(no subject)

I've had an uncomfortable suspicion that months of not-writing was in fact more like a block than I am comfortable with literally interpreting; blocks, you see, are like dams, and that's a lot of pressure building up and as things happen when a block abruptly vanishes, you can't control the release.

I really want to go with this as a really literal metaphor, because what started out as Hilarious Teaching Moments Between Charles and Emma is very much longer than expected, I don't have a beginning but apparently there's a plot, but the story has yet to share what it is with me.

You know, in general I find the entire spiritual/metaphysical approach to creativity a little weird and foreign; I can frame it all the ways I want for fun, but it's something I do like eating, sleeping, and flying to different places. I do not, in general, get the impression I am communing with the collective, mass unconsciousness, or a set of real or demi-real muses, and I'm really comfortable with saying, no, I do not hear any voices unless I'm talking to myself (which I will do, and sometimes out loud, and sometimes, I don't actually care if people can hear me). There's always, however, an argument; with canon, with fanon, with fandom, with myself, with a concept or idea that sometimes I'm not even aware of until someone reads it and says, oh, because I'm oblivious but not stupid and even I can go back and see I'm doing the fictional equivalent of presenting a defense, in detail. Which makes sense; unable to look at anything but the entire forest when I need to contemplate a single tree is often how I end up with a WIP that drives me nuts.

At least part of this entire mess was sitting down and thinking about the art of pragmatism; like greatness, some are born with it, some develop it, and some people have it thrust upon them. The thing that made me think was Charles' line in the sand was very clear and very hard; but the territory before you get to it is vast and what you won't and would never do to protect yourself doesn't touch the limits of what you'll do when those that will suffer for your scruples aren't you.

There has never been a time X-Men didn't step right on my thoughts on moral relativism and why an idea is so much more powerful than a dream and stomp on it repeatedly. I completely forgot that the first time I saw X-Men, the first thing I sketched was Rogue standing outside human internment camps and couldn't get rid of it until I wrote it all out (that took a bit). I think my question has changed, though. Last time, I wanted to know what lines you draw that separate you from monsters; I'm caught wondering now if monsters aren't the lines you cross, but the reason that you're willing to cross them. I feel like I'm writing a counterargument to Jus Ad Bellum on the principle that my entire thesis was wrong.

This is why I'd fail at academia; halfway through my defense, I'd probably start attacking myself.

I liked this so much better when I was mulling correct labeling for porn involving two people in one body, one of them male, a mirror, a ability for five-senses projection, and an abundance of creativity. The horrific part is, I didn't even get to the porn in that. I got distracted on how one goes about building a school for mutants; luckily, I finally realized Xavier's Academy wasn't actually a school. That helped a lot.

God, I want to go back to the porn. Five sense projection. Sometimes, I'm so disappointed in myself. Also, I may have sunburn, which is totally not helping.

Comments

[domarzione]

*points and laughs*

Worldbuilding is fun, ain't it? Especially when you get to do it in a world that's similar enough to ours that it seems like the rules should still apply, but something (life-sucking vampires, telepaths, demons, armies of well-armed religious zealots, whatever) changes the rules just enough that you are forced to undergo a paradigm shift and drag everything you thought was right and steady and stable into a new framework. And start all over again.

As for First Class, it's a definite new world -- from the earlier movies, from the comics, from where Jus Ad Bellum came from. Dig out the paint cans and drop cloths, Miss, you're stuck painting the walls before you can move the furniture in.

[seperis]

It's an adventure in someone's journey toward practicality; what's weirding me out isn't even what lines you can and can't cross, but that the second you draw a hard line, you've already lost. It's a lot harder to basically understand on a fundamental level you're basically making an obscenity argument when you ask if this is justified; you'll know when you see it.

Pondering what Charles is trying to do makes me really aware that Erik's position in a lot of ways is going to be worse when it comes to actually carrying out a functional effort at human genocide (or at least, human subjugation), and his line means he's limited a lot of his options by, to continue the comparison, actually writing down the definition of obscenity and pointing at it every time. It looks comforting to have a one true way, but it's not like even the legal system says all killing is Murder One. Since he's not actually (yet) a megalomaniac, this is seriously going to bite him in the ass.

[domarzione]

From the movie canon standpoint, Erik's first attempt at global hijinx is to try to turn everyone into a mutant, not genocide, so he's got an identifiable progression. Kind of. He finds homo sapiens distasteful and dangerous and, like God in Sodom, he is not willing to spare them if the angels can find him ten worthy men. But his first step, per X1, is to try to redeem them anyway. Even if that redemption is without prior consent and has a casualty rate.

