Feathers and Arrows

Tempted to actually put this on spotify so I can secretly stream it at work...

this is NOT because of blocking screenshots, it's because of HOW streaming sites use your computer's hardware to optimise performance, which means the thing rendering the video and the thing capturing your screen aren't the SAME thing. so they can't talk together.

I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.

I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.

My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.

Three years.

No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.

I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.

I'm also a librarian and queer books are almost always cut first when we have to weed for space or prioritize new releases over old items because no one reads them

I will say, when I worked at a large downtown location, we had a "browsing card" that we would check out items we found taken off the shelf and left on a table, as an example of a book that had clearly been read, just not checked out by anyone

it's possible queer books do actually get a bit of unfair treatment in this regard because people may be nervous or outright scared to check them out onto an account with their name on it. so they get browsed at a much higher rate, but if a library doesn't have a specific system in place (or need for it) to count browsed items, then it looks like they aren't being used and they get weeded

for other librarians, a browsing card is a great idea if you have enough staff for the extra work / enough items left out to justify it

for patrons, check out queer books even if you don't read them! you're not lying or committing any type of fraud. you're keeping books on the shelf long enough for pride season when people are interested in checking them out again and for people scared to use their own accounts or who don't have library cards

for anyone nervous about using their library card, libraries do not keep search histories of what you check out!! this means even if the government does come back with a warrant, *wet farting noise* too bad! it doesn't exist!

It feels like such a small thing, but all movements are made up of small things! We have this mindset that in order to get everything done, everyone must be doing their (or *the*) absolute best at all times. But not everyone can do the same things, to the same degree, with the same amount of productivity or success. Not everyone can; sometimes, they're the ones that need help. Sometimes people just need help.

This post is very much so intended for the people who can. I've seen a lot of replies from folks who say they don't have to (or don't think about) checking out or requesting queer books from the library specifically because they *can* buy them, can pirate them, or already have them in their house or on their computers or phones. But in instances like that, keeping these books in circulation is less for you and more for the people who can't. The folks who come to the library, who don't have access to internet--or even electricity--at home and would never--have never--been able to interact with this "ubiquitous queer community" we have here online who has made so many of these. materials so avaliable to the rest of us.

And... if I can be a little frank. Sometimes the hyperaccessibility of these materials online (through pirating, cheap e-book copies, etc) gives people a false sense of security. It implies that these things are an infinate resource, good for "When I get around to it".

And often, you won't. There's so much to read and so much to do. So much to download and so much to sit down and stare at for hours. That kind of mental scope puts books in people's hands (or phones), but never in their heads.

I live in a province that is currently trying to ban queer books from libraries, and as a library patron, this is terrifying. 95% of the books I read are from the library and a lot of them are way out of my budget to buy personally.

Making Queer History would not exist without the school library I skipped class in to write articles. It would not exist without my friends with library cards for their universities sharing them and getting me access to rare texts. I would not be able to read as much as I do without Libby and Hoopla. If I have ever given you a book recommendation, know that I likely got it from the library first.

I cannot overstate the importance of protecting libraries and checking out queer books. And I want to say thank you to everyone above for being as passionate as I am about queer books in libraries.

And I said, "oh, no, I'm sorry, I won't be spraying for spiders, I like them. I want to encourage them."

And he gave me kind of a weird look and was like "why?" And I was honest and said that they were my pest control, they take care of my mosquitoes and and and flies, and then I kind of laughed and said that I should stop because I know way too much about spiders and if he let me go I'd talk his ear off.

And then he made his fatal mistake and asked what I knew about spiders, and if I knew what kinds of webs he'd walked past to get on the porch and what spiders were in my yard.

A large friend:

Look, this is basically a kitten:

A goth icon.

Strong, independent women that I don't want to fuck with.

"Red Paper wasps? Those are very dangerous! They're very aggressive!" he sputters.

"Really? They seem to be quite placid." I indicated the Fine-backed Red Paper Wasp nest about 16 inches above his head under the eaves.

He stared.

I picked up a crumb of KFC from the porch shelf with my finger and held it up. One of the ladies investigated, then landed and sat on my finger and munched happily for a few seconds before returning to the nest.

"Would you like to see the common paper wasps? They've got a great nest going on the side of the garage."

Another pest control guy showed up and knocked on the door and mentioned that he does bug spraying and I just straight up said "oh i'm the crazy spider lady, I like the bugs, that's why I don't mow."

And he said "Well, do you have any rats or other rodents you need handled?"

And I said "No, we have a barn owl living out back. You should see my collection of rat skulls. Do you want an owl pellet?"

you have to be kinder to people who are slow processors.

you have to be kinder to people who don't understand your jokes.

you have to be kinder to people who forget important dates.

you have to be kinder to people with cognitive decline.

you have to be kinder to people who were always this way, too.

john renaming all his friends with fancy neoclassicist names, naming them after shakespeare, because calling them by their original names doesnt feel right.

john, when he gets the chance to name his own child, of his own blood, he calls her kiriona - maori for 'gideon'.

alecto - one of the furies who sought to sow discord during the Trojan war, all in the name of Jove, punishing crimes committed by mortals against god.

how john hates that name.

calls her annabel lee.

he named her. annabel lee, after the poem by edgar allen poe about a love that transcends death, because the name annabel is made up of two words: anna for grace, and belle for beauty/woman.

but also;

it is derived from the latin word "amabilis", meaning "to love".

