as his Beloved Consort, a role that requires sex with the Antichrist on an altar. And that's when things stop going pretty well. Also, the soundtrack to the Apocalypse sucks.

I don’t like crack fics, but goddamn this one is FUNNY. You can tell a lot of thought was put into this freaking masterpiece

Captured by the Game by rivkat. 54K Words

AU. Azazel has given his favorite son a task: worm his way into the confidence of a hunter. It sounds simple, but Dean Winchester just might be more than Sam can handle.

It wasn’t real by NaughtyPastryChef. 1K Words

Sam is trying to explain to Dean where he was when Dean was stuck in purgatory. It starts with "I hit a dog" and then, suddenly, inexplicably, they both know exactly where Sam was.

Wonderful explanation for that arc in season 8 nobody can stand. Plus, time travel, which I’m always a sucker for

Backseat of My Brother's 67 Chevy by NaughtyPastryChef. 1K Words

Extended scene from "Baby". Dean's feeling proud of Sam's hookup until he hears that Sam tried to give that waitress his number. Uncharacteristically, he lets Sam force him to talk about it.

Bury My Old Soul, and Dance on its Grave by dreamlittleyo. 2K Words

Dean knows how far he can push Sam.

Antichrist!Sam and Consort!Dean. Codependent winchesters. Yeah

Graveside Blues by hunenka. 3K Words

He uses his body like a blanket, like a shield.

I like how protective Sam is of Dean here, and it deals with something I don’t see a lot such as the jealousy he would have of Dean’s bond with Amara

own it by orphan_account. 6K Words

But he's never going to be able to burn the image of Sam cradling one hand around the perfect curve of Dean's face, dropping the other to the cut of Dean's hip (made for fingers and tongues to trail down, to taste), walking Dean backward until Dean is flush against the wall and Sam is flush against him. This is something that can't be denied.

John finds out. Explores the wonderful trope of both Sam and his father being possessive of Dean, and being very antagonistical to each other. Dysfunctional family yay. Also very porny

Fics by astolat

Punxsutawney. 9K Words

* astolat thinks any plot worth doing is worth doing TWICE

This is the Mistery Spot plot, but a little different. Sam AND Dean wake up to the same day over and over again. So they talk.

Kings and Queens and Jokers, Too. 4K Words

"Yeah, you boys nailed that trickster real good," Bobby said, dry as dust.

People are acting weird around the brothers. Can’t really say anything else without spoiling it. Listen just do yourself a favor and read it.

options. 500 Words

Decisions, decisions.

Short and funny. Little bit porny

Desired. 2K Words

He hadn't even known about any of this himself until Sam found it, figured it out for him. He hadn't known how it was going to be.

So, smut. They have a better time when Dean is the one who asks for it

Rockabye Sammy... by AnotherWorld3111. 1K Words

Sam can’t sleep, so Dean tries to help.

Sam keeps hallucinating Lucifer. Dean is worried and protective of him. Porny

We Know Each Other As We Always Were by mickeym. 45K Words

In 1941, while the world is at war, Sam Winchester falls in love with his brother. They're young, they're in love, and in spite of the hardships of life around them, the world is a pretty good one for them. Until Dec. 7th, 1941, when Japan launches an air attack on Pearl Harbor, sending the US to war against Japan. Dean Winchester feels he needs to join the Army; needs to help fight the good fight and help save lives. He promises he'll return, but can he keep that promise?

GAH this is so romantic! It’s an AU, but I feel like they’re very in character. It feels like a novel

For The End of My Broken Heart by Wickedtruth. 59K Words

Dad's disappeared and Sam's left to pick up the pieces of his broken brother. Post Devil's Trap AU.

Very codependent Winchesters. Also John finds out.

here at the end of all things by remy (iamremy). 40K Words

AU from Season 12 onwards. The British Men of Letters win in the USA, and slowly manage to establish their bases and authority over the whole country. They also capture Sam Winchester and keep him prisoner for eleven months, experimenting on him regularly before wiping his memories so that he has no idea what has been done to him.

Even after Dean rescues him and they begin planning to get revenge once and for all, the niggling doubt at the back of Sam's head remains -- what did they do to him? Why won't his anxiety get better? And what is it that he's missing?

Ok you got me, this is gen. But the whole fic feels like a (good) Supernatural episode, it’s so realistic and canon-like. The relationship between the brothers is just like the one we see on the show, meaning desperately codependent and wincest in every subtext.

Fics by deadlybride / zmediaoutlet

What I like about @zmediaoutlet is that she takes the time to write everyone in character. It’s always as canonical as possible and it feels real

femme. 4K Words

Rummaging around the internet, Dean finds a kink he hadn't seen before; Sam explains, and demonstrates.

I love feminization, but unfourtunately there’s only one fic that does it right, and it’s this one

gratification. 2K Words

It's not a compulsion. Dean just likes it.

breña. 1K Words

Sam and Dean wait, knowing what's coming.

The night before Sam jumps in the box

not the good things, nor the bad. 20K

Dean wavers in a grey area between being taken and giving in.

Part of it started with the kinks series, but you can read this just fine without the other parts. It deals very beautifully with Dean’s thoughts regarding his bond with Amara and his sexuality

DeMille Has Nothing On Us by HandsAcrossTheSea. 13K Words

"Hey Dean - wanna film it?"

This is part of the Those Hazy Days I Do Remember series, but you can 100% read it as a stand-alone, no problem. Sam and Dean film each other and this has that season 1 vibe, of just two brothers on the road. It’s slightly OOC, just because of how touchy-feely they are. But that’s something I sometimes wish we could have on the show, anyway

How many floors to realize by Lazy Daze. 26K Words

AU from the end of It’s A Terrible Life, in which Zachariah decides to keep stringing them along a little while longer, because damn if they aren’t somewhat entertaining, right?”

Rabid by i-am-therefore-i-fight

Beautiful!! I love @i-am-therefore-i-fight‘s take on demon!dean. It’s different to what we’re used to. This fic is very angsty but has a happy ending

Bitten by a True Believer by kermiethefrog. 3K Words

“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean says. Flashes him a wicked grin, charcoal-eyes. The way he spreads out on Sam’s mattress, bare and offering himself up like Holy fucking Communion, drums heat under Sam’s skin, and he’s never sure if it’s arousal or anger when he’s faced with the demon. “Show me a good time, big guy.”

Another demon!dean fic. I like how even as he is a demon, he is still desperate for Sam’s attention

The Time Traveler's Brother by AmyPond45. 54K Words

Dean's life is turned upside down the night his mother dies. But that's also the night a mysterious grown-up version of Dean's brother first appears in his life. While Dean grows up, "Old Sam" is often there, especially when Dean's father isn't. As Dean learns what the future holds, he begins to question everything his father has taught him about who he is and what he is supposed to become. Can Dean find a way to save his little brother from his own future?

This is based on The Time Traveler’s Wife, which is my favorite book. Don’t worry, you don’t have to have read it to understand this fic

need against need against need by dollylux. 5K Words

Jack spends his first night in the bunker with Sam and Dean. (Jack POV)

Don’t worry, Jack just watches and ponders about the Winchester’ realationship

the centre cannot hold by orphan_account. 6K Words

Sam does not remember; Dean does. All Dean can do is watch, and mourn.

But then Castiel becomes God, and the world starts to break at the edges (and maybe that isn't a bad thing.)

It kinda becomes a character study, while the brothers deal with what happened during the Soulless!Sam period

The Last Temptation by bccalling. 1K Words

When Sam tells Mary about all the things he and Dean get up to in the dark, Mary wants in, and Sam sees his opportunity to make Dean’s every fantasy come true.

Mary shows up. Porny and very sweet

Angels and Demons by OhWilloTheWisp. 9K Words

AU angels and demons are animals. Sam was not happy when his owner, Ruby, left him boarded at a kennel. He was even less happy when he discovered an angel in the same facility. But his encounter with the angel will end much differently than anyone would have guessed. He may have never expected his mate to be angel, but now that's found him he won't let anyone keep them apart.

Sam and Dean are kinda like animals here but there’s nothing sexual. It’s very sweet and romantic. Anna/Ruby in here as well

#wincest #fic rec #leonidaslion #fleshflutter #astolat #full house of wincest #bottom!dean #zmediaoutlet

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alexsfictionaddiction · 4 years

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Alex Recommends: May and June Books

I must apologise for the late arrival of this post. It should have been up days ago but I’ve been struggling to read much for the last month or so. My head has been very foggy and dark with all of the confusion, anxiety and hate that has been filling my news feeds and I’ve been filled with a desire to combat it. Before this month, I’d have run in the opposite direction from any kind of confrontation but recent events have given me the kick up the butt to actively do better. I’ve been calling out bigotry when I come across it and I’ve noticed that some people, notably my older relatives, haven’t necessarily reacted favorably to the changed, more outspoken Alex. It has been pretty daunting and I’ve worked myself up into fits of rage and tears several times over the last couple of months.

A lot of things have changed for me since my last Alex Recommends post. I’m currently temporarily living in Staffordshire with my boyfriend because my depression got too bad for me to stay at home for much longer. I missed him unbelievably much and I knew that spending some prolonged time with him would help -and it has. Both him and I have spent 12 weeks religiously following all of the rules, so we’re both extremely low-risk for catching and spreading COVID-19 and being together was something that we simply really needed to do. Please don’t hate me for it! In other news, I have also started writing again, which feels amazing. I’m now a few thousand words into a queer Rapunzel retelling that I have lots of ideas for. Maybe I’ll even post an extract or two, when I feel it’s ready to show you.

In the centre of the renewed energy of Black Lives Matter and the undeniable exposure of the horrors that is police brutality, the book blogging and BookTube worlds vowed to uplift Black voices. I wrote a very long, in-depth blog post full of Black-written books and Black book influencers. Please check it out to diversify your TBR and educate yourself on Black issues, which is what every white person should be doing now and always.

June was Pride Month and I tried my best to compile a series of recommendation posts in honour of it. These included gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, ace, pansexual and intersex lists. I’ve had some great feedback on this, so I hope you find some fantastic new reads. It felt especially poignant to put them together the same year that one of my childhood heroes came out as an ignorant trans-exclusive feminist. As a lifelong Harry Potter superfan and someone who has repeatedly publicly supported Rowling in the past, I feel the need to clarify where I now stand. I do not support or agree with a single thing that she has said in recent times with regard to transgender people. I’ve never felt my own status as a cisgender female threatened by trans people wanting more rights or believed that children or women were at risk due to their existence.

I read her words more than once and struggled to find any semblance of the woman who wrote the books that have most defined my life. I’m hesitant to say that we can always successfully separate the art from the artist but I will say that it makes sense to me that the Rowling of 2020 is not the same Rowling that wrote Harry Potter. She was a destitute single mother when Philosopher’s Stone was published in 1997 and of course, she is now a million worlds away from that lifestyle. It breaks my heart but it makes sense to me that she has changed beyond belief because her life has changed beyond belief. I’m not and never would make any excuses for her recent behaviour and I have stopped supporting her personally but I will not be getting rid of my Harry Potter books and I will undoubtedly re-read them several more times. However, I am now hugely reluctant to buy any more merchandise or special editions of the books, which saddens me but at the moment, it feels right. There is no coming back for her from this and I will make a conscious effort to keep Harry Potter and Rowling away from my future content. It can be really tough to admit that the people you once really admired aren’t great humans but it’s something that we all have to acknowledge in this case, in order to move forward with our own quests to become our best selves.

It didn’t feel right to post my May recommendations last month as I didn’t feel comfortable promoting my own content in the midst of boosting Black voices. So today I’m bringing you a bumper edition of Alex Recommends. Here are 10 books that I’ve enjoyed since the start of May that I’d love to share with you. Enjoy! -Love, Alex x

FICTION: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Set in the affluent neighbourhood of Shaker Heights, Ohio in the 1990s, two families are brought together and pulled apart by the most intense, devastating circumstances. Dealing with issues of race, class, coming-of-age, motherhood and the dangers of perfection, Little Fires Everywhere is highly addictive and effecting. With characters who are so heartbreakingly real and a story that weaves its way to your very core, I couldn’t put it down and I’m still thinking about it over a month after finishing it.

FICTION: Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

When coding nerd Chloe Brown almost dies, she makes a list of goals and vows to finally Get A Life. So she enlists tattooed redhead handyman and biker Red to teach her how. Cute, funny and ultimately life-affirming, this enemies-to-lovers rom-com was exactly the brand of light relief that I needed this month. The follow-up Take A Hint, Dani Brown focuses on a fake-dating situation with Chloe’s over-achieving academic sister and I can’t wait to get my hands on that.

FICTION: The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart by Margarita Montimore

Just before her 19th birthday at midnight on New Year’s Eve 1983, Oona Lockhart finds herself inexplicably in 2015 inside her 51-year-old body. She soon learns that every year on New Year’s Day, she will now find herself inside a random year of her life and she has no control over it. Seeing her through relationships, friendships and extreme wealth, this strange novel has echoes of Back To The Future and 13 Going On 30 with a final revelation that I certainly never saw coming.

