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honestlyhufflepuff · 4 years

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Taking a closer look at “Why So Blue”

This episode was a lovely break from Steven’s “baggage,” instead focusing on the growth Lapis has had. It was visually beautiful, with a touching new song from Lapis, and an interesting contrast from gems that remind her of her old self.

However, I feel this episode has been a little neglected in the fandom as far as the things it tells us about Steven and the world around him. Remember, Future is primarily about Steven’s arc and anything revealed about another character is bound to reveal something about him as well. “Why So blue” has been overshadowed by more dramatic episodes that had Steven’s anger and negative feelings at the forefront. This is no surprise, as seeing Steven’s issues manifesting so intensely is still such a new thing for the fans to process. This episode has Steven acting closer to his lighthearted, optimistic “old self” than any other one in SUF, and I wanted to delve into the implications of that. Let’s break down some things the episode establishes…

1. Despite his “outbursts,” Steven is still a Pacifist at heart.

This look was all it took for Lapis to regain control of herself. In this episode- this moment- is when he really seemed the most like “Classic Steven.” He’s not shouting at her to stop, or joining in the fight. He is just believing in Lapis’s growth and giving her the space to come around on her own. I don’t think the Steven we saw in “Guidance” would have done that. Part of this shift is due to his personal growth, but it’s also probably because he is falling back into his old role of pacifying hostile gems, which is what he knows best and what he’s comfortable with. That isn’t healthy, especially considering how much we’ve seen him panic when he doesn’t have someone to fix in later eps. However, it’s still a relief to see that fighting is not his first recourse despite his new “pink” powers making an appearance almost every episode.

2. Our Lapis is far stronger than your average Lapis. It is unclear if she was designed to be this way or if it is a result of her trials. Regardless, the Crystal Gems should be very grateful she’s on their side. She has the potential to rival a Diamond in combat.

She fixin’ to mess y’all up.

3. Steven has had growth over the course of SUF.

I bring this up because I think even though Steven is facing a very real personal crisis regarding his growth, he’s still had positive changes since the original series, and since the start of Future.

Lapis: I wish I hadn’t done that. They just remind me so much of myself. It’s infuriating.

Steven: Give yourself a break. You’ve grown a lot. It’s not your fault they’re stuck in their ways.

Contrast Steven’s attitude in this scene with his attitude towards Jasper back in Little Homeschool, after agonizing about his inability to change her:

Are you just going to sit here…waiting for someone to give you a purpose? Because I’m TRYING to give you one!

There have been obvious parallels between Jasper and Steven in this series, as Jasper is possibly the only character almost as stuck in the past as Steven is. I don’t know if Steven is self aware enough to realize that Jasper set him off so easily because he saw himself in her, like Lapis did in the HW Lapises. What he has realized is that not all gems will change in the way he imagined they should, and that’s ok. Him and Jasper, as far as we know, are not exactly friends, but they have an understanding of each other. Jasper may always be stuck in her ways, and Steven has apparently made peace with the fact that her bitterness is not his burden. He even sees value in the fact that she sees the world differently from him, and wants to learn from her.

This was a huge point of growth for Steven. All he did through the main series was try to fix people, and it’s obviously taken a toll on him. The only problem is now that he’s let go of his need to fix others by leaving Little Homeschool, he doesn’t know how to do anything else.

Steven has moments of self awareness regarding his issues (in between all the repression, avoidance, and denial) throughout SUF. One is in this moment with with Lapis, where he articulates that you can’t blame yourself for someone else not wanting to change and grow. He admitted to the Rose Quartzes that he’s “not fine,” but vehemently says the opposite to anyone else. He admits to Pink Pearl that he has “baggage,” although he won’t elaborate. He admits to Amethyst that his need to control others is a problem. He admits to his friends- under extreme duress and prodding- that he is having a hard time coping with cange. He opens up to “Cactus Steven” more than anyone, but after how that turned out the next time he opens up won’t come very easily.

My point is, Steven is still growing as a person, but it is a slow process due to all the trauma he is processing, compounded with having powers just as volatile as his emotions are.

4. HW gems are having a hard time letting go of the old caste system.

He’s half Diamond. Maybe we should half listen.

If the Lapises were really listening to Steven in the first place, then their primary motivation for listening to him would not be him being “half diamond.” The whole point of him overthrowing the empire was to create an equal society where Diamonds wouldn’t dictate what everyone does anymore.

How can the thing we’ve always done just suddenly be wrong?

Everyone is having trouble adjusting to this new equality in practice, including Steven. This is a massive, ancient, complex dictatorship that is now adjusting to a new government created by a human teenager. A Diamond is the one teaching and leading the new way things work, so of course it’s a mixed message for HW gems who have him telling them everyone is equal, but also that they no longer can do what they want to if it impedes his vision. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in Steven’s position. It would make most people uncomfortable to tell someone that the thing they were created for- that they also take joy and pride in- is now not only obsolete but morally wrong. Hooray for minors dealing with the nuances of cultural sensitivity in their galactic imperialism!

“He’s smaller than I thought.

Funny that this was the same thing said by the Rose Quartzes. It’s probably hard for any gem to imagine a Diamond that is not massive and imposing, but Steven is still pretty small even for a human (and still shorter than Connie). I can imagine this is why Jasper was so quick to reject him as her Diamond. Steven does not project the towering picture of immortal and flawless power as the other Diamonds have, and this is inevitably disappointing to gems that have long valued that image.

You really expect us to dance and sing like Pearls?

Gem society was not lacking in the arts, but they were strictly reserved for the elite and those who served to perform for them.

It’s interesting that Peridot had no idea what music was, and I presume this is because she was in a lower status than Lapis. The problem is not that the HW Lapises were unaware of artistic expression, but that they found it beneath them. The Lapises take pride in being instruments of power and destruction, the opposite of how everyone perceives Pearls. It’s no surprise they perceived such a heartfelt song from a fellow Lapis as “pitiful.”

Despite the fact that Pearls were very close to those in power, they had none of their own, and even Peridot considered herself above them when she first arrived from Homeworld. Pearls were created to be objects. Status symbols. Pretty little ornaments. Music boxes. And gems created for more “practical” purposes than entertaining the elite and opening doors would see anything associated with Pearls as beneath them.

5. Hot take: Lapis’s approach wasn’t totally in the wrong.

Lapis: We’ve just got to force them to stop. They’re not nice like me.

Steven: Ummm *avoids eye contact*

Lapis: Exactly.

The HW Lapises- much like Jasper- valued physical power over other virtues. Lapis beat herself up a lot for her loss of restraint, but communicating a bit with a show of the type of power the Lapises valued was enough to get them to listen. Steven’s approach alone clearly wasn’t working.

Sometimes people think so differently from you that you have to meet them halfway to have any hope of getting through to them. Steven did this when he agreed to fight Jasper.

I think the main reason he feared Lapis taking this approach was because he knew her past. He knew how hard she was to reign in once she got started, and how drastic she could be in confrontation. I mean, that’s why we have the entire Malachite story arc.

Restraint takes strength! Patience takes strength! Ugh, I don’t have the strength to deal with you.

However, Lapis has grown past that stage of her life, where her trauma ruled all her interactions with others. She has friends- like Steven and Peridot- who keep her grounded. She has developed healthy coping skills and outlets for her processing her emotions. This is why is so concerning to see Steven doing the opposite. The more fragile his mental state becomes, the more he distances himself from his closest friends and interests.

Lapis had the self awareness to realize she was slipping into old habits and losing control, and removed herself from the situation to cool down. That is huge for her.

Not every gem is going to want to go to Little Homeschool, and there’s probably a lot of them that still like fighting and destruction- especially if that’s what they were made for. Era 3 is so bent on avoiding violence that there isn’t really an outlet for pent up aggression (which Steven could use as well, btw). I think starting up some kind of gem dojo would be a great alternative instead of just expecting every gem to like the “softer” things like dancing and making meep morp.

Also, just imagine Jasper as a dojo master. Hell yeah.

6. Most people probably do not realize that Steven is struggling.

Wow, Steven. It took you a whole 5 seconds to make a new friend. You’re getting rusty.

I found this quote from Lapis telling. She still sees Steven as being able to make and keep friends effortlessly. In “Room for Ruby,” she was actually relieved to hear Ruby’s immediate love for earth was all an act, laughing and saying “No one could be that well adjusted.” The only exception to this rule for her seems to be Steven. She looks to him for stability, just like she did in the fight with the other Lapises.

In reality, Steven is terrified of his friends moving on and changing, while also being resentful if they don’t recognize he has changed. He has unresolved trauma that is eating away at him and causing him to have emotions he doesn’t know how to handle. However, most people probably see Steven as he presented in “Why So Blue-” gentle, charismatic, and carefree. It is not uncommon with mental illness to be “high functioning” in public and then come undone the moment you are home around your immediate family.

Even after the very public display of his stress in “Little Graduation,” none of his friends were like “dude, you’re scaring me, please go to therapy.” They saw one incident, but not the whole picture, so none of them seemed to really grasp how bad things are going for him. This is because Steven is still pretty adept at putting up a positive front most of the time.

***

Anyways, I just wanted to revisit this episode and give it some love. Feel free to RB and tell me things you noticed about it that I may have missed!

#su meta #lizzywrites #why so blue #suf #lapis lazuli #su character analysis

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valehirvas · 3 years

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Hi! I need help understanding what Is gender dysphoria from a transsexual perspective because I'm confuse at my own experiences and the doctors I've seen viewerd dysphoria as only wanting to/believing you are the opposite sex and nothing more

I’m not an expert on this obviously, all I’ve got is just my own experience.

For me, it’s primarily a strong desire and a feeling of “should be” about male sex characteristics. As a child, I would often cry in my bed looking forwards in my life thinking it was already over because I wasn’t a boy, not because being a girl to me was bad in itself - I didn’t view it as limitating or see myself as lesser in any shape or form, I just didn’t feel like my body was as it should have been and the thought of never physically becoming a boy was crushing to me. This came along with various stupid childish misadventures like trying to learn to pee like a boy to feel more comfortable: let’s just say that one ended up in a disaster. I also quite classically tried to explain to my mother how I felt - that I wasn’t like a “girl girl”, I was more a boy girl. Something like that.

I didn’t have social dysphoria at this stage, because I’m very privileged in the sense that my parents and most adults around me allowed me to be exactly who I was, and those who found me disagreeable and too boyish never explicitly made it a gender issue, so I was blissfully unaware of the idea that girls weren’t supposed to act the way I was acting. I was very much a tomboy, but I was never made to feel like this was a bad thing, it was just who I was. I was in a lot of minor trouble often because of how active and curious I was as a kid, but nothing worse than doing what other adventurous kids were getting up to. For example, we liked breaking into the sewer system to chase frogs. Our parents HATED it, for obvious reasons. Things like that. But these were hardly things that only boys got into, and my friend group was rather equally split between the sexes at the time, so yeah, no, my social dysphoria did not exist at this time.

With puberty, things got a lot rougher. It’s tough to tell how much of it was because of dysphoria and how much of it was because of abuse in my life; I was targeted by a school teacher who made my life hell and triggered my depression at the ripe old age of 11, and ever since things were just really difficult for me.

I was still struggling with wanting to be a boy; I only had male role models, only male ideals of what I wanted to grow up to be, in terms of media and idols. I desperately wanted facial hair. Meanwhile, I was being raised by a single mother, and my experience with men was dreadful, and puberty chased off my male friends so I was left living in an all-female bubble, pretty much. I didn’t feel separate from it, but I was certainly different. My friends went down a more traditionally feminine path while I was a clusterfuck of alternative fashion and obscure interests.

My biggest “oh” moment was when I was about 12 years old and for the first time approached my mom to buy my own set of clothes - I’d secretly wanted to dress up as one of the boys for a long time, but this was the first time I really got to try it out. Being a skater was in because this was the early 2000s, so I bought a large t-shirt and a pair of skate shoes, and yes, a skateboard, and when I looked into the mirror like that, I felt like I was in heaven. I felt like things were finally going right and that this was who I wanted to be, that this was who I was supposed to be.

When I was 14, I met my first trans person. I had a terrible crush on him, he was a couple years older than me and identified as an FtM. The year was, what, 2005? I knew instantly that I was the same as him, but it scared me so badly I swore off ever thinking about it again, and that I’d just live as a woman like I was meant to be, because he was extremely suicidal and abused alcohol and drugs, and I didn’t want to die like that. It just seemed like the worst outcome - I knew I was like that, too, but I didn’t want that future. I was afraid if I’d accept how I felt, I’d end up killing myself like he’d tried to do so many times already. So I went DEEP into the closet.

I struggled a lot with relationships, being viewed as a girlfriend and treated as such, like my partners telling me they loved how I looked, touching my body, appreciating it as a female body. I told my first love that I wanted to go by the name of Gabriel, and that I felt like a boy inside, but that was as far as I went. I was 15 at the time. Around the same age I got sent to a group home because the social services were struggling with me (I wasn’t attending school due to my depression and various other mental disorders, and they needed to get me off their books asap). There, I was assigned men’s deodorant because they were out of women’s, and I never went back from there. Little things like that just made me feel so much better in my own skin. Now I at least smelled like a guy. It felt heavenly. In this same place, my supervisor was a nice young woman who borrowed me movies to watch. One of them was Boys Don’t Cry. Let’s just say I was pretty badly traumatized by that, and went ever deeper in the closet, because once more I knew that I was exactly what was portrayed on the screen but the reality of it was... well, I’d either kill myself or be murdered. Nobody wants that. So yeah, there.

