#that’s the only negative thing ive ever felt whilst consuming this series

[icedmo]

Oh, i finally caught up with the chihayafuru manga yesterday so i’ll be talking about it here! Keep scrolling lol i’m just talking to myself.

Tl;dr? Peak fiction. Please, please watch and read it.

More detailed thoughts?

The most striking thing about chihayafuru is the love flowing out of the pages and screen; the way you can tell how much love has been poured into this series, how much love has been put into these characters, into every page, into each sentence - dialogue or simple text. I can’t tell you how rare it is to get this feeling whilst consuming media. It’s just so clear how much love this has been crafted with. Beyond compelling, really.

It’s the way chihayafuru isn’t afraid of making it’s characters lose. It’s the way chihayafuru makes it’s characters lose right when they’ve been set up to win, when any other series would give them the win, when you’re so hyped only to be met with a loss. Again to my first point, how much love has been poured into these characters and plot. It’s bold, it’s great. It’s realistic. Chihayafuru isn’t afraid at all to make it’s main cast, specifically Chihaya, lose.

And to talk about character growth in chihayafuru... characters like Shinobu and Arata, initially presented at the top of their lot, almost god like. Untouchable. Already honed to perfection, you look at them and go ‘how is it possible for them to grow?’ They exclude the energy of ever stable characters, unmoving finish lines. That’s how you view them. But then chihayafuru excels beyond your expectations. Genuinely, it would’ve worked fine to keep these characters as those near-deities, but it doesn’t. Chiahyafuru makes characters first painted as perfection grow and its amazing how it manages this.

Seriously, it’s such a simple concept, but it’s mind boggling. The writing in chihayafuru is simply top notch and i’m here repeating myself about the love poured into all it’s characters so evident. Shinobu and Arata’s growth wouldn’t have been possible if there wasn’t so much love poured into them. Example, Arata’s strength coming from how he always visualised himself playing in his old apartment, playing karuta with Taichi and Chihaya. That strength turned into a weakness, almost. Something that actually prevented his growth. And Shinobu? I could talk about her all day. But I won’t, because it’s 4am, and if you’ve read chihayafuru i am certain you know how amazing of a character she is, LOL.

Character growth, character growth... can i mention Chihaya and Inokuma’s first match? I genuinely was blown away watching it, jaw on the ground. The way it so clearly showed how much Chihaya grown, putting all her development on full blast, on full display. It was so amazing, i can’t even explain it. I mean, during season one you saw Chihaya as some amazing player - but whilst watching her play Inokuma you can’t help but think that season one Chihaya, who you previously saw as amazing, was... so weak, so unrefined. The match was short yet was such an amazing accumulation of all her development and showcasing it to you. No - Inokuma isn’t weak, not one bit. Chihaya is just stronger, she’s amazing, she’s worked so hard and you’ve watched her get to this point.

Chihayafuru being about a sport where gender and age don’t matter does so, so much for it. It has something any other shounen or sports series could never reach thematically. Harada-sensei, Inokuma, Sakurazawa-san.... the thematic game age-wise is phenomenal. Sure, objectively you may reach your peak as a young adult. But is it really that simple? No. Once you start aging you don’t just roll over and succumb to being a worker slave, focus on your kids. Only you get to decide when you’re our of your “prime.” It’s inspiring, seriously. How it shows your life isn’t going to end when you reach 30, you can indulge in niche hobbies. It’s something so simple, but it’s just such a great and rare message.

Scrap that, the entire thematic game is amazing. Strength is being free, age doesn’t limit your passion, you have to do what you don’t want in order to do what you do want. Keeping feelings inside is detrimental, hurting is inevitable. Understand the deeper meanings to everything around you, it’ll expand your world-view. When you’re lost, build something up - humans strive on a sense of purpose.

God, and can I talk about the feel of the series in general? How flowery it is, it’s so shoujou-y, LOL, but it can be so, so gorgeous at times.

Yup? Yup. Exactly.

Chihayafuru is so unbelievably stunning. It’s use of visuals to tell a story is completely top notch, what do i say. Pitch black karuta cards? Snow? Flowers? Barren wastelands, dreamscapes? It’s a beautiful series. So striking visually. And the poems, the poems... how Chihayafuru connects them to situations is superb, a prime example being after Chihaya rejects Taichi, he leaves the club, she breaks down in front of Fukasaku-sensei in the hallway and Chihaya talks about how she was the rock breaking apart all of Taichi’s built up emotions this entire time. It was amazing. And don’t even get me started on some of Kana’s monologues.

