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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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I am looking (disrespectfully) at the trope of Bruce and other family members only seeming to respect Dick’s wishes when doing so aligns with what they already wanted to do.

Let’s go to the examples!

1) Bruce not broaching adoption with Dick because he wants to respect Dick’s first parents and feels like he would be taking their place or overstepping or putting himself in between Dick and his memories of his parents. Sometimes its cited that Dick himself expressed this wish early on after his parents died, sometimes its not and this is still just upheld as Bruce’s reasoning for not adopting Dick before he was already well into adulthood.

THE FATAL FLAW (in mine own personal opinion, natch. Personal mileage may vary, check your speedometer to be safe):

This particular plot point or tangle is in my experience ALWAYS paired with Bruce’s own insecurities about his role in Dick’s life, or not wanting to push that or receive an answer he doesn’t want to or is afraid to hear. Sometimes its about his fears of unworthiness to be Dick’s actual parent, etc, etc. But the bottom line is, there is always the presence of SOME element (and not a small one) in which Bruce’s own self-interest or feelings are protected by him NOT broaching the adoption conversation with Dick and having to confront these fears head on.

This is additionally juxtaposed with the problem that although there’s a lot of variance in regards to stories where Bruce fired Dick versus stories where Dick gave up being Robin and moved on to Nightwing voluntarily....there’s NOT a lot of stories where Dick makes Jason Robin himself or is asked by Bruce first. The part where Bruce takes this initiative on his own, without thinking through its repercussions on Dick emotionally.....this is practically always present.

Now, the problem here is that......Dick became or began becoming Robin well into his time with Bruce. Its frequently cited as the thing that began allowing them to truly connect, their time training and acting as Batman and Robin.

Meaning no matter WHAT interpretation you go with as to why specifically Dick chose the name Robin, whether it was a family nickname or an homage to Robin Hood.....the fact remains, NOTHING of Robin, THEMATICALLY, nothing that spoke to Dick in regards to what he wanted Robin to be - specifically in honor of his parents because avenging his parents and making sure what happened to them didn’t happen to others like, this was literally a key part of what bonded Dick and Bruce, the fact that Bruce was TRYING to help Dick specifically BECAUSE they shared this particular overlap of purpose - like the bottom line is, nothing about Robin CAME from Bruce. Or Dick’s feelings about Bruce. That....didn’t really even exist yet, at the time he created Robin. Everything about Robin, other than the physical costume itself, not even the design just the actual creation of it....all of that came from BEFORE he met Bruce. None of it was thoughts or feelings derived from BRUCE. Its the whole reason Dick was never Batkid or Batlad, or any derivative of Batman.

It all, ALL came from what Dick came to the manor WITH. Remnants of his life with his first family.

So the fatal flaw of Bruce’s reasoning that by not broaching the subject of adoption with Dick before well into adulthood, he was actually just respecting Dick’s relationship with his first parents and not trying to come between them and Dick’s memories and feelings about them....

All of this is inherently undermined by Bruce’s own actions.....when by repurposing Robin to ANY degree, even just to give the mantle to Jason.....this meant that he was inherently viewing Robin as being more about being Batman’s partner, HIS partner....then it was about being Dick’s heritage, his last intangible keepsake of his first family and life BEFORE Bruce.

In effect....Bruce making Jason Robin or firing Dick as Robin, either way....both betray Bruce’s OWN alleged intentions for only wanting to respect Dick’s relationship with his parents, and that being why he didn’t want to overstep by trying to impose or even ask for his own official parent/child relationship with Dick. Because that’s exactly what appropriating the Robin mantle was. It was Bruce ignoring the relationship Dick had with his parents and their memory and the fact that Robin was directly born of that....and making Robin entirely about Bruce’s OWN relationship with Dick, heedless of any other factors.

And the second Bruce did that.....his entire justification for not raising the adoption issue....disappears. It goes away. Because you can’t claim inaction being just a result of not wanting to disrespect something you’ve already voided respect for. No matter whether Bruce INTENDED it or not.....by crossing this boundary, Bruce already acted against Dick’s feelings in this regard and well, disregarded them....which makes claims of Bruce not raising the adoption issue pretty much JUST self-serving at that point. Its an alleged viewpoint of Dick’s that Bruce largely just ASSUMES....and only ultimately respects - in direct contrast to how he didn’t respect the associations Dick had with Robin - because it aligns with something Bruce ALREADY wanted to do, rather than what Dick actually wanted. It provided justification for Bruce to just....not have a conversation he was afraid to have. And that’s about Bruce at that point. Its not about Dick. Its just like...not.

2) Another example of this that is not unique to just Bruce, but recurs frequently in both canon and fanfics in Dick’s dynamics with other characters he’s close with.....is characters not apologizing for things they’ve done to Dick or raising the issue of things they did a long time ago but never apologized for....while claiming to do so because they thought DICK didn’t want to talk about it.

THE FATAL FLAW (in my own personal opinion. Nuances and variations may not be identical at all store locations, please see your local branch for details):

The particular problem I have here is that....Dick never ever ever in the history of ever and also the before ever time.....has EVER expressed a desire to avoid confrontation.

Like. That’s what he DOES. That’s his JAM. That’s literally CITED time and time again as one of the reasons he’s viewed as more of a people person and natural team leader than Bruce and other Batfam members....because he’s not afraid to cut straight (or bi) to the heart of the matter and air out a dispute.

In fact, this very character trait is one of the ones most commonly utilized AGAINST Dick in various depictions of him, as he’s often cited as TOO confrontational, TOO eager for a fight or conflict especially when his temper is engaged, such as when he’s well....personally hurt or offended.

So how does it follow, then, that avoiding tough conversations ONLY when its on the OTHER person to INITIATE, because they were the ones who DID the wrong-doing and Dick the subject of that rather than the instigator....how does it work, exactly, that these are the only times in which we DON’T tend to see a direct conversation about the harms done and the fallout that resulted? With it being claimed that this is solely for Dick’s benefit, out of a desire to avoid pulling him into an allegedly unnecessary (but really just unpleasant) confrontation?

When the concurrent reality is that whether stated or acknowledged or not.....avoiding these specific conversations and ONLY these conversations (as there never seems to be a problem finding canon or fanfic stories in which Dick apologizes for harm HE’S caused to others or is clearly expected to).....this avoidance also carries the side benefit of allowing the character who DID something wrong to Dick to....not ever have to have that super uncomfortable conversation in which they actually verbally acknowledge the thing they did to him and the effects it had on him, and apologize for that.....and then render themselves vulnerable to actually hearing whether or not he accepts their apology or is still upset with them regardless.

While - as long as they DON’T ever have this conversation, for whatever reason - they can look to the clear and consistent precedent of Dick continuing to work with people who have done things like oh, I don’t know....punched him in the face cuz they’re mad at him (and this isn’t a Bruce critical point, this is a whole damn family critical point as the only one who HASN’T actually done this is Duke. Well, Cass technically just threw him out a window, but I mean, tomato toh-mah-to). Writers and characters both can lean on the fact that actually Dick has a pretty clear track record of ultimately giving up a grudge or at least showing a willingness to look past those grudges enough that it doesn’t prevent him from still maintaining or resuming some kind of relationship with the person who hurt him.

And thus, like Example Numero Uno......this ultimately just lets other characters off the hook while claiming to do Dick a favor, but actually Dick receives no real benefit from it and instead now just has another instance of characters saying “see we respect your wishes” when ultimately their inaction is MORE in service to their own wishes and self-interests.

2b) See also the variation of this in which characters such as Bruce, Jason, Tim and assorted others like....are written specifically determining that they’re not going to apologize to Dick or beg his forgiveness because they feel they don’t DESERVE to be forgiven, and once again....its in HIS best interests that they not even give him the opportunity to say he forgives them....because they know Dick Grayson of course, and they know he’s too forgiving for his own good, so its better to like....not make it ever a possibility in this particular instance.

With the problem here being like.....Dick can’t and shouldn’t be expected to KNOW that’s their logic? So....all he’s going to actually SEE is loved ones just....not expressing remorse for hurting him or acknowledgment it even happened? Which....hurts?

So......hurting your loved one MORE after already hurting them....because you don’t feel you deserve to be forgiven for hurting them in the first place and are actually PROTECTING them from being hurt more when mistakenly forgiving you.....by.....hurting and continuing to hurt them with your silence and lack of evident remorse....

Mmmm.....

Its not the best approach, y’know?

Flaws are detected.

