Author: Bran Lindy Ayres

Non-binary, demisexual writer.
Characters · Fandoms · Movies · Supernatural

It’s Not Always About Love, but Sometimes It Should Be

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Why Supernatural Should Take it a Step Further

I’ve recently joined a new fandom (yes another one, what can I say).  I was reluctant at first.  It didn’t seem like it was going to be my thing.  I’m more of a robots and time travel type girl and this is more vampire and holy water stuff.  For the record I hate vampires.  All vampires in every iteration without exception.  Big ass mosquitos.

Anyway, this fandom has been around for something like 8-9 years and it’s constantly on my Tumblr and I see references to it everywhere.  So three weeks ago I broke down and started watching it.  It was like crossing the event horizon of a black hole.  At first there is just a gentle pull but the gravity increases with each episode until you are being ripped limb from limb and hurled into an alternate dimension full of  gunpowder, salt and tears.

It was here that I found an amazing example of a close intimate relationship that reminded me of the dynamic between Kirk and Spock or Sherlock and Jon (BBCs Sherlock).  Those types of relationships cannot be written into a script.  Well they can, but it takes something special between the actors to really make it click.  It’s often referred to as chemistry.  You’ve seen when it works and you’ve seen when it doesn’t work.  Gigli comes to mind.

“Research has shown that attunement between two people can accurately and reliably be recognized by others. This awareness often results in spontaneous, descriptive expressions such as “chemistry,” “on the same wavelength,” “soul-mates,” “in the flow,” and “in the moment together”.” –Measuring and Contextualizing “Chemistry” in Movies Tracy Sutton and Gregory Fouts, Ph.D. (http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/film_chemistry.html)

Something amazing seems to happen when fans recognise the chemistry between two characters.  They become invested in the relationship.  This is where much (if not all) fan fiction is born.   Fans pick up on even the subtext between characters.  Sometimes even when the writers don’t.

The recent blog post by tiptoe39 Fans & Fantasy: Shipping as… Activism(?) made this point:

And part of being organic is showing the natural diversity that occurs in the world, to pick up on existing chemistry between characters and to explore the very real possibility that it could lead to romantic or sexual relationships. And if, for example, the only women a male character knows are brought in as love interests, as opposed to characters with their own stories, why shouldn’t we believe he’s more likely to fall in love with a character he knows well and has been through hell with, even though that character may also be male? You don’t fall in love with a sex, you fall in love with a person, and usually, by the time you’re in love with them, you already know them well.

This is where my new fandom has excelled.  Right from the first moment the two meet each other there is an intense dynamic, not just between the characters, but between the actors.  There were literally sparks.  The fans noticed within moments of the scene airing if the message boards and forums are anything to go by.  So what made this duo different?  If you have not watched Supernatural through season 3 the video below is a spoiler.  Proceed with caution, though I still recommend watching it.

Right from the start there is tension and an unspoken connection between the two.  The writers for the show initially only planned on the character of Castiel being in 6 episodes.  Then the fan mail hit their inboxes.  The new character had brought in a completely different dynamic beyond the brothers-in-arms that the show previously featured.  Their relationship has only grown from there.

Now in their fourth season together they’ve faced horrible odds, fought with each other, saved each other, admitted their reliance on and need for each other.  Their level of intimacy is pretty much as close as you can get without having a sexual relationship.

To illustrate:

  • They have repeatedly taken care of each other when they were sick or injured.
  • Dean has adjusted Cas’ clothes for him
  • Cas has finished Deans food
  • They have shared secrets only with each other
  • They have provided each other moral support during major events/crises
  • Dean has cried in front of Cas
  • Repeated sustained eye contact
  • They have comforted each other
  • Cas often watches Dean sleep or sits/stands closer than is customary
  • They have put each other to bed on several occasions
  • Cas has woke Dean from his nightmares
  • They have been on long trips together
  • Dean allowed Cas to take his necklace
  • They often share the same hotel room
  • They have saved each other’s lives multiple times
  • They have each risked their lives for the other on numerous occasions
  • They have made medical decisions for each other
  • They have watched each other die

This video also illustrates other points in their relationship.  Again major spoilers.

This is how you develop an intimate non-familial relationship.  It’s happened slowly, organically with all the missteps and confusion of a real-life relationship.  Both have made mistakes and taken the other for granted yet they cannot seem to help but come back together.  It’s no wonder the fans (myself included) would like to see their relationship develop further.

It would be very refreshing to see to non-stereotypical gay men in a romantic relationship.  Too often shows make one of them (or both) too effeminate to be realistic.  They are not a man and a man pretending to be a woman, (though I understand and appreciate that works very well for some couples, more power to them) they are two men who love each other and would do anything for each other.

However, I do not think the network as the balls to allow the show to take what to many of us is a very obvious direction. If they surprise me and do then they will be setting a benchmark, a new paradigm for not just television but societal perception of relationships.  Much like James Roberts has brought a new level of awareness to the Transformers fandom with the More Than Meets the Eye series, it would be nice to see Supernatural shake off the chains of outmoded societal dictates.

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Within You

Bran Lindy Ayres2 Comments

Cognitive immersion, absorption, deep reading.  Whichever term you use to describe it, if you have ever found yourself so caught up in a narrative that you forget where you are, then you have experienced it.

Reading is a unique experience.  It literally requires us to think differently.  Unlike viewing a movie or a piece of art or engaging in sports it makes us set aside all need to act or react.  Instead we allow ourselves to relax into the narrative, knowing that nothing we do externally or otherwise will change the outcome.  No other medium allows us such an intimate look into the thoughts and motivation of another person.

French novelist Marcel Proust wrote in 1906 “that which is the end of [the author’s] wisdom appears to us as but the beginning of ours.”  In other words, we take the authors words and from their sensory clues build a world and an understanding of how it works.  We learn vicariously through the experiences of the characters.

Editor Peter Dimok made the statement in 2010 that ‘[this] kind of reading, then is a time of internal solitary consciousness in which the reading consciousness is brought up to the level of knowledge of the author-the furthest point another mind has reached, as it were . . .”