The pacing in Chihayafuru is snappy, but it’s so well done. It doesn’t feel lacklustre, but it doesn’t stall. This is thanks to how much development happens during matches - and can i mention quickly how well it develops a multitude of characters simultaneously? Again, how much love is in every nook and cranny of this series.

I’m gonna cut it off here since i don’t know how to include an ‘under the cut’ so i had to torment all 100 of my followers who, frankly, do not care, to scrolling through this utter wall of text.

Overall, i don’t have a preference between taichihaya and chihayarata - if anything, whilst i was first watching i couldn’t help but think about how strongly they were set up as a poly relationship? (Obviously my personal view, but if you were to watch it thinking about them as an ot3 it makes so much sense.)

I gotta say.... my favourite ship is sumire x kana 🥺 i just think they could be something so soft....! Shinobu x chihaya is amazing too, like c’mon... the whole ‘i’ve been dreaming of shinobu-chan’, their blatant, blatant yearning, shinobu never being showed to have interest in anybody apart from chihaya and momo-chan (arata obviously as strictly a rival, sensei has teased or set up nothing romantically between them.) i’d like to say my favourite character is chihaya but i have formed a very? Odd attachment to Rion which came out of... nowhere? LMAO. I adore sumire too. Wow this got long and it very messy and i have so so so much more to say but i simply.... peak fiction.... that’s all...

#chihayafuru #mo’s brainmush #the parts of the story with dementia were super hard for me to watch #that’s the only negative thing ive ever felt whilst consuming this series #simply because its something personal to me! #it woulda been nice if i was just warned beforehand 😭

[trinuviel]

The Ice and the Fire of the Song (part 3)

What does the Ice and the Fire refer to in GRRM’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire? That is the subject of this series of posts. (Part 1, Part 2). In this series, Ice and Fire refer to many different things. That doesn’t mean that one meaning excludes the others but rather that the two concepts have multiple meanings and that these depend on context. In my previous post, I examined Ice and Fire in relation to the cult of R’hllor and its rigid theology of an eternal binary opposition between forces that are ascribed meanings as either Good or Evil.

In this post I’ll use Robert Frost’s poem Fire and Ice as the basis for an exploration of the elements of Ice and Fire in relation human emotions as well as to the history of the world in which the story takes place. Finally, I’ll ponder whether the text offers a possibility to escape the trap that dogmatic binary thinking constitutes. Things aren’t black and white, and sometimes opposing elements can meld together.

DESIRE AND HATE

There are many sources of inspiration for GRRM’s A Song of Ice and Fire but one of them is Robert Frost’s poem Fire and Ice from 1920. 

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if I had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

This an apocalyptic poem where the elemental forces of Ice and Fire are interpreted through the lens of human emotions. Ice is hate and Fire is desire. 

“People say that I was influenced by Robert Frost’s poem, and of course I was, I mean… Fire is love, fire is passion, fire is sexual ardor and all these things. Ice is betrayal, ice is revenge, ice is… you know, that cold inhumanity and all that stuff is being played out in the books.” (GRRM)

Here Ice and Fire come to symbolize common human feelings – things that unite and divide us: love and hate, etc. In this context, the Ice and the Fire can be applied to any number of the characters since these feelings are universally human. In order to decipher which feelings GRRM assigns to Ice and Fire, it is important to play close attention to the language of the text.

Cold inhumanity

When it comes to cold inhumanity, the Others immediately spring to mind. They are quite literally cold and inhuman. It is, however, more chilling when men and women act with a cold inhumanity. Tywin Lannister is perhaps the prime example of this. He coldly arranges for horrible events to happen without a twinge of remorse or regret. Tywin Lannister shows no empathy towards the people whose lives he ruins. He coldly weds Sansa Stark to his son Tyrion whilst he plots the murder of her family – and he does not display an ounce of empathy with the poor girl that has already been horribly abused by his grandson. In Tywin’s eyes, Sansa is not a person but a means to an end: She’s the Key to the North.

