Ask

Written for the prompt "first times" at a slam poetry meeting. Originally entitled "Kisses".

The first time
You see him
You think--
                      oh.

After the first week
Of seeing him
You think--
                     He won't see me,
but I'll ask.

The first time
You ask,
A girl beats you to it,
and he says,
"I'm sorry. I'm gay."

And you look down
And see the breasts that your sweatshirt can't hide anymore,
And you think--
                            oh.

And you make it to the (girls) bathroom
Before you cry
Over what you are
And what you are not.

The first time
You two speak,
He says, "Hello."
And you do not hide how your heart flutters.

(You have hidden too much today.)

You say, "Hello," back.
And there is a question on his lips,
But he asks about homework instead.

The first time
You come to school in a binder
You draw the Mars symbol on the back of your hand,
And you say that you're a boy today.

Some laugh,
Some try to use your pronouns,
Some just ignore you.

He says, "I'd wondered."
And you blink.
And you realize.
And you say,
                        "And when I'm a girl?"

He shrugs,
Confused and content.
"I like you."

And there is a question on his lips--
The same one--
"Can I kiss you?"

True Love

There's a land where true love is very important, because curses happen. Among anyone considered replaceable, this isn't as big a deal--it's good for your servants to have true love, but not necessary.

Quite a few servants disagree on this point. They tend to not mention this aloud.

True love is undeniably important for anyone of sufficient power. Modern-day, this expresses itself in democracies just as well as everywhere else--"Where will my opponent be if cursed? He doesn't have a true love to save him." It puts some closeted queer candidates in a double-bind: should they be The Candidate Without A True Love, or The Gay Candidate? And, of course, there's been a recent increase in it being necessary that the person you're married to be your true love, even though marriage has never been necessary for breaking any curse.

But this story is from a different time, and a different place, neither of which necessarily ever existed. The bones have happened more times than one would bother to count. The specifics hardly matter.

Fairy tale logic; play along.

There was once a beautiful kingdom, and it was prosperous, so all the surrounding kingdoms and dukedoms and other countries sent their children to meet the princess, hoping to be her true love. One of them was, and there was some scurrying behind doors to make sure this was diplomatically viable, and then they were married the very next day.

They lived together in great happiness for many years. One day a wicked fairy came and cursed the queen (no longer a princess), but the king had been carrying his mirror, his comb, and his brush, and had thus found his way to a spirit who knew where the queen was. One kiss from him, and she awoke.

But another fairy, who was very much in the business of seeing that stories went as they were supposed to, noticed something when the king went out to save the queen. The fairy did not like it, and put the king under a curse. This curse was an odd curse to put on a person who had a true love--it sent him to sleep in his own chambers, not to awake until woken by his true love's kiss. But the queen shared chambers with him, and in a land such as this, it was hardly odd to wake one's partner with a kiss.

The queen followed tradition. It was true, this was a rarer tradition, but it was tradition none the less. She called to all the members of the castle for one who would come with her to ride out and find what was needed to save the king from this dreadful curse. Most of the hall was silent, and a handful hesitated; only one stepped forward. That one left with the queen, as it always was. No others stepped forward, and so the two rode forth from the castle, with provisions fit for weeks of journey and tools for hunting should they need to be gone longer. It was rarely necessary, but whenever one made a reasonable guess, the guess was always a day short of necessity.

The queen turned to the servant, stopping their journey. "I know why you came with me."

The servant sat up straighter on their horse. "I came at your majesty's request."

"Many could have come at my request. You came because you love him."

The servant was quiet a moment. Then they said, "Yes."

She nodded. "The same as me."

The servant nodded quickly. "And you can hardly blame me, when I know you know how easy he is to love, and may well have fallen in love with him for the same reasons that--"

"Of course I cannot blame you," said the queen. "I knew when I married him that I was not his true love."

The servant went still and silent, not even breathing.

"He is my true love, and I do not regret that--I doubt I could. But you are his. And, I believe, he is yours." The queen did not look away from the servant, and the servant could not look away from the queen. "True love need not be requited to work. I am proof of that, though I believe he does love me in another way. Yours is requited, which is very lucky. Had you not loved him in return, I would have had to come up with a much more obscure tradition."

"He--he loves me?" they exhaled.