Afterwards I went hyperfeminine but also became incredibly toxic because of how bad I felt in my own skin - I was extremely unstable, but at least I was playing my role right, right? I was suppressing how I really felt and trying to force myself into some weird caricature of a woman to spare myself from a painful death.

I used to do a lot of larping as an older teen and a young adult. When I was 18, one of my girlfriend’s characters was transsexual, and I went looking for information about the condition, you know, having the excuse of just “doing research”. That was the turning point. It was so comforting to know that I wasn’t alone, that this was something other people had gone through, too. That I didn’t have to live like this forever.

The things that bothered me most were the fact that I couldn’t grow facial hair, and my chest, which has always been very large. I’ve never had particularly bad dysphoria about the shape and size of my body, and I coped with genital dysphoria by packing, but the fact that I couldn’t grow a beard was the worst thing in the world to me. I went through a year of self-searching and research, during which my girlfriend left me because, duh, she’s a lesbian and I’d just come out as a trans man and it just wasn’t working out anymore, but she stuck by my side to help me become who I wanted to be, and fuck if it wasn’t working. Embracing the way I’d felt and doing the things that helped me feel better - like wearing the kinds of clothes that gave me that sense of comfort and rightness, and binding my chest - helped me to such a big degree that I stopped being completely fucking awful as a person. I stopped flipping out at the smallest of triggers and slamming doors and shouting and being an absolutely unbearable piece of shit, and my ex has repeatedly told me how good it felt seeing me become so much happier before her eyes. I practically changed as a person when I started my transition, first socially and then eventually medically, I became a very calm and difficult to irritate kind of an individual instead of the mess I’d been the years before. And I don’t mean “changed as a person” like I adopted a different personality, just that I stopped being blinded with anger and self-hatred at all hours of the day and lashing out at anyone who dared to love me as I was because I couldn’t.

Starting medical transition scared the shit out of me, because I’ve always been afraid of permanent changes. I nearly ran out of my tattoo appointment last minute because the idea of being marked forever killed me, and I only have one piercing that I can take out without leaving a visible scar for that reason. So obviously, taking that step was horrifying to me, but after doing my time looking into my soul and reflecting on my needs and desires for a year, attending some councelling and in general looking into what I really wanted from my life, I finally entered the diagnostic process, which here took at the time six months at the very least and included a lot of more thorough examinations like a psychological evaluation, chromosomal check and even an IQ test to make sure I was capable of consenting to the treatments.

Testosterone was a gift from gods in how much it eased my dysphoria. I ended up quitting it eventually because of how much it messed with my mental disorders like anxiety, and worsened my psychosis, but in terms of how much more at ease I became with my body, I can’t thank it enough. Seeing my body grow more hair on it, even some of that facial hair I’d always wanted, was blissful. Having my voice drop was comforting and comfortable, and I was excited to practice it and get back my range for singing and speaking, and that whole period of changes was just so good to me. I can’t describe it any other way. My dysphoria’s never come back since I stopped, because the changes that happened were those that I’d so desperately needed the whole time. I never got top surgery because of weight limitations placed on it, and this was an enormous source of pain for me for a long time, but I’ve learned to cope with it now. I’m getting along with my boobs because they’re just a part of my body, that is, unless they start growing cancer which does run in the family, and I’m never not suspicious of them for that reason.

It’s just, it’s hard to describe the story of my dysphoria without telling you all of this. It’s not just one or two things, it’s a history of a lifetime, little things that are good and this grand shadow that follows you around and makes everything more painful and difficult to endure because it’s already weighting you down. The terror of realisations and going back in the closet, but also the unmatched comfort and feeling of finally being how you were meant to be when you see yourself more akin to the picture in your head.

There’s a lot that I’ve left out, and not much of this is probably very helpful, but it is what it is.

#long post #ask

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sandalaris · 4 years

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Any song associations for Scott Fuller?

I read this ask as I went to bed yesterday and my brain went “ooo, meta on Scott?” Took a long ass time to convince myself that no, this is not asking for a detailed analysis of Scott throughout the seasons, but I only managed to wrangle this into more of a half-meta half-song association.

There is no one song that can encompass Scott Fuller over the entire series, because he arguably goes through the biggest character development on the show. And I don’t know if it makes the writers geniuses or lazy, because nearly all of his development happens off screen. Most of Scott’s focus on screen is about who he is to other characters, primarily Kate, and not who he is as his own person. If the whole of From Dusk till Dawn was told again only with Scott as the main focus, we’d get a whole new show, with just a few scenes that would be repeats of what has already been shown. The same cannot be said about any of the other main six (Freddie you almost could, but enough of his story overlaps with the main story being told that there’d be parts where people would go “we’ve heard this all already.”) And since Scott goes through such massive changes through out the show, I associate different songs to him at different times.

At the beginning of season one Scott: I’m Just a Kid by Simple Plan.

They’re such a quintessential 90′s band that there’s no way I actually feel he’d listen to them (wrong time period), and that’s assuming the Fullers even listen to secular music which I doubt given the bits of evidence on their music tastes we get. I don’t think Simple Plan necessarily encompass who Scott is at the time, but they are a band I feel like he would think represent him and that particular song reminds me strongly of him throughout most of season one... or rather it reminds me of how I think he views himself, which is not necessarily how I view him.

By the end of season one: Same band, because it’s such an “I’m an angsty teenager, no one understands me” band and Scott is very much an “I’m an angsty teen, no one understands me” kind of teen in the first season, but more the song Perfect.

I think Scott would feel it represents him at the end of season one, when he’s been rejected by his sister and his dad tried to mercy kill him. Scott’s all emotions and impulses by that point, in no small part because he’s a fifteen year old kid who’s going through a massive life changing trauma on top of the culebra transformation, which has been shown to cause some mood swings/poor decision making, and there’s no small amount of hurt and resentment bubbling up inside him that I think he’d relate to the lyrics about a son calling out his father for rejecting him in a way he didn’t before. Scott desperately loves his dad, so much so that he tried to turn him against his will so that he wouldn’t lose him. And Jacob, for all his good intentions, saw Scott’s culebra-ness as “something evil and vicious” that needed to be eliminated. He may have changed his mind, but by then Scott had stormed off believing that his dad (and sister) saw him as a monster they wanted nothing to do with.

At the beginning of season two (because the Scott from the beginning of season two is very different from the Scott by the end of season one): Middle Finger by Bohnes.

I swear season two could be considered the Season of Anger Issues, and not just for Scott. There’s been a lot of anger built up during those three months between seasons, most of it justified and/or stemming from hurt and none of it even beginning to be worked through. Not only is Scott a literal slave to the people everyone else managed to escape from at the end of season one, but due to the rejection he felt from his family and being turned into a culebra, Malvado’s people are the only ones he feels will accept him. He feels he belongs with them, and that he has to prove himself worthy of not being mistreated by them. After three months of being chained like a dog at the feet of Narciso, he finally gets a little bit of not-as-bad treatment and some freedom from Carlos. He’s hurt and angry and doesn’t know where to direct the bulk of his rage and ends up turning towards revenge, and the song just fits his mind set so well. There’s a whole big ol’ mess of stuff to dive into about him and Kate, in no small part because Kate handled her reunion with Scott all wrong and Scott himself was in such a stubborn child-like mindset of wanting to reject the person who rejected him so they could feel the pain he was feeling... and this ask is about songs, so I’m going to leave that for a different time.

But all the Kate&Scott stuff leads to the end of season two: O Valencia! by The Decemberists

Not the entire song, since it’s more about Romeo and Juliet-esque forbidden lovers than siblings, but the overall feel of it. Especially the chorus and the last half of the last verse and that change in the line to “you’re blood gettin’ cold on the ground” just feels to me like Scott in those last few episodes of season two. He comes to so much clarity after Kate dies, is forced to face just how much he was ignoring up to that point. He was trying for so long to punish her for rejecting him and to convince her to leave him (and no one can convince me that part of him trying to get to leave was because as mad at her as he was, he didn’t want her actually harmed) and then... just like that she’s gone, and all the possibilities were taken from him and suddenly his anger goes cold. It stops being this hot, burning thing in his chest that consumed everything, and becomes something sharp and hard and completely focused. Which is probably plays a part as to why this particular revenge song reminds me the most of Scott at the end of season two, because it’s not this screaming rage of a song, but rather its more akin to a love song. The promise of revenge not rooted in anger, even if there is anger there, but in the love and commitment to a person taken too soon. Scott’s not setting out to kill Carlos because he’s so angry he can’t see beyond it, but because he loved his sister and now this is what he has to do.

Season three Scott: Mostly I associate him at this point with Fanglorious. There’s not actually a song that reminds me purely of season three Scott, but for the purpose of this I’m going to say it’s a tie between Reckless Youth by Pillar and 100 Years by Five for Fighting.

Reckless Youth is more a song that reminds me of Scott making the conscious decision not to slip back into old habits/resentments. He’s not drowning in his pain anymore, not being poisoned by his anger, not even wallowing in his guilt over Kate (and the others that died because of him) which is still very much there but it isn’t controlling him. And he could so easily do just that, he’s lost everyone at this point, has so many reasons to let everything overwhelm him and yet... he doesn’t. He’s made something of his life, found his path and followed his passion and carved out a little place for him in the world. And Pillar is a Christian rock band, which is a bonus tie to Scott for me.

100 Years is kind of an ironic song to remind me of Scott. It’s literally about how fleeting life is and how little time we have on this earth, (with the actual repeated line of “I’m fifteen for a moment”) and Scott’s an immortal (who is stuck forever at fifteen.) But it’s also about how precious those moments are, about acknowledging regrets but not letting them define you, and its about looking back on your past and accepting what’s happened while still turning towards the future, and all of that reminds me of where Scott is in season three. The entire feel of the song is very S3!Scott.

Scott grew up so much by the time we see him again in season three. Which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I love the adult he’s becoming, and I’m so happy he found a way to not let his issues control him. But on the other hand.. he’s fifteen! He should be allowed to make stupid decisions and let his emotions get the best of him and get angry and throw tantrums and just be an angsty teenager... but then on a third hand, he’s living in a world where doing that will literally get people killed. It already has, and I’m not just talking about Kate. He doesn’t get to be a kid and a culebra. He doesn’t get to be a typical teen when the events of his life has buried him neck deep in blood and death and throwing a fit will result in a higher body count. And it sucks and it’s not fair, but life threw Scott the short end of the stick and he managed to make the best of a truly shitty situation... once he got his head out of his ass that is.

Special shout out to Teenagers by My Chemical Romance, because I saw it in a crack video and now I can’t hear the song without thinking of Scott. The chorus also fit Scott circa season two while the verses remind me a bit of him in season one, but was put to clips of Scott killing baddies in the prison while Richie looks on in surprise. It’s probably the only song that I can associate to all three seasons of Scott, if for three different reasons.

#scott fuller #fdtd #asked and answered #meta #despite my best efforts #from dusk til dawn: the series #From Dusk Till Dawn #scott deserves more love

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aparticularbandit · 5 years

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ok - i mentioned in a previous post that the terror basically gaslights miss lint when he first appears again (when they have the conversation in her lair in s1ep6) - and while i think that’s a harsh term and not the best term for it, i do want to point out that the terror consistently 1) doesn’t take lint’s feelings about him seriously and 2) redirects her anger at him towards herself (and arguably ramses, but primarily back towards herself) - and it’s these two things that seemed abusive or at least toxic to me. while i have transcribed their entire interactions (not all of derek’s bits, necessarily) in that episode, i’m not going to be posting all of those in this specific post, just the bits that are relevant.

commentary under the cut.

the terror: i needed superian to believe…. i was dead. miss lint: you needed to make me believe it, too? the terror: you were my right hand, janet. everyone knew it. you out there mourning my death…really sold the message, you know? made it real. miss lint: it was real. to me, it was real. the terror: and those suckers just ate it right up! ha!

here we have - and this is more apparent in yara’s delivery, but it shows in the lines themselves, too - but this is the first of multiple times throughout the episode where miss lint brings up just how much the terror’s death affected her. and this is perhaps the only time that the terror acknowledges it and acknowledges that he used her grief to his benefit. and has no remorse, but you know, villain.

miss lint: all this time, you’ve been alive and hiding and, what, laughing at me? the terror: hmm. this is repulsive. you drink this? miss lint: no. the terror: look. you think you’re mad at me. but you’re just mad at yourself. you should’ve known i was too smart to die. you should’ve read the signs, had a little faith. so, now you’re kicking your butt ‘cause all this time i’ve been waiting for you to come find me. miss lint: right. the terror: of course i was. i’ve been watching you. i have. miss lint: really?

here we see the terror 1) try to redirect the conversation (unsuccessfully), 2) pin the blame on miss lint (you aren’t mad at me because i didn’t do anything wrong. you’re mad at you because you fucked up. this mess is your fault), and 3) reaffirms that he does care about her in a way that suggests see, i didn’t do anything wrong, but you did. from this point, we see primarily a focus on the second of these along with more subtle attacks on who miss lint has become. and really, we see that subtle attack starting here, too - with the almond milk. in his attempt to redirect, the terror has stolen almond milk from the fridge, tried it, and declares it repulsive. hold that thought (because, honestly, not the biggest fan of almond milk myself, although i can’t remember if i’ve had any or not, so it could just be a flavor thing - but his commentary throughout the episode makes this feel like another tactic).

the terror: is that derek? miss lint: he’s my ex-husband. the terror: i.t. derek? the derek that set up the wi-fi in my old lair derek?

the terror: you married derek? miss lint: i was not in a good place. it was, it was after you and…hmm. i thought you were following my every move. the terror: i tried…at first. ah, you got so boring so fast, i don’t know.

