Thinking without a Banister

A 20 something year old caffeine induced tea lover.

[khaleesirin]

I don’t know how to properly say goodbye to Toni Morrison. I don’t know how to properly make her rest in peace, or rest in power. I don’t know how to properly give voice to this nagging feeling inside me, knowing how deeply rooted her words are in this very language I speak. 

Toni Morrison came into my life when I couldn’t string simple English words together to ground coherency for an essay that was all about irrational thoughts. She came into my life when at the age 11, I had to literally depend on my friend’s best friend to survive an English class, writing all my essays in my own language while constantly and shamefully begging for her to translate everything word for word, borrowing her voice, so I could locate my own. Language has always been my insecurity, to speak has always been the cause of anxiety.

This isn’t really a story about how her Black activism led me to understand the dark contours of US history -- it took years of paying attention for me to finally come to that point. This isn’t really about how her insistence to write Black story broke the assumptions I had about Black bodies -- that took more than her works. It was simply that her words, in her poetic articulation of destruction, of despair, also foregrounded my own. It came from a place where I simply didn’t understand her. She came into my life when I wanted to understand, when I wanted to at least get a hold of this language I was forced to learn, not so much to belong, but to articulate my own otherness. That when she spoke of despair, she also did so with the insistence to create hope, to transform destruction into an articulation of shared existence. 

So I found Toni Morrison, at the age 11, in that old bookstore selling second hand books. Randomly picking her up, not knowing who she was, or the heaviness her stories carry, and truly more intrigued by the book cover --a black woman in a white dress -- I bought the book. Rereading parts of Beloved, horrified by the imagery, heartbroken by the finality, displaced by the sheer ferocity of the feeling she poured through to tell the story, I learned how to string English words together, connecting my feelings with this foreign language, finding myself in it. Probably not the most conventional way at self-pedagogy, but it was her work that led me to read more, to speak more, to write more, to keep reminding myself that I am my best thing. 

So “we die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

[khaleesirin]

it's been five years since i last used this account, and since then a lot has happened. five years ago i thought i wouldn't be breathing anymore. After three hospital stays, after two forced monitoring, after endless battle with myself, I'm glad I'm still here. and when i finally felt better, i realize there is no good place in the internet anymore to talk about things and not get ragebaited. yes, a word i picked up from my students. generative ai content has been rotting a lot of otherwise good discourses. we have shitty president. the world is witnessing one of the most atrocious genocides and act like there is no other choice. sometimes it makes me wonder what is good about fighting to live.

but why am i here? mostly, i just want to document my journey so far. i want to return to the space i felt most heard, and the space i felt most at home. i'm now a professor, which can be the most rewarding and also the most disappointing type of job. I feel deflated when my students aren't interested in trying to change the world, when they exhibit the most cynical view of the world at such a young age. but, what's even worse is the feeling that we let them down. that no matter what i do, i really can't comfort them. when i look at them, i realize i was like them 5 years ago, 20 year old something who was beaten by the world that forces me to live in its own terms, as if i both own and don't own my own life, an equally terrifying position, that this grammatical way of speaking about life is itself the source of our problem. but not having an alternative way of speaking. i can see the spark in my students' eyes when they hear something new in a field that often thinks conceptually, until they get to hear a ding from their phone about a bill they have to pay. too young to be thinking about these things, and too young to be giving in to these things.

i looked through my own account before posting this. a painful part of growing is the ways in which you see your life dimming. i used to be so enthusiastic about a lot of things and would spend hours trying to parse through my own thoughts about a person that doesn't exist, about characters born out of imagining. i used to think of myself as a posthumanist, but there's something about this human creativity that i think we should still be protecting, celebrating, and flourishing. we are more than just a processing machine, no matter how much a particular branch in the philosophy of the mind thought as it paved the way to the likes of chatgpt and gemini.

walter benjamin still rings true to me, let's keep making the world enchanting again.

