everlasting true love, i am yours

Part I: Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London.

Fang Fiction, if I’m going to give an actual summary of the plot instead of mocking its themes, is about a PhD student named Tess who takes a break from her cush Columbia program after being raped. She learns that the vampires from her favorite book series are real, travels to a mystical isle in the shape of Manhattan, and eventually ends up in a loving relationship with a vampire so respectful of her consent that he offers to sleep on the couch when Tess asks to sleep in his bed. 

The point of this book, I guess, is a vampire romcom about healing from rape. The story ends with Tess getting her rapist, Rick, expelled from Columbia and returning in triumph to finish her super boring English PhD on Shakespeare. (I love Shakespeare. This is not the point. I  simply don’t think it occurred to Stayman-London that Tess could write about anyone else.) (I need to mention that KSL was the “lead digital writer” for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Every time I read something unbelievably stupid in this book disguised as something supposedly smart, I would think, Yeah, I bet that’s what Hillary Clinton’s lead digital writer would say.) Anyway, instead of being a conduit for desire and/or violation and/or passion and/or ANYTHING INTERESTING AT ALL, Callum the Big Bad Vampire basically exists to gently take Tess’s poor raped hand and lead her boldly into a world where she can stop being plagued by flashbacks.

The images were already coming—the snowfall, the whiskey, the pile of clothes.

Up until the rape is revealed—because, of course, this stupid narrative is built somewhat around the revelation of the rape itself, which we all know is coming, and we’re all dreading for its definite insipidness and lack of realness and total divorcement from any sort of actual experience of rape—I was thinking, I wonder why the entire flashback is concerned with items around the rape but not the rape itself. I mean, snowfall? Whiskey? A pile of clothes? That’s not exactly visceral. Of course, a neutral item can fill with horrible significance. I’m no stranger to becoming unbearably upset at songs, or books, or TV shows that remind me of bad shit. But it doesn’t really feel like KSL knows the first thing about writing horror. She’s using these stupid fucking items as a way not to look at the rape itself.

So then my question is answered because we get the rape scene. “Rape scene.” She’s at a party in the penthouse of this rich guy from her program, Rick. He gives her a whiskey, it’s obviously roofied, he leads her to bed, and then:

The sound of heavy breathing. Then darkness. Then nothing at all. Gray dawn light through his giant window, the curtains only partly drawn. Splitting pain—her head throbbing. Rick, asleep beside her. Realizing she was naked. Confusion, panic. Quietly pulling on her clothes and rushing out of the apartment, terrified he might wake up. A knowing smile from the doorman. Feeling like she might vomit. Stumbling into the subway, unsteady on her feet. Wishing she had sunglasses so no one on the train could see that she was crying. If anyone noticed Tess’s tears, they looked away.

Okay. Okay, FINE. I don’t know what I was expecting. The rape, elided. Like, of course. That’s what I should have thought you would say. I mean, that author’s note before the story starts: “I’ve taken care to avoid any graphic or triggering language, and my hope is that this will be a joyful and empowering read.” KSL, when I find you…!

To me. To me, personally. To me, nephilot, Tumblr blogger and, I guess, Substacker obsessed with rape. I think this is actually all quite offensive. God, fine. There’s probably someone out there who felt healed and helped by Fang Fiction. Probably someone too…something…to understand that this is a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, violently stupid book. (I’ve enjoyed racist, misogynistic, homophobic media. But I generally realize when it is racist, misogynistic, or homophobic. Also, I don’t like stupid things. It’s really the stupidity that undercuts everything else. KSL was trying so, so hard to be inclusive that at points she wrapped back around to racial essentialism or vicious stereotyping. Cough cough the half-British half-Korean twins who spend their whole lives in the UK and then travel to Korea after learning of K-pop and finally feel at home. Cough cough the gay man who “swan[s] into the kitchen wearing a black yoga onesie and a silky floral robe that billow[s] behind him” and says, “It’s been so long since I’ve had hot tea.”) So fine I guess there is someone who maybe wants to read a “““lovely””” romance between a rape victim and the strong and handsome vamp who teaches her how to trust again. YES that person is definitely out there and I know because I’ve read their Goodreads reviews.

But I (PERSONALLY) think this is actually one of the most annoying ways to depict rape. I think a writer who wants to talk about rape while also smoothly snipping out the horror should probably not talk about rape, or at least have the grace to leave that shit on their hard drive.