1) clarifying who derek is through potentially negative assertions (that might be a stretch) but definitely suggesting that marriage to derek was a negative in and of itself, which leads to miss lint defending herself, where again she brings up the effect that his death had on her and points out his lie, which 2) the terror redirects by more negative assertions towards lint.

miss lint: and you think that you can just waltz back in here and i’ll play whatever little part you want me to play? the terror: oh, i don’t know, lint. you think you’re ready? you don’t look ready. frankly, you look like shit. miss lint: *gasps* the terror: look at you. you used to be bigger than life. a legend. what happened? miss lint: you died, okay? the terror: did your brain? hmm? ‘cause that’s the only explanation for how you got stuck in this rut. i wanted you to believe i was dead for a while. and i needed ramses to be the front for crime in this town. but i always figured you’d fry his ass in that stupid throne of his and then we’d talk.

miss lint: are you saying all i had to do to get to you was kill ramses? the terror: i’m saying the lint i knew would have shoved his humpty dumpty butt right off that wall in the first year. miss lint: do you think i like running a crew for that cat-worshipping fuck? the terror: holy hell, woman, you’re evil incarnate. start acting like it!

and then this one - this is three scenes, but i think it’s important to look at them as one whole that takes the previous and escalates. when lint calls the terror out, he 1) redirects it back to her with a negative, 2) puts her on the defense, and when she brings up again the effect that his death had on her, he 3) reverses the blame back to her, pointing out that all of this was her fault because she wasn’t acting like herself, because she did something wrong, because she was evil incarnate, she should have known better, and she should have found him - because he certainly didn’t do anything wrong - and if she had known better, she would have realized he couldn’t be dead, but because she was such a horrible person at being herself. and tbh, the terror is only partly successful at this. he does redirect lint’s frustration with him towards ramses (which is why ramses dies) and gets her to try and gain his affection again and prove herself (which is why she’s dressed completely differently in the lair while arthur is kidnapped - she’s wearing make-up and bright red lipstick and goodness gravy the slit in that dress shows so much leg), but it doesn’t stick long enough or well enough to keep her from turning on him. (and it’s likely why he built that safety into her grounding devices - lint’s temper gets away from her and he has to have her in a negative state of mind to keep her under his control - which we see in s2 as well - lint doesn’t kill people she cares about (joan of arc doesn’t kill her own gang; lint doesn’t kill derek, despite how they obviously don’t have the most functional relationship - albeit even in the few scenes they have together, derek’s a much more positive relational character than the terror is, but that’s beside the point). --and stopping here for now because i can feel myself getting into rambling territory, which would probably be better for other meta.

#the tick #miss lint #ms. lint #musings #bandit analyzes #so it's not really all gaslighting #but it's all a way of getting lint back under his control and doing so in a manipulative negative toxic abusive way

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liskantope · 5 years

Text

A response to Aella’s essay “The Responsibility Narrative”

I initially planned to quickly link to this piece @aellagirl put up a few days ago just to highlight it as a piece of writing containing ideas that I’ve tried to express for a while (longer-time followers know that the whole agency/responsibility topic is right up my alley) and to thank her for expressing them so much more elegantly and from a much more powerful point of view. Then I noticed a bunch of points I wanted to pick apart a bit (while I overall really like this post there are some places where I think she goes a bit further than I do or just want to respond to in other ways). Also, it seems that she turned comments off for that post or something, so I guess this post is my way of dropping a (very long and slightly erratic) comment under hers while at the same time linking my Tumblr followers to her piece and providing a response.

I’ll start by saying that I really envy the author’s writing skills, in the sense that Aella seems to have an uncanny ability to put forth highly controversial theses that many would take offense to in an eloquent, concise, and direct manner (I might even go as far as to say “blunt”), and yet manages to do this in a way that facilitates in the audience opening one’s mind and listening rather than taking offense or feeling attacked. This is something I’ve noticed for a long time in her writing. An example is her piece on monogamists rejecting polyamory out of fear, where her thesis is one that I strongly disagree with and may well have responded to with resentment if it had been displayed by any other writer. I wish I knew how to emulate this. From time to time I argue positions that are controversial and potentially threatening or angering to some, but in my writing there’s all this hemming and hawing and insertions of softening qualifications and so on which can often make those essays look like sloppy messes by comparison in which my central point is nearly lost amid all the carefulness.

As for the actual content, first of all, I’m always happy to see someone else writing things like this:

Responsibility is weird. Ultimately there’s no free will and agency is a trick of the light, but we seem to have particular rules for when and where we throw responsibility at something. Sometimes we throw responsibility at the environment, and sometimes at the person.

...and I’m especially happy to see this (as most people in my vicinity have seemed to shy away from describing the Left vs. Right divide in this way or agreeing with me when I did):

Responsibility placement seems to occur along political divides, too. Conservatives see everyone holding their own glowing ball of responsibility, while liberals see the responsibility in the environment and the cruel, unchangeable past.

Aella’s views on how we assign free will (or responsibility, which after all is treated by most as equivalent to free will) in practice is the same view as mine and seems to be pretty much the universally-agreed-upon way forward on the pragmatic side, at least judging from the (admittedly very limited) set of people whose writing on that question I’ve read. I wish there were a way to translate that pragmatic solution to a metaphysical one that we could all agree on -- I think my solution is to say that “free will” is just a word that we have no choice but to define according to the pragmatic solution because any attempts at a more “cosmic” definition are in fact meaningless. Perhaps Aella would differ by emphasizing the term “responsibility” in place of where I used “free will” in the sentence above, as after all she does call free will nonexistent and agency “a trick of the light” -- that view seems equivalent to mine for pretty much all means and purposes, though.

And as for “if someone is very lazy, shouting at them to be less lazy sometimes works”, well yes, although a key word there is “sometimes”.

Then we get to the much more controversial thesis of the essay, which is initially presented with “In my old society, men were formally and strongly given the glowing ball of responsibility... [which] sucked bad enough that I don’t think being a woman was worse than being a man.” On first reading, I’m pretty sure I misread that last bit to instead say, “I don’t think being a woman was as bad as being a man”. When just now I read the phrase correctly, my eyebrows didn’t raise quite as high as before, but they’re still raised a little bit. Because while I’m really glad that the author is presenting this alternative view and wish more people could be exposed to it and take it seriously, I still lean fairly strongly towards believing that on the whole it was still better to be a man.

(In this and what follows, I do want to point out that the author is considerably more qualified than I am to speculate on such things given her experience as a woman who actually grew up imprisoned in an ultra-conservative community; however, let me offer my own speculation based on my general impression of how humans react to power and responsibility.)

The author comes across to me as emphasizing the seductiveness of believing that fault lies not in oneself but in the environment while seeming to ignore the potentially negative effects of such a belief, or equivalently, the benefits of feeling a sense of personal responsibility. Yes, the essay highlights the (very obvious) benefits of having power, thus drawing a rough equivalence between the benefits of power and the benefits of not being assigned responsibility in a society where men hold most of the power and most of the responsibility, but I’m talking about how the holding responsibility part comes with psychological benefits along with the psychological disadvantages. Namely, in my view and in my experience, feeling a sense of responsibility is empowering, while feeling a lack of responsibility or agency is certainly easier in many ways but also comes with a sense of weakness and helplessness that can create a lot of depressed feelings. As I remember reading once in an advice article (whose title and author I don’t remember), “It’s easy to be miserable.” In the context of that article, I think its author was trying to say that a lot of misery arises from a failure to take responsibility, which is seductive because of how easy it is... but of course, due to the being miserable part, that deal definitely isn’t better than one where one feels empowered through the weight of responsibility to not have to be so miserable.

(Rereading what I’ve written here the following day, my words in the above paragraph look like contradictory nonsense in the context of the essay I’m responding to: it may sound like I’m saying “Aella is wrong to equate the benefits of lesser responsibility with the benefits or greater power, because carrying lesser responsibility also comes with the disadvantage of having lesser power.” But this is because I’m struggling to make a clear distinction in words between power in the sense of institutional power or authority to make decisions -- the power that Aella refers to -- and the feeling of personal empowerment in the sense of being able to tolerate or withstand adversity. I’m saying that a direct negative consequence of not carrying the ball of responsibility is a feeling of personal weakness that comes with it, which is fairly separate from the fact that lesser responsibility tends to be correlated with less society-bestowed power. Perhaps I’m slightly confounded here by viewing everything primarily through the lens of modern times, where differences in concrete society-bestowed power have mostly disintegrated and a lot of the oppression that activists complain about boils down to some adversity being intolerable mental-health-wise. Not sure if this edited-in aside clarifies my position or makes it even more muddled.)

This is not to say that in practice people don’t choose the less-responsibility route far more often than taking the glowing ball of responsibility. They do, I believe increasingly as our society becomes more socially progressive, and the younger generations recently seem to be embracing a norm of doing it more than ever. And that’s in large part because in a certain sense, it is the easier path. But that doesn’t mean they’re better off psychologically for it. Here let me try my hand at saying something potentially offensive very concisely and directly *deep breath*: the people I know who are most committed to shooing away that ball of responsibility -- the “environment-changers” as Aella might call them or the low-agency-goggle-wearers as I might call them -- the ones who go to the most extreme deep end in that direction tend on the whole to be the most bitter and frustrated, the most terrified of life in general, and the least emotionally or psychologically healthy people I’ve known, to an extent that I don’t think can fully be directly explained by the disadvantages that were handed to them.

As for Aella’s observation that on average men tend to have a more high-agency mentality while women tend to have a more low-agency one... yes, this has certainly occurred to me although I don’t think I’ve ever noted it in writing -- for some reason, I hesitate to feel fully convinced. I still lean towards claiming that the tribe one belongs to is a bigger factor here than gender, but it certainly makes sense that gender is a factor, and her observation does jive with my experience.

Now we get to the part about the Gillette ad, and again I can’t bring myself to go as far as the essay does. I should probably write another post describing a fuller reaction to the ad. As a response to the essay, I would argue that the author is making a point I strongly agree with about modern feminism in general (perhaps it can be applied to some other wings of SJ but far less so since for most other axes of oppression the reality really is something much closer to members of one group directly oppressing the members of another), but that the Gillette ad is not really a great example of this.

I understand “toxic masculinity” in this context to refer to certain behaviors traditionally associated with masculinity that are harmful but still encouraged or normalized for men in our culture. I agree that the ad places responsibility for fixing toxic masculinity solely on men and that this is an overly-simplistic judgment (although to some extent a statement that brief has to be simplistic). I also have some of my own issues with the ad. But sometimes the solution to overturning a cultural norm for a particular group really does almost exclusively rest on the shoulders of that group.

Aella states near the end of the essay, “Women reinforced gender roles just as much, if not more, than the men did.” My personal impression is a variant of this: I think it always has been and continues to be the case that women are the primary enforcers of female gender roles (including some of the most oppressive ones to live under) while men are the primary enforcers of male gender roles. In other words, gender roles are policed most heavily among one’s own gender group. That would imply in this case that many of the traditionally-male behaviors brought up in the ad -- physical aggression, sexual harassment, objectification of women and so on -- are reinforced in men primarily by other men. This strongly jives with my personal experience: it’s never been girls and women in my life who shamed me for not being fiercely competitive about something or for not picking fights or for not being aggressive enough at approaching women for dating/sex. In my life, it’s almost exclusively other guys that have. Of course I’m not saying that these masculine norms are entirely not enforced by women -- in particular, objectification of women arguably is perpetuated on a certain level by some subset of the female population. But I think by and large women tend to promote values for everyone of all genders which are the opposite of the uglier traditionally-masculine norms: diplomacy, sensitivity, gentleness, and so on.

And one corollary of men being the main perpetrators of “toxic masculinity” behavior among fellow men is that the most effective way to push things in the opposite direction is for men to start pushing other men away from these behaviors (”Not cool, dude!”). Which is exactly what the Gillette ad is preaching.

#Gender Roles #high vs. low agency goggles #feminism #toxic masculinity #gillette ad

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narukuwrites · 6 years

Text

002. Part 5

Words: 2,292 Tags: Merman AU, Mild Angst, Drama, Implied Incest, Questionable Parenting, Fluff, Flashbacks Summary: Kamski discovers Connor has gone missing and takes action, Connor and Ralph use the slipstream/currents to make their way to see Hank, and Markus still cannot figure out what it all means.

