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writingwithcolor · 3 years

Note

I'm writing an AU of a movie that takes place in the 1880s USA, where a travelling white character and a Jewish character are waylaid by Native Americans, who they befriend. Probably because it was written by and about PoC (Jews) the scene actually avoids the stuff on your Native American Masterpost, but I'd still like to do better than a movie made in the 1980's, and I feel weird cutting them from the plot entirely. I have a Jewish woman reading it for that, but are there any things you (1/1)

2/2 1880s western movie ask--are there things you'd LIKE to see in a movie where a white man and a Jewish man run into Native Americans in the 1880s? I do plan to base them on a real tribe (Ute, probably) and have proper housing/clothes and so forth, but right now I'm just trying to avoid or subvert awful cowboy movie tropes. Any ideas?

White and Jewish Men, Native American interactions in 1880s

I am vaguely concerned with how you only cite one of our posts about Native Americans, that was not written by a Native person, and do not cite any of the posts relating to this time period, or any posts relating to representation in media.

Sidenote: if you want us to give accurate reflections of the media you’re discussing, please tell us the NAME. I cannot go look up this movie based off this description to give you an idea of what my issues are with this scene, and must instead trust that the representation is good based off your judgement. I cannot make my own judgement. This is a problem. Especially since your whole question boils down to “this scene is good but not great and I want it to be great. How can I do that?”

Your baseline for “good” could very well be my baseline for “terrible hack job”. I can’t give you the proper education required for you to be able to accurately evaluate the media you’re watching for racist stereotypes if you don’t tell me what you’re even working with.

When you’re writing fanfic where the media is directly relevant to the question, please tell us the name of the media. We will not judge your tastes. We need this information in order to properly help you.

Moving on.

I bring up my concern for you citing that one—exceptionally old—post because it is lacking in many of the tropes that don’t exist in the media critique field but exist in the real world. This is an issue I have run into countless times on WWC (hence further concern you did not cite any other posts) and have spoken about at length.

People look at the media critique world exclusively, assume it is a complete evaluation of how Native Americans are seen in society, and as a result end up ignoring some really toxic stereotypes and then come to the inbox with “these characters aren’t abc trope, so they’re fine, but I want to rubber stamp them anyway. Anything wrong here?”. The answer is pretty much always yes.

Issue one: “Waylaid” by Native Americans

This wording is extremely loaded for one reason: Native American people are seen as tricksters, liars, and predators. This is the #1 trope that shows up in the real world that does not show up in media critique. It’s also the trope I have talked about the most when it comes to media representation, so you not knowing the trope is a sign you haven’t read the entirety of the Native tag—which is in the FAQ as something we would really prefer you did before coming at us to answer questions. It avoids us having to re-explain ourselves.

Now, hostility is honestly to be expected for the time period the movie is set in. This is in the beginnings (or ramping up) of residential schools in America* and Canada, we have generations upon generations of stolen or killed children, reserves being allocated perhaps hundreds of miles from sacred sites, and various wars with Plains and Southwest peoples are in full force (Wounded Knee would have happened in 1890, in December, and the Dakoa’s mass execution would have been in 1862. Those are just the big-name wars. There absolutely were others).

*America covers up its residential schools abuse extremely thoroughly, so if you try to research them in the American context you will come up empty. Please research Canada’s schools and apply the same abuse to America, as Canada has had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission about residential schools and therefore is more (but not completely) transparent about the abuse that happened. Please note that America’s history with residential schools is longer than Canada’s history. There is an extremely large trigger warning for mass child death when you do this research.

But just because the hostility is expected does not mean that this hostility would be treated well in the movie. Especially when you consider the sheer amount of tension between any Native actors and white actors, for how Sacheen Littlefeather had just been nearly beaten up by white actors at the 1973 Academy Awards for mentioning Wounded Knee, and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act had only been passed two years prior in 1978.

These Native actors would not have had the ability to truly consent to how they were shown, and this power dynamic has to be in your mind when you watch this scene over. I don’t care that the writers were from a discriminated-against background. This does not always result in being respectful, and I’ve also spoken about this power imbalance at length (primarily in the cowboy tag).

Documentaries and history specials made in the 2010s (with some degree of academic muster) will still fall into wording that harkens Indigenous people to wolves and settlers as frightened prey animals getting picked off by the mean animalistic Natives. This is not neutral, or good. This is perpetuating the myth that the settlers were helpless, just doing their own thing completely unobtrusively, and then the evil territorial Native Americans didn’t want to share.

To paraphrase Batman: if I had a week I couldn’t explain all the reasons that’s wrong.

How were these characters waylaid by the Native population? Because that answer—which I cannot get because you did not name the media—will determine how good the framing is. But based on the time period this movie was made alone, I do not trust it was done respectfully.

Issue 2: “Befriending”

I mentioned this was in an intense period of residential schools and land wars all in that area. The Ute themselves had just been massacred by Mormons in the Grass Valley Massacre in 1865, with ten men and an unknown number of women and children killed thanks to a case of assumed association with a war chief (Antonga Black Hawk) currently at war with Utah. The Paiute had been massacred in 1866. Over 100 Timpanogo men had been killed, with an unknown number of women and children enslaved by Brigham Young in Salt Lake City in 1850, with many of the enslaved people dying in captivity (those numbers were not tracked, but I would assume at least two hundred were enslaved— that’s simply assuming one woman/wife and one child for every man, and the numbers could have very well been higher if any war-widows and their children were in the group, not to mention families with multiple children). This is after an unknown group of Indigenous people had been killed by Governor Brigham Young the year prior, to “permanently stop cattle theft” from settlers.

The number of Native Americans killed in Utah in the 1800s—just the number of dead counted (since women and children weren’t counted)—in massacres not tied to war (because there was at least one war) is over 130. The actual number of random murders is much higher; between the uncounted deaths and how the Governor had issued orders to “deal with” the problem of cattle theft permanently. I doubt you would have been tried or convicted if you murdered Indigenous peoples on “your” land. This is why it’s called state sanctioned genocide.

This is not counting the Black Hawk War in Utah (1865-1872), which the Ute were absolutely a part of (the wiki articles I read were contradictory if Antonga Black Hawk was Ute or Timpanogo, but the Ute were part of it). The first official massacre tied to the war—the Bear River Massacre, ordered by the US Military—places the death count of just that singular massacre at over five hundred Shoshone, including elders, women, and children. It would not be unreasonable to assume that the number of Indigenous people killed in Utah from 1850, onward, is over a thousand, perhaps two or three.

Pardon me for not reading beyond that point to list more massacres and simply ballparking a number; the source will be linked for you to get an accurate number of dead.

So how did they befriend the Native population? Let alone see them as fully human considering the racism of the time period? Natives were absolutely not seen as fully human so long as they were tied to their culture, and assimilation equalling some sliver of respect was already a stick being waved around as a threat. This lack of humanity continues to the present day.

I’m not saying friendship is impossible. I am saying the sheer levels of mistrust that would exist between random wandering groups of white/pale men and Indigenous communities wouldn’t exactly make that friendship easy. Having the scene end be a genuine friendship feels ignorant and hollow and flattening of ongoing genocide, because settlers lied about their intentions and then lined you up for slauther (that’s how the Timpanogo were killed and enslaved).

Utah had already done most of its mass killing by this point. The era of trusting them was over. There was an active open hunting season, and the acceptable targets were the Indigenous populations of Utah.

(sources for the numbers:

List of Indian Massacres in North America Black Hawk War (1865-1872))

Issue 3: “Proper housing/clothes and so forth”

Do you mean Western style settlements and jeans? If yes, congratulations you have written a reservation which means the land-ripped-away wounds are going to be fresh, painful, and sore.

You do not codify what you mean by “proper”, and proper is another one of those deeply loaded colonial words that can mean “like a white man” or “appropriate for their tribe.” For the time period, it would be the former. Without specifying which direction you’re going for, I have no idea what you’re imagining. And without the name of the media, I don’t know what the basis of this is.

The reservation history of this time period seems to maybe have some wiggle room; there were two reservations allocated for the Ute at this time, one made in 1861 and another made in 1882 (they were combined into the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in 1886). This is all at the surface level of a google and wikipedia search, so I have no idea how many lived in the bush and how many lived on the reserve.

There were certainly land defenders trying to tell Utah the land did not belong to them, so holdouts that avoided getting rounded up were certainly possible. But these holdouts would be far, far more hostile to anyone non-Native.

The Ute seemed to be some degree of lucky in that the reserve is on some of their ancestral territory, but any loss of land that large is going to leave huge scars.

It should be noted that reserves would mean the traditional clothing and housing would likely be forbidden, because assimilation logic was in full force and absolutely vicious at this time.

It’s a large reserve, so the possibility exists they could have accidentally ended up within the borders of it. I’m not sure how hostile the state government was for rounding up all the Ute, so I don’t know if there would have been pockets of them hiding out. In present day, half of the Ute tribe lives on the reserve, but this wasn’t necessarily true historically—it could have been a much higher percentage in either direction.

It’s up to you if you want to make them be reservation-bound or not. Regardless, the above mentioned genocide would have been pretty fresh, the land theft in negotiations or already having happened, and generally, the Ute would be well on their way to every assimilation attempt made from either residential schools, missionaries, and/or the forced settlement and pre-fab homes.

To Answer Your Question

I don’t want another flattened, sanitized portrayal of genocide.

Look at the number of dead above, the amount of land lost above, the amount of executive orders above. And try to tell me that these people would be anything less than completely and totally devastated. Beyond traumatized. Beyond broken hearted. Absolutely grief stricken with almost no soul left.

Their religion would have been illegal. Their children would have been stolen. Their land was taken away. A saying about post-apocalyptic fiction is how settler-based it is, because Indigenous people have already lived through their own apocalypse.

It would have all just happened at the time period this story is set in. All of the grief you feel now at the environment changing so drastically that you aren’t sure how you’ll survive? Take that, magnify it by an exponential amount because it happened, and you have the mindset of these Native characters.

This is not a topic to tread lightly. This is not a topic to read one masterpost and treat it as a golden rule when there is too much history buried in unmarked, overfull graves of school grounds and cities and battlefields. I doubt the movie you’re using is good representation if it doesn’t even hint at the amount of trauma these Native characters would have been through in thirty years.

A single generation, and the life that they had spent millennia living was gone. Despite massive losses of life trying to fight to preserve their culture and land.

Learn some history. That’s all I can tell you. Learn it, process it, and look outside of checklists. Look outside of media.

And let us have our grief.

~ Mod Lesya

On Question Framing

Please allow me the opportunity to comment on “are there things you'd LIKE to see in a movie where a white man and a Jewish man run into Native Americans in the 1880s?” That strikes me as the same type of question as asking what color food I’d like for lunch. I don’t see how the cultural backgrounds of characters I have literally no other information about is supposed to make me want anything in particular about them. I don’t know anything about their personalities or if they have anything in common.

Compare the following questions:

“Are there things you’d like to see in a movie where two American women, one from a Nordic background and one Jewish, are interacting?” I struggle to see how our backgrounds are going to yield any further inspiration. It certainly doesn’t tell you that we’re both queer and cling to each other’s support in a scary world; it doesn’t tell you that we uplift each other through mental illness; it doesn’t go into our 30 years of endless bizarre inside jokes related to everything from mustelids to bad subtitles.

Because: “white”, “Jewish”, and “Native American” aren’t personality words. You can ask me what kind of interaction I’d like to see from a high-strung overachieving woman and a happy-go-lucky Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and I’ll tell you I’d want fluffy f/f romance. Someone else might want conflict ultimately resolving in friendship. A third person might want them slowly getting on each other’s nerves more and more until one becomes a supervillain and the other must thwart her. But the same question about a cultural demographic? That told me nothing about the people involved.

Also, the first time I meet a new person from a very different culture, it might take weeks before discussion of our specific cultural differences comes up. As a consequence, my first deep conversations with a Costa Rican American gentile friend were not about Costa Rica or my Jewishness but about things we had in common: classical music and coping with breakups--which are obviously conversations I could have had if we were both Jewish, both Costa Rican gentiles, or both something else. So in other words, I’m having trouble seeing how knowing so little about these characters is supposed to give me something to want to see on the page.

Thank you for understanding.

(And yes, I agree with Lesya, what’s with this trend of people trying to explain their fandom in a roundabout way instead of mentioning it by name? It makes it harder to give meaningful help….)

--Shira

#platypan #genocide #native american #North America #america #history #american history #media #representation #asks

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zarya-zaryanitsa · 2 years

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Good day to you. I've followed you for many months now and I must say that I really like your blog.

I have seen the notion of "dual faith" commonly applied to Christianized Slavic people more and more questioned lately (either totally or partly) by scholars and practicioners alike, and I was wondering if you (and other of your Christian and Pagan Slavic followers if they wish to develop on that too) have ever attached credit to this notion or not at all, or had any other position on this topic.

Have a nice day !

Ah, once again a complex question!

I would like to quickly re-examine the doubts about validity of dvoeverie in two contexts — first being the doubts about the word itself and its historicity, second doubts about the character of pre-Christian influences on the practices of Christian Slavs.

Dvoeverie (dual-belief, dual-faith) could be very simply defined as preservation of pagan elements by Orthodox Christian communities. This term is used predominantly to refer to Russian religious practices and carries the implication that, while intermingling of pre-Christian and Christian religious practices can happen in any culture, Russia was particularly susceptible to it and displays this phenomenon to a much greater degree, as a result preserving extraordinary number of pagan practices.

Aforementioned term started being used in this context only in mid 19th century, but many scholars who introduced (re-introduced) it into Slavic studies claimed that it has medieval origins and that even medieval Orthodox writers (who would have a better understanding of Slavic paganism than we do) already bemoaned the prevalence of pagan traditions in Orthodox communities (on the territory of present day Russia).

This idea has been disproven Stella Rock who in her book "Popular Religion in Russia, ‘Double belief’ and the making of an academic myth” shows that, while the word dvoeverie is indeed of medieval origins, it wasn’t used to denote blending of Orthodox and pagan religious practices. According to Rock’s research ”dvoeverie” referred to Orthodox Christians who sympathize with Roman Catholics or a state of spiritual doubt within an Orthodox Christian, and therefore described ”inability to remain unwaveringly Orthodox”. However the second belief referred to by medieval writers using the term ”dual-belief” was never paganism. On that account the context in which the word started being used since 19th century changed significantly — which results in the term coming under a lot of criticism as confusing and misleading.

I don’t really have any strong stances on whether the term should still be used or should be abandoned in the context of pagan beliefs — whatever most scholars will settle on I will follow. I’m of the opinion that as long as everyone involved knows what phenomenon is being discussed the name assigned to it is of secondary importance.

Now onto the problem of pagan influences.

Scholars supproting the existence of dvoeverie usually tend to belong to one of the two main ”camps":

those believing that the Orthodox Christianity was forced to adapt to resistant, prevalent paganism;

those believing that the Orthodox Christianity assimilated Slavic paganism and created a syncretic blend of old and new traditions that was Christian enough to be acceptable to the Church.

Camp 1 tends to support theories of active resistence of the rural pagan peoples to conversion and conscious attempts to preserve pagan beliefs hidden under a thin veneer of Christianity. To many Soviet scholars dual-faith was a symptom of class struggle, although considering the circumstances in which their work was conducted and published this narrative may have been overplayed.

Camp 2 tends to support theories of unconscious preservation of pagan traditions by the people, poor education of Orthodox clergy and neophytes leading to lack of understanding of what is Christian and pagan and creative syncretism of the two faiths.

