TRIPTYCH lolblog p.2 - furry blue aliens and their ribcage cocks

YOU WILL SUFFER. YOU WILL ALL SUFFER.

He has chosen to be a “he.” Humans use pronouns to distinguish between individuals of specific genders. They have two genders among his people as well, of course — almost every copulating species does — but they aren’t as finicky about labelling them. They don’t dwell on sexuality and gender performance on his world…or rather, they did not. He has the reproductive organs of a male, or what the humans categorize as such, so he has decided that it is easiest to simply submit to the use of the aligned pronoun instead of insisting on the neutral.

DO YOU SEEEEEEEEE. Then the “males everywhere don’t know how to deal with an upset female” moment and toilet seats come up and all is lost.

Odd, that there are some things that he cannot say or do, things he is not meant to enjoy, simply because of his biology. To pretend that he does not take as much pleasure in preparing meals as he does… did. To take up a sporting team to support.

DO YOU SEE. Kelp totally shatters your gendered worldview because he likes to cook and doesn’t enjoy watching sports. Gender theory, the fandom-approved version.

His race’s faces are rarely so different from each other as to require gender pronouns; but everyone sounds and feels different. Each person is unique in the way they transmit their physicality, so each person is granted unique address: everyone is referred to by their name. A woman’s smell is only distinguishable from men when she is seeking a Unit; no less attractive, but different all the same. Simply an evolutionary sexual signal, and no reason to refer to a body rather than to a brain.

Are your restrictive gender-binaric views shattered yet? Are they? Are they! And yet… he leaves the toilet seat up.

To be addressed for his genitals, rather than his individual personality…it is another thing that he has to learn to become accustomed to; to accept.

Wahhhhhh what about the mens.

Raise your voice at the end of a phrase to make it a question. Lower it to make it a demand.

Except this is not a universal point across all languages. I’m not even sure how many languages function like that, let alone whether they comprise the majority. Yes, if you are wondering, Kelp and the rest of the alien survivors are only ever taught English. This is a book that pretends to engage with racism. Social justice warrior, my friends.

One of the humans — the woman — calls out, “Who is it?” in English.
[...]
With his fingers pressed to the cool, opaque glass of the door, he can hear the occupants of the room talking, muffled by the barrier, in English and too rapidly to understand.

…except he never shows any sign of having been taught any language other than English, so why does he specify “in English” every time? Is it because JM Frey can’t write, or…

They are all smaller than him, little, fragile looking people. They are pale and colourless,
[...]
with the colourless, fragile human-things

So every human he’s met is pale. Racial diversity, the fandom-approved version.

Kalp touches the aching spot between his eyes and scrunches his nose — a gesture of self-frustration that he has already assimilated from the humans. His Cultural Etiquette Specialist used to make that gesture a lot.

Spoiler: he assimilates pretty much every single human gesture. Human in funny furry suit? Naw, this right here is exemplary writing of an alien mindset and… can I go read Ursula le Guin instead? Please?

Basil goes on: “Down the hall, take the second right, say it’s for me and they’ll know. Gwen wants coffee, black — bloody Canadian — and you get whatever you fancy. Cheers.”

Kalp blinks. A desperate tightness presses at the back of his throat. These were things Kalp has never been taught! Coffee, black? Is not the steaming beverage brown? How does one fetch black coffee? Where does one find it? Take the second right to where, and how does one pick up a “right”? Who is bloody and do they need a medic? He understands the last command, at least. He lifts a hand in the air and stretches his mouth wide and says “huzzah!” with what he hopes is the appropriate amount of enthusiasm, anxious to get this one little thing right, to prove that he is not stupid, that he is useful.

This right here tells me the author has never tried to speak a second language with native speakers of said language, and has never, ever experienced culture shock. It’s a lot of selective non-comprehension that doesn’t make a great fat lot of sense if you think about it, because most of the time Kalp can understand what people mean perfectly well. He stumbles only when the author thinks there’s an opportunity for GREAT COMEDY, like… this.

Basil begins to suffocate harder and Kalp takes a quick step towards him, feet almost slipping out from under him — he’s forgotten the shoes, the careful way he must narrow his balance in them. He wraps the fingers of the hand not holding the money over Basil’s shoulder and shakes him. “Do not asphyxiate!” Kalp yelps, a little desperately. Basil’s face goes redder and he trills more.

