Fiction As Learning Tool

Do you remember in Health class when you had to watch Degrassi videos?

I ask this in full expectation that it's a universal - I know we watched some in Canada and some in the U.S., and expect that everyone in North America at least had to watch episodes of TV about pregnant teenagers as part of either class or homework at some point.

But that's not where I meant to start.

I'm taking a class right now called Technology and Social Responsibility. It's all right up my alley, from the discussion material to the class meetings on Twitter, and it's made me think about how we establish stakes in issues, and the power stories have. Because this is a university class about technology and social responsibility, we don't have Degrassi to watch: mostly we read relevant articles, but one session we did have to watch episodes of Black Mirror. I'm not particularly a fan of the show, aside from it's odd prescience in one incident, because it shows such an unrelentingly bleak view of our future with technology. I've found myself making reference to a lot of other novels and TV shows, though, such as Person of Interest and Orphan Black, because they also extrapolate on current issues with technology and IP and ideas of ownership and privacy. And the reason I come back to them is this:

Fiction answers the question "why should I care?" before it even raises the issue it addresses.

Some of the things we're talking about in Technology and Social Responsibility are easy to think of in the abstract, because so many of the issues sound science fictional and like a future problem, but a lot of the issues we're talking about, such as if we really own our own DNA and how secure our data is, are things that impact us right now. There are current court cases about these issues, not least the FBI fighting with Apple over whether we're allowed effective encryption on the devices on which we store our whole lives.

Fiction makes these things real, and immediate, playing out the consequences of treading wrong in a way that's easier to hold on to than an abstract thought experiment. Fiction allows for exploration of worst-case scenarios without explicit fear-mongering.

And for me, at least, fiction shows me the things I want to work to prevent.

Genre Fiction and Sexual Violence

One of the interesting contrasts between literary and genre fiction is what we expect from them: literary fiction we expect to give us good writing and interesting narrative devices, genre fiction we expect to give us a particular emotional experience.

With the recent kerfuffle about Game of Thrones and having gone to see Mad Max yesterday, I was thinking more today about the things I want from an experience.

This tweet summarizes a lot of it. I mean, at this point, we all kind of expect a pervasive threat of sexual violence from every shadow in Westeros. And, because I've seen other action movies, I was kind of expecting some threat of sexual violence in Mad Max. I was braced for the hit. And then it never came, and it was a gift, and I really love that fucking movie.

I read non-fiction and literary fiction both for school and for my own edification, and I brace in the same way when reading a lot of those. Sexual violence is pervasive in the real world, and so it pervades fiction set in the real world.

Which takes me to the genre fiction I read. I have a friend who, because she's perfect, heads an email filled with book recommendations as 'Trash Books!'

They are supernatural romance novels. They're amazing. It's great. In every single one, people fall in love in a long-term-monogamy sort of way, kick butt, have magic powers, and maintain healthy friendships. It is the best kind of wish fulfillment.

Also of note is the way it treats sexual violence. Rape still exists, in these worlds, because I tend to read the kind of paranormal romance with high body counts and so other kinds of violence come with that. Of note, though, is that rape attempts are far less frequent than in the real world. In the series I'm reading now, I'm on book 19 and there have been two characters who were raped, of which only one was a perspective character (the other character started a centuries-long war and she was considered justified except when she nearly murdered her kids). There were also three threats that ended in violence. This is significantly lower than anywhere in the real world. Also, anyone who tries to rape a woman ends up dead or severely beaten. It's very emotionally satisfying.

And it also makes these books kind of reassuring to read: one doesn't have to be quite so braced against the possibility of an onslaught.

That's what genre fiction offers. There are other genres, like cozies, where the only thing one has to be braced against are dessert cravings, but these tight genres offer a kind of consistent experience that's as relaxing as a glass of wine.

Blog fiction: Falling Star

“Let me hold you, please.”

“We can’t. I’m promised to another.”

“Just for tonight?”

She kissed him, fierce and sorrowful. “I love you. Now go.”

As Rigel climbed out the window, a star fell in the distance, the first of a week-long meteor

shower.

Lyra leaned out after him. “Don’t pine for me. It has to be this way. I am securing an alliance, and Arthur is not a bad man, so I will be doing my best to be happy.”