Tyrion rubbed at the raw stub of his nose. The scar tissue itched abominably sometimes. "His Grace the royal pustule has made Sansa's life a misery since the day her father died, and now that she is finally rid of Joffrey you propose to marry her to me. That seems singularly cruel. Even for you, Father." "Why, do you plan to mistreat her?" His father sounded more curious than concerned. "The girl's happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours. Our alliances in the south may be as solid as Casterly Rock, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is Sansa Stark."

"She is no more than a child." (ASoS, Tyrion III)

He doesn’t care about her feelings or her well-being. Tywin doesn’t care that a pregnancy could be very dangerous for a 12 year-old girl, he just cares that the Lannisters secure a claim to Winterfell and the North. He treats everyone as tools for his ambitions, even his own children. He doesn’t see them as persons in their own right but simple as vehicles for the legacy he wishes to build for House Lannister. 

Hate

When it comes to hate, I find it interesting that the inhuman Others are describes as driven by hate towards humankind.

Old Nan nodded. "In that darkness, the Others came for the first time," she said as her needles went click click click. "They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins…” (AGoT, Bran IV)

In the prologue of the very first book, the author drops a very significant detail: the Others have a language! One of them speaks when the ranging party from the Night’s Watch encounters them, and the Other says something mocking. 

The Other said something in a language that Will did not know; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking. (AGoT, Prologue) 

Thus, the text hints that they despise humans. We have yet to find out why but it is a delicious mystery.

Distance/rejection

GRRM also uses imagery of ice with scenes of distancing and rejection. Those can be negative things but it depends on the context and the POV of the scene.

He had always had a yen to see the Titan of Braavos. Perhaps that would please Sansa. Gently, he spoke of Braavos, and met a wall of sullen courtesy as icy and unyielding as the Wall he had walked once in the north. It made him weary. Then and now. They passed the rest of the journey in silence. After a while, Tyrion found himself hoping that Sansa would say something, anything, the merest word, but she never spoke. (ASoS, Tyrion VIII) 

Notice how the distant courtesy that Sansa hides behind is described as sullen and icy by Tyrion. He is frustrated by Sansa’s refusal to open up to him. He wants her love and she doesn’t want to givet it to him – with good reason. In Sansa’s chapters her courtesy is described as an armour. For Sansa, it is a defense mechanism – she uses it as a means to avoid angering people and to hide her true thoughts and feelings. For Sansa, her courtesy armour is a positive thing whereas it is a negative thing for Tyrion. Some things are all about perspective.

Love

Whilst GRRM relates fire to love in the interview quoted above, there’s a surprising dearth of direct linkage between fire and love in the text (I am excluding passion here because GRRM generally uses passion specifically in relation to lust and hate). Instead, he uses “warmth” in relation to love in its positive aspects.

He was not a man you'd expect to speak of maids and wedding nights. So far as Jon knew, Qhorin had spent his whole life in the Watch. Did he ever love a maid or have a wedding? He could not ask. Instead he fanned the fire. When the blaze was all acrackle, he peeled off his stiff gloves to warm his hands, and sighed, wondering if ever a kiss had felt as good. The warmth spread through his fingers like melting butter. (ACoK, Jon VIII) 

The love that is healthy and positive, is the warmth of the bonfire or of the warmth of the body and soul of the beloved. It is a fire that shelters and gently warms. 

Bones, Catelyn thought. This is not Ned, this is not the man I loved, the father of my children. His hands were clasped together over his chest, skeletal fingers curled about the hilt of some longsword, but they were not Ned's hands, so strong and full of life. They had dressed the bones in Ned's surcoat, the fine white velvet with the direwolf badge over the heart, but nothing remained of the warm flesh that had pillowed her head so many nights, the arms that had held her. (ACoK, Catelyn V) 

Desire/Passion/Lust

When it comes to desire, passion and lust, the imagery of fire runs rampant in the text. One of the ways in which the text associates desire/passion/lust with fire is through the imagery of “kissing”:

She bit his neck and he nuzzled hers, burying his nose in her thick red hair. Lucky, he thought, she is lucky, fire-kissed. "Isn't that good?" she whispered as she guided him inside her. (ASoS, Jon III) 

The wildlings seemed to think Ygritte a great beauty because of her hair; red hair was rare among the free folk, and those who had it were said to be kissed by fire, which was supposed to be lucky. […]Sometimes she sang in a low husky voice that stirred him. And sometimes by the cookfire when she sat hugging her knees with the flames waking echoes in her red hair, and looked at him, just smiling . . . well, that stirred some things as well. (ASoS, Jon II)