Spoiler: Kalp quickly “assimilates” the habit of laughter, almost without effort. You’d think he has precisely the correct vocal organs to laugh… which, why yes, he does! In case you ever believed his species is anything other than a smaller version of James Cameron’s blue cat people.

Her palm is still oily, but Kalp appreciates the acceptance inherent in the gesture, even if Gwen is not aware that she has done it. Perhaps, Kalp thinks, he does not mind being scent-marked by Gwen, after all.Not if it means she worries for him like this.

Kalp: a lost puppy. Please remember how icky he finds human oils/secretions; it will become relevant later.

The continual and steady stream of consideration and generosity coming from Kalp’s partners is truly overwhelming, and Kalp sees now why Earth took them in so readily. They seem to see these acts as natural, obvious. Here, kindness is a right, not a privilege to be earned.

Lawful Sparkly! There are only two kinds of people: those like Gwen and Basil, and those not.

“Hm? Oh, memo. Uh — a reminder to myself,” she clarifies when he makes the face of confusion to indicate his puzzlement at yet another new piece of vocabulary.

Yet another sign of randomly not knowing a certain word when he otherwise understands most without effort. You’d think someone would have given him, hmm I don’t know, a PDA with a dictionary on it or something. Nah, that’d make sense and rob us of all this scintillating funniness. This isn’t how a person learning a second language works, really.

Kalp knows that “okay” is universal Earth jargon for everything from “feeling well” to “pleasant,” “delicious” to “good.”

Fuck, not again. And… universal Earth jargon? It’s almost as though he isn’t aware there is more than one language on Earth!

There is a smile on Kalp’s face and he does not remember putting it there.

Previously: He rearranges his face into a smile. His Integration Specialist told him that he has the best smile in the class and it is a small, ridiculous thing to be prideful about. He holds the smile as the guide presses a button on a device by the wall. 

And now, reflexive smiles! Is it just that JM Frey can’t write, or…

Well, Kalp is understandably a bit skin-starved. Just to be touched, touched with purpose and warmth, even if it is with moist, scent-marking hands, is a little bit of a wonder.

What is it with delicate woobies needing to be touched all the time? This happens in Laurell K. Hamilton too. What is this, hurt/comfort fic?

instead puts his hands on his hips, mimicking the pose of stern, concerned parent he has seen the humans use.

Do you see how alien he is.

He misses frantic, heated intercourse for no other reason than for the sheer pleasure of revelling in each other’s bodies, in the sweetly gasping responses and arousing little sounds.

This sounds completely unlike human sex! Oh wait.

And humans are squishy. Perhaps solely because they are nearly sixty percent water, they leak, ooze, secrete, and shed all over the place. It is a wonder that they do not leave puddles in their wake. While fornicating, the blood inside them flows all down in men and all up in women. Women make natural lubrication, but men do not, and yes, as the young ones found so revolting, all of the men’s sexual organs are at all times on the outside of the body.

Kalp has to make an effort not to stare at the area of Basil’s pants that hide his genitalia as the human passes by in front of the drafting table to fetch more tea. Beyond a small tell-tale wrinkle, he looks perfectly flat in front, like Gwen and Kalp himself. Do men tuck themselves into contraptions to flatten their crotches, Kalp wonders, just as women tuck their fully inflated breasts into lingerie to buoy them up, to enhance their visibility and put their fertility on display?

And yet, despite finding humans squishy sacks of fluids, he still immediately goes on to get all hot and bothered over Gwen and Basil. And obsess over Gwen’s boobs. Like that’s not creepy or anything.

Kalp’s genitalia are safely tucked under his rib cage, where no stray jarring or accidental injury could endanger his chances of procreating. It seems only logical.

And yet we learn later that his mates, Maru and Trus, were “trying so hard” to have a baby…? Are they an especially infertile species? Do they have problems with low birthrates or… what? None of it is ever explained because the author’s busy wanking herself comatose over how edgy her gender deconstruction is.

