asgardeventide | 006://anonymous text

What does it mean to be alive? Does it mean having a home? Friends? Material things?
Or maybe something like happiness. Enjoying life.

So am I alive? Have I ever been? I feel like I'm stagnant, never growing but never staying young either.

I see mothers and children walking the streets and all I feel is hate at seeing their happiness. I will never have children. I refuse to pass on my genetic defects any further and I refuse to be responsible for another person’s upbringing.

I see the elderly and resent the privilege they pretend to have over me. Why do years make them so much more valuable than me? So much smarter? Surely I have seen more, suffered more than some of them, yet they look at me and act like they know everything about me. Like their age and retirement accounts give them fucking permission to tell me how to dress, how to stand, what to eat? Fuck them. They know nothing.

I see men and I am filled with rage. It absolutely consumes me. They walk with such arrogance, such carefree smiles on their faces while they leer at me or the women on their arms. Meanwhile women carry pepper spray and tasers and hold their keys between their fingers to try and keep themselves safe from a threat that should not exist, from a man they might know or might not know. I see men in the street and want to hurt each and every one of them, I want to put the fear of being a woman into their minds. I want to do to them what they have done to me and so many others.

All I know is anger and fear.
It's all I've ever felt.

I'm sick of it.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

It would be better not to define yourself in relation to other people to this extent, wouldn't it? If the opinions of the elderly don't matter to you, ignore them.

That said, men aren't safe. Anyone who thinks he is is living an illusion.

Easier said than done.

Yes. But if you're tired of anger and fear, what else can you do? I can only think of a few options.

Since you've already doled out some advice, what would those options be?

[Her frown grows deeper and deeper as she reads. But the anti-men part in particular rings too close to home for her.]

I don't think gender alone is a reason to hate someone, or to judge someone. This is just my experience, but...

Women can be just as frightening.

Edited (wow i can grammar) 2012-08-02 22:15 (UTC)

[ this speaks to claudia so painfully. words like "sexism" and "gender privilege" are lost to her, unfortunately, but even if she can't articulate it, she knows them, feels them. she wants to protect children, and she is a novice. she wants to protect her uncle, and then, she is a child. she wants to protect other women, the most vulnerable, and she should heel to her brother's command. all of it has never been painted so clearly to her: because she is a woman. ]

I wonder —

[ her voice shakes, and claudia finds she doesn't want even her expression to be known, now. she changes the feed's setting to text. ]

I wonder if we will ever know something else.

You don't sound very alive to me.

You are right about men.

Why don't you hurt them?

If they treat their wives and daughters with love it is because they have found an acceptable target to hurt elsewhere.

She exists in his fantasies or on the streets.

So why not hurt them here?

No one knows who you are.

Has a woman hurt you?

I

[There's a long pause, almost a full minute.]

I'm sorry, I

I would like to keep that private.

I'm sorry.

Please try not to think about it too hard.

These things can haunt us.

No, it's okay.

It's fine. Thank you.

And what have you done to change it?

How many women rape just because someone looks like they're asking for it? Because of their clothes or hair? Compared to men how many women do these things?

You can argue that women can murder and rape and do everything men do, but statistics show that men are the larger group of perpetrators in crimes against women. 99% of rapists are men and considering how many go unreported --

[It cuts off there, either she left or didn't want to keep talking about it.]

I'm sorry for your experience. Do not doubt that. No one should have to deal with being afraid of someone.

I've given up on hoping for something better.

Giving them hell is all I can do.

[Wishing and hoping and praying have been squashed in her.]

But

But those 99% of men don't make up all the men in the world. It's awful that those things happen, but there are good men, just like there are bad women.

And even if women can do the same things, I don't think all women are bad, either!

A lot of people ask about life...
Nobody can define to you what life is. You have to find that on your own.

The elderly are... set in the ways of days past, don't you think? Forget what they think if their advice isn't helpful. They don't always live in the same world as us.

But... both man and woman are capable of evil.

Never mind. I'm sure they're obvious.

Nothing makes anyone innately more valuable than you.

The reverse is also true.

[Well, hello, triggers, how are you? When she replies, she's shaking.]

Does it mean to be free of madness?

I don't know what it means to be alive. I just know that I am.

That's good enough for me. I don't need any goals. So long as I can keep going, that's enough. I don't want to give life a real meaning when everything just keeps getting taken away.

Edited 2012-08-03 03:40 (UTC)

Being alive is only one side of the coin. The other side is about what you do.

[Castle has a pretty good idea who this is, and reading it makes him sad, but also a bit ashamed. He's been that man who leers at women. Granted he's changed since he met Beckett, but ass was incredibly easy to come by for him, being a wealthy and successful writer. He's never raped anyone, ever, and never would, but there's no denying he's used some women. From his perspective, they were using him too. He was after sex, they were after money. They both benefitted.

But he has a daughter who's 18 and is about to go out into the world and that puts a lot of things into perspective for a man. He can't be there to protect her all the time. And in many ways, he wouldn't want her to come across a man who was like him in his younger days. Alexis has had a privileged life, not even in the sense that she was financially provided for, but in the sense that she was wanted and loved and protected. Castle hates that anyone would grown up without that.]

I'm sorry. I know that doesn't count for much, but I am.

You sure )(ate a lot of t)(ings! I don't really know w)(at you mean in some places but w)(y not just ignore w)(at everybody else t)(inks?

(OOC: If you want me to get rid of the quirk just let me know/reply to this!)

Edited 2012-08-03 05:44 (UTC)

I've never once met a man that was kind just for kindness' sake. I've never met one that hadn't tried to take advantage of me because I was too small to fight back or not important enough or whatever the fuck the excuse is for doing something like that to a young woman.

Trusting people - men or women - has always ended badly...

we might have different personal experiences with fear of another but that doesn't make one more right than the other.

A bastard is a bastard no matter what they identify as. And they need to be given a taste of their own damn medicine.

[Johan has hit the nail on the head in this. He brings to mind Lisbeth's mother, who died with brain damage and forgetting the daughter who tried to save her because Lisbeth's father never thought of women as people.]

Believe me, when I find them. They will hurt.

[That is a promise. Lisbeth refused to be a victim any longer, and she refused to stand by and watch others be victims. She would fight back and make the bastards that thought they could get away with shit pay.]

Edited 2012-08-03 06:16 (UTC)

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