On Placental Mammals

Now some years ago the pigeon had a hole named after it; the Pigeon-hole. And Man decreed that all things must fit into a Pigeon-hole. This meant that Rules must be Obeyed, and each creature was given its own set of Rules. For instance, if you were a fish you must have gills and live in water.

'But,' said the fish, 'some of us don't only live in water and can breathe air out of the sky.'

'Ah!' said Man, 'then you are a lung fish.'

There was no escape, even for Men themselves.

The Rules said, if you live in a house with two children and a wife, work in an insurance firm and drive an estate car, you cannot possibly be a ballet dancer. But inside you may be a ballet dancer even if you weigh fifteen stone and have a wooden leg.

That is the way Pigeon-holes work and everything is forced to fit into one. But this is the story of creatures that didn't fit and what happened to them.

By the way, all the pigeons I know think they should be called Man-holes, and are thinking of Getting Up A Petition.

-'Attila, Loolagax and the Eagle', Nichola McAuliffe

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...

"Are you okay, Mr. Chapman?"

"It happens a lot to a platypus. If people can't fit something into a preconceived category, it's invisible to them."

-'Kevin and Kell', August 20th, 2009

I said before that I might write this, and I have decided that I shall. Because I think it needs to be written.

First off-what is the literal meaning of 'placental mammal'? In short, it is a mammalian life-form that produces placentas in the process of pregnacy. I won't go into the biology, but this is a very common way of doing things. Most mammals across the world are placental-from humans to wolves to tree shrews by way of blue whales and sewer rats.

However, most does not equal all. There are two lineages of mammals that do things a different way-the marsupials, like kangaroos, that birth their young in a semi-fetal state and keep them in a pouch till they are fully developed. And the monotremes, which comprise only two species-echidnas and platypi. Monotremes lay eggs; in the case of the echidna, the eggs and later the hatched young are also kept in a pouch.

Now, monotremes and marsupials are ancient lineages-considerably older than placental mammals, in fact. But it's placental mammals that are all over the place, all over the world, filling every niche. Apart from opossums, which can be found in the Americas, marsupials and monotremes are restricted to Oceania/Australasia/whatever the hell it's called these days. They are considered a peculiarity of that part of the world, and their difference from the normal mammals that live everywhere else is constantly noted.



Now, pay close attention; this is where it all gets metaphorical. Be careful and you won't spill allegory down your shirt.

Placental mammals are Normal. This is a major part of their worldview. Ask one to give you a fact about, say, kangaroos, nine times out of ten they'll mention the pouch thang. Because this is so utterly Weird that it completely defines them.

Because that's what us marsupials and monotremes are to placental mammals. We are Weird. Sometimes they say we're evolutionary rejects-that our ways of doing things don't match up to theirs, that it's not as good, not as natural and obvious. Sometimes they don't believe in our existence at all.(The first time the taxonomical guys in Europe saw a stuffed platypus, they laughed their heads off and said it was a fake. It didn't fit into any known category; it looked like a mix of wildly disparate species; surely no real animal could look that mismatched and odd.)And sometimes, they just say 'GROSS!'

Now, gross is subjective. So there's no way to disprove that.

Thing is though, Weird is subjective too.

And that's why, really. Placental mammals need scapegoats. They need to feel Normal, and a lot of the time they're secretly terrified that they aren't. They need someone to point at, so they can say to themselves, OK, I may hang upside down and grow algae in my hair, but at least I'm not like those weirdoes who lay eggs!

Transphobia in the gay community. Racism in the trans community. Homophobia in the POC community.(Not that any of those are communities per se; but that might just be me being individualistic.) Placental mammals really are an incredibly varied bunch. Each of them has a different definition of Normal, but the thing they all agree on is that there are some people out there who are violating it, just by existing and doing their own thing. A lot of the time the people they think of as the Weirdoes From Down Under are just another set of placental mammals in their own right-which would be funny if it wasn't so exasperating and sad.

This echidna spent quite a few years knocking down and widening a personal definition of what consitutes Real People, and let me tell you, it's tiring work. In the end, I just decided-the hell with it. Instead of trying to figure out what's normal, let's just ask one question, when presented with any given situation. Is anyone getting hurt? No-then great, everything's okay here, move along. Yes-then do something about it, but keep in mind what the actual problem is! Someone is hurting. That is the problem. The problem is not that things do not look the way you think is pretty.

Thinking that everyone should be like you, taken to its (il)logical conclusion, ends up with the idea that everyone should have your job, drive your car, and marry your sweetie.