Basil opens his eyes very wide and makes his lower lip protrude, and Kalp stops. He watches Gwen’s reaction to this strange new expression.“Don’t beg,” Gwen scolds, but she is still smiling. Ah, so this arrangement of the features is “pleading.” Kalp memorizes this dutifully and wonders if he can make his own mouth into that shape. He doubts his lower lip is plump enough, but perhaps he will try later when he is before the mirrors in the lavatory. If this is the expression he must make to earn more brownies, he is certainly willing to practice.

“Hello, my name is Kalp, and I am pathetic.” Now can someone explain to me why an extraterrestrial who doesn’t seem to share many evolutionary common points with humans enjoys brownies? Oh, that’s right: JM Frey has no imagination and can only do humans in funny suits.

Basil obligingly takes a step into her personal space and presses his mouth against Gwen’s. There is chocolate at the corner of his lips and Gwen’s wet pink tongue darts out to lick it away.

Kalp stands abruptly. If they are in the opening phases of sexual intercourse, Kalp feels that for decency’s sake, he must leave them to it privately. He is no prude, but Kalp feels intercourse should only be witnessed by those in the Unit involved. He also fears his own physical reaction to the deed. His own genitalia, once engorged, would be very visible. He fears either that they will be disgusted by the physical manifestation of his arousal, or angered that he was aroused at all. And after reading that pornography, Kalp does not doubt that he will become aroused.

…remember how, just a few pages ago, he was thinking how disgusting human secretions are? How humans are really very squishy and have fat limbs? YEAH. We are diving head-first into uncomfortable furry fap-fodder so fast you don’t even have time to ask “But what is yiffing…?”

A sudden, lurching thought occurs to Kalp.They touch him the very same way.No one has initiated something so intimate as a kiss yet, but perhaps that is due merely to shyness. Basil and Gwen each touch Kalp with the same casual affection that they touch each other. They had displayed their sexual initiations before him today, and unless Kalp missed the meaning of their exchange regarding the brownies, then they had been discussing intercourse that had been performed the evening prior. Intercourse that had involved Kalp’s brownies. In front of Kalp. And Basil keeps referring to Kalp as “mate.” Most importantly, Kalp is a widower.

Kalp: desperate furry in search of love. And oh my god I hope they didn’t actually put the brownie batter anywhere near Gwen’s vagina because aaaahhhhhhhhh. AAAAHHHHH.

I like how Kalp has a lot of problems with a) English and b) Earth gender binary but nevertheless correctly refers to himself as a widower instead of a widow. THIS. IS. FANDOOOOM.

For many long moments, Kalp remains in the commode’s cubicle, fingers tugging at his ears, thinking. He conjures up Maru’s and Trus’ faces and scents — they had been trying for a child, he and Maru and Trus. Any offspring generated from two would have been considered the product and pride of three. A Unit of four is the idyll on his world.

No family may be complete and idllyic and awesome without BABBIES!!! Adoption is for losers.

Kalp had been looking forward to offspring.

He had wanted very much to be a father. He had been anticipating lazy sunny afternoons with a picture book; evenings in the kitchen, the small one reaching up to thieve a sweet before the evening’s repast has finished cooking; teaching the child everything that Maru and Trus could not, the things that he knew only from his own parents. All the things his mothers and father taught him.

Hey.

Hey.

Remember that Kalp comes from a radially different culture? Remember how alien he is? How, supposedly, his culture totally doesn’t do this gender binary bollocks?

CAN ANYONE TELL THESE THOUGHTS APART FROM THOSE OF A HUMAN WHO WANTS TO BECOME A PARENT? And if they don’t make a big deal of the gender binary, why… do they differentiate between mothers and fathers? Why do they learn with picture books instead of–and remember, their tech is more advanced than ours; they’ve mastered interstellar travel (as well as more efficient energy-producing means)–something more intuitive or integrated? Why is JM Frey’s world-building so fucking shit? Why did I read this book?

Now he will never know the child he had so envisioned. Not one of his own, not unless he enters into another Aglunate of his own people, and there are so few of them, they are so scattered… But here, he has been offered a place — symbolic, surely, but it appears as if Gwen and Basil are willing to take a step beyond the symbolic, to make it a true Aglunate, if he is willing to participate.