Onto my personal feelings: I do not believe that ”double-faith” was a form of deliberate resistence of Christianity or a form of conscious class struggle, although I accept that in early days of Slavic Christianization Christianity may have been more common among the elites and that the way different social classes practice the same religion could vary greatly.

Another really interesting interpretation of dvoeverie that I’ve encountered describes it as ”spiritual bilingualism". The believers are "fluent” in two different belief systems and may choose to use the vocabulary of one or the other depending on the circumstances. Occasionally they may also code-switch, code-mix or use borrowings, consciously or unconsciously.

You can still encounter elements with pre-Christian roots in Slavic religious practice as well as many other aspects of Slavic culture. This much is undeniable no matter what name we slap on the phenomenon. Now all that is left is for us to argue about how prominent those elements are and which, and to what degree pre-Christian can be synonymous with pagan.

I imagine that, yes, it could be pretty difficult for early Christians to discern which aspects of their old way of life were specifically ”pagan” — and even the Christian preachers probably struggled with that. It’s worth remembering not everything that is ”unchristian” must be pagan — we can for example see many instances of priests forbidding the newly Christian Slavs revelry, dancing and music but there are doubts as to whether those prohibitions were targetting specific pagan practices or merely marking certain behviors are inappropriate for a devout Christian. At the end of the day what constitutes paganism isn’t all that clear to us.

I will not hide that I personally enjoy including Slavic traditions with strong pre-Christian undercurrent in my Slavic paganism tag — but I am aware that most of the people practicing them don’t see them as ”pagan”. As a Slavic pagan I have quite limited resources when it comes to reliable sources on pre-Christian religious practices and so nevertheless tend to analyse a lot of folk practices looking for elements that are part of local cultural heritage rather than solely Christian cultural heritage, trying to figure out how that could be included to enrich and nuance my personal religious practice which is based on (or perhaps inspired by) pre-Christian Slavic faith though marked with appreciation and inclusion of later Slavic culture. Simultaneously I’m acutely aware that I am likely to come up wrong about things more than a few times. And at the same time I believe we should avoid replicating mistake of romanticizm by uncritically believing that the ”folk” managed to preserve pure and unchanging cultural and religious traditions of the pagan Slavs.

I think it’s perfectly normal for a religion to take on a new ”local flavor” through the influences brought in by the practitioners. Both the culture of the practitioners and the proximity of other faiths will make their marks on the religion in question. It happened to the many forms of Christianity and it happens now, to reconstructed pagan religions. For example in some discussions I observed on Tumblr recently the differences in practices of modern American and Scandinavian heathens were highlighted - a result of the way the practitioners and their culture shape the religion. I find it unavoidable. It’s only natural that earlier pre-Christian and, yes, pagan elements found their way into later practices of Christian Slavs. It’s only natural that Slavic culture of Christianized Slavs finds its way into reconstructive attempts of modern Slavic pagans. Still, I think if you strive for reconstruction or even revival of a pagan religion and not merely an aesthetic repackaging of your local dominant belief you should know what are the core ideas of both religions and where the concepts that form the pillars of your practice came from.

Obviously your knowledge and understanding of your practices will be improved and revised over time. There is nothing wrong with changing your opinions and practices to accomodate new information and new insights. You don’t need a phd before you begin, although some research is anvoidable. In electing to follow the path of revival/reconstruction you implicitly accept the difficulties it introduces into your life and religious practice — and the difficulty will vary depending on both the religion elected and the individual electing.

I warn you — I reserve the right to change my mind once I have more information about the subject in question. I welcome all my followers to add their own thoughts, although please do so politely, acknowledging that a) most people participating in the discussion are laymen with no systematized education on the subject b) this is a tumblr discussion and not anybody’s doctoral dissertation.

Any word I may have overspoken, any word I may have underspoken, be my words helpful and true.

#Asks #dual-faith #double-faith #dvoeverie #slavic paganism

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ailuronymy · 3 years

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Thoughts on the new discourse? Warrior cats naming conventions and rank names being straight up stolen from native American people? So many people seem to be... Straight up leaving the Fandom or changing all of their fan content and it feels very performative and, people not actually thinking critically and just being scared of getting "cancelled"? I feel like your opinions on these matters are very informed and well written so I wanted to ask given that this blog main theme is, well, warrior cat naming system and that seems to be the main issue of the new discourse.

This is probably going to get long, since there's sort of a lot to say about it in order to talk about this whole thing fairly and constructively, because from what I’ve seen there’s a lot of hyperbole happening, and panicking, and disavowing this series and fandom, and so on, like you say, and also some people genuinely trying to have complex meaningful conversations about racism in xenofiction, and also probably some bad faith actors in the mix--as well as some just... stupid actors. Kind of inevitably what happens when two equally bad platforms for having nuanced discussions--i.e., twitter and tumblr--run headlong into each other, in a fandom space with a majority demographic of basically kids and highly anxious, pretty online teens. I don’t mean that as a criticism of fans or their desire to be liked by peers and “correct” about opinions, it’s just the social landscape of Warriors and I think it’s worth pointing out from the start.

If I’m totally honest with you, if not for this ask, I wouldn’t actually be commenting on it at all, because none of this is going to impact this blog or change how I run it in any way. But since you’ve asked and frankly I do feel some responsibility to try to disentangle things a little for everyone stressed and confused at the moment, because I know a lot of people look to this blog for guidance of all sorts, I’m going to talk about what I think has happened here, and how to navigate the situation in a reasonable way.

Quick recap for anyone blissfully unaware: from what I understand, this post (migrated over from a presumably bigger twitter thread) has got a lot of people very worried about Warriors being a racist and appropriative series, and now are trying to figure out what ethically to do about this revelation. The thing I found most interesting about this screenshotted conversation is that it makes a lot of bold claims, but misses some pretty surprising details (in my opinion). If you do look critically at what is being said, here’s a few things to notice--crucially, there are two people talking.

Person 1 says that a lot of animal fantasy fiction + xenofiction (fiction about non-human/”other” beings, such as animals) is frequently built upon stereotypes of First Nations and Indigenous people, and/or appropriates elements of Indigenous culture and tradition as basically set dressing for “strange” and “alien” races/species etc., and this is a racist, deeply othering, and inappropriate practice. This person is right.

I’ve spent years researching in this field specifically, so I feel pretty confident in vouching (for whatever that’s worth) that this person is absolutely right in making this point. Not only is it frequently in animal fiction/xenofiction, but it’s insidious, which means often it’s hard to notice when it’s happening--unless you know what you’re looking for, or you are personally familiar with the details or tropes that are being appropriated. Because of the nature of racism, white and other non-First Nations people don’t always recognise this trend within texts--even texts they’re creating--but it’s important for us all, and especially white people, to be more aware, because it’s not actually First Nations’ people’s responsibility to be the sole critics of this tradition of theft and misuse. Appropriation by non-Indigenous people is in fact the problem, which means non-Indigenous people learning and changing is the solution.

Person 1 offers Warriors as a popular example of a work that has this problem. Notably, this person hasn’t given an example of how Warriors is culpable (at least in this screenshot and I haven’t found the thread itself, because the screenshot is what’s causing this conversation), only that it’s an example of a work that has these problems. And once again, this person is correct. We’ll look at that more in a moment.

Person 2 (three tweets below the first) offers, by comparison, several more specious insights. Firstly, it’s really, really not the only time anyone’s ever talked about this, academically + creatively or in the Warriors fandom specifically, and so that reveals somewhat this person’s previous engagement in the space they’re talking into re: this topic. In other words, this person doesn’t know what has already been said or what is being talked about. Secondly, this person explicitly states that they “[don’t know] much about warrior cats specifically but from what I see it just screams appropriation,” which as a statement I think says something crucial re: the critical lens this person has applied + the amount of forethought and depth of analysis of their criticism of this particular series.

I’m not saying that using twitter to talk about your personal feelings requires you to research everything you talk about before you shoot your mouth off. However, I personally don’t go into a conversation about a topic I don’t know anything about except a cursory glance to offer bold and scathing criticisms based on what it “just screams” to me. By their own admission, this person isn’t really offering good faith, thoughtful criticism of the series, in line with Person 1′s tweet. Instead, Person 2 is talking pretty condescendingly and emphatically about--as the kids say--the vibes they get from the series, and I’m afraid that just doesn’t hold up well in this court.

So now that there’s Person 1 (i.e., very reasonable, important, interesting criticism) and Person 2 (i.e., impassioned but completely vibes-based opinion from someone who hasn’t read the books) separated, we can see there’s actually several things happening in this brief snapshot, and some of them aren’t super congruent with each other.

Person 1 didn’t say “don’t read bad books,” or that you’re a bad person for being a fan of stories that are guilty of this. They suggested people should recognise the ways xenofiction uses Indigenous people and their culture inappropriately and often for profit. My understanding of this tweet is someone offering an insight that might not have occurred to many people, but that is valuable and important to consider going forward in how they view, engage with, and create xenofiction media.

Person 2 uses high modality, evocative language that appeals to the emotions. That’s not a criticism of this person: they’re allowed to talk in whatever tone they want, and to express their personal feelings and opinions. However, rhetorically, this person is using this specific language--consciously or subconsciously--to incense their audience--i.e., you. Are you feeling called to action? What action do you feel called to when you rea their words, despite the fact their claims are not based in their own actual analysis of or engagement with the text? It’s, by their own admission, not analysis at all. Everything they evoke is purely in the name of “not good” vibes.

Earlier I mentioned that Person 1 is correct that Warriors is absolutely guilty of appropriation of First Nations and Indigenous people and culture. I also mentioned that they didn’t specify how. That’s because I think the most egregious example is in fact the tribe, which in many ways plays into the exact kind of stereotyping and appropriation of First Nations Americans that Person 1 mentions, and not the clans, contrary to Person 2′s suggestion. For instance, in addition to the very loaded name of “tribe”, there’s a lot of racist tropes present in how that group of cats is introduced and how the clan cats interact with them, as well as the more North American-inspired scenery of their home. It’s very blatant as far as racism in this series.

When it comes to the clans themselves, though, I think it’s muddier and harder to draw clear distinctions of what is directly appropriative, what is coincidentally and superficially reminiscent, and what is not related at all. Part of this difficulty in drawing hard lines comes from the fact that, on a personal level, it actually doesn’t matter: if a First Nations person reads a story and feel it is appropriative or inappropriate, it’s not actually anyone’s place to “correct” them on their reading of the text. Our experiences are unique and informed by our perspectives and values, and no group of people are a monolith, which means within community, there will always be disagreement and differenting points of view. There is no one single truth or opinion, which means that First Nations people even in the same family might have very different feelings about the same text and very different perspectives on how respectful, or not, it might be.

I’m saying this because something that gets said very often when conversations of racism and similar oppressive systems present/perpetuated in texts comes up, people frequently say: “listen to x voices.” It is excellent advice. However, the less pithy but equally valuable follow-up advice is: “listen to the voices of many people of x group, gather information and perspective, and then ultimately use your own judgement to make an informed opinion for yourself.” It means that you are responsible for you. The insight you can gain by listening to people who know topics and experiences far better than you do is truly invaluable, but if your approach to the world is simply to parrot the first voice, or loudest voice, or angriest voice you come across, you will not really learn anything or be able to develop your own understanding and you certainly won’t be making well-informed judgements.

In other words, one incomplete tweet thread from two people who are each bringing quite different topics and modes of conversation (or perhaps gripes, in Person 2′s case) to the table is not really enough to go off re: making a decision to leave a fandom, in my opinion. In fact, I think in responding to anything difficult, complex, or problematic (which doesn’t mean what popular adage bandies it about to mean) by trying to distance yourself, or cleanse of it, will ultimately harm you and will not do you any good as a person. It is better, in my opinion, to enter into complex relationships with the world and media and other people in an informed, aware way and with a willingness to learn and sometimes to make mistakes and be wrong, rather than shy away from potential conflict or fear that interacting with a text will somehow taint you or define your morality in absolutes.

So. Does Warriors have racist and appropriative elements, tropes, and issues in the series? Yes, of course it does, it’s a book-packaged series produced by corporation HarperCollins and written by a handful of white British women and their myriad ghostwriters. Racism is just one part of the picture. The books are frequently also ableist, sexist, and homophobic (or heteronormative, depending how you want to slice it, I guess), just to name some of the most evident problems.

But does the presence of these issues mean it’s contaminated and shouldn’t be touched? Personally, I don’t think so. Given the nature of existing the world, it’s not possible to find perfect media that is free of any kind of bias, prejudice, or even just ideas or topics or concepts that are challenging or uncomfortable. I think it’s more meaningful to choose to engage with these elements, discuss them, criticise them, learn from them, and acknowledge also that imperfection is the ultimate destiny of all of us, especially creators.

I’m not saying that as a pass, like, “oh enjoy your media willy-nilly, nothing matters, do what you want, think about no-one else ever because we’re all flawed beings,” but rather that it’s important not to look away from the problems in the things we enjoy, rather than cut off all contact and enjoyment when we realise the problems. That doesn’t mean you have to only criticise and always be talking about how bad a thing you like is either, publicly admonishing yourself or the text, because that’s also not a constructive way to engage with media.

As I said, there’s a lot to say here, and believe it or not, this is honestly the shortest version I could manage. There’s always more to say and plenty I haven’t talked about, but pretty much tl;dr:

I don’t find Person 2′s commentary particularly compelling, personally, because I think it’s a little broad and a little specious in its conclusions and evidence, and I also suspect that this person is speaking more from their feelings than from a genuine desire to educate or meaningfully criticise, unlike Person 1. That’s not to say Warriors isn’t frequently racist and guilty of the issues Person 1 is discussing, because it is, but I don’t think this tweet thread is a great source of insight into the ongoing history of this problem in xenofiction, or Warriors specifically, on its own. I would recommend exploring further afield to learn more from a variety of sources and form your own opinions. I hope this helps.

#just in case anyone sees this post and gets the wrong idea: i'm not inviting debate on this.#i am saying that first nations people are allowed to have ANY relationship with texts because that's how subjectivity works.#they are allowed to have negative neutral or positive experiences of texts--even 'bad' ones that have a lot of problems.#the people in this tweet are just talking about their thoughts and it's their bad luck the world's a public forum and it's spiralled.#the other thing i am saying is that if your approach to media is exclusively to cut out any problematic text like it's a cancer #that's not a great strategy. just straight up. you're better off developing critical insight and your own opinions and confidence.#by most parameters i can think of warriors as a series pretty much sucks really bad and i've been saying that for nearly ten years.#despite being so phenomenally flawed it can still have value--and much of its value in my opinion is IN these conversations about it.#so yeah tl;dr 2: i'm not here to slap-fight with teens which is what much discourse devolves to after 5 mins on tumblr so don't try it.

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percabeth4life · 3 years

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Sorry to just jump in here and drop this on you, but i saw a blog once call percabeth an abusive relationship???? and i was like ?????? but none of my friends read pjo so i cant ask them for thoughts, how about you?

Oh boy anon so this is a thing.

Percabeth is abusive is a common thing those that hate percabeth or ship something else and want to validate it say, and why I have the “anti-percabeth” tag blocked.

I’ve seen people say Annabeth just giving him a dirty look was abuse, people will reach for anything done between them that isn’t perfect, usually to justify why their ship is better.

