On Dying, and Other Such In-betweens

Eliandra fluffed her wings, which lost her a few feathers. Normally she would have huffed about this, but tonight she was oddly quiet. She bent her right wing in, and for a moment Didey got a flash of what Eliandra might have looked like when she still had her arms, hadn't yet given them for the wings. Her beak would still be a mouth, too. It was odd to think like that. Everyone in their section had taken on something, and after a few months around no one else, it was always odd to remember that most people were all human. None of Eliandra's brown-to-cream wings or dark and shiny beak, none of Didey's fur or claws or backward-legs.

Eliandra turned her beak and started grooming herself meticulously. It bothered Didey for a reason she couldn't name, but she still trusted the feeling. She was going to say, Are you all right? but what came out was, "Do I need to make sure someone's around you?"

Eliandra looked up from her work and then laughed in a way that failed to comfort Didey. "No. Thank you,"

Didey waited. "That wasn't a period."

"Hm?"

"That wasn't the end of your sentence. You didn't say something, and you were going to."

Eliandra shook her head, eyes going from unreadable--common enough for birds--to simply distant. "I'm not going to hurt myself. It's fine."

"How do you know?"

Eliandra laughed again, as if someone were hurting her and she didn't know how else to react. "I've been..." She shook her head and groomed, then stopped. Didey's brow furrowed in concern. Eliandra never used extra energy like that. It wasn't a question of looking good; she simply didn't do it. It wasn't one of her standard motions.

Didey started taking some molting feathers out of Eliandra's wings. "You've been?"

"If I can..." Eliandra looked for something in Didey's face. Apparently she found it. "If I can come to the conclusion that the world would in general be better if I were dead, and that my life is going to be consistently painful for me, and plan it out down to weapon, time and place, and making sure someone emotionally equipped to deal with a corpse would find me... If I can think all that, and decide all that, and still find myself too much the coward to go through with it, then I'm not going to go through with it now just because I'm a little jittery after a fight." She shrugged, which may have been an excuse to lean into Didey's grooming.

Didey continued grooming in silence. Then: "I'm glad you didn't."

"Yeah," Eliandra said, "me too."

Eliandra closed her eyes and relaxed. Didey kept moving careful claws through delicate wings, and eventually finished. She must have, at least. Eliandra's wings were clean and shining when they woke up the next morning, curled around each other on Eliandra's living room couch.

Representation

Trigger warning for (brief) discussions of various types of prejudice and stereotyping, and discussions of internalized transphobia--that is, transphobia directed at myself.

I've recently been thinking about representation in media and how it affects feelings. Usually I'm thinking of it with regards to trans* characters--especially genderfluid ones--and my own feelings, on both counts because they are more relevant to me personally, and on the former count because it is the aspect of my identity that I see most rarely expressed. I see three ways representation affects me, and I think all of them generalize.

The first is the one I see most commonly talked about: Representation is a background tape of "Yes, you exist; you have a right to exist; you are not alone." This is why people can cheer even when a representation is terribly stereotypical--because, "You can be only this," can feel fantastic when you've just come from, "You don't exist," or, "You shouldn't exist." "You can be only this," still says, "You can be."

The second is where the type of representation becomes obviously important: Role models. Part of this links into the previous type, in that seeing a scientist of your gender/race/orientation or with your disability or neuroatypicality or whichever is that same message. When it's something outside the stereotype, the message goes from, "You can be only this," to, "You can be this, too," and even if the 'this' isn't what you want to be, that 'too' can make all the difference. Because if you can be 'this too', then you can be something else, someone else, too. You aren't bound to one of the traditional roles.

Role models can exist just for being what you are, too. This is why happy queer stories are so important, why happy publicly queer people are so important: "I am what you are, and I'm happy. It is possible for you to be happy, too." That's not to say anyone is required to be happy, of course--that's a step back, "You can be only this; you can only look happy." But having them, knowing that they are there, that this is possible--that's important. Happy people who are like you are role models, if only in their happiness. The background noise they give off is, "Yes, you can survive here; yes, you can thrive here; yes, you can laugh and smile. And you know what? You deserve it."

And then there's the third type of representation, the one that's so prickly because it can feel like a step back, and because it is so easy for it to be a step back. It's the people who are insecure about their own identities. I've found them very helpful, because there are all these things I think to myself, and as soon as anyone else thinks them, even a fictional character, their absurdity becomes obvious. "I'm not really trans* because I have days when I'm not dysphoric." What? That's so obviously wrong as soon as anyone else says it. "Everyone will always think I'm not worth it." Huh? Where did that even come from, because it certainly didn't come from any of my friends and supportive family.

It's hard to write those stories, because it's so easy to make them a TRAGIC GAY NARRATIVE or a story about a LITTLE BLACK BOY WHO WAS TOO GOOD FOR THIS SINFUL EARTH. But they don't need to be one of those stories; they don't even need to have a sad ending. There just need to be characters with their own insecurities, so we can see them from the outside. Even if seeing it doesn't make them obviously absurd, or even if they aren't absurd, at least we know we're not the only ones who think that way. I am not alone in messing up my own pronouns. I am not alone in being scared of how relatives will react.

I am not alone.

That's the point of representation, really.

Silly and Serious Thanks

To the drawers who, from the first week of my time on campus to this very day, had never gone empty: I salute you for your brave service. You may rest.

To the drawers and shelves who have never been filled: The impediments placed upon you by design and limited space are not your fault. May you serve some taller person well, and live with honor.

To the desk: You lived bravely through stressful assignments, confusion, and spilled tea and ink. I wish you the best.

To the womb chairs in Mudd: Thank you for being a place of rest where I could hide and laugh or cry over a book without weathering odd looks. I hope to return to you often.

And to my fellow Obies: I miss you already. See you next year, unless you're a senior, in which case I wish you audacity, happiness, and strength--and I know you'll have them all in spades.

Villains

(I have decided that hiatus will mean posting when the urge takes me.)

I find it interesting how many people I see complaining about the phrase, "Every villain is a hero in their own mind."

The general complaint runs something like this: "Would you stop pretending irredeemable villains are redeemable? It is really annoying."

I understand that idea to a certain extent. I have seen arguments along the lines of, "But this guy loves puppies, so he can't be that bad!" These arguments get old quickly, and also ignore the fact that, in real life as well as fiction, essentially no one fits the platonic ideal of "evil" perfectly. Just as functionally no one is perfectly kind and giving to everyone in all aspects, functionally no one is absolutely everything we hate. It might be even harder to find a person who fits the latter--being evil all the time makes it difficult to gain allies, which means that a perfectly selfish but rational person will likely try to at least look heroic or kind in some contexts.

But none of that is what the phrase is about. "Every villain is a hero in their own mind," means simply that the people who are wicked and powerful enough for us to consider villains have some strong and important goal which they are seeking to complete. Every villain thinks they are going through the hero's journey, that they have some boon to give to the deserving. The fact that their idea of a boon and their idea of deserving differ from ours is what makes them a villain in our eyes.

"Every villain is a hero in their own mind," is not necessarily a call for universal forgiveness, or reinforcing some idea that everyone can be redeemed into what we think of as a hero. It is a call to review carefully those whom we think of as heroes.