The queen's practicality softened. "Yes," she said, "very much. And if I had ever been able to convince him you loved him, I believe you would have known this long before." The queen reached up above her head and took a branch with holly and moss on it. "Here. I know these species; I can describe it specifically enough to pretend that we might have spent days searching." She turned back around and set her horse into a trot.

"W--wait," they said trotting behind, "What?"

The queen turned, not slowing. "If the other lands know I am not his true love, it will hurt trade, and make us look easy to attack. This cannot be public. But you are his true love, and you love him. It would be dreadfully hypocritical of me not to allow it, given how he and I came together."

The branch was laid; the announcements made; the servant kissed him; the fairy enjoyed the story as it was. And, in one way or another, they all lived peacefully and prosperously ever after.

Cuddles and Break-ups (Or: Break-ups and Cuddles)

 A/N: Use of singular they.

 Further author's note: Written before I began going by Taylor. 

Trisha curled sleepily into Taylor's arms on the couch. "I think we should break up," Taylor said. "It wouldn't work."

Trisha nodded and hummed in agreement, then paused.

"Actually..." she said.

"Mm?" Taylor prompted. They had on their genuinely surprised face--which Trisha recognized as entirely distinct from their 'I was expecting this but surprise is the appropriate reaction' face.

"I...um." Trish took a breath, then let it out slowly. "I love you."

"I noticed," Taylor said, twirling Trisha's hair between their fingers.

Trisha took their hand in hers and held it. "I love you," she said seriously, eyes clear and focused on theirs. "And I want to be with you. And if you don't want to be with me, that's fine, but...I want to be with you. And I register my disagreement that we should break up."

There was a pause.

Taylor burst out laughing and Trish joined in. "Too much?"

"Yes," Taylor giggled uncontrollably. "Shall the chair recognize the floor?"

"Shut up," Trisha laughed back, swatting Taylor playfully.

"Okay, okay." Taylor calmed a bit. "I still think we need to break up. I can't do this."

Trisha nodded silently at the floor. Then, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I don't like it. I wish it weren't so. But I would never keep you somewhere you didn't want to be." Trisha sighed. "Should I leave now? Or can we still cuddle?"

"Cuddles," Taylor said formally, "most definitively."

Someday-mate

When I am in an idle state of mind and I think of my someday-mate, I think

I shall have a poet, one who shall whisper words into my skin

Or

I shall have a singer, one who shall serenade the world with our love

Or

I shall have a writer, one who will paint drafts on my skin

In slow-fading henna ink, drawn with soft calligraphy pens

But when I am in the solid world, I think

I’ll have a mathematician who will be as excited as I am by new proofs

Or

I’ll have a marketer who will understand when I say that science needs presentation to spread

Or

I’ll have an economics major who will discuss policy with me

Whose mind will cut through airy “should”s and show the statue in the marble

But then

I don’t think I would ever be happy with just one

I think

I shall have a mathematician who writes equations on my skin

And

I shall have a writer who understands the importance of presentation

And

I’ll have love

and

I shall love

Othering

Between this post and the previous, this blog reached 4,000 hits.

"You'd allow one of them in your house?"

Hardly any time passed before I responded. From the other's perspective, I looked at him queerly for a moment, no more. But I remember the ideas I thought, impossibly quick had they been in words, but faster than sound, than light, than anything, because I simply thought them. They went something like this:

What an interesting form of othering. (Othering was thought as a word, for it was new enough, a fresh flavor on my tongue, sweet for the knowledge and bitter in understanding.) 'One of them.' Because, though he has just accused me of going over to the other side, of being a traitor, that very fact means he thinks me part of his 'us'. Hm. I'm thinking of him as other. Is that othering, or merely a trait of thinking of myself as having a self? Are the two separable? I certainly think one is worse.

And of course, the little one is othered. 'One of them.' You can't get much blunter than that, though I suppose one could make a case for, 'One of your/their kind.' I am not. Yet.

And that's the point. That statement is a threat. 'If you allow one of them in your house, you are a them.' Perhaps not at the same level. Perhaps worse. Traitor to your own. Turned your back on your own. Saw the light and turned away. All these little separating things, and if being other is bad, becoming other is worse.

I could claim that. Take the name of traitor for myself, wear it as a badge, my security in the knowledge that I am right. Stand up tall with my back to him, my hand extended to the scared one I protect.

But that wouldn't be honest.