3) Dick’s friends and family manipulating situations in order to get the end result THEY desire, while claiming to do so for his benefit only. Dick being willing to manipulate people to achieve his own ends comes up a LOT actually....but there’s relatively little examination of how often people do this to him, claiming his best interests but really just circumventing his clearly stated desires for independence and the right to make his own choices about what HE needs....or when this is brought up, its usually limited to JUST Bruce doing it, but uh....no that ain’t it.

Specific examples of this are like when Wally joins the 1999 version of the Titans specifically to get Dick to join up, because in his estimation Dick needs more of a social life and is drowning himself with his responsibilities....and then quits not long after Dick is finally officially invested in staying with the team. Another example is when Roy gets Dick to join the Outsiders based entirely on his pitch of NOT treating the team like a family, like they did with the Titans, so that Dick could keep emotional distance and not be as worried about losing them like he suffered from losses like Donna....with his claim again being that he worried about Dick in the aftermath of that loss, etc.

And to be clear! Its not that I think Wally and Roy and others who do similar things have NEGATIVE intentions in mind for Dick. That’s the whole point of this post.....like the other examples, I fully believe THEY believe (or writers believe when writing them this way) that they have Dick’s best interests in mind and not their own. I just....disagree.

THE FATAL FLAW (at least as I see it here):

Is that I view this and Batfam members who do similar stuff as like.....falling into the trap of the savior friend complex. Its that thing when you see a friend hurting, and over time get FRUSTRATED by seeing this when a solution seems obvious to you but think they won’t take it because they’re too stubborn or don’t know what’s best for them....with this specifically recurring a LOT with Dick in particular, due to his core characterization of wanting to be the one to make his own choices. The problem here, same as the problem with the savior friend complex....is that it treats the subject of these views as like....incapable of determining what they need. Its a tacit condemnation that they actually don’t know how to cope with things and are doing it wrong - even though the ones making this assessment will never be the ones actually having to LIVE with the outcome of their meddling. Its the conviction that someone like Dick needs to be HANDLED, for his own good....because he can’t be trusted to KNOW what he needs, not as well as them at least.....and so they jump to manipulation rather than just....ASK him what he needs, or HOW they can best support him, or even just WHY he’s making the choices he is.

For instance, the problem with what Wally did was never that Dick wasn’t struggling. He was. He was drowning in his responsibilities, he had very little to no life outside of them.....Wally is not remotely in the wrong for WANTING to do something to change this situation. The problem is Wally basically defaulted to just...HANDLING his friend by restarting the Titans just to give Dick a social life again, which is pretty much a line straight out of the comics...and basically railroaded right over Dick’s initial ‘no’ when he first heard the proposal. And kept pushing things until Dick eventually joined up in order to get Wally to commit to the team too, because Wally spun it as though Dick was helping Wally by getting Wally to commit to the team for the very same reasons Wally wanted Dick to. And then....right after that, Wally quit to go back to just focusing on the Justice League, which was part of what Dick predicted would happen all along.

The thing was.....at no point along the way did Wally actually ask WHY Dick initially said no....he jumped straight to assuming his own view of the problem, that Dick just COULDN’T be made to ever see the reason to take a break occasionally and put his mental and emotional health as a priority. If he’d done this, Wally could have had dozens of other options to achieve his desired end result....he could’ve like....set up regular hangouts with Dick.

But Wally jumped to assuming he knew the answer, he knew what was best for Dick, and that Dick’s logic was inherently self-destructive and self-flagellating.....and he felt the solution was to bring back the Titans, as he recalled their earlier times as Titans together as a time when Dick was better able to balance his social life and responsibilities.

But by not ever stopping to LISTEN to why Dick felt the way he did and was initially opposed to rejoining the Titans....Wally overlooked one crucial fact: He isn’t Dick.

And more important, his view of the past wasn’t Dick’s view of the past.

Wally was a lot more capable of viewing the Titans as not just a family, but an inherent social life, a hangout, a kind of club....because that’s what it had always been to him.

But he’d never been the leader.

Throughout all their childhoods, the whole time the Titans WERE all of the above, and relatively light-hearted in comparison to their older selves....Dick STILL had the weight of responsibilities that none of the others had by virtue of just...not being the leader. Ultimately, all of their lives were in HIS hands. He was the one calling the shots. The buck stopped with him.

And this is precisely WHY Dick had gotten to the point he had in adulthood. It wasn’t because he’d changed. It wasn’t because he’d stopped figuring out what he needed and how to take care of himself. Its because the position he’d ALWAYS been in as leader....has WEIGHT. That eventually added up more and more and weighed him down. A huge part of the reason Dick had ended up leaving the Titans in the first place, before they disbanded prior to the 1999 revival....is because of the sheer WEIGHT of all the deaths and misfortunes that had befallen the Titans....and how much he and he alone struggled with it in ways the others didn’t....because they didn’t have to. It hadn’t been their plans, their calls, their RESPONSIBILITY to find a way the others could have all made it out alive or at least less traumatized.

So.....of COURSE Dick said no when Wally first proposed restarting the Titans, before Wally defaulted to using his own membership as a lure to get Dick to agree.....because......nothing about the above paragraph had changed, via Wally’s ‘plan.’ It wasn’t because Dick just didn’t KNOW how to be a fully rounded person....it was because nobody was helping him find actual OPTIONS for doing that....that didn’t just double as MORE responsibilities! Because that’s exactly what ended up happening! Dick wound up the leader of the Titans again, just as responsible and just as invested as always.....just like he always knew he would....and also as he knew would happen...Wally ended up quitting not long into it and persuading Jessie Quick to step in as his replacement....aka just one more person for Dick to worry about when it wasn’t like he was going to be worrying any less about Wally, just now he wasn’t going to have Wally there to even POTENTIALLY be able to support him when tragedy inevitably struck because they’re freaking superheroes....and instead he’d just have another person looking to him for the answers but with no reason or chance of being the support Dick could ACTUALLY use at times like that!

Wally’s manipulations circumvented Dick’s opinion that no, actually he knew what was best for him and it wasn’t what Wally was suggesting....without actually accounting for the fact that hey, Dick might actually know that. And in the end, Wally got the result he was after, he got to feel that he’d HELPED his friend....which again, this isn’t WRONG to WANT to....but Dick didn’t...exactly....benefit from this. It wasn’t actually in his best interests ultimately.

I mean...see Donna’s death for details.

And in the aftermath of THAT....Roy essentially did exactly what Wally did....just in REVERSE! Roy got Dick to agree to lead the Outsiders, to shoulder responsibility once again....by promising that Dick WOULDN’T have to view them as family. And did Dick go too far and end up TOO uncaring about their welfare? Yup! No disagreements there! Problem is though....he only ended UP in that situation because yet again a friend thought they KNEW the solution to what Dick needed.....only for Dick to end up essentially punished and further self-blaming....just for doing exactly what Roy had told him TO do, with this particular team. Again - Roy hadn’t EXPECTED Dick to take it this far. But that’s the whole point! Roy had expectations about what Dick would ACTUALLY end up doing, that didn’t match up to the pitch Roy actually gave Dick to GET his agreement.....because Roy all along was of the assumption that by virtue of being Dick Grayson, he wouldn’t be ABLE to avoid connecting with these new teammates and viewing them as family, and thus he’d end up ‘snapping out of it’ with it being the funk he’d been in since Donna’s death.

Roy’s intentions might have been noble, once again.....but his methods stuck to the same pattern of people around Dick believing they knew what he needed or knew who he was or knew what it meant to BE Dick Grayson....better than Dick actually did...particularly when Dick said no, this isn’t what I need or this isn’t a good idea or just...I don’t want to do this.

And in the end....its Dick who ended up paying the price for it, as well as the people who got hurt because of his INTENTIONAL emotional distance.....because the ‘view all surrounding people as new surrogate family’ aspect of the Dick Grayson Experience hadn’t kicked in as Roy thought inevitably would....but the ‘view all this as directly my fault and suffer guilt for it forevermore’ aspect of the Dick Grayson Experience most certainly did! Not at all actually helped along by the fact that like....Roy also expressed frustration with Dick that like.....Dick hadn’t actually responded to Roy’s intended manipulation of his emotions the way Roy had expected him to when he EXPRESSLY TOLD DICK TO BEHAVE THE WAY THAT DICK ULTIMATELY BEHAVED. (Just, he didn’t tell Dick to dial that all the way up to Extra, but given that’s the only setting Dick does ANYTHING at, I feel its a possible outcome Roy should have at least considered. I mean, wasn’t the whole point that you know Dick Grayson better than he knows himself?)

But lo, I am salty.