She would sooner sit bathed in the ruddy glow of her red lord's blessed flames, her cheeks flushed by the wash of heat as if by a lover's kisses. (ADwD, Melisandre I)

Fire is a perfect metaphor for strong emotions, yet the fires of passion are often framed negatively by the text: 

Prince Quentyn was listening intently, at least. That one is his father's son. Short and stocky, plain-faced, he seemed a decent lad, sober, sensible, dutiful … but not the sort to make a young girl's heart beat faster. And Daenerys Targaryen, whatever else she might be, was still a young girl, as she herself would claim when it pleased her to play the innocent. Like all good queens she put her people first—else she would never have wed Hizdahr zo Loraq—but the girl in her still yearned for poetry, passion, and laughter. She wants fire, and Dorne sent her mud. You could make a poultice out of mud to cool a fever. You could plant seeds in mud and grow a crop to feed your children. Mud would nourish you, where fire would only consume you, but fools and children and young girls would choose fire every time. (ADwD, The Discarded Knight) 

GRRM assigns hatred to ice but hatred can be passionate, it can burn red-hot - like fire:

He did not love, nor was he loved himself. It was hate that drove him. […] this man Sandor Clegane dreamed of slaying his own brother, a sin so terrible it makes me shudder just to speak of it. Yet that was the bread that nourished him, the fuel that kept his fires burning.” – The Elder Brother to Brienne of Tarth, (AFfC, Brienne VI)  

Sex

When it comes to the Targaryens, the connection between sex and fire becomes quite literal. I can’t remember who first pointed it out, but when Daenerys rides Drogon for the first time, the language turns almost orgasmic:

The lash was still in her hand. She flicked it against Drogon's neck and cried, "Higher!" Her other hand clutched at his scales, her fingers scrabbling for purchase. Drogon's wide black wings beat the air. Dany could feel the heat of him between her thighs. Her heart felt as if it were about to burst. Yes, she thought, yes, now, now, do it, do it, take me, take me, FLY! (ADwD, Daenerys IX)

There’s a sexual subtext to the language. Dany mounts her dragon and feel his heat between her thighs – an expression that is often used as a description of sexual desire and Dany herself used the expression of taking someone as an euphemism for sex. She mounts her dragons, feels his heat, asks him to take her (“take me, fly”) and her heart feels as if it is about to burst. This is very much the kind of language used to evoke an orgasm.

When it comes to Dany’s father, the connection between fire and sex is direct and so twisted that I lack the words to properly describe it:

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. (AFfC, Jaime II)

The fact that Aerys II became sexually aroused by burning people alive connects fire to madness in the text. 

Madness

The Targaryen dynasty is often described as tainted by madness, which is related to the systematic incest they practiced over many generations. However, their madness is particularly tied to fire:

"Did you know that my brother set the Blackwater Rush afire? Wildfire will burn on water. Aerys would have bathed in it if he'd dared. The Targaryens were all mad for fire." – Jaime Lannister to Brienne of Tarth, (ASoS, Jaime V)

The traitors want my city, I heard him tell Rossart, but I'll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat. The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them. Aerys meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to die. Like Aerion Brightfire before him, Aerys thought the fire would transform him . . . that he would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash. – Jaime Lannister to Brienne of Tarth, (ASoS, Jaime V)

Passion, desire and lust aren’t negative things in and of themselves, it is interesting that the text more often than not describes these feelings in a negative manner. An excess of passion is just as dangerous as an excess of fire.

“SOME SAY THE WORLD WILL END IN FIRE, SOME SAY IN ICE”

Revisting Robert Frost’s poem, you can’t help but notice that it is a poem about the end of the world. It is apocalyptic. As the story stands, Westeros faces an icy apocalypse brought along by beings that hails from the far North:

Yet there are other tales—harder to credit and yet more central to the old histories—about creatures known as the Others. According to these tales, they came from the frozen Land of Always Winter, bringing the cold and darkness with them as they sought to extinguish all light and warmth. (tWoIaF)

(The Land of Always Winter. Art by Rene Aigner)

Frost’s poem speaks of an apocalypse of either Ice or Fire, where fire is put before ice. This made me think about whether there has been an apocalypse of fire in the history of Westeros. It just happens that there has: the Doom of Valyria (link), where a catastrophic eruption of a ring of volcanoes, the 14 Flames, brought down an entire civilization in a fiery inferno so hot that even dragons caught fire in the sky.