Okay, I’m being facetious again. Write about rape in whatever cozy way you want. But I do think it’s absolutely disgusting that at a time of increased censorship, at a time when rape victims are tolerated less and less, and more and more forced into deep swaths of silence, at a time when the internet is tightening the noose on sexual content, for this to be considered the gold standard of “rape representation.” I mean, that’s my main problem. It’s not (entirely) that this book depicts rape like something easy to swallow. I think everyone should be able to read the books they want to read, and that every rape victim should get to interact with rape in their own way. It’s really, and I mean this so sincerely, that KSL is sucking her own dick over how fucking wonderful she is for avoiding triggering content.

Here is her author’s statement in its gloriously awful entirety:

Dear reader, Before you dive in, you should know that Fang Fiction tells the story of a sexual assault survivor who begins to heal from her trauma in the usual way: love from her friends, support from her community, and a magical adventure with very sexy vampires. I’ve taken care to avoid any graphic descriptions or triggering language, and my hope is that this will be a joyful and empowering read. All the same, if you’re in active trauma, you may want to proceed with caution. If you need support, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline for free, confidential counseling anytime at 1-800-656-4673 (other resources are available at rainn.org), and Psychology Today has a very good directory of therapists who specialize in trauma counseling. No matter your situation, I strongly urge you to learn more about resources in your community, donate to support them if you’re able, and vote to elect leaders who are passionately committed to ending gender-based violence.  Okay, now let’s get to the vampires, shall we? I hope you have a fabulous time reading Fang Fiction—and remember, never be ashamed to ask for what you need. All my love, Kate

First of all, this is a trigger warning. It’s the bit of writing at the top of the book letting you know what you’re in for. I hate trigger warnings. This really is a personal preference, I’m not saying that no book ever should utilize trigger warnings. I understand there are literary spaces where trigger warnings are the norm. I mean, I use Ao3. But something about The Trigger Warning in trad pubbed lit always rubs me the wrong way. It’s like—I read books to be confronted with some hard truth. I love books that bite off more than they can chew, that don’t always wrap things up in the neatest package, that are unafraid to swim out in the open ocean instead of limiting themselves to a kiddie pool. A trigger warning starting a book is a very easy way to let me know that this is a book that believes in flotation devices for, like, 4 inches of water. Which is not to say flotation devices are bad, or that people can’t drown in 4 inches of water. But I prefer to take risks when I read. 

Secondly, and this is my real point: this entire letter talks down to rape victims. It just does. This idea that not only are “graphic descriptions [and] triggering language” antithetical to someone in “active trauma” — but that a rape scene without these things is also antithetical to someone in active trauma. That a person who has been raped must be wary of the content she consumes, lest she fall back through time into the rape bed.

Look. I used to be unable to read sex scenes. For about a year, any mention of sex made me dissociate. I’d get all dizzy, the room would fall away, I’d stumble back from the person or the book or the TV show or whatever with an expression of panic. I couldn’t fucking do it.

That’s not my point. It’s the assumption KSL is making. This entire letter oozes holier-than-thou, “Take care of yourself :) I know what’s best for you, and it’s not reading about rape :).” I mean, “you may want to proceed with caution”—look, I mean this genuinely, but shut the fuck up. And then to follow up with this stuff about hotlines and trauma counseling and voting out rape. Like, that’s what I thought Hillary Clinton’s lead digital writer would say. 

I hate it here. -_- 

This woman is so in love with her steaming pile of romantasy bullshit that she’s confused it for praxis. She really has! Linking together these ideas of rape representation and electing Democrats and taking care of yourself when you read.

And if weren’t in the middle of a fucking war on rape victims expressing themselves openly, bluntly, explicitly — if writing with explicit rape wasn’t disallowed on platform after platform after platform — if the broader culture weren’t allergic to rape victims talking about our fucking lives — then whatever. FINE. You get away with it, KSL.

But to act like this is what’s needed! A glossy depiction of unremembered rape! As though not being able to remember isn’t a horror in and of itself! As though being un-triggering is the most important thing! The only thing! As though it’s OBVIOUS that no one should be writing “graphic descriptions or triggering language” because what’s most important is having a “joyful and empowering read.” Because nothing with graphic descriptions or triggering language could be a joyful and empowering read, obviously. 