Honestly, I’m open to most ships. Percabeth is my main but if you ship things that’s totally fine, even if I don’t like it I won’t say you shouldn’t ship it. I read non-Percabeth ships, but a lot of people feel a strong need to insist a ship is abusive if they don’t like it.

It’s fine to just not like a ship.

First off lets preface all of this with a warning that I’ll be discussing abuse here so if that’s upsetting skip it.

It got long, like very long (word count is nearly 3k), so it’s all under the Read More, there’s a TLDR at the very bottom.

Now then, what is abuse?

There are two definitions that pop up with a quick google search

Use (something) to bad effect or for a bad purpose; misuse.

Treat (a person or an animal) with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly.

If you look up the legal definition (law.cornell) used to define abuse there are more options, but I’m leaving out 2, 3, and 4 cause 3 and 4 def have nothing to do with this and definition 2 is in regards to child abuse.

Abuse, generally: physically, sexually, or mentally injuring a person.

Now if we want to go deeper in lets define physical and mental abuse. I’ll be leaving out sexual as that has no bearing on this particular situation.

Physical abuse is defined by healthyplace.com as

Non-accidental use of force that results in bodily injury, pain, or impairment. This includes, but is not limited to, being slapped, burned, cut, bruised or improperly physically restrained.

Now lets expand on this.

Something that is pointed to specifically is the mentioned intent. “Non-accidental”. It must be purposeful harm.

Now, I will also point out that Physical abuse doesn’t necessarily say the intent needs to be abuse, but as my lawyer parents state it simply needs to be “intent to harm” and it gets labeled abuse. The legal definition (given above) agrees, it is simply that it needs to be purposeful harm. But then we need to define this harm, especially the bodily injury, pain, or impairment.

Bodily injury is defined by Merriam Webster as

any damage to a person's physical condition including pain or illness

Now what is damage?

loss or harm resulting from injury to person, property, or reputation

So then harm is defined as... damage, so the definition I prescribe to (and I asked my lawyer parents to confirm, unfortunately I have no link for that).

Causes pain (pain defined as suffering)

Pain is defined by Merriam Webster as

a localized or generalized unpleasant bodily sensation or complex of sensations that causes mild to severe physical discomfort and emotional distress and typically results from bodily disorder (such as injury or disease)

a basic bodily sensation that is induced by a noxious stimulus, is received by naked nerve endings, is associated with actual or potential tissue damage, is characterized by physical discomfort (such as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leads to evasive action

mental or emotional distress or suffering

Finally impairment is

diminishment or loss of function or ability

(all of the above definitions except harm are pulled from Merriam Webster linked with Bodily Injury)

Okay, so now lets consider it, physical abuse needs to cause damage to someone, it must be purposeful damage though the intent to abuse does not necessarily need to be the intent. So if your actions do not intend physical harm then it is not physical abuse.

So then, do Percy and Annabeth have a physically abusive relationship?

Lets start with the classic one that everyone likes to bring up, the Judo Flip.

First off, do Judo Flips hurt? [sourcing (1) (2) (3)]

They CAN hurt if done with that intent, but if your intent is to not harm and you are trained properly, No Judo should not hurt. Anyone properly trained in Judo should know how to prevent harm. (1, 2)

On top of that, the first thing anyone learning Judo is taught is how to fall.

All judoka learn to fall safely, by rolling and breaking their fall with Ukemi. This breakfall absorbs the impact of the throw. (3)

Percy should have the basics of this down seeing how he was already in matches (mentioned in book one prior him being claimed) in his first summer at camp, after four years he’s definitely got the basics down.

Therefore, the Judo flip did not intend to cause harm, nor did it appear to. Despite that it was on stone, and Annabeth had him pinned, Percy didn’t even show discomfort. He laughed.

On top of that, when Annabeth last saw Percy he had the Curse of Achilles. As far as she was aware, he still had it. A requirement of Physical Abuse is the intent to cause harm, every factor here shows that there was no intent to cause harm.

This scene was not physical abuse, it was just bad writing.

I can think of other scenes, only a few, before they were actually in a relationship. In book three Annabeth punched Percy in the stomach when he didn’t catch her hint that he should ask her to dance

She punched me in the gut. ‘Me, Seaweed Brain.’

‘Oh. Oh, right.’ (TTC, chapter 1, page 8 of book on my copy)

There doesn’t seem to have been any harm done as he doesn’t even mention it hurting, not even a pause, just went “oh yeah her”. So it was likely a light punch, the kind friends do that don’t hurt just catch attention. Annabeth has been trained since she was 7, she should know how to throw a punch without actually causing harm.

If anyone wants to bring up other examples, feel free, I’m not combing the books right now for examples but I will reply to them (preferably in asks so this post doesn’t get super long...)

I cannot think of any examples of Percy hitting/punching Annabeth nor any other kind of physical interaction, if someone wishes to bring one of those up feel free.

Does this mean that I think they should be hitting each other despite the fact that it’s clear there is no intent to harm?

No, I don’t really think they should be hitting each other.

But! An important thing there is their own boundaries, not mine. I would not be up for being hit but I do share friendly punches with my friends, which is similar in intent. It’s simply that they’ve been trained to fight and have to a lot to survive so their boundaries for what is “harmful” are different.

But that’s a whole different issue and a different academic essay :)

I don’t believe there is any physical abuse in Percabeth.

Moving on, Emotional abuse (which Psychological and Verbal added as they all connect).

Emotional abuse is defined by helathyplace.com as

Any act including confinement, isolation, verbal assault, humiliation, intimidation, infantilization, or any other treatment which may diminish the sense of identity, dignity, and self-worth.

It also covers Psychological abuse and verbal abuse. Psychological abuse does not have a definition available on the site I’m using but it does have a description. If you’d like to read the description go (here). I will add a detail of how it works though

Psychological abuse signs and symptoms may start small at first as the abuser "tests the waters" to see what the other person will accept, but before long the psychological abuse builds into something that can be frightening and threatening.

Verbal abuse definition defined by healthyplace.com is

Any language or behavior that seeks to coerce its victim to doubt their perceptions or their abilities and subjugate themselves to the abuser.

So considering that, we note another important factor here, they also have intent involved. “Test the waters” and “seek to coerce” for Psychological and Verbal abuse.

Emotional abuse is different in that it does not specify intent, except every item mentioned is purposeful. If you’re confining someone then you’re doing that on purpose, you cannot easily accidentally do most of that. Those actions carry intent, even if the intent is not abuse.

Now then, is percabeth emotionally abusive?

Once again I’ll start with the big thing people point out, the Judo Flip.

I’ve seen it point out that it could be seen as humiliation.

Annabeth grabbed his wrist and flipped him over her shoulder. He slammed into the stone pavement. Romans cried out. Some surged forward, but Reyna shouted, “Hold! Stand down!”

Annabeth put her knee on Percy’s chest. She pushed her forearm against his throat. She didn’t care what the Romans thought. A white-hot lump of anger expanded in her chest—a tumor of worry and bitterness that she’d been carrying around since last autumn.

“If you ever leave me again,” she said, her eyes stinging, “I swear to all the gods—”

Percy had the nerve to laugh. Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside Annabeth.

“Consider me warned,” Percy said. “I missed you, too.” (MOA, chapter 2, page 19 of my copy)

If you look at the scene itself you’ll see that Annabeth is very emotional right then, she just got her boyfriend back, she’s exhausted from months of worrying, she’s emotionally very strained, and she judo flips him as all her pain just fills her.

A lot of people with anxiety or high stress or similar issues have times when the anxiety doesn’t affect them during the time they’re stressed, but right after the stressors are gone.

It’s clear that’s what happened here, all her feelings that she’d been burying to work just filled her.

And Percy smiles up at her and says he missed her.

It’s clear from her own comment that she didn’t care what the Romans thought (said right after they almost attacked her) that her thoughts were not on how this looked for Percy, but for her. She knew it looked bad for her to attack him.

She wasn’t trying to embarrass or humiliate Percy, she was trying to get all that pain and stress and anger out. I don’t like how it was done, but it did not physically harm him (nor did she expect it to) and it clearly did not humiliate him.

He smiled and said he missed her.

He understood what she was going through, and made it clear he loved her.

I still think it was bad writing, but it’s not humiliation, nor is it emotional abuse.

Another thing I’ve seen pointed out is Annabeth’s nickname for Percy.

Seaweed Brain.

I will start this with a reminder that both of their nicknames for each other were originally meant as insults.

Wise Girl was first used by Clarisse and it clearly upset Annabeth, it is used twice by Clarisse actually.

Once in TLT, when she and Percy first meet, and once in SOM when they’re attacking Charybdis.

Percy in comparison uses Wise Girl twice as well, both in TLT, once when he was mocking her at her coming along on the quest and once when they were saying goodbye. It’s also used once in HOO, in BOO.

Honestly it’s not much a nickname... only used by Percy 3 times in all the (main) books. There are like 3 other cases in all the side stories and MCGA combined.

Annabeth uses seaweed brain a total of 41 times in all the books combined, in PJO it’s used 25 times, 22 by Annabeth, and HOO it’s used outloud 9 times, all by Annabeth. On top of this, while the PJO cases were all outloud, the HOO cases were not, with 2 (making the total 11) used only in Annabeth’s thoughts.

Seaweed brain is used in TLT 6 times, 5 times by Annabeth.

The first time is when Annabeth is joining the quest, then when he says things are going fine so far when they start the quest, then when at the Ride of Love, then when Annabeth calls him her friend, then when they’re saying goodbye.

If you watch the progression of it it’s the same as with Wise Girl, though used more often. It starts as an insult, and then becomes fond and a term for her friend by the end of it.

I don’t particularly want to label every single instance, but a quick overview of all the PJO books is that it’s used by Annabeth in annoyance a total of 4 times, in fondness/exasperation/worry 18 times. Those times of annoyance were all in books 1 and 2, the time of exasperation (1 of the 18) was in book 2.

The vast majority were done out of worry, and the rest when she was being soft.

It’s not meant to diminish his intelligence, nor is intended as an insult beyond book 1 and 1 instance of book 2. It is rarely used because he’s being ignorant either. You can make an argument for the first case in book 3 being done because he wasn’t catching her hint to dance and thus was mocking his inability to catch a hint, but it was mixed with fondness from my read.

Overall the nickname is not intended as an insult anymore, it has become a friendly name for Percy that shows how fond Annabeth is of him. She does not have nicknames for anyone else.

In HOO all the cases were relatively fond, with one that she didn’t say outloud being used when she was cheering Hazel up by telling stories about Percy (ah the benefits of long time friendships, you get to tell all the good stories).

In the end I think that it’s cute that they have a nickname for each other, and though there could be more flattering ones, the intent that Percy understands from it and the intent Annabeth uses it with clearly show that it is meant in fondness and was a gradual change from a name that was meant to poke at him. It’s meaning is is fond and loving and it was only used 3 times prior with any other (negative) intent.

Also friends give each other nicknames, and commonly they are meant to be teasing.

There is one other thing I’ve seen brought up, being Annabeth thinking that she needs to keep Percy on his toes (specifically about Rachel in this case) when they’re in Tartarus.

‘Rachel?’ Percy asked. ‘You mean our Rachel? Oracle of Delphi Rachel?’

‘That’s the one.’ Annabeth suppressed a smile.

Whenever she brought up Rachel’s name, Percy got nervous. At one point, Rachel had been interested in dating Percy. That was ancient history. Rachel and Annabeth were good friends now. But Annabeth didn’t mind making Percy a little uneasy. You had to keep your boyfriend on his toes. (HOH, didn’t bother to check chapter number, page 109 of my copy)

So here we see that Annabeth is “keeping him on his toes” but in context, they’re sending a note to Rachel through the Hermes temple in Tartarus. It was not Annabeth bringing it up to mess with him, it was her smiling at the little moment where he was thrown off about Rachel.

Frankly, in general Annabeth doesn’t do anything like that. She occasionally teases Percy but he always teases back. After the Rachel stuff in book 5 things were chill with all of them. We’ve seen no evidence of Percy being uncomfortable with Rachel being brought up, nor Annabeth thinking that it should be brought up for that purpose.

If anything Annabeth has shown some serious abandonment issues in fearing that Percy would leave her over other girls (she needs some therapy after that mess of a childhood but Khiron apparenlty doesn’t think so).

I see this as a case of bad writing with nothing else supporting it, including the scene it happens in.

Even had it actually been something supported by other instances, in the context she says it in it seems more like teasing over an ex where the break was amicable and everyone is still friends, which isn’t abusive or manipulative.

It’s just that Rick is tasteless.

So is Percabeth emotionally/psychologically/verbally abusive? No.

If someone wishes to bring up other instances shoot me an ask.

So in conclusion,

I do not see how it is abusive. There are elements I do not like, and some parts that in my own relationship I wouldn’t be okay with. But in Percy and Annabeth’s relationship they have clear boundaries, they are both more than capable of stopping the other if they do something that upsets them. They have both shown fondness towards the others actions even if it is something that we don’t approve of in our relationships.

If Percy showed upset at her actions that would be different. But we literally see into his mind and he shows no upset at her words or actions. He is fond, he is understanding, and he responds to each instance of teasing with teasing of his own.

Notably I never see people saying Percy is abusive, only Annabeth.

I get a feel that people ask for flawed characters then crucify them if they’re not flawed in easily likeable ways. Annabeth is not a perfect character, I don’t like everything she does, but she is a realistic character and should not be demonized.

TDLR: Annabeth has never purposefully harmed Percy, and Percy has never purposefully harmed her. Neither have verbally/emotionally/psychological taken actions with the intent of harming the other when in their relationship or since becoming friends. There have been instances of upsetting the other but they talked and it clearly was not meant to hurt the other but because they themselves were hurting

Percabeth is not abusive

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btsficsforthehumble · 3 years

Text

adj.: 1. Modern, unfamiliar, or different

2. Not based on or conforming to what is generally done or believed

pairing: reader x ot7

genre: college au; angst, fluff, smut, poly, ot7

Summary: You begin your first year at a prestigious university, set out on achieving your academic goals when a series of men step into your life that change the way you view the definition of love.

A/N: Thank you to the glorious minjoonalist for this banner! Everyone give her some love <3

Part One

Warnings: none in this chapter

Word count: 2k

It’s your first day.

First day entering the world of higher education, on the path to betterment (or whatever the dean said in his boring introductory presentation). To tell the truth, you were pretty zoned out as various speakers talked to the thousands of students that would now become your peers. Those hard ass plastic seats were NOT conducive for attentive listening.

Regardless, you pushed through, and here you are, Monday morning, at 8:45 sharp, sitting in yet another hard ass plastic seat. This time however, you had a small wooden desk in front of you, in line with about a couple dozen others. This was your first class --- Calculus.

You were always good at math compared to the average student, however, being placed with the super smart kids all the time made you self conscience and at worst, made you feel stupid. You were too good at math for the standard curriculum, but felt too dumb for the advanced one. It’s no surprise that math quickly became your least favorite subject.

That hadn’t changed. You were dreading this class, even though you took calculus already in high school --- theoretically, it shouldn’t be that difficult. You knew however, that you had absolutely no willpower when it came to studying math. And considering the fact that you are now attending a prestigious university, one known for their STEM programs, you felt adequately nervous.

You glanced around the classroom, baron except for the desks and the large whiteboard covering the expanse of the front wall. A few other students showed up early as well, mostly looking either as nervous as you felt, or tired like they had just enjoyed their first weekend at college perhaps a little too much.