Because not everyone who is a hero in their own mind is a villain, but sometimes...

I appear to be incapable of keeping up with my update schedule at the moment, so I'm calling a hiatus. Thank you for reading; be back when I can.

An Oberlin Fairy Tale

In a land called Oberlin, the winter had lasted too long, past the groundhog’s date and past when the snow should stop, even had our groundhog predicted otherwise than it had. It soon became clear to the students:

Spring was sleeping.

But there was hope. During a week of what should be spring, Oberlin students were permitted to travel to other places, places closer to the sun, where they could come close enough to the Fires of the Sun that questers might be heard.

Ah, but being heard is not the only tricky part. What use is being heard if one is given no answer? What use even an answer, if the answer is a dismissal?

But the Fire-folk are not without hearts. They could be swayed, by diplomacy, or by wit, or, if they were feeling particularly whimsical, by some somewhat important event brought to their attention.

A young quester had gone to such a warm clime, where the path to the Fires of the Sun was brief and not exceptionally burning. The quester packed bread, rock candy, and a top for food, flavor, and fun, since the Fires were creatures of all such things. (Why else would cooked food taste so much better? Why else would so many people be drawn to playing with fire?)

Items in thons pack, the quester climbed, and soon enough, came to a door the color of a full moon on a clear night.

“Have you a key?” came a voice from the door.

“I do not,” thon said.

“Have you lost a key you were given?”

“I have not,” thon said.

“Then how shall you get past the door?”

“I know my stories well enough. I must take a bone from my smallest finger, and place it in the door.”

“Correct,” the voice rumbled.

“But this is not a tale of sacrifice,” thon continued, “not to speak with the Fires. The point is the riddle and the story, not the bone itself. The door opens for the answer, not the bone.”

And the voice said, with a smile thon could hear, “Correct.” The moon doors swung open.

Next thon came to an old person in a rocking chair, who had aged in the way that makes gender indeterminate, if gender were ever a proper thing to apply to this old one. The hair was perfectly golden, the only hint that this one might ever have been young. “Good day,” thon said with a curtsey, since thon had worn a skirt that day.

“Good day,” said the old one back, rocking chair creaking. “Why are you here?” There was a bit of a twinkle in the old one’s eye.

“I am here to bring some late Fires to one of my homes,” thon said. “But I am in no great hurry as of yet, if you find yourself in need of help.”

The old one smiled. “I would not refuse some bread, if you had it.”

“I do,” thon said, handing the whole of the loaf to the old one with stars for eyes and sunlight for hair. The old one ate, and beyond the rocking chair a door swung open. Thon had not seen it before, for it was dark as the night sky, the same shade as nearly everything else.

Thon saw when it opened, for it opened into a room as bright and warm as summer sunshine on a day perfect for reading in a grassy field.

“Fires of the Sun, may I speak with you?”

Silence greeted thon. Upon thinking of that phrase, thon bowed to the silence, on the off-chance that it was a living silence. (It was not.)

Thon sat in the middle of the broad, bright room and took out a piece of rock candy to suck on, and the top to spin. “Oh! You brought a toy! Why didn’t you say so?” said a Fire, jumping out from a wall. The Fire could not stay still, it seemed, flickering from one side to the next. Soon, this Fire’s Siblings joined Them, and even in a room the color of sunlight, shadows flickered on the walls.

“Would you like some rock candy?” thon asked, laying out a few more pieces in various colors of the rainbow, each attached to a metal stick. Wooden sticks do not work so well with the Fire-folk, you see.

“Yesyesyyeses,” They chattered, voices climbing over each other. Most took pieces, though a handful instead said, “I would like to play with your top, may I may I may I?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” thon said. “I got this top for my birthday. That was just today, you know.”

They cried, “It’s your birthday?” and, “Why didn’t you say so?” and, “You came here on your birthday? We have to do something special!”

“Well…” thon said, tapping thons chin with thons forefinger, “there is something, but it’s a bit out of your way.”

“We’ll do it!” said exactly three Fires in unison. The rest had learned not to commit so readily.

“Really?” thon said, brightening. “Wonderful! You see, Oberlin’s spring hasn’t woken up in the proper time. Could you come back with me when I go there, and help wake our spring?”

They chattered for a moment, too quickly and too many overlaying threads for thon to keep track of. Eventually, five stepped forward: the original three—one of whom looked less excited, though grudgingly willing to go along—and two more. “We’ll help!”

“Excellent!” And so the Fire-folk and the quester played together until thon had to go home for dinner. The five Fire-folk who were to join thon settled into the space just about thons diaphragm, where they slept as little more than a warm and jubilant feeling.

When thon returned to Oberlin, thon brought five Fire-folk. In such a cold place, they burst from thons ribs and flickered and danced throughout the campus, the town, and everywhere else they could reach: burning snow, warming soil, calling the sun to be closer and the clouds to disappear. By the time they had grown bored and went back to the sun to play with their own, spring had sprung awake.

Word Problems

1. A woman makes 17.5% less than a man, but she can also get into a club free on certain nights. The entrance fee is $15. How many times does the woman have to go to that club on those nights in order for her to break even?
2. In the context of the graph provided on page 3, what is the average utility of free entrance to a club assuming one breaks even with regard to dollars lost and saved? Give multiple answers and/or a formula accounting for race, sexual orientation, status as trans or cis, and all other relevant points which may increase her chances for being raped, mugged, killed or otherwise attacked.
3. Express as a ratio the money spent white scholarships (incl. scholarships for Germans, Italians, etc.) compared to scholarships of persons of color. Extra credit: Include a second ratio for the total amount of money per white student versus student of color given in the form of scholarships without racial requirements.

You Both Meet in a Jail Cell

I lay on the only cot in the cell as she paced it. At first I'd sat, leaving room if she wanted to sit, but she had given the impression of not wanting to and of being able to ask if she wanted to. (Also of being able to push me off, if she wanted, but she would ask first, and I would move if she did.)

"Back home, I am..." She flexed her hand once, twice, looking at it as if it held some answer. "Like a scalpel under the armor, or a scalpel under the skin. So sharp you barely notice I'm cutting. Precise."

"And more than capable of healing you or tearing you to shreds," I said.

She grinned at me, fierce and reflexive in the way that true reactions are. "Yes." Her expression flickered, then fell to something closer to neutrality. "Here, I don't have the weapons I prefer. But even if I don't have my knife on me, I find myself quite capable with a needle."

"Surgeon-seamstress. Nice."

Her lips twitched. "Storyteller-trickster."

"Wordsmith would be the brief way of saying that," I said, one hand curling to my chest in a pompous gesture. "We must be precise." She threw a small stone at me and I caught it and tossed it back. We started playing catch with it as we talked.

"Any ideas for getting out of here?" I asked.

She shrugged and tossed the stone back. "Be charming at the hearing."

(Un)Safe Spaces

I had a teacher in high school who, in reference to a group of singers who were switching between the tenor and the bass part, said, "Don't be bi-sectional," and laughed.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of that was. I can't recall anyone laughing. Privately, I think this may have been because the class was divided into three parts--those who didn't get the pun on, "Don't be bisexual," those who were too offended to find it funny, and those who were just too confused that an openly gay man had made a cheap shot at another member of his acronym.

