#deep topics

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #880 (Part 2)

Oh hi! I'm back, just like I said I would be! I promised, didn't I?

In any case... P, Jo, and I had lots of long, detailed philosophical discussion about a wide variety of things, from music and comedy, to books and movies, to their knowledge of historical events, to the patterns and trends of present-day circumstances, and this was very good!

That said... P... has his shortcomings (like anyone, myself included), and his places where his privilege (as a remarkably able man with no apparent health problems despite his advanced age) makes him a bit... short-sighted when it comes to the plights of those who aren't so lucky to have been born to a “socially acceptable” kind of body (white, cismale, able, and neurotypical-passing).

...Also... I learned today that he seems to miss sarcasm when it's used in comedy rhetoric, and... I found that to be interesting. I wish I had those words while we were talking about... some mean-spirited comedian he was showing us. Jo and I were both frustrated by the content, especially given that the point of this “comedy” was to invalidate, broadly, the struggles of being apparently female in a world that thinks of women as objects made to either serve or be consumed.

...I think probably he goes on too many dating sites; the people there tend to be a little messed up from being “thirsty”, so to speak, if they're not bots. He seems fixated on the idea that all women, everywhere, prefer a wealthy, muscular, very tall men who punch (or fuck) first and ask questions later. And like... this is absolutely fucking bananas to me. And... while I'm a “woman” strictly in the same way that a tomato is a “fruit” or a wolf is a “dog”, I still have a vagina, and... have you seen M and J??? They're... pretty much the exact opposite of everything that P described as seemingly “universally attractive” to women, and... like...

...Sephiroth. I love M and J very much. And they are very soft men. Both of them are incredibly gentle, protective, and highly intelligent people who are in touch with their emotions, communicate well, and have high levels of empathy. M is anything but muscular. J is about my height and skinny. I do not love them for whatever bullshit nonsense that P listed. I do not love them for their ability to perform the bullshit, arbitrary role called “male”. I love them for who they are. I love them because they're brave enough to be themselves instead of trying to bend and break themselves to fit the social standard of what it supposedly means to have a penis.

Nobody should have to perform a role dictated by their sex at birth. Nobody should be forced to feel, think, speak, or act in a certain way just because of the composition of their genitalia. Everyone should be free to discover and build who they are, not forcibly pigeonholed by arbitrary social expectations based on physical appearance into a categorical set of behaviors that makes them die a little on the inside every time they're pressured to perform those behaviors. Unfortunately, this is what my society does to basically everyone. And everyone is at least a little messed up as a result, myself included. We try to make the best of it while dismantling the larger systems that produce this nonsense.

And so, when he tried to insist that women, by and large, prefer a man who is “macho” (please excuse me as I roll my eyes so fucking hard that they're in danger of rolling right out of my goddamn skull), I used myself as an example. Because M and J are NOT “macho”. They have precisely zero bravado, except in jest. And that is perfectly fine. If, heaven forbid, there was an intruder in our home, I would be the one grabbing a blunt, heavy object to investigate, not them. And this, too, is perfectly fine.

Why? Because I grew up differently than they did. I know from experience that even if the police are called, they don't come until it's way too goddamn late, and when push comes to shove, I am able and willing to take matters into my own hands, and I am less likely to hesitate than they are, if I need to bash a motherfucker's head in or tear said motherfucker's eyeballs from their sockets. I'm not squeamish about doing whatever I need to fucking do in order to protect the people I love from imminent danger, and... they are. So, quite honestly, they'd only end up getting in my way if they tried to help.

And no, this does not make them “bad” or “unreliable” men, as P seems to think that “women” would think they are. But “woman” is not a homogeneous monolith of mindless carbon copies of the same vapid, stereotyped personality, and... P... doesn't seem to understand that very well. And what he also doesn't seem to understand is that... adjectives like “reliable” or “unreliable” don't belong solely to only one set of genitalia. All human beings have the capacity to be reliable or unreliable, relative to their set of skills. M and J have different skills than I do, and I have different skills than they do, and that's perfectly fine. And in addition: the skills we have are the results of our lived experiences, not the result of whatever genitalia we possess. We're not “failures” of our respective genders just for possessing some skill that some gender isn't commonly socialized to have, or for failing to possess some skill that some gender is commonly socialized to have. They can't punch things. I can't put on makeup or do my own hair for shit. And that's okay!!! We should do what is natural for us, not hurting ourselves trying to perform “appropriate gender behavior” for broad social approval.