LMAO, but I mean, you get it right? Obviously, I LIKE Wally and Roy. I LIKE Jason, etc. I’m not saying all of this to be like ugh how dare these characters do all this to Dick....I’m saying it because like.....they all keep falling into the same patterns of making a big fuss and acknowledgment of how much Dick prioritizes being able and free to make his own choices and decide what’s best for him and what HE wants.....

But without ever like....actively asking him AT THE RELEVANT TIME....what he thinks and feels about all this. What he thinks and feels he needs. What he ACTUALLY wants from them, or why he’s ACTUALLY saying no to something and maybe it being for reasons that aren’t just him inherently being stubborn and self-destructive.

And instead just defaulting to falling back on whatever he might have said or expressed in an entirely different context at an entirely different time.....and saying okay, by doing so, we are abiding by his wishes and thus doing what he wants and respecting his right to make his own choices.....

But ONLY when doing all of the above just so happens to align with these other characters then getting to do the thing or take the approach they’re already predisposed towards wanting to take because of their OWN self-interests at the same time.

With this never actually coming into play when respecting Dick’s wishes aligns with them taking actions they DON’T personally want to undertake, because it makes them uncomfy or they think its a bad call, even if it is something that should be his call to make.

Like....the pattern. It very much exists. And abounds. Like I could cite examples allllllllllll the way up to Ric Grayson, where Bruce respected RIC’S wishes to be left alone and not interfere in his life no matter what.....in ways Bruce almost never respects Dick’s actual expressed wish for Bruce to butt out of matters when Bruce is actually quite keen on meddling and would very much like to....

But notice how the other thing about the Ric Grayson storyline is that Ric’s expressed desire to stay the fuck out of vigilantism and superhero work, like.....just so happens to align with Bruce’s longstanding desire for Dick to like...get out of the vigilantism and superhero work? With butting out of Ric’s life and respecting his privacy in ways Dick has to FIGHT him for, like......absolutely the optimal action to take in order to allow this expressed desire of Ric’s to flourish in the ways Bruce always wished would kick in for Dick?

.....just saying.

The pattern. It abounds.

And the key to breaking any pattern, of course, is to first recognize....and acknowledge....that it exists.

Otherwise you tend to fall into the trap of repeating and perpetuating it over and over without even realizing it, simply because its what’s familiar.

This has been A Post by Me. Thank you and have a nice day. Or don’t. Idk. I’m not the boss of you. Whatever.

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gunnerpalace · 4 years

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Hi! Same anon as the previous one. Tbh, I agree wholeheartedly with you. Y'see I do ask rhetorically,too but i could really accept and understand how and why ppl can be oblivious to IchiRuki, and somehow felt that the 'canon' should suffice, even the most excruciating of all is the fact a number found the ending even acceptable (ships aside, too). Again, I could respect that. But it's my greatest bane when ppl ask 'why' and not be clear they are asking rhetorically because I literally will

provide you an actual answer. And I get it, it’s the reason why ppl find shipping wars toxic and silly. But then again, as human, conflicts are always part of us (partly because as social psych explains so, we are gravitated to the negative for that allows us to change and survive), and the reason why “logical fallacies” are coined in the first place. Human will always debate, and argue about something; the only thing we could change is how we approach the opposing views.

Again, I dont condone any way, shape or form of abuse and harm. In some certain extent, I could perhaps understand it’s much harder for some IH to approach the actual argument being there’s either too much noise, and trapped in their own island between sea of salt. Thus becoming too acquianted w/ few IH who shared the same thought until it became their views as the only truth (see, that’s why its important to have debates! it is what keep us grounded and fair! Just like you said)

Who am I to speak though? I never ever challenged anyone anyways. And as you said, you just have to understand things in every way you could possibly think of–endless ‘whys’. Which is where I agree in your reply the most–this silly fandom wars is just the black mirror to every truth that lies beneath human psyche–the dark and the grimy. Heck, being a psych major is like staring at dark hole–at times, good, but most just plain confusing, revolting even or just heartbreaking.

Sorry it’s been long, but for the final of this ask: let me tell how glad I was with IchiRuki fandom I found in tumblr. It was the saltiest I’ve ever been (im not generally a fandom person anyways) but it’s the himalayan salt–expensive and actually nutritive it really deepened my desire to become wiser in general. And you for your wonderful essays, critiques and whatnot. I definitively would love to talk with you more not only about IchiRuki but the wonders and nightmare that us humans! Kudos!

I have sitting in my drafts a post spelling out my thoughts on “canon” (and thus, the people who cling to it) in that as a concept it privileges:

officiality over quality when it comes to validity (thus violating Sturgeon’s law)

corporations (intellectual property rights holders) over fans, and thus capitalists over proletarians

hierarchical dominance over mutualist networking within fandom

curative fandom over transformative fandom

genre over literary content

plot over characters

events over emotions

It is notable that (1) generally degrades art as a whole, (2) generally advances the capitalist agenda, and (3–7) generally advances the dominance of men over women (as the genders tend to be instructed by society to view these as A. dichotomies rather than spectrums, and B. to ascribe gender to them and make them polarities). These form the sides of a mutually reinforcing power structure (in the typical “Iron Triangle” fashion) designed to preserve and maintain the status quo.

Who really benefits from say, the policing of what is or is not “canon” in Star Wars? Disney, first and foremost. And then whomever (almost certainly male) decides to dedicate their time to memorizing the minutiae of whatever that corporation has decided is “legitimate.”

One can imagine a universe in which fan fic is recognized by companies for what it is: free advertising. (Much like fan art already is.) Instead, it is specifically targeted by demonetization efforts in a way that fan art isn’t. Why? Because it demonstrates that corporate control and “official” sanction has no bearing on quality, and it is thus viewed as undermining the official products.

In the same way, by demonstrating that most “canonical” works are frankly shit, it undermines the investiture of fans in focusing on details that are ultimately errata (the events, the plot, the genre), which is the core function of curative fandom and the reason for its hierarchical structure. The people who “know the most” are at the top, but what they “know” is basically useless garbage. And those people so-engaged are, of course, usually male.

To “destroy” the basis of their credibility, and indeed the very purpose of their community, is naturally viewed by them as an attack.

(This is not to say that efforts to tear down internal consistency within established cultural properties are good unto themselves, or even desirable. For example, efforts to redefine properties such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Ghostbusters, for the sake of a identity-politics agenda have largely A. failed as art, B. failed as entertainment, C. failed to attract the supposedly intended audience, and D. failed to advance the agenda in question. Trying to repurpose extant media in the name of culture wars is essentially always doomed to failure unless it is done deftly and gradually.)

(At the same time, this also shows what I was talking about last time, with regard to people seeing whatever they want to see. You will see people complain that Star Trek and Doctor Who didn’t “used to be so political,” which is obviously nonsense. These shows were always political. What changed was how their politics were presented. For example, Star Trek has, since TNG, always shown a nominally socialist or outright communist future, but was beloved by plenty of conservatives because they could [somehow] ignore that aspect of it.)

Of course, almost no one is seriously suggesting that one side of the spectrums outlined above be destroyed, rather merely that a new balance be struck upon the spectrum. But, as we have seen time and again in society, any threat to the status quo, whether that be 20% of Hugo Awards going to non-white male authors or the top income tax rate in America being increased by a measly 5.3% (from 28.7% to 34%… when the all-time high was 94% and for over 50 years it was above 50%) is a threat. This is why, for example, Republicans are out there branding AOC as a “socialist” when her policies are really no different at all from a 1960 Democrat who believed in FDR’s New Deal. (Which they, of course, have also demonized as “socialism.”)

(As an aside, all this ignores the fact that most of the “literary canon” of Western civilization, or at least English literature… is Biblical or historical fan fic.)

And this is when I finally get to my point.

Those people out there who denigrate and mock shippers and shipping, the people who hurl “it reads like fan fiction” as an insult, and so on, are the people who benefit from and enjoy the extant power structure. You will see the same thing with self-identified “gamers” complaining about “fake girl gamers.” Admitting that the hobby has a lot of women in it, and a lot of “casuals,” and is indeed increasingly dominated by “non-traditional demographics” is an affront to the constructed identity of being a “gamer.” They are “losing control.” And they don’t like it.

This exact same sort of population is what the “fanbase” of Bleach has been largely reduced down to through a slow boiling off of any actual quality. Of course they’re dismissive of people who are looking for anything of substance: their identity, their “personal relationship” with the franchise, is founded on a superficial appreciation of it: things happening, flashy attacks, eye-catching character designs, fights, etc.