But high key the entire point of the book is to be as unproblematic as possible. KSL isn’t actually interested in examining rape qua rape. She’s interested in writing the least offensive story about rape of all time.

Don’t just take my word for it. There’s an interview with KSL in my copy. Well, KSL conducts an interview with herself. Which is not at all insufferable. She hypes herself up as “a big-time feminist who spent many years working for women’s rights as a writer for Hillary Clinton and reproductive justice causes, among others” and asks herself, “How did this play into your decision to write a vampire novel?”

Well. Don’t hold your breath for brilliance. She says, “I love vampire stories and have for a long time—even though they’re incredibly problematic!” She then goes on to bemoan the age gaps in vamp lit between centenarians and teenagers, calling vamps as we know them “heinous monsters” and wondering why “we” (women) love them so much. She tries her hand at answering: 

Is it our desire for a protector? The (totally fallacious) notion that we alone are special enough to reform a bad boy? Or maybe it’s just that we’re all so tired from trying to suss out which men in the real world might secretly be demons, it’s a relief to have it right out in the open.

So, like…she wasn’t interested in answering this question, I guess. Because instead of writing towards the “problem” of vampires, she veered as far away as she could. These vampires need to hear a yes! These women are adults, damn it! Callum may be a literal demon but he’s also a kind and simple soul! “[V]ampires represent sex, love, and abandonment,” KSL says in this ridiculous excuse for analysis. “I knew I wanted to write a story about a sexual assault survivor, and my protagonist’s core issues would center around trust and bodily autonomy. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that a vampire novel was exactly the right vehicle for the story I wanted to tell.” 

The most glaring, obvious thing here is that there is nothing VISCERAL about KSL’s vampires. They simply represent stuff. They are not that stuff in and of themselves. Everything in this book is so bloodless. Vampires don’t figuratively suck blood, they literally suck it, and yet this book has no interest in any of that. It’s more like…what if this vampire, who is supposed to violate your trust and bodily autonomy, didn’t? What if he was just really niceys :) 

Let’s look at the first time Callum sucks Tess’ blood, because it’s relevant.

“Will it hurt?” she asked as he removed his sweatshirt. “Only for a moment, when I bite you. Which, again, I absolutely do not have to do if you don’t want me to.” “No.” She took him firmly by his shoulders and moved his body down hers. “I want you to. Now.” “Which, again, I absolutely do not have to do if you don’t want me to.”

Oh wow. So now we have vampires replicating post #MeToo sexual scripts to talk about drinking blood. “No means no biting!” or whatever. GOD. This is fucking consentslop:

Fang Fiction is the worst case of consentslop on this side of quarantine. Just a full lack of understanding of what makes vampires so compelling. And look at this bullshit, which occurs mid-drink:

Her blood tasted like a fresh field of flowers, grassy and bright; drinking it reminded him of childhood, running through a park with Octavia and falling asleep on a soft blanket in the sunlight on a summer afternoon. There was something golden about the taste of her, the feeling of her life force flowing inside of him—and he knew in that moment that there was no danger of hurting her. He felt that he understood her so deeply, that his body was so perfectly in sync with hers, their needs were one and the same.

Okay…? I mean where’s the actual taste of the actual blood? “[A] fresh field of flowers…running through a park…falling asleep on a soft blanket in the sunlight on a summer afternoon…” What? There’s no way this is what blood tastes like. And come ON, “he knew in that moment that there was no danger of hurting her”? Where’s the danger!!!! Why is this vampire being deployed as a consent-seeking missile?

Rating: NOT CUTE. Put that vampire in a non-consensual situation!

Anyway. Let’s loop back around to the literal rape. (By the way, the word “rape” is not used once in this book.)

In that horrible little interview at the end, KSL talks about writing the flashback. Let’s give her some space to share in her own words. Because around here we’re all about KSL digging herself a deeper hole.

[Writing the flashback] was really tricky. The flashback sequence was one of the very first things I wrote when I started working on this novel, curled up on a couch in a rental apartment in Annecy, France, as a snowstorm raged outside my window. I felt I couldn’t write Tess’s story until I knew the details of her experience; it was foundational to understanding her character. I originally had the flashback in Chapter 2, and let me tell you, that was a real bummer of a way to start a novel. At the same time, I did not want Tess’s trauma to be any kind of surprise or reveal—it was my nightmare that a survivor would be reading this book and having a fun time and suddenly get seriously triggered. As I went through the writing process, I realized that it made sense to be clear about what happened to Tess from the beginning but also not to get into the details, because Tess is trying so hard not to think about it. Later in the story, as she opens up to Callum and feels safe enough to share her story, that’s when we get to see her memories, because she’s finally ready to think about them. And, hopefully, by that point in the narrative, so are we.