[throughaglassdarkly1961]

택시운전사 A Taxi Driver (2017), dir. Jang Hoon

[lovelyandlethal-deactivated2021]

To be frank, I hate any plotline that involves Daenerys burning KL. Any of them. Seriously. 

[lovelyandlethal-deactivated2021]

Seconded!

@rainhadaenerys​ tags

[aboveallarescuer-deactivated202]

Since I’m probably not ever going to write an in-depth meta about this topic, let me give you some reasons why Dany burning KL would, indeed, be unbearable if it doesn’t meet the requirements that Júlia mentioned in her tags. This comes from conversations with her (@rainhadaenerys) and Navya (@yendany).

It makes both Dany and Cersei, the main female rulers of the book series, look comparatively worse than both Jon and Tyrion. (And yeah, it definitely matters that they would look worse than these two and no, having other secondary male rulers fail and other secondary female rulers gain power wouldn’t amend this)

Also, Arianne Martell often dies in this speculation too.

Having Dany burn King’s Landing is repetitive. What else will she learn from this that she hasn’t already? That she has “been more khal than queen” and that she is the “mother of monsters”? Oops, been there, done that.

When Dany worked to ensure that there wouldn’t be any collateral damage (from the end of ASOS until ADWD), there was a lot of collateral damage. If/when Dany becomes less careful about collateral damage, there will be a lot of irreversible collateral damage again? Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t again? There’s a sense of inevitability that might be what GRRM is going for, but it would still be unfulfilling considering all the development Dany received as a leader and a ruler during these books.

But that sense of inevitability is deliberate, isn’t it … because then Dany will sacrifice herself to save the world! Isn’t this so amazing? Isn’t her destiny so much greater? Uh, nope. Not really. As @khaleesirin laid out before, this ending would greatly diminish the impact of Dany’s Slaver’s Bay arc by making it subservient to the resolution with the Others. It would diminish Dany’s storyline for the sake of Jon’s, which I can never be okay with.

Besides, Dany has been established as a superior counterpart to Stannis in pretty much all the ways, from her political agenda to the fact that she is the true Azor Ahai. Why does she need to fuck up in King’s Landing like he did only so she can then realize the “true” enemy? Again, it’s too repetitive, which is why it’s fanon for now. (More on that below)

In any case, the books don’t necessarily align with this speculation. As @rainhadaenerys already pointed out here, the prophecies from the HotU align with the phases of Dany’s arc. In particular, we have the fire “for life” (dragons), the fire “for death” (whatever happens in Slaver’s Bay) and then the fire “to love”. Some have argued that the fire “to love” means that Dany will sacrifice herself for humanity, but that seems unlikely. If it were meant to be a sacrifice, it would be “fire for love”, but nope, it’s fire to love". This clear distinction, alongside the fact that the Walls of Qarth indicate that the love is romantic and sexual, should make us pause. If the third phase of Dany’s story is characterized by the “fire to love”, I don’t see how having her burn KL fits there.

Then there is also the fact the show may have indicated that Dany isn’t involved in the burning of KL at all… Well, to be fair, what happened on the show can validate whatever it is that you want to happen in the books. If you want Dany to be the final villain, the show may validated your nonsensical and misogynistic theories (…but let’s face it, it actually didn’t because GRRM is a good writer). If you want Dany to be a self-sacrificing hero, the show may have validated it by switching the order of the events for whatever reason. If you don’t want Dany to burn KL (and I certainly don’t), well, the show had her snap due to bells when that’s actually Jon Connington’s trauma. Since I’m an optimistic bitch, I’m going with the third option that he and fAegon will burn KL (better it be them than the character I’ve been following for five books).

~

Then there are also the petty reasons why Dany fans shouldn’t be okay with this theory that I’ll mention anyway because I’m exhausted. 

First … Look, there are some meta writers who defend this speculation and like Dany. I like them too. 

But there are others who: 

Think that she must acknowledge and pay for her father’s sins (as if she wasn’t carving her own path long ago).

Think that Robert’s Rebellion is as justified as Dany’s crusade in Slaver’s Bay (it absolutely fucking isn’t).