Authors Note: I had a pretty crappy weekend dealing with stuff so I’m not too sure how well this reads and I hope it hasn’t affected my writing too much. I may make some changes perhaps later. But definitely next chapter Markus and Connor shall finally meet.

When Connor hadn't come back in a timely manner, Eljiah, of course, had naturally gone to see just what was taking his beautiful son so long. Connor wasn't the type to fawn or focus too much on his aesthetics, and well his son was just naturally beautiful and soft to the touch. So perhaps something had happened, the young brunette mer wasn't just his son through - no he had greater plans for his son.

The bracelets his son wore were made by Amanda and had served to make sure that all of his physical touches and closeness with his son, was something that would not be something Connor would dwell or think too much upon - no it would be seen as perfectly natural. And something that began to build more over time - Elijah wasn't a monster of course. He would wait until the time was right - when his beautiful son was on the cusp of fully maturing and indeed he had.

He could still feel how deep he had buried himself and how willingly Connor's body had taken all of his sperm sacks, he wouldn't get pregnant yet of course but to see how responsive and wanton his son had been to his ministrations and touches - he had committed that to memory. And he could not wait to partake of his son's willing flesh again and again - when his heat would arrive. Which would be very soon the change in Connor's scent had been subtle but when it came to his son - Elijah noticed everything. Then he would breed his son and help him through the most difficult period of a becoming an adult.

Making his way to the part of the palace where the private royal sleeping chambers lay he had called out Connor's name and had gotten no response, he moved with a sense of urgency. Perhaps Connor had fallen asleep? Did something maybe has happened... but when he found his son's room empty and a mess compared to what it had been earlier. He felt a wave of panic and worry run through him? Had someone taken his darling boy?

"Guards!.." he said loudly in a booming voice as he swam from his son's room and several mers of the royal guard had arrived awaiting his orders. "My son has gone missing, I want all of the guards to search the entirety of the palace and the surrounding gardens Let everyone in within the palace know that I will be personally questioning every one of them...."

"At once my liege.." the guards said in unison before swimming off into various different directions. He would get the answers he needed, there had to have been someone who had seen or heard something, the crown prince couldn't just vanish without a trace. There was a possibility that he could have been kidnapped but there wasn't anyone foolish enough to even attempt such a thing. Elijah was a just and fair king and ruled his people well but to those who wronged him or tried to take what was his. They were the ones he would make suffer beautifully. After all, Amanda had taught him so much, as had his mother's books also.

And then a thought came to him, Ralph his son's best friend perhaps he could be of help and so he took one of his personal guards aside and sent him to find the blonde mer, and his parent's as well. Everyone was suspect now and he would get to the bottom of all of this. No matter the cost he would find Connor...

When Ralph had woken up from his nap, they ate a little more of the crab making sure not to let any of it go to waste before making sure that no signs of their being here, were visible as best they could, hopefully, the shift in the currents that would be upon them soon, both he and Ralph had sensed it - as all mer could detect the changes and making use of the sea’s currents and slipstreams was a way they moved from place to place with relative ease. It was primarily however used by sea creatures, very rarely mer.

They decided to take advantage of that it would help to make getting to "Hank's Place" a little easier and put yet more distance between them and his father's kingdom. Had his absence been noted yet? It was highly likely that it would by now and that meant time was of the essence and so when they had were ready to go, taking one final sweep of the area to make sure nothing was left they swam upwards and towards the current they would hitch a ride upon.

"Ralph hasn't ever used the currents, Ralph is excited.." the blonde said his scarred face lighting up in a happy manner as his movements because excited and less elegant than Connor's as it came into view.

"It's alright, neither have I so it'll be a first time for both of us. I hope we can get some directions from those already within it.." he said before letting out a gasp of surprise as they came into sight of the current streams.

The current streams were fairly busy of course and Connor noticed that it was mainly used by creatures such as sea turtles and dolphins which wasn't an issue, mer could communicate with all the intelligent species within their kingdom - whales and dolphin's primarily, but sea-turtles also and so he took Ralph's hand tightly and the two of them swam into the current laughing as they tumbled a little but managed to find their balance as the current took them at a rather fast speed and Connor felt a little dizzy at first but soon felt alright as he felt the soft body of a dolphin brush against him playfully nudging him closer to Ralph.

“You're very playful, are you familiar with somewhere called "Hank's Place" we're trying to get there.." he said addressing the playful dolphin,

"What luck, I am going there as well. You and your friend stay close to me and we'll be there before you know it. Seeing those of your kind make use of the currents, is quite an unusual sight but a welcome one nevertheless." it replied before letting out playful clicks and whistles as it swam, playfully and coaxed both Ralph and him to join in.

"Ralph like this, Ralph is very happy..." the blond mer said and Connor smiled at his friend and nodded.

"Yes me too." this moment right here, was nice and it was the first time he'd felt a some of the stress of earlier events slowly drifting away into the undercurrent behind them.

It was hard for Markus to focus, Lucy's words for some reason had struck a chord inside of him and thinking back to the reactions his friends had given him when they found out - it hadn't made anything clearer.

Markus felt himself wince at the glare that North gave Simon as they both entered the large room near the very top of Jericho which served perhaps as a room to discuss things over, as there were still maps pinned albeit tattered to the walls and a large table which they had used to lie down upon as they discussed and organised everything that needed to be seen to and figured out. North's usually calm voice had taken on an angry and almost betrayed one, as she immediately attacked Simon and Josh had to hold her back from reaching out and physically doing damage to the mer.

"Listen please North, it wasn't anything that could hurt anyone. Lucy was doing this to help Jericho.." Simon said keeping his voice calm and steady and not doing anything that would provoke or cause North to become even more enraged.

Mermaids were quite lethal and deadly in their own right, they unlike the male of the species were quick to anger and woe betide anyone when they were the target of that. But North had every right to be upset her aura shifting from an angry one to a distressed one before she let out a choked sob.

"I can't believe you would do something like this Simon, you know how dangerous magick and witchery are - you saw what it did to our parents, how can you - "

"Don't be too harsh on Simon please North, he was just doing something to help ensure that those who need refuge find us a little easier.," Markus said coming to the blonde mer's defense and he put his hands up non-threateningly as North glared at him, with narrowed eyes before letting out a hiss and pulling herself from Josh's hold and leaving the room so it was just Josh, Markus and himself.

"Give it some time she'll come around.." Josh said reassuring Simon as he maneuvered himself and lay down on the table and glanced up at Markus. "What exactly happened down there? You weren't gone for a long time but I know something happened, you both look a little unsettled.."

Out of his circle of friends, Josh was always the one who would listen and be the voice of reason and that calm helped with mellowing out North, but also Simon and himself also.

"Simon was helping Lucy enchant some potions to help those who need to find Jericho easier and poisoning those who seek to harm us..." he paused and looked at Josh who had a contemplative look on his face before nodding and silently asking him to continue. " She also me a prophecy concerning the future of Jericho and indeed myself. Someone will come here to Jericho and will shift things in our favor, but it was pretty cryptic and confusing.."

And of course that was how it went with such things but the latter part, about the trick and losing that person forever - just who was this being? How would he lose something he didn't even know existed as now?

"Markus we can hear you thinking over here.." Simon said teasingly pulling Markus from his thoughts as the blonde's kept speaking. "..I think the only thing we can do right now is keeping an eye open for anything unusual with newcomers.."

"Simon's idea sounds good. We'll take turns swapping shifts and I'm sure the ones responsible for it would enjoy the break and it will only serve to make you be more admired Markus. You, unlike many others, work with the community we have here and endeavor to do your best for everyone - including us.." Josh told him before pushing off the table and giving his arm a reassuring squeeze.

"We'll figure it out together alright? You're not alone Markus - all of us are here with you.." the darker skinned mer said before giving both Simon and he a nod and leaving just the two of them alone.

Slipping out of the current had been a little rough Connor had to admit but they managed it safely enough, Ralph however seemed in his element and it made the crown prince happy that his friend was enjoying himself and he had been more animated and excited in the last few hours then he had in all the times that he has known the other mer. And he didn't want to think about what would have happened to Ralph if he had left his friend behind. No, he didn't dwell on that for a second longer.

"Hank's Place" wasn't something Connor had been expecting. It was a rather, large sunken boat, he'd seen many in the past of course whilst he'd been adventuring and exploring with Ralph but this one seemed vintage and old. And he looked at the dolphin that playfully nudged at him with its beak and melon and circled around them both in a playful, happy manner. "Don't be too intimidated by Hank, he's a little gruff and rough around the edges but he'll help you get where you need to go..”

"Thank you, I can't tell you how grateful I am for your help.," Connor told the dolphin and glanced to Ralph who had reached out and gently placed himself against the entirety of the dolphin, that happily accepted the blondes gentle touches. "Ralph was happy to meet you. Ralph hopes to meet you again.."

"I was happy to meet you both too, take care and I hope you find what it is you are looking for.." the dolphin replied before nuzzling the both of them once more and swimming off into the depths of the water surrounding Hank's Place and joining the pod of dolphin's that were playing and communicating with each other nearby.

"Come on Ralph, lets see if this Hank can help us find Jericho.," he said to his friend who pulled his gaze away from the pod of dolphins before nodding and accompanying him as they approached the sunken ship and were greeted by a Walrus that was swimming towards then at some speed and then coming to a halt when a gruff voice came from the boat

"Dammit Sumo! No, don't go scaring away customers.." came a gruff voice that matched the grizzled features of a mer, that was clearly older and had a rather hard-boiled exterior and Connor was a little bit unsure of how to react around this "Hank" and decided to just ask him outright, and he let Ralph hide behind him as he did so.

"My name is Connor and this my friend Ralph. We need your help to find Jericho. I heard that you have dolphins we can hire to take us there..."

#novella #fiction #merman au #markus x connor #detroit: become human #dbh markus #dbh connor #dbh north #dbh simon #dbh josh #dbh hank #dbh ralph #dbh #rk1000 #merman alternate universe #bdh sumo #sumo is a walrus in this universe

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jadinerhine · 6 years

Text

Hey hey hey, Sapphire fans, have another dumb hot take on our gurl, this time on a topic I’ve had thoughts on for the past few years. Because it’s potentially a hot button one, all I ask is that you read the entire thing before diving into a civic discussion about it! What am I saying, it’s tumblr, there is no such thing as critical thinking and civility anymore thanks to this hellsite.

Disclaimer #1: THIS IS MY OPINION FIRST AND FOREMOST. A headcanon, as the hip kids say around the internet. It’s not Word of God or anything like that. It’s an opinion formed by lots of reading and analyzing. If you have a different headcanon, that’s coolio too! ^_^

Disclaimer #2: this is based strictly on Tezuka manga canon. I’ve seen the PK anime on-and-off and I don’t trust my memory on elements from it.

Disclaimer #3: I don’t have my manga copy with me, so no scans of panels and such : ( But I will make sure to explain the scenes I reference, as well as include links to definitions of things.

Disclaimer #4: I researched and read about this often, but I’m pretty sure I will make mistakes. As respectful as I’ve tried to be, I am sure people out there are smarter than me about things pertaining to this topic. Let me know constructively if I messed up.

Unpopular opinion that’s actually never been mentioned so maybe it’s not really unpopular?: I believe Sapphire is intersex, more gender-fluid rather than just a minimally tomboyish girl or female-to-male transgender.

No, this has nothing to do with transphobia or any other -phobia. It’s primarily based on how Tezuka, even with the problematic views spoused in the manga, accidentally gave us aspects of Sapphire’s self that for me, lend credence to her being intersex. (Yes I know, Takarazuka influenced Tezuka and PK too, but again, only paying attention to manga lore.) I’m going to list two main facts, and within each one, state why I think the fact lends credence to my opinion. I’ll try my best to write my reasons for intersex Sapphire as best as I can.

Since this turned out to be such a long post -- longer than I thought, yipes! -- I’ll be putting it under a cut. It will be tagged “long post” too for those who have that tag or are on mobile and can finally have blacklisted tags work. Hurrah!

FACT 1: Sapphire was forced to become a boy for the sake of the throne.

Sapphire was born a girl, and as we all know, her family didn’t want to give up the throne to Silverland if it meant giving it over to Duke Duralumin, who’s basically a dictator waiting in the wings for the chance to out Sapphire as a girl. Why? Girls can’t rule in Silverland.

Solution? Keep it in the family! Make your daughter a son instead and declare him prince!

Because that will do wonders for possible gender and/or body dysphoria!

Gender dysphoria, as defined here (emphasis mine):

[GID] involves a conflict between a person's physical or assigned gender and the gender with which he/she/they identify. People with gender dysphoria may be very uncomfortable with the gender they were assigned, sometimes described as being uncomfortable with their body (particularly developments during puberty) or being uncomfortable with the expected roles of their assigned gender.

[...]

Gender dysphoria is not the same as gender nonconformity, which refers to behaviors not matching the gender norms or stereotypes of the gender assigned at birth. Examples of gender nonconformity (also referred to as gender expansiveness or gender creativity) include girls behaving and dressing in ways more socially expected of boys or occasional cross-dressing in adult men.