An apocalypse is a world-ending event but it doesn’t necessarily have to destroy the entire world. The Doom did, however, destroy both the Valyrian peninsula and the Freehold as both a political entity and a sophisticated civilization.

Valyria. It was written that on the day of Doom every hill for five hundred miles had split asunder to fill the air with ash and smoke and fire, blazes so hot and hungry that even the dragons in the sky were engulfed and consumed. Great rents had opened in the earth, swallowing palaces, temples, entire towns. Lakes boiled or turned to acid, mountains burst, fiery fountains spewed molten rock a thousand feet into the air, red clouds rained down dragonglass and the black blood of demons, and to the north the ground splintered and collapsed and fell in on itself and an angry sea came rushing in. The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, its fabled empire vanished in a day, the Lands of the Long Summer scorched and drowned and blighted. An empire built on blood and fire. The Valyrians reaped the seed they had sown. (ADwD, Tyrion VIII) 

That does sound like a world-ending event but there’s also an element of hubris associated with the Doom of Valyria. It was an empire built on fire and blood and it ended in a cataclysmic fire with a magical fallout that still poisons the Lands of of the Long Summer and the Smoking Sea that was created when the peninsula shattered.

Every man there knew that the Doom still ruled Valyria. The very sea there boiled and smoked, and the land was overrun with demons. (ADwD, The Reaver)

The Doom of Valrya spelled the end of the Dragonlords who subjugated the continent of Essos. The only Dragonlords who survived were House Targaryen and they did so die to the prophetic dreams of Daenys “the Dreamer” Targaryen. It was because of her warning that House Targaryen removed to Dragonstone with all their dragons, servants and slaves. A century later, Aegon Targaryen and his sister-wives Rhaenys and Visenya set out to make a new homeland through the Conquest of Westeros.

As a descendant of the only Dragonlords to survive the fiery apocalypse of Valyria, it seems fitting that the Last Targaryen appears destined to become embroiled in the icy apocalypse of Westeros. Daenerys Targaryen has yet to travel to Westeros in the books but she has a prophetic dream that could foreshadow her fighting the Others with her dragons:

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. (ASoS, Daenerys III)

BURNING ICE AND FROZEN FIRE

My previous posts in this series explored what the Ice and the Fire could refer to in GRRM’s epic fantasy series. They also examined the title of the series, A Song of Ice and Fire - a title that encourages the reader to think in absolute opposing forces, which is the most common way that epic fantasies are structured. However, within the narrative, the cult of R’hllor could very well function as a metatextual discourse on this kind of binary thinking and how it is a trap for the mind.

In this context, it is worth noting that Martin combines the opposites of Ice and Fire several times in the text: 

Nothing burns like the cold. (AGoT, Prologue)

The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deep and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice. (AGoT, Prologue)

Ice can be so cold that it feels as though it burns, yet there is no equivalent when it comes to fire. There’s no fire burning cold within the text. Then there’s obsidian, also called dragonglass. The material that can kill the Others is called “frozen fire” in Valyrian and when Sam Tarly kills a White Walker with an obsidian dagger, the language evokes an image of the weapon being simultaneously hot and cold:

Finally only the dragonglass dagger remained, wreathed in steam as if it were alive and sweating. Grenn bent to scoop it up and flung it down again at once. "Mother, that's cold." (ASoS - Samwell I) 

What are we to make of this? What does this melding of opposites signify? Jojen Reed knows the answer: 

“Why can’t it be both?” Meera reached up to pinch his nose. “Because they are different,” he [Bran] insisted. “Like night and day, or ice and fire.” “If ice can burn”, said Jojen in his solemn voice, “then love and hate can mate. Mountain or marsh, it makes no matter. The land is one.” (ASoS, Bran II)

The land is one!!!

In my previous post, I agreed with @thewesterwoman that purity is dangerous in GRRM’s world. As pure ice and pure fire, the Others and the dragons are equally dangerous. Purity represents an imbalance in the natural state of things. Perhaps this means that it is “impure” things that will play a pivotal part in the endgame. The obsidian is interesting in this context because it can be seen as a product of the marriage between fire and stone, the crystallized product of molten stone (lava).

So the weapon that is extremely effective when it comes to killing White Walkers (they die instantaneously) is made from a melding of different elements into something new. Obsidian is neither pure stone, nor pure fire.