I was in the second group, and I remember being angry enough that I ended up storming from that class to English. When someone asked me what was wrong--a classmate who shared both classes with me, and had noticed my dramatic antics--I spun around and snapped, "It's not funny until it's absurd!"

I then apologized to my classmate, because none of this was her fault, and I had lashed out inappropriately. I'm not sure that helped any. I've been told I'm rather frightening when I'm angry.

But that is, for the moment, beside the point.

At the time that sentence meant, "Our teacher should not have made that joke, because people telling people they shouldn't be bisexual--or simply that they aren't, as if they knew our orientation better than we did--is a thing which happens. I am hurt because he treated my experience so flippantly."

Another thing occurred to me, when I was thinking about that phrase. Because most people know that, on some level. A thing needs to be absurd to be funny; your audience needs to consider it absurd. So, in making that joke, my teacher was saying, "Bisexual discrimination is absurd."

I cannot think of a more thorough dismissal. It was not even the screwed-up gaslighting that is, "You're overreacting to this hurt," it was, rather, "This hurt doesn't exist; you imagined the blow."

In my opinion, this is the most important thing to keep in mind when writing comedy. Am I dismissing someone's hurt? There's a place for that, in satire, but satire is by definition critical. In satire, the comedian is, by definition, calling someone out, attacking them.

No matter how much we might wish otherwise, attacking a person in power is different from attacking someone who is already under siege. I've got background messages every day--you don't exist; you aren't real; attention-seeker; whore. Attacking me for a mistake I made is not the same as attacking me for something I had no control over, especially when I am already under attack for it.

“Well, if you aren’t going to do what I expect, what do you intend to do?”

I intend to single-handedly bring back ‘bard’ as a popular profession

I intend to turn the world upside-down
I intend to burn stone and fireproof wood
I intend to walk on rainbows
I intend to walk on Mars
I intend to make you believe in silly things without lying to you
I intend to write a novel that you will never forget, even though you will forget the author and the title and all the characters’ names
I intend to write a fantasy series that someone will always use as the answer to, “What was the first fantasy series you fell in love with?”
I intend to sing an album that makes someone say, “I’m going to be a singer.”

I intend to burn the world down and burn myself down and burn you down to cinders and ashes
I intend to rise, not like a phoenix, but like Coyote, cackling all the while
I intend to pull you down with me
I do not intend to pull you up
I intend to make you want to leap up like a new flame
Like an old story
Like a song you had forgotten until you remember at 47 that you learned it when you were 11
I intend to make you want so much that you have the same moment I had when I realized I had nearly broken my neck in middle school (died before I’d begun)
I intend to make you want so much that not doing becomes as self-destructive as not breathing

I intend to earn stares and gaping mouths
I intend to be impossible
Because “I intend” is only half a breath from “I wish,” and if you can’t wish for the impossible, how can you ever do it?

I intend to make you to laugh with the exhiliration
Fly like helium inflation and crash like hydrogen conflagration and get up again

That is what I intend to do.

Thoughtful Work

When an acquaintance compares me to a goddess
They name me the sharp silver of a freshly whetted blade:
Artemis, Athena, the proud women-who-are-warriors
And I am a creature of such edges

When they know me a bit better
They name me trickster:
Hermes, of robbers and merchants
Loki, shapeshifter by species and sex and role
Coyote, who dies often but always comes back at dawn
For I am a creature of edges

When I name virtues great
I point to tricksters and storytellers
Loki, Coyote, and Hermes of shifting shades
Iris of communication and novelty and ways between
I admire creatures of edges

But what echoes in my bones is something else

I hope for Persephone’s stoicism,
Moved to tears only once, though torn from her home every year
I hope for Sigyn’s loyalty,
Her strength to follow through on it, even in the darkest of places
I hope for Hestia’s pragmatism
Sitting by the fire, her throne willingly given
For I love those who work where work is needed

I hope to be guardian
For those who need me
For those who wish for help
For those who have forgotten to wish

For I am a creature of edges, yes
And also a creature of needles

Echo (Echo)

When I was a little girl, I wanted to save the world.

A lot of us do, in one way or another. Almost no one has the same definition of 'world', though, and a lot of people don't think 'save' means the same thing. A lot of people fight about whether 'save' means 'preserve' or 'ameliorate'--or which it means more.

I wanted to do it in the really simple way. I wanted to be a superhero, with strength and speed and intelligence and a bunch of other stuff, plus the heart to do the right thing. (Intelligence and powers could cover the possibility of doing so, but I also needed to consistently want to.)

When I was a little girl, I got to save the world.

There isn't much point to explaining that. Whether you've heard my story or not, you know it. I was a magical little girl who fought people who were beyond saving, and redeemed people who seemed beyond saving. I took the nickname Echo. I say it's because I wanted something that's easy to understand, so I went with something from the NATO alphabet. My name is Emma, so people don't ask much past that.

There's more to my name's story, of course. I didn't pick a name for the longest time, and no one who was telling my story was particularly interested in giving me a good one. (I was, I understand, given a number by some organizations, but news stations kept missing me. Or ignoring me.) One day, I was reading Echo's story, how she met someone she admired but could not add anything, only repeat the ends of things back. I save the world, and it's good I do, but I'm the next identical link in a very long chain.

Saving the world is necessary; I rarely found it interesting.

By the rules, my story should not still be going at this point. But I think I'm owed a little something, even if the only person who owes me is myself. I owe something to the little girl who dreamed, perhaps; more importantly I owe it to the woman I'm starting to be.

Echo was a good name. Echo is necessary, showing things back almost as they are, and that's how I've redeemed the supposedly irredeemable on more than one occasion. Now...

I am a good person. But that is, I think, not quite the same thing as being a good girl. Not in the way my once-superiors mean it. "You're such a good little girl." I think... I think I need to think of myself a little, too. Maybe be a little selfish. Not hold myself above others, but hold myself as important.

The simplest way of finding where my happy place is is to go beyond it in several directions. I've been Echo. Someday I may settle on a permanent name: not a magical girl's name, not a child's name. Maybe I'll even be Emma, someday.

Today, I am Narcissus.

Midway

Is your flight on-time? Andrea texted.

Yeah, Em texted back. Yours? Though she wasn't asking whether it was late so much as how late, given that Andrea should have boarded already.

Twenty minutes late. Then, after a pause, Sorry.

Not your fault. Em sighed, shifting her legs behind the counter, poking at the remaining bit of her pulled pork sandwich. Both of them had three-hour layovers here, but they hadn't been able to schedule their flights to overlap completely. She should be waiting an hour and a half, though now she'd be waiting closer to two.

Em threw her trash away and picked up her bags. I'll be at Gate 18, okay?

See you there.

Napping was out of the question, and Em had already finished the book she'd brought for the trip--which she'd seen coming, but she'd only had room for one book and she wanted to finish it--so she unzipped her laptop bag and opened her computer. There wasn't any free wifi, but she could work on her resumé and a few applications that she'd downloaded. There were lines she should be running, but she'd hit the point where the script wasn't looking like words anymore, which definitely meant she needed a break.