Body dysphoria, as defined here (emphasis mine):

BDD is a body-image disorder characterized by persistent and intrusive preoccupations with an imagined or slight defect in one's appearance.

People with BDD can dislike any part of their body, although they often find fault with their hair, skin, nose, chest, or stomach. In reality, a perceived defect may be only a slight imperfection or nonexistent. But for someone with BDD, the flaw is significant and prominent, often causing severe emotional distress and difficulties in daily functioning.

and here:

When you have body dysmorphic disorder, you intensely obsess over your appearance and body image, repeatedly checking the mirror, grooming or seeking reassurance, sometimes for many hours each day. Your perceived flaw and the repetitive behaviors cause you significant distress, and impact your ability to function in your daily life.

Personally, I think Sapphire suffers/would suffer more from body dysphoria, as she’s an adaptable type of person and would force herself to accept her gendered lot for the moment, as she’s done clearly. She’s uncomfortable with most expected roles of being a boy, as stated above, but she knows why she has to do it. She has to keep the kingdom away from Duralumin, protect her people. She does seem to not mind some of the princely activities she does either – she enjoys sword fighting and fencing, for one! (Was it me, or was she really into the book How to Court Women that she was reading near the beginning of the manga?)

Sidenote: When we see Friebe and Sapphire fighting together, Friebe makes the comment of why Sapphire is a girl still "fighting like a boy” alongside Friebe – but Friebe is a girl and fighting “like a boy” too! Ain’t that odd…

Sapphire’s about 15, which means she’s likely going through puberty – if she liked doing (usually) male activities, able to convince her kingdom either way of her appearance, then how would she deal with either: her body might betray her by naturally evolving into the female body she was born as, or that her body might still remain the same, due to an imbalance of testosterone/estrogen, among other factors? With the latter, she would struggle internally but be able to be king (unless her mom’s drugged and outs her due to the drug, like in the manga) but with the former? You can imagine that struggle with her future, can you?

And as much as I hate to link to anything related to the Jezebel site, this article makes a good point about not conflating the two. A passage or two (emphasis mine):

Those who suffer from body dysmorphia have a disconnection between the reality they are perceiving and how that perception is recognised in their brains. They look in an ordinary mirror, but for them, the result is something like we might imagine a funhouse mirror to look. There is an inability to recognise the body for what it is. Features seem distorted, and flaws (real or imagined) are perceived as much much worse than they are (if they even exist, and if they're even flaws in the first place)

[…]

So how is this disconnect different from the disconnect between the assignment of gender at birth and the gender identity of a person with gender dysphoria? It is substantially different in that one of the strongest aspects of gender dysphoria for many (but not all!) individuals who have those feelings is an acute awareness of what their physical features actually are and why those features do not match up with the gender presentation expected of the gender with which they identify.

and this is why hecate and captain blood are good for sapphire, and not franz charming, sorry I don’t make the rules, those two respected or ended up respecting her more, and besides her mom, would have made her feel more comfortable if this were an alternate timeline where they both diDN’T DIE

I digress. We see Sapphire constantly struggling with her identity. She wanted desperately to be a “girly girl,” so said when she wanted to go to the ball but couldn’t because she still needed to be the prince. Yet later, after Sapphire and her mother are prisoners in a tower due to Duralumin and Sapphire’s identity revealed, and after Sapphire escapes the dungeon with Tink and rides away, Tink asks Sapphire about her perception of herself. What is Sapphire, to Sapphire? That it’s Tink, the one tasked to take Sapphire’s boy heart from her, who asks this has always been fascinating – much more so when coupled with the times he tries to protect her and gives in to her having two hearts just so long as she’s able to fend for herself and survive past swordfights.

Anyway, Sapphire’s answer can be chalked up to “I’m not sure yet” and “I don’t mind myself as I am right now.” It’s a plot line that gets lost and muddied and retrofitted to fit the “proper wife model for a fifties audience” Sapphire ends up in, but it was still said. It counts!

Now, this is the part where I admit confusion when someone headcanons Sapphire to be transgender. I mean, I get it, I totally do – again, don’t mind that headcanon but in my head, I don’t think being forced to be a gender in the first place works like that, either?

Sapphire, in manga canon, initially wants to be a girl just because she wants to experience life as the person she was born as. Sometimes she is comfortable being a boy, can shift quickly to her princely mindset if she’s suddenly caught indulging in feminine “vices” – and those are all okay! But she accustomed to that fast when she realized she will never be allowed to be a girl naturally, or as a girl with male tendencies. if you were someone who were forced to conform to a rigid gendered lifestyle and activities, and were told to never express your other self, would you really want to stay as the same gender after you’re “free”?

Having said that, it’s not like intersex people can’t be transgender. (More on that below.) And I did mention that I think she’s genderfluid, definition here --

Genderfluid: Someone whose gender identity or expression shifts between man/masculine and woman/feminine or falls somewhere along this spectrum.

– and it’s because of that, because despite her own anger at this forced lifestyle, she seems to realize how much she does enjoy being good at male activities, how much she enjoys expressing her masculinity (for lack of a better word.) Equally as much as being a girl does. I feel as if, if she were in modern times, she would be comfortable being a boy one day, and a girl the next. She wouldn’t mind creating bouquets as she does in her first appearance, and wouldn’t mind strengthening her body with (usually) male-oriented exercises.

After all, according to the manga lore established by Tezuka, Sapphire’s two hearts allow her to live in two worlds at once!

FACT 2 : TWO HEARTS BEAT AS ONE

Having God decide your assigned gender by hearts was a viable candidate for suspension of disbelief enough, having a person born with two hearts sends Heaven into panic and despair! And the rest of us raise our eyebrows in collective “huh”?

The manga makes it sound as if Sapphire is the first, and only, person born with two hearts. It’s either/or for the hearts, not and/and. You’re a boy who gets to fight, you’re a girl who gets to faint, nothing more.

Therefore, a boy heart + a girl heart = a girl + a boy = Sapphire. We’ve seen it happen, when Tink takes Sapphire’s boy heart out of her in the middle of a fight, and Sapphire suddenly forgets how to fight and is all a-flutter at the idea of -gasp!- violence! We’ve seen Sapphire’s body straight-up CHANGE from a female body to a male body when she loses her girl heart near the end, when Franz sets out to find her.

The fifties, fifties Japan, fifties Japan with a manga written by a man whose starting points were Cinderella, Disney movies and the all-female Takarazuka revue, which divides its actor into female or male roles. What a delicious soup of contradictions. What a delicious soup of weirdness.

Personally, I like to believe the two hearts concept can be translated into two souls. It’s a better version to grasp than actual literal hearts that can be taken out of your body and suddenly, bam, your gender and sex change automatically. (Seriously, what?) Two souls fits the pseudo-Christian-Pagan worldbuilding aspects of the manga, and it makes sense that at times, Sapphire feels empty without one of her hearts. Granted, there was the part where Sapphire fights without her boy heart and realizes she can still fight with her girl heart – which is a great snippet of character development, were it not for…the other pieces of dialogue…and Franz…who’s quite content with Sapphire “finally becoming a woman” by story’s end.

listen, princes knight!franz is the only franz I actively dislike, I like him everywhere else, pk!franz doesn’t learn anything from his mistakes, man

Two souls also helps understand a situation like Hecate, whose mother desperately wants Sapphire’s girl heart, so Hecate can be a proper girl. Hecate, the true tomboy of the series, lacks a physical heart and yet interacts and develops like any normal girl out there. But she has a soul, she does! One that loves mischief and silly pranks, who lives and breathes just like Sapphire does. It’s just not “perfect”/traditional in her mother’s eyes.

FACT 3: Wait, this isn’t a fact, back up, you said Sapphire with a boy heart changed her body entirely????

Okay, now this is where I get to, uh, cement? state my case better? for intersex Sapphire. Man, I hope so.

Let’s say (using Tezuka’s own questionable plot devices/ignoring the literalness of the heart concept a bit) that the two souls co-exist alongside having either a girl or boy heart. The soul functions with who you are, the heart functions with your body. Similar to gender and sex, I think, if you want/need a real world simile to understand it better.

Sapphire states herself to Franz as a boy, all boy, when Franz finds him after Venus (I believe it was in the Venus arc) has taken away Sapphire’s girl heart in order for Franz to run away to Venus. Y’all can guess why obviously. Sapphire is boisterous, proud, every stereotype you can think of, and stands proudly as a boy. Sapphire also is insulted when Franz insinuates otherwise, and makes a distinct notion that everything about him is boy.

and franz is distraught because oh my god sapphire’s not a girl anymore, but also whatever man, you were awful to sapphire when you found out she was a prince and didn’t even listen to her reasons why, captain blood had to tell you, you schmuck

But of course, this is short-lived. Sapphire does get her girl heart back, only to lose her boy heart later. Presumably, if the scene above applies, then that means that Sapphire is all girl.

As stated above, a boy heart + a girl heart = a girl + a boy. If we use the soul concept, then Sapphire is a boy + a girl in both soul and body. More so body, really, because she’s the same person with both hearts, and more or less the same person with only a girl heart. (I think the difference in personality with only a boy heart was for plot reasons...she was boisterous and proud in the anime and manga with both hearts at times.)

In the real world, there are different conditions for intersex people. I have a not-solidified idea of which one applies to Sapphire, but the definition of intersex (emphasis mine):

“Intersex” is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. For example, a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Or a person may be born with genitals that seem to be in-between the usual male and female types—for example, a girl may be born with a noticeably large clitoris, or lacking a vaginal opening, or a boy may be born with a notably small penis, or with a scrotum that is divided so that it has formed more like labia. Or a person may be born with mosaic genetics, so that some of her cells have XX chromosomes and some of them have XY.

[...]

In the same way, nature presents us with sex anatomy spectrums. Breasts, penises, clitorises, scrotums, labia, gonads—all of these vary in size and shape and morphology. So-called “sex” chromosomes can vary quite a bit, too. But in human cultures, sex categories get simplified into male, female, and sometimes intersex, in order to simplify social interactions, express what we know and feel, and maintain order.

So nature doesn’t decide where the category of “male” ends and the category of “intersex” begins, or where the category of “intersex” ends and the category of “female” begins. Humans decide. Humans (today, typically doctors) decide how small a penis has to be, or how unusual a combination of parts has to be, before it counts as intersex. Humans decide whether a person with XXY chromosomes or XY chromosomes and androgen insensitivity will count as intersex.

and a little bit from here:

In cases of intersex, doctors and parents need to recognize, however, that gender assignment of infants with intersex conditions as boy or girl, as with assignment of any infant, is preliminary. Any child—intersex or not—may decide later in life that she or he was given the wrong gender assignment; but children with certain intersex conditions have significantly higher rates of gender transition than the general population, with or without treatment.

Before I continue, let me tackle ‘gender transition’ -- as I said above, it’s not that intersex people can’t be transgender people. Some intersex people do change their gender from the ones they were forced to be, much like Sapphire was forced to be -- and yes, in this case, it means that Sapphire can be both intersex and transgender. But sometimes it does feel as if people are in love with the idea of a princely Sapphire so much, that they forget that she was forced to be a prince/a boy in the first place, and that she is content with being a girl. Or both. (Remember her initial answer to Tink’s question!) In the words of a wise little girl once: ¿porqué no los dos (headcanons)?

There are other intersex people who are equally happy with the gender they were assigned to, just not exactly with their bodies, thanks to parents being convinced by doctors that butchering their newborn baby’s body is for the best. (Seriously, there are horror stories.) And much like gender dysphoria and body dysphoria are conflated, so are intersex and transgender people (emphasis and italics mine):

People who have intersex conditions have anatomy that is not considered typically male or female. Most people with intersex conditions come to medical attention because doctors or parents notice something unusual about their bodies. In contrast, people who are transgendered have an internal experience of gender identity that is different from most people.

Many people confuse transgender and transsexual people with people with intersex conditions because they see two groups of people who would like to choose their own gender identity and sometimes those choices require hormonal treatments and/or surgery. These are similarities. It’s also true, albeit rare, that some people who have intersex conditions also decide to change genders at some point in their life, so some people with intersex conditions might also identify themselves as transgender or transsexual.

In spite of these similarities, these two groups should not be and cannot be thought of as one. The truth is that the vast majority of people with intersex conditions identify as male or female rather than transgender or transsexual. Thus, where all people who identify as transgender or transsexual experience problems with their gender identity, only a small portion of intersex people experience these problems.

Tink gave Sapphire a boy heart in Heaven, because he wanted to help/be funny, I guess? God decided she deserved a girl heart. If you want to ignore the religious details, then nature/science gave Sapphire the body she has. (Sapphire’s mom also had a difficult birth, so that...could also apply...?) As I said too, Sapphire is/does become/should have been comfortable with her body and soul in the manga, before Tezuka and society rear their head and change everything up again for her. She identifies as male some days, she identifies as female some days. And because she has two hearts, it means her body is reflecting male and female biology/anatomy.

BUT WAIT, you say. What about Twin Knights??!