You yourself hadn’t gone too crazy, going to a single party on Saturday where you only had one drink --- lame even by your own standards. However, you were just getting to know your roommates, and felt it best to remain sober enough to keep an eye out on them or manage any situation this new environment would throw you.

You weren’t close with any of your peers from your high school that also attended your university, and it seemed your roommates were in the same boat. So, naturally, you all decided to go out together as new friends. They all seemed to be nice, and you got along well with everyone so far. You hoped that wouldn’t change.

You sigh gently to yourself while reflecting upon your less than thrilling weekend. You hope that one day you’d let yourself experience the wild college parties that you've heard about. You want to know what it felt like to get properly drunk and dance with a cute stranger without any worries in the back of your head.

Speaking of cute strangers, you take a glance around the classroom, steadily filling up with students. You might as well see if there were any hotties in the class that you knew you’d rather daydream about than pay attention to exponent integrations.

You spotted a boy sitting a ways away from you that caught your attention. His legs were stretched out in front of his desk, in a way that screamed “I don’t care if you trip over me, in fact, I dare you.”

His attention was glued to his phone, as he appeared to be taking snapchats --- probably for some obnoxiously beautiful girls, you thought to yourself, eyes rolling slightly. You had to admit though, he was quite attractive. He had dark brown hair, covering his forehead and slightly swept to the side. His eyes were a dark brown to match, and were quite cute. He had a nice nose and clear skin. His most striking feature was his lips however. He had lips that were larger than the average guy and they looked very kissable. And his frame was decently large, his shoulders wide and masculine, juxtaposing his cute eyes and lips.

You blushed at your own thoughts about the stranger across the room, knowing you were getting entirely carried away in your state of boredom. You still had five minutes until class was supposed to begin. You put away your own phone, which you were holding in your hands as some sort of social protection, in your backpack. You then pulled out your fresh new binder with graph paper, lined paper, tabs, dividers, the whole nine yards. You may not enjoy math, but organization always brought you some level of mental tranquility.

You pull out a pen just as you glance up to see a boy standing in front of you, with the brightest, thousand watt smile on his face. His backpack was slung over one shoulder, his hand in his jeans pocket. He had on a loose tee-shirt that somehow flattered his slim frame. You could tell that he wasn’t a meek first year still finding his bearings. He must be at least a second year. You feel your face heat up as you make eye contact, seeing that he’s looking directly at you.

“Hi there! Is this seat taken?” His eyes widen almost comically as he points to the seat directly in front of you.

“Ah no, no it’s empty.” You cringe internally as you notice your less than relaxed delivery.

He gives you another dazzling smile as he plops in the seat in front of you, pulling out his own simple notebook and pencil.

You rub your forehead trying to get yourself to calm down. You need to not turn red every time a cute boy talks to you, let alone look in your direction. This is so not like you.

You manage to calm yourself down, ready to begin your first class so your attention is off the boy sitting in front of you.

Your professor must have walked in as you were mentally reprimanding yourself, because you hear an authoritative man's voice come from the front of the room when 9 o’clock hits. You immediately began trying to pay attention, writing down all of the information he put on the board even though it’s stuff already in the syllabus. The truth was that you simply needed to throw yourself into a task to keep your mind from straying back onto the boy in front of you.

About seven minutes later, the door to the classroom swings open and another boy walks through, giving the prof a quick salute and grin in apology. You, as well as the rest of the class, had naturally turned your eyes towards the distraction. As soon as it was found to just be a straggler, everyone’s attention quickly shifted back to the professor in front. Your curiosity was piqued by his confident, goofy nature, however.

You couldn’t help but keep your eyes on him a moment longer. He had shaggy dark hair, tanned skin, and a smile that was strikingly unique as it was a little bit of a square shape. He was devastatingly handsome, and you had a feeling he knew it too. Your hypothesis was instantly supported as he made eye contact with you, noticing you looking at him longer than your peers. He flashes a smirk your way that you’re pretty sure could knock anyone’s panties off.

You mentally start screaming and feel yourself turning the color of a freaking fire truck. You quickly jerk your head back down to your notes and refuse to look back up to meet his eyes.

It appears he wasn’t going to give you a break though. You felt the air woosh past you as he walks down your aisle and stops immediately behind you, taking the empty seat.

Great.

Now, you were sandwiched between two guys that you're pretty sure were the most attractive you’d seen in a long while. Not to mention the guy several rows over that you were ogling before they even arrived. You quickly realized that there wasn’t a chance in hell your full attention was going to be on the lecture during this class.

Your entire body sagged with relief when your fifty minute class was up and the professor released everyone. Noticing, the boy behind you leaned forward and huskily whispered, “You’re not a morning person either, huh?”

You froze for half a second at the sound of his voice. It was deep and silky, and my god was it sexy. And he was talking to you.

“You could say that.” You were shocked at his attention but somehow managed to pull out a response that didn’t make you look like an idiot. You didn’t bother turning around to look at him as you answered, deciding not to let him see how pink your cheeks were as you returned your items to your bag.

He let out a little chuckle and stood up.

“I’m Taehyung. And you, my little night owl, are?” He drew out the are waiting for your response.

You too stood up, putting your backpack on.

“I, Taehyung, am off to my next class.” You were annoyed that he seemed to take notice of your attention on him in the beginning of the class and thought that you were a fun little target to flirt with. You knew he wasn’t interested, but merely found it fun to take advantage of his good looks. This allowed you to get over your schoolgirl crush behavior and return to your normal self, which you knew had more of a bite than necessary at times. You had developed a tough edge at a young age and you think that it has protected you a lot already in your short life.

He raised an eyebrow at the sudden appearance of sass and gave you another grin. You simply rolled your eyes and turned on your heel to march yourself out of the classroom, joining the other students that were filtering out. By the time you had turned around, the cute guy with the smile that made your heart melt had already left. You were slightly disappointed to your own chagrin. Why on Earth are you paying attention to boys when you knew you had other priorities? It’s not like anything would come of it anyway.

Throughout high school, you steered away from boys in a romantic sense and they more than happily did the same. You knew you were intimidating, as you had a sharp mouth and quick wit. No one messed with you and you liked it that way. You had kept to yourself, and kept your grades high. You just didn’t have any interest in the boys you’ve known since you were a kid.

As you walked to your next class, you silently cursed yourself for not being cool and collected the entire period. Where was that icy exterior that you had curated for years? How did a simple smile from the boy in front of you turn you into a puddle? How did that annoyingly hot guy behind you manage to blindside you at first?

You nearly stopped in your tracks and groaned when you realized that you had that class every. single. day. It was five credits, so that meant Monday through Friday, you’d be there 9 in the morning, attempting to not think about the cute boys around you.

You were giddy deep, deep down that such cute guys were in your class but the more level headed side of you knew it was in vain. It’s not like they’d go for you or anything. And besides, they would only distract you from the class that you already knew was going to be a struggle.

You pinched your eyes shut when you slid into your seat in your next class.

You had a feeling it was going to be a long semester.

#BTS #ot7 #ot7 x reader #poly ot7 #fanfic

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hatchetfieldtheories · 3 years

Text

Return to Hatchetfield-Town - TGWDLM Part 2

Oh my god, we’re back again. Brothers, sisters, everybody sing – wait no

It’s TGWDLM part 2! Today we talk about coffee, those police siren sounds and we begin looking into Hidgens… god help us. It also features a new theory I haven’t actually posted on the blog yet.

Also, please let me know if you’re enjoying these. They do take a lot of time, but they are a lot of fun to put together.

Part 1 | Part 3

Reality is falling apart as I stand here today… I guess it’s time for a coffee break

This is how I have entered every Starbucks I have ever been to.

Hey Starkid, when can we get a full version of the Black Coffee song?

Has it been established yet whether Nora and Zoey had already been infected when they were teaching Emma the new tip song. If yes, why did they just teach Emma the tip song and not infect her? Just to embarrass her mid-song when she didn’t know the rest of the dance? Or…

Thomas Sanders Voice – Theory Time

So at the end of Part 1, I established that the Hive had picked Paul to be their Hero, their star, way, way, early on at the start of their apotheosis. Once we move into Let It Out/ Inevitable I’ll talk about this more, but basically – there is a reason they want Paul to survive the start of the show. There is a reason the infected (and later McNamara) keep pressing him on what he wants. They need him to want something, so that they can get what they want, because that’s how the Worrisome Wombles (LiB) work. They want him to want to destroy them, so he can be with Emma – that’s his drive. They’re very aware that without a want, they may not be able to manipulate him to do what they need.

Therefore it’s very possible that if Nora and Zoey had been infected early on, yet hadn’t infected Emma, it was because they were sure Emma would be the “thing” that Paul wants – they want their star of the show and they think they know who they can use to get it. /End of theory

Promise me you’ll think about the implications.

@abiimaryy can I just post your one post that perfectly encapsulates that Starkid definitely did not think about the implications of that line when they wrote it? We’ve all long gone past the point of no return.

“Cup of Roasted Coffee” is track 4 on Now That’s What I Call Coffee. “Poisoned Coffee” is the album hidden track that you must play 20 minutes of silence to find. Is this an old person reference now?

I also fully believe the coffee shop patrons were already beginning to be infected when the song began. Sure they were poisoned and their coffee contained the blue goo but the “in-time coffee cup dancing” and exaggerated synchronous sips is just too on the nose. Their infections begun, they just needed that dose of poisoned coffee to kill them off to fully take them over.

At this point the Hive are still not particularly violent – ignoring the fact they kill three men with poisoned coffee in broad daylight.

The cat is clearly not a secret Eldritch being

There’s nothing I love more than a fourth wall break, and Starkid have regularly establish fourth walls do not exist in their universes. I can’t decide which is more telling of some kind of Hatchetfield link with the audience, Jon and Lauren wandering through the alley, or Joey giving the audience member an apple. There is a wonderful theory that the audience is part of the B&W which @wolvesandvoices put into words here: x

“I didn’t think about the implications!” – me thinking back to that time 12 years ago when I discovered something called Harry Potter the musical by someone called Starkid. They were a funny group of people – wonder what they’re all doing now.

Paul’s work friends one by one popping out of the trash cans is hilarious, but its notable again that Mr Davidson was infecting people in his office – Bill notes that people kept coming out singing. On my first watch I didn’t really take note of this, and just assumed Paul got out of the office before Mr Davidson could infect him, but taking into account the theories mentioned above and previously, this line just reaffirms that the Hive do not yet want Paul infected.

Who is the latte hottay? Answers on a postcard.

These aren’t spirit fingers... THESE are spirit fingers

Ted really doesn’t fully grasp the severity of what is happening around him. The police are singing at you Ted, I don’t think they’re too fussed about your ID.

I don’t really have much to say about Show Me Your Hands – it doesn’t really add much to theory fodder until the end. That’s not to say I don’t love it, its one of my top songs in the show (tho I think all of the songs are in my top songs… I’m very indecisive). Shout out to Mariah’s dry delivery of “the cat is dead” and Robert’s siren noises. My sincere hope is that in a future Hatchetfield production there is a need for a siren sound effect, and it is just a recording of Robert.

Charlotte touched the brain. The blue brain. The brain covered in goo. Pokey’s blue goo. I’m sure that’s fine and has no ramifications later in the show.

It is at this moment on my first watch that I realised how much Charlotte’s voice in this show sounds like Judy Garland.

Oh Hidgens. He’s finally arrived. Does he need an introduction? From what I have seen from a lot of posts as people discover TGWDLM, a lot of people know about Hidgens before they even know what the show is about. Which you know what, fair. I’m sure Hidgens would be thrilled to discover his legacy. I feel like it’s obvious, but I am assuming Robert intended Hidgens to sound like Doc from Back to the Future? Hmmm, a kooky “academic” who has an accident and ends up with a vision of something that could change the world. Great Scott!

Hidgens, my dear, please don’t gesture to yourself while holding a gun.

Ok, so Hidgens theorised this exact scenario thirty years ago. I believe it has been established this happened when he was struck by lightning. Now, lightning is used a LOT in Hatchetfield shows, and I did mention briefly here, that it could possibly be a play on the trope that in books and movies, the “creature comes alive” from a bolt of lightning. Certainly the meteor is accompanied by a storm, which does make me believe that Hidgens was granted the vision by someone from the Black and White. Theories:

Pokey sent him the vision because he knew that it would entice Hidgens eventually due to his love of musical theatre.

Webby sent him the vision in the misplaced hope that he would work on finding a solution

I also found a tweet by Nick which states that initially Hidgens was supposed to talk about the 1518 Dancing Plague which honestly – what does this mean. Was this plague originally intended to be an early attempt by Pokey to infect the world?

Hidgens touched the brain. The blue brain. The brain covered in goo. Pokey’s blue goo. I’m sure that’s fine and has no ramifications later in the show.

I posted a while back about the concept that Hidgens actually got infected early in the show, which has further implications for the likes of Charlotte also, but for now I’ll just post this really succinct theory by @westcoastbroadway: x

Hatchetfield High Homework:

What other songs would feature on Now That’s What I Call Coffee?

Consider an AU where Prof Hidgens and Doc Brown are swapped. How different would TGWDLM and Back to the Future be?

Once again, follow the wonderful people mentioned in the post.

See you in part 3 for Charlotte Theories and sad Bill time.

#the guy who didn't like musicals #tgwdlm #hatchetfield #hatchetfield theory #hatchetfield theories #starkid would totally do this #team starkid #return to hatchetfield town

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fuckinglovemanga · 3 years

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Yes, I hate Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist.

Ok this is a bit random for my blog but I just have to say this shit somewhere cause since I first saw this film last year I have yet to find anyone with my take on it who has reviewed it.

Ok so a common criticism of this movie is that it’s misogynistic. And it definitely is. But not for the surface level reasons that people seem to think. I don’t see a lot of people trying to engage with the thematic core of the film. Lots of feminists have criticized it for depicting fgm but it goes way deeper than just that. The reviews I have seen seem to take one of two routs: 1) This film is a masterpiece of cinema, a mystery that we will never know the answer to or 2)The film is weird and gross and I don’t like it.

Nature

So what’s the movie about? Well, here’s my interpretation, and I think it makes quite a bit of sense given what the Trier presents us with. I think this film is trying to make a statement about “human nature”, and the nature of men and women. Eve’s road towards insanity begins when she prioritizes her orgasm over her child. That starts a downward spiral of insanity, which culminates in her castrating her husband, and then herself. This demonstrates an inability to reconcile a woman’s sexual desires with her motherly instinct. Also, the famous scene in which Eve becomes “one with the green” is symbolic of her letting her natural instincts take over. What follows is her spiraling into insanity and acting completely irrationally while her husband’s attempts to reason with her fail. So women= irrational and men=rational. And then Adam sees a fox that tells him “chaos reigns”. In the end of the movie, chaos (aka the natural instincts of humans) does end up taking over, as Adam kills Eve by burning her (we’ll come back to that). If all that talk of humans’ biological instincts reminds you a bit of Freud, that’s intentional. The film namedrops him at some point, saying that he has been debunked. However, the film’s narrative seems to be in support of his ideas. Unless of course the whole thing is being sarcastic. We’ll come back to that too.