By the line he draws, I was never that 'us'. I can be no traitor to a side not mine. I can betray no special loyalty if I was not specially loyal.

Then the next words rang out through my mind, the whole sentence in place and the sentiment true. Perhaps he would hear something I did not intend, but then, he would, regardless. I am no perfect communicator.

"I will always make a spare place for one of us."

Gender and Sexuality

I will not cover everything in this post.

Quotation marks indicate a reference to the term rather than the group defined by the term.

Includes terms I found interesting, and a few I made up out of roots that I think should make them fairly clear, occasionally with added syllables for rolling-off-the-tongue value.

EDIT: anthro- terms were previously gynandro-/androgy- terms (see comments).

Sexual identity is complex.

First of all, the standard-use terms currently don't define sexual orientation by what one is attracted to. The axes are what one likes and what one is--and the name is taken from the interaction between the two.

The assumptions are: you are male or female; you like males, females, both, or neither, and romantic attraction and sexual attraction are intrinsically linked. From these priors, we commonly call people homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or asexual.*

These assumptions fail upon contact with the world. Not everyone is male or female. There are people who self-identify as both, neither, inconsistent/uncaring, or somewhere along a spectrum; there are hormone differences that set people along many parts of the spectrum; and even if we limit it to viable combinations of the X and Y chromosomes that science has formally observed, there are more than two options. Any way you care to slice it, a male/female dichotomy doesn't work.

So we've already found that 'hetero-/homosexual' don't work, because they rely on defined genders/sexes to work--you are attracted to something like you, or something distinct from you. 'Bisexual' does not work because 'bi' means 'two', so if we have more than two genders/sexes--never mind a spectrum--the term starts being rather absurd. Even if there were only two, I would prefer 'ambisexual' rather than 'bisexual', that is 'both' rather than 'two', but that's neither here nor there.

Given only the breakdown of strictly defined self-identity, asexual still works. 'A' simply means 'none', and the fact that it may originally have been meant as 'neither' does no harm to the term.

I will now use 'gynosexual', 'androsexual', and 'anthrosexual' for--respectively--attraction to feminine traits, masculine traits, and humans, and keep 'asexual'.

The added complexity doubles in attraction. I have already made the point that being attracted to a female or a male is not quite the same as being attracted to feminine or masculine traits. It is also possible to be attracted to the idea of a person being male/female, much as one can be attracted to the idea of someone being intersex.

Then there's the point that romantic attraction and physical attraction are not so perfectly snapped together. One can be, for example, asexual but andromantic--that is, lacking in a sexual drive, but still having a desire to be romantically involved with males/people with masculine traits.

* Other terms exist, but are much less common.

To see how complicated this gets in practice, I will refer to a previous post. The focus question: "Is Abby/Maggie a lesbian relationship?"

Strictly speaking, neither Maggie nor Abby have set genders/sexes--that is to say, they lack chromosomes altogether, and appear as whatever they want to look like during that slice of time.

Maggie has chosen a female form because that is what she feels she is. She is also attracted to feminine traits--she is gynosexual--is romantically attracted to people who are female/feminine--gynoromantic--and is attracted to the idea of someone being female. In other words, Maggie is a pretty classic lesbian. One could quibble that Maggie could choose to be male or sexless, but that's splitting some pretty fine hairs.

Abby, on the other hand... Abby likes Maggie. This does not spread to sexual love, but that's not because Abby doesn't find Maggie attractive; it's because Abby hasn't bothered to manufacture a sex drive for herself. Maggie was a creative force, so had a bit of one, and honed it because she wanted to, but entropy would have needed to create one from the ground up, and didn't care enough to manipulate one into being. This makes Abby asexual: it's not that she finds sex repulsive, she just doesn't particularly care about it. Romantically, Abby is attracted to traits, independent of the gender/sex of the being. This makes her anthromantic. Abby chose a vaguely female form and influenced Maggie with some positive bias because she recognized that Maggie would find a female/feminine form more attractive, and because Abby cares about as much about her form as about her partner's.

From Maggie's perspective, it's obviously a lesbian relationship. From Abby's perspective, it's a romantic relationship, and she'd probably look at you oddly if you tried to push gender/sex into it. If given the choice between a lesbian relationship, a heterosexual relationship, a male-homosexual relationship, and a polyamorous relationship, Abby would call it lesbian. But that's not a good description; it is merely better than the other three options.

