Judy

Aquila says: It could be worse. There was this one game I got-also Square-where I never actually figured out how to work the battle system at all. Despite hours of effort and reading the guide pamphlet thing. In the end I said bollocks and returned it to the store.
Ash says: Unlimited Saga?
Aquila says: That's the one. I'd forgotten the name till you said it.
Ash says: I had the same problem.
Ash says: Shame, cuz it looked good.
Aquila says: My theory is it's another xenophobic world. The characters are like, 'WE DO NOT WANT PEOPLE LOOKING AT US. GO AWAY.' So they are Obstructive, and Complicate Simple Matters in a successful bid to make people storm off in frustration.
Ash says: Or maybe they were dying for their story to be told, and the developers fucked up, and they're sitting around waiting for visitors and wondering "why doesn't anyone like us?"
Aquila says: I like your version better. That little witch girl seemed sweet, come to think.
Ash says: Yeah.

Judy walks the labyrinth. Her location is not marked on any map.

The labyrinth is an egg that she failed to hatch from. The labyrinth is the womb of a dead mother. The labyrinth is a school with no pupils but her, and it is the endless silvery dimensions behind the mirror.

Grandfather was trapped in a mirror, Judy thinks. I have to save him. But grandfather is not here.

Maybe if she walks the labyrinth long enough, she will find him. Maybe if she walks without stopping, checks every door and passage, she will reach the way out.

She is very tired, and her little hands are cold.

Judy walks the labyrinth. Her companions are three familiars that patter behind her in the dust. They do not speak, and they are cold to the touch. As she is cold.

She has a memory that this is not what she was promised. Things have not always been like this. Once she was warm, and sheltered, and a mother-voice whispered to her of games, and adventures, and other children all in sunlight. It told her stories that made her laugh, and dance in anticipation. They were not fantasies. They were truths. Prophecies.

Prophecy is dead now. Stillborn. Miscarried.

Her existence now is not Life. Neither is it Truth.

Judy walks the labyrinth. Sometimes she sobs, but tears never fall. She thinks that tears might make her feel better. They would be hot, she thinks; salty and hot and wet. She might be warm, if she could cry.

Maybe tears would wipe clean the dust that clings to her, her hair, her clothes. She is covered in grey. She cannot remember the colour of her skin. She has a few vague ideas about it; are people brown, or pink, or blue? And what did colours look like, anyway?

Purple was nice, she thinks. She thinks she remembers wanting to be purple.

Judy walks the labyrinth. Sometimes she remembers things. She remembers a breaking, a hot, bright world glimpsed for a few, precious seconds, and then, the labyrinth again, cooling slowly.

She is a genius, she thinks. Is that right, that word ‘genius’? She’s quite sure that she is one, as much as she is sure of anything. But she can’t quite remember what a genius is.

Perhaps ‘genius’ means grey, and cold, and solitary. Perhaps ‘genius’ means dust that falls into her mouth and nose, unfocused vision, and slow, muzzy mind.

She isn’t sure that she likes being a genius, but she has got to be something. She clutches to the word, because it describes herself, and she does not have many words that describe herself. If she cannot describe herself to her, then maybe she does not exist. And she does not have many words at all.

She was going to have words, she thinks. Words, and numbers, and colours. They were in the promise. But the promise never came true.

And unkept promises fade.

(A/N: No, I have no fucking clue where this came from...)

^_^

Spending nearlyaweek with Ashwas fun.

All is quiet? Not likely...

I apologise to my non-existent readership for my prolonged absence. I've been...doing Stuff, and I got caught up in it...

What sort of stuff?