Rigel paused on the trellis and met her eyes. The kitchen garden was a long way down. “Does that mean you won’t miss me? That you won’t long for me at all? That you’ll forget?”

She closed her eyes briefly and swallowed. When she opened them again, her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “No.”

Suddenly shame-faced in addition to despairing, Rigel looked away. “I hope he treats you as you deserve.”

Lyra closed the windows reluctantly and watched the moon through the leaded glass. By the time the waning gibbous moon had set, she would be married. She set her forehead on the cool, indifferent glass and prayed for it to stand still.

Fic: Purpose

I am reasonably certain they don’t know what I’m for.

This isn’t because they’re ignorant in general, but more likely because their parents - maybe grandparents, it’s been such a long time since I was out of the box - only used me when they were throwing me at their own parents and shouting about Birmingham. It took years for the stench of pot and politics to fade from the lining.

Then, I measured the passage of time in Christmases and Thanksgivings and Easters, when we’d all be taken out and put to use. I was sometimes horrifically employed on - of all things - pickles, but at least I got fresh air and scrubbing.

Now I measure the passage of time in Vinyl Cafe Christmas specials coming faintly from next door. The walls are thin, and the neighbour’s hearing is going, so I can hear Stuart McLean almost clearly.

The world is changing.

They bring out our case in the middle of summer for some kind of dinner party, and it’s almost like our first owners’ weekly formal dinner parties. But now they are puzzling over why the knives are different sizes, not able to tell which are dinner knives and which are butter knives. The spoons cringe, and the fish forks swear like sailors as they are deemed dessert forks.

I am passed over as “I don’t know, some kind of fish fork?”

I would that I could snarl at them. I have served judges and mafia kingpins and celebrities. Even men who died as petty criminals had more awareness of the way things worked.

The box closes with me still in it, and I am in the closet with a few serving spoons and the dessert forks while the dinner progresses. The serving spoons complain in their ponderous way until I threaten to scratch them.

Dubstep wubs through the apartment, shivering up through the box to rattle us. I liked it better when live jazz threaded through a room after dinner, when the marmoreal elegance of the lady of the house hadn’t been replaced by workman’s trousers. I must grudgingly concede that the CBC has improved their programming over the years, but that is the only thing, I think.

The sounds fade with time, and then the dishwasher starts.

The box opens, and there is light and air and the lingering smell of chicken. The knives are placed again amongst us. They are mottled faintly black and blue, an unhealthy shimmer all over them. Collective horrified silence greets them.

The box goes back in the closet, the damage they’ve wreaked hidden and ignored. Time passes.

The closet is emptied, contents sorted into piles to be packed, sold, donated, and trashed. A susurration of horror passes between us. We’ve been with the family for years and years, but these miscreants and wastrels - well, at least we end up in the pile to be sold. At least they recognize that we are worth something.

I am shaking in rage as we are loaded into their car. Three - or was it four? - unbroken generations of service, and we’re not even being offered to siblings. We are taken to a consignment store as if we were never of any importance at all.

A sticker is slapped on the exterior of the box, which has grown dry since the days it was oiled at least once a month. I wonder how we’ve been valued.

Not much, not near enough, since we are there for only a day. The car that takes us to our new home is quiet and well climate-controlled. We are put in a drawer, and I expect that to be the end of it.

Mere hours later, the box opens, and a man reaches in with hands that smell of silver polish. The spoons are immediately in love, but I withhold judgement. I doubt he’ll know what I’m for, either.

Then we’re back in the box and the drawer is closed.

There is no neighbour with CBC here, and thus no entertainment nor way to tell time. It doesn’t feel like long, though, before the box is opening again.

The butter knives are first out, and he doesn’t hesitate at all to pick them apart from the dinner knives. Then the soup spoons and salad forks and dinner forks. The fish forks are left in their partition, and I anticipate that I will be as well.

There are sounds of a table being set, and so it seems this will be the end of it, until the hands return. The snobby cheese knives with the mother-of-pearl handles are extracted, and then slim fingers return for me.

I anticipate some manner of indignity, like antipasto or relish. Bundled with those awful knives, we approach a kitchen island laid out with amuse-bouches, amongst them - [i]oh[/i]. He intends to put me to my true use. I will have purpose again. I do not care how long I will have to wait between uses, because here, here I am fully myself.