One last thought. All humans are placental mammals-and I don't just mean biologically. People seem to have a built-in tendency to get Linnaean with the world-and to put themselves at the top of the Tree of Life.(Either that, or put themselves at the bottom. The Happy Medium seems to have packed up her crystal ball and tarot deck.)So before you laugh and say 'yeah, those placental mammals, so damn stupid'-pause for thought! We have met the enemy and they are us! That goes for you, and, yes, for me too. Like any other of the annoying gremlins lurking in the engines of the human mind, there probably is no way to exorcise this one for good. All we can do is recognise it-and give it a good hard whack when it shows up!

Smiling inside

This story makes me a very happy echidna.

Let's hope it comes true someday.

This isn't the best tarot quote out there. But it's in the top ten.

I've been meaning to post this here for awhile, but only just got round to it.

Copyright to Comet Jant Shira and to Ms. Steph Swainston:

"The cards..." I swigged my drink. "The cards don't tell the future. How could they? The future isn't set. These cards tell you about yourself in the present. All you need to know, to predict the future as accurately as possible...all you ever can know, is yourself right now. Most people don't know their own character well and these cards help you reflect. Then for the future, you extrapolate. Go ahead and make the future up-your character will be the main factor."

I wonder if you could be my therapy~?

So recently Knux has been doing stuff in my head. Good stuff.

It's...subtle, and complicated, and hard to describe. But it's about boosting self-esteem. It's about allowing myself to feel comfortable in my body, it's about not feeling guilty, not mortifying the flesh, not practising self-denial. It's about untying my hopelessly tangled shoelaces and letting myself walk barefoot over the grass and get dirt inbetween my toes.

It's about not feeling like I'm under a moral obligation to give away every bit of security I can get a hold of, not having to be the one who saves the world, being allowed to be one of those characters with sub-par stats that never gets used for the boss battles, being allowed to be the human equivalent of my Platinum-version Weavile, who has no surefire big-hitter moves and whose stats are only average, but who is pretty and has a lot of character and is named after a good friend of mine, and who keeps up with the other five members of the team, more or less. It's about not panicking, not rushing or hurrying, staying calm, keeping it together, living in stone time.

(Water-name notwithstanding, Tigris is fire in my head; hot and quick and impatient. In fire time, every second, every nanosecond counts. Tigris always has a sense of energy about him; always poised to jump up and do something. To roar and fight or laugh booming-deep-golden and romp like...well, like a cat chasing sunbeams. Do Something. Time's a-wasting. This is the time, now is the time, every moment is the most important moment, the decisive moment, the moment of the fight, so do it, get up, do something, make something, fight something, change something, whatever you do, don't stand still. If you're standing still, you shouldn't be.)

Stone time is geological ages and patience. The slow, slow movement of mountains rising and tectonic plates shifting. They'll get there. There's no rush. No need to get in a lather. There is world enough, and time. Everything in its time, and a time for every purpose, if you only wait. Stone time is the green soft glow of the Master Emerald. It's meditation in a cool still room, and walking a meandering path through the Marble Garden, smelling the flowers, picking fruit, playing in the dirt, doubling back on yourself, lying down to sleep under a shady tree. Granite calmness, basalt wisdom. Stone just is.

Acceptance.

That's stone time.

Homeland

Recently I reread Wee Free Men.

I love that book, but it's always made my heart ache. Because Tiffany has things I've never had and never will...an ancestry, and an ancient homeland. Tiffany is pure calkin girl, she has the hills in her bones. Her face and her name. Her eyes and her hair. Tir-far-thoinn. One place out of all the world that is hers, Land Under Wave.

Me, I'm a mongrel, a muddle of different lineages, so many that they cancel each other out and it's like having none-I have no ancestry, only ancestors. And my ancestors came here, to this bit of the world, only very recently...

But I reread this book, and something struck me a different way, and I thought.

This land is not like the chalk downlands, it is not ancient, but like the chalk downlands it was made by men. Men moved the earth around, planted trees and raised buildings. They brought plants from every corner of the globe to grow in their gardens, and they laid down paths among their houses. Just as men, so long ago, cut down the trees of the old forest and brought in sheep that ate the seedlings in the grass...

This land is. It is real. Not some abstract, historical ideal, but real earth and stone and concrete. It is a real place, and there is life here. Humans, animals, the million small tough plants mixed in with the short grass in lawns and parks. Down to the clay and the chalk below(for all South England is built on chalk), this land is alive.