Later on, when humanity cannot be redeemed and they have proven to be as dangerous as predicted, well... he did try to help them first. What happens after that is nobody's fault but theirs. Start loading the mutants into the ark two by two.

[scy]

*is helpfully cheering you on. LOUDLY*

Just think of the possibilities of SIX SENSES, though! *she said and ducked flying fruit and slingbacks*

Charles's line in the sand

[hollyberries]

Thanks for writing your post! I've been dying to see more meta about this, though the extent of my discussions nearly always get derailed to 'But they're so in love!'

I'd always thought they made Xavier the good guy not because of his background (which, wtf, comics canon, make up your mind) but because it's too hard to write him as driven and cynical as Magneto and not have him succeed in world-domination in the span of - oh, about 7 days, with some time off for tea. Granted, it would be a more interesting world.

Maybe my circle of acquaintances also have no morals, but: everyone I've spoken to about XMFC sees Charles' idealism as a sign of weakness, a lack of experience and not a source of strength (the way the later X-men movies present Xavier) - Erik is crazy and determined to genocide a group of people who by and large have not done him wrong, but Erik is also speaking from a position of authority and the one who will turn out to be right, in the long run. Yeah, no one I talk to believes in goodwill, which is sad, but Charles just doesn't seem to see that there is a war going on.

He talks about being the better men, but the fact is that it's not really up to him to decide, is it? The mutant population is tiny, comparatively, and they can do huge things with their power, which creates fear and the categorization of other - of them and us. People are not going to stand by and allow superpowered people (with emotions and failings and humanity) just walk around, not with the fear and envy that comes with those powers. It's one thing to hope for peace when you know that the more evolved species will eventually gain the upper hand, but when you're the lesser evolved species the need to preserve yourself against invasion is ... strong. Best case scenario results in forced registration and isolation, worst case scenario gives all-out war and genocide towards the mutants.

I feel very negative typing all that out. I think I'm going to go outside and soak some sun up now. Nevertheless, thanks for writing thinky thoughts about XMFC, it helps clear things up in my head!

Re: Charles's line in the sand

[seperis]

The Emma goes to Westchester fic is pretty much all my arguments on both side of the debate. My preferences have always tilted toward the anti-hero because in general, they have a reasonable conf lict arc that's sympathetic.

Charles blew up my character preference like whoa, and I think a lot of it is anyone who can watch missiles being thrown toward them by their sudden-enemies and then get shot in the back and still say, "I won't be a monster," is huge. He doesn't make that decision for anyone but himself. I mean, I'm always sympathetic to someone the world forced to become a monster, but there's something that puts me in awe of a man who could lose everything he cared about and still say, "Try again."

Worldbuilding is hitting me with the sheer scope of how ridiculously, impossibly hard this is that he's trying to do; I keep wondering, all things considered, is that humans are great for now, but kind of distracting from the fact that Erik's war is fear of Other, and mutants are a goddamn multitude of Other to each other.

Erik proved that right off the bat with that helmet in a very visual sense; he said humans made them turn on each other; he showed "he can do things I can't do; I don't trust him". Civil War's started with a lot less.

Re: Charles's line in the sand

[margrave]

Charles blew up my character preference like whoa, and I think a lot of it is anyone who can watch missiles being thrown toward them by their sudden-enemies and then get shot in the back and still say, "I won't be a monster," is huge. He doesn't make that decision for anyone but himself. I mean, I'm always sympathetic to someone the world forced to become a monster, but there's something that puts me in awe of a man who could lose everything he cared about and still say, "Try again."

THANK YOU! JUST THIS! Thank you for articulating the true reason why I love this Charles Xavier. Yes, he is an overly privileged white male, who consistently oversteps, he has the information but perhaps not the knowledge, and he is the man who was given the opportunity to be optimistic about the human race. But you know what, at the end of the day, he still wants to help people, he truly believes in integration.

I'm a salt-the-earth type of person, hell, I subscribe under the belief of destroy your enemies before they can even think about hurting you. But the thing is – history has proven over and over again that genocide, that segregation, that violence is not the answer. Yes, it will stop things, but reckless war, reckless violence, that is, violence without reason, without questioning will only lead to never ending war. Integration is the only way, collaboration leads to success. If you are going to go to war, if there is no other way, than you only have two option; 1) Complete genocide, erase the memory of the other completely, or 2) Win the war, and then provide integration (education, OK, indoctrination, you erase the hate, the culture, the identity from society.).