Norman N. Holland’s essay Literature and the Brain discusses this phenomenon.   As stated in Nicholas Carr’s blog Thinking about Reading.  (http://www.roughtype.com/?p=1565)

‘“We gain a special trance-like state of mind in which we become unaware of our bodies and our environment,” explains Holland. “We are ‘transported.’” It is only when we leave behind the incessant busyness of our lives in society that we open ourselves to literature’s transformative emotional power. That doesn’t mean that reading is anti-social. The central subject of literature is society, and when we lose ourselves in a book we often receive an education in the subtleties and vagaries of human relations. Several studies have shown that reading tends to make us more empathetic, more alert to the inner lives of others. The reader withdraws in order to connect more deeply.’

In essence the author has shared their mind with the reader.

There have been multiple studies conducted to measure and quantify how the brain reads and what, if any changes, take place.   Many postulate that deep reading makes us more sympathetic.

Gale Roebuck in her blog post Technology is not the enemy in the battle for the book noted that:

‘Psychologists from Washington University used brain scans to see what happens inside our heads when we read stories. They found that ”readers mentally simulate each new situation encountered in a narrative”. The brain weaves these situations together with experiences from its own life to create a new mental synthesis. Reading a book leaves us with new neural pathways.

The discovery that our brains are physically changed by the experience of reading is something many of us will understand instinctively, as we think back to the way an extraordinary book had a transformative effect on the way we view the world. This transformation only takes place when we lose ourselves in a book, abandoning the emotional and mental chatter of the real world. That’s why studies have found this kind of deep reading makes us more empathetic, or, as Nicholas Carr puts it in his essay The Dreams of Readers, ”more alert to the inner lives of others”.’

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/technology-is-not-the-enemy-in-the-battle-for-the-book-20120102-1pi8s.html#ixzz2P84DHnTu

So what are your thoughts on this issue?  Does reading make us more sympathetic?  Should we be concerned over the ‘fast food’ style reading that permeates our culture now?

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Books · Characters · Transformers · Writing FUNdamentals

Without You

Bran Lindy Ayres2 Comments

This week I was treated to a massive dose of sanity threatening emotional issues.  Some were happening in real life, the rest happened in two of my favorite fandoms.  I won’t bore you with my real life issues that involve being pregnant and having to move.  However, I was rather surprised by the strength of my reaction to two different story plots.  It led me to wonder what causes us readers to become so emotionally invested in characters that we weep over them as though they were real.

The first thing I realized was that each story line was excellently crafted, the characters expertly fleshed out and realistic.  The fact that both subplots that emotionally devastated me were romantic ones is nothing short of ironic.  I am not a romantic person.  Ask anyone who knows me personally.  Typical romances bore me to tears.

So how did these characters manage to drag me into the narrative and hold me there over months?  Lets look at them.

Let Your Light Shine

First I will discuss Green Lantern: The Animated Series since that was the first blow to hit last Saturday when the final episode aired. Just the fact it was cancelled after one season was harsh enough.  Then I had to deal with the tragedy that was affectionately referred to by fans as Razaya.

Razer and Aya

Over the course of the season we watched Razor grow and change and fall in love with the ship’s AI, Aya.  Both characters started out seemingly one dimensional but very quickly we were treated to various aspects of their personalities.  Razor grew from being the angry Red Lantern to a multidimensional, complex and conflicted individual.  Aya quickly went from the ship’s navigation computer to a full fledged member of the team.  Both made misjudgments  said things that were taken wrong and just generally where adorable together.  All you have to do is search Tumblr for the tag #Razaya to see how much the fans loved this pairing.

There was a lot to love about it.  It was realistically portrayed and organically developed over the length of the series.  Even the creators were surprised at how loved the two became.  So how did they achieve it?

More on that in a moment.  Now on to the second source of my woe.

Never Let You Go

As many of you know, I am a huge Transformers fan and have been reading the current IDW Publishing series Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye.    The past Wednesday the newest issue, #15, was released.  I had been dreading this issue.  Mostly because I knew the happy times were over and things were going to get bad.  People were going to die. And they did.  Horribly in some cases and horribly tragic in others.  (If you have not read the series, please go do so as from here on there will be major spoilers.  You can find the entire run on Comixology.)

One pairing I’ve spoken about before, Chromedome and Rewind pretty much took center stage this issue.  Mostly due to Chromdome’s involvement in the accidental release of the unstoppable and extremely deadly Overlord.  In a scant thirty minutes the entire crew of the Lost Light is subjected to his murderous rampage.  He is only slowed when Rhodimus utters a trip phrase that Chromedome had implanted in his subconscious.  Fortress Maximus, having been released from the brig by Rung, drags Overlord back to the temporal prison he’d escaped from.  It is at this time that Chromedome decides that having the Phase Sixer anywhere near them, even in a prison cell, is too close and goes to jettison the cell.  Except a sword is preventing the mechanism from closing.  Rewind, Chromedome’s life partner, sacrifices himself to get the doors closed and ends up trapped in the cell, floating in space with Overlord.

The phrase that will come back to haunt Chromedome forever.

It’s at this point that Chromedome realizes that Overlord is going to kill Rewind in the slowest and most painful way possible and does the only thing he can think of to spare his lover any more pain.

This panel still makes me tear up.  These two had a very long history together, had been by each other’s sides when they faced death, fought together, with each other and generally behaved like any other loving married couple.  The writer, James Roberts, skillfully wove their relationship into the narrative while developing their personalities and backstory.

Forever and Always

In both of these cases the writers took great pains to make sure the characters were realistic and relatable  None of the characters are human.  Yet we the reader/viewer find ways to identify with them.  Maybe it’s Razor’s rage and inability to control it or Aya’s need to be accepted as her own person.  Or it could be Chromedome’s desire to be useful.  Or even Rewind’s desperation to keep Chromedome safe and healthy when his line of work is so dangerous and mentally detrimental.  It could be all or none of these things.  Either way, most of us have faced something similar at some time in our life and it is by tapping into this that the writers help us to understand and sympathize with the characters.