Men brought many things to this land. Plants grow here that have grown here since time immemorial-oak, ash, thorn-but also there are plants that men brought over the water. And plants that men made, breeding for shape or colour or taste. They grow here just as well. I can be one more transplanted thing, here, one more naturalised citizen of the earth. There is a place for such as me.

There is beauty in this land. There is the big sky, which is more beautiful here than anywhere in the country. Painters come here, just for sky. There are the trees. I climbed a hill, here, and saw the patchwork land laid out before me; I found a still small pool, surrounded all by trees, and light shimmered down onto it at sunset. When I was at Longsands, there was a courtyard there, and in that courtyard a cherry tree. In spring it blossomed, and then it was a tree of wonder, a tree of pink-white foam, a tree fit for samurai to write poems to. But it did not care that no samurai saw, that no-one respected it or wrote haiku in its honour. It just was. And maybe some people saw. I know that I did. Maybe there were others...

There is cruelty in this land. But I can accept that. There is cruelty in every land. This is one problem that Tiffany has no advantage over me on. She knows that the people of her land can be just as vicious and unthinking as people anywhere. There was the old lady...What was done to her made Tiffany angry and ashamed and resolved that it should not happen again, not while she drew breath. But it didn't make her feel that she didn't belong right where she was.

I have lived in this land all my life. I know it. They say that the landscape you live in for the first seven years of your life leaves a mark on you. I do not know how true that is, but it is true for me, I think.

The ancient lands have their witches and wizards, and all know. Tiffany tells the hills what they are, and they tell her what she is. But is there anyone to tell this land what it is? Not just the parts of it that are old, but the new? The suburbs lying quiet in the hot sun, the man-made gardens, the playgrounds in the parks? The boats on the river with puttering motor engines? This land is real, as real as any land. When I was jealous of Tiffany it was because I felt less real than her, that my land was less real, because it was not so old and pure. But that's all wrong. Time isn't everything.

This land has no name that I know. There are names for the counties and towns, but there is no name for the land.

I will look for one. I will tell the land what it is.

Maybe if I listen, it will tell me what I am.

I am not one of us

I don't know if it's just me, but I've never felt quite included.

Technically I am a member of many groups. Not groups like organisations, that's a whole 'nother post subject and one for later, but...demographics. English. Mixed race. Genderqueer. Fantasy geek. Etcetera. I don't deny this. It's obvious.

Yet whenever anyone says 'us', no matter how stirring their speech is, no matter whether I think their sentiments are right or wrong...a little voice inside me says, 'I'm not one of you.'

Not in any insulting way, you understand. Not 'I'm not one of you!' hurled like an insult, defiant and secretly terrified, but simply a statement of face. I'm not one of you. Full stop.

I don't really understand why. It's just been...well, a rock-solid certainty, for as far back as I can remember.

Maybe it's psychological. Something to do with my parents-my mother refusing to admit I was part African, my father refusing to admit I was part English, in the simplified version. Maybe it was because I hated baby dolls and action-men both as a kid, and played instead with plastic animals, narrating long complex stories with my lions and tigers and bears(oh my). I don't know.

All I know is that whatever you are, whatever I am, I am not one of you.

That does not mean I don't sympathise with your problems, or that I think you are Wrong and I am Right, or that I pig-headedly deny that we share a common enemy or friend. All it means is that I am not one of you.

I am not plural. I am me, singular, and that is all.

What that means...I don't know.

The universal opera; Aquila's internal dialogue

Most people have an internal monologue. I got an internal dialogue.

These guys aren’t figments(save Caity, who straddles the border). They are me; they are also complete entities unto themselves. I don’t know how this is possible but it clearly is, and the world was never under any obligation to make sense to me.

And you can call it crazy if you like, but having them around and personified has helped my mental health, as far as I can tell.

That said, here’s the roster.

Caity: Impossible to define with any accuracy, other than as himself. He goes by the name Devin these days when hanging with figment folk; on Sygnus years ago when he shifted skin and introduced himself to someone else’s figments he asked for a name to be called by, and was given that one by one of them.

He originally came into my head from outside, but you could say he’s a naturalised citizen by now. He’s kind of an ambassador or messenger between the figment folk(mine and other peoples’), the independent little spirits(story people or talking stones or anything else-whichever), and the rest of the internal dialogue.

Tigris: Shoulder angel. Inner angel. Holy Guardian Angel. I’ve mentioned him before. He’s a personification of strength and virtue-specifically my strength and virtue-the best self I have.