I sink into the dish of olives with a satisfied sigh.

Fic: Flight

It’s ten past midnight and the moons are high and bright, washing everything in faint blue-silver. It had been mid-afternoon, and it looks like it still is where the curve of South America is distantly illuminated.

I haven’t dreamt this place in years, and this doesn’t feel like a dream. Everything’s too solid, and I’m still wearing the clothes I was when I laid down for my nap. If I knew this was where I’d end up, I’d have dressed better today. It’s always been a contingency plan that, if I knew I were going to another world, I’d dress as much as I could like local nobility. Arriving alone here instead of accompanied by a prince, it would have stood me in good stead.

Basic check: I exist, and am the same species I was before I went to sleep. I am on Gaea, I gather from the sky. I am alone, and on a gently pitched roof. Where am I in intermediate terms? The night air is humid and cool without being cold, so probably a temperate zone. There are imminent mountains in a rough semicircle around the sprawl of buildings, and the lights cut in too clean a line on the side away from the mountains. Asturia, then.

It’s been too long since I watched the series. All I remember are allusions to Venice and a great number of blonde princesses. Merchant cities, though, those I can deal with. Better here than the heart of the evil empire, since totalitarian ideology and I don’t tend to get along.

What do I have with me? No shoes, which I’ll need to correct. I do have my messenger bag, though, and that makes me grin. I emptied it recently, so not a ton of supplies, but unless something has gone terribly wrong, I have all the tools I need.

I have always wanted to fly.

To further this cause, I look for an easy way down, then check the drop from the edge of the roof. It makes me swallow hard. I swing my bag over my shoulder and strap it tight and then let myself over the edge feet-first. Once my hips are over the edge, the gap feels huge, but I let myself down until I am holding by my fingertips. I let go, because I don’t have the upper body strength to go back now. Air rushes up past me, and then everything hurts and I roll a few feet across the cobblestones.

I pick myself up and dust myself off and look around. I’d landed on a tavern. Bar or club is a too thoroughly modern way to refer to it, I confirm as I sashay into the smoky, convivial darkness. A hand grabs my ass, and I whirl elbow-first. The man I elbow in the head has disconcertingly mole-like features. “There was no need to do that!”

“I did not give you permission to touch me,” I say.

A man dripping smug and money drapes an arm around the smaller man’s shoulders. “Have you offended the lady already, Mole-man?”

His eyes are sharp on mine, but I’m not reading him as a threat. I crinkle the corners of my eyes and lift the corners of my lips. “I might have overreacted. I’m not from around here.”

“A tourist! And what brings you to our fair shores?” He lets the mole-man duck away to his beer, and I congratulate myself on finding a guide to the city. Next on my list: shoes, then secure accommodation. Then trouble.

“I’m from the Mystic Moon. This just happens to be where I landed.”

“I see. Then we should give you a warm Gaean welcome to celebrate your visit.”

He gestures to the barkeeper and moments later a waiter brings over something that smells of alcohol and honey. I’ve joined him at his table, with him as buffer between me and the mole-man. “So what do you know of the wonders of Gaea?”

“I’d love to see a guymelef in action. We don’t have them on the Mystic Moon.”

He takes my hand and kisses the knuckles. “I will see what I can do. It is likely nothing can be done until the morning, though. How can I keep you entertained until then?” He makes eyes at me over the hand he’s still clasping.

I smile crookedly at him. “It would be wonderful if you could explain the origins of the music the band is playing. Maybe show me how one dances here?”

He leads me awkwardly through a few dances. After the first few, either I pick up on the steps or I’ve had enough to drink, as they’re no longer awkward. It helps that someone sees my lack and hands me a pair of worn red dancing slippers.

I keep dancing - with other partners, once I know the steps. As the night’s drawing to the time when people are usually retiring to someone’s bed, I drift back to the gentleman who’s bought my drinks. I have nowhere to go, and novelty apparently amuses him.

“A seaside market town must have a market at dawn.”

“Of course, my lady. Mostly fishmongers and those who sell to the later tradesmen, but I would be most happy to show it to you.”

“Can we go now and walk along the waterfront?”