Witches

During Adam and Eve’s stay in the cabin, Eve is working on a paper on the burning of witches, which she calls “Gynocide”. For context, there are a number of academic writings, most notably Silvia Federici’s “Caliban and The Witch” claiming that the witch hunts were in a way, the beginning of modern misogyny, as they set traditional gender roles in stone by marking everything women did that wasn’t related to breeding and child rearing as immoral and “satanic”. The witch, as a figure in our culture, represents a woman out of line, grotesque, insane, the opposite of what a woman ideally should be. Not only is the witch infertile (old, unattractive and generally disgusting), she also murders babies (see?) and uses their blood in satanic rituals that allow her to fly. The broom is a symbol of domesticity used in a twisted and unnatural way. I think it’s safe to say that, within the contest of “Antichrist”, Eve is the witch. As the name Eve suggests, the character is meant to be an avatar for all women, her witchiness an underlying element of all women. But Trier doesn’t present this in such a one- dimensional fashion.

Eve’s internal struggle

Eve seems to have two sides to her. Her sexuality is demonstrated as contradictory to her motherhood, a contradiction she herself cannot reconcile. She hates herself for putting her sexuality over her child. In fact, the sheer amount of self- hatred leads her to cut her own clitoris. Notably, she says: “The witches deserved to die”. Now, this is where the core of the film’s misogyny lies. Trier is projecting his own misogyny onto the character of Eve. It is men who are unable to reconcile sexuality with motherhood, because they perceive women in general based on their perception of their mother. Preforming fgm on women, is a result of the patriarchy, of man’s desire to castrate women, to remove their sexual pleasure, in order to control them. There never were any witches, men created the concept of the witch, and killed millions of innocent women in the process. Eve’s self hatred doesn’t make sense if we go with this interpretation, as it’s not internalized misogyny. It comes from her, not from male influence. Essentially, Trier absolves himself of misogyny by projecting it onto his female character.

Freud

So, the reason why Freud’s theories are no longer considered legitimate is because they take societal things (such as women's’ desire to escape a misogynistic society by adopting male social roles) and attribute it to “nature” (women have a subconscious desire for a penis in order to sexually subjugate their mother the same way their father does). Freud took social roles for granted and tried to explain them with some bonkers conflict between instincts (id) and society (superego). But humans’ biological instincts are a load of bullshit, as they have are not acknowledged by sociologists and social anthropologists, and there is zero scientific proof for their existence. This narrative is actually pretty dangerous because it leads us to believe that opressive social roals are fundamentally unalterable, a product of nature.

Conclusion

The film ends with a bunch of modern women walking in the woods after Adam’s burning of Eve. The whole thing is meant to signify that, after Adam and Eve followed their “natural” paths, the modern woman was born. And the critics gasp “Oh my how unbelievably deep and profound”. So, as I have hopefully demonstrated, it is none of the above. Rather, it’s shallow, stupid and dangerous in terms of its messaging. But is Trier trolling everybody and being sarcastic throughout the whole film? He did say he enjoyed seeing people get angry at the film. I did some digging, and fond out that Trier actually wrote the film during a time of depression, while he was struggling with various mental illnesses. That doesn’t seem like a state of mind that produces a sarcastic work for trolling the masses. Also, the filmmaking echoes serious emotion to me. But hey, I don’t know. In fact, we’ll never know. But I had to say all this, someone had to. We must redeem the witches.

#antichrist #lars von trier #horror #analysis

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queenofallwitches · 3 years

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an update and primer:

so the last winter was weird. I had a complete breakdown, went into psychiatric hospital for 40 days in total. two seperate times.

learnt a heap of new things, met a tonne of cool people and had amazing conversations and few fights but overcome my own demons by that.

brain speaking-I have a scarred brain stem and neurological disorder is not a mental diagnosis, but a neurological disorder, proven by MRI scan, ADHD.

also damage to my basal ganglia, and prefrontal cortex.

neurological diagnosis means ADHD is not a "mental" health issue, as some believe, rather a neurodevelopment disorder caused by structural differences in the ADHD brain.

other neurodevelopment disorders include: Tourettes, Autism, Cerebal Palsy, Dyslexia and other Motor and Intellectual Disabilities. (Which recieve, in my view, a lot of insight, media information and stigma reduction by the advocacy networks surrounding these types of disability).

Over the last few years Autism has been over everything, I've seen mainstream media cover Tourettes and yet ADHD is still HUGELY misunderstood, misconceived and misrepresented in media, be in from the angle of documentaries, personal insight of a "typical" case, films, tv, and other media.

one of the first things my dr told me was "in females it rarely presents as hyperactive red-cordial OD child"

which is what my mother BELIEVES, that is because I have an adopted cousin with the ADHD dx who was that growing up, but the representation I'm told is also divergent for women with a higher IQ score than the average IQ. I come in around 142 and tested 123 at age 3 when I was unable to focus, pay attention and had severe trauma. I tested 142 in grade 8.

I'll share my experience as a female who is intellectually gifted, with higher IQ than average, and an adhd brain:

I've been told gifted and talented "genius" children are harder to diagnose because the symptoms present differently, we hide it better (camouflage) and our focusing can be "faked" by mediocre efforts of academic success.. this is true, I would do the assignment the Sunday night hours deadline, last minute, or have my parents half do it for me, plagiarise it (fuck I've killed my whole academic career now) copied but changed my words

from old 1970s encyclopaedias I KNEW they couldn't cross reference (I went through 15 years of school never studying doing homework or assignments and still had top grades).

I literally did not listen, and spent my classes planning the end of the world survival strategies with my GT friend who, basically helped me with my calculus and hard fucking maths, which was the ONLY 50 minutes of the day I put attention into my work.

now I'm going to be heading back to full-time study in the coming months, I get anxious as the pressure of a Bachelor level degree, and the pressure it takes me to perform, is enough to break me down. I've been advised it might be wise to start light (like a basic vet style diploma) and then build up, which is logical, but I keep thinking I'm meant to be doing my thesis by now. which is the kind of pressure one gets as a kid who is told repeatedly, "your intelligence is exceedingly the average and you can do ANYTHING you want"

I wanted to be an astronaut, a storm chaser, and an architect, a town planner and then a journalist. I always held to being a "FBI agent" or spy (I wonder why). so when I found psychology is really a blend of all these things, I kinda found a niche in a psych and social science double degree. but I'm thinking my academic career is LIFELONG, and due to the fact I also want to work in my field alongside my many written thesis coming, I'll be in academics for a long time. I may fail a few things, which I have to come to terms with. I do not fail easily, or readily, but I'm a perfectionist type-a academic who will put my whole life on the line to achieve "merit". I get exams, I get assessments, I read journals super-easy, I talk the talk and walk the walk so well psychologists who are at masters level compliment me on my "knowledge".

when it comes to mental health and trauma, I will always have the personal attachment, called lived experience, which will make failure and burnout, 100 percent realistic. I have to boundary up, bootstraps on, and prepare that yes, my personal "bias" will probably be entwined in this.

which is why I'm looking at the social science for the statistics and thesis writing side of things, and the counselling for the trained therapist side. either way, the degree of counselling requires so much self-insight, and then the social-science will back me away from personifying it. the other choice is criminology, which leads to forensic psychology, which is eternally fascinating. my main concern is the pro-pedophile content Ill be up against, which will look at the anatomy of a shoplifter akin to the devil, and leave the pedophile in the DSM-5 dx "paraphilia" box.

I'm not joining or jumping to anything.

either way I've got 2 year of credit, a heap of pathways and a lot of "academic momentum" from all my life being aimed to be "academic powerhouse". I went through my files and found a lot of awards I'd won in my high school, and top place in the competitions we would be entering in. I remember feeling so sad if I had a "credit" vs a distinction or high distinction, only to see now, a credit in university maths in year 9 is a skillset I don't have anymore so, good on me. or a credit in English, or Science at that age was pretty impressive, considering these tests were random and not studied for.

just a general skills assessment only the top 30 kids in the year were to take on a year by year basis and put out to vet from the top universities and taken by other kids in the same grade around the state.

it puts so much focus on my intelligence, because it's primed to be that way, I know that is true. I know I feel good being academically successful and it gives me a feeling of "achievement" but is it really for me?

I also found 2 letters from my local politicians offering me job placement, work experience and I was 1/4 kids in my 10th grade graduation tom get the letter, and due to my behaviour I pissed ALL the idiots who bullied me off. I was "too pretty to be a nerd" "too smart to be pOpUlAr".

so I made a group of misfits, who are all highly intelligent, creative and my group had the ONLY gay male in the school AND THIS IS BEFORE YOU FUCKING RETARDS MADE IT "COOL". he was bullied badly, so fuck you, you fucks claim "liberalism" but I bet you were the type of idiot who bullied guys like him in high school while you pretended to like my chemical romance and fake cut yourselves. I hate you all, forever.

my grade was full of idiots who were fake emo, who left the scene the moment the scene changed to dub-step and club music. I was there, watching you all, like sonny Moore, went from FFTL to that dubstep skrillex shit he started in 2009.

I dated you, hooked up with you and I went to your gigs. I know who was real and who was fake. I met some of you years later and realised the more emotive ones were the less "alternative appearing".

I can say 1/10000 emo guys from the 00s were genuinely Into the music and scene for the right reasons based on my dating history and this can and will be analysed statistically using SPSS one day to prove a lot. I've had too many relationships from each sub-culture and I have had 4-11 males at a time per public "output" of my energy pursue me over life.

I'm not being cocky when I say I have a long line of "suitors" and its banked back about 50 men. it's been a thing I've avoided as it seems to grow based on my body shape, attitude, appearance, so I am currently out of touch with dating scenes, no interest to try that ANYWAY, given the fact that I have had so many LONG TERM relationships ANYWAY. I can't see another one going well, and at this case, I'm living with an ex but we never went on conventional and now our families label this 3 things: "asexual", "polyamorous" and "open relationship". I'm also "bisexual" but this all to humans outside, looks ridiculous on paper. (wild orgies and lots of swinging or some stupid sex magick probably is what J brother literally thinks we do).

bc humans are intrinsically designed to need to label things they don't understand. we share a lease, not a relationship, and fucking polyamorous, I WISH. there are no girl-girl-guy 3 some, or orgies, or sex magic parties.

this has changed the attitude and perception of this "relation' which Is non-romantic, non-sexual. he can date and likely, will, as can I , and I likely won't date.

I would say 14/15 have had ADHD, or other mental illness and or trauma. which means to me, nothing at all.

I think this "open book" non romantic relationship style of "friends and roommates" not sexual.

attachment is misunderstood by others but works well fro my adhd, meaning I'm not expected to marry, or be a wife in any capacity. he is free to do what he wants, as I am, and open communication is a novel frontier I brought into this in the start, and stayed with for the duration. we fight, but I fight with a lot of people in my life over many petty things. also down to my adhd, I believe, I have rejection sensitive dysphoria, which makes me hypersensitive to rejection, perceived or real.

im not sure if this is trauma or adhd or both. but

I have used sexuality as a weapon in many relationships but it cannot or will not be used here, so I have had to resort to uncovering parts of myself which I never knew, which will stay with me even if he decided to marry and wife up in 5 years, which I'm okay and expecting him to do, and I would much rather that then be trapped in a situation where I cannot be that "wife/mother archetype" as I'm too "femme fatal/other-woman/sex-laced seductress and siren" a "FWB, unicorn, drug buddy, hook-up where im a therapist" or "intellectual and cognitive mind-bender work-study obsessed woman".

both at once and many types of human, including one who is a full-time ceremonial magician of 7 years. I will drink, drug, fuck, fight like males and still be more feminine and high maintenance than 89% of women. I grew up a tomboy and don't mind getting into fun, adventure based situations, like hiking, or anything adrenaline, I would only be reluctant to eat weird shit.

I also have many "neurological" issues including ADHD, and trauma which causes a rupture in the average human and I dating.

I'll tell you how many men have said "you are the unicorn" and then realised what that means, I went as far as canvasing the PUA world back in 2014 after reading the game, a book on PUA, which is essentially, pick up artistry, based on NLP and hypnosis. I did this after reading the copy my ex in 2008 handed me before we dated saying "I gave this up for you". it took me years to open the book, buy when I did I truly believed the only way I would fall in love again, was through PUA. that failed in so many ways but gave me a training foundation for men who were candidates for that, I have trained up J, and the way that sounds is BAD. I know, but I got a lot of value myself, I just don't see it how I wanted to see it.

but that was my original intent, and I achieved this he knows that, knew it was happening and evolved for the best self.

I am thinking we can modulate this into a business model for how I was operating in the BDSM world was mainly psychological, not physical.

I get told all of is incredibly intimidating (I am told) to women and men.

I don't really care anymore, because people have always seen this part of me in the wrong way ANYWAY, but I own who I am NOW. which is what I needed ANYWAY. so it cannot be stolen again, and sexual healing has come from abstinence ironically.

I also don't care what or who is trying to tear up my relations, toxic or not toxic, all people around me will be on a healing journey by default, or cut out of my life, for I am radiating that energy so brightly its impossible NOT to feel that pull.

I will drag your shadows into the light, and make your secrets spin from your lips into my consciousness. its not what I do but its what is design.

I make your weaknesses mountains to climb over. you cannot hide from these in my presence, I won't be this controlling or obsessive female who wants 24-7 attention as I have a life full of meaning without love or sex. I don't want to be wined, dined or expensively gifted, unless specially requested.

I don't want love letters or romantic declarations, this isn't some femnazi bullshit, but it triggers me. I appreciate the efforts and won't make you feel bad about your insecurities, for mine are probably 30 x more pronounced.

I appreciate small things, that most males won't or don't know how to do. like remembering things I've said and being thoughtful. or knowing my silence isn't personal, or a game, but a protective wall. I've had songs sung too me, guitars played, songs written, or things made in ways that are heartfelt. but I've always had them used against me too. so it is the context. I value time, energy, conversations of depth and reciprocal exchange. I also value trauma understanding, my alters and fragments being accepted and valued as me as a whole and a person who is not afraid, or scared of stupid stuff like sensitivity, emotions, feelings as raw as my own. men feel intensely too, lol.

but will only give oral sex 100 times before I don't recieve it, I can communicate now so that wouldn't happen.

but I won't be a bitch about this stuff. I am extremely feminine and care in ways other people, do not, I forget nothing people tell me, so it can be a reward or reverse uno card pull in a fight, but I am not evil or deviant in my relations. I react, depending on how you treat me. I don't need your money, or providing source of income to be okay as I am my own queen, however sharing resources is okay to build something. I don't need to be seduced, but will need to be shown a person is trustworthy.

few cross that.

that will always be time-endurance and testing. there are ground rules I don't play with, or play games. or like being forced or forged into something I'm not. I know abusive and I know safe, and I am a psychology expert, trained psychotherapist and study humans for fun, so I'll always be analysing things.

and I know red flags and I know ego, I know how to placate and please and pleasure, but will only do so, for a bigger and better reason than the mere act of seduction. which is without value and transactional to someone like me, I won't lie.

and I know every tactic in the book, for the book was written by someone like me, many lives ago, and my karma is being burnt for that book.

in terms of walls, I have many, may it be called a maze. or labrnyth.

I will teach you things you never thought you'd know, and change your life in ways you won't ever be able to go back to before. I will blow your mind, sexually, emotionally, intellectually, on all levels, and I'll make your friends and family love me.

I'll bring your walls down and you won't be able to understand this, because you don't understand me, and thats ok.

but I'll always understanding you and make your life better because thats what I do anyway, and people talk to me about things I will never share, as I keep secrets. I am jealous, of everything but, only because I am attached in a disorganised way, and working on that.(I won't even mention how man women or men don't know basic psychology of themselves). I also am a therapist , for my friends and family too.i should not be , but I am. I care, I listen, If you think I'm not listening, I'm still listening. sometimes I interrupt, because I have ADHD and I am horrible at resolute planning, or being "normal". but I don't want to be normal anyway. I need you to recognise and understand my shit, for that is what I do for everyone in my life, and I have helped more than I receive.