(The Wall. Art by Feliche)

It is also worth remembering that the Wall that keeps out the Others and the undead wights is made of ice. However, the Wall is not made from ice that is “pure”. It is infused with the magic of the Children of the Forest – and their magic was of the living land, and the Land is One!

#asoaif #a song of ice and fire #meta #game of thrones #ice #fire

[lifeisaspade]

Hi, hope your well. I’m starting from the beginning, I know this is the logical place to start, but I’m way too fond of starting from the end result and working my way back to the beginning. So in order for you to fully to understand why your actions have affected me for 8 odd years, I’m taking you through the same series of events you experienced too but through my point of view. You violated me. Point blank. Let’s call a spade a spade, and I find that when I speak frankly and blatant, I myself find comfort. I asked you to stop, you refused. Ive replayed the incident over in my head countless times, trying to understand how and why it all went wrong. So I met him on Facebook. We had been talking for around a month, not long I know, but when your speaking to the same person nearly every day, comfortability begins to set in. You literally begged me for like a week straight to see me. This was new to me as I had just come out of a relationship with my first proper boyfriend and we ended because he didn’t want to see me. I was flattered that someone actually thought I was worth the time to beg for. Eventually I agreed to meet up with you. Basically the beginning of the end. We sat I the park and you spoke of how you were a virgin and how sex wasn’t a big deal to you, and my heart lit up because I loved meeting new people. I loved talking to new people and the idea of having a platonic friend that fancied me a little seemed perfect to me. Naive as I was, I invited you to my home. As soon as you stepped foot in the door, it was game over. You asked to kiss me I playfully said no, you grabbed my face and did as you pleased. I can’t lie, I did not feel threatened at this point, I was a little taken back, but I thought, its just a kiss, Lami it just means that he fancies you, and we stood there lypsing. Felt like your tongue was shoved in my mouth for a lifetime. How we moved from the corridor to the bed I don’t even remember, but there I was laying hopelessly underneath you. I quietly asked you to get off, you repeatedly told me ‘it wouldn’t take long’ at this point I accepted my fate and started counting numbers in my head, whilst silently crying. My tears didn’t bother you. When you shoved your nasty penis in my vagina it hurt like hell, I screamed, pleaded for you to let me get up and still you continued thrusting yourself vigorously inside me. I tried to push you, again nothing. I tried several times to catch your eye but you weren’t looking at me you were looking through me. It wasn’t until you felt something on your thigh that you stopped. Blood. There was blood everywhere. You jumped up and told me I was a fucking weirdo for not telling you I was on my period. But I wasn’t on my period. You had literally broken me. My clitoris had been ripped. In my weak, fragile state, I dragged myself off the bed and tried my best to clean up the mess, you were frantically trying to wash you t-shirt in the bathroom. Again staring right through me, not saying a word. You grew frustrated because I was dripping all over the place, and you left. And just like that, I was alone, sitting in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor. Instantly the feeling of shame overpowered me and I sat there crying because I honestly didn’t know what to do. My phone rang, I crawled to it, because I thought it might be him calling me to say how sorry he was and he was coming back to help me. It wasn’t him, it was my neighbor, calling to tell me he had just bought his first car and if I wanted to go for a spin. I reluctantly agreed. I put loads of tissue in my knickers and slowly walked downstairs. As soon as he saw me he knew something was wrong, I said I was fine. Then he saw the trail of blood on the floor and shouting 'Lami what the fuck is wrong with you man’ and he pulled me in, He took my to the hospital, shouted at the receptionist that I was dying, and hugged me. He comforted me, without even knowing what had just happened. Looking back this was God using him to save me, but I didn’t come to this realization till later on in life. Eventually I was seen, stitched back up and told that I had to call me parents. I called my mum, she came running. No explanation needed. Called my friends, they also came running, no explanation needed. I had great people around me who hadn’t asked any questions. The road to recovery was quite lengthy. Still no one asked me any questions. No one asked how or why I had found myself in a&e on a Thursday afternoon with a ripped clitoris. I guess because people never asked, I never needed to talk about it. Life just carried on and I never had to think about it. I went on a downward spiral of being promiscuous and inviting the wrong attention because I thought I wasn’t worth anything. I was still Lami on the outside. I was bubbly and fun loving, still loved making friends and talking my life away, but it came at a price and I didn’t care. I honestly lost my mind. I stopped being real to myself on the inside. I