He’s been around for absolutely ages, but I only personified him, figured out his name and face, a couple years ago now(maybe just one year…I have a crappy memory for timeline stuff). Tigris is the Latin word for ‘tiger’, a spur-of-the-moment naming on my part for this huge, marmaladey-orangey-golden-tabby beast with his saber fangs and clear gold eyes and Professor of Literature voice. As Athene reminded me, though, the Tigris is also one of the rivers that flows through Eden. I’m sure he was thinking that, even if I wasn’t. Caity and Knux call him Tig or Tigger sometimes, which is another thing that’s Athene’s fault; Demyx usually refers to him as Big Tigger, when he isn’t doing his Organisation name thing.

I vaguely expected him to be more distant and humourless than he is; boy, was I wrong! Though he takes a hands-off approach a lot of the time, it’s all about practicality, not to mention integrity and respect; his job is to teach, not coddle. And he is not humourless by any stretch of the imagination! His sense of humour is actually a good deal more robust than mine, probably because he’s a stronger person.

And then he’ll go and totally knock me for a loop by responding in kind when Stefen makes innuendo(I didn’t even understand what he was doing at the time, because it didn’t occur to me that he would!)or declaring that Franziska is his daughter, or becoming very close friends with Knux…

Tigris, these days, lives on Angel Island with Knux, in a cave near the edge of Marble Garden Zone that strangely resembles Tumnus’s home in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.(That is, when they're not being their otherselves, which I'm still finding out about so watch this space...)They had a big row recently over Gold(see earlier posts for details on him)and it looked for awhile as though Tigris might move out, but by now they have made up.

Franziska: Shoulder demon. That nasty little voice saying how weak and stupid and pathetic you are…or else goading you into being a total bastard. She’s from inside, like Tigris, and like him she’s been around for ages and her shape and name are just qualia. Unlike him, they are pinched directly from a spirit woman called Franziska von Karma, of Phoenix Wright: Justice For All fame.

When Franziska first got personified I expected her to be more or less straightforward nasty, all the bits of me I could really do without and need to get rid of as soon as possible; not quite a boggart, more along the lines of Screwtape(‘he can’t really love-nobody can-it doesn’t make sense’ wailed that demon on one occasion). Life is rarely simple however, and Franziska turned out to be rather more complex.

Christianity has it that devils are fallen angels; that badness is goodness fouled and twisted, rather than something autonomous in itself. The worst demons are the ones that fell the furthest-Lucifer was an archangel once. Franziska, I discovered recently, was also not always what she is now. Once she was the rightful wielder of the sword that rests between my shoulderblades(all people have one there). She was a desire for justice, for fair play in all things.

She fell, though. Somehow or other, she fell. Now she’s all muddled up with anger and spite and self-flagellation and hollow pride that hides burgeoning, breeding inferiority complexes. Now, she can’t or won’t touch the sword, and she’s a thousand miles away from dispensing justice. Quite the opposite, actually.

When I described her to Athene, she said It sounds a bit like she set herself an impossible task - to prevent anyone getting away with evil - and is mad at herself for not succeeding at it. I hadn’t thought about it that way before, but it seems pretty accurate.

Tigris says she’s his daughter. He refuses to elaborate on that. But he does seem to care for her, though he doesn’t stand for any of her demonic attitude.

Knux(Knuckles for long): My Knight of Swords, with shades of Strength and The Tower. He could be from inside, he could be from outside; I honestly do not know and cannot tell. He’s…well, if I say ‘ego’ that sounds wrong. He isn’t a selfish person, or a cruel one. But he knows what he likes and is prepared to get it, he knows what he is and is prepared to be it, and he doesn’t give a damn for anyone’s arbitrary categories, hence the t-shirt he sometimes flomps around in; on the back is a bunch of green ones and zeroes, on the front the words BINARY IS FOR BADNIKS, with a little picture of a seriously trashed robot underneath.

He can be kind, and wise, but is definitely not subtle; a good knock-down fight is always his first and preferred option. He picks fights, but never at random; it’s just that he won’t walk on by when he sees something he can’t accept. He’s smart about knowing when is the time to attack, though, and when is the time to wait and sharpen his spikes. He’d rescue princesses from towers, not for the glory or the romance of it(because he frankly hasn’t got a romantic bone in his body)but because they were there and they needed rescuing. He’d also rescue dragons from knights, for the same reason. He and Tigris bonded pretty much immediately; they share something of the same sense of humour. Quite often Knux can be found using Tigris as a sofa or pillow(which Tigris does not seem to mind in the slightest), or lying between the big cat’s front paws and being thoroughly washed(which Knux does not seem to mind in the slightest).