They created people, not just characters.  Each of them had their own motivations, goals, dreams and flaws.  They each acted and reacted according to what happened around them, just as we all do.  They had emotional, sometimes visceral reactions that ended up leading them to make wrong and in two cases, deadly choices.

We as writers must always strive to give our reader as much emotional input as possible in our stories.  It would be a disservice to our readers to do other wise.  We owe it to them to help them not just empathize, but sympathize with our characters.  Too laugh and cry along with them.  In doing so we build not just an artificial world, but a reader who is capable of much greater sympathy out in the real world.

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I’m Not Male, I’m Not Female, I am Me.

Bran Lindy Ayres1 Comment

Our perception of gender is tainted by the media, by what we are told is feminine and beautiful and strong and masculine.  Strong and feminine aren’t supposed to go together just as beautiful and masculine should not.   Right?

Wrong.

Gender bias is just that bias.

bias

As recently brought out in the article Gender Dichotomy is a Fairy Tale We Have Been Telling Ourselves to Sleep at Night on The Mary Sue  Anika Torruella addresses the difference between being physically male or female and being mentally male or female.  Surprise, mentally there is little to no difference, other than things we are conditioned by society to think is gender appropriate.  She quotes a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, “Men and Women Are From Earth: Examining the Latent Structure of Gender,” headed byBobbi J. Carothers and Harry T. Reis, who are from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Rochester.  Their goal was to “provide empirical evidence that sex and gender are not the same thing.”

So what did they find?

‘122 unique indicators from 13 studies comprising 13,301 individuals provided later, Carothers and Reis point out “clear empirical evidence to support the belief of researchers who see psychological gender differences in dimensional terms”. In other words even among those with strong and unambiguous gender identities, men and women do not exhibit all the characteristics and behaviors expected of their sex and “may also display some of the characteristics and behaviors associated with the other sex.”’

So in other words when physical gender is ignored men and women are remarkably similar.

Well I could have told you that.  And so could James Roberts, writer of the IDW Publishing comic series Transformers: More than Meets the Eye.  He’s done a masterful job at writing physically gender-less characters while still allowing them to have multidimensional personalities that either gender could identify with.  This was beautifully illustrated in Issue #13 as I will explain in a bit.

That Giant Gun Totting Robot is Female?

When you have no gender and do not identify with either gender having someone try to fit you into one role or the other can be infuriating.  So why do we do it?  Why must things that ‘look’ male automatically be male and vice versa?  Can we not choose what we feel best represents our psyche.  For myself personally, I have never identified fully with either gender.  Intellectually, I know what biology says I am but that has never affected my self-perception.

I am going to use the comic I mentioned earlier to illustrate this point.   I’m going to use two of the characters in Issue #13.   First will be Whirl, second will be Ultra Magnus.  If you are unsure why I am using Transformers, its for the simple reason that they have no gender.  They are not male or female or anything in between.  They do not reproduce sexually (at least not in the established canon, fan fiction begs to differ).  They are giant, non-organic, intelligent life forms.  (For more on their interpersonal relationships see last week’s post.)

A little backstory:

In issue #13 of IDW Publishing’s Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye the Autobots of the ship Lost Light are on shore leave on the planet Hedonia.  Being giant metal beings, they are not always welcome by the smaller organic beings who squish easily.  Sensitive to this, a few of them agree to adopt holomatter avatars in order to scout out locales where they will be welcome to come and unwind for a bit.  The program they install to adapt these avatars has been upgraded so that their avatar more closely represents their personalities.  Which makes sense because the risk for being misunderstood would jump considerably if you were uncomfortable with, or misrepresented by your avatar.

Rhodimus explains the new avatars (MTMTE #13)
Rhodimus explains the new avatars (MTMTE #13)

Probably the biggest shock to fans was the fact that the sometimes rather insane and violent Whirl had this for ‘his’ avatar.

Autobot Whirl’s holomatter avatar. MTMTE Issue #13

In case you are unfamiliar this is his actual form:

Autobot Whirl

That’s right.  That bot that the Transformers wikia describes as  ‘ . . .a rather reckless fighter and can take damage because of it. He’s okay with that, because he absolutely LOVES his job . . .’ has what looks to be a preteen girl for an avatar.  A very tomboyish girl who obviously loves her weapons, but that’s Whirl.    Honestly, I love the fact that his avatar is so fun.  It’s obviously a perfect reflection of his personality, forget anything about it being a girl.  He didn’t choose this avatar.  The program, after analyzing his personality, chose it for him.

On the other hand we have Ultra Magnus.  He is first and foremost a soldier.  His loyalty and self-sacrifice are tempered by his reluctance to form close bonds with anyone.  That and his strict adherence to rules and regulations to the point of being obsessive compulsive.  Magnus chose his own avatar.   He chose the likeness of the one human he felt closest to who just happened to be female.

MtMtE cover issue #13

Ultra Magnus is front and center of the cover looking quite sexy with his avatar.  (Love the power pose he’s got going on.)  Those who have followed the comics will recognize the woman.  For this post her identity is not important.  What is important is that Magnus respected her enough to want to use her likeness to represent himself.  He was not concerned that she was female.  I’d wager that thought never occurred to him.  To him she was simply a human he admired and called a friend.

Maybe They are on to Something

So why do we get so hung up on the male/female dichotomy?  Why does it matter so much in our daily interactions?  Why can’t we just see people as people instead of their gender?

It goes back to what I said in the beginning, we are conditioned to think this way.  We can, however, unlearn it.  And a good way to start is by realizing that just because I look a certain way doesn’t mean I’m going to behave a certain way.   Just like with the Transformers.

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Transformers, Sex and Why Science Fiction is Socially Relevant

Bran Lindy Ayres3 Comments

 

The Role of Science Fiction in Literature

I’ve been reading science fiction since I was very young.  I honestly don’t even remember the first sci-fi book I read.  I do remember the first one that made a huge impact on me.  It was a short story by Ray Bradbury called All Summer in a Day.  After that I couldn’t get enough.  Somewhere along the way I read I, Robot and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick and realized that science fiction wasn’t just great stories.  It was a commentary on our society and our place in that society.  The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge further cemented this in my mind.  Then I read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.  My whole perception of myself and my world view changed with that one book.  It was profound thing for a young preteen to realize that other people, other beings, even those vastly different could have the same emotions.  They might not be expressed the same way or be overtly recognizable as such but they were there if you kept an open mind.

