sometimes even I feel like stories about friendship are ‘boring’ and quickly berate myself for internalised arophobia but honestly? I think I’m entitled to view them that way. I think friendship is often portrayed in a totally different way to romance in fiction (duh) as if it’s not just a different type of relationship but an entirely different sort of concept. I think of stories about romance (as a genre, not specific ones) and I think about high tension and drama, beautiful metaphors, intended relatablility, fantasies indulged for the reader, massive impact on overall plot, character exploration to the max and an epic feel. amatonormativity and other inevitable harmful messages aside, they’re actually the kind of narratives I’m very interested in.
Stories about friendship are either stories about romance in disguise, or, if I think about them in pure form, something reeking of fully saturated colour and cartoon people. Something for kids. They’re also, and I’m not sure how to put this in words so bear with me, not allowed the epic feel of romance. Friendship is not ‘fated’ (not that I’d want it to be. Read anything by @aro-soulmate-project to understand why), friendship does not last a lifetime, friendship is not why cities fall and new eras come about or why people sacrifice themselves or where the iconic scenes and poses and lines come from, apart from in pacific rim.
So I can’t escape to fiction about romance because it’s confusing at best and panic inducing at worst. But I also can’t escape to fiction about friendship because it’s not for me either. I can’t insert myself into the protagonist’s shoes while their newfound friend tells them how they’ve never felt Like This about a friend before, or while their old friend tells them nothing can come between their deep platonic love, or while their enemy risks it all to save them because their kindness struck a cord in the friendless enemy’s heart. I don’t get, even in fiction, to mourn my friends, make big gestures, hold them like we’re the only people alive, so what’s the point.
I’m not saying I want replication of overdramatic/sometimes harmful romantic tropes copy pasted onto platonic relationships. We can leave behind the obsession, the too-fastness, the reliance on another person for your self worth, the heteronormativity and sexism, the tendency to tell rather than show, etc. etc. etc. But I do want to be able to relate to fiction, and part of that almost as much as aro rep means friendships that are allowed to be centered, realistic, celebrated, beautiful, worth fighting for, because that’s the kind of friendship I experience.
me, reaching into my dresser drawer for black pants: I hope this isn’t the pair with big holes worn in the inner thighs
Marie Kondo, gently over my shoulder: why is a pair of pants you find unwearable still in your dresser drawer
me: oh shit that’s right!! The dresser is for clothes that under some circumstance I might conceivably wear!!
Marie Kondo, beaming proudly: Yes, that’s correct!!Thesepants must have been your favorites. How wonderful that they were so comfortable and practical that you wore them out. But now since they no longer function as pants, you should move them from the drawer where you keep your functioning pants!
me: Yes thanks I got it they’re in the fabric basket now
Marie Kondo, fading back into the darkness: I love what you’ve done with the kitchen!!
The notion of KonMari as some creepy semi-embodied but entirely benevolent spirit, like a well-intentioned Bloody Mary, is so perfect and wonderful.
Imagine hating trans men so much that you read the history of someone who presented as a man for so long that most people only discovered he was ~biologically female~ after his fucking autopsy and be like “well clearly he was just gender fluid” I’m fucking
he specifically asked to be buried in the clothes he died in!!!!! we only know he was trans bc someone disrespected his direct wishes after his death!!!!!!
i hate monopoly it is like some old white guy was sitting around and then thought to himself, what if we could make capitalism fun? well you tried and you failed dipshit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Monopoly it was actually created by a Georgist to illustrate the principle that rent makes landlords richer and tenants poorer. She designed it to be incredibly not fun, to show that if you don’t own property you experience an inevitable foreseeable slow dwindling of your resources until you eventually go bankrupt. She figured that through Monopoly people would be so bored and frustrated that they would understand how terrible the system of rent is
Then Parker Brothers patented it, mass-produced it, people bought it because people have terrible taste in games, and the original creator experienced an inevitable foreseeable slow dwindling of her resources until she died impoverished and obscure
society is a horrific parody of itself
No wonder this game makes me aggressive
Her name was Elizabeth Magie and her game was stolen by Charles Darrow.
Darrow went bankrupt after the 1929 Stock Market Crash, so when he saw his neighbors playing the game, he copied down the instructions, and published his own version of the game.
Then he sold it to the Parker Brothers who popularized the game. Darrow became a millionare within the year. Despite this, Hasboro currently lists him as the sole creator on their website.
Magie was amazing, and not just for her game. She liked to mock societal standards of the time through theater and even made national headlines mocking the institution of marriage. She supported herself until her mid 40s, proving that marriage was not the only option for women, before tying the knot herself.
Elizabeth Magie is attributed with this, “Girls have minds, desires, hopes, and ambitons.” Dont forget her name.
This is the saddest and most representative of the United States thing ever.
Magie actually had a second set of rules for a more fair game to show how the system could be improved. The game was meant to be unfair to illustrate the unfairness of runaway capitalism at first, and then switch to a new set of rules, which provide a much more even playing field (and a much more fun game). Darrow scrapped this second ruleset when he stole it, eliminating the teaching purpose and also all the fun. Here’s the original rules, with the second ruleset included
look, im just a slut for some magical exhaustion okay give me your whumpees overusing their magic and having physical repercussions from it, bloody noses, unable to stand, getting progressively weaker, utterly exhausted and spent !!
bonus points: if they know they are running low on magic but they have no choice but to keep using more until they just collapse
bonus bonus points: if their magic is somehow connected to their life force!!
bonus points: technically they could stop, but it would mean allowing the person they care about to die/suffer, so it’s really no choice at all.
extra bonus points: they exhaust themselves on magic and the person they were protecting gathers them up and carries them inside and cares for them and nurses them back to health
extra extra bonus points: they regularly do this shit for each other and then have screaming arguments over each other’s tendency to do the exact same overexertion
still here
