I'm sleep depped and it's been a bad brain week (of the "self harm via upsetting blog posts" variety) and last night I went through a spat of "oh hey look it's someone who thinks darkfic directly causes sexual assault let's read their blog for a half hour" and, well, that was that. Thankfully Nen was online to talk me through the inevitable anxiety attack and sick feeling in my stomach.

But it's still in the back of my mind, and I think I have some Thoughts about it.  So, here we go. Also, writing these out makes me feel better.
My first instinct this morning was to pull out a particular selection of music - alice cooper, Lordi, avenge sevenfold, that kind of thing.  Darkness and power, glory and domination, sexualized violence and violent sexuality. Fear me. Worship me. Hallowed be my name.

And then I stopped and thought - okay, so /why/ is that comforting to me? It would make moralizers clutch their pearls and gasp, sure, but that's not all. It - makes me feel better about myself, takes away some of the sickness in my throat.

And I thought - I want to feel powerful. I want to feel untouchable.  I will be the storm, the desert, the conquering darkness and the stain of blood. If I'm going to be a monster, then I want to be the /best/.

(There's a reason I identify with Kylo Ren as strongly as I do.)

It's not something I feel all the time. It's not someone I want to be in real life. But it's there when I need it.



But, the thing is....  this isn't something that girls are... supposed to feel. I know that's an awful way of phrasing it, but it's the only way I can think to say it. Girls don't want darkness, don't feel like the world only makes sense when they're at war. Girls don't feel the sick urge for violence crawling up their throat, addicted to the rush of power. Women don't identify with characters like that. Women identify with women before they identify with /monsters/.

The people who /do/ identify with monsters, who are expected to, who are Supposed to be those types -They're shitty straight white boys. I think I called him That Guy once - the Health Ledger Joker fanboy, the Tyler Durden fanboy, who collects guns and is way too interested in serial killers and nazis. Entitled boys who think they deserve the world and throw tantrums when they don't. The insecure nerd with dark eyeliner and prop weapons.

Girls don't /do/ that.

And then there's me.

It makes me feel guilty. Like I'm... failing some feminist duty or some shit, identifying with the people everyone else calls the enemy. Finding comfort in what some people call the worst parts of masculinity.

( It's - about the only thing that causes me dysmorphia, tbh. It's the one of the things convinced me that I was nb - the rush of /relief/ when I realized that I didn't have to identify with women above all else, that I didn't have to identify primarily on lines of gender. I didn't have to pretend that I had something in common with them just because we share genitals.

I honestly don't know if that's a me problem or a them problem. Is it a shitty definition of womanhood or am I not really a woman? I have no idea.) 

Feminism doesn't get it, it feels like. Social justice doesn't get it.

25 years and I still exist in a different world. No matter how much they talk about acceptance and redefining womanhood, their definitions still don't have words for me.  I'm still the thing from beyond their universe, warping things beyond recognition simply by being around them.

(If I were a monster, I wouldn't /care/.)


I - as usual, I don't have a solution. I've just named the problem. It's just so - well, frustrating on a good day, to see this total breach of experience that no one on their side seems to see.

I don't know if I've made any progress. But I've articulated myself, at least kind of. So there's that.

may as well do one of these this year. no obligation

Step One:
Make an post. It can be public or friends only, whatever you’re most comfortable with. The post should contain your list of ten holiday wishes, and these wishes can be anything - from simple (a fan fiction written about your favorite pairing), to medium (a DVD you want), to really extravagant (a brand new laptop or car).

Just make sure these are wishes for things you really truly want.

Step Two:
Skim through your friends list and see who has posted their own wish lists. Then - and this is the most important part - if you find a wish you can grant, and it’s in your heart to do so, make sure that person’s wish comes true.

Sometimes a person’s trash is another person’s treasure. If you have a leather jacket you don’t want or a gift certificate you’re never going to use, give it to someone who wants it.

Step Three:
Post this wish list any time after November 1st.
You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday fairy - to spread the joy.
Gifts can be made anonymously or not, it's your call.
There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.


( list )

So. This week happened, apparently. 

 

( Read more... )

 

rough draft of a fic for a prompt on tumblr

Nothing grows on Jakku. Nothing is produced here, there’s no industry, hardly any native species. Everything here is something that was thrown away.

 

( Read more... )

it's just. digital book burning is still book burning.

sometimes, I'll get a line of prose in my head and absolutely nothing else - no context, no reasoning. It's like I'm handed the summary of a story that I'm gonna have to write myself.

"Every revolutionary is secretly a blasphemer."

...I'm not sure where it'll go - I can think of about seven characters that could suit (I think I was thinking of Cyrus at the time? or working on his playlist) - but i'm intrigued.  Might be a new oc, tbh.


(to overthrow the authority that fate or divine right has place above you, to demand more than you have been given - to look at the world you have been placed in and say "i can do /better/" - what gall! what glorious arrogance, to object to what fate has decreed for you!)

I was rambling in the comments of someone's post on tumblr about fandom, and I think it's relevant to some of the things i've said here as well, so, pseudo cross post.


imo, fandom is one of those fundamental human needs - well, Stories are. Responding to stories and making them our own - claiming them in a way.

fandom, in one form or another, has been around for as long as we can look back. It's one of those basic /human/ things - defining ourselves through the Stories that we love.


(Pratchett, may his soul be held by any god who could find it, called it Narritivum, that building block of reality that says "this is how things go.")


stories are how we learn how to be people, and how to be a person.

and fandom, I think, is a means of taking control of that - of saying, "No, this is how things /should/ go." Of taking the stories that define you and reclaiming them for yourself - making them a part of you, rather than just something /around/ you

.....tl;dr I have a lot of emotions about fandom

this is @kaleran‘s fault. also i wrote this instead of freaking out over a new job.
features: canonical character death, implied suicidal intent, grief, transubstantiation, angst, butterflies.
Once, Cosette remembers later, her Papa had told her about butterflies.

 

( butterflies )

 

this might be a a complete fic, I'm not sure yet

...just downloaded an extension that allows me to block myself from accessing tumblr after a set period of time. because while i love the people there i absolutely do not have the spoons for the website as a whole some times.