Oh, you mean the fantastic sequel that eschew the hearts plot, still maintains some fifties ideals despite playing more with gender (and sexuality, I wager but also I don’t want to stretch that with a story like Twin Knights) and concentrates on Sapphire’s sweet, sweet twins who she loves and adores?

WELL.

I can’t find much information on intersex people being able to get pregnant from medical/science places, per se. I’ve heard that it’s both possible and not possible, depending on which condition you have. This link, this one, this one and this one have more information on pregnancy and intersex people, even if one of them is sighs Cosmopolitan and two are from Quora. Cosmopolitan does have stories, as do the Everyone is Gay one, and if there’s one thing I believe in, it’s hearing/listening to stories directly from sources.

So you know, Sapphire can have children still, depending. And even if we ignore the sequel, and it turns out she can’t? ADOPT SHE CAN ADOPT, SHE LOVES KIDS. Plus, and as a final ending note to this because wow this got long, I’ll leave you with this:

A final thought: we’re all raised in a world where we’re told that, after puberty, our bodies “should” be able to do all these things. When you learn that your body, in fact, doesn’t do all these things as an intersex person, it’s easy to think that this means there’s something wrong with you, since you “can’t” do these things. I’m here to tell you that just because you don’t get a period and won’t give birth, that doesn’t mean that your body isn’t able to do something it’s “supposed to do” – YOUR BODY IS DOING WHAT IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE DOING ALL ALONG. Or that somehow you’re less of a girl or a woman because your body doesn’t do these things. Not all of us are comfortable or okay with this knowledge – especially at first – and I am not trying to minimize your feelings about this. At some point, though, after you’ve processed all this more, I’d encourage you to reframe thinking about what your body “can’t do” (= is “supposed to do”) to what your body doesn’t do. <3

and this, which is from the link in the quote:

As a fetus, I wasn’t going to turn into a girl. I wasn’t going to turn into a boy. I was going to turn into me, the whole time. To me, statements with the how-are-you-lucky-enough-to-have-gotten-away-with-this sentiment are akin to me being told by a bird that I’m so lucky I don’t have to fly around for long periods of time during migrations, or being told by a trout I’m so lucky I don’t have to try swimming upstream because it’s difficult. What the hell are you critters talking about?! I’m not a bird and never was, and never will be. I’m not a trout and never was, and never will be. I didn’t get away with not being able to do those things – I was never supposed to be able to do them in the first place, because I’m ME. Saying that I’m lucky not to do something it’s assumed my body “should be” able to do erases the realness of my intersex body. My body is only supposed to do what it was always supposed to do, and that includes not menstruating or being reproductive or bearing children. MY BODY IS ALREADY DOING WHAT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO DO ALL ALONG. The problem is in the perception that intersex bodies are supposed to be like or do things that male- and female-defined bodies do. But not all male bodies and not all female bodies do the same things anyway. Why would we assume that intersex bodies will all work the same way as all male and/or female bodies? Would we assume that all intersex bodies, with our many variations, work the same way as all other intersex bodies, too? These perceptions need to change.

“I was going to turn into me, the whole time.” I can’t think of something that describes Sapphire better.

#Princess Knight #Ribon no Kishi #Ribbon no Kishi #Osamu Tezuka #meta #long post #I stopped myself twice from posting this and then just decided to go for the goal #go for the gusto of having a bunch of people in your asks screaming at your mistakes #but #this is a meta I'm passionate about and am always wanting to learn more #and I think having these kinds of discussions help us understand storytelling and author intentions

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theratprince · 7 years

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processing some more stuff about IDing as gray-aro/ace, putting it under a line because it’s probs gonna be long

like i’d kind of thought about IDing as demisexual for a looong time and it didn’t feel quite right because sometimes i do experience sexual attraction based solely on physical appearance. but also i didn’t want to be grey-ace because i dated someone who was grey-ace and i remember wanting to have sex a lot but they didn’t and so that didn’t feel quite right. but also maybe i just had a lot of messed-up feelings about sex and relationships because i’d become so dependent on those things for validation. and even i have been craving a romantic relationship up until a few months ago, and looking back i think it was still tied into a kind of false dependency on romantic relationships. sexuality is certainly fluid, so for whatever reason i was an intensely, obsessively sexual and romantic being, and for a long time now i absolutely haven’t been. and certainly many trans people don’t have a full understanding of their orientation until they are at a point where they feel comfortable enough to know themselves.

so for a lil while i was like “i’ll just rescind labels entirely” and even rn i kind of fluctuate between IDing as male or agender. i’m male about 80% of the time and agender about 20% of the time, and they definitely feel like distinctively different states. but the grey-aro feelings are more consistent, in spite of the fact that it is a fairly inconsistent orientation?

but it’s like. i’ve had these feelings for so long -- that i do want a romantic/sexual relationship but i don’t feel like i’m looking/waiting for the right one in the way that a lot of people seem to be doing. i don’t like dating. i don’t like making the effort to persuade someone to find me attractive, as i so rarely experience attraction in the first place. literally i have been saying “i’m gay but i rarely am interested in other men” for an entire year. and for awhile i really tried but i have zero motivation or interest, and it makes me really uncomfortable when men do form attraction to me. and i mean? maybe it’s because they’re not my type but?? at what point do you realize that you just don’t really have a type?

like.. okay, for awhile now i’ve been really fixated on tall red-haired guys. and i think i do typically like more effeminate men, and no i don’t really have to decide on a “type” which i always will go for lol. but also i’m pretty sure i didn’t start fixating on tall redhead guys until i started a general hux rp blog and took the time to analyze every aspect of this character and get into his head -- basically, to form an intense empathic connection even if it is fictional. and i sure af didn’t give a shit about kylo ren until i had to write about hux falling in love with him so lol

i can only name about a handful of people that i am legitimately attracted to, and i don’t really know any of them. and all the crushes i’ve had this year? just guys that i’ve known or awhile that i’ve wanted to be friends with. i cried over one of them once but tbh i’d set up a lot of unrealistic expectation that i didn’t legitimately want from this person. the vast majority of the time, i don’t “develop” feelings for someone unless i convince myself that they are capable of developing feelings for me first.

anyway, i’m not trying to prove to myself that i am grey-aro/ace. i’m just relieved that this finally feels like a fitting label for feelings that i’ve been having for well over a year now. it means that there are other people who are much in the same boat, and have felt disillusioned with a culture that glorifies dating frequently and regularly with multiple people even. like... polyamory is totally valid but i just feel so utterly disconnected from it and it’s no longer due to my bad experiences with it (like i realized today that i have no anger for my ex adam m. anymore? i used to literally want to empty a gun in his face, but now that just seems... really unnecessary? at most, i hope he gets some kind of counseling. but i’m not angry anymore, and that pain is just.. gone?).

so anyway i’m glad i’m not broken or crazy. i thought maybe my apathy stemmed primarily from a lack of suitors but... idk there are a handful of people who have been interested, and i haven’t cared because they’re not Domhnall Gleeson or Hozier or Cillian Murphy. *shrug emoji*

and like?? lately i’ve been thinking about how i have a crush on this new guy at work. and like, yeah, for much of 2017 i’ve been intensely wanting a relationship, but tbh it was just when i was looking at pictures of actors that i liked lmao. i have been obsessive about certain kinds of attention, but i think ultimately uninterested and certainly unwilling to make any effort. but still it’s like i see my friends dating and having sex and talking about it and i’m like “i guess i need to do this” which is my own damn fault. and then nothing would come of it and then i’d feel frustrated, like something was inherently wrong with me. and then i’d daydream and hope and tbh i did dozens of tarot readings trying to figure out where and when i’d meet My Guy and what he’d be like. and recently i had a couple readings done that said i’d meet him at work so when we hired this new driver and he was my age and *nice to me* i was like “here it is, here it comes, i’m about to get Attention”

like when i dispatch and he calls, i feel all fluttery and warm and it does seem different than the other crushes i’ve had this year -- but more importantly, i haven’t met him yet and i’m going off of voice alone which gives me all kinds of opportunities to fill in the blanks with my imagination, and put the guy on a pedestal without having even met him. i’m supposed to meet him this thursday because we’re having a driver appreciation that i’m not even 100% sure he’s going to. i’ve been mildly stressin’ because i’m all “what if he doesn’t like me” and “what if he’s straight/taken” and “what if he’s actually horrible” and “what if he wears velcro-strap sandals and buzzes his hair like every other shitlord in this town” but then it occurred to me that none of that matters?? like, we’re drawn to this business perhaps because we have similar personalities and i enjoy talking to him when i get the chance, so we’d probably be good friends.

also lmao like ... a lot of the things i’ve been thinking i want in a relationship is actually just stuff that i want out of a friendship. like spending time together and talking about mutual interests and watching weird movies and going cool places like camping and museums and cycling together?? plus i want crazy kinky sex but i’m not even really sure that i actually want that. i’m pretty sure i do. I DUNNO WHICH IS WHY IM GREY I GUESS

and it’s like having this epiphany enabled me to also realize: i don’t have a crush on that new guy. also this explains why i keep trying to date my friends -- i confuse intense care for romantic feelings (and maybe i’m just a naturally really affectionate, loving person??). also: i don’t know how to deal with it when people do get attracted to me so i just run away.

so i guess this has just been in the back of my mind for a long time now. and while yeah i am an intensely sexual and romantic person, i extremely rarely experience that attraction for anyone, and i’m tired of feeling like something is wrong with me because our society, frankly, makes it a compulsion. and now i can put a name to those feelings. and?? i’m proud of it? i’m fucking grey-aro/ace and i’m proud <3

btw the gray-aro flag looks like slytherin. just saying

anyway i need to sleep

#personal #aro stuff

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kierongillen · 7 years

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Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 26

Spoilers, obv.

This felt like a big issue to us. I mean, in a literal sense it was a big issue. We normally are 20 pages of art (plus cheats). This is 23 pages of art, due to me completely fucking up and writing a 22 page script extremely early, thinking I'd go back to it and work out a way to compress it to 20. Except I forgot I had extra work to do on the script, so didn't leave enough time to rework it before Jamie had to get it. And then Jamie insisted on expanding a sequence by a page, because he loves you guys, or at least loves the comic.

I don't really think I could have compressed it without hurting the comic either. I compress the action at the start, and it leaves a reader cheated. I talked about false drama of cliffhangers last time, and if you don't have at least some manner of satisfying that promise, it's a cheat, and not in an interesting way people would thank us for. However, at the same time, that's not what we're really doing here. Equally, losing stuff from the back of the issue would move it into the next issue... and that is also sub-optimum, for reasons you'll see next time.

Put it like this: Jamie joked “can we split this issue in two?” and I took it entirely seriously, and started doing the math on making this a seven issue arc.

But no.

There's also one change which should be mentioned – we've gone up to $3.99 from $3.50. Why? Image suggested we should. There are very few Image books that are $3.50 now. The vast majority are $3.99. We've had our price set at $3.50 ever since 2006, with the exception of Immaterial Girl. We figured we should listen to our publisher. 50 cents across a decade seems reasonable, especially in an industry where $3.99 seems standard.

Anyway, let's do this thing...

Jamie/Matt's Cover The Norns, and they are kind of core to this issue, so more of a connection between cover and contents than for most of the issue. For reasons that become clear this issue, The Norns and Baal step forward as alternative protagonists for the story structure. They are key.

There was considerable EEEK! Over the wearing of masks.

Nicola Scott's Cover

Nicola's wonderful. I've wanted a candid photo cover for most of WicDiv, and I'm surprised it's only turned up now. It's also delineating Sakhmet and Persephone, which is a key note towards the end of the issue.

The Image 25th Anniversary Cover

It should be stressed, this was Eric Stephenson's idea.

You may wonder how we did it.

This is how we did it.

In short: we did it like an episode of Playschool. The lighting being a lamp, gaffataped to a wall is a particular highpoint.

And then Katie-west worked her magic.

All the good jokes on the covers are Jamie's, which is very annoying, but makes me feel better when I laugh at it, as at least I’m not laughing at my own crap.

Page 1

I love the first panel. I almost put it in the newsletter, but decided we should save that thrill for context. It's very much in the establishing shot mode, and a promise. Jamie and Matt executing things like Minervas concussive wind blasts out of the swirling body is lovely detail too.

I did have something akin to a NOT AGAIN! As a line of dialogue from Minerva here, but was obviously killed for breaking tone. See later in the notes for other thoughts on that whole sequence.

And by the end of the page, we've changed direction entirely. No, this isn't going to be a straight fight. We have other narrative fish to fry.

Page 2-3

RISING ACTION was basically four issues of straight punchy, with a middle act of woe. We're not the sort to do that again, and immediately try and make this feel different. That first panel where we get a very human observation of a superhero event. A glance out the window, and shit is going down out there. There is a lot to try and ground this as we go on, even as it escalates...

I suspect Amaterasu's realisation is one of the cruellest lines I've written for her.

Heh. Okay – want to hear another example of me messing up? I knew I needed Amaterasu here, ASAP. But I had also set the scene at night, so her long-range-teleportation doesn't work. This led to a rewrite to bring in the Woden-designed-arm-piece from Rising Action. And it helps in other ways – we get the interaction with her mum, which says a lot about Amaterasu. I do like the idea of Amaterasu having left this piece of fancy armour lying around on her bedroom floor and her mum tidied it up.