A few minutes later, her phone vibrated in her pocket. Boarding!

Yay! Em replied without any particular change in expression. It was still an hour and a half away, assuming no complications; Em's excitement tended to spike the day before and when Andrea first came in sight.

Em swapped to her script. She figured the words would probably look like words again.

*

Andrea shifted, nearly bouncing in her seat. She'd gotten a row to herself, which was good, because even on the flights where she was stuck in a middle seat between two people she had trouble keeping completely still when she got to see Em so soon. She knew Em would not be so excited right now, but she never got excited about things just before them.

Andrea took out her phone and fiddled with it. A few more hours, and they would be next to each other again. She grinned.

Winning

The trick to winning is recognizing that you get to define what "winning" means.

For example, if you see a little dog bites a big dog's ear, and then the dogs proceed to fight until the little one limps off, bloody and with quite a few new marks that are going to scar up, you might say that the big dog won. After all, the big dog is barely hurt, if hurt at all, and the little dog is going to be hurting for quite some time.

What you don't know is the history. You don't know that the big dog has been picking on the little dog for weeks, months, years now. Nothing major, but something painful, every day, at unexpected times. And the little dog took it, because the little guy could not possibly win against the bigger dog. The fight would end up exactly as you saw it end up--one is beaten bloody; one walks off with barely any annoyance.

So the big dog picks on the little dog, wins every day, until the day the little dog thinks, Screw this. And the little dog turns around, all teeth and claws. Still small, still hurt, and knowing exactly how this is going to go.

After the fight, the big dog walks off thinking, What a weird little dog, and never hurts the little dog again.

The little dog accomplished a goal. Who's to say who won or lost?

Elizabeth

My name is Elizabeth, and I’m a cheater.

Most people will tell you that this is not a good trait, and therefore is not a good introduction. I would point out to them that my sisters were not cheaters and they are dead, while I am a cheater and am alive, which is proof enough that it is a positive trait. It makes sense. Most people learn to be strong or cheaters, so saying you’re a cheater usually means you’re weak. You’d think that that would be a good thing, since they usually don’t like strong girls, but apparently I’m supposed to be weak and not a cheater and not lose. I imagine that other people are just better at lying than I am.

I learned very early on not to lie. That’s why the Folk killed my little brother, because he told a lie. I suppose that could have made me a compulsive liar, like one of my sisters, but I went in the other direction. I decided: if they are going to make me play their game, I will sit down and play it, and I will follow every rule.

To the letter.

I’m alive because of that. Not because I could win, precisely, though that is what got me out—I saw a way that was supposed to be too small for me, so I starved myself and slipped out. They’re not supposed to let you out after you eat their food, but I didn’t go out through one of the normal doors, so they don’t count me as having left. That was cheating, and I’m proud of it. I went into the Realm younger than anyone else I know, and still managed to wriggle out. They can’t take me from here, unless I’m bad, and so I’m always honest and forthright and clear.

And I cheat. That’s what my eldest sister would have called it, anyway, so that’s what I call it. I make myself look smaller than I am and dirtier than I need to be, though never so much that I don’t look cute. I use what I have. And there’s always someone who’ll give a poor, little, dirty, cute girl food. I’m good at figuring out which one.

The dreams are the hardest.

I wriggled out through a gap in the bars, but that doesn’t count as getting out, so I go back when I sleep. At first, they offered food, but I was smarter than that, this time. Soon enough they started getting meaner.
I travel town to town, on my own to feet, begging food when I can find it, and mourning the parents the Folk took and the siblings they took after. Even with the dreams, it’s better than what happened when I was in the Realm.

My name is Elizabeth, and I’m a cheater. Since I’m a cheater, I’ll never win, never prosper, but since I’m a cheater, I’m alive and I’m out.

I’ll take that trade.

Lessons

Once upon a time, in a country which now exists only in the earth which houses its old stones and the breath that houses its old stories, there lived a king and a queen. The queen had a daughter and a son, and then had no more children, for inheritance rules were tricky at the best of times, and became no simpler for those of royal blood.

The young boy was taught to fight with and without arms, was taught to care for his animals and to clean his weapons, to be polite at court and to be impolite without causing a war.

The young girl was taught to fight with her voice, to cut as deeply as her brother. Where her brother was taught only, "You can go this far and no further," she was taught each intricacy: how to form or strengthen an alliance, how to inspire an attack that would take few lives but give an excuse for conquest. When her brother was learning to fight with fists or swords, she would learn dance steps, a dozen curtsies, a dozens of implications in a single sentence. When he was caring for his animals and weapons, she would practice what she was learning with forgiving friends of the family.

As they grew, they began practicing in earnest. The prince would duel, and the princess would work out treaties, forming personal alliances so that the country's power would not fade if those loyal to the current monarch liked the prince or princess less. They each paid close attention to their own lessons, both what they were being taught and how they were being taught it. Of course they did.

Quietly, when most of the castle slept and the guards looked on with approving smiles or pretended not to see, son and daughter met. He handed her a sword or a mace or nothing at all, and they fought in the dirt. She met him with a book or a fork or a smile, and they play-acted through diplomatic scenes.

So it came to pass, with very little fuss, that the prince married and became a king fierce and diplomatic, and the princess became a warrior who knew how to avoid a fight as easily as she knew how to win one. And, when she was home from war and he from discussions of treaties, they would meet in the same field and tell each other what they had learned.

Some things never change.

Beauty and the Beasts

I'm going to talk about Beauty and the Beast and how I see it. Specifics of the story will be taken from the Disney version, since that's the one that's most commonly known where I grew up and among the people I'm talking to.

First: Beauty is the hero. Beast is the villain. You are not required to agree with me on that, but it is how I see the story. Whenever someone writes a Beauty and the Beast remake where Beast is not at least the antagonist, I'm confused.

Starting from that point, here is a summary of Beauty and the Beast:

The hero's living parent gets accidentally wrapped up in a deal with the villain of the story. The only way for the hero's parent to survive this deal is for the hero to face the villain. The hero faces the villain in the villain's own realm. The hero goes through a variety of trials, which are created by the villain's own meanness. The hero endures these trials, and slowly learns things she did not know before.

It's the hero's journey. There are problematic aspects in the romance that I've glossed over, but I do not recall a time when I thought Beauty and the Beast was a love story any more than I thought of Snow White and Rose Red or Rumpelstiltskin as a love story. They include a marriage, but that's not the point. It's a fairy tale. Because Beauty is brave and loyal and strong, she gets a happy ending. That does not guarantee me the same. But it means it's possible, even when it looks bad.

Beauty's marriage to the Beast is about as relevant as Gaston. Both of them serve to show that the antagonist has changed, that mean people don't necessarily remain mean. I understand the issue with this, the implication that a person should stay with an abusive partner--but would it really be any better if Beauty had killed him, as is the more common fate? If I am alone with an abusive partner, I am probably not going to be able to kill them. Beauty shows the virtue of endurance, of being able to pick herself back up again. She is not staying with the Beast because she thinks they have a perfect love (at first); she is staying with him to save her father.