NON-FICTION: The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

Atmospheric and engaging, The Five details the previously untold stories of Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, Kate and Mary-Jane -the women who lost their lives at the hands of Jack the Ripper. Full of fascinating research and heartbreaking accounts of what these women’s lives may have been like, Rubenhold paints a dark immersive portrait of Victorian London and gives voice to these tragic silenced lives. Although we can’t know for certain if these accounts are entirely accurate, they feel very plausible and in some ways, The Five exposes how little time has moved on, when it comes to the public portrayal of single, troubled women.

NON-FICTION: Unicorn by Amrou Al-Kadhi

From a childhood crush on Macaulay Culkin to how a teenage obsession with marine biology helped them realise their non-binary identity, Unicorn tells the story of how the obsessive perfectionist son of a strict Muslim Iraqi family became the gorgeous drag queen Glamrou. Packed full of humour, honesty and heart, this book will give you the strength and inspiration to harness what you were born with and be who you were always meant to be.

MIDDLE-GRADE: The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates by Jenny Pearson

When fact-obsessed Freddie’s grandmother dies, he discovers that the father he has never met may actually be alive and living in Wales. So he has no choice but to grab his best friends Ben and Charlie, leave his home in Andover and go to find his dad! I laughed so many times during this madcap adventure and I know the slapstick crazy humour will hit the middle-grade target audience just right. It’s also a wonderful depiction of small town Britain with a focus on the true meaning of family.

MIDDLE-GRADE: A Kind Of Spark by Elle McNicoll

When Addie learns about her hometown’s history of witch trials, she campaigns tirelessly to get a memorial for the women who lost their lives through it. This wonderfully beautiful novel gives a unique insight into the mind of an 11-year-old autistic girl with a huge heart. Busting myths about neurodiversity while tackling typical pre-teen drama, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry but most of all, you’ll close the book with a huge smile on your face.

HISTORICAL FICTION: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

In 16th century Warwickshire, Agnes is a woman with a unique gift whose relationship with a young Latin tutor produces three children and a legacy that lasts for centuries. This enchanting, all-consuming account of the tragic story of Shakespeare’s lost son, the effects that rippled through the family and the play that was born from their pain will send a bullet straight through your heart. Wonderfully researched and beautifully written, Hamnet is worth all of the hype.

HISTORICAL FICTION: The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

When a vicious storm kills most of the men of Vardø, Norway, it’s up to the women to keep things going but a man with a murderous past is about to come down with an iron fist. At the heart of this dark tale of witch trials, grief and feminism, two women find something they’ve each been searching for within each other. Gorgeously written with a fantastically slow-burning queer romance, Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s first adult novel is an addictive, atmospheric read with a poignant, tearjerker of an ending.

SCI-FI: Q by Christina Dalcher

When one of Elena’s daughters manages to drop below the country’s desired Q number, she is sent away to one of the new state schools and Elena is about to find out something she’d really rather not know about the new system. Packed full of real social commentary and critique of life as we know it while painting a picture of how things could be even worse (yes, really!), this pulse-racing, horrifying sci-fi dystopian gripped me from the first page and refused to let me go.

#book recommendations #recommended #recommendations #may #june #books #bookworm

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winterromanov · 5 years

Text

hold me like a soldier - bucky x reader fic

PART TWO - JAMES

Pairing: bucky barnes x female reader

Excerpt: “Anyway. I saw you sitting on your own, and I always sit on my own too, and I kind of hate it because this whole grad school thing has reduced my friendship circle to exactly zero, not including my new pot plant Hero, who is great but not very talkative, you know? She doesn’t have many opinions on Tolstoy’s use of the interior monologue in Anna Karenina. And also my roommate spends a lot of time examining corpses in the interest of science, so she’s not the most fun at the moment.”

Warnings: none

Taglist: @lunatictardis @cals-cigarette (reply or send me an ask to be added!)

You were under absolutely no impression that grad school was going to be easy. Yet, that being said, you’d never counted on it being this damn difficult either. Sure, the classes were more intense and more frequent, the deadlines already piling up and ready to leave you shaking like a village in a cyclone—but the classes you could deal with. You’re more than used to homework and Shakespeare is nowhere near as undecipherable as it was in high school, romance and comedy and tragedy now a wholly fluent language in your brain. No, what is difficult is how fucking lonely you are.

You’ve done the whole moving-to-college thing before, but that was back when you were eighteen and naïve and everyone in your dorm was in the same rocking boat, dropped in the middle of a city and on the hunt for (illegal) cheap beer. Now you’re older, arguably wiser and surrounded by hardworking mature students with exceptional career goals. Your roommate, Elise, is almost finished med school and has absolutely no interest in hunting down New York’s best bookstores with you. And the people on your course…they either have friends already, from their undergrad majors, or rush off the minute class is over. It leaves you aimlessly wandering the city on your own or cowered in the library, desperate for any—literally any—company other than your family, fuzzy and lagging over Skype conversations.

School is important. Probably the most important thing in your life, and you’ve worked really fucking hard to get here. But your sanity is important too. Spending another evening with a bottle of budget wine and Friends re-runs on Netflix while pretending to make notes for your medieval lit seminar is definitely not doing it any favours.

So—this is it, you decide. This is the day you bite the bullet. You will no longer be the loneliest girl in New York City, even if that means forcibly pinning someone to the wall of the literature faculty and making them get coffee with you.

(Not that you’d ever have the nerve to do that. Of course. Where does anyone even acquire that sheer level of confidence?)

Your morning starts in a building a fifteen minute walk from your apartment and the October air is unseasonably warm, sweat pooling in the small of your back where your rucksack dips. You make it to Russian lit with a few minutes to spare so you take your usual preferred seat a few rows away from the back of the hall, trailing to the middle. The faces that start to fill up the seats around you are recognisable, at least, but you know very few by name. A girl who is also in your Early Victorian Proto-Feminism class (Tessa, you think) smiles tightly at you, but decides not to sit next to you, preferring a seat nearer the front. As you get your laptop out in preparation for the lecture starting, another face catches your eye.

You don’t know his name, but you always notice him, whether it’s in class or in the library or the canteen near the activity centre. He always dresses smartly but in greys and blacks and blues, like he deliberately tries to evade attention. His dark hair is short but hangs a little in his eye-line, revealing an attractive face with a sharp jawline and sharper eyes. A ghost of facial hair shadows his chin and although you’ve never seen him smile, you can imagine it being the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen. Like the stars back home, the ones unaffected by artificial light, impossibly bright. You don’t get to see the stars like that in New York City. It’s like the skyscrapers have stolen them to burn.

He’s never acknowledged you before. Your stares go unseen, thankfully, because there’s nothing more embarrassing than trying to explain why your eyes refuse to leave somebody’s frame. This time, however—this time, his eyes flicker straight over to you. It’s unmistakable. For a couple of seconds, his blue irises settle on your own, and you snap away quickly as your cheeks flush.

Good one. Real good.

At that moment the professor turns up and starts to load up today’s presentation. When you look back, you can see the back of the guy’s head, a few rows in front of you diagonally across the hall. He’s on the shorter row by the door, only three seats either side of him, but all of them are empty. He doesn’t seem to have many friends either. It doesn’t strike you that there may be a reason for that—maybe he’s just shy, or finds it difficult to find friends, just like you.

(He seems a little older than you, too. There’s just something about his expression, aloof and quiet, that makes you think he carries more years than his face cares to admit.)

The lecture is on Tolstoy and while the professor’s theories on Anna Karenina are interesting, you keep finding yourself glancing at the guy. This is the first time you’ve realised he doesn’t have a laptop, unlike the majority of students in the hall. He’s scribbling notes fervently in a small moleskin notebook, hand covering the side of his face as he writes.

By the time the lecture finishes and you’ve typed a grand total of eight words (the presentation title, go figure) the decision is basically out of your hands. You can’t let him sidle out of the hall like every single Russian lit class before this one, especially if he insists on causing this much distraction to your studies. As the professor finishes up you quickly pack away your laptop, squeezing between the rows in an attempt to reach him before you lose him amongst crowds of other students in the quad outside.

Your gaze follows his scruffy black backpack, standing on your tiptoes as you try to see over the tops of the heads that make their way down the stairs. He presses a white earphone into his ear and between arms, you can see he owns an iPhone, just not a laptop.

For half a second, you falter. Is this weird? Walking up to someone random—well, almost random—after class and just striking up a conversation? Maybe he’s alone because he wants to be, preferring to stalk about without company other than his own. Maybe the seats are empty because he’s completely unapproachable, others before you tried and failing to break into his circle. After all, he’s hardly unattractive. You can’t be the only one feeling subconsciously drawn to him.

Oh, fuck it. Whatever happened to biting the bullet? You remember something your sister mentioned to you in one of your two-hour long Skype marathons—be brave, loser.

You follow him until you’re out of the between-class rush, jogging a little to catch up with his long strides. Taking a deep breath to psych yourself up, you stumble to a halt beside him as he stops to read a message or something on his phone.

“Hey,” you say, a little breathless from your jog, pulling your rucksack straps up your shoulder.

He blinks, a little surprised, like he hadn’t seen you. His hands tighten into fists, then relax. He recognises you. “Hey?”

You smile, hoping to appear approachable, but wondering if it actually comes across as a grimace. “I’m, uh—sorry, we just had Russian lit together?”

His face is totally unreadable, but his body looks tense, putting you on edge. Maybe this was an extremely bad idea. “Yeah. I saw you.”

“Yeah, I saw you too. Well, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have…” you realise you’re rambling and to your surprise, there’s a hint of amusement on the guy’s face. It seems to flicker away quickly, like he’s telling himself off for it. “Anyway. I saw you sitting on your own, and I always sit on my own too, and I kind of hate it because this whole grad school thing has reduced my friendship circle to exactly zero, not including my new pot plant Hero, who is great but not very talkative, you know? She doesn’t have many opinions on Tolstoy’s use of the interior monologue in Anna Karenina. And also my roommate spends a lot of time examining corpses in the interest of science, so she’s not the most fun at the moment.”

He listens bemusedly, his hands sinking into the pockets of his trousers. You sigh. Verbal diarrhoea.

“The point being…we could, maybe, sit together?” you offer, hoping you haven’t immediately put him off if he was ever considering what you’re proposing. “Talk about Russian books sometimes so I don’t go mad?”

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he looks down at his shoes; they’re scuffed up red Converse sneakers, the only part of him in technicolour. You’re almost certain he’s going to turn you down, the sting of rejection premeditated in your stomach, because hell you’ve been in this position before. He’s silent, considering this simple arrangement for longer than you’d anticipated, which is somehow a good and bad sign simultaneously.

“I…” he begins, and you’ve already finished the sentence. I would rather not, thank you. His jaw flexes, hardens. “I can sit with you.”

“Oh!” you say, brightly, by surprise. Nonchalance isn’t an option. Your grin is so damn obvious and you’re not even ashamed of it. “Oh, cool!”

“But—I don’t say this to be…I’ve just got a lot of stuff going on.” He smiles sadly, painfully. This expression is definitely readable. More readable than he wants it to be, you suspect. He dips his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Your hand closes round his arm and you can feel it tense, rock hard, and it’s like—like he realises you aren’t a threat, so he relaxes, his expression soft but eager to get away. You smile as a peace offering. “I just thought I’d ask your name. Then I’ll leave you alone. Promise.”

He mulls the question over in his head like he’s attempting a complex math problem, not a daily occurrence. His mouth curves before deciding on his answer. “James.”

“James,” you repeat, trying it out. You give him yours in exchange and he nods once, expression returning to neutral. He turns and makes his way to his next destination, perhaps another class, and before you know it he’s swallowed by college crowds and completely gone from view.

It’s been one of your more…charged interactions on campus, but nevertheless it leaves a warm feeling in your stomach. Sitting with someone is a start. It’s sure as hell better than sitting alone.

#mcu #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #bucky x reader #bucky x female reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #fluff #marvel fic #marvel fanfic #bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #fanfic #sebastian stan

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odinsonsobsessed · 5 years

Note

Congratulations on your 500!!!!! I was wondering if you could write a Tom Hiddleston x reader fic where she is on her period and is feeling like crap and Tom cuddles with her and takes her of her? I’m on my period and can’t deal with it anymore

Thanks so much, my lovely!

Periods are the worst and I feel for you! I was feeling particularly fluffy this morning, so I decided to write this now and post it, since it'll benefit you more now than it would next week! It's a bit longer than I was anticipating, but something tells me you won't mind!

I hope you feel better soon, darling!

Warnings: Mentions of period and cramps, Tom being the super sweet guy that he is

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you heard the front door open, you would normally sprint off in its direction to greet Tom after a long day of filming. You would help him take off his jacket, hang it up for him and ask him if there was anything he needed. He didn't expect you to do it, but you did because you loved him and wanted to take care of him. However, when you didn't greet him this time, he called out your name curiously. “Are you home?” He shouted, then mumbled as he shrugged off his coat. “Should be. Car's in the drive.”

He hung the garment up in the closet and slipped off his shoes. Thinking you might be cooking dinner, Tom headed into the kitchen, but he was met with a semi-lit and empty room. “Hmm.” He hummed and continued his search until he found you lying on the bed, scrunched up under the covers. “Darling?” He stepped closer, nearing the side of the bed and peeked under the covers. “Are you alright, love?”