In the years since, I have read much science fiction.  Some of it was just fun others of it required a more cerebral approach. I also expanded my reading selection to include literary novels, mysteries and non fiction.  I discovered something.

Science fiction is our modern day fairy tale.

Its the morality story, the cautionary tale.  It serves as both entertainment, enlightenment and instruction.  It takes a social problem, stigma or perception and shines the light of truth on it in a way that is not always obvious.  Now this is not true of all science fiction.  Not every novel can be The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) or Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes).

Transformers, Sex and Intimacy

I was recently introduced to the IDW Publishing line of Transformer’s comics.  Among them was the title More Than Meets The Eye, written by James Roberts.  At first I was put off, nearly incensed by the story line, but I set aside my prejudices and allowed myself to be caught up in the story.  I would have deprived myself of so much, had I not.

The way Roberts writes these characters is fantastic.  As good as any of the sci-fi novel’s I’ve mentioned.  The stories are in turn funny and poignant and at times down right sad.  The issue that came out yesterday encapsulated all of that.

Issue #13 brought up some interesting discussions among fans about gender roles, sexuality and what makes a character identify ‘male’ or ‘female’ when their species has no gender bias.  The interpersonal relationships have been expanded upon in ways that I had only ever seen in fan fiction.  He treats these giant non-organic lifeforms as if they are actually people and not just giant weaponized automatons.

MTMTE #12

It is these relationships that intrigue me.  Much is implied, and in issue #12 it was even stated that they have a relationship status called conjunx endura that is sealed by a ceremony involving the two ‘bots in question.  Yet they are an alien race.  They do not have genders or a need for genders of any kind.  What they do have is a basic need for intimacy as any intelligent life does.  Intimacy does not have to equal sex.  Being intimate can be as simple as holding hands or as complex as taking care of someone with a chronic illness.  Both require trust, commitment and love.

MTMTE #12

This point was eloquently stated in the latest post by DorkDaddy.com entitled:  It’s Just Sex, Dammit!

“There are a thousand things necessary for a successful day and a successful life. Balancing the checkbook. Reading to the kids. Visiting your parents. Maintenance on the house. Laughing. Resting. Playing. Growing. Learning. These are the things of life. These are the things that determine whether we are fulfilled, whether we are successful in life. None of them require intercourse. And yet still we venerate sex as the ultimate goal in life, as if everything else is just a way of occupying time between sexual interludes. We high-five our friends when they “got lucky” or “got some” or “got some action” as if to say “Well done. You got that taken care of. Now you can move on to all the other stuff.”

Granted, there is no better way to foster intimacy with your partner than sex. It connects you and makes you vulnerable and draws you together with another person like no other way can. But when considering intimacy, it isn’t even necessary for that (blasphemy, I know). Imagine the potency of your partner gently running her fingers through your hair, or down your back. Picture those moments when you’re lost, looking into your partner’s eyes, and neither of you has to say anything. Think for a moment on the lasting rewards of gently holding hands, or on the way you can totally lose yourself in a deep, committed kiss. These too are the things of intimacy. Because of them, even if you never knew sex, surely you could still know intimacy.”

This is what I find so fascinating about this comic and the way Mr. Roberts has written these characters.  They are realistic, deeply thought out and interesting.  I care about them.  I relate to their struggles, their insecurities, their quirks in ways I have never related to ‘human’ characters.  They allow us to explore relationship dynamics without the added pressure of sex.  There is no sex for the sake of intimacy.  The intimacy comes from other means but is no less potent.

The Wordsmiths Forge on Livejournal lists multiple ways of displaying non-sexual intimacy.  Among the things she lists are personal care, spacial closeness including sharing the same sleeping space.  Living arrangements which include a measure of trust involved such as sharing passwords, bank accounts and/or living quarters and cleaning someone else’s room.  She also talks about urgent situations up to and including risking  your life or making medical decisions for someone.

Each of these things have been featured in the comic.

Comradewodka on Tumblr had some interesting things to say about the ‘married’ couple in the comic:

” . . . Chromedome and Rewind. I’m not sure what I could say about them that hasn’t been said, so— let me just say this. Any sentient race, regardless of whether they’re mechanical or actually capable of anything sexual or not, is going to feel emotions and form relationships, even to the point that they feel romantically about someone. Even to the point that they want to spend the rest of their lives with that someone. Every sentient race, if they find something pleasurable in life—even if that something is as innocent (and non-sexual by our standards) as fond, platonic or romantic touches—is going to seek out that pleasurable something with others. It’s biology.

Chromedome and Rewind aren’t “male”. They don’t have genders. They’re not unusual in considering each other “spouses” either, if everyone else’s reactions are any indication. But to a whole heck of a lot of people, they LOOK “gay”—and sometimes it’s almost easier for us humans to refer to them that way—so them being canonically in a romantic relationship isn’t just a big step for a franchise in which we’ve generally been given a grand zipola about how relationships work, it’s a big step for comics and media in general. One more pebble on the pile of change.

That being said, though I and many others really freaking appreciate Chromedome and Rewind for a number of reasons, I don’t think Roberts had some big overt gay rights agenda when writing them. Which brings me back to my main point— that he’s just THAT good at writing them as what they are—fully fleshed out characters that just happen to be giant gender-less robots. So they happen to look kind of masculine by human standards? Roberts don’t care. Roberts don’t give a fuck. He just write what he wants.”

-(http://comradewodka.tumblr.com/post/42373291213/did-someone-ask-for-a-big-post-gushing-over-gender)

 

Are all Robots Male?

She made a good point.  Just because something ‘looks’ male in our perception does that mean it is male?  Some fans had their worlds turned upside down by the appearance of holomatter forms of the Transformers.  It was stated that these new forms were an exact representation of the robot’s psyche.  So in other words, the human forms the program assigned them was based on their personality.  Not all of them identified as male or even adult.  Tailgate was an infant being carried around in a backpack by Swerve.