I was the little girl who didn't always know how to tell people when she was being hurt, and often didn't trust the people who were supposed to protect me even if I did. Beauty did not tell me, "Make them into better people!" Beauty did not say, "Someone will save you; just you wait." Beauty did not explain, "If you are strong, you should be able to fight them on your own."

Beauty told me, "Some people will hurt you. Some are Beasts, who may become better. Some are Gastons, who will not. Either way, you can endure them. Do what you can. Maybe you can't win, but you, little one, you are strong. You can survive this."

Lovely

If you asked someone to describe her performance, the word, 'dexterity' would hover on the edges. Few would actually say it--some genuinely lacked the vocabulary, others felt it an odd word to use in reference to a voice. Her body did move, but slowly, languidly; she was dexterous, but her movements were not, particularly.

Her voice was another matter entirely. She was a scalpel in a room of kitchen knives, a rabbit among wolves and foxes--"Don't throw me into that briar patch!" Not always winning, not always the best, not always the one who was right for the job, but always, always quick and keen and rapid. When she sang, it sounded like a pure sine wave, clear as a bell. When she spoke, there were echoes of that, in how easily her words sliced through others, spreading silence and thought where there had been sound and fury. Or the other way around, when she so wished.

And it all made sense. Sometimes these stories stretched belief, the playwrights had an idea that wouldn't translate properly onto the stage, with no actor to play it properly. "Which always feels like a person from a few thousand years ago being gifted with divine skill for piano playing to me," she would say off-handedly, when someone brought up the subject.

Unless it was a compliment to her, specifically. Then she would smile and laugh and bow, knowing that she couldn't seem too proud or she'd hurt her reputation.

Offstage, she played the innocent, the giggly young girl who had no idea she was so charming, so wonderful, so splendid, whose hair fell perfectly all on its own, whom one would envy and perhaps hate if she were not so nice.

Onstage, she was herself.

Faith

"It's about innocence," Jennifer said.

Kel frowned in thought, strategizing. "So, what, you lose your magic the first time you have se--"

"It's not about virginity," Jennifer bit out. She'd had this conversation before, it seems. "It's about innocence. And no matter what strange ideas people keep confusing, virginity and innocence are not directly related. Someone who'd just been grabbed into a dark alley would probably have more difficulty casting a spell than someone who'd just slept with someone they love."

"Huh," Kel said. "Any idea why that is?"

Jen rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Theories. What magic feels like is...like you're climbing a rock wall, and there's a handhold you aren't quite tall enough to reach, but you could jump for it. But it's difficult, because if you hesitate, if you put anything less than all your strength into that jump, then you won't make it."

"And jumping means letting go of what you know is solid, for what might work," Kel finished.

"Yes."

"So I have to trust...what?"

Jen spread her arms. "Trust that you are built for the world, and the world is built for you. Trust that you are made to fit, designed specifically to be able to make that leap. Trust the universe, trust your body, trust yourself. And"--she closed her eyes and took the sort of deep breaths that Kel had seen Anne take when she had a panic attack. Jennifer flattened her palm and pointed all her fingers forward--"focus." Fire shot from her fingertips in a straight line.

Jen looked to Kel. "You try."

Kel looked at Jen's hands, then her own. I am made for the world. This is nearly indistinguishable from the world being made for me. I am a being of leaps and bounds and energy. I survive. I can do this.

Kel held her palm as Jen had, then paused. I have no need of fire. My survival does not depend upon it at this moment. What do I need?

This was gentler, and so Kel softened the line of her palm into curves, then swept a motion through the air. A sphere of water floated where she had gestured.

"Interesting," said Kel.

How Tumblr Got Me Writing Poetry Again

Happy apocalypse!

When I write poetry, I tend to prefer writing in free verse. I am not sure if I could pinpoint when this started, though I believe it is connected to my obsession with sharing my thoughts, and that my streams of consciousness are more likely to come out in poetry space d     oddly than in  n e a t  l i t t l e  r o w s . Admittedly, I generally prefer to read something with a strict meter and rhyme scheme. This makes poetry the only place where what I like to read and what I like to write differ. At least, it is the only place where they differ due to my preferences rather than my ability.

Tumblr has a dialect of its own, and its own accent, which shares some characteristics with my free verse. There's a tendency to avoid proper capitalization and punctuation, but the thing is, this choice is meaningful. Odd spacing, as I demonstrated in the first paragraph, means something to the reader. It slows the sentence down a bit, and makes it more intense. Similarly, an absence of proper capitalization and ending punctuation makes the text look gentler. Pauses are indicated by commas--commas do not have to be used for their grammatically accurate purpose, which frees them in this way--and more emphatic pauses are indicated by line breaks.

Tumblr's dialect lends itself to more intimate blogging. Is it a stream of words with no particular pausing points? You can see the author meant to do that; there are no line breaks, capitals, or commas. Similarly, does one pause in the middle, as one does for a joke? Just hit 'enter' at the relevant moments. Your audience will hear you.

When I hear people talking about how this format came to be, they usually bring up the tagging system, and the fact that tumblr-users tend to make commentary in the tags. Commas are right out, since inserting a comma breaks the tag. With commas out, putting in periods looks odd, and without periods, there's hardly any reason to capitalize the first letter of a sentence. For that matter, breaks are obvious between tags, but they are not exactly like periods or commas, which encourages various ways of expressing such things outside tags--commas and exclamation marks, yes, and also line breaks.

The origin is fascinating to unravel, and I enjoy hearing (reading) new theories, and seeing new reasons for old and new theories. But there's another question, one I find equally interesting: Why did it stick?

People make up new words all the time, often with very intuitive etymologies. However, unless the terms roll off the tongue, they do not stay around very long, or they stay only in technical discussions. Those sorts of terms often get pieces of jargon attached to them, nicknames.

Tumblr is, by its purpose, not technical. So why did these patterns of writing stay?

They're how we think.

They are at least how I think, or as close as I could come to it in the medium tumblr gives me. People use odd words and acronyms, odd line breaks (stanzas), and even gifs. All of these are part of how the tumblr dialect works. One can write on tumblr and not use this dialect, but it would be difficult to work on tumblr without understanding it.

I began writing on tumblr, and falling into those habits. Expressing thoughts in the way which was most intuitive to me, closest to how I would speak if my speech were a few steps closer to my thoughts.

I feel that rhythm in my bones now, as well as I know how to write stories in English, at least as well as I can carry on a conversation in Spanish. So, when I fall into a rhythm where I might have given up on a poem for lack of ability, or never thought to write a poem at all...I can write it.

Thank you, tumblr community. You got me writing poetry again. I never realized how much I missed it.

If I were not able to play music anymore...

I would keep music in my life. I would likely become a sound engineer, because I am interested in math, though I might also become a music critic to be closer to the audience’s experience of music. If I were not able to play music nor able to participate in the professions related to music, I would still be a fan. Music is too large a part of my life for me to drop it completely. Though I have other interests, such as math, story-writing, and acting, none of them are as thoroughly a part of my life as music. I enjoy them, and I would be distraught to lose any of them, but they are not my passions in the way music is.