Excellent addition from @just-a-river here!

And... I do wonder why the guy who hated change and deeply wanted his friends would change their names. And I think about the pointed mentions of him constantly rubbing his temple, struggling to remember things, and getting some things (like Pyrrha's lab number) confidently wrong, and how Harrow rewired her brain to autocorrect to "Ortus", how those names are censored both in Alecto's dream and to Nona in the present the one time Pyrrha names G—, how John and Alecto are so synced that they even share hunger pains, and all the parallels between John and Harrow, and... It's specifically always his right temple, and the right frontal lobe is the one more responsible for memory recall. So I suspect there might be a bigger reason at play...

But regardless of why he did that part, the ways his preferences have changed over time and the implications of those are always fascinating.

Going from the neoclassical lean to giving his daughter back her own name but Slightly different, now with a tie to her—his—their roots, roots he'd all but abandoned for so long, certainly says Something.

And with Earth...

He named Her First, One. He's always known She was not a person, that She was something so much greater, despite the shape he'd made Her fill.

He named Her Alecto. There's still breath in his body. They're still out there. And isn't death what bad people deserve? (What he deserves?) Of course she'll help. She IS his vengeance, HE is vengeance and they are one. But then... Varun says "their vengeance is not my vengeance", and it's not 100% clear whose against whom, and Varun is clearly pissed chasing down John, but it begs the question... as filled with anger as She is, does She actually even want any form of vengeance, or do all those feelings come from John?

(We also don't actually know if an RB has ever killed a Lyctor (unless you count John himself and maybe Harrow lol); Cyrus and Ulysses and Cassy all died by their own plans to fight them, not the Beasts directly. With G1deon, we haven't answered the question of why Varun just left, or what happened to the cav crew that went to help... He does seem to be dead or somehow gone, but Pyrrha doesn't blame Varun, says he was always looking for something to throw himself on... For all their anger, are any RBs truly driven by vengeance?)

He named Her Annie Laurie. Just a woman. Just a pretty girl. Beloved perhaps, but mostly for those looks. The height of asking her to play pretend; absolutely nothing of her true self, a pure fucking insult.

He named Her Annabel Lee, and that's... not much better. It still makes Her so small, it's still so insidious in so many ways, still a gross warping of the narrative, but it also starts bringing some truth back into it, way more than Annie Laurie, and maybe about as much as Alecto.

Alecto the Fury is unceasing anger, and She has every right. But we've met Nona. We know who She can be and would rather be, if She has to be a somebody at all.

Annabel Lee frames him as tragic and mourning, which is true, but completely disregards his own culpability. The "angels in heaven" (his Saints) and "demons down under the sea" (the ten billion who haunt Her original corpse and are almost certainly part of the reason he can never return) certainly did play a prominent role, and She acknowledges that too—he did it in part to appease them—but they aren't the ones who put Her in the Tomb. It frames Her as precious and innocent, which She is, in the same way nature is, because She is nature, and just as powerful and terrifying. Her power is both Life and Death. And the framing as Annabel Lee doesn't do that justice at all.

"No other thought than to love and be loved by me" is a bit of a double edged sword, too. "In the year of nobody she thought about that much in particular" is such a funny fucking contrast to it. And at the same time... it's not Her name(s) that unravels Nona. Kiriona say "Alecto, Annabel, I don't care whatever her name is" a good minute before, and despite Her fear earlier when Pyrrha almost says it, nothing happens. What unravels Her is "John loves Alecto. John needs Alecto." And then She devolves, into he loved her, she loved him, for he had loved, for she had loved, for the world had loved, love, love, love...

And of course... None of them, not the Saints, not the devils, probably neither her kin nor his, "can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee."

And no matter what the motivation for any of them, none of those are Her name. We call Her—Them—It—Alecto. The last book title names It Alecto. But that is also not Its true name. It has many names, and has as long as there's been language. It's Earth. It's Gaia and Terra and Geb and Hòutǔ and Bhumi and Ki. It's Papatūānuku.

And... It's also not, anymore, I suppose. Because they are the God who became man and the man who became God. Part of the horror of John's existence is that no matter how badly he wants to still be human, he can never truly be that again, and part of Alecto's is no matter how much It hates being at all human, on some level She now forever is. Their souls have bled together and there's no going back.

—

A little tangentially, some of the other things John references might also have some implications about how his wants have changed.

"How sharper than the serpent's tooth" from King Lear, famously forgiven by the daughter he'd disowned and treated terribly. Also I mean, both die at the end, but considering...

I suspect that may also be a tiny part of the story, because Taz does tie in so much from 20th and 21st century media, and there are so many tiny/huge and beautifully/horribly intricate pieces to Her tale and John's.

I am the son and the heir

Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar

I am the son and heir

Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth, how can you say

I go about things the wrong way?

I am human and I need to be loved

...

When you say it's gonna happen now

When exactly do you mean?

See I've already waited too long