I'll probably accidentally give you therapy, but thats fine, because you will uncover your depths and find meaning in this. it's not something that goes bad unless you are fundamentally, evil, even the most abusive relationship I was in, was benefited from this process. yes he's still narcissistic, but he is self-aware. and did I benefit, never, just know the anatomy of self-proclaimed narc and I still can't hate him. will get my civil claim one day.

I will fuck your mind without meaning too. but thats because I fuck my own mind. but the meaning is made in the man- some find this highly offensive or personal (its not). I fuck minds by my own overthinking, or over perception on many levels of reality. so join the ride, or don't come along at all. because once the rollercoaster is in motion, I have no control of what may or may not happen. it's purely experimental.

I am experimental.

and the women who are judging me, are not any better.

look within, and shut the fuck up. self-improve and quit this jealous divide and conquer bitchiness. I HATE gossip, bitches, snitches and fakers.

I look to other women who are intellectually, physically and spiritually "individual". and find value in superior status to my own, which is something my narcissistic ex taught me.

I look for mentors, and teachers and people who will teach me how to improve myself, which I am fearful to reconnect after something is amazing and I can't give anything back of positive value. I am sorry I am working on that.

I won't devalue those below me, but I also need to be mutually benefiting from a relationship.

I dont drag people down, I may disappear if I feel I am doing this by mistake. I am flakey as fuck, and sorry for that. its anxiety and lack of perfectionism, so I am wrong and bad for this. I can change. will change.

if you can find value with my relation, personal professional or romantic, we can move into a symbiotic beneficial agreement based on mutual "terms". but many won't or cannot see this, nor do I impose my bullshit into the lives of randoms at this age.

I don't care if this is cruel, it's real.

I value loyalty, compassion, self-insight/awareness, someone who understands all parts-spirituality, metaphysics while still having intellectual & logical & analytical brain-sight.

I enjoy music, magick and learning new things.

I do not care about appearances I dont think ive dated based on one time. I do value connections and chemistry which is far-few between, I hate fakers. I smell insincerity miles away. but I do respect women who are well-presented, or beautiful, with hair beauty and makeup, I can't do this shit well, so I look up to those who are in professions who do it like art. I find them to be genius level queens who scare me.

I call out bad behaviour and make people uncomfortable if they are repressed. I will change you without even meaning too, I don't even need to date you. its just my presence, over time, amplified by the intensity of the dynamics.

I don't want simplicity, but I also don't need over complexity.

I value passion, independence, creativity, curiosity, problem-solving, deep-disscussions, shared adventures and some occasional risk-taking (lol), sensuality and sexuality for a common cause beyond physical pleasure. I like being taught but not micromanaged. I need my own independence, and need to be trusted with that. I hate being scolded for that like a child, or being pushed to change my ways to conform to societal values. which I will push back and refuse to do. which is not healthy. I don't adult like many others do, but I try to proceed in other ways. and learn to adult like normal people, accept me.

I also value myself, and how I can be celebrated, enhanced and improved vs. the opposite.

I give space, and have boundaries, and understand human psychology, sexuality and relationships in ways few others unless they are trained, can do.

I value MY time. so you can have space to value YOURS. I dont need to be in anyones pocket for a long time. I love being alone, and being around people who are stimulating, but draining people will be drained out of my life quicker than I intend. I am sorry for the people who felt I disappeared, when I was only trying to be 'fair', if I feel I'm a bad influence, I will work on myself until I'm not. I'm still working on it.

I also use this psychology awareness, to enhance communication, connection. you may or may not become an accidental guinea pig. I will be upfront that I am experimental, but that is part of the buy ticket and take the ride. lets work together. not apart.

I am coming from a place of love, and love is what I feel for my animals, which you will be adopting as children.which I want to stop experiments being done on. I love love, in all ways, but hate cruelty of animals and children, violence and suffering. I dont advocate justice, because I find life is fucking cruel, unfair and unjust. by default, so I focus on myself. what can be changed, and what I am able to do in my own locus on control. I will always find myself drawn to the outsiders, the misfits, the vagabonds, the misunderstood. I want to help people who are society, or socially, disadvantaged by trauma and mental illness, but only when I have ability to help myself.

it's a journey.

I will not date anyone who is cruel to animals, outside of specify magical sacrifice, there is not any place for that. nor will I date or fraternise with anything or anyone linked or associated with pedophilia. I won't judge anyone on anything that are outside animal cruelty and pedophilia. I don't and haven't. I keep on good terms with every ex, bar 1 whom I only apologised too this year. it felt good to do that. I change my behaviour.

I am open, but also highly attuned to both logical, factual, empirical , scientific worlds, and spiritual, intuitive, psychic and the "collective unconscious". I walk in both these realms, and I am "conventionally attractive". which puts a lot of pressure on me, to be "stupid". I am always dumbing myself down to fit into normality, but I look ridiculous if I do that so I peacock my intellect.

only to be misconceived.

I give up because I no longer care how anyone but MYSELF can see ME. I won't dumb myself down , but I can enhance you UP. prepare yourself for graded education, evolution and self-growth on mass scales.sorry not sorry.

that sucks for the people who want to be living vicariously through me, for making up to lost trauma years, for family who sold me out for the success I'd bring home, or fake trauma enmeshed friends, or whatever they want or need from me. I value my time and energy, and have given that in abundance, and if you want to be with nut only "one part of me that is alters". I can't provide that now. not sorry.

I have to work on something or not be in a dynamic at all.

I no longer can switch on demand to adapt for you, it will not be effective and that upsets a lot of people. especially now I'm sober. harder to handle this, as I see the world for its ways and why it is, more vividly. I haven't had alcohol for almost 2 months, although, I could drink, I haven't.

I can't do it, anymore. it, being, faking, my selves fronting to impress. I can't. I have no more left to give, and I'm expected by everyone to be a way I can't do it in the way they want.

I will go to another year long outpatient DBT, followed by 10 weeks of A-C-T therapy, and however many ECT OR TMS may or may not help. I'm told it won't (ect) work. but TMS, is something I am open too. but I am telling you, none of this psychotherapy, that will be based on dbt skills, day therapy, intensive skills training, recommencing my studying, and resuming "life worth living" will or can wipe the traumas I've "recovered" memories for.

I will also shut the fuck up, and tell nobody about this if you leave me alone, I told that to my family, and this is open letter to the watchers, stalkers and perps who read this openly as I track the hits on here and have 200+ visits a day every day for the last month. globally. no idea how or who you are but I think its the same people who called the police for the "ayreon song lyrics" seen to be a suicide not last October.

thanks for that wake up call, I have shut the fuck up, since December, more so now. I will burn the journals, or lock them up.

my recovery is not linear, not yet fully integrated and I trust nobody so I don't think my psychotherapy will be deep, I focus on things like ADHD AND my EDNOS. and dbt skills. I won't be talking about sexual traumas.

enjoy the update, and thanks for the "attention".

I have my goals, my work, my meaning and what my life should and could and will look like, but I will not share that with anyone. that means everyone right now.

I've been tested, traumatised and terrorised to the point of not-tolerant of anyone who may bring that back, and banish the fuck out of my sphere every moment I need.

take me as I am, or watch me as I go, which I will go, where I am not wanted I will remove myself, but I will find where I am celebrated because I create that.

I will rise up against all adversity every time but that is survival and that created a resilient and brave woman, in me. who will not be destroyed or decomposed by humans who are fundamentally fucking evil.

I gift you my truth, in progression, and give up the pain of the past.

3 notes · View notes

toyota-s · 3 years

Text

sequels (my hero academic, dabi/hawks, mature)

chapter two: four times hawks is told to shut up and one time he actually does

summary: Enji’s office smells like old man. Hawks doesn’t hesitate to impart this observation, whether or not Enji appreciates it.

Read chapter 2 via AO3 (recommended) or below the fold.

(Chapter 1)

—

When the words don’t start to flow after the official delay of his book release, Hawks starts to feel a little desperate. Superstitious, even. Where was he when the last went into a flow state? What was his routine? What happened to him that day? What did he eat for breakfast? Which shoe did he put on first?

He’s not sure how he’s going to talk Kamiji, or Enji even, into another delay if it gets to that point. Surely, they’ll wring his neck. Or worse, talk to him about his feelings. He’d much rather face the faculty tribunal.

Better get his shit together.

When he scrolls through his completed pages and his overall plot arc notes, he barely resists the urge to delete it all. Banish it all to the void of fragmented bytes on his disk drive, never to be seen again. Hightail it to the bar for one last drink before selling all his shit and fleeing the country.

Instead of going completely nuclear, he drifts into new browser tabs, distracting himself with his research (if you could call desperate Google searches that) into his encounter at the bar. Of course, it yields nothing. What coherent result did he expect from alt know-it-all with dermals?

It’s all so utterly unsatisfying.

He’s always had trouble waiting for things to come to him. Still, it’s a small city and an even smaller campus, and with Rumi and him both on the lookout, they have a chance at another encounter.

When retracing his steps doesn’t work, he considers the opposite. What if he did something so wildly different from his usual routine, it shocked his system into producing content?

What’s the opposite of his routine? He ponders.

He plans it out. Wake up before the sunrise, run five kilometers on the trail through the park, drink green tea, resist the self-destructive urge to push all of Enji’s buttons, eat at least one vegetable that isn’t a fried potato, write at least one thousand cohesive words at his apartment desk, skip the bar, and then crawl into bed before midnight.

Honestly? His doctor will probably hug him.

He’s on step two, running through Woodside Park and listening to pop through his twisted-up earbuds connected to the cracked iPhone bouncing around in his gym shorts pocket. The air is fresh and woodsy, the scent of damp cedar hangs in his nose as he turns the corner around the looping pavement, making figure-8s through the patches of trees. The cruciferous canopy overhead casts shadows through the trail, blocking the rays of sunrise.

While he passes the occasional additional jogger, the trail is mostly empty save for Hawks and the ache of his joints as his sneakers batter the pavement. After the atrophication from a month of drinking and grading papers, he’s impressed that he’s kept up a reasonable pace, a testament to his youth and natural athleticism.

He slaps a hand on the trailhead marker, his halfway point, and pivots to turn back. He shorts briefly when he spots movement in between the branches, maybe the faintest glint of silver. Pausing his music, he slows to a stop.

“Hello?” he calls, a little too hopefully.

No one responds. He only sees what he wants to see. He rubs his eyes once, squints into the distance, shrugs, and returns to the jog back to his apartment, tolerating the burn in his lung and vowing to cut back on the smokes when he wheezes through an incline.

After a shower, all his meals, a quick visit to campus, and the bus ride home he takes because his legs are too sore from the run to carry him home, the rest of the day passes in a blur.When he sits down at his desk, he queues up some quiet music and re-reads the last few disconnected pages of his work, cherry-picking in commas and semicolons where necessary.

Now, the next scene. He cracks his knuckles, sets his restless fingers to his laptop keyboard, aaaaand…

Fucking nothing.

Try as he might, he can’t picture the scene in front of him so clearly. He stares through a dull, oppressive fog, searches for color, and finds none. Cutting his losses and forging through, he splatters what minimal inspiration he can manage into the manuscript like a dull knife through a tomato. 492 measly words, scarcely a page in double space font. Did he use the word “just” too much? Probably.

“Uuuuuuugh.”

He lets out a groan and shuts his laptop. The clock across the room reads 2 am. He’ll need something more potent to shake things up. Something stronger than his neglected self-care routine.

“I wonder if a grad student would sell me mushrooms,” he says to the wall.

—

To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: Re: FWD: Weekly Update (Response Required)

Hawks,

When I add “Response Required” to an email subject line, I mean that a response is required. You’re the only one who hasn’t responded; please correct that immediately.

Less cordially,

Dr. Enji Todoroki Distinguished Professor of Literature Literature Department Chair, University Chief Executive Officer, Endeavour Publishing House

——- Original Message ——-

To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: FWD: Weekly Update (Response Required)

Dr. Hawks,

Please acknowledge this email and return the requested information at your earliest possible convenience or payroll will not be able to process your paycheck properly during the next pay period.

Thank you in advance for your attention in this matter.

Cordially,

Enji

Dr. Enji Todoroki Distinguished Professor of Literature Literature Department Chair, University Chief Executive Officer, Endeavour Publishing House

——- Forwarded Message ——-

To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: Weekly Update (Response Required)

Dear esteemed colleagues,

I am writing once again to inform you of the weekly housekeeping updates in and around the literature department.

Hiring & Tenure

Dr. Rumi Usagiyama’s tenure review is in progress. We have formed a board to make final decisions next month. Her department lecture will be open to the public; please see the attachment for scheduling details. Additionally, we are still collecting recommendation letters from selected students and faculty close to Dr. Usagiyama. Those letters will be due at the end of the week.

We are hiring for two adjunct positions; ideally these candidates will improve our department's student engagement and expand our expertise in Edo Period literature and modern poetry. We will consider several of our own current doctoral and postdoctoral students during this process.

Campus Safety Update

You may have seen the notification from our campus public safety department about the suspected arson in Woodside Park off campus this past week. Additionally, there have been reports of trespassing, theft, and vandalism both on campus and in the surrounding downtown area. Be vigilant and avoid traveling alone at night if possible. Make sure to secure your belongings and offices. If you observe suspicious behavior, please report it to mailto:[email protected].

Pay Update (Action Needed)

We are moving to a new expense vendor. Please set up an account with the new expense service at university.edu/staff/free-money. You will need to submit any and all expenses you incur, particularly research expenses, via the new service. If you don’t create the new account, your pay interval may be affected.

NOTE: You will also find attached to this email the list of upcoming department events in March and April. Please submit any edits to the schedule by Wednesday. We will advertise these to students beginning next week.

Warmly,

Enji

Dr. Enji Todoroki Distinguished Professor of Literature Literature Department Chair, University Chief Executive Officer, Endeavour Publishing House

Attached: schedule.pdf

—

Enji’s office smells like old man. Hawks doesn’t hesitate to impart this observation, whether or not Enji appreciates it.

“Eau de stale Camels, and golf shorts in here,” Hawks whines. “You need Febreeze. Maybe one of the cartridges that plug into the wall so you don’t even have to think about it. Man, that’s a good tip. I should go into consulting.”

“You have to know things to go into consulting,” Enji says curtly.

Hawks ignores him easily, used to the bite of his interactions with his department chair. He flits about among the sturdy mahogany bookshelves that line the room from floor to ceiling. Old money and expensive, the Todoroki brand. The shelves along the perimeter house Japanese classics, meticulously sorted alphabetically within the genre. Not a speck of dust settles on a surface, paper or wood.

The largest single bookcase behind Enji’s expansive and ornate desk houses various editions of his own novels, as well as thick, rare collectible tomes and the first editions of members of the faculty, many of them still in a pristine layer of shrink wrap from the campus book delivery service. The spine of Fierce Wings sits between those of Aizawa’s Erasure and Enji’s own Hell’s Curtain. Against the dark grain of the wood and shadows cast by the taller texts, the red and gold of the novel’s spine stand out, especially compared to the black and gray of Erasure and the smoldering burgundy of Hell’s Curtain.