(What this really boils down to, at heart, is that society at large has generally told men that emotions are bad, romance and relationships of all kinds are gross, and that thinking and reflecting on things is stupid. So of course they not only don’t care about such things, but actively sneer at them as “girly” or “feminine,” which is again defined by society at large as strictly inferior. And this gender divide and misogyny is of course promulgated and reinforced by the powers that be, the capitalists, to facilitate class divisions just like say racism generally is.)

(The latest trick of these corporate overlords has been the weaponization of “woke” culture to continue to play the people off one another all the time. “If you don’t like this [poorly written, dimensionless Mary Sue] Strong Female Character, then you are a racist misogynist!” They are always only ever playing both sides for profit, not advancing an actual ideological position. It is worth noting that there was a push by IH some years ago to define IR as “anti-feminist” for critiquing Orihime for essentially the exact same reasons [admittedly, not for profit, but still as critical cover].)

Which makes it very curious, therefore, that the most ardent IH supporters tend to be women. (Though there are more than a few men, they seem to tend to support it because it is “canon” and to attack it is to attack “canon” and thus trigger all of the above, rather than out of any real investment.) I think there are a number of reasons for this (which I have detailed before) and at any rate it is not particularly surprising; 53% of white women voted for Trump, after all.

What we are really seeing in fandom, are again the exact same dynamics that we see at larger and larger scales, for the exact same reasons. The stakes are smaller, but the perception of the power struggle is exactly the same.

Of course, the people who are involved in these things rarely think to interrogate themselves as to the true dimensions and root causes of their motivations. People rarely do that in general.

Putting all that aside, I’m glad that you have found a place you enjoy and feel comfortable, and thank you for the kind words, although I am not of the opinion that there is anything poignant about the non-fiction I write. It is, as I keep trying to emphasize, all there to be seen. One just has to open their eyes. So, it’s hard for me to accept appreciation of it.

Anyway, don’t feel shy about coming off of anon rather than continuing to send asks. We don’t really bite.

#Asks

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tervacious · 4 years

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Since Everything is a Feminist Dissertation Imma blog about Shane Dawson’s palette for a minute

Nine times out of ten when you make a statement and end it with BUT, you have outted yourself as a hypocritical ass who should have the ovarios to say what follows the BUT without the opening statement. Maybe this will be true for me too.

In agreement with most radfems I totally think the cosmetics industry is a clusterfuck of male entitlement and wealth being siphoned away from girls and women to men and male CEOs, etc etc, and I also think the sheer amount of product and time involved in placing thirty-five different products on one’s face to achieve a “natural” look is insidious and a perfect exemplar of what misogyny functions like on a daily basis, BUT

I’m a survivor of an extreme fundie xtian cult that controlled female behavior by emphasizing conformity, femininity, modesty, and lack of adornment/personality. I did not like this even as a small child because I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel. Which means I was a totally normal little girl who didn’t like being controlled and who fought back at every opportunity.

Which might explain why I’m a goth. I’m also an artist, and I’m on this planet, as are you, for a very tiny amount of time, and if I want to spend a fraction of that time adorning myself and wearing lots of black eyeliner, by the goddess I’ll fucking do it. And there’s nothing radical or feminist about that, any more than there’s anything inherently radical or feminist about not doing it.

I have a single small dresser drawer filled with makeup, and I’ve been eyeballing it recently because I should really pitch out and replace about 80% of it for age related reasons alone.

And thus we come to the Conspiracy palette by Shane Dawson x Jeffree Star, and also the mini palette, Lorde help me

Jesus christ, look at that.

I only buy one eyeshadow palette at a time and use it until it is gone or falls apart into dust. The current state of the beauty industry is such that they are pressuring women and girls into buying palette after palette, some of them enormous, some small, but a grown-ass woman owning stacks of these things is not unusual anymore. And new ones are coming out constantly-- to the point where there’s a whole part of beauty YouTube devoted to “the anti-haul”, in which people announce which makeup thing they will NOT be buying. This is a sorry state of affairs, there’s no way around it.

I don’t collect makeup because that’s silly. It’s a huge waste of money. I watch otherwise sensible women hoarding vast numbers of eyeshadow palettes, and they use only one or two colors and that’s... just sad? Apply that to the vast quantities of makeup products, to your lipsticks and glosses, to your pencils and correctors and corrector palettes and concealers and blushes and highlighters and contours and powders and foundations and primers and mattifiers and setting sprays and mascaras and a bunch of others things I forget, add a pile of false eyelashes and I don’t know, eyebrow merkins or some shit, and that’s what a well-appointed makeup afficionado is supposed to have in her arsenal. And all those things can’t be just one-- you have to have multiples, for reasons. But I honestly think the eyeshadow obsession is the worst, which is strange coming from me, because I adore eyeshadow.

And yet in spite of this I have a black stand-alone eyeshadow pan, and one large palette that is cheap, made in China, not great but with a lot of weird colors in it, so I use that one when I bother, and a few pots of glitter. My plan is to use it up or wait until it’s too old to use safely, and then pitch it/repurpose the case for something (it is literally the size of a laptop with a huge mirror in it so I can think of something), and get a new palette. I only buy one at a time, and use it until it’s gone. You know, like a rational person.

At first I’d decided when the time comes I’d get the Jawbreaker palette and mini, by Jeffree Star, because I loved the colors, but now I’ve changed my mind, because Shane Dawson’s not only has a case that matches my aesthetic, it also has awesome colors and, most importantly, BLACK. I use black eyeshadow alone or to set my eyeliner, so I’m devoted. And while all of these palettes have too many neutrals for my taste you can always use those for some kinda detail, and the Conspiracy Palette is my jam. It’s really gorgeous. Not gonna lie.

The documentary he made about the making of this palette is interesting on multiple levels-- there’s the process itself, which I didn’t know shit about until now. There was the portrayal of his relationship with Jeffree, which was interesting and often pretty funny, and touching. And from my chronic can’t stop writing feminist dissertations POV, the way women are the target of this business and yet completely sidelined was a real eyeopener. Let me just mention this one part:

In the final episode when the palette is assembled, each pan glued into the box and then the box boxed up, there’s a song with a woman singing about how she’ll never be Prom Queen. Shane is walking through the assembly line, emotional, because this is his project coming to fruition. Jeffree is with him, and Shane starts crying, and Jeffree comforts him. The song is clearly meant to be something Shane feels.

But the scene is of dozens of women, none of whom will be prom queen, none of whom are about to make millions of dollars on cosmetics, in white coats and hair protectors and goggles, busily assembling a beautiful object, which one suspects only a few of them will be able to afford for themselves though I can’t swear to that, it’s possible they are paid well, the place is unusual, Jeffree makes all his product in the United States, and I’m not inclined to jump to conclusions. But they are anonymously and busily working, putting together this thing, meant for women, and no woman really had any functional input into this project at all. This was, as everyone was joking, Shane and Jeffree’s baby. A baby. You know, the thing a man can never have.

I appreciate film making that reveals truth, even if it wasn’t intentional.

So other than that there’s not much to say. You can watch the epic thing yourself on YouTube, it was entertaining (and good for me because I need to opt out of some of the heavier shit I’m always buried in, yet one more reason I fucking QUIT MY JOB and am now FREE,) but if you want a look into the way the business works on the indy end of the spectrum, not the old timey Cosmetics Corporations but the new one that Jeffree Star basically spearheaded and upturned large chunks of the old business model, I think this documentary is a good one for understanding exactly how marginalized women remain in a business that ostensibly is directed at us.

The reason I think women like watching men like Jeffree and Shane and whoever else do these things is because it aids and abets the lie that wearing makeup is all a choice women make. The men are choosing, because men have zero pressure on them to do these things. Women are taught to have affinity with men and to ignore their lack of affinity with us. These bits of entertainment are a great brainwashing reinforcing device, to get us along for the ride, to hop in the car we never ever get to drive. And none of it is intentional, which is the best part. As smart as Shane is, the joy of being male is you just take things, casually, as your birthright. You’re totally entitled to make a nine-hour epic following your friends and family, unapologetically, put it on the internet, and get accolades, including the one I’m writing right now. You’re entitled to dictate the facts as if they contain a great truth. You can be totally unaware of the impact your decisions have for the greater bad. You can think you’re helping your sister-in-law through her crisis created by the very culture you are responsible for while mocking the women she blames for making her feel bad. This set of films is a monolithic treat for a radical woman to confront. And I hope, since there’s truth hidden in plain sight throughout, that a lot of other women and girls will see it too. Will notice the few females scattered throughout the film, consulted in the most cursory way, knowing they have to perform or they’re replaceable. I’m an Old, and used to seeing the real world, which has looked like this all my life. I don’t know what a fifteen year-old will see.