Comradewodka on Tumblr made some excellent observations on this subject as well:

“Yeah, most of them have features we associate with masculinity, and that’s fine and dandy, but they actually do not fall into any kind of gendered roles in their culture.

So why the hell CAN’T big warriors like Ultra Magnus or Whirl relate or identify, psychologically speaking, with representation as a human female—just so long as that human female still accurately represents who they are as a character?

Answer: there’s absolutely no reason why they couldn’t. They’re a blank slate, gender-wise. They can have the biggest most “masculine” bodies ever, be called “he”, have what I assume to be masculine voices and features, and still feel like a human female body is a more accurate representation of their psyche.”

Assigning gender roles to gender-less species is like saying pink is feminine.  Pink is pink it has no gender.   A hundred years ago women would never wear pink.  Men did.  Pink is a color that societal norms have shifted into a different perception.  The terms male and female  differentiate sexual reproduction roles.  They do not apply to colors any more than they apply to a species that does not reproduce sexually.

The fact that giant robots might see themselves as better represented by a human female form should say a lot.  I will leave that topic for my next post.

This is why I love science fiction so much.  It allows us to explore themes that would be and are taboo in other forms of writing and it does so in a way that is digest able for the larger audience.  It illuminates aspects of society that might otherwise go unnoticed and in doing so educates us about being human.  Yes, we can learn from giant alien robots how to be more human.

 

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Bran Lindy Ayres1 Comment

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down. 
-Arnold H. Glasow

 

In this age of the digital frontier, making meaningful human connections hasn’t just become a challenge, its a fading art.  Those of us who are used to communicating via text message, email, by Facebook or Tumblr have many acquaintances,  Those nebulous connections to people we will never see or hear and only know through their words and choice of avatar.

It takes something very special to make a true connection to a person through the internet. More than just shared likes or dislikes, it takes honesty and openness.  Something we are taught never to be on the internet.  Though the anonymity the internet provides allows those of us who are too shy to speak up in real life, a stage on which to express ourselves. Sometimes when we do so we are shot down, other times we make a friend for life.

It has been my great privilege to meet and get to know three very select people, only one of whom I have met in person.  One passed away last year and the other I hope to meet some day.

I am close to each of them in different ways.  My friend who passed was a wonderful conversationalist and we would have lengthy discussions on everything from science fiction to particle physics.  I miss him greatly.

My other two friends, while younger than myself share a lot of my likes and sensibilities.  They are two of the very few people with whom I have shared deeply intimate details about myself.  I’ve grown to love both of them dearly and consider them among my very closest friends.

Aya is immensely talented and never ceases to amaze me.  She is as beautiful as she is intelligent.  Misaki is brilliant and adorable and is able to do things I could never imagine, much less accomplish.  

Aya has a very promising career either as an author or a model/actress.  She’s overcome a lot in her life and has been there to help me through some of the very toughest moments of mine.  I honestly don’t know what I ever did without her.

“Queen of Cocoon” Work done by J’s Design Class Students (ADB) Photography by
Saryn Christina Photography

Misaki is studying to be a child psychologist, which just blows me away  I couldn’t possibly have more respect for her but she’s constantly proving ever more worthy of it.  She has encouraged me to keep writing when I was ready to give up and when I was too depressed to even think about writing.  She and I have shared many things with each other.

These are the people who inspire me and keep me writing.  This post is dedicated to them.

Characters

Your Happy vs. My Happy

Bran Lindy Ayres2 Comments
English: Robert Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions
English: Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” 
― Ernest Hemingway

 

I recently wrote a story, a fanfiction in the one fandom I will actually write for.  It had a rather dark theme and one I myself feel very passionately about.  In it a certain character, one I identify very closely with due to our similar personalities and overall way of dealing with others, faces an ordeal.  He has something forced on him. Something most people equate with pleasure and happiness.  He had never experienced it, never realized that such a thing existed.  The experience leaves him traumatized and questioning himself and his relationships with everyone around him.

 

He had been fine with the way things were but others around him couldn’t comprehend that.  They didn’t understand that he was happy.  His own version of happy, not theirs.  His happiness was contentment.  Their happiness was fleeting, a simple emotion.  His contentment was a state of being.  Now that is not to say that he didn’t suffer from stress, anger, doubt or all the other emotions that plague intelligent life, but his contentment mitigated a lot of it from ruling him.

 

Even his best friend didn’t understand this, thinking that his reluctance to join in after hours parties with co-workers or his penchant for remaining solitary meant he was depressed.  There were further misunderstandings due to their differences in communicating.  His speech tended toward formal, with a large vocabulary.  His friends were more colorful and colloquial. This lead people who didn’t know him to assume he was snobbish.  Even his work ethic set him apart from others.  He enjoyed his job and was excellent at it, yet was never satisfied with himself or the results, he always pushed himself to try harder and do better.  Other people never understood it and would tell him he was making them look bad.  It wasn’t his intention to do so, he simply wanted to do his very best.

 

True some of the disconnect was partly his fault.  He didn’t attempt to understand why his friend and their co-workers enjoyed what they did, the same as they didn’t try to understand what made him happy.

 

In my story it resulted in a terrible thing being done to him in an effort to get him to ‘lighten up.’  This is not a far-fetched or even foreign concept.  I cannot count how many times I’ve been forced to go places or do things I take no joy in simply because it is considered ‘normal’ to do so.  I do not need constant stimuli to be happy.  In fact it exhausts me and makes me grumpy.  I like to enjoy pleasurable events as much as any other person, but my psyche likes to take the time to absorb the experience, to revel in it, to pick it apart moment by moment.  forcing me to move from one thing to the next without time to absorb leaves me reeling and off balance.

 

Many people don’t understand this.  At a party I will either sit quietly and listen or only engage 1-2 people in conversation.  I am perfectly content with this.  My lovely sister on the other hand simply must talk to everyone in the room.  She loves it.  It would send me into a dark room to gather my wits.  After many years I’ve finally discovered why.  Its because I devote my whole being to the person I’m currently speaking with.  To do that with each and every person at the party is beyond exhausting.  This is not saying my sister is shallow, she is far-far from it.  She simply has a different way of assessing and communicating with people.