Also, as always, your post is highly interesting and so very fascinating, and in many ways reflect how I think about characters and stories and even moral stances.

Thank you!

Re: Charles's line in the sand

[hollyberries]

Ah, I think it's pretty obvious I'm leaning towards the 'totally control your enemies or destroy them utterly' route, because that's the only option that offers certainty. (As a human, that is all sorts of dnw, but strategically it's a historically proven move - unless you're willing to expend a lot of effort post-war integrating the losers, which, as seen with current conflicts, is incredibly difficult.) On the other hand, after you win the war, what do you do? Erik, like almost all conquerers, likely has no concept of how to build a society from the ground up, or even how to stop fighting. I agree with you that there's always going to be some other bogeyman for him, because that's how he's portrayed in the movie - he can't really face up to his own relative powerlessness in the grand scheme of things.

That's what the helmet was about, to me, that he couldn't allow Charles the opening to manipulate him. I think he would be able to trust the mutants on his side because they were on his side, whereas at that point he knew Charles disagreed with him...?

there's something that puts me in awe of a man who could lose everything he cared about and still say, "Try again."

I admire Charles' ability and strength of conviction, but it still seems like reckless idealism to me, especially in the face of his entirely crappy day. I mean, he wants to integrate peacefully into a population the majority of whom he's shown to distrust (as well he should). That part of his logic doesn't work for me.

(Have you watched X3? If not, spoiler ahead.)

Erik with the helmet and leaving Charles on the beach reminds me of X3, where Mystique was de-powered (seemingly permanently) and he immediately left her behind, at her most vulnerable, with the US government actively chasing after them both. The moment she was human, Mystique was no longer under his protection - he was sorry for her, but their history wasn't reason for him to help her anymore. He's very 'us and them' that way.

Re: Charles's line in the sand

[seperis]

Reckless idealism is at its source the belief that we (people) can do better because within us is the capacity for it; it doesn't sit in acceptance that what is will always be. It's dangerous, yeah, but reckless cynicism is worse; it teaches you that there is no capacity for better. It also promotes an oddly mixed message; you yourself might be special, but no one else is, and they're not worth considering as equals, which isn't an improvement.

strategically it's a historically proven move - unless you're willing to expend a lot of effort post-war integrating the losers, which, as seen with current conflicts, is incredibly difficult.

Historically, it doesn't actually work when you get past tribal status due to sheer numbers, but more importantly, the factors that have allowed a complete and systematic genocide aren't available or easy to reproduce in a world where there is global interconnectivity. I'm not saying it can't be done and keep stability among the winners, but I'd need an example.

I'll give you one I'm familiar with.

My great-great grandmother was Wendish; specifically, one of the group of immigrants to Texas that eight hundred years after supposed assimilation still spoke Wendish as her first language (and possibly German, though there's no way to verify that since my grandmother was teh youngest in her family and most of her siblings were dead before I was ten) and identified culturally as Wendish. Two generations later, my grandmother spoke only English and there were no ministers who did it in the Wendish language, but even at that point, my grandmother's family (and a lot of that generation of children) identified as Wendish, not German; in that generation, they still married almost predominantly into either other Wendish families, other Slavic minorities in the area (most specifically, groups that identified Czech or Bohemian depending on generation), or newly arrived German immigrants; my grandmother in a family of nine was one of the three or four whose surnames can't be traced to German/Slavic roots. (Wend and West Slav minorities still exist under teh name Sorbs in Europe.)

The rural area i grew up in was named by and contains still a huge number teh descendants and I can account from the manifest I read that every surname has at least one living descendant carrying it (References here for location. Note: my original research was in my early twenties; I have it packed up somewhere, but it's not like it's in publishable quality, just spent a lot of time going through the church records founded by the original immigrants and making notes going forward.)

Referenced, I think, in The Wends of Texas was that after WWII during reorganization of Europe, an appeal was sent to Churchill by people who identified as Wends asking for national soverignity. That's again, eight hundred years after forcible attempts at assimilation.

Eight hundred years, no less, and they still considered themselves under occupation. Some of these groups still did not speak German.

What's significant about this to me is I grew up with this, though obviously filtered through a lot more in the way of personal anecdotal detail and not so much with workable historical context. Mexico, which was settled and gutted by the Spanish still has large groups who don't speak Spanish and still don't identify primarily as Mexican.