I do not know who I would be without music, because so much of my energy and devotion are tied to it. If I could not play music directly, I would still be a part of it.

Write an essay in which you describe your hopes and plans for your educational and professional development during the next ten years. Include such aspects as diverse interests, career goals, and options you wish to explore.

Oberlin Conservatory essay. (I'm re-applying.)

I am interested in music theory, and in learning how music and math work with each other. The mathematical patterns in music fascinate me. Be it math in music, logic in storytelling, or expressing the same idea through various media, I enjoy connecting everything I know.

I want to explore writing, drawing, mathematics, and music. I have been interested in all four of those things for several years now, but I did not feel I could learn as much as I wanted about them, especially in a formal setting. I drew very rarely because it seemed too impractical and time-consuming when I knew I wanted my focus to be on music and mathematics, but I enjoy it and want to become better at it. I have written in my spare time, but since my high school had no dedicated creative writing classes, I have mostly learned through reading and trying new ideas. I would like to learn in a class setting, because I feel that formal lessons have helped me the most in my math and music.

I have learned more about music and mathematics formally, and so know that I enjoy them in and out of class settings. I look forward to learning more about vocal technique, especially expanding my range and my dynamic control, and learning more about music theory. I also look forward to learning more about mathematical proofs and other parts of pure math that go beyond my high school curriculum.

In my professional career, I hope to perform at the San Francisco Metropolitan Opera. I love performing, and I love story told through song. I want to perform in an opera, because I enjoy every part of opera, and also because I admire the people who perform in operas regularly. Later in my career, I hope to play Brünnhilde in The Ring Cycle, because The Ring is the first opera I fell in love with, and Brünnhilde was my favorite character, both for her character and for the talent and dedication required to sing the part.

I also hope to teach. I feel that education is, from a cultural standpoint, the single most important thing one can do. I know from my friends’ experiences how much a bad teacher in any class can kill an interest in a subject, and also how important teachers are in kindling and rekindling interests. I want to help spark interest, and help people follow their interests, and I love teaching people new things.

Whatever I do, I will be happy if I bring joy and knowledge to people around me, whether that is primarily through performing art, visual art, writing, or teaching classes.

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

What?

"What is she to you?" Diana asked. "Your sister, your lover, your ward?"

I stared off into the distance, checking the facets of the thoughts, the bond, until I found words that could express them. "We share no blood," I said, "neither through shared lineage nor ceremony. We have spilled no blood beside each other, so she cannot be my sister-in-arms. We do not have sex, so she cannot be my lover. Neither of us are weak or ignorant enough to be the other's ward."

"Then she is nothing."

I tipped my head back, searching the clear sky for an answer. Stranger things have happened. "Chrysanthemum is the most important person in my world. We are not bound by blood or by sex or by vow or by duty, and yet." A corner of my mouth tucked up and I looked at Diana. "I love her. And she loves me, though that only barely matters. We are ourselves, and we are better together." I spread my hands. "Sisters, if you must, though no oddity done should we become lovers. Or lovers, for we share love, if not in that fashion. Perhaps we are each other's wards."

I shrugged and began walking. "We are friends. I would not trade it for anything."

Drinkers and Mages

Literally prompted by this.

It’s easy to find someone to drink from the water glass. Accepting water into one’s body is natural, normal, we all learn it.

The next one takes the plant. This may take a few times, for chewing the plant doesn’t work, but it’s simple enough to understand how to eat such a thing whole, and the plant is alive. Once swallowed, it will tell one what to do.

Next comes air. The third drinker doesn’t breathe the air; they swallow it. Just odd enough to push people towards water or earth, but not nearly so tricky as the last.

Then there’s fire. Singers take the fire, and always singers. It makes sense, as those dedicated to the art only lose their voice for a day, and the rest will lose it forever.

One must hold the fire in one’s belly for a day, without hesitation and without doubt. Fire spat out in the first day will give one’s voice back immediately.

One needs one’s voice for the incantations of a mage, so the fire-drinker must be a singer, must love and need singing. It is nearly impossible to find one so dedicated who does not fear the loss of their instrument.

Elisia breathed deeply. She knew what this description was supposed to do, and knew that there were probably different versions given to each drinker. Probably about how the water drinker must be brave, to go first, alone. How the plant drinker--the word didn't fit, but it was still the word--accepts a foreign life into one's essence/mind/soul, how courageous it was to do so and how fulfilling to be whole.

She knew they were understating air. Her friend Jenny had taken air, and had described it as, "a torrent sweeping through every part of you, except no one can tell why you're upset. The old air-drinker warned me I'd go temporarily insane, but I didn't realize zie meant it. I wasn't...me." Elisia shook her head.

That was probably it. They didn't want her to back out, so they'd overstate the prestige and understate the consequences. The consequences must be similar, for fire and air.

Elisia stared at the glasses, briefly thinking back to when the four had been full. There was only one left, now. Fire. Destroyer, healer. Warmth, burning. Loss of voice, loss of self, but perhaps recovery, perhaps movement to something greater.

Fire of life. Pyre for your deathbed.

Elisia stared at her glass. She took a breath of air through her nose, then exhaled, "My glass." That was wrong. "My fire." That was right.

She took the glass of fire and drank, all in one go. Her throat closed, but that was fine. The fire reached through her skin, called oxygen that way. It also burned her skin, but that was fine. She was made to drink fire, she had burned herself often enough. She had enough moon-pale stripes to prove it, stark against bronze skin.

A dozen people came to her. After the first two (Jenny, her mother), Elisia realized that she was hallucinating. They told her that she wouldn't be a mage, not properly, a drinker but never a mage, that she'd never get her voice back, that everything of her would burn and nothing would grow from the ashes. After two more people (her father, a stranger), she wasn't sure if she was in the same room anymore, or if she was still standing or had fallen.

Elisia couldn't fight. Her nails slipped through the illusions, and her words couldn't pass her lips. She couldn't take deep calming breaths, because the fire burned on steadily, giving her what air she needed and none more or less.

So Elisia did not fight, and she did not try to calm herself. She did not attack, and she did not hide. She relaxed every muscle she had control over, and she let it happen.

Some hours later, the visions dissolved. A hand appeared. The fire-drinker before her, the one who had been the fire mage. "Welcome, fire-drinker," Samantha said.

I took her hand and stood. I breathed through my never-closed throat and said, "Fire mage."

The older fire-drinker smiled at me. "So you are."

Images

Camellia walks around the room, looking at or pressing a finger to the relevant art pieces.

The first is called "Love". It's sequential art, so she taps the four ports in succession. Index finger is a soft blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Middle finger is a lover's smile, where the smile is put together like a memory or a dream, attached to the idea of "lover" and a general sensation of pleasant warmth rather than a particular lover's body. Her ring finger is a bright radiance and joined hands. The pinkie finger is the sensation of wrapping a blanket around someone else's shoulders.

She touches all four fingers at once and basks in the collective sensations for a moment before moving on.