Tati Westbrook also released a new eyeshadow palette last week I think, and since people think if she puts out a forty-five minute video she’s talking too much, she naturally did not film a massive docudrama showcasing her Eyeshadow Palette Journey or whatever I could imagine her saying. Thus she was very much overshadowed by something that won’t appear for sale until tomorrow. I have no doubt she’ll do well, but will she make twenty million dollars? Will she do as well as she could have if she were a man?

Should anyone, off of what is essentially bullshit? Pretty, gorgeous bullshit? Of course not. That’s the actual feminist conclusion, it doesn’t matter if a male or a female is profitting off of, essentially, the insecurities and desires for cool new things and to be hip and liked and looked up to, which all of us have to some extent in some arena. I’m not immune to it either, ain’t lying again. It’s always an unseemly pleasure to have someone half my age ask me what I’m wearing and where I got it. Capitalism has conditioned all of us to associate material things with social acceptance and admiration, and if you are a materialist person like I am, that association comes very easily.

Anyway, that’s it, that’s the bit. I have no doubt this thing will sell out in approximately two hours, which will happen without me because my old eyeshadow palette still works.

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sethnakht · 5 years

Text

Rambling thoughts on Cass and on ending stories.

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #32, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

This panel sort of has it all.

Spoilers beneath the cut.

If there's only one way to end a story, and that way is to stop telling it, will it be enough for Laura to have rejected godhood? Or will the other surviving gods, including the heads, need to follow her example to ensure that Ananke cannot complete her ritual?

One can imagine Baph being convinced; he never wanted to die, never had a choice, and this would return some choice to him. Cass as well - the hospital footage on Dio's phone might even suggest that she survives past all this into old age. But what of Baal, who has always believed he was a god? Who has sacrificed in belief? Sunken cost fallacy there. Asking this of the heads - even of those who never wanted this - would be a tall order, moreover - for without godhood, what would they be other than victims of decapitation and thus dead? (Not that they would last long as heads under Minervananke.) Or was Ananke telling the truth when she said the children would develop powers on their own without her - where powers is not equal to the trappings of the god she chose for each, where the latter can be rejected as story and the former involves discovering identity of a sort?

In this context, I've been thinking a lot about Cass.

Cass interests me because of her fraught relationship to stories. She is constantly subjected to bigoted, racist, transphobic, objectifying stories imposed on her about gender and ethnic roles, not least by members of the Pantheon like Amaterasu and Woden. She is a critic who sees through that bullshit. She's defended her own story and gathered tools of defense. She's a journalist who wants to expose truths.

She's also someone who wants change in the form of progress and who seems to have once thought the gods would be the answer, if her academic degree in Pantheon Studies is any indication. But the gods of this Recurrence are themselves mouthpieces for the very same BS she has been subjected to all along. No change she would consider meaningful is taking place; instead we get the eternal recurrence of the same. When the gods speak in tongues, Cass is told she should feel something and yet does not. There is a story that her body and mind should be a certain way being imposed on her once again.

Cass rejects this narrative. The gods are not saviors, they're entitled teenage pricks. Their powers are meaningless. How she understands this exactly is a bit unclear to me. Does she think that the gods have never effected any meaningful change over the course of history, that their presence has had no effect? That would be a strange position for an academic historian. It seems more likely that she rejects the idea that the presence of the gods is inherently meaningful, that their appearance points to a deeper meaning in the structure of the world. The fact of Recurrence would itself be as meaningless as a meteor striking earth, for instance - the presence of the gods would mark no portent, no messianic coming, but simply be a fact of nature.

The stories about meaning imparted by gods - she says this with the portraits of 1831 Woden (Mary Shelley) and 1831 Lucifer (Lord Byron) in the background, possibly also referencing any sort of aestheticism as such, any sort of idea that art as such is a replacement for political action - were therefore lies.

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #2, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

For Cass, “the personal is the political”. (I tend to think of her as the opposite of idk the long-nineteenth-century German notion of Kultur writ large, but that's another story.)

Cassandra wants to change the world. That makes her position is VERY different from that of David Blake, whose problem with the Recurrence seems to also be that the current Pantheon reflects a society he doesn't want. Where Cassandra seeks a progressive future - her choice of name for herself speaks volumes - Blake acknowledges that the patriarchy is bad because: war and because: not every man gets to be the father with all the benefits, but also doesn't seem to care to change the status quo. On the contrary, some of his remarks suggest that he thinks culture was superior in the Past and that the Present should be violently struck from the history books. Even after Cass ascends to become Urdr, and thus associated with the Past, her thoughts remain directed towards the future. "We're trying to give birth to the future using the language of our oppressors", she tells Dio:

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #27, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

Ananke, Cass tells Laura, is "god of fate". Cass is the naysayer who doesn't believe in fate. In a perverse move, Ananke makes Cass into a goddess of fate. Cass is the sort who takes any thesis you give her and represents the anti-thesis with a "fuck you". Made goddess of fate, her response is to use those powers to persuade an audience of her view that there is no fate. The gods are a false hope and offer no meaning: "The void swallows us. Nothing means anything. Everything is nothing. Meaning is irrelevant. It's so cold. It lasts forever. It's all there is. So small so alone. We only have each other. It's never enough."

This is kind of a Birth of Tragedy moment: man gazes into the void, sees the horror of life, realizes nothing has meaning, and is paralyzed from action. Nietzsche thinks the paralysis can be overcome with art, particularly when the principles of individuation (the Apollonian drive) and inclusiveness (the Dionysian drive) are fused in a way that moves us to see past our own individual selves and figuratively unite with a collective. Cass is very Apollonian in a sense - she's tremendously restrained, a storyteller as opposed to a dancer and musician; that line about "small" and "alone" also stresses individuality. It's no wonder Dionysus is in this Pantheon and in love with Cass, and even briefly able to make her connect with his hive-mind. But Cass pulls out almost as soon as she starts to feel it, claiming there are more important things to do. There won't be the kind dialectic reconciliation of their respective art drives that Nietzsche would claim to be necessary in this story, unless Dio isn't really braindead.

My point with all this is that if you read Cass' message as something to live by, it seems rather one sided and incomplete. Is there a message she isn't sharing?If nothing means anything, why bother to perform? Cass doesn't go beyond the negation of meaning to think about what to do with that, how to live with that; there's a sense in which she does what she previously criticized about the tongues by not doing more than imposing a story, by not showing how to move beyond a story. She doesn’t ask her audience to think, but to download.

Cass tells a story of meaningless that is received as a story and nothing more. Much to her disappointment, it doesn't effect the kind of instant change in people's attitudes and mindset that she seems to think art should be capable of if it is to have meaning.

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #10, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

Instead of being provoked into thinking, or paralyzed with realization, however, what happens is quite a bit worse: her audience treats her message as a product to be consumed. Cass is again subjected to this fate when she decides to forgo the use of tongues - of giving any sort of aestheticized pleasure to her audiences - and hold a normal press conference where she yells unvarnished truths. Not only are her words ignored - the press conference is turned into reaction gifs to be reposted and repurposed without any attention paid to the original context or meaning - she herself is reframed as dangerous for even attempting to displace Woden's reigning narrative that pleasure is meaning and meaning is meaningful no matter how it was gotten or who it happens to keep in power. Not only is Cass' meaning deliberately twisted in Beth's video / power grab, the Valkyries are openly praised for stunning and imprisoning her and the other Norns.

Is Cass herself nothing more in the story than a tool for thinking through what art has possibly become in the culture industry on a meta level? That would be disturbing. I want to believe the story will give her more, that the raft of friendship we see her building with Laura is not about to be dashed to pieces and writ as futile as Dio’s last act.

The comment to Dio about trying to give birth using the language of oppressors seems really important. One of the literal oppressors in the story is Ananke, the perverted mother, the one who kills children and the future to ensure her own continued survival. (Palpatine and Cylo arguably also play this role in Gillen’s Vader comic, the former by scheming to replace his apprentice/figurative child with younger children in order to extend his power, the latter by endlessly cloning himself.) Ananke lives by a story and she thinks the story will carry her on. She murders the children born of the gods both literally and figuratively, ensuring she remains the only child.

If Ananke's language is that of the oppressor - and if Ananke’s sister stands for desire, she herself apparently stands for necessity - Cass uses that language by negating it. Cass' negations are at times absurdly absolute. When Amaterasu - her anti-thesis in so many ways - tells her that everything happens for a reason, she counters with the absolute: nothing happens for a reason.

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #15, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles

Cass is right about Amaterasu in a lot of ways. Amaterasu basically seems to be saying that Hiroshima had to happen so that she could happen. There’s a line in Marx about history repeating itself twice, once as tragedy, once as farce. Amaterasu recreating an artificial sun over Hiroshima was not in the least funny. Everything happens for a reason is a convenient philosophy if history has largely been on your side.