Hawk’s own office, as little time as he spends in it, is a cesspool of assorted crap he received from colleagues or students. Birthday cards and tiny notes pinned to the wall next to his lamp. Mass-market novels and manga volumes crammed in what little shelf space he has. All the random t-shirts the administration or student groups have handed him draped over a metal fold-out chair. Boxes of dog-eared journals and anthologies shoved under the sofa. Gifts from students—a handmade mug, cans of tea, a fifth of fancy Japanese whiskey from a particularly enterprising pupil.

It’s a shame he doesn’t work at his office desk more often. If only he didn’t feel quite so self-conscious surrounded by achievements. He already turned his Nobel on its face so that Alfred couldn’t judge him quite so much.

Comparatively, Enji doesn’t keep knick knacks in his office. His degrees hang neatly over a glass case of his literature awards, medals and trophies settled in crushed crimson velvet. Only one item disrupts the endless rows of literature: a single photo, a frowning young boy, with ivory hair and azure eyes. Those pupils stare blankly into his soul and the whole presence of the frame, the only photo in Enji’s office, mind you, twists something faint up his spine. It totally skeeves him out.

Hawks has asked plenty of times before, abrasive as he is. But Enji didn’t like to talk about it, so he didn’t, and he let Hawks stew in the resulting uncomfortable silence. And who would Hawks be to judge a personal secret when he sat on a dumpster of them himself?

Hawks grabs a copy of Rashomon, leaning the top of the spine with the tip of his index finger and dropping the book into his waiting hand by the will of gravity. Enji sighs at his desk.

“That’s not how you properly remove a book from the shelf; you’ll warp the spine and ruin it.”

“Are you really telling me how to pick up a book?” Hawks replies, incredulously.

“Yes,” Enji grunts, pushing up from his work. “Many of the volumes in my collection are rare and valuable in their current condition, but only if treated correctly.”

“I think I know my way around a book, Enji. I can show you my degree but I’m pretty sure you wrote it yourself in PhotoShop.”

“I will demonstrate until you learn to touch my property correctly.”

“The beatings will continue until morale improves,” Hawks says, clicking his tongue and handing Enji Rashomon. “And believe me, I can keep my hands off your property. Don’t have to ask me twice. That’s between you and your wife.”

Enji sputters momentarily before resetting his jaw and pushing the short story copy back into its place among the other works of Akutagawa.

“You should start with working from an office or the library like a decent representative of the department,” Enji suggests without an ounce of sympathy.

“I’m committed to my brand,” Hawks insists. “And someone has to keep Rumi off the visiting faculty.”

“You have a smart answer for everything,” Enji says. “Yet you don’t have a solution to your book delay problem. You can’t even do us the bare minimum service of responding to your emails within three to five business days. It’s getting harder and harder to defend your performance to the rest of the publishing house.”

“I’m getting there. You can’t rush perfection.”

“You have a contract with us.”

“You’re the CEO! You can do whatever you want with my contract!”

“Oh, shut up, Hawks,” Enji says, shedding any remaining formality. He pinches the bridge of his wrinkled-up nose between his thumb and forefinger. There are normal migraines, and then there are Hawks-induced migraines, which are of an entirely different order. “I am showing you favoritism I wouldn’t show anyone else. It’s unprofessional. I should not let my history as your mentor cloud my judgment, but we’re already here. If Icarus flies a little too close to the sun, I can’t help him when he drowns. And I am close to letting that goodwill evaporate, the longer you carry on.”

“This is you being nice?”

Enji settles back at his desk and shuffles through his top drawer, pulling out a sheet of heavy cardstock paper, bearing the phoenix logo of Endeavour Publishing House at the top.

“This is a new contract. I had Kamiji put it together with our legal department. You have a new release date and another six months to turn in a draft manuscript to our editing team. This is the final delay we will grant you before you face legal repercussions for violating our initial contract.”

Hawks snatches it from the desk surface, scanning over the legalese. He frowns at the stark black typeset as if it’s taunting him.

“You’ll find the initial conditions for a minimum of 80,000 words and agreed-upon subject matter have remained. I’m even willing to look the other way if you meander away from the initial idea or turn in a very rough draft. Kamiji would rather turn sand into glass than air.”

Hawks swallows a lump in his throat. “This seems, uh. Prudent.”

He folds the thick stapled sheets into a square and shoves it into his coat pocket.

“Some of the best writing in the world comes from reflections on the writing of others,” Enji says, folding his hands over the leather pad on his desk and interlacing the fingers. “You’ve spent most of your career writing what you know. Perhaps it’s time for you to finally stop talking and start listening.”

Hawks opens his mouth, but then bites his tongue against the retort that naturally bubbles in his throat. He smooths the crease in his jacket that drapes over his elbow, ignoring the wicked sunburn of Enji’s expectant gaze on his forehead.

“Geez, Todoroki,” he says after a moment. “That’s actually kind of wise.”

Enji grunts.

“Good. Now get the hell out of my office.”

—

March & April Literature Department Calendar of Events

March 1, 20XX - Faculty Lecture

Dr. Rumi Usagiyama, Assistant Professor - The Women Who Won’t Shut Up: Modern Feminism in the Japanese Novel, 16:00 in Yagi Toshinori Emeritus Lecture Room, refreshments to follow

March 5, 20XX - Award Ceremony

Dr. Enji Todoroki will be awarded the Nana Shimura Faculty Fellowship for his outstanding contributions to the field of literature. Dr. Todoroki’s achievements include his work editing and publishing through Endeavour Publishing House and his own novel-writing, most notably Prominence Burn, Hell’s Curtain, and Impossible Dream, the latter of which was named a finalist for the 20XW Pulitzer Prize in Literature. The award ceremony will take place at 18:00 in the Campus Auditorium.

March 13, 20XX - Sophomore Major Declarations Due

Undergraduates intending to matriculate in literature study or creative writing concentrations must formally declare intent to major. Late submissions will not be accepted.

March 15, 20XX - Faculty Lecture

Dr. Tsunagu Hakamada, Associate Professor - Functional and Fabulous: Depictions of Queer Fashion in Edo Period Literature (1600-1846 CE), 10:00 in Yagi Toshinori Emeritus Lecture Room

March 29-31, 20XX - Spring Shakespeare Festival in the Courtyard

Performing arts, creative writing, and literature departments join forces to bring the bard to the backyard. The University Thespians will bring a Midsummer Night’s Dream to life at midnight each night of the festival in Woodside Park amphitheater.

April 12, 20XX - Mid-Year Undergraduate Advisory Appointments

Undergraduates must meet for fall semester planning with their assigned faculty advisors.

April 18, 20XX - Guest Lecture

Shouto Todoroki, Doctorate Student ‘XY - It Ends in Fire Or Ice: Depictions of the Apocalypse by Modern Poets - 18:00 in Yagi Toshinori Emeritus Lecture Room

April 30, 20XX - Last Day of Spring Semester Classes

Reading week will begin following the conclusion of the business day.

—

The literature building sits at the top of the hill, neighboring the well-known historic administrative building and looking out over the decrescendo of sprawling grass, the central quadrangle of the university’s campus.

In the winter, the campus is treacherous, minefields of invisible black ice and falling icicles. Hawks once left a meeting from the faculty lounge for a breath of fresh, biting air and observed an unfortunate undergrad tumbling ass-first down the frozen landscape. Students sometimes thieve plastic trays from the cafe and ride them down the sticky snow as makeshift sleds.

Hawks would be lying if he didn’t do that very thing one winter during his doctorate, naked aside from a Speedo. It wasn’t a dare.

Instead of challenging the inhospitable tundra of his campus after inches of snowfall, he instead strategizes. He weaves through the buildings, enjoying the back and forth of the cold, smoky outdoors and the humid warmth of academic building boiler rooms. He passes by the offices of instructors from other departments. Some names are familiar, probably from lectures or faculty-wide meetings.

Hawks enjoys comfort within his own academic circle. Rumi is his best friend. He gets along with Aizawa, fellow novelist and postmodernist, when Aizawa’s had a nap. Hakamada provides quick banter and is always willing to pose for an impromptu Instagram story. Torino and all the others like him well enough. Enji mostly tolerates him, this morning’s interaction aside.

But Hawks has never befriended faculty much in other departments. Outside of literature, it’s a fraught exercise.

His young age has always alienated him from the more senior professors on the hill who either view him as a prodigious child or a spoiled brat — whether they granted him hapless infantilization or mere jealousy, they did not easily regard him as a peer.

Failing to find companionship among his community put dating in a strange place too. The people his age? His students. Unethical and out of the question.

His first spin on Tinder after grad school left him deeply uncomfortable, seeing photos of his students left and right. Hinge, Bumble, even Grindr, all the same. Ever since he earned his doctorate and finished Fierce Wings, he made due with Dive Bar newcomers, the occasional guest lecturer or whoever the outside neighborhoods of his city could keep up with him. He formed no meaningful connections among them.

He often wonders if he should move to a bigger city and commute. Expand his horizons. Grow up a bit.

He figures he’s not much of a relationship guy anyway. Avoiding the stained legacy of his parents’ marriage is a necessity. Given the choice between his work and his relationship, he picks the former without hesitation.

His most recent relationship with a physics graduate student ended for similar reasons.

The round was on him. He had handed her a beer and settled into the booth.

“I’m breaking up with you,” she said.

Hawks lifted an eyebrow. “Oh? Do you not like hops in your beer? Because I can go get—”

“No, no. It’s you,” she said bluntly. “Do you want a relationship? Or a mattress closer to campus?”

He just laughed, mostly out of exasperation.

What else was he supposed to do when accused of emotional neglect so directly? Cry? Scream? Of course he didn’t much care for the critique, regardless of any veracity contained within; it wasn’t as though he had unknowingly invested so little in the relationship.

When she left Dive Bar, he gave himself a few minutes to shred the label off his sweating beer bottle. And after that, poof. Brain empty. He was at the karaoke mic with a drunken Rumi within the hour.

Rumi was the exception to his revolving door of relations. Of course, they were never more than friends; the vibes were all wrong and even if they weren’t, Rumi wasn’t interested in men. She never wanted to talk about the breakups much. She wasn’t touchy-feely like that.

A bottle in both hands, she let her actions do the talking and beat to shit any remaining dejection in his body. She tagged along, the lion tamer to his ringleader among his socially dysfunctional circus. Those nights, the pair made Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, PhDs. All the times he had to break up a fight she belligerently and obviously started, before he got kicked out of his own bar—he remembers them with nothing but fondness.

Months later, he moved a mile closer to campus when his lease ended. He refused to admit this to Rumi until the dust settled. He knew she’d laugh in his face, and the last thing he needed was more bruises to his ego.

He grins at the memories, mouth tucked under the fur trim of his parka. He approaches the student union, at the bottom of the hill and wanders into For Whom the Bean Tolls, the campus coffee roaster, sandwiched between rows of battered mailboxes and a Subway franchise. The bell on the ramshackle door announces his entrance; the sweet aroma of ground coffee welcomes him.

“Hawks! Welcome!”

Tokoyami waves at him from behind a row of espresso machines; his other hand clutches a half-empty carton of oat milk.

“Fumikage! I didn’t know you worked here.”

Hawks approaches the counter, thankful that the cafe is fairly empty. The tables along the perimeter of the are taken by singles plugged into their laptops and couples in quiet conversation over steaming mugs. Along the walls, dozens of framed prints and canvases pop against deep purple paint. They’re monochrome with broad brushstrokes and fine line details. He spots depictions of mostly birds — ravens, owls, finches, and crows.

When the avians aren’t the main focus, they dot the edges of gothic cathedrals, headstones, and clock towers. As he scans the room, he finds one splash of color, red watercolor bathing the individual feathers of a pair of wings and bleeding beyond the lines. With a warm nostalgia, Hawks recognizes the work as a recreation of the cover of Fierce Wings.

“You have picked a good time to come in. We completed the rush between undergraduate class periods just a few moments ago,” Tokoyami replies. “I have never seen you in here before. I did not think you appreciated coffee.”

“Mostly just the instant in the department lounge,” Hawks babbles. “I’m not a coffee snob by any means, but Hakamada makes a decent cup. But hey! It’s good to see you. It’s been a minute. Are these all your paintings?”

“They are.”

Of course they are. They ooze Tokoyami’s oeuvre, and the art style matches the abstract black tattooed vines along his forearms where they peek out of his cuffed black button down shirt.

Tokoyami fills a milk jug before stowing the carton in the fridge under the counter. He tips the jug in under the steamer wand, pausing the conversation to accommodate the roar of the machine.

“I have been selling them on the side while I am working here. It brings in coffee business and keeps my illustration skills sharp, so it is a mutually-beneficial arrangement with the manager.”

“I’m surprised to see you working here at all. Isn’t Endeavour taking care of you?” Hawks says, stuffing his cold-chapped hands into his waiting jacket pockets.

“Dr. Todoroki hired me as a contractor after my internship,” Tokoyami clarifies evenly, pouring milk over shots of espresso into a white porcelain mug. “My only contract so far is with your book, but the delay…” He trails off and Hawks averts his eyes guiltily, not ready to muster the energy needed to reap this sow just yet. His new contract burns a brand into his palm where it sits in his jacket pocket.

“I’m applying to some other upcoming projects though,” Tokoyami continues, more cheerfully, setting a finished latte on the edge of the bar. “I am certain I will find work in due time. Now what can I get you?”

“Ah, something caffeinated but not suicidal,” Hawks says thoughtfully, tapping his chin. “Maybe a doubleshot over ice?”

“Certainly. Give me a few minutes.” He busies himself with drawing shots of espresso.

While Hawks waits, he spies the line of flyers advertising events on campus and around town, stapled to the bulletin board on the wall at the end of the bar: recitals, comedy shows, movie screenings, features of a lively city, dynamic even in winter. His eyes land on a particular black and white handout: an open mic night at the used bookstore off-campus and across town.

All are welcome.

He thinks back to his conversation with Enji.

“Some of the best writing in the world comes from reflections on the writing of others. You’ve spent most of your career writing what you know. Perhaps it’s time for you to finally stop talking and start listening.”

It beats incessantly re-writing the same sentence of his manuscript. He snaps a photo with his iPhone. Close enough. If Enji’s words made up a homework assignment, this attempt would be passing with the barest effort. Disrupting his day-to-day with an amateur poetry reading beats his stranger routine-busting ideas: microdosing or coffee enemas.

“Here is your coffee,” Tokoyami says, setting the plastic cup on the bar. “There’s milk next to the sugar on the table by the door if you need it.”

Hawks pockets his phone and reaches for the cup. Tokoyami’s dark eyes watch him carefully, and he gulps down another sharp wave of guilt. He stabs a straw through the lid and sighs.

“You’re an amazing artist,” he says. “I know you’re going to find work soon, even if I’m throwing a wrench in your plans. Sorry about that, by the way! Things are a little, uh,” He recalls the two hours he spent arguing about the Oxford comma at the bar last weekend and frowns, “busy right now. I’ll hopefully have my act together soon and you’ll have your cover.”

“Hawks, I—”

Hawks babbles on. “I mean, I will have my act together. Shortly. I would do it now if I could! Geez, I can’t believe Enji isn’t paying you. I was just talking to him. If I’d known I could’ve torn him a new one for you. Not that he sets much in store by my revolutionary ideas—”

“Hawks, please—”

“—Anyway, I’ll fix this for you. I’ll talk to Enji and see if he can get you back pay. Or I’ll die trying. You shouldn’t be stuck here with a shit ton of student debt and a rescinded job; that’s bullshit. Seriously, I’ll talk to whoever you want, I’ll do whatever—”

“Hawks, please stop talking,” Tokoyami says, much more forcefully, and Hawks flapping lips press into a tight seam. “I enjoy my work here. I do not require your assistance.”