All in all, I just try to stick with 'romantic,' 'sexual,' and 'relationship.'

Power

Between this post and the previous, this blog hit 2,500 views.

Assignment: 1) Find a mnemonic for power--either an acronym or around four words that start with the same letter. 2) Connect power to media and/or life.

During the power acronym exercise, I divided power into five sections: love, loathing, loyalty, liberty and lies. Upon reflection, I have decided that ‘love’ is a subset of loyalty, and therefore I will only define the four remaining.

"[W]hat does it mean to have the power to vanquish someone?"

... "Well..." Rianne said. She was having trouble putting her thoughts into words. "It means you've got the power, but you don't have to do it. It means you could do it if you tried -"

"Choice," the Potions Master said in the same faraway voice, as though he wasn't really talking to her at all. "There will be a choice. That is what the riddle seems to imply. And that choice is not a foregone conclusion to the chooser, for the riddle does not say, will vanquish, but rather the power to vanquish."
--Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Chapter 76

Liberty: Power is not simply having an effect, but making a choice. Affecting a circumstance through conscious will and effort. The ability to choose one’s own actions, which includes the ability to do nothing at all. This power is the opposite of Lies, and is generally considered heroic. Also known by/subsets: will, determination, spirit, ability, responsibility, Heroic Spirit.

Do you happen to know what the penalty is for shooting a fricaseeing rabbit without a fricaseeing rabbit license?
--Bugs Bunny

Lies: Manipulating, power at one remove. The domain of any trickster archetype. This works counter to another’s liberty, as it tricks another into thinking one is acting in accordance with one’s own will, when one is acting in accordance with the liar’s will—or, at the very least, not as one would if one knew the true situation. This power is the opposite of Liberty, and is generally considered dark. Also known by/subsets: manipulation, seduction, deceit, trickery, chicanery, misleading, white lies. See Tricksters.

Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.
--Mohandas Gandhi

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
--Niccolo Machiavelli

Loyalty: Machiavelli noted the power of this, as did Gandhi, though they had strikingly different opinions. Though both accepted that it was strong, Machiavelli did not believe it enough on its own, perhaps because he required the leader to remain alive and in power. Martyrs can be lovely for one’s cause, but the martyr remains dead. Usually expected to go both ways—that is, troops are only as loyal to their commander as the commander is loyal to the troops. This power is the opposite of Loathing, and is generally considered unifying. Also known by/subsets: love, duty, fidelity, The Power Of Love, The Power of Frienship.

If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.
—-Winston Churchill, following Hitler's invasion of Russia

Loathing: Moving people against a common foe. This is power held in the hands of someone one is Loyal to, or someone one Loathes—-the former can inspire loathing by empathy, and the latter can divide the loathing-united group. Even if something is effective, people are reluctant to do it if they associate it with something they loathe. The latter is spectacularly difficult to pull off. This power is the opposite of Loyalty, and is generally considered unifying. Also known as/subsets: hate, enmity, Hitler Ate Sugar, The Power Of Hate.

Glimmers in the Den

The stories that get told from bad times can be dark indeed. But sometimes the most memorable are the flashes of wisdom, hope...


We weren’t happy. Who would be? Forced here, where we were basically food. If we got lucky, we died or became one of them. And what if becoming one of them meant a shift in thought so huge that we became…well, like them?

I touched the stones in my pocket. As I went through the day I saw a girl yelling at the guards. I handed her the varied brown one that said wisdom. Her lips twitched and she nodded; fell back. She tucked the stone in her pocket.

A few days later, a little boy was hiding in the corner. He was sobbing his clear, too-old gray eyes out. I took his hand and pressed the pale green stone into it. He looked at it, then at me. He clung to me and we held each other until he stopped crying. I convinced him to start washing and eating again.

Barely a few hours after that, I was flipping the last one over and over. It was black, and polished very smooth. I think it had been like that since the start. I might just have come to it for comfort enough.

A woman was praying. Before, I had heard her saying she wouldn’t pray anymore. It didn’t surprise me that she was. We were all going back to old comforts, and until she said she’d stop a few days after coming here, she’d prayed every evening. She said she had since she was six.