justified all my wrong doings on the fact that I was weak. Little things became triggers to me. So I began to be more vocal but in a negative way. I figured if I was really good at talking shit, no one would be able to violate me. Anyways time passed and I had made friends with a lovely girl in Austria. Anushka. Anushka became my pen pal and we had lengthy conversations about life. I told her things that I couldn’t tell the loved ones around me. I spoke honestly and freely. She asked me questions. The questions I longed for those in my immediate space to ask me. I answered, and the conversation started. The conversation of how I had been raped. I think it was easier to talk to her because she wasn’t physically in my space and I felt like she couldn’t judge me. Again I felt like this was another sign from God and she was sent to save my life. I’ve tried to contact him on numerous occasions, but he never replied. I just wanted him to understand how disgusted I was with myself. How weak I felt. How I felt I needed to be such an exaggerated version of myself so that I could believe I was worth more than what I was. If I shouted when I spoke maybe people would be startled and not mug me. Things I had never questioned myself on began to creep up on me and turned into insecurities. Did he violate me because Im ugly? Did he not listen because I’m not worth anything? Eventually he blocked me on everything. I grew angry. Like really angry. And I had violent thoughts of what I wanted to do to him. If only I had hit him when he was on top of me. Maybe it wouldn’t have gotten as bad as it did, maybe he would have realized what he was actually doing and stopped. I went over the scenario over and over in my head and tried to come to an amicable conclusion of what I could have done, but each and every time my thoughts lead back to me being weak, thus me physically getting angry. I began to take my anger out on loved ones, my mother especially. Why didn’t she just ask me what was wrong. Mum I love you. So much. We’re so close, yet distant at the same time. We both struggle with being honest with one another and it’s always at the expense of not hurting one another but then we always end up hurting one another. Its unfortunate you can’t take back how you raised me, you raised me as a friend and then started to pull away when I reached my teens, hence why we’re so up and down now. I needed my friend in that moment and you weren’t present. I appreciated your compassion in the moment but mum why didn’t you ever help me heal? I know deep down you knew what had happened and not once did you console, educate or converse with me about it. I resented you for it. Where was my prep talk about the evil that awaited me in the world. I had to figure out what womanhood was all on my own. Now that I’m older I can’t solely put the blame on you I was (still am at times) hard to deal with but your such a quitter. You always give up. You never try. We’re so alike in many ways, but thankfully I didn’t inherit that trait from you. I talk (too much at times), I ask questions, I like closure and ending things on a positive note. I always show that I care. Fast forward to 2017, Im a mother now. I’ve found a new kind of strength. And my anger is at an all time high. I found myself in a compromising situation with a great love in my life. And I was consumed with the same anger I once felt. As stated before little things triggered me, so I kicked into action and my mouth became poisonous. And when my mouth wasn’t enough I went to the next best thing violence. I didn’t stop till blood was drawn. And instantly the regret set in and the familiar feeling of feeling sorry for myself was back. I had literally lost my mind. I sat in the room with the light off and knew how I had got to this place. It was the anniversary of the rape and I was reacting. As of today, I publicly declare that I was raped, but I’m fine. I’m ok with that being in my past. I ok with the decisions I’ve made in my life because of it. Im a trying Christian and firm believer in love. And right now I have the GREATEST love of all, my son. And because of him I’m choosing to let go of the anger and hurt. I am choosing to not let the circumstances of being rape dictate my future. I choosing to forgive my attacker because he didn’t know any better. I don’t know what trials and tribulations he had gone through in his life, but I do know that he sent me a meek subliminal message on his twitter feed 'Sorry for everything, you didn’t deserve that. I knew you were a great person then and you still are now’. I know it was directed at me because he had liked and unliked my post on tumblr of me loosely talking about it. So I’m at peace. I can’t teach him right from wrong, But what I can do is confess with my heart and mouth that I forgive him and its up to God how the rest of the story goes. I am a better woman than I was then, a better woman than I was yesterday and I can only be as I continue to be honest with myself and the people around me. I understand how and why I love conversing with people, and I also understand that I can’t force people to ask me the right questions if I don’t make myself willing to openly answer then. So here I am writing this letter to everyone in my life that loves me and I’m urging you to ask me all the questions you want, I’m here to answer them. Peace and Love Lami x