You opened your eyes, sighing dramatically, although you felt like absolute shit so maybe it wasn't so dramatic for you. “No, I'm dying.” You whined, causing Tom to laugh and raise an eyebrow.

“You're dying?” He sat down on the edge of the bed next to you and stroked your forehead. “And what do you expect to die from?”

You shot him a glare and he just grinned at you. “It's my damn period. I feel like crap. My vagina's mad that I'm not pregnant.”

Tom put his hand over his mouth and fought back yet another laugh. “It's mad, huh?”

“Livid, apparently” You winced as another cramp struck you.

“Oh, you poor thing.” He got up and stripped down to his boxers before climbing into bed with you. You turned and snuggled into his chest as he wrapped his arms around you. The movement roused another cramp and you gasped as Tom stroked your back. His brows furrowed in concern, dropping a couple of kisses to your forehead. “Have you taken anything to ease your pain?”

You shook your head and he tsked. “Well, no wonder you're dying. You have to look after yourself, my sweet.” He ran the back of his fingers down your cheek. “I'll go and get you something to feel better. Be right back.” Tom got up and exited the room, only to come back a few minutes later with a glass of water and a closed fist.

Sitting back down next to you, he set the glass down on the nightstand so he could help you sit up. “Here, take these.” Opening his fist, he helped two pain relievers into your mouth and handed you the glass of water to wash it down with.

“Now, I've just called us in a pizza, because I know it's what you crave at times like these and I've drawn you a nice, hot bath. By the time you're done with that, the medicine should have kicked in and the pizza will have arrived. Okay?” He cupped your cheeks and pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead before resting his against it. You grabbed hold of his arms and sighed happily.

“Thanks, Tom. You're honestly the best.” You nudged his nose with your own and smiled.

“What kind of husband would I be if I let my wife suffer without doing anything? I love you so much.” He kissed you once before pulling back and stroking your hair. “Now, c'mon. Go ahead and get yourself settled in the tub and I'll be right there to help wash your hair. How does that sound?”

You hummed in agreement, loving how relaxing the thought was. “Sounds perfect.” You got up and made your way into the bathroom while Tom went to grab you a change of clothes.

A couple of minutes later, Tom entered the bathroom and set the clothes down, just as you nestled into a comfortable position after sinking down into the water to get yourself wet. “Is the temperature okay?”

“It feels wonderful.” You sighed, resting your back against the side of the tub.

Tom knelt down behind you and began to massage your shoulders. You moaned softly as he worked out the tension, taking his time and expertly moving down your arms. “That feels so good, Tom.”

“Good.” You could practically hear the smile in his voice as he continued to squeeze and knead your skin. “Anything for my love.” You felt his chest press against your back and his arms went around you in a hug.

You giggled, “As much as I appreciate the gesture, you're going to get wet!”

“So? It's only water. I missed you.” He pressed his head against the side of yours, giving you a light squeeze before letting you go.

“I missed you, too. I was so lonely today. I called off work because I could barely get out of bed after you left.”

“I'm sorry, darling.” He replied, moving to grab the shampoo and lathered it into your hair. “So what did you do today, then? Were you able to catch up on some of your shows?”

“Yeah, I watched a couple of episodes, I read a few chapters of my book and I felt so bad about doing nothing productive, that I did a little cleaning when I didn't feel as bad a little after lunch.” Tom scrubbed your head, working his fingers into your hair. You let out another moan of content, then continued talking. “How was your day?”

“Extremely busy, but we're wrapping up, so it's to be expected.” He paused, but still kept his hands moving. “You know, you can take some time for yourself and rest, love. You do so much for me, and around the house, and with your family, you shouldn't feel guilty about recharging yourself.” Tom rinsed your hair out and grabbed the conditioner.

You sighed, picking at your fingers absently. “I know… but I just like to make sure you're happy and content. You work really hard and make sure that I have everything I need. It's the least I can do.”

Tom chuckled, working the conditioner into your hair. “That's what I love about you. You're so selfless and caring, always worrying over me. But promise me that you'll look after yourself a little more when I'm not around.”

“I'll try.” You fought back a smile and sighed when he stroked your head again. “Only if you promise to do this more often. I could get to that.”

“Oh, now you're asking for too much. Absolutely not.” He teased and you flicked some excess water at him off of your fingers.

“Hey!” He laughed, jerking back a little.

“What's the matter, darling? It's only water.” You mocked with a grin.

His hands slid down your head and onto your shoulders before settling into your breasts, cupping them in your hands. “H-Hey, what're you--”

His lips brushed your ear and you shivered, fighting back a moan. “Careful love, you're safe now, but I'll have to give you some payback once you're feeling better if you don't play nice.”

You gasped, squeezing your legs together when his thumbs brushed your sensitive nipples. They were sore and tender, but at the same time it sent electricity through your body and suddenly you really wanted his touch elsewhere. You groaned, “Toooom!”

He chuckled, releasing you and began to rinse out the conditioner from your hair.

You leaned your head back against his chest when he was done and looked up at him with a playful frown, “Tease.” You mumbled and he kissed your lips from upside down.

“But you love me.”

You sighed, “I do.”

“Are you feeling a bit better now?” Tom placed your hair around your shoulders as he finished up.

“Much. I think the pain relievers have kicked in. Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” He gave your shoulders a light squeeze before he stood. “If you want to relax in here a bit longer, I'll bring you your book and you can read after you've washed up? I think we've still got a short while until the pizza gets here.”

You smiled with a nod, “That would be great. Book's on the side table next to the couch.”

“I'll be right back.” He bent down to give you a quick kiss on the cheek and set off in search for your book.

As you watched him leave, your heart squeezed as you thought about how much you loved him.

@fandom-and-feminism @fadingcoast @igotloki @mrshiddleston-uk @nikkalia @manager-of-mischief @spidey-bites @kcd15 @dangertoozmanykids101 @xxloki81xx @devilbat @furstinnajoelle @exbandragirl @sabine-leo @screw-real-life-i-pick-fandoms @officiallyunofficialperson @joyofbebbanburg @littlefrogstuff @wolfsmom1 @wrappedinlokisarms @scorpionchild81 @theoneanna @drakesfiance @awkwardfangirl2014

#request #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston/reader #tom hiddleston x reader #fluff #periods suck

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gabbiwenyiayane-art · 4 years

Text

Introduction to semester two

It's the start of semester two, which means the start of a new journey of creating more work. Previously, my work centred around Queerness and the body in drag, and I'm interested in continuing that line of questioning and discovery this semester. This first post is going to be a recap of my concerns last semester, plus a sort of checklist of things to do over the course of this semester. Ideally this blog would just have been for 2D, but I also want to track my process for Professional Practice, so that will likely end up here as well.

Handsome Boy

Last semester's big work was Handsome Boy. I was thinking a lot about how drag is conceptualised - that a drag queen, for instance, is only a drag queen onstage, in the performance of hyperfemininity. Drag is often conceptualised in material terms - the clothes a performer wears, the hair, the makeup, the external mannerisms. Judith Butler suggests that all gender is performance, not just that of drag performers. I started thinking about being in a body that will always present a certain, socially-recognised gender (barring surgery, my naked body will always read as female through a cisheteronormative lens), and how, for many Queer people, our bodies become a layer of "drag" performance, sending out gendered signals in a society not primed to read the nuances of our actual gender. Because of this line of thinking, I decided to put my vulva in drag to hyper-feminize it. I bejewelled & glittered it in pinks and purples, then photographed it while I was menstruating. The period was a commentary on essentialist assumptions about gender - that if I menstruate, I must be female - and contrasted against the anti-essentialist act of dragging my vulva up. This photograph was altered and blurred to reflect the slippery, only-visible-if-you-want-to-see-it nature of gender non-conformity, and then printed on a 1.2 x 1.2m piece of cloth. The cloth was then embroidered with conversations I'd had with other Queer people concerning Queerness and Queer love.

You are what you eat

The second piece of work was a performance art piece responding to essentialist ideas that our biology makes our gender. In this work, I ate my own menstrual blood, fingernails and hair until I could no longer stomach it (about half an hour). The joke was that the more I could eat, the more female I must be. I edited the video & set it to Shania Twain's Man I Feel Like A Woman, which loops endlessly to the point that the video feels surreal & absurd. I then took stills from the video and transferred them to a T-shirt - a wearable item. We often customise our gender presentation with our clothing, so the point of putting the video "storyboard" onto a T-shirt was to contrast the performance of identity with the absurdity of an essentialist assumption of gender.

QUEERTHEYEAR! Cabaret

The final project I embarked on for the first semester was an alternative Queer cabaret in Singapore. Singapore has very few avenues that platform Queer performers - most drag queens are limited to the RIOT!, the monthly drag revue hosted by local legend Becca d'Bus, or performing in clubs like go-go dancers. There are nearly no spaces for drag kings, queens, strippers, burlesque artists and other creators of Queer content to experiment. (The one space that is open to this degree of experimentation is dink, a monthly open mic and petri dish of creative experimentation. Unfortunately, the space is limited, and the performance is unpaid.) I wanted to create a space where Queer performers could fuck it up and be appreciated! Thus, QUEERTHEYEAR! was born. We showcased seven performers at The Projector (a venue owned by QTIPOC) to a full house. I also designed and screenprinted 50 T-shirts and 50 tote bags to raise funds for the event. Through the event, we were also able to platform and pay Queer photographers. Our next event is slated for December 2020.

What's Next?

I have three main projects I want to explore through the course of this semester, most of them building on the work done last semester. Of course, they're subject to change, and I'm curious where they will end up by the end of the year.

Vulva pop-up book: I want to create pop-up cards between my thighs. Exactly how and why I'm doing this is to be determined, but I know that I'm interested in exploring the cishet and Queer gazes, and how the Queer body is treated both like a site of education and one of objectification. I've been wanting to explore bookmaking, and want to see if I can combine that with my performance art.

Self portraits - I have a goal of creating 27 self portraits of myself as different articulations of my gender. Each self portrait will then be embroidered with a description of my gender that day.

Love Garden - This may end up being my Professional Practice project. It's an extension of my interest in embroidery, but the subject matter is different than what I've been exploring. I'd like to anonymously collect people's experiences of heartbreak and things that have been said to hurt them, and then I want to embroider these things onto the leaves of plants, creating a garden of heartbreak. It sounds cliche, but I'm interested in how we grow from (or in spite of) these things. I think this is a project I personally need to take on, in order to catalogue past feelings and step forward. It's a project I've attempted to embark on before, but it felt too close to me then and I was unable to healthily approach it. Now it feels far away enough that I can interrogate it.

Timeline

Week 1: Research how to create pop-up cards, research places to get fake trees, brainstorm conceptions of my gender, take a self portrait

Week 2: Make some pop-up cards, collect heartbreak quotes, take 3 self portraits

Week 3: Make some pop-up cards, collect heartbreak quotes, order trees, take 5 self portraits

Week 4: Start transposing pop-up cards onto my own body, collect heartbreak quotes, take 5 self portraits, begin to embroider trees

Week 5: Continue work with pop-up cards on body, take 5 self portraits, embroider trees

Week 6: Formative. Should have some draft pop-up vulva cards to show, some embroidered leaves, and about 21 self portraits. Continue working on pop-up cards, take 5 self portraits, embroider trees.

Week 7: Continue working on pop-up cards, take 3 self portraits, embroider trees.

Term break: Consolidate what has been done so far. By now, should have all 27 self-portraits and a clearer idea of what type of vulva books will be produced for the final piece. Tree embroidery should be 1/3 done. Spend the two weeks catching up on anything I'm behind on. (probably lots)

Week 8: Embroider self-portraits. Create final pop-up vulva book. Embroider trees.

Week 9: Embroider self-portraits. Create final pop-up vulva book. Embroider trees.

Week 10: Embroider self-portraits. Create final pop-up vulva book. Embroider trees.

Week 11: Embroider self-portraits. Create final pop-up vulva book. Embroider trees.

Week 12: Assessment

Week 13: Assessment

#journal

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amykingpoet · 5 years

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“There comes a point in everyone’s lives where we start to recognize that we are making choices, that we are determining who we are by the actions that we make,” poet, educator and activist Amy King stated in a 2015 speech at SUNY Nassau Community College, where she is a professor of English and creative writing. “What we do says a lot about who we are, not just what we say.”

As a young child growing up in the Bible Belt, King remembers going to the grocery store with her grandfather—her one source of stability, love and unconditional support at that time who, “everyday,” made comments that she was learning to understand were racist. She recalls watching her grandfather flirt with a Black woman who was checking out their groceries. “I was very young,” she told students about that day. “I didn’t even have the vocabulary at that point to recognize this feeling or to articulate what this feeling was, but it was the feeling that something hypocritical was going on.”

That was when King, who identifies as queer, began trying to figure out how to address those moments in her family. “A story begins when a protagonist recognizes a conflict and begins to address how to correct that conflict,” she shared, “and some of us choose not to address that conflict—and that is a story too.”

After growing up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, King lived with her father in Baltimore, Maryland. As a teenager, she worked for the National Security Agency after testing high for analytical skills, but says she felt “uncomfortable” there, even just at 17, and “didn’t like the way the institution was run.”