This is very tl;dr, but it's also significant that while entire groups and cultures have been wiped out, actually pulling it off completely is sheer luck, and this is from people who have a multigenerational cultural history. Mutants even as of the twenty-first century were culturally human with human family ties. If he could pull of subjugation, he'd still be embroiled in an immediate and breathtakingly destructive civil war when most of the mutant numbers are still first generation mutants and freak out when someone says they have to kill their mom or watch her be tortured.

And that doesn't even get around to the secondary problems of more mutant than thou or how to reverse course when not everyone is Magneto of world-class powers and the cute mutant whose power is her ability to make flowers grow. It could easily be second class status; or it could be the weaker picking up a valuable lesson about fearing the Other that can hurt you and what do you do with people who can hurt and you fear? Erik taught them exactly how this is supposed to go. Mutant powers aren't alike; other than fearing humans, the guy who can kill everyone with a thought has no commonality with flower girl.

Charles' peace didn't come across to me as saying "I have no doubt this will work"; he's saying "That way lies monsters or annihilation; I decline participation." I mean, even if it's just a delay before teh apocalypse, seriously, why the hell not try for it?

God, so tl;dr. Sorry. This totally hit my fascination with the fact that Erik's thinking of war, but Charles is actually creating teh basis of a shared mutant culture with his school. It's kind of weirdly hilarious that it might not be peace per se, but the sheer fact he's making all these mutants live together and not hate each other and create a shared history and so forth could actually be how to win, and nto even need a war. Pure numbers of mutants would do the trick.

Re: Charles's line in the sand

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Funny thing - this all makes Erik seem like the recklessly hopeful fool, thinking he can bring the world to its knees and then remake it in his own image, versus Charles thinking that there's a coexistence to be forged through cooperation and helping mutants learn to manage their powers, and in the process mitigating society's fear of them. I'm so tired of people calling Charles naive because HELLO.

Re: Charles's line in the sand

[seperis]

It's it gorgeous? I love this fandom!

[glittertine]

I was just thinking about how different I feel about morals in the X-verse this time round. It's weird. I wonder if somehow, First Class was a little more subtle about the characters' motivations and thus prompted my change of opinion - or if it's just that the world looks different this side of 30.

[seperis]

*nods* It's a lot more complicated in presentation but also in how we engage with it. My most recnet viewing kind of absorbed the irony of when Erik said "Humans are making us turn on each other" and then picked up and walked away from Charles and team of his own free will. Splitting on irreconcilable differences is a statement; leaving one you just caused to be irrepairably injured is a declaration that we're all brothers, but only on my side, and you're not.

If you really want a revolution, in general, you try not to other your own side before you even start.

[out_there]

I can frame it all the ways I want for fun, but it's something I do like eating, sleeping, and flying to different places. I do not, in general, get the impression I am communing with the collective, mass unconsciousness, or a set of real or demi-real muses, and I'm really comfortable with saying, no, I do not hear any voices unless I'm talking to myself (which I will do, and sometimes out loud, and sometimes, I don't actually care if people can hear me).

I'd say writing is a lot like gardening (if you like gardening, which doesn't quite apply to me). It can result in something wonderful and beautiful, but it takes a lot of simple effort and time. Mostly, it comes from hard work and applying yourself to a task.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Great post, thanks.

porn involving two people in one body, one of them male, a mirror, a ability for five-senses projection, and an abundance of creativity

So are you the person with the two people as author? Some of you is you and another part of you is a man? Or is this about some canonical character with whom I am unfamiliar as of your fandom I only a distant inkling have...? Or some other amazing metaphor?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Er, no, Emma wanted Charles to show her how he controls someone's body and it went places that I feel are pretty inevitable. *g*

[trobadora]

I wanted to know what lines you draw that separate you from monsters; I'm caught wondering now if monsters aren't the lines you cross, but the reason that you're willing to cross them.

Oooooh. :D

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Twenty thousand words and counting and I still don't have a working answer.

[kityye.livejournal.com]

I know I don't comment often, but the reason I stick around is because you ask the hard questions; your journal and your fic have meaning and relevance - even your porn :-)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I distinctly remember walking out of the movie dazed, happy, whimpering for Charles, and also a growing sense of inevitable doom, because it was like My Kinks, Let Them All Hang Out On This Here Beach Now. Geez.