“Of course, my lady. I would benefit greatly from a few hours sleep, though, if you wouldn’t mind. We could then see the later market, which has many attractions other than raw fish. Have you anywhere to go?”

“No.”

There’s a pause.

“My room has a chaise. Hardly fit accommodations for a visitor from the Mystic Moon, but it has grown rather late to make appropriate arrangements.”

I nod, and find myself catnapping on a brocade-upholstered chaise longue under the light of strange stars.

When I wake, the morning sun is casting long shadows. I have no frame of reference for how early it is. I know I’m up before my companion: I always am.

I dig in my bag for my hairbrush and rebraid my hair. I could almost leave it down, but if I get into all the trouble I want, loose hair will just get in the way. I read for a bit as the sun rises higher.

Eventually, he emerges, fresh-scrubbed and clean-shaven, and looks surprised that I’m awake.

“Can we go now?” I ask.

“Yes, my lady. Let me just get a runner to take these messages out.” He ducks his head into the hall and shouts for a boy with big sad beagle eyes and a swooshing tail and hands him the messages and some coins.

We set off for the market, and the city is different in daylight: smaller and dirtier. Seagulls turn overhead. The market is interesting, and reminds me of the one outside Leeds except with more fish. As we meander the stalls, runners periodically approach my companion with missives that he reads and replies to with quick scrawls on the page.

I am aware of his eyes on me, but I’ll get what I want out of this, so it’s okay.

The Earth trinkets I see sprinkled in with Gaean merchandise are few and far between, but they’re here. A Mickey Mouse watch with a blank digital face being sold as a bracelet. A MetroPass with sixty-three cents still on it billed as a holy relic. I have him buy me coffee and something like baklava and eat it as I walk before sucking the honey off my fingers.

The sun is waxing noon when he grabs my arm. “My Lady, we’ve been invited to the Palace for luncheon and a demonstration of guymelefs. We should probably proceed there directly.”

“Sure.”

The walk to the Palace doesn’t take long once we pick up the pace from a lazy stroll. Once there, the guards usher us in without so much as an introduction. The dining room we’re escorted to is open and airy and occupied by a squat round king and what looks like a dehydrated weasel but turns out to be my companion’s father, another merchant prince.

“Ah, our visitor from the Mystic Moon! Tell me your name, child.” The King is expansive in his welcome.

I hesitate a moment. I don’t remember name magic here. “You may call me Eileen.”

“Lady Eileen, you must come sit by me and tell me all about the Mystic Moon. It’s a shame the Fanelian King had business outside the city: he’s been on a state visit after his own encounter with a girl from the Mystic Moon. They say she had magic powers of divination. Is that true of all of you?”

I sit, and a footman pushes in my chair for me. I wish vaguely for a long skirt to smooth rather than practical black pants. I smile at him, not bothering to let it reach my eyes. “I have a tarot deck with me. Would you like to judge for yourself?”

“After lunch, I would be delighted.”

The older of the merchant princes has a voice like oil. “Such a rarity! I am sure most of Gaea would be entranced to meet someone from the Mystic Moon.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” I say, warning flags going up.

He has a smile I’d like to punch. “We must try to persuade you, then.”

The sheer volume of guards stationed around the room suddenly strikes me as menacing and claustrophobic. But overt displays of force wouldn’t do them any good: as far as they know, I’m completely in their power with or without ostentatious armed guards. It’s overkill if it’s meant to contain me, and silliness if this is standard.

Lunch is served, and we converse over our plates. The weasel only references putting me on display once more before his son sends him a sharp look. I ask them to explain Gaea’s geography just to have a concrete topic.

When lunch is over and the table cleared except for our glasses, I dig out my cards. It’s a mini pack, wrapped in a plastic bag because the box is ragged and the cards fall out. I shuffle three times before proffering the deck to the King. “Would you cut the deck, please?”

He lifts part of the deck away and I tuck it in at the bottom before laying out the Celtic Cross spread. I look up the cards in the little guide that came with the pack as I go. My memory is shoddy, and intuition rather than perfect memorization is what lets me spin the narrative.