Two consistent themes throughout King’s life are “social justice and story.” Her latest book, The Missing Museum, is described as “a kind of directory of the world as it rushes into extinction, in order to preserve and transform it at once.” Publishing it won her the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize and vaulted her to the ranks of legends like Ann Patchett, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rachel Carson and Pearl Buck when she received the 2015 Women’s National Book Association Award. (Named one of “40 Under 40: The Future of Feminism” awardees by the Feminist Press, King also received the 2012 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities.)

King is co-editor of the anthology Big Energy Poets: Ecopoetry Thinks Climate Change and the anthology series Bettering American Poetry; her other books include I Want to Make You Safe, one of Boston Globe’s Best Poetry Books of 2011. Much of her prose, activism and other projects focus on exploring and supporting the work of other women writers, especially writers of color. King is a founding member of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and former Editor-in-Chief of VIDA Review.

During a 2014 interview King gave for Houston’s Public Poetry Reading Series, she spoke on the subject of trying to understand poetry by asking a pivotal question: “What is ‘understanding’ and what is an ‘experience’ with a piece of art?” She went on to say poetry should “jostle” us out of our regular ways of thinking—it should “undo” us in ways that are both good and uncomfortable.

For this installment of Ms. Muse, King opens up about learning to speak up and step up—and shares three new poems with Ms. readers. Here’s to hoping that they “undo” you.

THE POEMS

Selling Short

I cannot afford to live in the city I teach in, & the number of people sleeping in cars has grown, indivisibly. This is not a dream of guarantees but the pursuit of handwritten freedoms that night the sting away. Demons of clinics devise distribution mechanics based on who you were born to & who you might know. The 2 a.m. quiet promises no solace or silence when days are hobbled & taken. Soon, light will be privately owned.

I’m Building a Body to Burn My Effigy In

I will not mention stars Today. They have been used for purposes not their own. Listen to them. Give them space. Observe but leave them distant. If you think you know everything about them now, you have outgrown yourself. In the south we say bigger than your britches burns, but I do not wish to confuse. I want to learn.

Joy Even

The denim and calico patchwork of my childhood. Mothballs in a little black box, felt lining each crevice. Michael Jackson on a hobbled turntable someone left at the apartment complex curb. Costwald Village. Regal. British. Anything but.

The dislocation of Backwoods, Georgia. The first time a man touched me, his semen glistening my inner thighs.

“Thriller” and the plywood coffee table. The hoarder grocery bag maze and Childcraft Encyclopedias flayed across the shag. My 12-year-old amazement. My 12-year-old embryo. The fact of a body electric, searing for days. Turning that birthed another world with a song and dance.

So many ways to joy. Some to death. My anything. Me, anything. Joy even.

THE INTERVIEW

Can you tell me about your process of writing “I’m Building a Body to Burn My Effigy In,” “Joy Even” and “Selling Short”?

I don’t have one process. Sometimes compiled notes take shape. Or a poem just falls out of me as if, gored, the liver drops from my body. The heart seeping sounds more fitting, but a liver plop fits better.

“I’m Building a Body…” comes from an interest in physics and mortality.

“Joy Even” is part of the slow-burn of outlining a memoir.

“Selling Short” emerges as predictive dream, touching on issues that have recently led me to Rosi Braidotti’s “The Posthuman.”

What childhood experiences with language informed your relationship with poetry?

When I first moved to live with my father in Baltimore at 15, I spoke slowly and heard the same. I often said “What?” in a deep southern drawl, uncertain of my own ears, which was probably also testament to a deeper uncertainty too. My father was my only safety line in a house full of strangers and with a stepmother who, quite quickly, began to play her own uncertainties out on me.

One day, as usual, I asked “What?” and my dad, no longer riding the romance of his daughter’s betrayal of her mother to be with him, the winner, suddenly shouted at me, “DO YOU REALLY NOT KNOW WHAT WE’RE SAYING?” It shocked the shit out of me. I made adjustments over time to alter the way I spoke, how I heard, to absorb unknown word usages and infer what I could. And to recover from what that moment meant.

You might prefer the story of how I used to read Gertrude Stein to friends over the phone to annoy them until I realized I had tricked myself as I was enjoying sounding her poetry aloud. Or how I grew up reading Nancy Drew and science fiction late into the wee hours and then woke up and watched Saturday morning cartoons in black and white. But this moment with my father shattered something. Luckily, the cracks are often where we make things and the broken pieces what we make things with.

I’m stunned by that moment with your father and your struggle to understand what people around you were saying. I’m also struck by the notion of the poet as a young girl not trusting her own ears, as you say. How did you learn to make out the words all around you–and to trust yourself?

I don’t think I ever have really. I just embrace the temporality of life a bit more than usual and go with what comes across. It’s why I am not embarrassed to ask someone to pass the “lotion” for the salad or to verb nouns for decades now. I think subconsciously I suppressed my accent as a response to my father, but that shock taught me that not only is my mother unreliable, but so is the alternative, my father. I had already been disabused of the notion of unconditional love; I was holding out hope in him for at least a lasting, warm embrace. I’ve grown since that bottoming out: DNA is not all, and one can find family—and become family—elsewhere.

This is all linked to the notion that people speak to signal group intimacy; language is shaped by mutual alliances and allegiances. When family rejects your language needs, believe the message it sends and seek anew.

Do you seek out poetry by women and non-binary writers? If so, since when and why? More specifically, how has the work of feminist poets mattered in your childhood and/or your life as an adult?

I won a city-wide fiction contest for Baltimore ArtScape during my senior year of high school. It was judged by Lucille Clifton, which made a lasting impression on me. I was not a writer, but my high school English teacher, Carolyn Benfer, encouraged me tremendously. I was attending a vocational school in the city and, up to that point, was destined to become a CPA.

From there, I attended the University of Maryland at Towson State and had the good fortune to enroll as a double major in English and Women’s Studies. The latter program is especially noteworthy as the program served as the model for many other Women’s Studies programs across the country, as envisioned and spearheaded by Elaine Hedges, who was also an active feminist, affiliated with the Feminist Press. This program led me to numerous marginalized writers back in the early nineties that I likely would not have encountered so early on independently or simply from core English classes.

I cannot speak highly enough about the work that Women’s Studies program did. The short answer is that the program taught me to seek work by marginalized writers as I would be missing out on so much otherwise. I do not seek literature simply to reflect my own experiences—I seek to learn beyond them.

What groundbreaking (or ancient) works, forms, ideas and issues in poetry today interest and concern you?

There is no one work, and as such, I continue to read widely. There are so many books I have not read yet, which is thrilling. Some of my touchstones range from Cesar Vallejo to Leonora Carrington to Audre Lorde to James Baldwin to Lucille Clifton to Gertrude Stein to John Ashbery. There are numerous younger poets I look to for energy, shifts in consciousness and awareness of current cultural concerns and who also signal structural and formal changes. A handful include Billy-Rae Belcourt, Chen Chen, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Vievee Francis, Airea D. Matthews, Raquel Salas Rivera, TC Tolbert, Ocean Vuong and Phillip B. Williams—but this by no means is an exhaustive list. Check out the poets anthologized in the Bettering American Poetry series I am lucky enough to be a part of.

As a woman, and as a woman who writes, what do you need to support your work? What opportunities, support, policies and actions can/could make a direct difference for you—and for other women writers you know?

Besides the room, money and time Virginia Woolf called for, I’m beginning to find that a support network is vital. I don’t think this needs to be formal or a writing collaboration. I simply mean that it is encouraging to have regular check-ins with a small group of writers, as few as two even, where you discuss what you’re each working on, maybe share a small piece/excerpt, get feedback and discuss ideas.

It is often the idea exchange, even with just a friend on the phone, that I find generative. I find myself articulating ideas and vision in a way that is as revealing to myself as to my friend. I leave those conversations with ideas of where to head next with a poem or on what to research to build foundational ideas for a concept.

What’s next? What upcoming plans and projects excite you?

I’m outlining a memoir—fingers crossed—and writing poems. I may birth an essay down the road, but that is gestating for now. And volunteering time and support to a program called La Maison Baldwin Manuscript Mentors, a nonprofit arts and culture association that remembers and celebrates James Baldwin in Saint-Paul de Vence, to save James Baldwin’s house and turn it into a vital residency in France.

How has the current political climate in the U.S. affected you as a woman writer?

I am not so much shocked as often startled. I think we all knew white supremacy, colonialism and toxic masculinity were at the helm, but the built-in invisibilities kept them shrouded in respectability politics and notions of civility, and of course, that begs the question: Whose civility? I also don’t think we are in some unique moment of history where shocking things have taken hold and the end is nigh, but that is how it feels at times. Power and paradigm shifts are often premised on tectonic shifts, and folks have to finally step up, choose sides.

That seems key at the moment: one can no longer pretend to be above the fray. And that may be most painful for those of us with privilege. No one is outside anything after all.

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garp19-sophialea-blog · 5 years

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Proposal - First draft

For my dissertation I wanted to look into one of my favourite artists Frida Kahlo. I find her paintings beautiful to look at with a lot of depth and emotion behind them. When you look through her collection of work, you can see her life story being told, and your able to walk through the events and moments she experienced. Not only is she an incredible artist who painted portraits and images inspired by her personal life, but she was also someone who suffered greatly yet continued to carry on an fight for what she believed in. From the age of 6 she was diagnosed with polio, resulting in one of her legs being noticeably smaller than the other. If this was not enough of an impact on her life, she later was involved in a tragic bus accident, which changed her life forever. After breaking many bones throughout her body, and having a metal pole impale her in the abdomen, she was left bed bound for nine months and would find herself to be in and out of hospitals for the rest of her life. When deciding on a subject with in the umbrella of Frida Kahlos life, I had the option to look into her life story and talk about the influences shes had on people, or to talk about the unusual relationship she had with her husband Diego Rivera, however I wanted to do something different as I feel this has been done many times before. Instead I wanted to look at the reasons why Frida Kahlo is so famous today, and recognised by people not even interested in art. When people see her face, they generally recognise her as Frida Kahlo, something other artists such as Pablo Picasso or Georgia O’Keeffe do not have the privilege of. However whilst undergoing research on these facts, I noticed that even though people recognised and could name the woman with the monobrow, they didn’t necessarily know who she was and why she was famous. You will find Kahlos image on anything from t shirts and bags, to bars of soap and shot glasses. She had the reputation of being a feminist icon that people should look up to, yet they know nothing of her or her life story. Since discovering this I would like to investigate why Frida Kahlo has become famous for reasons other than the artwork she produced, and whether she is known for the strong woman she was or just a face to make money out of. I think this would be an interest to others as it may unveil issues we have in society that aren’t being addressed, due to the ignorance of consumers. By reading my final essay you will learn more about Frida Kahlo as person rather than her simply being a monobrow on a t shirt sold in Primark.

I have began my research by reading Haydn Herrera’s 500 page biography on Frida Kahlos life. The book follows very detailed events that occur from her childhood, all the way through to her death at the age of 47. It contains many photographs and paintings done by the artist, as well as diery entries and letters she wrote through her lifetime. By reading this book, I hope to gain a greater knowledge of what her life was like, giving me more confidence to talk about her in my final essay knowing I have all the facts. Any key quotes or interesting events I find within the book, I log down on my Tumblr account, so that I have easy access back to them when writing out my final essay. As well as reading the book, I have watched the film ‘Frida’ staring Salma Hayek that is in fact based off Herrera’s book. By watching the film as well as reading the book, I hope to gain a new insight into what her life was like, having actual visuals of Mexico back in the 1900’s. By watching the character of Frida acted out by Salma Hayek, you can create a greater understanding for the pain and emotion she dealt with in her life, whether it was through the pain of the bus accident, or the pain of her husband constantly cheating on her with other woman.

When browsing through the internet, I came across a page called ‘Frida Kahlo is not your symbol’. I found this an intreging title, as it wasn’t simply a ‘fan page’ that I had so often come across when researching the artist. On the site I found a list of issues and arguments that have been raised due to people putting Fridas face on anytings and everything in a feat to make money. It talks about how this would not only go against everything Frida Kahlo stood for, but it often wasn’t even portraying her correct appearance. An example of this would be when social media platform snapchat, created a filter for the Mexican artist back in 2017. However when looking at the filter and the changes it made to a persons appearance, it was noticed that it would in fact create a paler complexion to that of the Mexican artist. People investigated further by placing the filter over the original Frida Kahlo self portraits, and the results confirmed that it did in fact lighten the skin tone of the original image. Discovering this sparked outrage to the public and those with different skin tones. But this was not the last time this would occur. A year later in march 2018, the popular doll company ‘Barbie’ released a Frida Kahlo doll as part of their inspiring women series. When reading an article written by ‘The Independent’ aside from the copywrite issues raised by the family, the doll itself has very few properties that made Frida Kahlo the woman she was. The doll once again has a very pale complexion, as well as being extremely skinny, something barbie has been pulled up on many times before. However the doll does not have a monobrow, one of Frida’s most noticeable features, nor does it show any evidence of the fact that she was disabled due to the bus accident, or the fact that she eventually lost one of her legs to gangrene later on in life. Leaving these features out and making it seem that she was a completely abled white woman, takes away all the things that made Frida Kahlo the woman she was. An ironic quote I found on the ‘Frida Kahlo is not your symbol’ website, was that she claimed she hated white people, the USA and capitalism, saying ‘ I don’t like the gringos at all. They’re very boring and they’ve all got faces like unbaked rolls’. Having been a woman that had these views, you would think she would be condemned, but rather she was embraced by white feminists, only reimagined as a ghostly version of herself, free of any radicality and hardship.