He lives on Angel Island, which floats about above the clouds on the power of the Master Emerald and goes just about wherever he wants it to go. I sometimes think he is Angel Island, somehow. I’ve heard before of people who are places, so it follows that some places might be people, and the impossible geography of the Floating Island sometimes looks to me like a depiction of his own mind and heart…

Demyx the Demon DJ(D3 or D-cubed for short): Probably the weirdest of the lot. Another one who uses qualia unashamedly-his form is ‘borrowed’ from one of the Nobodies of Organisation XIII.

The original Demyx is a musician, and my Demyx is the music in my head, the invisible orchestra that no-one can hear but me. It all comes out of his magic sitar-everything from classical to J-pop by way of rock and roll. When he isn’t singing along with it, he generally talks obliquely, in circles. He’s probably the most mysterious of the dialogue-nobody can ever get a straight answer from him on anything. He has a habit, too, of referring to people not by their own names but by those of members of Organisation XIII. Knux generally gets called ‘Lexaeus’; Tigris is ‘Xemnas’, or ‘Saix’. Caity is ‘Luxord’.

He is also in love with Franziska. He endlessly flirts with her, which she reacts to with alarm and confusion. I’ve a suspicion she actually likes it, though-even when he’s calling her ‘Larxene’.

He spends his time in his own version of the Castle That Never Was, the Castle That Always Is-a shimmering confection of crystal walkways and pearly towers, under a moon shaped like a heart and a million shining stars. That is, when he’s not following Franziska to her home, and singing under her window…

Pride(In The Name of...What?)

Question for the world! Is pride okay or not?

I read a LOT of Christian writings-despite not being Christian myself at any point, though I came close a few times-and in those Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, as you know.

Read Mere Christianity sometime for a good potted summary. Pride is defined there as enmity between humans and other humans, between humans and God. Pride takes no pleasure out of having something-only out of having more than someone else. Pride is what drives people to ride roughshod over people, just cause they can. Pride is when you don't care what people think of you, cause the only opinion you care about is your own...

And I believed this, y'know. Not cause I was spoonfed it-well, maybe a bit-but because I KNOW I can be an insufferable prig at times. A snob of major proportions.

Only...

Only I've been reading recently about some other ideas. Like 'constructive ego'. This idea threw me for a loop a bit-always has.

A voice-yeah, another one-turned up in my head. He's not so disassociated from 'me' as the other voices...sometimes it feels like he's a mask I wear, or I'm a mask he wears, and neither of us can tell which. I can't love or hate him because he's too close to really being me.

Let's call him Gold.

Gold is proud. He takes no crap from anyone. He likes to be acclaimed and praised-he doesn't suffer from the stagefright that I do-and he's not ashamed to admit it. He doesn't scuttle around with his head down.

Gold thinks he has a right to be who he is. He doesn't have to apologise for it, and he doesn't have to pay for the right to exist. In a 'discussion group' here with some other patients, one woman said unhappily that she felt she was useless, no good in the world, and didn't deserve to live because of it, that it'd be better for the world if she was dead. Everyone started saying things like no, I'm sure you've done good-did you ever see that movie Clarence, small things you've done might have big consequences-you must have done Good Things whether you think so or not.

And Gold spoke up through my mouth, and said that answers like that were well-meaning but they were wrong at a basic level. You have the right to exist, he said. You don't have to pay for your life by doing good works. It's good if you do, of course, it's good to be a good person. But you don't have to work at deserving your life. Me, I was born. The rest of the world just has to put up with it.

He got given some astonished looks, and then a round of applause.

I'd have expected Gold to be pure selfish bastard, but he isn't, which continually surprises me. He has this weird but genuine respect for other people that seems to come of viewing them as equals. You aren't above me, so don't get on your high horse and ride over me. You aren't below me either, so don't bow and scrape. We can look each other in the eyes.

He's free to be kind, too...Another thing that surprises me. But after that discussion group Debbie-the one friend I have here, though she's an outpatient now-was feeling depressed. It was Gold who went to cheer her up, hugged her and invited her out for a meal in town, took her mind off the bad stuff with friendly talk till she felt better.

Humane. That's the word. He's weirdly, unexpectedly humane.

He's not good, and I don't know about nice-he's too sarcastic for that! And I don't know if he's right, either...

...Despite all this, though, I want him to stay.

When I'm Gold, I feel strong.

But I worry that I'm...well...Sinning.

I just don't know.