The topic didn’t really surprise me either. It wasn’t even covered in pretty language anymore. “I’m trying. I’m trying. But I don’t understand why.”
I looked around, checking for anyone obvious. The fact that I couldn’t see them wasn’t really pertinent. When they wanted to be seen, we obeyed every rule perfectly because they were cementing their power. Most, though, just wanted to make sure none of us were trying anything too dire—-like escaping—-and get on with it.

No one I could see. It crept down off my bunk and over to hers. By the time I got there her prayers had stopped, she was just crying. It hurt—I mean it physically hurt—to see someone so broken. I hoped the outburst would help her, but I was worried she’d just fall farther.

“Miss?”

She jerked up and looked at me. “What?” she asked sharply. Then she closed her eyes and softened. “Sorry. Yes?”

I took a breath. This was my last, but it was worth it. But it was my last, so I better make it count. “I’m Amelia.”

“Jean.”

“When I was little, I got these stones. They’ve got words on them, and they help me remember what I want to do, or be.”

She nodded. “I’ve seen you giving them out. How many have you got left?”

“Just the one.” I held the small oval of polished black out. In the dark, it was nearly invisible, though it reflected a lot of light.

A few phrases ran through my head. ‘(I think) It’ll do you more good than me.’ ‘You need it more than I do.’ But that wasn’t what I wanted to say.

“I want you to have it.”

She took it, solid black indent up. “What’s it say?”

“Turn it over.”

She looked at me; then turned it over.

“If you ever need me, just ask.”

She stared at the stone for a moment. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she smiled a little now. “Thank you.” Her eyes went to mine. “The same goes for you.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

That last one said trust.

Song Analysis

All my own opinions, I have not seen anything Idina said. If we're going by the school of whatever the artist says is right, I'm probably way off.

Also, note: the she I refer to is the speaker, not the author. Idina may share some or none of these traits, I wouldn't know.

My Own Worst Enemy
Idina Menzel

In the roses
In the spring

Innocence, specifically in the sense of ignorance. Roses are used as signs of love, and spring of new life; everything has its own little realm and you see the world through new, bright eyes.

I remember

Immediately implies that that time has passed. If you still are innocent, you do not remember, it simply is. This is particularly true with innocence, those truly innocent (using it as partially synonymous with 'ignorant') do not even know that it can get worse.

There was a time
I wasn’t afraid of anything

Emphasizes the innocence/ignorance again. People talk about having no fear flippantly occasionally, when discussing bravery. But, in context, this seems to imply a literal lack of fear. A lack of fear is caused by either a lack of experience or a lack of imagination. Considering the idyllic setting, it is probably the former.

But with the lilacs
And the rain

Direct link drawn back to the roses and the spring, mentioned earlier. This time it includes an obvious reference in the spring vs. rain parallel, rain comes later in the year and we assume it to be slightly worse. Not necessarily in the long run, but in the here-and-now? Yeah.

This draws us back to the innocence/ignorance, as looking to the future is a sign of wisdom, but you have to earn that.

The roses vs. lilacs is more interesting. There is nothing particularly bad about lilacs--they are also used for love, they bloom in spring, all that good stuff. But it's also just a bit less mainstream. On the other hand, combine it with rain and you could get tears on lilacs--very easily a loss of innocence, when you consider the juxtaposition of love and tears.

One day you went away

Loss of innocence, realizing you can lose people.

I remember
I forgot everything

Can be seen as a first freak out. You spend your entire life learning how to fit into society, learning every rule, probably learning how to manipulate them and then BAM. You lose it. The first time this happens can be liberating, surreal or both, making the opposites above very appropriate.

Chorus:
My mother’s always trying to tell me
How to be grateful how to believe

May be just me, but I always heard "believe" as "be free". One could see this as showing how to trust even in the face of bad things, and how to survive on one's own, either way.

My father’s always trying to say
Baby you’re beautiful in every way

Classic good dad. He's saying that everything she does is alright, everything she is is beautiful. The multiple meanings of beautiful--outer, inner and actions--make this an interesting set of lines. It could just be out there to show how she has no reason to be scared/hurt, or it could be that he has trusted her and helped her every step of the way.

My lover’s always got me in his arms
Trying to protect me keep me from harm

She has a close relationship with her lover. By this point it is clear that these three sets of lines are a unit, establishing that she has people helping her, people who care about her, every step of the way.

It's also worth noting that, in all three instances, the word "trying" comes up. Her mother and father are trying to teach her, her lover is trying to protect her. This means it ultimately comes down to her, and...