Jamie pushed a panel from page 3 onto page 2, which is obviously a smarter call, letting him keep a steady angle on the three teleportation panels, which nails the effect. The breaking up dialogue to show that things are instantaneous is obviously one of our tropes.

The lettering on this sequence involved some messing around with layers to get work, and to make the fade in operate. Nice work, Clayton. This is also an area where my suspicion of sound-effects was entirely over-ruled.

Page 4

And hulllllo Baal's family.

This strikes me as a very WicDiv take on a reveal. It could have worked with just a reveal of his family – we'd want to see that. But to reveal that, and juxtapose it to the creeping monsters, so mixing the excitement of meeting new people with the fear of losing them? That's WicDiv, innit? Sigh.

This was also the page which went through the most colouring notes. Getting the exact level of reveal on the Great Darkness creatures, of how much they're in the light or not took quite a few takes. We're very happy.

Page 5

We are totally not rated PG.

Page 6-7

If you follow me on twitter, you'd see me doing a crowdsurfed suggestion for a line of dialogue for someone to say when they're pulling someone out of the way. That was this page, and Persephone pulling the tentacles. I decided that any dialogue was too much. It even makes it jokey (clearly not the intent) or slows down the action. Even a “NO!” felt too much for me.

We're heading more towards action here, and doing a beautifully rendered fight-scene in someone's garden. This feels a very us thing to do.

I believe I described the Amaterasu laser beam shot in the mode of a Quietly moment, that sense of a still moment in time. Jamie and Quitely don't have a huge amount of overlap as artists for me – Quitely is all about the 3D space of a shot, which Jamie simply isn't – but this captures something really furious. The colouring from Matt on the heat vision is particularly A+.

The push and pull of Amaterasu is very much her thing. Her bravery is an open question, as is her capacity for anger and violence. From Persey-Poo to incinerating her foes in a couple of pages doesn't exactly make me feel comfortable about her. So nice work, J ane M.

Also Good Job Baal's Brother on spotting the baddies.

Page 8

Jamie and my debate on exactly how to (er) Biggify the Darkness creature was quite a thing. Of course, the creatures are granular. We can't just make the grains bigger.

We were a little worried that Persephone firing red thorns being a little confusing, when red is Amaterasu's signature. We may end up tweaking them green in the trade. Not that we've seen anyone complain about it.

I think Amaterasu's living-Darkseid-stary-beam is my favourite regular power signature in this book.

Lots of careful unpacking on what is said on the phone, to ensure clear storytelling. That we never actually show the Great Darkness Creature back at the shard defeated is an unsusual choice... but we need to make sure that people know it HAS been defeated and Minerva rescued. Equally, we come back to the nature of cliffhangers we mentioned earlier. We've promised a fight against the Great Darkness, but are much more interested in introducing Baal's family, showing Amaterasu's complicity in this, Persephone's powers, etc. So you DO get a great darkness fight, just not the one you were expecting, which is hopefully okay as the one you were expecting is a lot less interesting than this. Hopefully.

The Phone is a Woden design, as referenced later in the issue. Baal can't just go down any phone. You'll see one on his living room table in last issue.

Page 9

This is the sort of page I'd have ended up cutting if I tried to reduce the issue... and why would I want to do a thing like this?

There was a discussion of whether ALL I DO IS WIN was too much. It eventually worked around to obviously it's too much, but WicDiv is too much, so that's all fine.

This is a lovely set of colouring from Matt here. The white and purple is just a delight.

Notice tiny Scarab-esque thing shooting off in the top right panel. In a moving medium the Great Darkness' nature would be a lot cleaner, but we do stuff like this.

Page 10

And we're back to grounded colours. Just turn this page and see how things change. Isn't that a delight? Matt Wilson For Eisner, etc.

Yes, Baal's name is Valentine Campbell. Obviously we chewed it over a bunch. Valentine has so many connotations seemed to be useful.

I find myself thinking that in the first half of the issue Persephone is almost back to volume 2 Laura. She's primarily an observer, one who is taken places and sees thing. That does tend to make Amaterasu's final line particularly pointed.

Lovely pair of expressions in that final panel.

Page 11

The title for this was originally ONCE MORE, leading directly into Baal's first line, and hitting the beat again. That changed when I realised I wanted to do the whole sequence as a nine panel grid.

This is the first time all the surviving gods have been in a scene together, and it's a circular table. Luckily, when I mapped the gods to the seats, the ones who are most important to interact are actually sitting beside each other – imagine how difficult it would have been if Baal and the Norns weren't seated by each other.

(We'd have done something else, clearly, and had the Norns standing like Persephone is.)

So I was trying to work out how to panel all this political-meeting style chat, and hit the bit where the gods vote. And I realised that as there were nine gods voting, it'd work really well as a nine-panel grid. That rapidly expanded to... wait, especially with Baal/Norns sitting by each other (so minimising the need for wide shots) I could do the whole thing in a nine panel grid. That allows you to cut between individual characters speaking, and not have to worry about the interactions for most of it.

That unlocked the way to best dramatically sell the Persepone's final line. If we build a structure, we can get an aesthetic effect by demolishing it.

It's not the first time we've done a Nine Panel Grid in our work, but its' certainly the longest. And if we're doing Nine Panel, it brings it back to Watchmen, which means that we should highlight that. Hence, the title altering to THE WATCH, which obviously has all kinds of connotations.

I go through this to primarily show how much fun this job can be. Stuff builds on top of other stuff, and you eventually end up with something much more full than the original idea. For me, pretty much nothing is as good as writing is when it's going right.

Which is the sort of thing I'll get depressed about if I think too much about it, so let's not for now, eh?

Page 12

If we're going to do the nine panel thing, we need to establish the scene properly. Two panels, built on a nine-panel grid superstructure.

Obviously this was a heavy described panel, as we had to cram in all the character beats for all the people. Baph's slouch is particularly on point. The coffee that Dio is hanging onto for dear life another. The Norns not getting a seat.

One thing I particularly like about this page? It forefronts the visual element of the table with twelve gods around which people may not have noted. This, on a page after a big title saying THE WATCH is more obviously a clock face.

Yes, Watchmen was a big influence on me as a writer. Did I mention it? I may have mentioned it.

Page 13

Oh man – look at Matt's use of shadow here. Baal in the darkness on last page was great, but passing from the shadow to light in the first panel.

When I first saw Jamie had put Minerva in plaid I worried for him. “Er... Jamie. Drawing Plaid is a lot of work.” He noted that as there was only a few panels with her in, it'll be fine. Jamie is not entirely foolish.

The page does show one of the things about the nine panel – as in, you get more beats... but you have to be pretty particular to choose those beats. 9 panel is good for a writer, for certain things (most important: timing), but you can do less with any one panel. On the plus side your beats are more deliberate, more delineated.

In this case, showing Persephone's is relatively “expensive” in page space, but clearly necessary – Baal is saying the stuff he's never said before. We need to see her response.

And yeah... Baal finally lays out his main motivation. I suspect for close readers or re-readers, things make a lot more sense.

The seventh panel is one of four two shots I can see in this whole sequence, to get an idea of how sparsely we tried to use them. Maybe 5 if you include the one with Woden asking “Does she get a vote.” Though I say this having only skimmed quickly, and am sure I must have missed one..

The non sequitur panel of the 8th is one of my fave things you can do with a rigid panel like this. Drop a silent panel and break it up.

Page 14-15-16

Honestly, this kind of shit is stuff I love. Just lock characters in a room and let them argue. Political dramas. Legal dramas. It's just a fascinating writing challenge – who speaks next and why. How to delineate the information, how to lampshade information is questionable, etc, etc.

I mean, in some ways this sort of debate is pure exposition – here are some statements – but the fact that each is immediately interrogated turns it into something else.

Basically, if left to my own devices, I'd have just done a 40 issue series in the style of 12 ANGRY MEN called 12 ANGRY GODS.

In terms of my outline, I knew that the pantheon would have a schism at this point. Until Brexit happened, I didn't realise that it would be by something as clear and true as a simple democratic vote.

The hand on Cass' shoulders is the sort of thing I'd have only done in a nine panel grid.

Yes, Baphomet, there was a time for jokes, and it was in the first arc.

PAGE 17

This issue, for reasons which we'll get to shortly, had some consultants' eyes on. That bit was fine. The thing which was tweaked then, and tweaked time and time over is trying to delineate the sides. The first draft simply hadn't sufficiently. Hell, the second or third lettering tweaks didn't do the trick completely. At least from the comments we've seen, no-one seems lost, so the effort seems worth it.

The problem is that each member of the debate wants to phrase their position in the best way possible and their enemies in the worst way, which actually leaves it hard to say what's actually go on. This led to Baal in the final panel actually bringing it together – the PRIORTISE THE GREAT DARKNESS vs STUDY is the key thing. ANARCHY had to be introduced explicitly by cass to describe someone else's position as a label before it could be used here too.

In terms of minor fact drops? One of the things people always ask is what's going on with the skulls. Here we just let people know they're ornaments.

In terms of the nine panel grid, I think the single hardest decision was letting go of showing the Norn's response to Sakhmet's threat. Alas, everything else is more important.

The second one would be Baal doing something like counting people around the room, to ensure that the reader knows that Baal thinks he's won. In the end, we highlight that later, and with the ellipsis in the eighth panel. And, of course, as always a Jamie McKelvie expression goes a long way.

Er... I'm writing too much about this stuff, but I hope it's useful for people who think about comic craft. And to double-triple stress, as always in these notes, I really am just telling the surface level storytelling basics.

Page 18

And the vote page. As said earlier, was where the 9 panel grid came as possible.

These lines were especially tweaked to sell the positions and why.

And Dionysus, for the first time in the scene, speaks. Obviously a key issue for Dio, where we move him into an explicit new position in the plot.

Page 19

Man, I don't even want to unpack this page.

But I can easily imagine how both Baal and Cass are feeling in the last panel. Uh... wait...

Page 20

Formalism doing its formalism thing.

This was written in a nine panel grid, but with descriptions of which panels are covered by Persephone's hair.

Page 21

And then we go into our quick cuts to move to the new status quo, the nine panel.

It's very much our aesthetic that we show the break-up but don't show the getting-together.

I suspect it's the sort of scene I'd like to talk about further down the line, but not now.

The gold prize for Jamie here are panels 3 and 4. For me, that's comic, and that's why I love comics.

Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

Page 22-23

Cass continues to be a gift for those who like reaction images.

The strangest rewrite of the issue for me was the “What's the saying about stopped clocks?” line, which was originally a lot more suggestive and less explicit. But 2 of the first 4 people to read it didn't get it in its more suggestive form, which meant that I was always going to dial back for clarity's sake.

So, yes, this is a Cass/Dio/Woden team-up for the Study side. Splitting your cast into smaller narrative units is a good tactic in a team book (I sort of learned it properly when I was writing my 9-core-person Uncanny X-men team). You also see it all over the place – if you listen to Community notes, you'll see how they split their cast into different arrangements and see how the characters interact. Having three characters who, on the surface, appear to have very different priorties come together under a larger banner is an interesting one.

In terms of the explicitly delineating at least part of the sexualities, this has been considered for a while. Let's start with Cassandra.

Early on in WicDiv, I saw a random comment of someone annoyed with something I'd said. Specifically me saying something akin to “I sometimes need room to discover a character's sexuality.” Her response – and one I completely get – was annoyance with suggesting people don't know their own sexualities. The “No, I know I'm Bi – don't say it's a phase. Don't say it's something I'm discovering.”

As I said, I get it, but that's not what I meant. I meant characters. Writing often feels like excavation. Not always, but sometimes, and especially in a book like WicDiv. You get to know them by writing them, sometimes in actually fundamental ways, ways which were always there but now come to the surface. For all my planning in WicDiv, it's also a living creature.

So when starting off, I always had a few feelings about Cassandra. There was the possibility that she was actually asexual. It would fit with her for a few ways, and the evidence for a reading of that was certainly there. However, I rapidly realised it caused huge problems inside the narrative in terms of what it was saying about asexuality. One of Cassandra's primary traits is that she doesn't experience the performances. If she's asexual, that implies that it's linked to that – especially when the performances have been linked so strongly to sex at various places in the narrative. I thought that'd be true even if we had another asexual character in the primary cast to show the contrary. I continued writing her and thinking, and having an awareness of the various potentials I saw in her. I didn't have to make a choice yet.

The flashpoint was issue 20, where I realised that it just was untenable for her to be asexual. Because if performances are linked in the readers' mind to sex, that eventually Cassandra does response to a performance is a sign that asexuals just haven't met the right person yet.

No. I'm not writing a book that suggests that.

There is also the real world thing that trans women are viewed through a hypersexual lens or an asexual one, which is certainly one feeds into the final dialogue on the page.