Big post of thinky and fear and so forth

Been reading some stuff on Dw3t-Hthr’s blog about fear of motherhood, fear not of the ‘I don’t want this, don’t make me do this!’ sort, but fear that goes hand in hand with the wanting, fear and want twined round each other like a nest of garter snakes. She talks about fear of what she might do to her kids, what she might inflict on them-passing on the generational curse. I understand that, and I wish I didn’t.

Reading it makes me think about my own fears. I’m scared of what I’ll do to my children, what kind of parent I’ll be, because the first people we learn parenting from are our own parents and mine taught me so many bad things that I am still painfully unlearning. I don’t want to be my mother and snap and lash out and try to stuff my children into a just-like-me box made out of ticky-tacky. I don’t want to be my father and live in a world of my own, not paying attention to what my children actually think or say, meaning well but being totally unreachable because when they talk to me I don’t listen, don’t even register their voices. I want to teach and protect and not be a burden of spikes digging into their minds, hanging on them as they try to grow up. I don’t want to be a monster…

And as well as that, and even worse than that…I’m scared of what my children will be. Maybe that train of thought started with my fiercely hating my mother, wanting so badly for her to be out of my life, and having everyone tell me that this was Normal. Everyone hates their mother when they are Teenage. Everyone rebels when they are Teenage, purely out of spite, for the sake of rebelling. Because god knows, Teenagers don’t have any thoughts of their own, they don’t see their own paths and try to follow them, they just want to make their parents angry…

I heard that over and over, and somewhere in there I started doubting myself, and that added to the misery…

(These days I don’t have much hate left towards my mother. Just resignation and sadness. And a firm determination to cut all ties with her sharply, as soon as I can support myself. Not solely for my sake. I could cope, you know, if I just had to see her once a year at Christmas or whatever, and that could be managed if I only moved far enough away…But I don’t want her anywhere near my children. Ever. Not even for one day a year. I don’t want that poison in their lives.)

However it started, I’m scared. What if my children hate me? What if they rebel against me, and the way to do that will be to become Normal People, geek-hating, gay-bashing Mundanes like those that made my growing-up hell…

I want children so badly, but what if they turn out to be objects of fear?

It makes me want to cry and hide my head under the blankets. And meanwhile a small annoying voice in my head says I’m getting ahead of myself, worrying about stuff that won’t happen for years yet. But it’s my future that keeps me going, the thought of my future; if the Promised Land turns out to be another deathtrap, where will you live…?

And I don’t have any answers.

But then I start examining myself and think that what this all boils down to is that I don’t trust. I don’t trust myself to be a good or passable parent. I don’t trust my unborn kids to have the good sense to be decent people. I just realised that I also don’t trust my girl-my future wife, and thinking that lifts me out of my misery a little, gives me a happy little buzz-to help me, help catch my mistakes. I don’t trust in my own strength to cope if the Worst Case Scenario actually happens. I don’t trust my God and my little gods and spirits to help me and give me strength…

And then I remember what Athene said a long time ago about trust and trustworthiness, that Zidane didn’t find people trustworthy by never trusting them, never trying to trust.(And that means accepting the possibility of getting hurt, and not letting the hurt when it comes turn you bitter…)

And I wonder if maybe total inability to trust isn’t what makes Silvers, or some of them at least. If maybe closing yourself in and threatening the host of monsters outside with a knife isn’t what makes you a monster, too. There’s got to be a middle ground between naïveté and cynicism; between the idiot that can’t smell a trap a mile off, and the idiot whose mantra is ‘it’s not paranoia if they really ARE all out to get you’. The Golden Mean, and all that.

I’m working on it.

The shapeshifter as trickster

Something that hit me out of nowhere; shifting shape is somehow parsed as lying. The Mystique thing. Multiple faces like veils tied around a ‘real’ body, a ‘real’ identity, obscuring it. A tease maybe. A deception, definitely.

And I’m not saying there aren’t people who do that, but the possibility of having more than one shape and all shapes being true doesn’t really seem to be one that’s allowed to enter heads.

When trying to stick to one shape, one identity, has always been the thing that felt to me like lying; hiding stuff, trying to be predictable, trying to be boxed neatly so that people can see me and understand.(And somehow it’s my responsibility to be understandable, not theirs to try to understand…)

It’s tiring…

…and not surprisingly Knux has no truck with this whole ideology whatsoever.(And have I mentioned how glad I am that I met my Echidna?)

Shape shifting for me is truth telling, because the truth is bigger than one story. Shape shifting is nakedness, brazen and bold. Here I am. All of me.

Utterances of the Menagerie of Doom(which is what they decided to call themselves now that FDB is no longer wholly appropriate...)