Well...riding a lion in Trafalgar Square. Drinking cider, eating guacamole. Going to the Natural History Museum a lot, reading Ursula Le Guin short stories, re-reading Unseen Academicals. Getting given up on by my therapist. Angsting about this. Just today, getting a hopeful sounding letter that makes it seem that getting a new one may well be on the cards soonish. Breaking my glasses. Getting new glasses, and finding that the optician here in Tower Hamlets, Aldgate, London, is a lot nicer, friendlier and more considerate than the one back in small-town St Neots. Playing Zelda on DS, and getting stuck on it. Playing 358/2 Days, which is the gloomiest KH game yet, which is some achievement. Playing Tales of Symphonia again. Talking a LOT with Ash and getting in trouble for pulling all nighter phone conversations(free weekends how I love thee). Planning to meet Ash in London in a couple weeks, yay! Occasionally exchanging emails with Athene, whenever I can make time for internet cafe-age. Trying to chip away at the OCD on my own...and finding it tough going. Not giving up. Nearly giving up. Having troubles with phones that break at inconvenient times for no apparent reason.(Okay, one was mysterious, the other went through the washing machine, which was admittedly my fault...)Having flu and trying not to be Janaff(i.e. Impossibly Whiny and Hypochondriac)about it. Discovering that my father likes the Dubliners, and Isaac Asimov. Despite these revelations, still mostly not understanding him at all. Looking out now into the dark street, thinking I should sign off soon and head home...

But watch this space for further developments.

Exhilaration

So, I did something that my father would kill me for. My mother too.

I got a secret Oyster of my own, and I went out into London while Dad was at work. On my own!

I went to the Forbidden Planet-I remembered the way from going there with Thene! And I have a very talkative Aeris now in my pocket, and a new book in my backpack.

I watered some sad-looking plants in a church, and I looked at stones in a hippy shop. I'm typing this now from an internet cafe. Once I'm done I'm heading home again...for today, at least!

I just keep smiling and laughing. It's so great to be out like this!

London's open to me now. It's not just a city, it's my city.

I'm not trapped anymore.

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

___________________________________

*bump*

*bump*

*bump bump*

...

"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!

Yet another headache, courtesy of family and their hangers-on

Okay. Hypothetical-well, not so hypothetical-question here.

I got my hair cut recently-quite short. Ever since then, my mother's boyfriend has been referring to it as 'spikey dykey' in a disparaging way.

Now, okay, my hair does seem to grow in natural vertical tufts when it's that short, for some reason(it never used to). And I am not really thrilled with the look either-it wasn't what I was hoping for.

But I'm pretty sure it's NOT overly PC to get annoyed at someone equating being a lesbian with being unattractive!

Especially since I sort-of came out to my mother and her boyfriend some time ago.(I told them I liked girls. They don't believe me. Apparently I am too young and naive to know. HAH.)So-in effect, he was telling someone that as far as he knew identified as a lesbian, that she looked like a lesbian, and that this was ugly.

So...finally protested about this, in a phone conversation the other day. My mother's boyfriend laughed and said it was a joke and that my hair was 'spikey dykey'.

When I pressed my point, he got shirty and said I was overinterpreting and being too PC. And when I pointed out that not all lesbians have spiky hair he denied this and claimed that he knew more lesbians than me, and knew more about lesbians than me, and all the lesbians he knew had spiky hair, and that I was ignorant and talking about things I didn't understand.

...I mean. Really. FEMMES EXIST DAMMIT! > <

I'm pretty sure it's not me with the problem, here.

So, here I am again.

I am writing this in a state of annoyance. My email account has been cancelled and I have no idea why whatsoever. I suppose I'll have to get a hotmail account or something...

Dad is saying that he'll give me the house keys; I just hope he really does. He has a habit of promising things and never doing them.

I keep meaning to write things. Blog posts or stories. But...thing is, my head hurts. Not physically. Maybe my heart more than my head.

It's all to do with that conversation I had with Thene, when I was staying with my mother for a weekend so as to see my GP about meds. About families.

I thought I wasn't dumb enough anymore to get annoyed about life being unfair to me. Life is unfair. I got the memo. And...I can deal!

But the idea...the idea that this isn't the normal way of things...

That breaks my head. And my heart.

I should be more eloquent. But I can't muster up the effort...