“Let’s see - you’re in the middle of unexpected events, with new enterprises and new gains on the horizon. This leads to eventual success and financial gain, coming from a disastrous affair in the recent past and chaos and failure before. In the immediate future, though, you are going to make a very foolish choice.” I glance ahead in the reading, already suspicious of what it will hold. Oops, yeah, there’s the Queen of Swords. As if I needed confirmation.

“Greed is a motivating factor, but will be countered by a woman. The financial victory will be hollow and unsatisfying, and you’ll feel alone.”

I smooth my face before I meet the King’s eyes. He looks mildly perturbed but thoughtful. “Most interesting. Now, Dryden informs me that you are fascinated with our guymelefs, so I have put together a display for you.”

It occurs to me as we all rise and follow the King that I am as tall or taller than most of the people here, including the guards. We pass through courtyards and airy hallways to an amphitheatre with arched entryways the size of McMansions. There are chairs set up on either side of the throne, and on the opposite side Escaflowne observes the proceedings from a plinth built into the edge of the gladiatorial pit.

We seat ourselves, and two mecha that look like pirates assembled from spare parts emerge and go through a staged sort of duel. The one with a bullwhip as thick around at the widest part as my wait disarms the one with the cutlass, then turns and bows to the King. As he rises, he reaches forward and grabs me, chair and all.

I’m frozen. I can’t even scream, because this is a wholly unexpected tack. As I rise in the air, the chair falls far, far down to splinter on the sand, and I close my eyes and cling to his metal thumb. I really, really hate heights. The next few minutes are not going to be fun at all.

He turns his hand to cup me in his palm and brings me close to the faceplate and leers. “Handing you over to Myden in a cage is going to get me a bag full of gold, girlie.”

I fumble in my bag while maintaining eye contact and grab a packet of Emergen-C. They’ve got the little indents where you’re supposed to tear, so it’s easy to glare at him while I rip it open.

“I know exactly what I’m worth, and you were underpaid.” I toss the contents of the packet at his eyes and slide free of the guymelef’s hand as it convulses reflexively.

I don’t have time to climb down carefully, but I will likely break a lot of bones that I am quite attached to if I freefall from this height. I wish I’d put on my mountain biking gloves. They’d protect my hands, at least. I grab the edge of one of the plates on his arm and swing myself more towards the guymelef’s torso. I realize that I’m letting out a litany of giddy swearing only as it stops when I slam into its torso chest-first.

Someone near the King is roaring outrage, but I have no time for any of them, because there’s really not that much in a packet of Emergen-C and he’s going to grab me again in a minute. I’m still falling, but the ground is approaching way too quickly. I manage to land in an instructor-approved fall position, and no white-hot spikes of agony rear up to tell me I did it wrong.

I run windedly for Escaflowne.

It’s supposed to only respond to the blood of a Fanelian king, but fuck that noise: I’m PK. I dig in my bag for my fork with a hand that’s already shaking. There are steps up the side of the plinth where Escaflowne sits, and I take them two at a time. The pilot of the guymelef has realized where I am, and he’s coming for me. I reach Escaflowne’s thigh and run atop it to where the energy core sits dormantly red.

I take a deep breath. I look behind me. I stab myself in the base of my thumb with a questionably clean fork. Tears well in my eyes and I squeak a bit, but I jam the fork in my pocket and stick my bloody hand over the energy core. It lights gold-purple, which is probably not a good sign, but the cockpit opens.

Go me.

I slide in and put my bag in my lap and grab for the controls. The cockpit closes up with me in it, and I worry for a moment that it’ll crush me to death. But it rises as I will it and the sword swings with my arm and there is lots of shouted panic.

The bullwhip falls to the ground, severed near the hand. I don’t want to keep fighting, though. I want to disengage and go see what this thing can do.

I duck into the guymelef-sized doorway that seems to face the sea most directly. It opens to a hangar where unmanned guymelefs who have not earned pride of place sit waiting, but the far door is lit like freedom. It opens to a cliffside road, but I head straight out over the cliff.

Once in freefall, Escaflowne stretches and rearranges. Plates slide and the leg controls retract and it reshapes itself around me until I am riding the dragon out over the sea. The afternoon sun sparkles on the ocean and I am free, free, free above it.

I throw my head back and laugh, then direct my attention to steering with my abused hands.