It's also rather determinist in a way, attributing necessity to everything regardless of how it affects people. Which makes Amaterasu's claim that Cass is an idealist who doesn't care about what happens to people rather rich:

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #15, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles

Amaterasu’s words are echoed later and more effectively by The Morrigan, who claims that her own choice to take away Baph’s choices was essentially the same as Cass’ choice to transform her girlfriends into Verdandi and Skuld. Cass protests that it was the logical, almost mathematically rational thing to do, which ... isn’t a great response ...

Speaking of idealism, Cass seems to impress Woden as well with the idea that she is a foolish idealist, whatever that means:

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #30, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

To say that nothing happens for a reason is not an idealistic statement by itself, though. If there's an ideal attached to it, it might be freedom - rejection of determinism. At the same time, Cass is certainly not an advocate for anarchy, as the vote on the Great Darkness makes clear. Cass thinks there is a right way to do things and a wrong way. If she believes that nothing happens for a reason because the idea of an inherent purposiveness to the world is a lie or a story we tell ourselves, her ideals also suggest that stories are part of who we are, that we are storytellers, that our minds are configured to see cause and effect, and that there is purpose to reflecting on what we are so we can do something with that. “I’m seeing patterns, but they’re the patterns I see” is a problem of which she is aware. There may not be meaning "out there", and that creates doubt - but it doesn’t keep her from doing.

Which makes it kind of a head-scratcher for me that neither Amaterasu nor Cass seem willing to acknowledge is that both of them can be right. We know this because Jon Blake - Mimir, a god of wisdom - puts forward a middle position:

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #34, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

It’s ironic that Cass, who claims nothing happens for a reason, is the one to fall for the idea that Ananke's machine must have a purpose, that it must do work. The machine does have a purpose - it misleads the gods, and above all, it has a purpose beyond its intended purpose, in that it keeps Cass inside, isolated, and distracted. Cass’ labor is sucked into the machine for the purpose of keeping the masses satiated and unthinking (Woden) and the perverse cycle of child murder uninterrupted (Minerva). The point being - someone had reason to hide the truth, just as she had reason to find it, and the recognition that stories are lies we tell ourselves for the purposes of survival doesn’t magically reveal truths or serve as an antidote or solution to the problems of society.

In this story about storytelling, this story about the meanings we choose to believe (“the personal is the political”, which full disclosure is also something I also believe), to act upon, to share or impose on the world and other people, the position that “nothing happens for a reason” is a difficult sell. Everything in this story was meticulously plotted, and any unintended effects on the reader can still be attributed to reasons. Given that the story is coming to an end in a very literal sense for both the reader and the characters, given that their story is to end a story, I’m really looking forward to seeing how Cass’ negations and ideals, how her approaches to art and stories are developed.

#wicdiv #the wicked + the divine #the wicked and the divine #cassandra igarashi #wicdiv urdr #hazel greenway #wicdiv amaterasu #kieron gillen #jamie mckelvie #stephanie hans #sethnakht rambles as usual #long post #sorry if this is completely incoherent #typed together over a period of days

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sylvasthesnowfox · 5 years

Text

19. literal

"I do not like this," says Parias.

You don't? Phobos regards Parias with surprise. They are curled behind their glass barrier, hugging their legs. All three of them have been watching the conversation, listening and observing; this was the plan they agreed upon to begin with, to simply observe and understand the mechanics of the Seed before trying to act too quickly, and Phobos is very content to just sit back for the time being.

She is on the island with them, hiding in shadows and little places under chunks of marble and such; by sharing her perception with the others via one of her little rifts in the earth, they can see and hear as well as she can. Her role is to act as the scout for the others, since they are much larger and have a much harder time moving around than she does. It's a little tense to have to constantly skirt around the humans' vision, but she's become quite good at it, and she very much likes watching and feeling like she's a part of this... even if only vicariously. The humans are fun to listen to, working together like this. She loves Rei's optimism most of all.

"It worries me some," Aplistia hums, watching through Parias' windows. "This seems too simple for all of Yomi's scheming. If it is just a matter of re-aligning the spirits to agree with their new vision..."

M-Maybe Yomi didn't realize it would be so straightforward! Phobos offers.

"Well, maybe not," Aplistia agrees reluctantly, glancing at the spiders with a smirk, "but it'd be a bit disappointing after all of this, wouldn't it?"

You only say that because you got your hopes up for an adventure, Phobos replies, rather put out. If this turns out to be easy for them I'll be very glad.

"I agree with Phobos, in this case," Parias mutters. "But, that's not what I meant. I mean I don't know if I like what they're saying."

Huh? Now Parias has both their attention. Parias pauses to listen a moment longer, as Rei describes that they need only one timeline to succeed; as she says it Parias makes a strange sound, like they are gnashing many teeth.

"And what of those that don't," they growl.

"Eliza did say that they can bring their success to others," Aplistia offers.

"And what if they don't?"

"Then - then they aren't the right one, are they?" Aplistia frowns. "Besides, don't you get the sense that these will be very active curators? I'm sure they will be nudging things along to suit their plan, just as Yomi was doing her best to prepare Rei for the end of the world."

I understand that it's a lot to hope for, Phobos says nervously. But... we have to have at least some hope, right? After all this...

Parias is quiet. The spirits are settling their doubts, too. When the last one nods and gives her consent, Parias sighs heavily, shaking their head. "Maybe I'm just being bitter," they say softly. "We shall see."

"Yes, we shall," Aplistia agrees, though a bit mutedly now.

"Very well," the last spirit sighs. "We will assist you in the new world."

"Very good." Rei smiles, bowing faintly to them, a very small gesture that masks her sizable relief. Almost as though to compensate, Naomi fistpumps with an emphatic cry beside her. It pulls at Rei's smile a bit, but she maintains poise and continues. "So, then, what do we need to do?"

"You need only invoke the Spark," the spirit says, gesturing to the orb of darkness twirling around Rei's shoulders. "Once it has been released from its chains."

"Wait, that's it?" Eliza is first to say it, and Rei's not sure she would've been able to stomach saying it herself, but - she feels exactly the same. "That's really all there is to this?"

"There will be much for you to do once genesis begins," the spirit continues, "but at this stage, the Seed appears to be dormant."

"Appears to be," Rei murmurs. The spirit doesn't acknowledge her and keeps speaking:

"The universe will finalize and stabilize once the invocation is complete. Your work will begin at that point."

"What will happen to this place?" Naomi asks lowly. "Or to the people still back at the tower?"

"This place will remain," the spirit replies. "It may change in shape, but what was here will remain, roughly speaking. You can decide what to do with the survivors that came with you then."

The humans reconvene within the tower. Gwen darts over to them at the earliest opportunity, and explains that she saw what happened outside. "Congratulations!" she says, delighted and relieved. But the others' reactions leave something to be desired.

"I would like to believe that it's good enough," Rei says softly, frowning at Eliza, who frowns right back. "But something about this doesn't feel right. It's too simple."

"I have a theory," Eliza hums, "though it's far from flattering." She glances at Gwen. "But firstly - this has been bothering me since we got here, obviously, but why don't you remember us?"

"W-Why?" Gwen balks. "I - I don't really know! We all just appeared here, as far as I know. O-Obviously I have some memory of being here before you arrived, but..."

"You just appeared here," Eliza repeats lowly.

Rei frowns, looking between them, as Gwen continues to wither in discomfort and anxiety. Naomi, following Rei's gaze, turns to Eliza and clicks her tongue. "You're not going to get anything out of interrogating her," she scolds. Eliza ignores her entirely.

"You appeared here when the Seed was created, with some kind of prior context," the mayor continues, "and just picked that up and began preparing for us to arrive. That's your story?"

"That's what happened!" Gwen protests. "Why are you doubting me...? I don't have anything to hide from you..."

"I don't think Eliza is suspicious of you in particular," Rei says softly. Eliza nods sagely, closing her eyes.

"This entire situation feels wrong," Eliza declares, her voice sharper and colder than before. "It's ludicrous to think that all you need to do to create the new world is say some fancy words to some weird demi-god-spirits and convince them not to give up on humanity. And that's to say nothing of how strange it is that they didn't corroborate Yomi's explanation for why we have to do this in the first place."

"W-what are you implying?" Gwen stammers. Eliza looks her way, tired, incredulous. "I want to help," Gwen protests, stamping her foot. "I know you just see me as another part of the Seed, but - but I really do want to help you! I want to help the Curator succeed! We all want that, don't we?"