“Sorry. I really am.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. You are my favorite author of all time, but I am glad to know that you are a real human as well.”

Hawks grimaces at that. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

Tokoyami adjusts a wristband and smiles serenely. “I’m looking forward to seeing your work when you are ready to share it.”

—

∆ For Whom the Bean Tolls Coffee Shop ∆

♡ February Featured Drinks ♡

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Feeling romantic? This pink drink will put you in the Valentine’s mood

Espresso, cream, dark chocolate, cherry syrup, halved cherries, whipped cream and sprinkles

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Quad blonde espresso shot americano

Instead of water we use nitro cold brew because fuck your circulatory system; you got shit to do

Lavender Latte 600¥

Anxious? Insomniac? Need to detox from the heart attack drink?

Espresso, oat milk, homemade lavender simple syrup, dried lavender

We love tips!!! Please pay our tuition!!!

—

Something’s eating at her. Rumi’s hair hangs limply. The misery circus continues; Hawks cannot catch a break. Fuck all these fucking feelings, man. He really shouldn’t poke the bear, especially when she’s so visibly grumpy, but he’s never had a healthy sense of self-preservation anyway. He chooses violence.

“You know it’s Valentine’s Day, right?” Hawks says to Rumi over his microwaved lunch. “Did you get chocolates for me? Maybe something homemade?”

“Do you deserve that?”

“I’ve been a very good boy.” Liar, liar, pants on—

“Oh my god. Oh my god! Shut the fuck up! No candy for you until you finish my fucking recommendation letter,” she growls, between slurps from a noodle cup. She jabs a chopstick in the air, pointing at the space between his eyes. “I can’t believe you haven’t. It’s due in like twelve hours. Aren’t you on Team Rumi?”

“I’m the cheer captain of Team Rumi,” Hawks gushes hurriedly. “You know I can kind of do a backflip? I hooked up with the parkour captain in postdoc.”

She glares at him. When she returns the boreholes of her attention to her good, she’s nearly stabbing her utensils through the styrofoam. He’s not talking his way out of this one either.

“I kept forgetting to check my email, I swear,” he says, throwing up his hands defensively. “I thought I didn’t have to do all that shit since I didn’t have to deal with TAs and students and all. Enji called me into his office and basically held me down until I finished all the action items he wanted. And he served me a new binding contract. I think he’s trying to shock me into productivity.”

“I don’t have time to worry about your shit right now. Stay focused on my shit. We can gossip about Enji after karaoke at our usual time.”

“Right, right. He’s a total asshole. Whatever. But, long story short, it’s on my list now. I’m good for it.”

He gestures at his open laptop and the mess of his yellow legal notepad.

“It better be. I’m holding your tweed hostage until you do,” she says. “I got Tsunagu to sew it back up for me. It’s comfortable and it smells nice and I like it more than I like you.”

“Dior Sauvage. You’re welcome.”

“If you’re not careful, I’ll keep it forever. You’re at the very bottom of my friends list right now. If this were MySpace, you’d be off my Top 8.”

“I’m too young to know what that means, you hag.”

She sticks out her tongue, but the sharpness in her initial expression has melted over time. They chew in companionable silence. She flinches when he reaches out to peel a shriveled green onion from the corner of her mouth.

“Are you okay?” Hawks asks, quietly.

“I’m wearing about five layers of deodorant,” Rumi says. “It’s been holding up mostly okay so far.” She does a sniff check. “Emphasis on mostly.” She grimaces. “I’m about to have the craziest two weeks of my life. I’ve got faculty interviews, midterms and papers to grade, faculty lecture, rec letters…” She glares at him pointedly; he averts his eyes. “And my dumb ass volunteered for the women’s studies department faculty basketball team and I’m the only one over five foot two, so I am the team. Why did I do that, Hawks? Why do I say yes to every pretty face I see?”

“I know what you mean. Look, I’d play in your place but I think I’m missing a fundamental qualifier for the team.”

“I think they’ll take any warm body at this point,” she says, flopping heavily onto the table, head resting on her folded arms. Hawks grabs his coffee cup before it can topple over. “Speaking of pretty faces, any new info on that guy from the bar?”

“Negatory. Nothing but L’s today for yours truly.”

—

To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: Crime Notice

University Crime Notification (Case #468-94647)

What is this notice?

These crime notice emails intend to notify the public of crime on campus and in their area, in accordance with federal notification law. For more information, visit university.edu/cpd/read-your-emails

Location of incident

Administration parking lot, west-side

Summary of incident

On February 14, 20XX, graffiti was found on a reserved parking space. While some of the illegal trespassing was captured via CCTV cameras stationed outside the credit union, the perpetrators could not be definitively identified. The graffiti was covered up by members of the custodial staff.

Tips for avoiding crime

Be aware of your surroundings

Trust your instincts

Avoid traveling through parks after dark

Store valuables out of sight

Keep property well-lit and locked

Immediately report any suspicious actions

—

He wraps up and submits Rumi’s recommendation letter with time to spare. At least he can write something. And he does it all in his office, which, he is loath to admit, will surely please Enji.

Surprisingly though, Enji, the workaholic, isn’t there when he leaves. His office is dark and empty. Weird. Must be a meeting, Hawks thinks. He grabs spare copies of a few faculty novels from the conference room, stuffs them in his leather briefcase, and locks the door behind him, twirling the keys around his finger.

The trees rustle around the building. He feels a brief, unsettling tightness along his spine, like a pair of eyes watches him from the black spaces between tree limbs, but when he squints into the distance, all he sees are dim stars and foamy clouds.

“I gotta get more sleep,” he mumbles, pocketing the key ring.

He rewards himself with a trip to his favorite booth, nurses a beer, and waits for a familiar face, preferably a happier or at very least inebriated Rumi. While his notes are gathered on the table around

His phone buzzes with a text message minutes later.

harebrained (17:03): basketball practice ran late and im goin out w the girls ;) sry bb

So much for that.

The last hops from his glass are thick and sour on his tongue. His next drink from the bartender will be something sweeter, maybe with fruit juice and a cute umbrella on the side. He makes fun of Rumi for her sweet coffee, but that’s more about the adulteration of caffeine. When it comes to alcohol, he bears no shame in ordering the more feminine drinks. You only live once. Tying maraschino stems with his tongue is his party trick of choice, of course.

And this drink is a reward for surviving another day, finishing his obligations, before Rumi could break through his apartment window and beat him to a pulp in his sleep.

Somehow, despite the cloying sweetness of cherry and the tang of pineapple on his lips, the night still manages to get worse before it gets better when Aizawa wanders in, a walking tragedy of eye bags, tangled flyaway hair, and a borderline murderously decaffeinated expression.

Hawks leans into it anyway, because he’s nothing if not insufferable.

“Shouta!” Hawks calls out, raising his glass, and continuing in his most syrupy voice. “I was hoping I wouldn’t see you here! It’s past your bedtime!”

Aizawa, looking worse for wear as usual, gestures to Hawks’s open laptop and the crumpled and torn pages of notes from the yellow legal pad hanging off the edge of the sticky table. “We should talk about… All of this.”

“All of this?” Hawks repeats.

“Everything that’s going on here.”

“My work?”

“Or your lack thereof.”

Hawks takes a deep gulp of his pineapple crush, squeezes his eyes shut at the ensuing brain freeze, and braces himself for the incoming lecture he knows he’s about to receive. It’s not the first time; Hawks worked with Aizawa throughout his postdoc. He’s familiar with the intense discomfort of being on the receiving end of one of Aizawa’s well-intentioned but absolutely brutal pasquinades.

And so it begins.

“Enji’s not happy with you. He was ranting to Shouto about your generation. It woke me up from my nap.”

“Did he tell you to talk to me? He’s already been riding my ass all day about my emails and my contract and all my other shitty life choices. Fuck me, dude. With something rough and sandpapery.”

“Jesus, do they not pay me enough to talk to you,” Aizawa says, scowling at Hawks’s diction. “Of course, he didn’t put me up to anything. He did tell me to tell you to check your emails, but I don’t give a shit about that. No, this conversation is a courtesy to you. I have exceptional vision, and I know an impending trainwreck when I see one.”

“That’s pretty rude, don’t you think?”

“I’m honest, not nice. I don’t know why you’re eager to deny objective fact. I saw they delayed your book release again. They didn’t even bother giving a reason this time. What do you think your readers are thinking about that?”

Hawks flattens. “It’s depressing you think so little of me. I would never say—”

“I’ll wait ‘til you’re out of bullshit excuses.”

Aizawa sets down his beer and folds his hands on the table. His tired eyes drill tunnels into Hawks’s soul. The man doesn’t have a nonsense bone in his body, but he does have Hawks’s undivided attention. Hawks slumps against the back of his booth.

“Okay. What.”

“It’s okay not to open up to the people around you,” Aizawa says. “I don’t know your deal. But I read Fierce Wings. More than once. I know that was a work of fiction, and you’ve got your secret identity thing going on. But every writer bases their scenes and characters around what they know. There’s not a lot of good stuff that happens to the protagonist of that book, so I can only imagine the stuff you’ve gone through. If that’s all you knew, I mean.”

Hawks’s knuckles tighten over the handle of his pint. He knows where this conversation is going.

“It’s okay to take breaks,” Aizawa says. “Sabbaticals should be a time for decompression. And if you need someone to talk to about all of this, you can talk to me. About whatever you need. You have my number. Remember that time you and Rumi drunk dialed to ask if my fridge was running? Outstanding. Loved that for me. But I know you have it.

“Or you can find a professional. Whatever works. Getting through whatever is going on with you right now doesn’t have to be a solo exercise but it does have to be a priority. You’re falling into a trap I’ve seen plenty of times before.”

“I’m not an undergrad, Shouta—”

“Shut it, Hawks.”

Hawks winces. What is it about this day and telling him off? Was this some prank he wasn’t aware of?

“Okay.”

“Sorry! Listen for once. You can’t base your self-worth solely on the things you produce. Life doesn’t work like that. You aren’t a series of transactions; you’re a person. This career’s supposed to be a marathon, not a sprint. Sure, Enji can drop you from his publishing agency in a flash, but you’re tenured. You can fuck up and publish somewhere else, as long as you clean up your act in your probation.”

Hawks snorts and throws back the rest of the cocktail. “I came to the bar to relax and think about my manuscript. I didn’t think I had getting reamed by the notorious hardass Professor Aizawa on my to-do list. Mercury must be in retrograde.” He picks up his jacket off the booth back and slides his laptop and jumble of notes into his briefcase. “I’m out of here.”

“You’re incredibly talented,” Aizawa says, leaning back to rest an arm over the back of the booth. “I save my lectures for people I think will benefit from them so I don’t waste my breath. I’m not that old, but I’ve been here long enough to see people burn themselves out trying to impress readers, or tenure boards, or Enji himself. It’s such a waste. Don’t ruin yourself by being too much, too fast. You don’t owe anyone your sanity.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hawks says, flushing a little under his collar. “Don’t praise me too much or I’ll fall in love with you.”

Aizawa recoils. Hawks smirks as he wanders out of the jangling door.

February air shocks the points of his cheekbones, dragging wetness out of the corners of his eyes. The clock tower on campus echoes 8 o’clock in the evening across a sleepy campus; students undoubtedly huddle across tables in the library and over steaming mugs of tea in their dorm common rooms, lazing on couches by grand, gas-powered fireplaces.

He glances down at the picture on his phone from For Whom the Bean Tolls and sets off down the street.

—

Once Loved Bookstore Presents...

Open Mic Night!

02.15.20XX | doors open at 20:00

Musicians, comedians, poets, and all artists welcome

Free admission, all are welcome!

Racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, or other bad vibes will not be tolerated

Book donations gladly accepted!

—

Aromatic mildew and LaVazza, the atmosphere of the secondhand bookstore welcomes Hawks like a hug from an unfamiliar family member — warm, soft, and deeply uncomfortable.

Not that he has much experience with family reunions.

When he arrives at half-past the hour, the overhead lights are already dimmed. What little light remains casts stripes Stacks of spine-broken books are shoved aside the comically overstuffed bookshelves that line the walls of the shop. An audience of spindly, mismatched chairs, half-occupied, form a semi-circle audience around their focus point, a singular awry microphone.

While the rest of the room sits under a muted, darkened mask, a makeshift spotlight (a floodlight on a stick with questionable wiring, Hawks observes) illuminates the empty floor of the presumed stage.

At the microphone, a woman performs a soulful ballad, strumming the tuned notes of her acoustic guitar. Hawks vaguely remembers her as a favorite student of Yamada’s. Onlookers donate their full attention to the performance; Hawks can’t spot one opened phone screen, can’t hear one whispered side conversation.

A chorus of snapping follows her performance. Hawks sheds his coat and finds a seat among the crowd, as another of undergrad age takes the stage and reads a well-known Yagi Toshinori poem, microphone clasped gently in his gnarled fingers. He nervously stumbles over the placement of Yagi’s commas.

While he doesn’t spot any of his own students (thank God for his Sabbatical), watching the performances reminds him of those in his own classroom. Friendly...and novice. The disconnect between himself and the performers his age feels greater than ever. It’s not about talent, he thinks, just experience. He’s thankful for the cover of darkness, the least thing he wants is his appearance as a teacher making anyone feel pressure.

Then again, there are students putting themselves out there. Doing something. More than he can say. Maybe he’s too harsh.

He’s about to leave when he spots something that makes him still. The glint of titanium from the cast of the flood light appears in the corner of his eye. The stranger from before watching the performance across the room, a worn and frayed book open flat and nestled in the folds of the dark coat in his lap.

Between performances, Hawks quietly slips into a nearby seat. The man notices.

“Are you a regular here too?”

“I thought you knew everything about me already,” Hawks replies, dragging his coat over the back of his new perch. “Unhappy to see me?”

“Not at all,” the man says. “I didn’t think a revered Nobelist would be interested in such a lame venue.”

“You have to mix it up sometimes. And I didn’t have a Valentine’s Day date, believe it or not.”

“A pretty boy like you? Color me shocked.” The man is completely deadpan.

“I know. My beauty is wasted on mortals.”

The man shuts his book, smoothing over the cover with his scarred hand. Hawks fixates like a crow from the titanium staple on his wrist to the shortness of his nails.

“You should say a few words, professor.”

“I’d rather watch you,” Hawks parries.

The man doesn’t reply but just nods, twisting one of the piercings around his mouth with his lips. He sets down the jacket and the book, the title of which Hawks can’t quite make out in the darkness. When the ongoing reading ends, the man stands up from his seat.

“Watch closely then,” he says.

He boards the makeshift stage. Looking at the floor, he takes the mic off the stand, tapping it once. When a hush falls over the crowd, he tilts his face up in a Kubrickesque smile.

“My name is Dabi, and here’s some shit I wrote.”

He begins, and Hawks is speechless.

—

“Get in here, loser!” Hawks says, flagging down Rumi when she wanders into the bar the next morning. “We’re going cyberstalking.”

Rumi’s eyes flash with excitement, and she practically dives into Hawks’s booth. He yanks his laptop and beer off the table before they’re sent flying. When the misaligned, sticky table settles, he returns to his mission.

“Is this the same guy?” Rumi grills. “Tell me everything.”

He does.

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