This ignorance to who Frida Kahlo was taken even further when British Prime Minister, Teresa May, wore a chunky Frida Kahlo bracelet during one of her speeches. Whilst May is a representative of the conservative party, it seems ridiculous that she would wear a bracelet representing a woman who was a fervent communist and actually had an affaire with Leon Trotsky, a soviet politician. People may argue that May simply wore the bracelet for aesthetic reasons, but that just proves how ignorant people have people on the views Kahlo had and fought for.

During a recent trip to London, I was able to document just how popular Frida Kahlo merchandise is. When travelling round gift shops, clothes shops or just walking down the road, you could find her face everywhere. You could buy Frida Kahlo mirrors, bags, soap, shot glasses, glasses cases, fairy lights… A factor I did pick up on however was the fact that they were all the same image of her.

You never see a painting of her ‘broken column’ or the ‘what I see in the water’, which I feel are beautiful pieces. The only reason I can think of for these pieces never being shown in the public eye or on items being sold in shops, is due to the fact that it shows deeper layers to her, not just the fact that she was a beautiful woman. The broken column does have partial nudity which I could understand some designers not wanting to feature if they target younger audiences, however this is not a factor in all of her artwork so why do people insist on using the same image of her.

So a key concepts that I will be looking at for the final essay is whether or not Frida Kahlo has simply become a face used to sell products and occasionally represent feminism. Has she become a hallow shell that the public eye no longer recognises for her artwork and life story. Do people no longer know her belief or what she stood for, and now simply see her as a pretty face with a monobrow on a tote bag. I feel like this has unfortunately become the case, as we are living in a society were we only care about making money. As well as this I want to see if there is a reason that in many products created around the Frida Kahlo brand, that some of her key features have been left out, such as in the snapchat filter or Barbie doll. I will be interested if this is a common factor that happens to other women and men of colour, or if it has simply happened to her, and if so why? To continue researching down this question I would need to understand some more background information on Mexico in this time period. What the Mexican revolution was all about and why Frida had the views she did. When alive she would always wear very traditional Mexican dresses, rather than anything influenced by European clothing. I need to fill in the gaps of her reasoning behind this. Her farther was originally from Germany, so what exactly was it about Europe and the USA that she so much hated. By filling in these gaps I would have a better insight of the history and beliefs she stood for, and then get greater understanding on the outrage some people have toward what so many companies are doing with the Frida Kahlo brand.

I would also be interested in researching and finding out more about the Frida Kahlo exhibition that recently took place in London. I was unfortunately unable to get tickets on the event, however I think I could find some interesting points from the exhibition, and to get feedback from anyone who went to the event. To find this out I would need to do some more research online and find articles written in review of the show. As well as this, I could possibly email people that went or were involved in production of the show, and get there opinion, not only on the exhibition, but on some other issues previously raised in my research. To carry this out I would need to create a consent form in order to prevent any issues possibly raised in the future, should the person I interviewed decided they no longer wanted to be a part of the research.

Over the summer I shall continue to read Frida’s biography by Herrera, as well as carrying out online research. As well as this I will be researching Mexican history in the 1900’s to gain greater knowledge on Frida’s beliefs and understand on a greater scale why the Frida Kahlo of today would outrage Frida if she were alive to see it today. I think I need to have a greater understanding on communism and the politics in general around this time, as some of the gaps in my knowledge on the subjects may become an issue when I am later writing my essay. Finally I will try and investigate further into the barbie doll of Frida Kahlo and the issues that revolved around it. I would like to see what exactly happened with the copywrite laws that resulted in the doll being removed from shop shelves, and why the doll didn’t have any of Frida’s attributes in the first place.

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postguiltypleasures · 6 years

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Peggy’s Modern Body

I originally wrote this for Basket of Kisses back in 2009. It didn’t survive some update, so I’m reposting/self archiving here.

During my last semester of college I audited a course called The Making of the Modern Body. It was awesome in every sense of the word. I did all of my readings and wished I actually had time to do the written parts. One of the most memorable books we read parts of was Holy Fast, Holy Feast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women by Caroline Walker Bynum. And a large part of why I remember it is I did not get it. The books thesis is about trying to understand the complexities of people in the early middle ages thought of the human body. The women discussed, who include several saints and other women letters, had very complex, contradictory relations to food and spirituality. I missed that, and got hung up on the parts of how the wounds inflicted on Jesus on the Cross feminized his body to a point where he could nurse all of humanity, and how women like St Catherine of Siena enacted this by sucking the pus of patients in the hospital where she worked. However, some time by the end of the second season of Mad Men Peggy Olson had made sense of it all through her own struggles with defining her person and spirituality.

Let’s start with that example of why the descriptions in the book distracted me from its thesis. St. Catherine of Siena was obsessed with communion, and something of an anorexic. She hated her body and eating, but loved Christ’s body and taking communion. Despite being unable to eat she understood the importance of food for others and in her fits of starved activity often made food for the homeless and patients in the hospital she worked at. (Interestingly the book points out how different St. Catherine interpreted her anorexia versus her contemporary and hagiographer, Raymond of Capua. Personal definition others interpretation is also something constantly played on Mad Men). The whole purpose of sucking puss from sick people was to find a way to experience communion without having a priest perform the act of transfiguration. As Peggy is from the 1960s her need to recast Communion, and the means by which she eventually does look very different. “Flight 1” sets up that Peggy’s storyline will involve Catholic rituals, which do not “mean the same thing” to her as they do to her family and other Catholics. We learn that she does not take communion and that is isolating to her. Later on “A Night to Remember”, when Father Gil confronts her about her lack of participation in ritual, we start to get that there may be some kind of yearning to be able belong to a community. Through the Popsicle add Peggy finds a way of showing that the ritual of communion gets enacted in daily life. It works as a reminder of how much love is expressed in personal interaction.

Stepping back it seems that most of Peggy’s story from the beginning of the series is about translating one aspect of culture to another. For the first few episodes she uses Joan a conduit between her ignorance and Manhattan office lifestyle. It is almost like she wanted to be a tabula rasa over the first episodes, except that does not work at all. When people see her at all they only react to her Body. Therefore there is a need to start denying her body. As she gains weight, she becomes more comfortable in her skin. She is freed from being an object of lust and can start making sure she is defined her talents as a copywriter.

Over the first season her body is both de gendered and hyper feminized. The episode that plays this the most is “Indian Summer.” The assignment of the Relaxisizor is given to her for the reasons of her weight and being a woman. It is also where she starts being more assertive about moving from secretary to copy writer. She repeatedly refers to “the assignment” as “getting an account”. From a conversation with her roommate we learn that she regularly takes work home. The product’s benefit turns out only to apply to women. While her copy only alludes to the product’s benefit, Don’s elaboration opens a conversation between the men in the office that completely ignores her femininity. They discuss how they would like to see Mitch’s very attractive wife, after using this, and deride the fact that Freddy’s less attractive wife also really likes it. Strangely none of them seem to think about Peggy getting any stimulation or satisfaction from it. However she is not enough one of the guys to avoid a condescending explanation at as the meeting breaks.

The episode also includes her date with the truck driver. It is the first time that we have seen her interact with anyone from out of the office, and it really drives home how much she defines herself by her job. Her date finds the way she says, “So you drive a truck” condescending, and becomes instantly defensive. They cannot relate on any subject and he attacks her mannered performance of urban sophistication. As she leaves she declares that people who want things they have not seen, are better than the complacent in Brooklyn. She sets up that she wants to be something she has not seen.

The date would have been doomed even if they had been able to relate to each other. At that point Peggy was seven to eight months pregnant by Pete, whose is preoccupied by his own gender identity issues. She gives birth immediately after getting promoted to junior copywriter. This climax ends the attempt to de gender her way into comfort. Peggy’s denial of her body turns into a catatonic despair. When these plots are viewed more spiritually than psychologically, it is clear how hopeless the baby made her. Primarily Don’s liberates her by letting her know that she can still have her job. The experience of giving birth will not define her.

However following Don’s advice exactly, (“this never happened”) is impossible. Many of the tools she used to define herself before are no longer an option. It is necessary to loose the baby associated weight to keep up this game; so moving on is more of conscience effort than acting like it never happened. For the first few episodes she even reverts back to her pre-maternity clothing. Whatever dreams she had of moving into Manhattan have been deferred. Peggy works at maintaining her relations with her Brooklyn based family. She runs errands for them and visits frequently. She has changed homes twice and still lives in Park Slope. Instead of playing on the tensions of where she is from and what she will be, the theme is reconciling them into something comfortable. However finding something comfortable means moving beyond familiar role play. This is demonstrated at the end of “Maidenform” when taking Joan’s advice to “stop dressing like a little girl” she shows up at a strip club to celebrate over an account she was shut out of for the whole episode. Despite the adult dress and settings, (or because of them), she gets pulled onto a client’s lap and asked what she wants for Christmas. Playing along cuts her off from the ability to define herself.

As the season moves on she works more on defining the type of woman she will be. This is most aided by people who are less confined by their roles gender roles. When Peggy meets Bobbie Barret you might expect her to be judgmental and dismissive. Peggy has been limiting her behavior and interactions to be taken seriously. Bobbie vamps and wears low cut necklines to have her way in negotiations. She may be coming out of a car wreck, but that only heightens the possibility that this is someone whose experience is useful. While staying with Peggy, Bobbie does allow herself to have a backstage life. She reads the tabloids with enthusiasm. She uses fat farm as an excuse for not seeing her husband and speaks with hostility to him over the phone. Though Peggy acts cagey around Bobbie, Bobbie can read into the situation. Bobbie’s advise to “don’t even try to be a man, be a woman” and that she needs to start treating Don as an equal. As advise goes it is much more open ended and empowering than Joan’s advice. Kurt Smith, the first open homosexual she has ever known, kindly lets her know that she is not dressing towards the role she wants and cuts her hair to a style she likes and comfortably moves her towards a young businesswoman look she needs to be. Peggy is neither subverting nor exploiting her femininity, she figuring out how it will work for her.

Which leads back to why reconciliation with her faith cannot go through traditional rituals. Their history and meaning only define things in a limited manner, and do not work with her experience. There is still a lot of controversy with the writers’ trick of Anita had a baby at the same time as Peggy. We all jumped to believe that the youngest boy in the Respola household was the one Peggy to which gave birth. Peggy’s fearful, distant reaction generated a lot of speculation about her mental well being and ability to connect to others. But combined with Anita’s accusatory confession demonstrates how misread her actions are by the standards of traditional role play. She is not acting like nothing has happened, she is acutely aware of how different things are. Most what she struggles to define through season is change and how it is accepted silently. But appropriately at the end of the season she does get to explain out loud how differently she feels. The confession is outside of Catholic sacraments because her spiritual life is as self defined as her body. She does not want to be absolved of what she did. She carries it around with her and acknowledges how it changed to Pete because he had never been open seeing or listening to her before. Many have speculated that maybe she regrets giving away the baby, as if that is loosing part of her soul. But having the baby would have ruined her life. Giving it away is a means of admitting how everything has an effect, and it is all permanent. It defines how she can define herself, and how that is always going to be some what limited, even as it goes for the unfamiliar.

#Mad Men #Peggy Olson #Don Draper #pete campbell #Joan Holloway #Bobbie Barret #Catholocism #Gender Identification #body image

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tea-books-rain · 6 years

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Book Review: A Beautiful Composition of Broken by R.H. Sin

Warning: I hated this book. I go after it really hard Inserting a read-more just for length.

I’m going to start this review with an excerpt. Two excerpts, actually. I couldn't decide which was more... erm... appropriate. You'll see.

From page 77:

The Tights You Wear.

wrapped around both thighs black hues and heather grays beginning at the waist ending just at the ankles forcing me to pay homage to your curves

From page 299:

6:16p.m.:

utilizing my tongue as a stress reliever pressing pressure points creating a climax provoking pleasure with ease opening you right up because my tongue is the key

-- This was, without a doubt, the worst collection of poetry I have ever beheld in my entire life. I feel like I could exfoliate with steel wool in the shower and I still wouldn't be rid of the absolute creepiness I've been exposed to within these pages. It is vile. It is demeaning. It is derogatory. It is falsely feminizing, toxicly masculine, and the attention-mongering is real. I have a lot to say about it.

A single moment of disclosure, I didn't actually finish this book. It's 461 pages long. I threw up the white flag of surrender on page 300. I couldn't take another page. I'll explain more in a bit.

Before I get into my full lambasting, however, I do want to say something nice about this book. I genuinely appreciate seeing a male poet so ready to embrace the idea of writing about love and about how it's OK to want love and to want a relationship, instead of just an OKCupid hookup or whatever. That was a nice, refreshing sentiment. If you aren't super-rooted in third-wave feminism (which I admittedly am, and which we'll also get into), you'll probably think this book is amazing. It offers just enough love, enough longing for respect, etc, to be good.