"I suppose we do," Eliza says dryly. Gwen shrinks back even more, looking helplessly at Rei.

Rei wonders for a moment if she should say anything about how cruel this is. Even if she has been co-opted in some capacity by the Seed, Gwen is still Gwen, and Eliza's words are hurting her. But at this point, something like that doesn't matter to Eliza. People's feelings have never mattered to Eliza, not really, not weighed against the responsibilities of survival, and that's a way of thinking that Rei has to admit she understands. Even before the end... Eliza forged her own path, and cared little for anyone that disagreed with it. It was one of the things about her that had made her stand out to Rei, one of the reasons she had befriended her in the first place. Maybe out of some vain hope that she would be there to see reconstruction, a hope that she somehow managed to manifest. And this is what it's led to.

"What's weird to me," Naomi adds, "is that Gwen doesn't remember us, but you and I both remember Rei and each other just fine, Eliza. How come we're special?"

"Yeah," Eliza agrees lowly, turning to nod to Naomi. "That's really what makes Gwen so strange. Why just her? Is it just our involvement in tearing open the remnant, or is there some other force at work?" She turns back to Gwen, gesturing pointedly. "You, or whatever entity has given you your memories, or whatever, expects us to simply accept that SOME of the survivors of the remnant were repurposed for the Seed, but not us. Why?"

"Maybe because you were close friends with the Curator," Gwen says feebly, fidgeting. "M-Maybe I wasn't really that close with her." She glances shyly in Rei's way. "Was I?"

Rei doesn't know what to say. Eliza is glaring at her, and she kind of knows why. This is a terribly dangerous subject.

"Even then, that's arbitrary," Eliza says, through gritted teeth now as though forcing a sense of calmness. "I understand that all of this magic nonsense can be arbitrary at times, but it doesn't give me any sense of faith in the process, and frankly, I don't have a lot of reason to trust anything that's happened so far."

"W-well," Gwen gulps, "um, there are many questions I can answer for you! So that might be something we can fix."

"Why did our old world die?" Eliza asks coldly.

"A-ah..." Gwen's spirit dies immediately, fading back and starting to fidget.

"If the spirits of this world don't know," Rei interrupts, "how could Gwen? My mother wasn't perfect, Eliza, maybe she got some things wrong. Maybe the world really did die when it was meant to, and maybe that's what we're really here to try to fix. Yomi thought the problem was in the way the world was constructed, but maybe it wasn't, maybe it's in the way the world was managed. Maybe she was just a terrible Curator, Eliza. There's a lot that we don't know."

"So what do you want me to do?!" Eliza shouts back, gesturing wide. "If there is something that I'm missing, please, by all means, tell me! Explain to me why this is so easy, explain to me what we're doing wrong! But heaven and hell forbid, Rei, if you invoke that Spark and create some new universe and we fucking forgot about something that we could've caught in advance, you're going to be kicking yourself for literal eternity."

"I hadn't really thought about it," Naomi says, a bit timidly, "but - what exactly happens to you after you invoke the Spark, Rei? What'll happen to us?"

Eliza stammers and sputters to a stop, staring at her bewildered. "I-I assumed she'd just enter the new world and assume some kind of stewardship over it like Yomi had," she says faintly. "Right? She - she must have told you something about that, right?"

"Technically," Rei sighs, "she told me that I'd remain outside the universe, but I think she expected I'd be able to figure things out myself. What matters is what the spirits told us: this space is going to remain, though it might change shape. So we'll still be here, and it'll be up to us to determine what to do with everyone that's still with us."

"Okay, so, we'll be here, also," Eliza murmurs, pinching the bridge of her nose. "But, that's beside the point - as far as we know, we only get one shot at this, right? We have to be absolutely sure it's right, but we don't even know how to tell."

"It may be that we can't tell," Rei says, but Eliza's voice jumps an octave, a growl tearing from her throat as she overrides Rei:

"And I'm just supposed to go off of your maybes and what ifs?!" she snaps. "This is exactly what I was talking about in the remnant, Rei - you're brilliant about your theory and confident in your conclusions, but you just don't follow through, you leave everything vague and undefined, and someone has to come in after the fact and clean up after your mess -- "

"Wait, wait," Naomi gasps, "guys, calm down - "

"I will be calm when Rei gets it through her head that we can't just leave everything to chance!" Eliza snarls.

"What exactly am I leaving to chance?" Rei replies - her voice cool and soft, but a bitter edge lying just underneath; she folds her arms and settles into a steely glare. "What you see as an uncertainty that must be corrected, I see as a simple fact of life. I am a Curator, Eliza, but I am also still human, and the nature of humanity is such that we cannot know everything. We aren't working with a science experiment carefully contained within a lab. These are not results we can verify against someone else's work. We have only ourselves and the world around us to judge by."

"So let's take our time," Eliza cries, exasperated, "and explore the world around us, and make sure we're not missing anything! I'm not saying that you don't know what you're doing - "

"I'm not suggesting that we rush anything either," Rei snaps back, "but we won't get anywhere if we refuse to place our trust in what the Seed has placed in front of us! The structure of this place, literally and symbolically, has meaning that we need to preserve and understand. Trying to worm into it, to understand its inner workings, is just going to cause it to unravel underneath us, and anything you think you'll learn about it will be meaningless. We have to understand it as an abstraction, not as a machine."

"Um," Gwen says feebly, faint and weak. Eliza sighs angrily, brushing her hair back and turning to her, fire in her eyes. "I-I think something is wrong."

"Great!" Eliza shouts, throwing her hands up. "A lead, finally. What's happening?"

"I don't know." Gwen glances towards the holographic display, and the others follow her eyes to see that Gwen's friends have all gathered around it, watching with hushed anxiety as error displays begin to pop up around one of the islands. "I don't know what would be causing that," Gwen continues faintly. "I've never seen that before."

"Is that an outsider?" Rei whispers. Eliza starts to back away from the screen.

"We need to go," she intones, and Rei nods back to her, gesturing for the Spark to manifest a tear in reality behind her companion.

#wishes from oblivion #wfo sky arc

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birdofdoom · 7 years

Text

Cinderella Pt. 3

This is part three of the Cinderella fic in which the Reader and Michael meet in the Eden Club to a rocky start. He’s just walked her home and she’s inviting him up for tea.

I know I’m a bit behind on things, but I’ve been quite ill as of late so I’m struggling to keep up. Again, I welcome feedback and would love any and all criticism because I want to get better at writing. I hope you enjoy. Cheers!

Michael x Reader

The apartment offered a welcome relief from the wintery night air. Michael stepped from the stoop into the narrow foyer of the brownstone. [Y/N] closed the door to the main entryway and gestured to the creaky stairs on his left. He climbed them slowly, allowing his body to acclimate to the heat.

“My flat’s letter ‘C’ it’s at the end of the hall to the right.”

“Right,” his voice was soft, almost anemic. He had ventured into many a bedroom with women of all sorts with little hesitation, but now he could feel his heart race with worry. Embarrassment was kissing a warm flush into his cheeks. It wouldn’t be the first time he had gone home with a girl without knowing her name, but now he felt a sense of shame about it. Somehow in her quaint little brownstone, in her reserved blue dress, being alone together read as scandalous. He felt self-conscious of all his past escapades, now wondering if they were all indecent or if he was overthinking his current venture. He mustered all his self-control, pushing perverse and scintillating thoughts from his mind. Michael took a deep breath, reminding himself that he had only been invited for tea, and that’s all he would stay for. After all, if she was Cinderella, it was his duty to play Prince Charming.

She laughed and Michael was pulled from his intense thought.

“Hmm?” he questioned, turning to face her.

“I need to get by. I have the key. Unless you want to will it to open on your own, Houdini.”

“Oh right,” he blushed more deeply, wondering how long he had been absentmindedly staring at the knob. She placed her hand on his bicep, gently leading him out of the way so she could make a path to the entrance. The touch was light, but he could feel blood rush to the spot, yearning for more. After fidgeting with the key in the lock, the door opened with a droning creak. She smiled and moved knowingly into the dark room. Somewhere along the wall, she reached for a switch and a lamp awakened, spreading a warm yellow glow over the flat. It was a small but charming studio. The sole window was large and leaded and hung like a painting on the east wall. Her kitchen was cramped and well used, pots and pans hung precariously from the ceiling to save space. Next to the radiator were two small mismatched armchairs and a sizable trunk, which she had repurposed into a table, complete with a white doily. Her bed was small, but neatly made, a hand-sewn quilt and crocheted duvet were folded tidily at its foot.