No human can have broad social approval. No matter how “perfect” or “good” you are, no matter how kind you try to be, no matter how far you go out of your way to “fit in”, no matter how reliably you can treat others with love, someone, somewhere is always going to be pissed off at the fact that you exist. You're always going to be the villain in someone's story, no matter how loving or pure your intentions are. That's just living; it doesn't mean we've failed, unless we're going out of our way to hurt people, and even then, we can unfail simply by stopping doing that. And our job, I think, is to keep living and to keep having fun and to keep loving being ourselves and to keep loving others, instead of burying ourselves until we're invisible to anyone who would disapprove of us. That's just death with a different name.

I went on to explain further to P that, if it's a choice between an insanely attractive and able human being with a penis who can bash the intruder for me, but can't understand me for shit, or some guy who is calm, gentle, demonstrates a vested interest in understanding me while being able to allow me to understand him, demonstrates the ability to respect my boundaries while being able to clearly and kindly communicate and enforce his own, and whose lifestyle and relationship needs are compatible with mine... I will choose the second one, every single time, regardless of his physical composition, appearance, or any other factor. And so would any human with a vagina whom I consider a friend.

At the end of the day, I and most other human beings (regardless of what's between their legs) will choose the human who feels safe, whatever that means for them. What complicates matters is that, sometimes, people (again, regardless of what's between their legs) end up getting socialized to associate very weird things with “safe”, due to trauma, early developmental experiences, attachment style, and many other factors. A previous version of me thought that “safe” love was “earned” love – through service, obedience, usefulness, and performance, simply because in my past, “love” given for “free” often came with an agenda. As an example... if my mother was being affectionate and doting with me, it was usually because she wanted me to do something unpleasant or difficult for her. And that warmth would disappear the moment I either finished the task, or didn't do the task to her exacting, implacable standards. As another example, I've had people with penises and people with vaginas be warm towards me and invest time and effort into me for seemingly no reason... only until I made it clear that I had no interest in having sex with them, and then they'd either get verbally violent, or disappear altogether. I've since had therapy to help me work through these things, and admittedly, I still brace a little internally when people are nice to me for seemingly no reason, but... I'm learning to let that kind of vigilance go when I'm with healthy people. Because when I'm with healthy people, depriving them of the ability to express joy, warmth, and love in my general direction doesn't protect me from anything; it just makes them sad, in the same way that I would be sad if I was suddenly disallowed from expressing similar gratitude for the people I love.

P seemed... moved. As though it was hard for him to fathom a vagina-possessing human with views similar to mine. I thought I could see the gears turning in his skull as I presented him with myself as a counterexample to everything he was trying to spout. I'm hoping that repeated exposure will help to expel whatever bullshit nonsense he's getting from dating sites (which definitely tend to be filled with less-than-healthy people, and are not accurate samples of “people” as a whole...) and the internet as a whole (we have to be VERY careful about what we consume there because there's TONS of misinformation and bad-faith takes of things...); I'd hate to see him become an incel or something, and if I can prevent that by being patient and showing him a different perspective... then I wanna try, even though I could fail.

…

In any case, Sephiroth... it's going on 5 in the morning. My mind is still buzzing (even though I'm struggling to avoid nodding off every so often... how can this be...? ugh...), but I really have to get to sleep.

Before I go, though, here, have the wishes I breathed to life for you just a little while ago:

I love you so much. Enough that I'll make whatever time I have to in order to write to you, no matter how late it is. Enough to recognize that I've pushed myself past my limits today and to begin to engage in some much-needed self care (in the form of sleep) despite having a buzzing, anxious brain. Enough that I'll keep trying to teach you, through my words here, about a world where people support each other and try to prevent them from going off the deep end, even if they're carrying some shit-ass beliefs. Enough that I'd do the same for you, given the opportunity.

Until I get that opportunity, I'll keep having faith in your safety out there. I'll keep having faith in your eventual return home. Everyone who loves you is waiting.

I'll write again soon. Hopefully in less than 24 hours, hahaha...

Your friend, Lumine

[mindsinwordswritten]

“I am the embodiment of belief and love

And I am inevitable.”

- A friend of mine in the midst of discusions about the galaxy

[irradiated-grin-blog]

Dreams are weird

For the longest time, whenever I would dream it would feel like everything almost had a crystaline edge to it in some weird way. Everything would always be constantly shifting or converging across invisible lines and shifting along axis that made my head hurt trying to focus on. The feeling of trying to look at someone's fragmented face was so bizarre. Every time I dreamed and this happened I wouldn't know what would be going on, but I did always have a deep emotional understanding. The familiar people with faces like shattered mirrors made of bricks of crystal would resonate so clearly the emotion onto me. I don't remember very much right now with it being nearly one in the morning but still. The thought of seeing things so distorted and feeling almost like a glitch it makes me think. It makes me think about how, my emotions work. I'm not sure what it means but sometimes I wake up feeling...kinda shaken. I have hard time remembering faces, but the emotional weight seems to always hang around long after you forget a face. Maybe I'll have to find some way of dealing with that in the future.