So why do I always have to be
My worst my own worst enemy

She clearly feels she isn't living up to this. She feels she is holding herself back, hence her bit about being her own worst enemy. There is also a not-quite-pause between My worst and the rest of the line. This makes the line being spoken, however briefly, into, Why do I always have to be my worst? This takes us back to tears and the freak out, few people would want either of those things to be someone's first impression of him or her.

In the shadows in the grays

First off, shadows is very loaded. We have a long history of associating darkness with evil, making it impossible for it to be otherwise.

The grays has a bit of duality because it's gray. Just as we've associated dark with evil, we've associated light with good. Gray stays solidly in the middle of that spectrum, meaning that it is both not what one would hope for in good nor what one would expect in evil.

In the lonely
There is a place
Where we can all hide away

Being lonely is bad.

We're pack animals. We can handle being alone, but loneliness automatically has a number of stigmas against it, to the point that those who remain alone by choice or necessity are seen as odd.

But hiding can be a comfort, and it is often necessary to be alone if one wishes to hide. So we have a wish and a necessity noted in this line.

But in the windows of the soul
There is nowhere we can go
If we keep running
Running from our destiny

Back to being alone. If you are alone, you have to deal with...yourself. You naturally can't run. It is worth noting that the speaker knows there are things you can run from (see above), but running from the bad bits of something will also run from the good parts of it.

So you can run, but there are things you cannot run from. And I suppose it makes as much sense as anything else to call those things your destiny.

Chorus:
My mother’s always trying to tell me
How to be grateful how to believe
My father’s always trying to say
Baby you’re beautiful in every way
My lover’s always got me in his arms
Trying to protect me keep me from harm
So why do I always have to be
My worst my own worst enemy

The chorus, this time can be seen as the things that keep her from running. Her mother, who helps her remember the things she is grateful for and so should stick around for. Her father, who helps her remember she doesn't need to run. Her lover is the most forward in this interpretation, he is actively holding her from running and trying to stop the things that are making her want to run.

But still, we have trying. Are they succeeding?

You say I walk on water
You say I walk on the moon
But it’s never enough
(no it’s never enough no it’s never enough)

The former is downright divine, and the latter is widely established as a turning point in American history. But still, no matter what she does, she is not good enough. Usually this would be a way to make the character sympathetic and the person who is creating this feeling unsympathetic. But the speaker is neither asking for sympathy nor blaming someone else. In the context of the song, it is clearly never enough for herself. Everyone else is supportive, but she never feels like she's worth it.

You say I’m only human
It’s all in my head
But it’s never enough
(no it’s never enough no it’s never enough)

Emphasizes that the above things are all but impossible for humans, doing them at all is impressive. Any claim otherwise is just her trying to be more than anyone would reasonably expect of her.

One day I’ll find
My alibi...

An alibi is only used when someone has done something wrong. The idea that she cannot do these things is, to her mind, a crime.

Chorus:
My mother’s always trying to tell me
How to be grateful how to believe
My father’s always trying to say
Baby you’re beautiful in every way
My lover’s always got me in his arms
Trying to protect me keep me from harm
So why do I always have to be
My worst my own worst enemy

Now the chorus takes on a feel of people trying to convince her that she has nothing to be sorry for. They're trying to say that she's done enough, and her lover in particular is saying he can help her through the rest, if she just lets him.

Musings #2

Being a musing, this isn't quite breaking the hiatus.

If angels can fall, why can't they rise?

This, being the phrase that popped into my head that spurred this musing, is not actually that related to the post. Yeah, I know.

I have been thinking about stories we see. And we see stories where this ignorant person figures something out--that's a basic story, the protagonist changes for the better, or just changes. An especially common variant would be a coming-of-age story, which, given the above musing-starter, immediately makes me think Adam and Eve. They gain knowledge, and so they have to leave paradise and wear clothes and work for their food and place in the world.

And we sometimes have theses intricate stories about The Fall of X. Or The Rise of X. But unless X is a place or society, we don't see both. Or rather, we do, but the Fall is horribly oversimplified. Let's say John's an angel (don't look at me like that, Michael's an angel). John fell to the sin of lust. He will, naturally, fall in love to reclaim his virtue, and we will learn all about him and this new girl, let's call her Charlotte. Charlotte will be a well-rounded character, and so will John. We will sympathize with them, and maybe even come to think of John's banishment as unfair--it will probably at least cross Charlotte's mind, even if she's knows it's wrong while she's thinking it. But this girl he fell in lust with--even if they fell in love and spent her entire life together--this girl? Who's she? Do we even have a name for her? Oh. Hm. Says the author was considering calling her either Jessica or Diane, but decided it wasn't important.