The next is "The Rape of Persephone". Camellia pauses a moment to consult the ratings to the side, to know whether she should steel herself or skip this one altogether. There are a few standard notes that show up on any intentionally unpleasant works, but a few absent trigger warnings imply that the artist isn't using rape in the modern sense.

This is a single port, under glass so that people don't touch it accidentally, as is standard for the pieces rated above G. Camellia presses her palm to the pad under the glass and feels cold fingers wrapping around her rib cage, holding her firmly and stealing her warmth. Her discomfort continues after she takes her hand away, implying that the piece is intended to evoke it, rather than creating it whole cloth.

She tapped her key chain for the smell of old books until the feeling left her, then walked on to a section labelled "Green". The pamphlet explained that the word "Green" had been given to each artist, and so the pieces ranged from an immersive few moments in the Amazon jungle to greed to a scene viewed through night-vision goggles. Camellia walked through, tapping a few and skipping the ones with warnings for things she isn't in the mood for. It's a lovely afternoon, right up to the point where it's a lovely evening.

She buys "Love" to hang on her comfort key chain, even though the sequential stuff is a bit pricey. After some internal debate, she buys the Amazon-jungle "Green" and "The Rape of Persephone", the former because the artist took meticulous care in getting the small details right and she wants to be able to go back there, the latter because she's got a soft spot for art that only uses one of the senses to evoke complete scenes.

Expectedly

Scorpion and Frog had earned their nicknames in ways that were fairly average among people from their neighborhood. Everyone got an animal nickname around the age of five, and then it stuck for the rest of their life unless something overwhelmingly better came up after a major change in their life. Wolf, for instance, had been Wolverine until she left for a month and came back a lot less likely to pick fights and a lot friendlier. She made a pack with Rat, Deer, and Frog within the week, and they'd been nigh-inseparable since.

Scorpion had hitched a ride with Frog on Frog's boat, because Scorpion's kept developing holes. She claimed not to know why, though Frog suspected she drilled them in herself. Frog had, in fact, just accused Scorpion of as much.

Scorpion went quiet. She had always been quiet--scorpions didn't hiss or growl, just struck--but her silence was exceptionally loud this time. "I don't mean to," she said.

"How can you not mean to?"

Scorpion shrugged. "I...destroy things." Her expression flickered through a few unidentifiable emotions. "Mess things up. 'It's in my nature,'" she said, though Frog didn't know whom Scorpion could be quoting. "S'why I bring my toolkit with me everywhere."

"Well, just so long as you don't do anything to my boat." Frog smiled, turning away from the wheel for a moment. "Not that you would now;" she laughed, "you'd sink along with me."

"Yeah." Scorpion smiled sadly as she tapped Frog's shoulder with a piece of wood. "Pretty stupid."

Frog looked confused for a moment before she recognized the rudder. She spun the wheel and found none of the resistance there'd been when they started the trip. "The current's fine here, but it'll take us out to open ocean without any steering--" She turned back to Scorpion and said, halfway between upset and baffled, "How could you do that?"

"I play tricks. I steal stuff. It's all I'm good at, but I'm the best at it." The smile grew, though it stayed out of her eyes. "Wolf learned, when we were off alone together. It's how she learned to have friends to help her. She told you, remember?" Frog remembered, though she'd dismissed it as unreasonable animosity until that moment.

They repeated, together, " 'It's in her nature.'"

Temptation

This is my 200th post.

When I was in my senior year of high school, there was a scholarship that would be given according to who wrote the best essay. The prompt was, "What is the best word in the English language?"

The essay interested me, because it was clearly an opinion piece, but I was supposed to phrase it as an absolute. A question lurking behind the prompt was, "What is your favorite English word?" but they didn't say that. There were quite a few questions I could answer in that prompt--"What is the English word with the most historical importance?" "What English word has the most interesting etymology?" "What English word has the most interesting definition?" All of those are opinions, as well, though I've phrased them in keeping with the original prompt.

When I started writing the essay--before I dropped it--I landed somewhere around "What English word has your favorite definition?" Had I been approached with that question originally, I would have probably said something like "apotheosis", but because I barely knew the question I was answering, I decided on "temptation".

I like the strain in temptation. It's a moment in time, and a question in itself. Temptation doesn't exist on its own; it exists in relation to. Who is tempted? By what? And, in the background, there's the most important question: Why isn't the tempted person giving in?

It isn't temptation once the person accepts it. There's no tension left. Refused temptation can remain temptation indefinitely, forever in the simultaneous stage of, "I want to," and, "I shouldn't." Temptation is a time--be it a moment or an eternity--of tension between parts within.

If I put it in the physical realm, then temptation could be the moment of uncertainty before our star-crossed lovers kiss. If I put it in the mental realm, temptation becomes a subset of curiosity: "I am forbidden, but why forbid me in the first place?" Like all curiosity, giving into such temptation is punished and rewarded in equal measure in our stories. The hero needs curiosity to move forward, but forward is not always better. Isn't that right, Mrs. Bluebeard?

Emotional temptation is trickier, as emotional temptation looks like other things. Take Adam and Eve and the Serpent. The apple could be a physical delight for its flavor, or a mental delight for its knowledge, but I do not think Eve or Adam saw it that way--too well fed and too ignorant. Emotional temptation is want for want's sake: a thoughtless desire.Thoughtless desires win out often in our tales, both because it moves the story along and because curiosity's hunger will grow as the fear of punishment fades.

Temptation is not a kiss, or new knowledge, or biting an apple. It is the stretched, sometimes-forgotten moment just before. Temptation is feelings of uncertainty and inevitability that can be made certain or can be evaded. Temptation is what-we-want-to-do touching what-we-want-to-be, and realizing we must choose. Temptation is a moment of choice. Temptation is the moment before the sacrifice. Temptation is sacrifice; or at least, sacrifice is temptation. Temptation is satisfied or denied or both or neither, forever straining, forever wanting.

Temptation is delicious.

Missing

I miss things in food.

I first realized this at a funeral. My great-grandmother had died, and my grandmother-who-was-her-daughter wasn't in attendance. There was a flavor on my tongue that I wanted, and I placed it after staring at the food table for a little bit. Lemon bars.

I told a parent this, and got a sad smile. My grandmother made lemon bars--it was a specialty, exactly the sort of dish she would've brought to a funeral.

Given that I'm at college, I've been missing many things, and not quite finding them. My father's fudge, San Francisco sourdough, homemade macaroni and cheese, my mother's popcorn, my brother's sandwiches (pickles, cheese, honey), avocados--which appear to simply not come whole here even though I can find them as mashed sandwich toppings and guacamole.

I've found myself missing a caramel that I last had when my age was in the single digits. If I were home with this craving, I would open up Joy of Cooking and ask my dad for help, because I know caramel is difficult.

I miss roasted marshmallows. I haven't been to a campfire in a long time, but I browned them over the stove top. (With a promise to clean up any mess should I drop one.)

I miss mashed potatoes, from Thanksgiving and almost always when I got to choose the meal. I've found them here, though the gravy isn't right.

I miss things in food.

I miss home-cooked meals because I miss home.

Sleep Speaks

We are no longer entirely in the realm of Greek mythology.

"Oh, please," he said. "Your domain is sleep. What are you going to do, make me drowsy?"