 

This leads me back to what equates to happiness.  Happiness is as individual as the person experiencing it.  It is an emotion and everyone has their own reasons for feeling them, whether they understand them or not.

 

 “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

 

—Viktor Frankl  Man’s Search for Meaning

 

 Constantly searching for the elusive emotion of happiness can blind us to our contentment.  Being content equates to being satisfied, understanding that our attitude shapes our happiness in the moment.

 

I’m not finished with my story yet, so I am not entirely sure how he is going to recover from what happened.  Or if he can.  Some things, once experienced can never be purged, they have to be assimilated into our being, into our contentment as we gain a better understanding of self.

 

So don’t be content to just be happy.  It won’t last and you’ll be left struggling to find it once again.  Find your contentment, your meaning, then happiness will find you.

 

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Anime · Characters · Movies

Live by the Sword

Bran Lindy Ayres4 Comments
Himura Kenshin
Himura Kenshin (Photo credit: bibliomom)

I watched a movie today.  One I had wanted to see back in September, but alas I do not live in Japan and it was not released outside the country.  Mores the pity.  Its an excellent movie with an engaging cast and a powerful story line.  And it happens to be based on one of my favorite anime.

It follows the story of a wandering samurai, known as a ruroni, ten years after the war that ushered in the Meiji era.  Japan is showing many signs of becoming westernized from the dress to the guns and a very pervasive opium trade with the west.  Into this new era comes Kenshin Himura, a ruroni in a time when swords are outlawed and samurai are nothing more than thugs or beggars.  He meets a young woman, Kaoru who lives at a dojo as she tries to keep alive her father’s sword style.  Unknown to Kenshin there have been recent killings in the area attributed to a wartime specter called Hittokiri Battosai after his sword technique.   He soon finds himself embroiled in a plot that involves the local police, an opium magnate and Kaoru’s dojo.  Along the way his vow never to kill again is put to a severe and near fatal test.

The movie and the casting was very faithful to the anime.

Takeru Sato as Kenshin Himura

While the movie has its share of violence it never feels gratuitous.  Its a violent time and the depiction of the war is heart wrenching instead of stomach turning.

What I found most fascinating about the end, even though I knew from the anime how it ended, was how un-Hollywood-esque it was.  I won’t spoil it for you, I’d rather you watch it for yourself.  What makes it even more poignant was that things like this actually happened, the war, the opium trade, the oppression of a former elite class.  All in the name of progress.

If you would like to watch this show it is available for free at DramaCrazy.net along with a host of other amazing dramas and movies we will never see aired here in the States other than on special satellite channels, if then.  We are severely deprived.

Tomorrow I will discuss this imbalance in access further.  Now go watch the movie. Just click here.

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Bran Lindy AyresLeave a comment

Waking up with a migraine doesn’t help get the creativity flowing.  Were my muses beating me in my sleep?  I wouldn’t put it passed them.

This is one of those days where I know my writing is going to be abysmal, so I may as well just get it over with and move on.  Or I could go do some laundry.

Hmm, that’s pretty sad when I’d rather do housework than write.  Maybe I’ll just leave you with an excerpt from a novel I’ve had on the back burner for a while.

The setting is rural Missouri, incidentally where I grew up.

Burn Out

I dragged my eyes open.  The side of my face was still smarting from where I’d whacked into the wall as I’d tried to roll over.  The first pale rays of sun light were struggling to penetrate the frosted glass of the window overhead.  A tan arm smacked me across the bridge of my nose before thumping the wall.  I lay there blinking tears out of my eyes for a moment.

“Jeeze, Tabby.”  Shoving the limb off my head I struggled to sit up.  No wonder I had been trying to climb the wall in my sleep.

Tabby slept sprawled across the rest of the twin bed, her short blonde hair rumpled.  One muscular leg flung over mine.  A faded band t-shirt was hiked up around her midriff.  To top it off she was wearing a pair of my boxers.  Sighing I bit back the desire to yell at her.  She’d either beat the crap out of me or laugh if I made too big a deal of it.  Shaking her shoulder, I tried to wake her.  She’d made a habit of climbing into bed with me the week her dad moved in with my mom and me, almost ten years ago.  She’d been eight and I was six at the time.  I hadn’t liked it then, and I still didn’t like it even if she didn’t do it every night now.  Something must have happened last night or she would’ve slept in her own bed.  Hoping it didn’t have anything to do with what I thought it did, I tried to wake her.

“Tabby, hey Tabitha wake up.  Go get in your own bed.  Come on.”  Shoving had little effect and just when I’d decided to forget it and go to her room she opened one eye.

Stretching so that the t-shirt threatened to reveal way too much she grinned at me mumbling, “Mornin’ sleepin’ beauty.”

“Get the hell out of my bed you freaking weirdo.”

“That’s not how you say good morning to your loving sister.”  She yawned through half the sentence, rubbing mascara nearly to her temples.

“Step-sister and since when have you been loving?  And why in the freaking hell are you wearing my boxers.”

“They’re comfy.” The pout lasted all of two seconds.

“Ooof.” I shoved at her shoulder as she flopped over on me.  She was entirely too warm and heavy, not that I would tell her that.  Her weight made it difficult to breathe.

“Besides you are so cute and cuddly when you are sleeping.”  She mumbled into my ear sending chills down my neck.

“You are creeping me out Tab.  We need to get up.”  I didn’t need to tell her why.  She sighed and I tried to ignore the feel of her against me.  Step-sister or not, she had a nice body.

“Creeps you out, huh?  You never used to mind.  Besides, it’s not like we are related or anything.”  Hugging me to her she snuggled closer.

Pushing her away I propped myself up on an elbow. “Do you have any idea how crazy you sound right now?”

“What?  I can’t think my step-brother is cute?”

“No!  No you can’t.”  That pissed her off.  Shifting around she sat up, pulling the shirt down.  She glanced at me over her shoulder.