Another positive I want to say about this book is that some of the poems are legitimately good. There are plenty of redeemable poems that have nothing wrong, weird, or unhealthy in them. I'd say 25% of them are fantastic, normal, solid poems with good ideas and thoughts. I was drawing little hearts next to them. In fact, this book is so long enough that if they were collected up and all of the crappy, chauvinistic, toxic poems were removed, he still would have been able to publish a book, it'd just be more like a regularly sized poetry book instead of this insane tome.

That said, the good poems in this book are surrounded by so many poems that are - for lack of better phrasing - complete and utter bullshit, I couldn't take the good poems seriously. For example, there was a very nice poem about how R.H. Sin likes to get to know a girl's mind before he touches her body. This is well and good. It's a valid sentiment. However, it comes in at about page 250. The leggings poem listed above is on page 77. If what you're wearing to walk down the street means he can whistle at you, then what really comes first? What does he really care about?

So for me, the positive sides weren't enough to redeem this collection. I don't even know where to start with my issues regarding this work. I think I'm going to list them out and then elaborate one by one, just so I personally don't get lost ranting. I highly disliked how Sin paraded around like he was one of the feminists but he clearly isn't, I didn't like the whiplash from one poem to the next, the sheer amount of contradictions within the messages he's trying to bring forward, the toxic masculinity so clearly made evident, and the way he views love in general.

I think I'm going to tackle the love issue first, actually. This might have been what bothered me the most. R.H. Sin's idea of how love works, according to this book, is that it only has to do with being earned. If you just work hard enough, if you throw enough flowers at a pretty-lookin girl, if you just say the right words and put in the elbow grease, everything will be dandy. Then, when that's not how love works, he gets incredibly frustrated and blames it on the girl who left him. He sulks like a 5 year old who had a toy taken away, bemoaning that he loved her so hard and she didn't care about him at all and she never deserved him and blahblahblah. It eventually devolves into saying "well I don't care about anyone" (which we'll get into under the toxic masculinity section), before the entire process repeats itself again and again and again. About every 10-15 pages, it repeats. By page 300, he still hadn't learned what was going wrong here.

And I'm not saying that love doesn't require work, ok? It does. Being in a relationship means making decisions for 2, taking another person into account, worrying about them, checking in with them, etc. But being in love is also something relatively mundane. It's thinking someone is cute. It's having similar interests, a general respect for them, a general attraction. Within the poems presented here, I highly doubt R.H. Sin understands that. He genuinely seems confused that a woman might arbitrarily not be into him simply because she's not into him. He writes about women is like they're just prizes to be won over.

I think this ties into the toxic masculinity theme, so I'm going to dive into that next. This part isn't so obvious. R.H. Sin is definitely pretending like he's third-wave. He says all the magic words: he uses "women" and "warrior" in the same sentence multiple times, he has a whole poem using the word independence, he says women are strong, he even has a poem that says, "I hate this idea of a woman being silent."

But don't be fooled by the catch-phrases, kiddos! He's faking. If you read the excerpt at the beginning of this review, by page 77 you're already gonna know he clearly thinks that the decision to wear leggings is an open invitation for him to check you out on the sidewalk. If you choose not to like him, then you're just not good enough for him anyway and you never deserved his love. By the 200s, he's going to admit flat-out he knows women are silent because they're done with your shit--but he already said he hates it when women were quiet.

As if that's not contradictory enough, he starts gaslighting with his poems. He says he doesn't like silent women, but then he writes a poem "you don't have to explain why you left to the person who made you leave." He says you're allowed to leave anyone, but if you leave him, then you never meant anything. It's nonsense. It's infantile.

And that brings me to my main point of the toxic masculinity: R.H. Sin didn't admit a single fault about himself in all of the 300 pages I slogged through. Every. Single. Time. something went wrong, the finger was pointed at someone else. It was always that someone didn't love him enough, that they didn't understand him, that they wanted to leave, that they decided to choose Mr. Wrong over him, etc. Even people who had criticized his poetry meant nothing to him and were just jealous. He was completely and utterly incapable of sitting back, critically thinking through a situation, and admitting that he had any sort of flaw in his behavior or his logic.

As another example, there's a poem on page 160 that says, "I've come to the realization that loving a woman means making an effort to make her smile at all times." This is a terrible, terrible idea. Love is so much more than smiles. Trying to make someone happy 24/7 is the perfect basis for a mentally and emotionally abusive relationship. Does he get this? No. By page 219 he's saying "trying and trying is something that i'll no longer do. loving you until i realize that it'll change nothing. these things take time and i'm patient." No, you literally just don't understand what love is and you're glamorizing an unhealthy relationship dynamic, then having the audacity to turn around and behave like this act of self-sacrifice somehow earns you brownie points. It doesn't.

Anyway, I think that covers all of my major points. As a final note, I do have to say I thoroughly enjoyed ripping this book to pieces. I'm a firm believer in annotations and dog ears. This book looks more loved than my copy of Milk and Honey, which I've read... six times, I believe? Which is not bad considering I literally didn't even finish this book. My Snapchat story is littered with sassy annotations I added to the pages. My love interest, who doesn't even believe in annotations, was begging me to add further commentary and thoroughly joining in on the rampage against the godawful poetry and the godawful ideas R.H. Sin presents in this book. It was decidedly much more fun that if I'd actually spent the day reading a poetry book I enjoyed. In fact, if you want to get some thorough stress-relief by way of ranting about bad ideas of love, I'd solidly recommend this book. It's great for that.

Other than that, yeah, it's a really crappy book. My sincere apologies for whoever gets my copy after I get rid of it, both because the book sucks and my annotations surely do not improve on the theme. Yeah.

#book review #rhsin #a beautiful composition of broken #rh sin #poetry #booklr #bookblr

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notjournal · 4 years

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sat, october 3

I am now going to write for half an hour. It’s 11:05, so I’ll stop at 11:35. Maybe this will be a useless exercise, but I think I should do it sometimes after I read, because that’s the only time I have thoughts. I have to hear someone else thinking to know what it’s like to do it myself.

I brought my new plant in from the dining room. Its leaves were cold from the constant force of the window unit. I hope I haven’t somehow killed it already by shoving metal clamps into its soil and playing it like an instrument. Except that it was an instrument and can be at any time. That must be traumatic for the plant, and I imagine its heart giving out from fear–like a baby rabbit dying of a sudden heart attack after being dragged into the living room by a housecat. I should use only inanimate objects with my circuit board instrument, or animate objects that can give me permission to touch them. Actually, I could shovel dirt from the driveway into cups and moisten them under the tap and use those as my keyboard. I wonder how the plant conducts–is it the water, or somehow the plant itself? It must be the water. A dead, dry, desiccated plant wouldn’t conduct, right? It’s nice to think of conduct in the orchestral sense next to the electric sense: a conductor is the conduit of electricity from the dead notes on the page to the living bodies and their instruments.

This morning, while I was half asleep, my thumb bent suddenly and painfully in half. The movement created a new crack in the wound, which my body is attempting to fill in. It’s oozing more pus than blood, so it’s taking forever to dry. I need to cover the wound and restrain my thumb so that there will be no more cracks. The wound feels cool. I can see pockets of fluid under the clear “skin”. It looks so much like a landscape that I want to paint it, or at least draw it. I’ll do that later today. The wound acts like a volcano–a crack opens up, blood oozes like lava and then dries to cover the hole. It’s fun to think of the analogy the other way around. Does lava harden to prevent infection in the earth’s gaping wound? What would infection look like? What if animals and trees and dirt fell inside the hole and weren’t consumed by heat but took root in that impossible environment, creating a new malicious biome? But the earth’s blood is much stronger than mine. It is built to burn and then to foster new life where that life’s supposed to be. My blood is not destructive enough, because I suppose then it would burn right through my skin and all of the other tiny organisms that help my body to survive (are they a part of my body too? Are they mine?). Thinking of the earth as a body makes my own body feel frail and weak, which obviously it is. I’ve learned that. My pus is a stretchy orange gel. I wonder if pus is better than blood at attacking an infection, and how the body decides which to send out. There’s a small white fleck on my wound that looks like a highlight at the right angle, creating the impression of a new bubble of fluid that worries me every time I see it.

The beeping has been going on all night, and I would love to know where it’s coming from so I could make it stop. It’s so irritating. It must be a smoke detector that’s out of battery.

My new book is about a fictional scholar studying a fictional poet. There are several things I want to think about. First of all, the women in the book are jaded and disappointed. The feminists are all looking for something that is supposedly not there, and their studies are portrayed as illegitimate. Roland’s longtime girlfriend Val wrote a paper called “Male Ventriloquism: The Women of Randolph Henry Ash” which “was judged to be a good work and discounted by the examiners as probably largely by Roland” (61). The irony is obvious, but I want to explain it to myself to see if I can get anything out of it. The paper is about how Ash’s female characters just ventriloquize the thoughts/ideas/opinions of the men and aren’t fully fleshed out people with their own thoughts and desires. They are puppets. The examiners thought that Val was ventriloquizing Roland in her paper, that she was his mouthpiece. If this were true, she would be ventriloquizing him for her own benefit–using the words of an Ash scholar to get a good mark, or whatever the standard for graduate students is. Would Ash’s female characters be ventriloquizing the men for their own benefit? Obviously it doesn’t work like that, since they’re characters of Ash’s own creation; they’re ventriloquizing him to an extent. But books don’t really work like that either, since characters can have different opinions than their author; they’re supposedly self-contained people. The women are not convincingly self-contained in this case. They seem like puppets because the things they express are too closely aligned with the views of the male characters; they do not express the things that one might expect a woman in their circumstance(s) to express. Val does not express the things the examiners expect her to express, is that it? Or is it just her proximity to Roland and her status as a woman? The irony is that the thoughts were her own; Roland doesn’t even agree with them. This is where books like this get blurry. The existence of sexism is simultaneously implied and dismissed. It’s implied because why else would the examiners discount Val’s work as being Roland’s? It’s implied because academic success evades her and she becomes a typist. And then it’s dismissed because the feminist scholars are looking for something in Ellen Ash that just isn’t there, at least according to Blackadder–“she spent a lot of time lying on the sofa, and that’s hardly unusual for a lady in her time and circumstances. Their real problem–and Beatrice’s–is that Ellen Ash is dull” (114). These are gross generalizations, and actually now that I think about it more Byatt is just writing about a sexist world. All disparaging opinions about feminism are expressed by men, and actually Fergus speaks favorably of feminists. I think it’s easier to come to this conclusion because Byatt is a woman, and a woman clearly knowledgeable about feminism, so why would she create a sexist book? The lines are blurrier in Wonder Boys. I’ve been writing longer than I meant to, so I’ll make the last thing short. I’m curious about the campus novel in general, but specifically when it’s about a fictional poet. Possession references plenty of real poets, but Ash is fictional (Crabb Robinson is real). Byatt wrote Ash’s poetry herself, and I wonder about the quality of fictional 19c poetry compared to the real thing (a different kind of ventriloquism!). I’m reminded of all the writing exercises we did in Colleen’s class. Is it a narcissistic exercise to have the protagonist obsess over poetry the author of the book wrote herself? That’s a funny thought. My brain is getting tired, and I don’t have anything else to say. I wrote for almost 45 minutes.

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puppyfluffpasta · 5 years

Text

Stranger’s Help

I was driving with my best friend Jeff and we were somewhere in the middle of nowhere, when we decided we were sick of each other and started bickering, blaming each other for everything. He’d yell at me, telling me it was my fault the gas meter was broken because I accidentally kicked it, but it was such an old car that’s break anyway, and it was so small I probably couldn’t even get in with out kicking something, and being cramped in there for a cross country trip was not the best idea, but we were on our way still and it was too late now. He’d call me “Mikey” which he knew I hated because I preferred Mike, or even Michael now that I was mature and trying to be a real adult at 25. But you didn’t hear me calling him “Jeffy” whatever, it was stupid and we both knew it. The lack of air conditioning made us both sweating grump machines and we were fighting like an old married couple, which subsided for a moment until... walla, the car stopped moving. It sputtered for a moment, and wouldn’t start again as we looked out at the completely abandoned highway (we hadn’t seen a car for hours probably because we were out in the absolute middle of nowhere.) and we both knew our only chance, as we hadn’t been even remotely close to a gas station, and our phones were both completely dead the next state over, we realized we were fucked.

We yelled a little more, until we realized in unison neither one of us were going to start trekking out alone, so we decided we better just lock up the car, leave it on the side of the road and start walking with the little bit of water we had (about a 16 oz bottle each half full) and beg some person to help us, anyone to help with anything.

After a miserable hour or so of walking through dead grass and over hills, we eventually found a little fence, and in the distant was some little wooden cottage, in a strangely forested part of that area, where we thought there was deserts and plains only for states around, but here was this strange vibrant little place of trees with some kind of house in the middle. How quaint, and how goddamn lucky. We ran over, just hoping for even a glass of water, and eventually I knocked on the door. I’d do the talking, since Jeff was awkward, and usually tried to come onto any female, which could very well be who answered the door to this feminine little cabin, and that might get the door slammed or a shotgun pulled on us in these parts.

Eventually after a minute or two of waiting hopelessly, as we just hoped there wasn’t lights left on for some reason, some curtains moved in a window and someone quickly peered out, but we couldn’t make out what they looked like. I think it was a woman.