Because Athene did this with Pesky Stefen Rhymer. On the basis of 'why not?'

This will be updated erratically. Whenever they are particularly on form.

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“Fuck biology, we’ll just buy you a pair of kitty ears. On a headband, you know. No-one will notice the difference!”


“Puppy.”

“Puggle.”

“…you two are conspiring against me.”

“We’re conspiring for you, and don’t forget it.”


“You can’t see the Floating Island with those eyes.”


“I’m not going to tell you what I believe. You’ll only try to imitate it.”


“The Universe can always use another pair of helping hands, especially if they have spikes on and are not above dealing out a few punches.”


“There’s always something worth guarding.”


“What?! You’re my guardian angel not my libido! Are angels even meant to get-”

“Ahem…Geburah, dear.”


“Being different is one thing, being unique is another. Being unique sucks, so it’s a good thing no-one really is.”


(while dancing about at the bus-stop to a song they were looping in my head, and trying to get me to join in) “Dignity? I’m a cartoon animal! You can’t get much more undignified than that.”


“You can and should feel guilty for anything you did that made the situation worse. But feeling guilty for there being a situation at all is ridiculous. It’s just being masochistic. And not in the fun way.”


“You can’t ask a demon why it destroys stuff-well, you can, but you won’t get a straight answer and you probably won’t get a truthful one either.”


(I have a skin allergy that makes trouble if I don’t take medicine for it regularly. I’d missed a few doses, and I was sitting at the computer and scratching my belly.) “You’ll scratch off all your fur if you carry on like that.”

“I don’t have fur!”

“…Which proves my point!” (yeah, I walked into that one…)


(discussing Athene’s cohorts)“All [Vanyel’s] plans sooner or later come down to ‘blow stuff up’. Usually sooner.”


“Also, we killed binary. I think Knux stabbed it.” (Knux, I should mention, has taken to wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the message BINARY IS FOR BADNIKS. He doesn't need to wear t-shirts, so I assume he is only doing it for the lolz.)


"It never was, because it always is!"


(in response to the line ‘hanging upside-down like a bat and playing the ocarina’, in ‘out’)“Add that to the list of ‘things we haven’t done yet, but must do someday for the shock value’.”


(while talking with Athene about the fact that half the world freaks out if you Believe in anything, while the other half freaks out if you don't Believe exactly what they do)"So basically there's no room in the world for people like me. But I knew that already."

*headshake*"It means that if you want space you have to carve out your own."


"If packing is such a fucking depressing chore, what is unpacking?"


(when I got the idea that the Master Emerald must Never Be Touched In Any Circumstances)"That sounds like the sort of 'cosmic' bullshit Tigris would come up with."

Some random rambly shit about bodies & sexuality, & my weird head

I have pretty eyes. Big and deep brown, with long eyelashes. Bambi eyes. People have complimented me on them before now. Sometimes they say I should swap my glasses for contacts(no thank you; the thought of floating something on my eyeball just grosses me out and anyway I’ve worn glasses so long they feel like part of my body now)so as to render my eyes more visible, make the most of them.

I remember looking in a mirror, aged about thirteen or fourteen, and not liking what I saw. This was of course commonplace. But it wasn’t always about imperfection in my face and figure…Sometimes I’d look, and see those big Bambi eyes. They looked like they belonged on some baby creature. They looked vulnerable.

And I thought, ‘I hate that. I don’t want to look that vulnerable.’

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, sometimes, be in that space, be the small thing held in warm arms, and be comforted. But I didn’t want it all the time, and I didn’t want it to be the thing people saw when they saw me-regardless of what I wanted.

I was hanging out with some of the Final Fantasy spirit folk at this point in time, so I had no shortage of pretty girls to observe. I never really thought the thought in so many words, but I sort of formed an assumption-sexiness is something your body does to you. If your features add up in a certain way you’re ugly and there’s nothing you can do about it; if they add up in another way you’re pretty and there’s nothing you can do about that.

That girl I talked to back then, for instance; my friend in the blue wool cardigan. She’s pretty; by her world’s standards she’s what everyone would think of immediately if someone said ‘pretty’, slim dark-eyed and dark-haired. That’s always there, whenever anyone looks at her. It’s like she’s always in some sense on show. Not that she flaunted herself or anything, or revealed anything much. Her clothing was otherworldly of course, since she was too, but basically it was a cardy and bike shorts and a top no more revealing than the sort every Thulc girl in town was wearing. But her prettiness was always on display, even if her tits weren’t. She was an attractive woman, and people could see that straight out whenever they saw her. Her attitude didn’t have anything to do with it. Didn’t matter whose pants she actually wanted to get into, didn’t matter what she thought about people looking at her. She was on show, and everyone could see. She could have dressed in sackcloth and ashes and she’d still have been pretty, and she’d have gotten a lot of ‘what the fuck?’ comments on top of that.