“At the same time, I did not want Tess’s trauma to be any kind of surprise or reveal—it was my nightmare that a survivor would be reading this book and having a fun time and suddenly get seriously triggered.” Of course you say “survivor.” That’s what I thought Hillary Clinton’s lead digital writer would say. (Also, say “survivor” as much as you want, it’s totally your prerogative, I’m just being terrible.) Anyway. That’s your nightmare? There’s no fear of completely erasing the horror of rape? And of course Rick gets kicked out of Columbia at the end. Even though it’s been years since the rape. Even though Tess never told anyone about it after it happened. Even though it was just her word against his. I’m not saying it’s fair, but I’m saying that an institution like Columbia would never pick Tess over Rick and it’s literally the first definition of consentslop. I mean look it’s right there in the screenshot. But that’s what I thought Hillary Clinton’s—wait, stop, too soon since the last one.

This book does not understand the mechanics of sexual violence. It really, really doesn’t. It has the vague idea that if you speak out about your rape, that’s really all you need to enact change. The system will be on your side. The nebulous concept of healing will also be on your side. Because healing is a linear thing with a start point (finally talking about it) and an end point (a loving relationship filled with normal sex). Think of the end of that insipid author’s statement: “[R]emember, never be ashamed to ask for what you need.” As though the act of asking, of calling these hotlines and talking to counselors and voting in marginally less-rapey politicians, is an obvious and universal solution. As though asking will inexorably start with a metallic shudder the machinery of healing.

It’s a pretty common narrative turn, the rape victim telling her story. Some of my favorite books about rape use that kind of mechanism to indicate that the character is starting to work her way out of a violent silence. Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson may be a YA novel, but I do think it’s an excellent portrayal of rape. The main character, Melinda, suffers from a sore throat and clotted words almost the entire book. Then, at the end, she finally speaks. I mean, it’s kind of all in the title. The entire industry of the rape memoir, too, is predicated on the idea that the writing of the memoir is part of the fight for reasserting one’s own narrative. I think I’ve read Know My Name by Chanel Miller three times now, and that’s another book where the act of speaking is alluded to in the title. She is telling you her name, she is saying that it is a more important name than that of the man who raped her. After this book came out, she was no longer Emily Doe.

But there is also the fact that, in some streams of narrative, the point is not silencing women. It’s punishing them for being silent. After all, the Old Testament tells us pretty clearly that if a woman is raped in a public space and doesn’t cry out, she will be stoned for not stopping her own assault. Because she was surrounded by people! She should have known better! She should have said, loudly enough for everyone to hear: “No!”

Yet there are times when silence is the only answer. Because the woman has been killed. Because her tongue has been cut out, and unlike Philomela or Lavinia, she is unskilled or illiterate, and cannot tell the story of her rape. I’m thinking of the book Minor Detail, where in 1948 an Israeli squadron rapes and murders a Palestinian woman. She does not speak the same language as the Israeli rapists, and because the rape is told through the perspective of the Israeli commander, no one understands a word she says. And then she is killed, buried in the land. Decades later, another Palestinian woman attempts to unearth the details of this rape and is murdered by Israeli soldiers, too. Silences upon silences. Is this text less revolutionary than Fang Fiction because it doesn’t have that simple one, two of a rape victim following the thread of her own voice in order to heal? 

What about Lolita, one of the most famous fictional narratives of rape of all time? Another story told from the predator’s perspective; another story where, although the rape victim has dialogue, most of the story is built around her rapist ignoring her pain? When Dolores escapes Humbert Humbert, she does so by going from one predator to the next. And then she dies in childbirth. Because of Humbert’s forced ignorance around what exactly he is inflicting on this child, her pain shines in stark relief to his puns and logical circumlocutions. We can see it in the way she comes to him for comfort: “You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.” He knows! He does know. After he rapes her for the first time: “It was something quite special, that feeling: an oppressive, hideous constraint as if I were sitting with the small ghost of somebody I had just killed.” Oh, my God does he know.