“You know for being a football player, you sure are a wimp.”  Shoving my head down into the pillow she got up.  “I get dibbs on the shower.  Unless you want to share?”

“Get out you sicko.”

She disappeared in the direction of the bathroom and I buried my head in the pillow.  Soon the sound of running water could be heard.  She was getting weirder by the day, used to be she was disgusted by me like any proper sister.  She needs boyfriend, was my next thought, her and Jasper split six months ago.  The last thing I needed was Gunner thinking I’d hooked up with his precious daughter.  Grossed out by the thought I decided I was going to have to get a lock for my door, as soon as I got a door.  Gunner had broken it last year in one of his drunken rages, or rather had used me to break it.  We didn’t have the money to replace it, so I went without.  Shoving that thought to the dark reaches of my mind with the rest of the painful memories, I made myself get up.

The carpet, matted into a nondescript brown was cold, must be pretty chilly outside then.   Trailers aren’t exactly known for being well insulated.  Without Tabby’s body heat the room was decidedly nippy.  Best to get dressed.  Stripping off the pajama pants I found a pair of jeans that were still decent, no holes in improper places at least.  Socks were another matter.  After a ten minute search I found a mismatched pair and threw a t-shirt and hoodie on.

Avoiding piles of clothes, clean and dirty piled in the narrow hall, I headed for the kitchen.  The living room had been relatively clean yesterday, until Gunner came home.  Now the coffee table, end tables and the floor were covered with beer bottles and cans and the occasional liquor bottle.  The ashtray was overflowing onto the table and there were three empty packs of Camel’s mixed in among the bottles.  At least the alcohol and cigarette smoke smell kind of covered the lingering cold greasy smell of last night’s dinner.  My mom, Alicia wasn’t known for her cooking ability.  Not cooking food anyway.

I stopped in the living room watching her through the pass-through window as she got her breakfast in the kitchen.  Her personal cupboard was padlocked so we couldn’t raid it when she was gone.  As always she looked completely out of place in our dump of a single-wide.  Long blonde hair swung from a ponytail down to the middle of her back.  Anytime she showed up for a football game all the guys would stare at her.  She was pretty if not downright beautiful and she knew it.  Why she’d ever hooked up with Gunner was beyond me.  Maybe it had been desperation or something else, I didn’t pretend to understand it.  She glanced up and I felt my pulse quicken.  Please let her be in a good mood this morning, I begged whatever god cared to listen.

“Mornin’,” I ventured.

“Good morning Corentin.  Make sure you fix Gunner’s breakfast before you leave for school.  I’ll be gone all day, there is a realtor’s meeting in Springfield that I’m going to attend.  Don’t expect me home before ten tonight.  You and Tabitha are in charge of getting dinner on and make sure you clean the kitchen this time.”

I nodded as I headed to the refrigerator hoping there was something edible in it.  As usual she was lying.  I knew her real reason for going to Springfield.  It hadn’t been much of a shock to find out the realtor bit was a cover for her drug running for Gunner.  It was just really disappointing.  I guess it had stopped being a shock when Gunner had made me help him at a couple of his meth labs.  I hated it with a passion; it was hard, dangerous and smelly work.  I’d rather do something legal and safe.  My refusal to help often started many of our fights.  They normally ended with me bleeding on the floor.  Distracting myself with the task at hand I opened the fridge, almost welcoming the stench of rotting food.  Half a dozen eggs and a nearly empty gallon of milk meant breakfast wasn’t going to be much.  I’d have to see if we had enough money to go by the Save-A-Lot after school.

“Morning Alicia,” Tabby’s voice was muffled, probably by a towel.  Grabbing the eggs and milk I shut the door with my foot.  Sure enough Tabby was toweling her hair dry as she stood in the living room.  I rolled my eyes and set the food down on the counter.  She always pretended to be so polite, but I knew what she really thought of Alicia.  I agreed with her too.

“Good morning Tabitha.  Mrs. Coontz said they have a job opening at the Pizza Hut in Camdenton.  You should go apply today.”  Today was stressed in a tone that meant you did it or you suffered major consequences.

Tabby’s smile was as fake as they come, “I’ll check it out after I drive Ren to school since he missed the bus.”

“I was going to take my bike.”

“No,” They chorused glaring at me.

“It’s getting too late in the year and I don’t like you riding it anyway.”  I almost snorted, she didn’t like me riding it ‘cause it meant I had wheels faster than hers.

“It’s a lot cheaper on gas than the Dodge.” I countered.

The Dodge was a 1978 Ram Charger more suited to off-roading or mudding than driving down the road.  At least it was it better shape than the Chevy Gunner drove.  He’d nearly totaled it last year running from the cops.   Alicia drove a new Beamer that none of us were allowed to even look at much less touch.  If she really cared why didn’t she use some of that drug money to make our lives a little easier?  I knew the answer even as I thought the question.  She don’t care ‘bout us, not any more than me and Tabby are tax deductions.

“Tabitha has to go into town anyway.  No more discussion Corentin.”

I flinched at the tone.  Cringing as she walked behind me I was not spared the smack to the back of my head.  She was the only person who ever used my full name and I hated it.

“Tabitha, I want him home immediately after football practice.  You are not to go anywhere else.”

“Okay.”  Tabitha’s false meekness wouldn’t have worked on anyone else, but Alicia never seemed to notice.

One last check in the mirror by the door and she was gone.  Rubbing the back of my head I set about making breakfast for the rest of us.  Scrambled eggs and toast just isn’t filling especially when we had to leave half of it for Gunner.  Tabby came up behind me ruffling my hair.

“You know you shouldn’t argue with her.  Now she’ll think about it all day and be totally pissed by the time she gets home.”

I shifted away from her, cracking the eggs into the skillet.  “Doesn’t matter.  She’ll come home in a bad mood anyway, like she always does.”

“So you shouldn’t make it worse, shorty.”

“Hey, it’s too early for name calling.”

Tabby and I were cleaning up the mess when there were several thumps from the back of the trailer where the master bedroom was.

“We’d better hurry.”  Her voice was low and shook a bit.  “He had to move another lab yesterday.”