She stared at him a moment. To someone who had only met her, she would have appeared unmoved. "You are not wary of sleep as you fear other facets of your life. You should be." She cocked her head to one side, looking nostalgic. "You would be, if I cared to explain why." Her smile turned chilly as her focus came back to the present. "But you are in no mood to listen, and I am in a good enough mood not to explain. So I will say this, instead:"

In the flicker of an eyelash, she closed the distance between them.

She said lowly, "My mother is life. When she could not find me, the Earth froze and burned in the wake of her misery. If she thought she could remove an obstacle to my happiness, that power would become rather focused." The last word was a hiss, and the man's eyes widened as his skin turned ashen.

"But, oh, we must remember who took me from her, must we not? The one she could not simply focus on. You insolent beast, my consort is death. And do believe me when I say cessation of existence is a mercy compared to what he would do for me, if I asked it."

She smiled in the way that someone of  immaculate breeding will when they are beyond anger, beyond fury, and well into planning. "You do not fear my powers? Very well. I will allow you that luxury. But do remember the powers of those who care for me, or you shall quickly find yourself unable to forget."

Prophecy

"Why do you want that?"

She looked at him. She had simply looked at him, and he had turned his gaze away and done as she bid. But that was long ago, before a more charismatic noble had risen.

Oh, how the mighty do fall.

Winna owns a small fortune-telling shop. Most of the locals believe that what she does works. It fails just often enough that she never quite become known beyond the locals. She knows better.

There are a great many things Winna uses to tell the future. There's a bowl of water, which, when lit, shows the future in its flames. She never tells anyone, but it lights on its own; she has no control over it. It is the only piece in her workshop that is always accurate.

There are others, of varying accuracy. Save for the burning bowl, based entirely on the grace of Lady Luck, their accuracy is directly proportional to the sacrifice required. A drop of her blood on a piece of special parchment makes a snapshot from a possibility; a slice of her flesh burned on a crystal will show an image for as long as the flesh remains lit. The larger the flame, the larger the image, though accelerants mean less time to the prophecy.

And then...there's the one she doesn't tell anyone about. Not just doesn't describe, like Winna's bowl, but hides in a locked box in an unobtrusive cabinet in her back room. She goes there now, settles on the ground, and holds the box carefully. However good the box's padding, she does not want to drop this.

"Hair as black as ebony, lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow," she murmurs, lips barely moving.

Winna opens the box, touches they yet-beating heart, and sees the future.

She ignores the screams. They're from the past.

Third Anniversary

On Wednesdays, we wear pink.

Apricity

When there is a Mother below, there is no Daughter beside, and Mother beside mourns her.

People move on with their lives.

They don't forget--of course they don't forget--but the things that consumed their lives take up smaller pieces. We are born to survive, and though that is true of creatures bound by more traditional rules of evolution, it is particularly true of those who are immortal.

Immortals are not known for reproducing regularly. They live, individually and eternally, or they do not exist.

The seasons follow Mother beside's moods. She does not always force this, though she can. Often, it is simply the natural way of things. Often, none but Mother beside could say whether the moods follow her weather, or the weather her moods.

When her daughter is away, she mourns, for she knows her daughter's hurt, and for this is the closest thing to death that Daughter beside is likely to experience.

Yet, still. People move on with their lives. Mother beside is no different in that.

There is winter, and there is snowfall, and these reflect her moods. The weather reflects her emotions. The gods give us names for many things, and concepts for more. Though the word is not named after her, there is a word for Mother beside's happiness in the midst of her mourning.

Apricity.

Clock

It's a fairly standard classroom. On a northwest corner, which means it has a splendid view of the main green area and a parking lot, and that the sun gets in everyone's eyes if no one draws the shades in the afternoon.

There's a clock, though it is perpetually frozen at 7:15. I've never been sure if that was 7:15AM or PM, though I wonder every time I go in the room. Chances are good no one knows--it's been stopped long enough to be relegated to, "No one considers telling maintenance" status, and chances are good that there had been no classes between 7 and 7 the day it stopped, so even the first class who saw it stopped probably wouldn't know.

I'm the timekeeper, because I always wear a watch, and because I check it nigh-compulsively, so I might as well be. Classes end ten minutes before the hour, so the church bell that chimes on the hour only tells us when class starts, not when it's finished.

The timekeeper is usually more important than I am, I'm told. Someone has class just after choir, and so we have to end at ten minutes before the hour on the dot, or else they'll be late to math, or biology, or whatever else. This year, no one has class after choir is supposed to end, so the whole affair is rather more casual.

Our director doesn't keep us. Or rather, she doesn't make us stay. Every time, she'll ask, "Do you mind staying a few more minutes?" If someone says yes or has an uncomfortable look, she'll dismiss us. If everyone is just looking around, checking for anyone else to have an issue, we'll sing for a few minutes more--five or ten, twenty once when we had a concert the next week.

In an old room, where the sun shines too brightly in your eyes and the clock hasn't told time more often than twice a day for some years, I have my favorite class.

Tale

Between this post and the previous, this blog hit 5,000 views.

Once upon a time, I wrote a story. Well, truly that would be something like several thosandce or millionce upon a time, but I finished this one, which takes it down by a few orders of magnitude.

Specifically, I wrote this story--a mash-up of Stardust and Thor--while on an exceptionally long pair of plane rides and a layover when I should probably have been doing homework. I was flying back from a visit to Oberlin, and now I am beginning school here, and should probably be doing homework. Symmetry!

Below the story are several comments, all of which I appreciated. One word, however, surprised me. The word was, "Gaiman-y". I'm sure the commenter thought that I had been trying to emulate Neil Gaiman's style, as he had written Stardust, and so I took the comment for the compliment it was. I appreciated it beyond that because I admired Neil Gaiman's style. But, since A)  I like to think I have a style of my own, B) Neil Gaiman can change style quite a lot between his books when it strikes his fancy, and C) I had never read Stardust, only seen the movie, the fact that someone thought I had mimicked his style struck me as odd. So, as one does when someone makes a comment I do not understand, I reread the story.

Oh, I thought. It's a fairy tale.

Which, in a way, it wasn't at all. Fairy tales are supposed to come from aural tradition, and have specific rules which I bent and skipped around every which way. But, in another more important way, of course it was. I was taking the stories of my culture, the world I knew, and putting them together in the fairy tale format. The fact that I happened to be adding together a movie based on a series of comic books based on a mythology and a movie based on a fairy-tale-ish book and then pushing those through the oddity that is my mind didn't matter terribly much. Or rather, it did.

Fairy tales are retellings. Even fairy tales like Hans Christian Anderson use the stories we grew up with, the rhythms and patterns we have in the back of our mind that tell us what should happen next. I used the patterns in the readers' minds, and used a few cues to tell them which headcanons I was accepting, and which I was tossing aside. There's no more obvious way to introduce an AU than describing canon and then saying, But that's not this story, and if there was a more obvious way to establish that I was trying to keep their personalities functionally the same, I did not know it. Having reread the story and thought, I reread the comment and smiled.

And that, dear children, is the story of how the most perplexing comment became my favorite.