The rape victim is punished for speaking out, and she is punished for being silent, and she is punished for being raped at all. In this sort of quandary, rape victims are rebuffed at every turn. And so stories about rape that don't actually look at this tangle drive me somewhat crazy.

If Fang Fiction existed in a vacuum, I guess I would be okay with it. But you know what? It feels really good to look this smug fucking writer dead in the authorial intent and say, “I know your entire plan was not to offend. Well, in doing so, you offended ME.”

Because I am offended! I’m offended, and maybe that’s stupid. It’s just a ridiculous romcom. But who is this woman to emerge thousands of years after the first story of rape was told and decide that the post #MeToo sexual scripts are the only way to do it? Who is this total loser? She can’t think, she can’t write, all she knows is that now it’s considered compassionate towards rape survivors to write toothless stories about toothless rapes.

It’s not just KSL. If it were just her, then whatever. But it’s the whole societal turn towards shutting up rape victims who aren’t palatable enough. Who actually want to sit there and think about their rapes. Fang Fiction follows content guidelines. The #MeToo style guide. Where ultimate importance is put on telling a story in order to heal, relying on hegemonic power structures to get “justice,” and ignoring anything true about the pain of sexual violence.

Part II: Serious Weakness by Porpentine Charity Heartscape.

This is not an unbiased accounting of two books. That’s probably clear by now. I think that in Serious Weakness, Heartscape displays pure genius.

KSL would probably hate Serious Weakness. Not only does it have a “graphic depiction” of rape and “triggering language,” but it also has that horrible and wonderful dimension of eroticization. 

The rape takes place after around 200 pages of other tortures. Insul has kidnapped Trianon, beaten him, slashed an X onto his chest, forced him into confrontation with his own mortality and weakness. And now they are in a bathroom at a penthouse party, and it’s pretty clear that Insul is about to rape poor Tria.

Unlike in Fang Fiction, the rape is not elided. Not even close. We get, in about 10 pages of excruciating detail, a vivid, erotic, and horrifying depiction of rape. “Trianon’s head is empty. If Insul punched him it would feel like nothing compared to this single finger inside him.” I mean, yeah, that’s what it feels like. Every evil in the world condensed to the single finger in your ass. And then, when Trianon sees Insul’s dick:

Maybe six or seven inches, looks pretty normal, no visible diseases, but very hard, glistening at the tip, and this is where your tactical thinking breaks down, the end of all plans, neurons popping, terror burning through a stimulant lens, the skin of your back grinding between bony vertebrae and the hard glass supporting you, his hands gripping your skinny ankles and exposing you to him. 

Pure terror. Trianon’s brain melting down contrasted with the violence of somatic detail. Your skin trapped between glass and your own backbone, hands on your ankles and you opened up for your rapist. 

Like, okay. Yes, Serious Weakness is an horror novel and Fang Fiction is a romcom, so of course the former would have a horrifying depiction of rape and Fang Fiction would elide it. But only one of these two texts is in danger of being censored. And it’s not the one with vampires making eye contact to make sure you’re okay with getting bitten before said biting.

But I’m also saying that not only is Serious Weakness a different kind of rape depiction, it is a better rape depiction. 

The word [rape] hits Trianon like a slap, the one he’d been trying to avoid despite all its trappings being present, hoping Insul would be satisfied with creepy licking or kissing, anything but this, the word he’d avoided his whole life with the subconscious reverence of someone whose soul believes, despite any other horrors it has endured, that this particular catastrophe could not be survived, that it would present a unique and final psychological demise, distoring one’s life beyond what a life can handle. 

“[T]he word he’d avoided his whole life with the subconscious reverence of someone who believes…that this particular catastrophe could not be survived…” And then we follow Trianon into this rape. We see his mind explode. There’s half a page of NONONONONO and then a page and a half just of dashes. Trianon has lost the ability to think, to comprehend the scale of this horror.

And then the rape continues. And Trianon cannot exist in a white hot burst of fear forever.

