#for now: the emotional scream i will call a freewrite

[knowlesian]

okay: let’s talk candied melon silk moths, everybody. because holy shit, did i just blow my own fucking mind upon this very night.

full disclosure: i had this shit planned out a little before i sat down to google. i’d start with a little light ‘i’m not a bug-ologist, buuuuut’ joke and then synthesize what i’d read on google into a readable bit of moth fact/history before moving onto Considering The Humble Moth.

but ofmd has ruined that. because here’s the thing: there is no such thing as a candied melon silk moth. 

now, the rosy maple moth? that moth exists, and their habitat stretches well past st. augustine down to nearly the tip of florida. they’re apparently the smallest kind of silk moths, which seems Not An Accident given the way this show is playing with toxic masculinity and expectations surrounding it. 

they were classified in 17-fucking-93, because of course they were. by johan christian fabricius, which is just a really fucking cool name. i don’t make these rules. (i did some light research on him and it ended in Very Interesting/The Kind of Problematic You’d Expect From A Man Named That Doing Science-y Things Around Then places, so i’m gonna do more there later.)

for now, the basics. this level of detail and then a last minute hard swerve into We Do What We Want, Fuck You means they did the work: they didn’t just slap together some latin and make up a name and call it a day to avoid paying... moth copyright???? 

they tracked down an interesting moth, did their research on it, and then cackled with glee as they changed one very important letter and made up their own goddamned moth, because it’s all fuckery here. masks on masks on masks, all of them a little bit real just because we put them on and went about our day.

and because ofmd looks at history, at traditional power structures and the crushing weight they put on every single one of us living under them, and asks: why? and what if it weren’t like that?

in the real world, these were not the men we are watching fall in love; the real ed and stede did horrible fucking things. they were, in colloquial terms, The Bad Guys.

but what if they were these men, instead? what if we stole their names and histories and pasted our stories on their fucking faces. what IF we colonized the colonizers and made them dance to our fucking tunes, this time? 

what if nobody had to define themselves against what they aren’t? what if a rosy maple moth was a candied melon silk moth because fuck you for saying it can’t be different, this time of all times?

so fuckin’ yeah. there’s THAT, which really put a spin on how i planned to organize this meta. i mean: what do i DO with that shit???? that’s fucking insane. i’m gonna fight these people. fight them with my TEARS because they have pushed my love over the borderline. feels like i’m going to lose my mind, & etc.

what the fuuuuuuuck.

that little mental/song break over, onto what i knew i was going to talk about.

first: that they used a moth at all. we have a lot invested in the butterfly as an image/metaphor as a culture. at worst it’s a literal started ugly, ended up beautiful thing, at best it’s about metamorphosis and transition/transformation and the revealing of a true self (things ofmd is also very interested in) but the physical beauty part is always lurking there in the subtext, making things a liiiiittttle bit weird.

this particular moth also happens to be legit cute as fuck, but we don’t attach that kind of beauty baggage to moths. instead, our favorite moth metaphor is about danger. moths to a flame, we say, because we are REAL scared of warmth and pleasure. (and emotional risk, understandably.)

and oh look! ed and stede, moths to each other’s flame; these two are drawn together, the way whole crew is drawn together, by accident and irresistibly until they're a family in ways they couldn’t have planned for or ever anticipated. none of them started out in the same place, some of them didn’t start out speaking the same languages, a lot of them are still on the way to figuring out who they are: but here they are. drawn together in their various states, anyway.

(puts the fire at the heart of stede’s liminal space ship in new context, huh? fuck this stupid show.)

but here’s where it gets real weird: that’s a silk moth.

stede, privileged and still in his cocoon not quite With It stede, holds in his hands the creature responsible for the red handkerchief ed’s mother was tricked into believing god didn’t want people like them to have. and he offers it up to ed, entirely clueless of the resonance he holds in his hands, eager to share it without even knowing the fucking magic he is capable of conjuring for a million reasons fair and unfair, systemic and personal: the means of fuckin’ production.

because god doesn’t decide who gets silk, rich fuckers don’t decide who gets silk.

no silk moths, no silk from those moths.

fuck god and fuck rich people: drill down to the absolute core, the humble moth holds the actual power here.

and that moth gives no shits about these stupid rules. the moth doesn’t give a single solitary fuck if ed has a piece of silk or the king of england has that same exact piece, because of fucking course it doesn’t. ‘deserve’? fuck that. the moth isn’t like oh GOLLY i hope somebody with class puts me on. somebody with a full bank account. those people deserve me: nobody else.

the people who benefit most made up those rules about who gets what and why they get it, and now for some reason a lot of us help enforce it without any hope of feasting on their crumbs.

and if you think about it we made up god, technically, because we invented words and belief structures and intricate rituals to explain this gnawing ache and loneliness inside just as much as the surge of impossible hope or unshakeable, inexplicable sense of Something More. and none of us can prove entirely the others are wrong, even though many of us will kill and die to insist otherwise.

either way, this i know for sure: we definitely fucking made up money.

so stede’s got his cute little metaphor moth perched on his finger, eagerly offering it for inspection. he is literally offering up to ed the means of production for the object that represents his heart. 

and the kicker: he doesn’t even know it’s happening.

(neither of them do. not yet.)

i mean. this fucking show is just ridiculous.

i’m sure there’s a Lot More here, and i want to keep writing about how they use stede’s privilege/wealth in this fascinating way where it informs his character for good and ill and functions as a commentary on the unfortunate reality that sometimes people who will one day show amazing solidarity start from a place of good-hearted Not Having A Clue, and then move and grow from there as they see more of the world and watch the people they love experience pain in ways they never anticipated. but that’s an adjacent lane and another piece of writing!!!

so for now: fuck this show, and let us continue to consider the Humble Silk Moth i guess.

#our flag means death #my ofmd meta #i'm so mad at this fucking show all the time #like i am sure i will wake up at four am and go FUCK ME I MISSED THIS OBVIOUS THING #for now: the emotional scream i will call a freewrite #fuck this team. FUCK EM #ugh i will be thinking about the moth ALL NIGHT

[mentallyillmargot-blog]

3.9.15 ~ Freewriting

I need proof that I actually exist. Evidently, cogito ergo sum, but still I don't understand the concept  of existence. Everything seems a little too meaningless to be of worth to this so-called-existence. I need to know how it relates, a person singing at me, books in front of me and my own consciousness which is right now fighting my attempts to become anything permanent. I think I would rather not exist at all. If I do, that is.

- ~ -

For the first time ever I am realising how very infrequently I experience anything for the first time. Of course there are physical experiences - the first taste of sushi, a new roller-coaster, etc. - but emotionally, or somewhere internally, is there something I am yet to experience? Do I inherently know all the emotions I am capable of, or are there some things in my mind that I don't have access to? At least not yet... Am I a stranger even to myself? Is there another version of me living in here somewhere?

- ~ -

I turned the corner, and there, coming towards me was myself. An ugly version that I did not like. The fabric of an outfit that screamed "I try too hard!" cutting into chubby arms, pinching a not-so-small waist. She selfishly pretends to care about people when deep down she really only cares what they think of her. Terror grips me as I realise I don't know which of us is the real me. Is she an invention of my own self-judgement, or am I the reflection of an inflated ego? Am I blinded by what I want to see, or self hatred? Fear curdles my spongey, mortal insides and I want to run and hide from her, but she follows relentlessly.