Michael smiled to himself. The petite flat felt like more than a place to live. She had made it a home. It smelled of cinnamon and tea and cigarettes. Books and journals were filed against the east wall, framing the window. Several more stood in a stack by the bed. As he took in the warmth of her flat, he knew it helped reveal who she was. He felt at ease in the kind lamplight, among volumes of knowledge and in the company of a mysterious girl.

“Sorry for the mess. I know it isn’t much, compared to what you’re used to, Landed Gentry.” He smiled at her playful jab. Nervousness wrecked his gut and left his heart aflutter, but watching her cheeks perk into a smile calmed him.

“No, it’s quite nice. Cozy.” He found his way to one of the armchairs and picked up a book to his left. She put the kettle on and placed two cups and saucers on the trunk. She pulled a tin from the shelf in the kitchen offering him a cigarette. Obliged, he lit it, relaxing into the chair.

“Is this any good?” He picked up a red-bound copy of a book entitled We from beside the trunk.

“That really depends on your taste. I don’t know what you like. I loved it, but it is a bit on the intense side of things. It’s science fiction.”

“Oh like space men and H.G. Wells and stuff.” She laughed at his apparent disdain.

“Well, no, not really, it’s more of a political thriller about an authoritarian state. It’s violent and terrifying and beautiful all at the same time. It’s dystopian.” Michael raised his eyebrows intrigued. “Feel free to borrow it.” She smiled and he was again taken aback by her unabashed generosity.

“I think I will.”

“That means return it when you’re done. I expect you to treat it well.”

“So you want to meet again?” His voice was smooth and confident; the boldness was not lost on her. She still found him beautiful and charming and she could feel her cheeks aflame with desire. A hissing from the kitchen filled the silence between them.

“Yes, I suppose so.” She said quickly and walked to the whistling kettle, pouring the boiling water into a teapot and gradually dropping a sachet inside.

“And why’s that?”

“Like you said, I’m new here. I don’t know anyone or have any friends, really. I enjoy your company. Plus, I would want my book back.” Her excuses were thinly veiled and she secretly hoped he could see through them.

“Well I don’t live around here,” he shrugged blowing out a cloud of smoke. He wanted to act cool, to make her admit that she wanted him.

“Oh, I just figured if you owned the club you lived here. Where do you live?” His attempts at aloofness were quashed by her genuine interest.

“Small Heath. Birmingham.”

“So that’s where you work as a gangster slash accountant?” Her playful sarcasm was as shocking as it was charismatic. He had met plenty of girls attracted and fascinated by the danger of his profession. They loved to ask about his gun or the number of men that he’d killed, as if his sinful life was sexy or en vogue. [Y/N], oddly enough, seemed to find Michael’s job as an accountant humorous and was indifferent to the illicit nature of the Peaky Blinders’ business.

“Yeah.”

“So will you be able to return my book? If not, I guess I could give you money to post it back to me. I don’t want to be a hassle.” He smiled at her as she poured the steeped tea into their cups on the trunk. He liked that she focused less on his occupation and more on their budding friendship.

“I just can’t seem to place you,” his lips closed into a smirk around his cigarette.

“What’s there to place? You literally know nothing about me. Hell, you don’t even know my name. It isn’t any wonder.” He snorted.

“True, but that can change.”

“I guess it could. What do you want to know?”

“Your name would be nice, for a start.”

“[Y/N]. Next?” She looked intensely into his eyes. Taking a cigarette from the tin, she leaned forward to light it off the end of his. Never breaking eye contact, she successfully chained them, tobacco wafting from her lips. Her witchy gaze was entrancing and he felt himself begin to lose self-control in her irises. She exhaled and licked her lips, trying to stymie the cigarette’s drying kiss. He couldn’t help but stare at her mouth as she did so, his eyes heavily lidded with desire.

“[Y/N].” He almost whispered it. He let her name dance around his mouth, tasting the consonants and vowels in turn. She smiled.

“Yes?”

“Just wanted to say it.”

“Anything else you want to know?” she exhaled as tendrils of smoke framed her face.

“What brings you to London? On the run from a stepmother?” She chuckled.

“No. I don’t have family anymore. I wanted a change of pace. Get out of the country. New start. All that. Dreams in the big city, ya know. Same as anyone else.”

“What do you mean ‘anymore’.”

“Oh, well the War took the men and then the influenza took the women. I’m the last one standing I guess.” She shrugged, looking resigned to her fate of coffins and lilies. He nodded and decided to swiftly change the subject, seeing a twinge of grief in her eye.

“What do you do?”

“Bookbinder, hence all the…” she gestured around the overstuffed apartment with her cigarette.

“Books, right.” He grinned. They took turns sipping tea and smoking in the tiny room, exchanging stories and laughs. Her smile was infectiously earnest. As her lips parted to show her teeth he felt heat radiate from her cheeks, melting his earlier trepidation. The radiator spurted and stuttered while keeping the flat toasty. The temperature and fragrant thickness of the air were relaxing, and as time passed Michael knew that he’d be out again to walk in the frigid night alone. He didn’t want to go home. He wanted to drink tea and tell stories and chat with [Y/N] until the sun rose, but he knew not to push his luck. He took a deep drag trying to savor the moment, committing it to memory.

“So, why aren’t you afraid of me, being a country mouse and all. Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to let strange men into your home?” His eyes narrowed and he wagged his finger in mock derision.

“What’s so strange about an accountant?” she asked with faux ignorance.

“You know what I am.”

“Yeah, you’re a country mouse too. I can tell by the way you talk. You aren’t from London and you sure as shit aren’t from Birmingham.” She giggled. Smoke poured from his smug Cheshire cat grin.

“You caught me. I was born in Birmingham, raised in the country.”

“That explains it.” He was relived when she didn’t pry further.

“Do you like jazz?”

“I love it. That’s why I went to the Eden. One of the girls at work said it has the best bands.” He nodded.

“We do try to have nothing but the best. What about dancing?”

“What about it?”

“Do you like to dance?”

“If the mood strikes me, yes I love to dance. I usually need some liquid courage to get started, though.”

“How long do you think this book will take to finish?”

“Dunno. Maybe a week or two? I found that it’s a pretty fast read.”

“So then are you free next Friday? I could give you your book back. We could meet at the Eden.”

“Sure.” Her eyes scrunched as her mouth was pulled taught across her cheeks in a broad simper. He reveled in her smile. He took another nip of tea and remembered their cold walk from the club to her flat.

“Actually, would it be alright if I met you here? That way you don’t have to go all that way alone at night.”

“Oh, no please, I wouldn’t want you to have to walk all this way just to turn back around and walk me to the club. It isn’t any trouble, I can manage.” He snorted.

“No, I have a car. I can drive you if you like.”

“Oh. In that case, yeah, you can come round at half eight.”

“That’s much too early to go dancing. Maybe we could have dinner beforehand?”

“Alright sure. Dinner at eight next Friday. It’s a date.” She rose from the plush armchair and walked over to the wall of books, pulling a diary from the bottom right. She uncapped a fountain pen serving as a bookmark between its pages and wrote down the time for their rendezvous.

“Is it?” he asked. He could feel the color drain from his face and trepidation suck the moisture from his mouth. He felt foolishly childish. He was struggling with the nervous pit that he had worried into his stomach. He hadn’t felt so anxious asking a girl out before, especially someone as naïve as she appeared to be.

“Yes, if you like it to be, it’s a date.” Her ears were a sharp shade of cherry. She averted her gaze from his, suddenly fascinated by the design of the rug. He found reassurance in her bashfulness and wondered if their reactions fed off of one another.

It was late and the arrangements for next week’s plans seemed to be a natural capstone to their conversation. Michael struggled to get up out of his seat, swallowed by the overstuffed cushions. He thanked her for the tea and cigarettes and made his way toward the door with We in hand.

“Wait.” He turned to see her shuffling through the trunk that had served as their side table. “It’s cold out there. I know you didn’t bring a coat, so take these.” She handed him a set of red knitted mittens with a matching hat and scarf. They were thick and warm wool.

“Thank you,” he said holding up his hands.

“It’s nothing,” she laughed.

“I’d love to make it up to you.”

“That’s what next week’s for,” her voice was soft but coy.

“Right then.” He walked out the door as she waved goodbye. He waited to hear the latch of a lock before moving down the hall to the stairs.

As he waited at the main door of the Brownstown, steeling himself against the bite of the winter wind to come, he held his nose to the woolen mittens and inhaled. They smelled like cinnamon and tea and cigarettes. They smelled like her. He smiled.

#peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders #michael gray #peaky blinders fic #michael gray imagine #peaky blinder imagine #michael gray x reader #michael shelby #cinderella

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