And what a woman it was... the door creaked open confidently, I waved through the window when I could, and returned a similar wave as I saw a little woman with a coy smile behind scarlet sharp lips, sleek green eyes glowing from behind long, dark locks of hair. She couldn’t have been over 30 and she was drop dead gorgeous, wearing all black with long sleeves dressing long pale fingers with long sharp black nails. She simply smiled at us and said “Yes?”

I stumbled over myself trying to not freak out at how beautiful this stranger was, I’d ask her to marry me she was so drop dead gorgeous. But I kept it to “Our car ran out of gas some ways from here, sorry to bother you, um, can we just get some water and maybe a phone to call for a tow? Or do you happen to have any gas on hand?? Anything to help please.”

She looked I’m not sure how, maybe annoyed, maybe infuriated, maybe happy to help, but said “So there’s no one else with you?” And I replied “nope just us two. That’s all. Please we mean no harm, were begging you!” I said with a nervous smile as Jeff pleaded with me.

“Hmm, why should I help you two? What are your names. Let’s see if I like your names.”

“Well I’m mark, or mike. Mike.” I stumbled like an idiot.

“And Im Jeff!” My friend said overconfidently while stretching out his hand to shake her hand. She grabbed it, but in a way as if Jeff’s hand was dainty, just grabbing the tips like you would a young woman. It made me laugh a little to see him emasculated like that. But then this woman looked dead serious at me and said “I’m Persephone. It’s a Greek name. Now Mark. Jeff. You say you beg for my help? Let’s see you really beg.” She didn’t smile she said it firmly as if it was a command. “Get on your knees, both of you, I want to see you beg, come on.” She snapped and smiled and suddenly I think we both felt an immense need to to get on our knees and beg, but we didn’t want to look too silly and looked at each other. “Uhhh” I think we were both a little scared and a tiny bit aroused, and we decided maybe at once if we should just play along. I kinda laughed and said “um like this?” Smiling and got on my knees, Jeff following. “Please, please help us. We’re begging you.” I shook my hands in prayer to her and tried to remember her name... persa phonee? That’s not right. Then as if she could read my mind she said “You can just call me mistress. Say, please mistress, please help us”

And at once giggling me and Jeff said “please mistress. Please help us” and we smiled as we tried to not get slight boners. Then she broke her serious stride with a sharp smile

Like a knife, and said “get up now, let’s go inside. I’ll get you something to drink. Come on in,” and she turned around showing off a plump tight butt waddling ahead of us as we followed in like baby ducklings. This girl was going to be fun I think.

We stepped inside and I immediately noticed how much bigger it looked inside, stairs leading down to more rooms and halls under neath the ground level it seemed. Woah, cool. And I made out so many strange pictures and objects around, some new age type stuff like crystals and stones, little talismans, and lots of bones and strange objects. Me and Jeff taking it all in, she pointed to the couch and we both sat, excited to see what happened next. Would a threesome with Jeff be too gay? Too weird? Would one of us demand to be alone with her if she liked us? We’re we in trouble? We looked around at all the stuff in the house, rams skulls and different trinkets, old books. She was in the kitchen or other room fixing up water it seemed like, taking a moment, as Jeff turned to me and whispered pointing to some

Symbols carved into the wall “I think she might be a witch dude. Hope you don’t get turned into a frog” and I elbowed him to shut up. She was definitely into the whole witchy Aesthetic, she even had a broom in the corner like an old witch’s broom for god sake.

Then the woman returned with a tray with three glasses of water, she set the tray on the table in front of us and we tried to play it cool that we were dying of thirst and we gulped down the impossibly refreshing water about as quick as we could, almost choking on it.

Jeff broke the silence with “So I’m sorry, how do you say your name again?” Oh god, don’t be rude we just got inside, you idiot.

“It’s like purse, Eff, oh knee. But like I said you two can just call me mistress. Miss Percy is fine too for now.” She said as she stirred her drink, perhaps not just water.

“Well thank you Miss Percy.” Jeff said.

Then she assumed a more motherly tone: “You know, you should really sit more proper, cross your legs, one knee over the other.” He kinda laughed and tried it, not really comfortable as he was being asked to sit like a lady, another stab at him. Ha.

She continued: “You know you have such high cheek bones, such a thin figure. Such small proportions, you really are blessed with such a body.” Jeff was drooling at her compliments, he knew he’d stay here as long as he could. He might let me take his car, but I was jealous, we were getting help and out of here soon, were not here to make friends really. We gotta get home eventually.

“You on the other hand. Michael. You are so broad shouldered, so muscular for someone that doesn’t seem to try. Your essentially the man most men wish they were aren’t you?” She was stroking my ego for sure now, with manlier compliments than Jeff’s weird things.

“Both of your potentials shall be unlocked soon, you two will make the most excellent little pets” she said as she smiled sipping. What a creepy lady. I figure she was joking, but trying to flirt at the same time? Dammit I’d really have to share her with Jeff. This is not something I planned at all. then suddenly I noticed something, I was swelling, I was getting a little taller, I looked at my otherwise loose t shirt, and noticed it was tighter, my Muscles were bulging like they never had before, it was like I was flexing as hard as I could without even trying. I touched my body and felt so much dimension, I was getting more manly by the second, wow, what the hell was going on? Was I hallucinating? Was she inside my head? Then I thought about the fact we just drank some mystery water she gave us, some kind of potion. Uh oh.

“Mikeyyy??” I heard a shrill cracking voice come from where Jeff was sitting as I noticed hair stretching down past his ears now, his face thinned and supple, lips luscious and eyes big as the lashes seemed longer than ever, his dainty hand lifting up to his quickly swelling breasts, his shirt stretching and pants bulging as his body feminized, I saw her panic as she grabbed her crotch feeling a very foreign thing where their penis quickly seemed to retreat inside their body. She let out a shriek of fear as she looked down at her entirely female body.

The witch started again “Like I said, you two will make great pets. I own you now. You’re in my possession, and this is only the first of many spells you will be experiencing. Now Jess, and you Michael, tell me thank you for your new bodies, these are much more suiting to you. You both look absolutely stunning.”

Jess started crying as she pawed herself trying to find any semblance of masculinity or familiarity it that now tiny soft body. I said in a now deeper, richer, more manly tone: “Hey, let us go now! What are you trying to do to us? What did we just drink??” I stood up aggressively to walk out, ready to fight this demon woman with my new found stature, and I pulled up the now completely emasculated young lady beside me as if I was rescuing her.

She started laughing maniacally as she pointed to the door, which had vanished from sight and was now one of the only blank walls in the house. I shuttered as I realized what a mistake we had made by coming here. There was no escape.

“Look whatever you want, just change us back and let us go!” Jess said as she stomped in all her incredibly feminine glory. I had never realized how girly Jeff was until right now. He really did make a very convincing girl already, and it had been maybe one minute.

“Shh!!” Percy hissed as our lips slammed closed painfully, our tongues swelling until our mouths were completely full and useless, making no noise.

“You two are my playthings. My dolls. My slaves. Whatever I feel like. Do you realize you are lucky you are even both human still? I promise you won’t stay that way for long, I’m going to have to do a lot of breaking on you two, I can tell. And dont worry we have all the time in the world. This is going to be a truly magical experience. Now. Go ahead and nod if you are going to shut your mouths, do exactly as I say, and with a smile, you understand?” I nodded in tears starting to form in my eyes in pure terror. But then, my tongue stopped, shrunk down into my mouth to normal size and we stood there in shock.

“Now get on your hands and knees.” She snapped and we didn’t even have to try, we were instantly brought into our hands and knees doggy style. Then just like dogs, she pulled out two collars to place on us. One a red one with a gold buckle, and a pink sparkly one with a silver buckle. We both frowned hard and sobbed a little as she placed the pink one on Jess, and the red one on me as we felt glued to the floor in that position. Then she handed me a knife.

“Don’t get any funny ideas okay. I can turn you into a toilet and you can spend the next hundred years swallowing mine and, pretty little Jessie here’s waste?” I believed her and shivered as I held the knife like an alien toy not sure what to do with it.

“Cut her clothes off. Get her naked.” The witch bellowed at me. I looked over into my friends big blue, innocent looking eyes as she looked at me in fear and disbelief. Tears filled her eyes but her soft little hands touched my now larger, gorilla like hands and she said “It’s okay. Just do it. Let’s see what I look like now. I trust you.” I really had to hide the fact through all this horrifying mess of a situation that I was really turned on by what looked like my friends blonde twin sister telling me she trusted me enough to get her naked, and my dick flexed a little bit in excitement. If I got a boner our friendship was going to get way to weird, and while it was normal for her even though she’s actually a guy that’s my friend Jeff, was more normal than the hunkified gayness of your male friend declothing you. But I took the knife, and cut her/his shirt off. Two good sized tits bounced out from their prison and I saw my friends birthmark reminding me behind these gorgeous boobs that this was my friend still. I gazed into those pointy pink nipples for probably too long and then snapped out of it, cutting down the pants and pulling them with ease, I was so strong now. Then those gorgeous smooth legs that now jutted from Jeff’s tidy whiteys she pulled her underwear down so I wouldn’t have to and pulled her feet out of her shoes to take all the clothes off, until a hot blonde naked girl was in front of me in only a collar and socks. My dick was at least half erect now. She looked down at her body in disbelief, down at the pink lips that were now her vagina. She touched herself fearfully and said “wow... I’m hot.”

The mistress giggled and commanded to me, now, hand her the knife. I complied and Jess with caution took the knife from me as we looked into each other’s eyes, barely recgonizing each other, but we knew somewhere in their was our annoying travel buddy. Then she cut my shirt off, cutting me a little bit because she was too eager. “Ow!!” I yelled as a tiny cut was formed on my now well defined abs. We were both taken aback by my incredibly toned body, i looked like a goddamn male model. I saw her tiny hand touch my abs slowly and i did the same in amazement. Maybe my change wasn’t so bad. I just felt sorry for Jeff. But then i realized she was really getting into feeling my abs and seemed more, hungry than amazed. What was going on? She pulled her hand away as she noticed, and then turned her head away in disgust. “UGH no... dude... i can’t do it” this incredibly girly little voice tried to speak like her former self would.

“Oh you’re pretending you don’t want to see more?” The mistress mocked Jess’s confusion. “Your new little body is pulsating with hormones, and I could sense your two’s horniness the second you walked up. I know you want to see how big the potion has made your friends cock. I’m making you do it. Don’t worry, it’s not because you want to, it’s because I’m forcing you!” She knew something stranger than we wanted to admit was happening to us. I was so horny, and couldn’t tell erect I was as that nervous little hand cut away as I sat in awe, my underwear and pants cut before I could say be careful, and an elongated, more chipper form

Of my member plopped out, fairly erect, a big boner that was maybe 10 inches long, very wide and very tense and veiny. It was literally pulsing it was so hard. Jess’s tiny little face made a gasping “O” and looked at me. It was the biggest dick I’d ever seen in person, my god. It wasn’t as sexual as it was astounding. All right. I was definitely well endowed now. Jess stares at it like it contained the meaning of life, I stared at her staring at it and wretched at the guilty thought of those sweet bulbous lips wrapped around the head of my cock, God please suck it it needs it, I’ve never been so horny in my life. But god, what was it like for her? Him I mean?

“I think you’re drooling a bit hun, I bet you’ve wanted to fuck your friend for a long time, now you just have the, equipment, ha.” She laughed at us in our awkward states as I noticed something below Jess dripping just a tiny bit. She was so wet she was dripping. This witch was trying to make a porno out of us. But it would be gay. And we were straight. This was too weird, we denied our alien bodies and flared at the mistress, we refused. We wouldn’t do anymore for her, she could kill us, we wouldn’t be her sex slaves.

“So why don’t you put it in her mouth. You know you want to.” She teased as Jess yelled “No! Get it away! I don’t want it near me! You’re trying to rape me! I’m not even really a girl!! You’re gay!” This shrill female voice told me. “No no I’m not!! Jess I mean, Jeff listen! Let’s get out of here! We can take her! Let’s fight her!” I said desperately. Then as we heard another snap, we were forced by an invisible force down on our hands and knees.

“Now, if you two are not going to behave, I better put you in your cage.” She walked over, heels clicking against the ground, and tapped with her fiendish nails a black metal cage, big enough for both of us. A cage? Like dogs? We couldn’t even stand up straight in that thing?

“In now. NOW!” She yelled as we sat there In resistance. She walked over and twisted Jess’s nipples hard as I was trapped in place and she screamed out in pain, but oddly it sounded tied with pleasure. Maybe i was just still horny dammit.

She whimpered and scurried into the cage like a dog as i stood, she could twist my nipples all she wanted, I wasn’t going to budge. Then she stomped behind me and I felt claws grip into my balls like they were going to tear them right off. I got the message and scurried in as well.

“Take your shoes and socks off, no clothes except a collar.” She ripped my socks off as well as Jess’s. Great. It would be cold in this metal cage and we didn’t even have socks to keep our feet warm. She smacked my ass with something hard on the way in, and the door locked behind me as I bumped into Jess’s nude body, she tried to back away so it wouldn’t be any weirder than it was.