So everything re-arranged and solidified in the other way I saw them – a stable lesbian polyamarous triad. I saw with Imperial Phase ahead, that felt more and more necessary. WicDiv is... not a book where relationships are healthy. Every single romantic relationship in the book is openly dysfunctional. Relevantly, there is a lot of people doing polyamory very badly. It comes to a point where it looks like the book saying this behaviour is bad rather than this specific practise is bad. The Norns would be the counter-argument. In this issue, we show them in an private, loving supportive relationship that's arguably more unconventional than any other in the book.

We don't get to see any of the sex, of course, as it's none of our business and they're not there for the readers' pleasure. But with them in our story, it shows there's nothing implicitly wrong with kink, or polyamory or anything else... as long as you don't act like sentient burning trashcans.

That was the thinking. Some of it, anyway.

Oh – on the note of discovery, I only realised that she'd lean submissive as I wrote the page. It was a surprise to me as well, but seemed to align with everything else and make a lot of things make more sense.

In Dio's case, it was there as a possibility even as I first wrote him into the bible. I see myself writing around it in my notes, saying that I just didn't feel like sex was a big drive for him in the way it was for so much of the cast. The problem eventually came for the place to introduce it, and how, and in the same action where we move Dio towards the centre stage (or at least primary supporting characters) seemed to be it.

We've had a lot of supportive messages about both of these, so thank you. And thanks again to our consultants, who we will continue to high five at the slightest encouragement.

Page 24-25

This was originally written as a page, but Jamie insisted on MOTORBIKE DRAMA!

And how could we resist that?

I actually wrote a first draft of this, and wondered if it was too much, and then did a completely different end scene based on Persephone leaving the Shard. Arguing it over with Chrissy, we came down strongly on this. It's WicDiv. We crash motorbikes into walls for the sake of it.

Worth noting: this is a return to a non-cliffhanger ending structure. The “read the next issue” comes from the whole of the issue rather than a specific beat. This is about leaving it with a mood.

Favourite thing in colour – the circle of light on the wall, a half second before impact.

I'll give you one for free: Persephone is on the phone to one of her people, probably an agent. I could have put an explicit call in that to the dialogue, but it was too crass and fake, and the specific identity doesn't really matter that much. It's just someone who's clearly going to get her a new bike.

Also: the main reason why I wondered whether this scene wasn't too much, is because it is literally the lyrics to Icona Pop's I LOVE IT.

Page 26

“Hey, C, is referencing Kesha too much on the interstitial? It sort of is a trashy pop take on Watchmen's encroaching apocalypse feel.”

“No, that sounds like exactly the sort of thing you do.”

“Cool.”

See you next month, where we reach the penultimate part of IMPERIAL PHASE (I). It's just being put to bed, and we like it a lot.

Thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #Nicola Scott #writer notes

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felixeberstark-blog · 5 years

Text

March 22, 2016

I have a new target on my list. I can’t help but feel like Mr. Paul has some sort of vendetta against me. It all goes back to the very first day we met. Since then, he hasn’t been cutting me any slack. I tried to stay out of sight by sitting in the back of the class and abstaining from every discussion, but it seems as if he’s a telepathic freak who knew to call on me every single time I wasn’t listening or haven’t finished an assignment on time. At first, I tried convincing myself that he had nothing against me since he’s harsh on everyone. He’s one of those relentlessly aggressive teachers, constantly bringing everyone down as a way to push and craft them into becoming better students only to rip their self-esteem to shreds instead. However, I’m the only one he keeps on failing and it’s so frustrating because homework has become a burden, a task I keep delaying until the early morning. I had developed a strong uncontrollable aversion to doing it at the last second and when I finally put myself in front of my pen and paper, I write almost mechanically, detached like my heart’s not in it. Inevitably, that always played to my disadvantage because I end up unable to support any of my thoughts or arguments which results in more failing grades. So far, all of my graded papers have been filled with red remarks; most of them mean and unnecessary. My latest assignment was to write a report about either a special topic or a newsy event and compliment our work with ten to fifteen pictures photographed correctly. While everyone went for something political, like filming a protest happening in the area or some press conference, I decided to add some fun dynamic to the task and chose to cover the Hawkeyes basketball game at the university. A finished, ready-to-be-published report followed by at least three photos with photojournalism-style cutlines for critique were to be presented the day of our presentation. I had no problem with the assignment, but it was almost guaranteed it wouldn’t be appreciated. Paul has a thing for sensational and shocking subjects and I don’t which is primarily why I didn’t have high hopes and dreaded the idea of standing in front of an entire class and talking about the event. The game against Michigan was tense and nerve-wracking. However, with two freshmen on the floor, Hawkeyes, refusing to give up, reeled off intense clutch plays during the waning moments of regulation and managed to win with a score of 83-79 during the overtime period. Their next game is against Maryland. Standing in front of the chalkboard, I broke down the event into great detail, showed my collection of photographs and pointed out the three chosen ones. As expected, everyone was falling asleep as I presented and read the article I wrote, and Paul thought it would be funny to mess with me in front of the entire class. He expressed how poorly my subject was received, stating that it offered nothing new nor interesting. I knew that, but I personally have no interest in politics or social issues, and no tragedy had happened in the last few weeks worth covering, so the number of topics was clearly depleted. Paul’s continuous attempts in bringing me down and making me feel worthless caused me to go hysterical as I swallowed his insults. Images sprang to my mind of both of my hands firmly wrapped around his neck, my probing eyes looking right through his as I unremittingly watch life slipping away from him. My eyes flashed with rage as I shivered almost hysterically, and I was so close to losing my temper; I imagined myself screaming at him from the very top of my lungs, walking out the door and slamming the door shut violently behind me. But I didn’t. I’ve always perceived being calm as a sign of weakness, but I’ve grown to think otherwise. Talking back at him, even if it was in my defense, was absolutely unnecessary. He was going to win the battle no matter what, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to further my humiliation. At the end of the session, he asked to see me privately. He dismissed the whole class and insisted I stayed to talk to him. He described with great disdain the way I was looking at him. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, that I didn’t do anything wrong, and he disregarded my response. After our brief conversation, I grabbed my backpack and headed towards the door; I was struggling to walk out quietly, but my mind urged me to stop and say something about the typo on the chalkboard. The thing that set Paul off the most was being corrected. Being a distinguished journalist, he’s earned a reputation as being both impactful and purposeful, his writing style known for its expository and persuasive style that often involved a lot of cynicism and wittiness. Although he didn’t respond to that, I knew my passive aggressive comment immediately pissed him off. The next day, I logged into my college profile to check my grades and realized he had deliberately failed me again, giving me the worst grade yet (39/100) with zero participating points. My face turned red as I gathered the strength to keep my anger trapped inside me, my oncoming nervous breakdown only a few seconds away. I was interrupted by Heather, though. I regained composure and tried not to be bitchy to her although all I wanted was to violently smack her against the head with a heavy object. She wanted me to come over to her place and start working on the narrative or her book which I decided I didn’t want to do. I impulsively grabbed the jar containing my brown recluse, put it inside my backpack and left the apartment. Pretending I was so invested in working on her book wasn’t an easy task; it was extremely difficult and unnerving for me to lie and help change the facts of what really happened and come up with a believable alternative series of chronological events that led to her overcoming her captor and escaping successfully. With every detail we changed, every piece of information we altered, her version of the truth was coming together almost impeccably while I slowly faded away behind her words. Through me she managed to capture and communicate the intricacies of how she felt in those moments and how hard it was to intuit her way out of James’ macabre and warped world. After five dreadful hours of being in her company, I excused myself and told her I had to leave; she thought we’d continue some other time, but that wasn’t going to happen. I walked outside her apartment building and monitored her activity through her windows and noticed she was still in her living room. I used the fire escape to sneak into her bedroom and released the arachnid on her bed before getting back out and down to the street. I crossed over to the other side where I had a better view of the interior and watched her move around her apartment for a bit before shutting down the lights and going back to her bedroom. A few minutes later, I heard a horrifying scream. Survive that, bitch!

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3rdwavefem-blog · 7 years

Text

Becoming the Third Wave by Rebecca Walker

I am not one of the people who sat transfixed before the television, watching the Senate hearings. I had classes too to, papers to write, and frankly, the whole thing was too painful. A black man grilled by a panel of white men about his sexual deviance. A black woman claiming harassment and being discredited by other women…. I could not bring myself to watch that sensationalized assault of the human spirit.

To me, the hearings were not about determining whether or not Clarence Thomas did in fact harass Anita Hill. They were about checking and redefining the extent of women’s credibility and power.

Can a woman’s experience undermine a man’s career-, Can a woman’s voice, a woman’s sense of self-worth and injustice, challenge a structure predicated upon the subjugation of our gender Anita Hill’s testimony threatened to do that and more. If Thomas had not been confirmed, every man in the United States would be at risk. For how many senators never told a sexist Joke–How many men have not used their protected male privilege to thwart in some way the influence or ideas of a woman colleague, friend, or relative.

For those whose sense of power is so obviously connected to the health and vigor of the penis. it would have been a metaphoric castration. Of course this is too great a threat.

While some may laud the whole spectacle for the consciousness it raised around sexual harassment, its very real outcome is more informative. He was promoted. She was repudiated. Men were assured of the inviolabIlity of their penis/power. Women were admonished to keep their experiences to themselves.

The backlash against U.S. women is real. As the misconception of equality between the sexes becomes more ubiquitous, so does the attempt to restrict the boundaries of women’s personal and political power. Thomas’ confirmation, the ultimate rally of support for the male paradigm of harassment, sends a clear message to women: “Shut up! Even if you speak, we will not listen.”

I will not be silenced.

I acknowledge the fact that we live under siege. I intend to fight back. I have uncovered and unleashed more repressed anger than I thought possible. For the umpteenth time in my 22 years, I have been radicalized, politicized, shaker) awake. I have come to voice again, and this time my voice is not conciliatory.

The night after Thomas’s confirmation I ask the man I am intimate with what he thinks of the whole mess. His concern is primarily with Thomas’ propensity to demolish civil rights and opportunities for people of color. I launch into a tirade. “When will progressive black men prioritize my rights and well-being? When will they stop talking so damn much about ‘the race’ as if it revolved exclusively around them?” He tells me I wear my emotions on my sleeve. I scream “I need to know, are you with me or are you going to help them try to destroy me?”

A week later I am on a train to New York. A beautiful mother and daughter, both wearing green outfits, sit across the aisle from me. The little girl has tightly plaited braids. Her brown skin is glowing and smooth, her eyes bright as she chatters happily while looking out the window. Two men get on the train and sit directly be-hind me, shaking my seat as they thud into place. I bury myself in The Sound and the Fu7y. Loudly they begin to talk about women. “Man, I fucked that bitch all night and then I never called her again.” “Man, there’s lots of girlies over there, you know that ho, live over there by Tyrone’, Well, I snatched that shit up.” The mother moves closer to her now quiet daughter. Looking at her small back I can see that she is listening to the men. I am thinking of how I can transform the situation, of all the people in the car whose silence makes us complicit. Another large man gets on the train. After exchanging loud greetings with the two men, he sits next to me. He tells them he is going to Philadelphia to visit his wife and child. I am suckered into thinking that he is different. Then, “Man, there’s a ton of females in Philly, just waltin’ for you to give’em some.” I turn my head and allow the fire in my eyes to burn into him. He takes up two seats and has hands with huge swollen knuckles. I imagine the gold rings on his fingers slamming into my face. He senses something, “What’s your name, sweetheart?” The other men lean forward over the seat.

My instinct kicks in, telling me to get out. “Since I see you all are not going to move, I will.” I move to the first car. I am so angry that thoughts of murder, of physically retaliating against them, of separatism, engulf me. I am almost out of body, just shy of being pure force. I am sick of the way women are negated, violated, devalued, ignored. I am livid, unrelenting in my anger at those who invade my space, who wish to take away my rights, who refuse to hear my voice. As the days pass, I push myself to figure out what it means to be a part of the Third Wave of feminism. I begin to realize that I owe it to myself, to my little sister on the train, to all of the daughters yet to be born, to push beyond my rage and articulate an agenda. After battling with ideas of separatism and militancy, I connect with my own feelings of powerlessness. I realize that I must undergo a transformation if I am truly committed to women’s empowerment. My involvement must reach beyond my own voice in discussion, beyond voting, beyond reading feminist theory. My anger and awareness must translate into tangible action.

I am ready to decide, as my mother decided before me, to devote much of my energy to the history, health, and healing of women. Each of my choices will have to hold to my feminist standard of justice. To be a feminist is to integrate an ideology of equality and female empowerment into the very fiber of my life. it is to search for personal clarity in the midst of systemic destruction, to join in sisterhood with women when often we are divided, to understand power structures with the intention of challenging them. While this may sound simple, it is exactly the kind of stand that many of my peers are unwilling to take. So I write this as a plea to all women, especially the women of my generation: Let Thomas’ confirmation serve to remind you, as it did me, that the fight is far from over. Let this dismissal of a woman’s experience move you to anger. Turn that outrage into political power. Do not vote for them unless they work for us. Do not have sex with them, do not break bread with them, do not nurture them if they don’t prioritize our freedom to control our bodies and our lives. I am not a postfeminism feminist.

I am the Third Wave.

#women #feminism #rebeccawalker #body shaming #thirdwave #misogyny

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