Of course prettiness didn’t make her a weak person-and anyone who thinks beautiful women have to be weak should go to a dozen worlds I could name, make an observation like that to a hundred deadly and determined ladies. Go on, I dare you-but it did inject a quality into her strength, a kind of defensiveness. Don’t look at me like that-I’ll show you what a pretty woman can do…But that didn’t stop them from looking. Touching, yes. But not from looking.

She was a powerful being and a sexual being. She could offer or withhold as she liked. And she was with folk who respected that she had the choice of it, decent folk. And she dated, and the relationships went their way, and lasted for a while, or not, though sometimes she was turned down, and sometimes she turned other people down, but for the most part she had a pretty good time…

…but that prettiness. That bit of her that was there for anyone to see, a free sample of her. That vulnerability. A bit of her given away before any interaction even started. And yes, with some people she wanted to give that away, there’s one boy I know she wanted to give that to, wanted to give him the sight of her, wanted him to want it-

-but she didn’t get the choice about that bit, and nobody asked.

She was sexy. It was the way her body was. It was a fact that she simply could not get away from.

She didn’t seem to have any problems with this, didn’t even think about it probably. Like I wasn’t consciously thinking about it. But I was noticing. Somewhere, I was noticing.

And time passed, and my hormones kicked in, and I begin to notice something that puzzled me a little. The thing that seemed to make the difference about whether I was attracted to someone or not wasn’t physical. It was…well, it was a whole lot of things, different in every person, but all mental. Mind, I could appreciate physical beauty just fine, but it was just…stuff. Like how a waterfall or a sunset is beautiful. It was when I noticed an interesting mind in a well-formed body that I would start getting interested. And I don’t mean interested in a relationship, I just mean horny! I could not, and still cannot, muster up any attraction for a physically good-looking person who I know nothing about.

Hmm, I thought. Interesting.

Recently I’ve been puzzling this out a bit, and it’s been prompted by noticing a spirit or two(most of my friends are spirits)who seem to do this whole sexiness thing differently to how I saw it.

Spirits who, on pure physicality and according to my tastes at least, are not attractive. Just plain, or even a bit ugly or grotesque.

But I’ve seen them being sexy…It’s strange. I wasn’t turned on myself, but I could see the intention and the power that they could call up, an attitude, a way of moving differently, a look about them that’s just impossible to pin down…It was sexy, though it wasn’t aimed at me, wasn’t meant to be, and didn't register on my internal radars. Does it make sense to say that I could see the sexual power that they had even if it wasn’t one that touched me? And even though they weren’t doing anything overtly sexual, like stripping or whatnot?

I’ve seen them, and for them sexiness isn’t something their bodies do to them. It’s something they do to their bodies. Or with their bodies. And there’s no defensive air, no feeling of vulnerability-though they weren’t always doing it, calling up that power, for someone who they wanted to see them! Sometimes they seemed to just be doing it for the sheer joy of it.

It’s hard to put words round all this. I keep typing and then deleting things, trying to capture the concepts shifting in my head.

It’s just, sexuality always seemed to me to be a sort of vulnerability.

But I’ve read stuff people’ve wrote, about sexuality being power, being empowering. And I never really understood that. Only now I think I start to get some idea of what they meant…

Nobody believes in Silvers...till they look in the mirror.

There's a LOT of warnings in books and games and films and what-all about anger. About the terrible things it does to the human brain.

And you know what? We never believe them. We laugh and call it cliche. A fantasy staple, keyword being fantasy.

Even I thought it was some kind of rare thing, if it ever happened.

Till I looked at myself and found out I was wrong.

Old Jack pointed out that one man may be placed so his anger kills people, and another may be placed so however mad he gets, he just gets laughed at...But the stain on the soul may be much the same. Not the stain of the guilt of consequences-that's something separate altogether of course. The stain of the anger itself.

It does twist you out of shape.

Sometimes I imagine what I'd be like with a chunk of Nethicite, and the image is not a good one.

But don't think I'm just putting myself down here. This is freaking endemic.

Don't believe me? Well, just think; if everyone could make 'Go to hell!' a performative statement when screaming it at their ex, the cliffs of Weep-not would be standing room only!