Swearing under my breath I hurried to put the dishes away.  Tabby, white lipped and silent wiped the counters clean with swift economical movements.  Moving a meth lab was always risky especially with the local highway patrol already watching Gunner like a hawk on a snake.

 

Well, it’s a start anyway.

Books · Characters

Blindsided

Bran Lindy Ayres2 Comments

The Age of the Anti-Hero has been long.   Some credit George Lucas and Han Solo for popularizing the trend that had started first in literature.  Some literary anti-heroes are Victor Frankenstein from Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein;  Jay Gatsby from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby;  Gollum from J. R. R. Tolkein‘s Lord of the Rings series;  Batman created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger; Dexter Morgan from Jeff Lindsay’s Darkly Dreaming Dexter (also popularized as a tv series).

Basically an anti-hero is a hero who sees morals as more of a guideline than an absolute.  They are not averse to breaking laws and bending rules to reach their stated goal.

So what lead to the downfall of the traditional hero?

People wanted someone they felt they could relate more closely too, not some moral ideal.  They wanted a hero that was gritty and as morally corrupt, or at least questionable, as they feel themselves to be.  This trend has spawned a great number of vigilante types in fiction and movies.  While they (usually) make for interesting characters, the type has grown stale and overused due to ceaseless repetition of the same tropes.

As any of you who follow this blog know, I’m a huge fan of villains.  Anti-heroes amuse me because they are pseudo-villains.  Now this is not to say that there aren’t some that I don’t genuinely like.  While they are a grittier, more true to life hero than say, Superman, they still have their issues.

So it was with much surprise and a little chagrin that I realized I had found a true hero that I’m completely in love with.  Let me explain what I mean by true hero and then I will discuss my adoration of this character.

A hero is morally upright, places great importance on doing what is right and just, does everything in their power to help those who are weaker or in maligned condition, they have integrity, honor, are trustworthy and true to their word.  Their sense of right and wrong guides all they do.

I’m getting bored just explaining the term.

But I understand that this is something all of us wish we were and few of us will ever fully accomplish.  So now on to how I fell in love with a hero.

I tend to watch cartoons with my children.  My son had found a newer cartoon on Netflix that I didn’t really pay attention to until he was several episodes in.  I sat through one episode and was hooked.  At first I was more interested in the villains, but then in one episode the hero did something I found shocking.  He made a mistake, an error in judgement that resulted in people getting hurt.  And it hurt him.  He was mortified and humble in is apology.  Something sparked in my mind and I began to watch him more closely.  By the end of the second season I am not ashamed to say that I was an emotional wreck.  I won’t spoil the ending for you but it was not a typical one for a children’s cartoon.

You are probably wondering who I’m talking about.  So please allow me to introduce him:

Optimus Prime in the new Hub series Transformers Prime

Meet Optimus Prime.  At least his newest iteration.  I grew up watching Beast Wars and later Transformers Animated (which I gladly will forget, even when it first was out I got irritated with it) then along came the Bay movies.  But it wasn’t until this most recent aligned continuity (which includes 2 novels, 2 video games, comics and the cartoon) that I feel Optimus really came into his own.  His backstory is much richer and more involved than ever before with two novels explaining where he came from and how he met Megatron.  Previously, we were shown little of how Optimus became leader of the Autobots and came to wage war on the Decepticons.  In the Bay movies he’s not given much characterization other than being a warrior and the leader of the Autobots.  Transformers Prime (TFP) goes way beyond this and even allows us to see him not just as a Prime but as a person.  He has fears, hopes, makes mistakes, gets embarrassed and enraged, but through it all he is still Optimus Prime.

His first self imposed priority is to keep his team safe.  Next he does his best to protect humanity.  Life, all life, is precious to him and he even hesitates to deliver the final blow to his enemies.  He states several times that it is his desire not to kill the Decepticons but  to change their minds.  Being an Autobot or a Decepticon is a choice and one that  carries with it grave consequences.

Optimus might be humble and willing to listen to his team, but that doesn’t mean he is a push over either.  He is not above admitting his mistakes either.  In the final episodes of season one he faces one of his greatest challenges in the form of a god reborn.  Even when facing a figure out of Cybertron’s distant past he displays great courage, honor and humility in addressing Unicron.  If you do not wish to have the show spoiled for you, do not click play.

I’m sure you are wondering just which episode turned my head, so to speak.  Honestly, it was late in season two and the Autobots had just suffered a resounding defeat.  Optimus returned to base wounded and went right back to work trying to decode the Iacon database in the hopes of finding some way to defeat the Decepticons.  It was at this moment I realized just how selfless and self sacrificing he is.  Going back and re-watching the entire series I gained a much greater understanding of him and of his determination.  I gained an all new respect for him as a character once I read the novels. He’s suffered through some horrific things and had immense responsibility thrust on him.  Yet, he hasn’t given up or wavered in his beliefs.

Most heroes seem two dimensional at best.  They seem to be self-righteous do gooders, incapable of true humility even if they are self sacrificing.  Altruism while an admirable quality is often seen as a weakness by most.  Being willing to sacrifice oneself is one thing, knowing the appropriate time is another.  In the novel Transformers: Exodus by Alex Irvine, Optimus makes a very valid point about honor and sacrifice, one that I have never seen put so plainly or even addressed.  He asked a fellow Autobot what the worth of honor was if that honor led to a senseless death that could have been avoided?  It is this attitude that endears him to me.  He sees the bigger picture, he understands that having honor and pride is not enough, it must be tempered with humility and meekness.  Realizing that one cannot always win just because they think they are in the right.  Sometimes losing is just as effective, you allow your enemy to misjudge, miscalculate and overreach.

This does not mean that Optimus has not made errors in judgement or simple mistakes.  He is not infallible and he’s not make out to be.  But he accepts these failures, learns from them and becomes more determined.  He’s not afraid to apologize and admit he is wrong, to his own team or to their human allies.

There are many other reasons why I find him so appealing, but I feel that it is best to discover them on your own.  I’m still getting used to the fact that I adore the big bot.  It’s a testament to the skill of the new writers that they’ve made a hero even I can love.

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