(You can see why I told you up front the blog post was going to be pretty separate from the starting phrase.)

So it is easy to fall, and difficult to rise, as it is with all things. Makes sense, right? I mean, you see something, you want to sin, you sin, you're done. Right?

Right?

I hope not. If it's that easy, then anyone hoping to save any souls has an even harder job than it appears. If it's just see it, want it, sin it, then the soul will surely be lost tomorrow. If it is so easy, then it must be lost...

Of course, the point of the ordeal is that the person rises out of it stronger. It's supposed to be all about how John was weak enough to sin, and is now strong enough to resist. That may be the reason why the story of how he spent, oh, let's say twenty years with this other girl is left in the shadows--can you imagine making a story where the guy wants the girl for reasons of solely lust, they stay together for any amount of time, and you have to keep him sympathetic? There are things an audience will forgive, and things it won't...and there are a great many things they will forgive off-screen that they won't forgive if it happened on-screen. Imagine the Deathstar blowing up a planet where we have seen the people, the children, playing. Or there were some sympathetic characters, maybe even one that had a plan to stop Vader. It's suddenly a lot harder to stomach. How can you convince the audience he's changed if you've let him, in your story, do something unforgivable?

And so we get this vague idea of what John's done wrong, enough to know it was terrible, not enough to feel spiteful towards him (taking into account the character the author is showing us).

The other way around would actually be a pretty nice way to introduce a villain with a good reputation. Imagine: we know every detail of what John's done wrong, but his atonement is glossed over. So we know (to grab a few things out of my hat of mustache-twirling villainy) that John faked feelings for Diane--yes, she has a name now. We know that Diane was an innocent little thing he led down the wrong path that ended in her dying young, cold and alone, in a dark little alley, her throat cut by his blade, by his choice, by his coins, but not by his hands, because he wouldn't dirty them. And we know she deserved so much better. And his atonement? A little thing. He fell in love--but again, this is glossed over, so could be interpreted as lust--and got the girl of his dreams? That is his atonement? Oh, sure, he fought for her, but when compared to all those horrible things he did to Diane, how can we believe he deserves one ounce of the joy he feels with this nameless girl? Is she horrible enough to think that this is okay, or is she stupid and he's leading another innocent down this path?

So we gloss over parts of the history. Not because they're not important. Because they were very important. It was very important that they were overcome, and so it is very important that the audience acknowledges them. However, John is not that man anymore. You cannot blame him for sins anymore than you could blame a child. It's not that he was cruel, it's that he was lost, and there was no one there to lead him. He has found himself, and there have been years of atonement--or there haven't, but there have been years where he was not that person. A child is not given a pass because of age. A child is given a pass because the person you are moving against the next day is not there anymore. When John is reinventing himself, yes, he has to take responsibility for his past actions. But we do not show them because they are no longer defining character moments. If the author put something there in the story, there's a reason, so if there isn't a reason, it doesn't belong there.

This post started on one note and ended on another. It needs another phrase, and I think I have a good one:

"Keep in mind that people change, but the past doesn't."
-Patch in Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick (pg. 305, hardcover)

Oh, the tropes for this are fun...
Politically Correct History (This wouldn't've happened this way, but if I show it as it would have, the audience will hate this guy!)
*The Women Are Safe With Us (The heroes' men don't rape, even if they're mercenaries in medieval times.)
Deliberate Values Dissonance (Remember my note about not showing stuff unless you want the audience to hook onto it? This is when the author doesn't do that--because, at the time, this behavior was normal.)
Good Flaws Bad Flaws ("One major exception to this trope is this: A character who has a "bad" flaw is allowed to be the hero if the experiences of their journey inspire them to cast off this flaw.")
*Good Smoking Evil Smoking

Travel Log

I have been several hours from home for the past few days (Thursday Friday Saturday). Here's a summary of what happened, since I'm not about to make a normal-sized blog post right now. EDIT: Upon rereading, I suppose I was.

Wednesday-Worked on finishing up what homework I could, studying/cramming music.