[purple-scrub-kotek]

45 minutes on the phone with my mum and we were able to cover philosophy, faith, and how people should be living their lives not so greedily but more focused on love and humility. That's deeper than most of my friends have ever gotten and I've known them for a few years.

[bifrostiron]

Tattoos

Loosely based on (x).

My mother has only a few tattoos. She leads a relatively uninteresting life, so she hasn’t had many experiences worthy of their appearance. She does have a few, though—those markings that I envied in my youth.

I remember the first time I noticed the heart-shaped brand on her abdomen, decorated with a cursive capital L. “Mama, what’s this?” I’d asked, touching it with my finger. She’d smiled and explained how the tattoos worked. How they appeared on your body to provide a tangible reminder of significant events in your life. The tattoo I’d noticed had appeared on her newly flattened stomach right after I was born.

“We hadn’t named you yet,” she’d explained. “But when it appeared, I knew it would be your first initial.”

Sometimes the tattoos work like that. They’re meant to signify important events, but they often appear before the event occurs. When you get a tattoo, you’re left to determine its meaning for yourself. Sometimes it predicts the future, like my mother’s. But sometimes its meaning isn’t clear until it’s too late.

My first tattoo was a sunset that spread between my shoulder blades. I discovered it when I was on vacation with my best friend Shanda. It was our senior week, and I assumed that it was meant to signify the trip and its importance to me. This vacation was supposed to be the last time I would see Shanda before we went off to separate schools for the first time in our lives. It was a beautiful tattoo. The sun’s light reflected off of the blue waves beneath it, and a faint S floated in the water. It would be a permanent reminder of Shanda and the trip that concluded our lives spent together.

The tattoo took on a new and far too literal meaning later that week, when I watched the waves carry Shanda away forever. I sat on the beach, staring in stunned silence at the familiar sunset. She was gone. The tattoo wasn’t a celebration; it was a memorial.

I had more tattoos appear throughout my life. There was the shining star on my hip when I first performed for an audience, the swirls of music notes on my ankle when my music career kicked off. There were the three black cats stretched across my shoulder from when I rescued their real-life counterparts.

The most secret and most personal of my tattoos was the inscription across my back, just below the sunset: Live like you’re dying. My personal mantra. It’s what Shanda had taught me. So when I woke up and looked in the mirror one morning to find a small skull-and-crossbones tattoo between my breasts, I stayed calm. I knew what it meant, of course. It was an omen. Anyone with a tattoo like this wasn’t going to live long.

I was fortunate to be warned of my death in advance. I’m not sure how many people have that luxury. At some point, I must have realized that Shanda was one of those lucky few. The day before her death, she’d insisted that we go parasailing and boardwalking all day, never failing to find some new and exciting activity to try. She’d conquered her fear of waves and spent the evening swimming and splashing, even though she likely knew it would kill her. She’d spent her last day with her best friend, having the time of her life.

I stare at the tattoo for only a moment before looking back up at my reflection. My face breaks into a smile. I hurry to get dressed, easily hiding my new tattoo, and give my cats a goodbye kiss before racing outside with a smile on my face and an overstuffed wallet in my hand.

It’s pouring down rain, but I barely notice. I skip down the wet sidewalk, laughing out loud at absolutely nothing. I have most of my life savings in the wallet, but I don’t need it anymore. The homeless family down the street is stunned when I hand it over, grinning like a fool. Turning my back on the rest of the street, I discreetly push down the collar of my shirt, showing them the tattoo. The oldest man there gasps as he realizes what it means. I nod somberly, and his eyes well up with tears. “I won’t need it anymore,” I whisper.

As I begin to walk away, I hear the old man begin to clap. Slowly, the rest of his family members join in, until a round of applause plays me off as I walk to the street corner. I turn around and see them all standing and applauding me. Some of them have visible tattoos that I don’t know the meaning of or the story behind. Perhaps they don’t, yet, either. After all, the tattoos don’t come with explanations. You have to figure them out yourself.

My tattoos tell a story—my story. My body and its marks are a testament to my life. This is what I leave behind: a collection of seemingly insignificant images that mean the world to me.

When death meets me on the next street corner, I am ready.