He begins to think again. 

i remember how i felt in high school everything hurt so much i stopped trying but there was something feral that i needed that i should not have pushed back inside me but i don’t owe him for whatever epiphany this is i shouldn’t have to be kidnapped and beaten and r— r— — — — — - —- for an epiphany

We’ve followed Trianon through that ego death, the welling of inescapable horror, and then we’ve learned, along with him, that you can survive rape. It changes you. It changes you forever. It gives Trianon a deep and enduring epiphany. It fixes him to Insul, and that ferality within Insul and, crucially, that ferality within himself, forever. Self-recognition through the other is over. Self-recognition through the other raping you is in!

This is, undoubtedly, a rape fantasy. This whole book is a rape fantasy. Not the facile fantasy of Fang Fiction, which is all about linear healing and finding the person you used to be before you were raped and returning to an antediluvian understanding of yourself. But a true rape fantasy, a fantasy about rape as a complete transformation, “insubordination on the cellular level, rape of his neurotransmitters.” Paradoxically, it’s a true fantasy, unlike Fang Fiction’s, because this rape is predicated on a fundamental truth:

There is no going back to your pre-rape self. 

Trianon sinks completely into his abjection, and in that moment, he comes face-to-face with his own “feral” nature. He is not ethically cut off from this rape. It doesn’t matter that Insul kidnapped, hurt him, destroyed him. In that shower, pressed up against that glass, Insul’s dick inside him and his brain going haywire, Trianon is deeply implicated.

I’m not saying, in any way, that rape is the victim’s fault. That isn’t my point. But Serious Weakness refuses to draw a clear line between rapist and victim, violator and violated. After the rape, there is no escape for Trianon. Insul has this idea for a classification of person, the kind of classification where it’s like, yeah, of course a school shooter would think that. There’s a class of victim/perpetrator whom Insul refers to as “bullet wives.” They reload the school shooter’s gun for them; they are raped and then they turn around to assist in the rape of others. 

What draws me in so completely to the world of Serious Weakness is its commitment to not looking away. It draws attention to the idea of rape as the end of one’s identity. It goes up to the moment of overwhelm, all systems melting down. And then it continues out through the other side. It happens to be that what happens to Trianon in that time of rape is recognition.

Of course, Serious Weakness is a love story. To my mind, one of the most compelling love stories I have ever read. The relationship it depicts fucking oozes. The whole book oozes: vape fumes, energy drinks, cum. Everything so toxic and polluted, down to the trash-choked beach. The fundamental nature of a love story is (usually) two characters who finally feel understood.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention gender as part of the fantasy. Before meeting Insul, Trianon is ashamed of how pretty he is. How weak he is. He has a chronic illness, a delicate face. This is a rape fantasy, and through that, a forced feminization of Trianon. As Insul rapes Trianon, he says: “But the other half of me wants to treat you like a princess, take you places, cringe shit, see what normal looks like.” He calls Trianon “Tria,” he dresses Tria in girl clothes, he forces Tria into girlspace. It’s taken out of Trianon’s hands. He’s spent so long pretending not to be “autistic failson.” But Insul looks at him and knows, immediately, that Trianon is victim material. There’s such a relief in succumbing; in allowing yourself to be raped all the way through.

It’s an unapologetic book. It’s not catering in any way to a “respectable” storyline. Like, it’s a rape fantasy about a person subjected to horrible abuse until he ends up on the side of his abuser. I guess what I’m saying is—it’s not a book afraid of its own shadow.

Part III: Fang Fiction V. Serious Weakness.

The first rape in Serious Weakness could not be much further from the rape in Fang Fiction, and this is brought into stark relief by their superficial similarities. One such entry point into these differences is the fact that in both rapes, the rapist drugs their victim. But the drugging serves incredibly orthogonal roles in each story. In Fang Fiction, the drugging exists to carve out a space around the rape so no one has to look at it too closely. Fang Fiction ignores any horror that might come from being violated when unconscious because the entire point is to neatly scoop out for the reader any ambient discomfort around the rape.

In Serious Weakness, the drug draws attention to Trianon’s body. It is the first entry point for Insul, as he coats his finger in the powder and sticks it up Trianon’s ass. The drug anchors Trianon to explosive fear. Acrid panic rises off the page like melting plastic:

Hard to tell if the drug is working, if it’s responsible for this pure and immolating terror or if it’s just the caffeine and weed and hard dick pointing at him and/or a heart attack aneurysm fast onset hepatitis, like he’s rolled on X before (and now he’s the X) and did the usual burnout shit, robotripping and smoking un l he barely got high anymore, but he’s never had a guy finger hard drugs into his ass—

Compare that with a line from the drugging in Fang Fiction:

The room tilting. Was she drunk? It had been hours. She shouldn’t be this drunk.

