Right Now....

I am working on an Arthur chapter. He's finally remembered that Morgana invaded right before the Elfstroke.

Exile Teaser: The Question on Arthur's Mind

So I've got this Guinevere and Arthur, fanfic, The Exile. I've been writing it on and off for a while, but its been some time since its last update. Today I have a little teaser for you. Merlin wasn't perfect and it didn't treat Arwen well in the end, but I loved them.

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Upcoming moment in The Exile, Arthur wants to know if Guinevere is alive:
 
...The surface of the liquid was still, placid, black almost to the point of being unseen, it reflected not even light. Arthur could not, but stare at it, trying to understand a thing that he could see, but reflected no light. The heady warm scent of the incense his aunt had set to burning at the start of this puffed over him and he remembered her instructions "think of your question".

        Guinevere, was she alive? Was she well? Would he yet see her again?  This had been with him since Sarah Goode jumped to her death, the feeling that Guinevere was not, as her brother insisted dead. The placid surface rippled, in the darkness there was light, a shape took form. Guinevere! His heart began to pound.

She wore an expression he had never seen before.

Arthur had observed his love in joy, in anger, in sadness, in the more subtle sorrow, in grief, in relief. He could recall with ease the way joy had mixed with dumbfounded disbelief when he'd asked her to marry him, or the languid, satiated expression he'd been allowed to observe on more than one occasion, or even the sleeping innocence he'd observed that chaste night she'd fallen asleep on his shoulder.

What he had never seen on her face was the cool rage he observed now, a murderous expression he had never believed Guinevere could wear….

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

A couple years ago I joined tumblr to promote a fanfic I was writing, -still am writing. At the time I had no idea what I was getting into, but I learned a lot, and I found a community that I loved. One of the things that really struck me was the way WOC spoke about their lives and experiences. The things black women (being a black woman myself) in particular spoke about really struck me. Some resonated deeply and some experiences common to many black women were alien.

Some of these that were alien were an upbringing that teaches us to loathe aspects of our blackness like kinky hair or dark-skin, or being raised with the phrase "you have to work twice as hard to get half as much". Mind you I was never ignorant of any of these things, its impossible to be ignorant of these things, but they were not part of my upbring, these ideas did not shape my worldview.

Over the past two years while I was writing fic, fangirling, developing friendships, and building my social justice vocabulary I also spent time really thinking about the choices my parents made for myself and my sisters.

I started to realize that my parents raised me to be free or at least as free as any black woman in the west could be. This is what I mean.

All black people have had this experience. A black person, in a public space behaving in a way that you don't aprove, but more importantly fear white or other non-blacks don't approve. We fear that the non-blacks present will judge both ourselves and the offending black person the same, and so rush to render a loud and critical judgmeent of the other black person for white approval or perhaps we just sit annoyed wishing the other black person would have more self-control. This is what blogs like ratchetmess are about shaming black people, but also poor people into respectable behavior.

I remember having an experience like this when I was ten or perhaps twelve years old. I don't remember the precise situation. I just remember being angered, annoyed, and disgusted mainly, because white people were present. What I remember with the most clarity though is a conversation I had with my mother where she explained to me that I was not responsible for how the black race appeared to whites, I did not have to save or elevate the black race, and that I and other African-Americans should just be ourselves.

Racist whites were going to be racist in spite of how we lived and behaved so we might as well be ourselves,enjoy our lives, and accept each other.

 I didn't understand this at twelve, I still cringed inside, and I doubted what my mother said, but I loved my mother very much so anything she told me to do I would at least try to do.

 I didn't understand that she was teaching me a personal type of freedom that cannot be given to you nor stolen from you. A freedom that you either chose to give up or sacrifice to keep, a freedom that only you can contol. I am still learning my mother's lessons today.

Now this blog won't actually be free of serious weighty issues. If you live long enough the social problems of the world will always affect you. This world is a world of suffering and none of us escapes unscathed. But its important to understand the trials that are yours and the trials that are not.

Its not for me to shape myself into something white people or anybody else finds respectable. I've no interest in working twice as hard in hopes of getting half as much. I can't elevate the race I'm just one person.

What I can and will be is myself and I accept any of the challenges and sacrifices that come with that, because they always do.

Being carefree is serious.