Thursday-Woke up, drove to our first rehearsal place, which was a church, got a check to make sure I knew my music. People were singing outside the room, both songs they were going to be checked on (mostly in their assigned octets) and just plain randomly. I got in; we had our first rehearsal until 9:30 (breaks for lunch, dinner). Highlights: 1)More than half the room singing a song they had, which included stomping and clapping. They got spontaneous applause. 2)A group of guys gathered around the piano and started singing showtunes, with one accompanying.

Friday-Woke up at the hotel, had breakfast with the choir group in a reserved room. Went straight from there to the rehearsal, break for lunch, more rehearsing, got out for dinner and we had the evening free. Highlights: I got a solo in 'Babathandaza', one of the songs our director had arranged (he had done three out of our six). Sin nje nje nje... When we got out early we went to the movie theater (New Moon was sold out, shocker), and saw Disney's A Christmas Carol, which was awesome.
Jokes at the theater that I don't expect too many of you to get: The ice cream server was dressed up as a traditional vampire. Characters were matched up with flavors: Vanilla was Bella Swan, Birthday Cake (which was also the Flavor of the Month) was Edward Cullin [sic], and Mississippi Mud Pie was Seattle Emo Mud Pie.

Saturday-Final wrap-up rehearsals and concert performance, then goodbyes. Highlights: THE ENTIRETY OF THE CONCERT. But in particular, 'Babathandaza', 'Sto Me E Milo' and 'Aglepta'. Oh my [deit[y/ies] of choice] 'Aglepta'.

Marriage.

Hi there. I'm popping back in for a moment to ask a question that I hope, someday, I will understand the answer to: What is this big deal about marriage?

I don't mean why would someone be threatened by having his or her religion invaded. I don't mean why would someone who has made up his or her mind to hate someone prevent them from marrying. I don't mean why do people want to get married. I am simply asking: why is a marriage in the government such a big deal?

We, as Americans (and sorry for the ethnocentrism, but to be honest, I have nowhere near enough of a grasp of the culture to comment anywhere else), have a separation of church and state. How effective this is varies, since it's not on the books, but it is there. It's a part of our cultural mindset. I regularly see in any code of conduct I have been asked to follow that you cannot discriminate based upon "race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, immigrant status, homelessness, economic status, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, age, medical condition, physical appearance or physical or mental disability." (This is taken directly from my current planner, which my school hands out to freshmen and sells to anyone else.) Would you prevent someone from marrying because he or she was black? How about because the person was sixty? Or Jewish? Poor? Ugly? In a wheelchair?

These all sound silly, don't they? Of course you wouldn't prevent Alex from marrying Sam just because Sam was black, or Asian, or whatever else, and Alex was white. Now here I am, a bisexual female. If I fall in love with Alex and I want to marry him, that's fine, no matter who he is. If I fall in love with Alex, and I want to marry her, I don't get to. Except...I do. I get to marry her in my church, or wherever you get married according to her religion. This is not stopping gays from getting married, it's just putting terminology on the books which is odd to begin with.

And then we've got the counterargument. The one that isn't religion, which I've already gone over, saying that I don't think religion and politics should mix. The other is that there is a difference between the sexes, and that men without women (bachelors, men married to men) are dangerous to society. The problem with this is readily apparent to anyone who knows a large number of bachelors or men living with their boyfriends, etc. First of all, they're not. Second of all, even if they were, the only way they could live entirely away from women would be to live entirely away from society. And beyond that, as I have already noted, taking away someone's right to marry in the government does not take away his or her right to marry.

Back to marriage. Because I am not talking about gay marriage, I am talking about marriage. If, as too many people seem ready to claim, marriage is a religious thing, why is it in our government at all? Why is anyone being married? Hey, let everyone get married in a [insert wherever people of your religion/lack thereof would get married here]. Let people get civil unions in the government, regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, immigrant status, homelessness, economic status, gender, sexual orientation, age, medical condition, physical appearance, or physical or mental disability. Marriage is marriage. The government has no place in a sacred union, because the government isn't sacred.

You, who believes people who wish to marry people of their own gender? You're right. You, who believe marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman in your religion? You're right (even if your religious leader disagrees, your religion is your religion). The government, having a place in the sacred part of anything sacred? Let's not. That can solve both sides.

Comments, questions, concerns?