One of these texts is writing away from the problem of rape, and the other text is writing towards it. One of these texts is terrified to say anything real, and the other lives in in the space of a synaptic explosion.

Earlier, while writing about Serious Weakness, I mentioned that the rape implicates Trianon. Fang Fiction, on the other hand, is so very clear about who is a bad person and who is a good person. These lines cannot be crossed because then we would have a real ethical question. The real world doesn’t have people walking around with red or green gems hanging over their heads to let you know their relationship to being a perpetrator or a victim. 

It makes a lot of sense to me that a book as lib-brained as Fang Fiction would portray the world like this. There are bad people, and they will do bad things, but it is easy to elide them from your life. Simply talk to your institution, and they will duly punish him. Serious Weakness, on the other hand, understands that know such simplicity exists. Yes, there are people who will do bad things. Many people will do bad things. Victims of one crimes can still enact violence on somebody else. 

I think there is also something to be said about the location of the rapes. Both occur in a rarefied space, an apartment far above their respective cities. In Serious Weakness, the penthouse saves Trianon from a climate change superstorm. He survives through being raped, through being invited into this high-up world. Meanwhile, Tess is able to ethically disconnect herself from the the apartment where she's raped; she's fully an outsider, she doesn't belong here, despite the fact that she and Rick are both getting their degrees at the institution of Columbia.

These two books are both consent fantasies. Fang Fiction is an affirmative consent fantasy; Serious Weakness is a rape fantasy. Both these books have their place, I suppose. But when one of these types of books is treated like by mainstream opinion groundbreaking feminist tales that empower women and are morally correct, and the other type of book is treated as hellish pornographic and vile, I get pissed off. And I start to write. And now I have this unwieldy opinion piece on my hands.

Scene context:

“I said that in the part of the world I come from, you would be called to account for it.”

“Only there?” cries Edwin Drood, with a contemptuous laugh. “A long way off, I believe? Yes; I see! That part of the world is at a safe distance.”

“Say here, then,” rejoins the other, rising in a fury. “Say anywhere! Your vanity is intolerable, your conceit is beyond endurance; you talk as if you were some rare and precious prize, instead of a common boaster. You are a common fellow, and a common boaster.”

“Pooh, pooh,” says Edwin Drood, equally furious, but more collected; “how should you know? You may know a black common fellow, or a black common boaster, when you see him (and no doubt you have a large acquaintance that way); but you are no judge of white men.”

This insulting allusion to his dark skin infuriates Neville to that violent degree, that he flings the dregs of his wine at Edwin Drood, and is in the act of flinging the goblet after it, when his arm is caught in the nick of time by Jasper.

- Chapter VIII: Daggers Drawn - The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

"This insulting allusion to his dark skin" is such a key line of narration - Dickens makes it clear that Edwin isn't just trying to say something like 'you [a white man] have grown up in a place where there are more non-white people than white people and I'm not convinced of your ability to form judgements in England which is a new cultural context for you'; Dickens's narration makes it clear that Edwin's speech is explicitly an "insulting allusion" to the fact that Neville has "dark skin". You would therefore think that any illustration of the scene ought to show Neville's skin as somewhat darker than Edwin's and Jasper's. Harold Piffard, however, did not seem to think so.

For comparison, here's Samuel Luke Fildes's illustration of (a little bit earlier in) the same scene:

We can see that Neville's skin (right) is shaded differently to Edwin's (seated), and differently to the shadows on Jasper's face (centre).

Fildes was the original illustrator during the serialisation of the novel in 1870 (or half-a-novel; Dickens died in the middle of writing it). We know that Fildes had meetings with Dickens about the illustrations; his work visualising the characters should therefore be considered as authoritative over Piffard's illustrations.

Here are some other Filde illustrations of Neville, also featuring Neville's twin sister Helena, and at least one white British character for comparison:

Again, I think we can see a distinctive difference between the shading on Neville's and Helena's faces and the faces of everyone else, even when those faces are in shadow. (Just a quick note on hands: the image on the left is an evening party, and on the right is outdoors on a winter's day, so presumably everyone's wearing gloves in both images which is why hands are sometimes shaded so differently to faces especially for Helena in the left image.)