“Listen you two are going to spend the night in here. I know you can’t resist coming inside her little Mikey, you’re gonna fuck her any second I can tell. Just know when you finally do get your semen inside her, I’ll reward both of you. I want her to swallow that cock like she wants to deep down so your real transformations can begin. And don’t act like you’re not willing. When come is in her mouth and in her vagina, don’t worry you can’t get pregnant, not yet at least, but you will be a little slut like your heart desires. Both of you will be. You’re my little toys now. I’ll let you out when there’s cum inside of your holes, got it? Goodnight!” She smacked the cage assertively and waltzed out leaving us trapped together in this tiny cage, barely able to stay at opposite sides to keep from cramping each other.

We stared at opposite sides of the room in anguish as we tried to wriggle the lock free. God dammit. In a cage. Worse than jail. Some crazy bitch keeping us captive. Great.

“This sucks... what the fuck man...” I heard Jess say as she played with her sore tits, still amazed at her new body. “I know... this is too fucking weird... how do we get out of here?” I still had a raging boner, but I tried to pretend it wasn’t there. Jess kept staring at it. “Can you put that thing away!” I blushed, “well sorry! Okay! You’re a naked girl and i can’t control this big old thing.” She crossed her arms and said “well... can’t you just like... jerk off real

Quick.” What?? Was she serious? “Ew! Like right in front of you? That’s too weird.” She looked upset by this “well, i mean, it’s pretty weird that it’s just like, standing at attention menacingly.” I responded “well hey just you don’t have one anymore.... don’t be jealous of this thing” i said with a little bit of pride grabbing it at the base, but i felt like just touching it I was about to cum all over the place.

“Well for one thing, you are not cumming inside me like that crazy bitch said...” I was appalled. “I didn’t say I was going to!! What the hell? I’m staying in my corner.” I turned around. “Oh now you’re gonna show off your muscular butt, cool thanks” she said angrily as I layed opposite trying to keep my dick from grinding into the ground or steel bars, maybe ready to explode. Then she poked my butt. “Get that thing out of here!” She said as she poked it two or three more times, seemingly touching it just to touch it. I tried to recall my friend again from this crazy girl now taking his place. “Dude stop touching my ass you’re gay.” Then she giggled, touching me again, “you’re gay!” But she sounded playful and excited. Uh oh. What was happening? “Ugh why couldn’t you get turned into a girl. She wants you to fuck me. Can you imagine? Weird. Too weird. God how does this thing even fit those things you know what i mean.” She spread her legs touching her pussy, it was still so wet. She wasnt fooling me, she was as horny as i was. She pulled the lips and showed the right little opening, pulled the hood up showing a swollen little clit. “That’s where my dick went. Look. Haha.” She poked it playfully like a toy, and rubbed it a tiny bit, pulling her hand away in fear after letting an out of character moan like she just felt the most immense pleasure for a second. “Woah.. haha sorry.” I just laughed. What was it like to have a clit? I had an idea. “Okay look, this is fucked up. But obviously we’re stuck here, we can sit here horny and fucked all night or we can just play with our new junk facing opposite ways, and get it over with right?” Jess didn’t know what to do. “Umm okay, if it sounds good to you. Well I just am gonna kinda lay on my back and... ohh mmm.” She started already. She found the clitoris and was not leaving it alone. I saw her hand spidering about with her new package and she wasn’t too shy, as a finger slid inside herself, my dick pulsating in jealousy as I watched her play with herself. “What you’re just gonna watch me? Start touching that anaconda, don’t make this weirder than it has to be.” He/she was right. I should just get it over with. I really needed to jerk off anyway, so I started pulling my hand around the base, and started grooving up and down slowly, and god did I need to do that. I was so hard I just kept going, watching her fingers touch herself when my eyes were open, I figured hers must be closed, but when I looked over, her eyes were staring down at my dick. She really liked watching me. I kept doing it and tried to look muscular doing it, look cooler and more macho. As I got closer and closer i all of a sudden noticed a hand lightly touching my side. Jess was now entirely attentive towards me jerking off, not even really touching herself, as if she gave up trying to get off on her own. “Ooh you’re good at that.” This sultry, sensual womanly voice escaped this girl, it was as if my friend had completely corroded and this porn Star was now here with me. I didn’t fight it. It just felt so good to finally masturbate. “Hey. I got a crazy idea. What if I helped you a little.. like if we just put together....” i rolled over and she was practically already crawling into my dick, her pussy inches away from the head when I stopped stroking. Then i didn’t resist as I watched her little hand grab the base of my dick and move it towards her little pussy.

“Oh god here goes... this thing is huge and...” She plopped it into her and i just about came from how good it felt. This was the nicest wettest, softest, tightest pussy i had ever felt in my life. And just the head was in. “OH GODDDD MMMMmmm” i heard let out uncontrollably as she glides her pussy over my cock, it flexed as it eased into her impossibly tight little orifice. We were officially fucking. I grabbed her boobs and squeezed and she moaned harder and I filled her more, thrusting and thrusting. She seemed like I was going to rip her in half , screaming and moaning I couldnt tell if I was hurting her or pleasing her as she moaned and moaned but I just kept fucking for dear life as she humped into me more and more as I did into her, and I felt her hands claw my ass as she clenched into it and pulled me further and further into her, until I felt the big climax coming. I was going to shoot the fattest load of my entire life, and I just said like a dumbfound baby “uh ah, I’m gonna come I’m gonna come.” And she screamed “COME IN MY FACE!!” I pulled out, ferociously jacking off and her open mouth and closed eyes begged for it as she convulsed from the hard fucking, and what looked like a whole cup full of semen erupted into her face into her mouth as she licked it up taking a finger full and slurping it into her mouth. I watched in awe and total brain dead euphoria. She looked so beautiful covered in my spunk. She took a finger full of come and shoved it back into her pussy. Letting out a sensuous “mmm....” “She said I can’t get pregnant right? Haha” and she laid her sweaty head onto me, the soft hair feeling nice, but I felt so raw from

Having just fucked my friend so hard. And the reality set in, i just fucked Jeff. And Jeff loved it. And was now cuddling with me and touching my naked body. I had to shove her away.

Jess said slightly offended: “What what? What’s wrong baby...” I had to push her away. This was fucking too weird now. “Jeff... remember it’s me mike?” “Ugh.... you’re always so boring... killing the moment... you just fucked the shit out of me... I’ve never felt anything like that in my life god that was good. I know it’s you Mikey. I don’t even care whats happening, that felt amazing. I thought the cum would be weird but like... I didn’t care in that moment... it tasted sooo good. Like it tasted salty and weird but like, it was so hot. I just lost myself. I haven’t felt like that... ever... that was amazing. Thank you.” She stroked my torso again and I almost slapped her hand away.

Jess just layed back and looked up into space. She realized what had happened. “Oh god. Did I want to fuck you? I really didn’t but. You got so hot... god I don’t even like guys... but oh my god I loved that dick... Mikey’s dick... what the fuck. Dammit. Just like the mistress said. That bitch knew we would fuck. We’re really under her control. I put your jizz in my mouth. I’m so fucking gay. That’s not normal. It’s this stupid body I have tittles for an hour and I already act like a dumb slut. God I’ve never felt so emotional!! Being a girl sucks!” I kinda sat for a moment. “Well you seem to have enjoyed it earlier.” Jess growled a bit. “You don’t get it. You don’t have a pussy. You don’t understand what a cock feels like in your pussy, it’s otherworldly, it’s meant to be. Like fucking a girl with your dick is cool but this is like... I don’t know this is all I have right now anyways but that was... wow... I just... you really don’t feel like cuddling like, at all? That’s all I want to do lemme lay on you asshole!” She scooted closer to me and I tried not the cage to sink to the furthest corner away... “look... your clingy. You’ve dated clingy girls. You’re being one of them. Chill out. I don’t wanna cuddle you.”

“Oh but fucking me is fine? Goddamit! I feel so used! You just wanted to fuck me

The second I looked like this! You didn’t even fight that witch! No wonder girls hate men so much you’re all assholes! I’ve had a pussy not even a whole day and I already hate all men! Fuck you!” Wow. Jess was really a woman inside and out now I think. This was bizarre. But maybe I was being a dick. We’d already passed the point of no return. But I wanted to get out of here, not consider each other’s feelings. We’re trapped by a psychotic witch and she’s wanting to cuddle. Crazy bitches.

Eventually I fell asleep, and of course I woke up in the middle of the night to this little blonde girl all over me, head on my chest snoring away. Dammit. I just ignored it and went back to sleep. Then I heard something. We both jumped awake, almost hitting our heads on the roof. A loud drumming on the roof of the cage rattled around.

“Rise and shine slaves!! I heard your little night you too had. I knew Jess was a little slut, say ‘yes i am mistress percy’” jess just said “fuck you”

“OH! THIS kind of behavior will not be tolerated, let me tell you something, you don’t want me to fuck you. When I fuck someone, they really get fucked. Do you really beg me to fuck you? You little slut.” So then i had the bright idea to join my new fuck buddy.

“I agree, fuck you and go fuck yourself then” I said to this witch as she glared and squatted down to show us her rageful eyes. I then got very scared.

“I think you two are going to have a better use for those dirty mouths, they can get a lesson in cleaning. First off, you little sluts are going to lose your most precious parts.”

My dick shrunk away, I grabbed at it and it completely sealed up and shriveled up, not into a vagina, just smooth like a ken doll. Then I looked at Jess and her pussy sealed up like a Barbie doll. Oh god. We were in over our heads.

“Now first off, get out here...” she opened the cage and we crawled out submissively, dying to get our precious new organs back ASAP. We both secretly were terrified of not fucking again. As nauseating as this all was that sex was life changing.

“And stick those tongues out, clean the bottom of my boot, first you Mike on the left, then little Jess on the right. Go ahead.” We both resisted but looked in each other’s eyes for some solidarity and sort of stuck our tongues out a barely touched the bottom of her boot. It was gross but really just tasted like leather.

“Keep licking.” And we started moving out tongues more and more, but still not much. Then a hard whip snapped across the both of us and we whimpered, licking more gallantly and fearfully. “Every inch of my boots or I’ll shove that broom over there up both your asses, and you can decide with one of you gets the bristled half.” We licked and licked and tasted some dirt and strange flavors on these filthy shoes, it was so gross and I didn’t feel like we were actually cleaning anything, and my gut burned in humiliation.

“Now, untie my boots.” We followed her directions and untied them

“Pull them off.” We pulled off her high heeled boots and uncovered a womanly, stale smell of feet as she wasn’t wearing any socks, but black shiny toenails shined on white soft looking feet, she raised the sole up to our faces and a black crescent of dirt was caked on the bottom of her foot, it smelled bad and looked really sweaty. Neither of us could stomach licking that thing. “LICK. MY. FEET, or else!” She yelled at us as we shivered, too disgusted to follow the orders. Then she snapped. We were frozen, I couldn’t move a single inch of my body. In a strange way, I had been shaking and tense this whole time, and being paralyzed sort of made me feel strangely calm in a way I hadn’t in a very long time, maybe ever. But the searing terror of the situation made it different.

Jess with her loud mouth yelled out again, “fucking gross! Fuck you get us outta here!”

The witch laughed. She looked at me. “You can thank your friend for your fate now, open wide.” My mouth ripped open, so wide I felt the corners of my mouth ripping away, it hurt and I felt my body crumbling, depleting and flattening. What the hell??

I looked over the best I could and saw Jess’s body melting away as her mouth grew freakishly large, and the sweaty foot pointed its toes at her face, rubbed its grossness all over nose and slid into her gaping mouth, until she pushed down, and her mouth was gagged with her foot, becoming a neat little black sock with the faint screaming face of Jess choking down her foot. Oh my god!

“Now for you.” The wet foot brushed my face, the smell staying everywhere it touched on my face as it rubbed whatever grossness it was roasting up inside those boots and wherever she walked all over my face, and the taste was ungodly as she slid her foot deep into my mouth, stretching me out as I tasted the top of her foot, the filthy bottom, the heels, the wrinkles full of dirt, the whole foot filled my entire everything and all I could do was suck on this disgusting thing as it filled me. Then she took a step, and the weight of a thousand tons came down, distorting and deforming me as it wiggles its vile toes on my tongue. The dirt crescent definitely had a bitter taste, but the salty footyness and odor like rotten fruit made every inch equally disgusting. I wonder how bad Jess was feeling for getting us changed into socks, then as the world plunged into darkness, as we were returned into the humid, hot sweaty boot, the smell became more complex and pungent, and I believe we both started crying as we sucked on every step of this witch. We could hear projected from our owner above. “Why!! You two make such excellent socks! I’m going to have to show you off you my witch friends around here! Now, you might think this area is quite barren, but underground you see, we have a whole community and I’d love to show you just how cruel some of my friends can be. Maybe I need to change you into some nice shoes and lend you to some friends! Or maybe you two would make a better couple buttplugs? Oh that would smell worse than being under my sweet little feet wouldn’t it?” She ground her toes down into me, squelching as sweat squeezed from the sole and between the toes into me to be absorbed. Fucking disgusting! Oh god!

“But listen here slaves, our journey is simply just beginning.” My consciousness became a blur as the violent steps and foot stench became a disorienting mass of sensations, I was violated and contorted as I sucked on a wet foot.

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