Think that she’d be tempted to ally herself with that disgusting rapist to build a new Valyria, which is out of character and would warrant criticism if it were to happen (But these people would rather talk about how the writing of Obara’s mother is sexist rather than think about the negative implications in their speculation of Dany’s future or even, say, Arianne’s).

Think it would be awesome if Dany were dispatched in favor of minor characters that we still don’t know almost anything about like Willas and Garlan Tyrell and Sarella Sand or in favor of the Starks, whose restoration is certainly not more righteous than a Targaryen one. Yup, destroying the Iron Throne is COMPLETELY NECESSARY! (Even if they also acknowledge that rulers like Jaehaerys and Alysanne improved the realm.) But the feudalist system that subjugates the peasants by virtue of existence? Nah, that one can stay. Only Dany needs to go.

Being 100% okay with the theory that Dany burns KL and/or dies saving the world means being okay with the opinions above too. Let’s not pretend that this speculation isn’t pro-Stark/fAegon/Stannis (before Shireen’s burning was revealed in season five, many of these people used to hope that Dany would die and that Stannis would have the chance to be Lord Commander; convenient how destroying the IT is necessary, but then all your faves live to rebuild the world, huh?) at its core. 

(Also, the idea that Dany will sacrifice herself and die a hero after burning KL is mostly popular on Tumblr; elsewhere she’ll be a tragic Shakespearean hero, which is even worse for having the influence of BryndenBFish and being unabashedly pro-Stark. I wasn’t going to use names, but I’m tired of seeing these theories floating around as if they weren’t malicious. If you think these events are probable, you should be criticizing the hell out of them, not praising them as satisfying outcomes.)

[grey-wardens-archive-deactivate]

THE GOOD PLACE S04E13

[codenamevillanelleve]

Nothing is answered. Everything is answered. And then it ends.

[skaterloaf]

Too Late to Die Young dir. Dominga Sotomayor Castillo (2018)

[coelacance]

the housemaid (kim ki-young, 1960)

[hayaomiyazaki]

TOKYO STORY (1953) 東京物語 dir. Yasujirō Ozu

[aboveallarescuer-deactivated202]

[IMPORTANT] Dany’s tenure in Meereen - Her concessions & Why she is a true queen

I would say that this is the meta I’m the most proud of. I originally started to write it as part of the series of metas showing how Dany assesses the council she receives and makes her own choices (and it can still be considered as such), but I made it its own post because, modesty aside, I think this is a very important meta.

It dissects the recurring questions that Dany had to deal with (and that ultimately led to a false peace), how Dany is unfairly blamed for the slavers’ actions and the many reasons why she is a true queen (in the sense of being one who “protects the ones who can’t protect themselves”). It’s probably the most comprehensive meta about not only her political situation in ADWD, but also about how and why she makes the decisions that she makes during her tenure in Meereen. I really recommend that you read it.

I didn’t include, however, the decisions about she dealt with the conflicts inside her city; I have already written a whole separate meta for them.

List of contents

0) Note on my classification of Dany’s motivations

1) Recurring and/or major questions that Dany has to answer

2) Dany’s ultimate choices

3) The consequences of Dany’s choices and her reactions

4) Which problems are the masters’ responsibility, not Dany’s

5) Mhysa and mother of dragons: why both identities are fallible and how, like with her successes, Dany’s failures are tied to her tendency to take responsibility

6) Why Dany is a good queen

Keep reading

[lexys]

“Among all the people you know, how many really understand what’s going on inside you?" 

House of Hummingbird | 벌새 (2018) dir. Kim Bora.  

[wkwz]

House of Hummingbird (2018) dir. Kim Bora

[coelacance]

touki bouki (djibril diop mambéty, 1973)

[ozu-teapot]

I Am Not a Witch | Rungano Nyoni | 2017

[kdramastuff]

[dhallorum]

Olivier Assayas: Clouds of Sils Maria, 2014

[tsaifilms]

The Watermelon Woman (1996) Directed by Cheryl Dunye