The first hour is like the first hour sailing: hyper-awareness of the controls and nervousness that I’ll end up in the water under a great lot of machinery. From the second hour on I’m trying to remember if anyone but Fanelia and Zaibach had flying guymelefs, and contemplating how likely anyone is to have anti-aircraft guns. But I’m contemplating while driving a mostly-mechanical [i]dragon[/i], so I’m pretty okay with that.

As the sun sets, I head up towards the mountains. I want to keep watching the sunset as long as I can, and if I can gain elevation at the right pace I could maybe drag it out for hours. It’s getting chilly and the trees are thinning and I’m thinking this may be as long a sunset as I can manage when Escaflowne goes into a dead drop.

A scream boils up and I try desperately to regain control, but Escaflowne is headed straight down into trees. I brace for impact, in full awareness that I am probably going to die.

Escaflowne hits the ground and rolls and I am flung clear.

I lay very still and stare up. Slowly, and listening for crepitus, I turn to look at Escaflowne. It’s mecha-shaped again, kneeling in front of - I squint - a kid in a red tank top with floppy hair all over his face. I turn again to stare straight up.

Booted footsteps approach and there’s a sching of steel, and a sword is levelled at my throat.

“What were you doing with the Escaflowne?”

“Hello, your Majesty. I was escaping Asturia.”

“I see,” says Van Fanel, King of Fanelia and hero of my favourite cartoon. “How did you pilot the Escaflowne?”

I proffer my still-bloody hand. It’s not all that much bloodier than the rest of me, which is annoying, but the tine-marks are still clearly visible. This shirt is probably a write-off. He looks at my hand, then puts his sword away. “Interesting. Come sit by the fire.”

He asks no questions beyond, “Would you like some?” as he offers me a skewer of some kind of barbecued meat.

I volunteer, after a while, because he should probably know that Escaflowne recognized its true master when it crashed me here. I also don’t want him to think I’m an absurdly awful pilot, because it’d be nice if I could take it out again, this time with permission.

In the flickering firelight, eventually I drift to sleep on the ground.

*

I wake in sunlight, and determine quickly that I’m on the roof of my condo building.

Back in the real world, I take the inside elevator back down to my floor.

Fandom part something

One of the interesting things that has stemmed from the corner of Homestuck fandom to which I pay attention is the surge of literary criticism.

Casual, lengthy, in depth literary criticism that examines motifs and characters and mines them for all they are worth. It's generally referred to as 'meta,' since it is discussion of the story that does not directly relate to speculation about future events. It does not typically make negative statements about the original work, either, which may be a reason the word 'criticism' is shied away from.

To illustrate:

• Take your high school English class around the time you had to read The Yellow Wallpaper
• Take the worksheet or quiz with questions on it like "Who was Jennie? What was her relationship to the narrator?"*
• Burn it.
• Instead
• At least one group of people is hotly debating it as a feminist critique of late-19th century treatment of post-partum depression.
• Someone is writing a story from the perspective of Jennie.
• Someone is writing about it as reflective of the social unrest in England throughout that time period.
• Someone is writing about it as reflective of the untenability of separate sphere ideology in an industrialized country.
• At least six people are writing commentary on it that I can't even fathom.
• Now make the source text all about teenagers kissing in space and you have the part of the Homestuck fandom that I follow.
• It is like having a huge fantastic book club that only ever discusses one book.

This has been incredibly inspirational to bear witness to, to say the least. I think the Homestuck fandom has contributed more to me being a critical reader than most of the rationalist stuff I read, largely because it is explicitly about examining literature.

So I'm going to start an exercise: on Sunday, I'm going to post a short story. On Monday, I'm going to post about the thought process that went into it and what certain aspects of it are derived from. I will repeat as needed.

This serves a whole bunch of purposes: I will have a place to put fiction too short to submit to other places, or that I have no interest in submitting, or that have been submitted to contests and they don't mind me reposting. I will have a log of the thought process that went in to it. And, down the road, when I have perspective on them, I will be able to read the pieces with fresh eyes and read the though process and judge how successful I was at incorporating the ideas I wanted to incorporate and what subtext I might have included unknowingly.

*To be fair, my high school English class did discuss its historical context as well, in terms of how women were treated for 'hysteria.'