WHY DON’T YOU ADOPT? I’m pretty sure that there are children among the survivors, some of them orphaned. Come to think of it, what happens to those? I really hate it when writers do this essentialist crap where BABBIES must be biologically yours or it doesn’t count or something. It’s almost as if, rather than being the boundary-pushing edgy wunderkind the goodreads reviews think she is, JM Frey is one of the most traditionalist, conservative people you’ll find anywhere.

Kalp is not sure about his own reaction to this — he is relieved in part, because according to the pornography, human intercourse is very rough and involves an extreme amount of bodily fluid. Kalp has just gotten used to their oily scent-marking. He is not sure he could handle full fornication.

…and yet, just a few pages prior, he was so turned on at the sight of Gwen and Basil kissing that he was afraid he’d get a boner and they’d see. Consistency: thy name is not Kelp. Kalp. Karp. Cock. Crap.

Gwen trills, a soft little chuckle and turns out of the comforting embrace to fetch Kleenex from the multicoloured box on her desk. She mops at her face. Basil stands in place and fidgets, digging at the mechanical grease under his fingernails, and waits. It is a small relief to note that it seems that males all over the universe, no matter what species, have no idea what to do with an upset female. Kalp feels just as agitated as Basil, and they share an ironic look.

I know I already quoted this, but for completion’s sake: REMEMBER HOW THIS BOOK IS SUPPOSED TO EXPLORE GENDER??? How it, like, totally utterly questions gender essentialism and binary? Oh, you actually believed that? Haha! Egg on your face, sucker.

But Kalp can see what Gwen is upset about — his basic needs should not just be met, he should be comfortable. But this is a planet where a small percentage of the population owns a large percentage of the land and wealth. Changes are coming to make certain that everyone’s level of life is elevated from “survival” to “enjoyment,” but the process is slow, even Kalp knows that.

Is this the author’s shitty ham-handed attempt at touching on the plight of developing nations? If it is, I’m going to miserable failure her site.

Kalp can smell something too — there’s a rhythmic chop chop coming from the kitchen and Kalp assumes this combined with the appealing scent means somebody is preparing a meal. According to television, stereotypically it ought to be Gwen, but Basil confirmed that they share the domestic chores more evenly than is tradition. They clean together, and make domicile repairs together.

OH MY GOD MY GENDER-BINARIC WORLDVIEW IT IS SHATTERED FOREVER. Uhm… why does he find the scents of human food appealing again? OH WELL.

Instead the very dark, very elderly human in charge of the panel sucks on his moustache and shakes his head a little and says, “All right then. Have fun. Now shove off, I have six more hearings today and I want to go up to my cottage before the sunset. Ta.”

Ladies and gentlebeings! This marks the auspicious occasion of… our first POC encounter in Triptych! The first one who actually talks anyway. The other was simply “Doctor Zhang, the mortician.” What diligent anti-racist ally JM Frey is. I feel I should grovel in thanks for the valuable work she’s done in boosting chromatic visibility in pop culture.

The woman nods. Kalp crouches beside the child and peers into its — his — face. He is not scared of Kalp. He peers back, blinking, then reaches out and pats Kalp’s cheek. His hand is even wetter, even fatter and more fragile than any other human hand, and it breaks Kalp’s heart a little more. He reaches out and returns the gesture, running his finger pads across the plump cheek, over the fine, smooth hair, being very careful not to scratch with his nails.

“He is very handsome,” Kalp says truthfully to the mother.

She smiles.

……………

What are the chances of a random stranger–someone outside the Institute–being perfectly okay with having something that looks like a small Na’vi from Avatar near her child… after, I don’t know, the aliens having been represented on media for maybe three-five years? Less? Is the mother a furry?! A Na’vi otherkin?

Kalp asks Gwen where she was born and whether they might visit her home village, and her answer is more complicated. She tells him about deportation ships and horse theft, of a country called Whales and another called Kanada.

He can spell and pronounce everything fine but “Canada” and “Wales” bamboozle him, oh isn’t this hysterical?

He wants to see Kanada. He wants to travel to the other side of the planet and see long flat prairies and pointy mountains and the curved waterfall that is famous for simply existing. He wants to see them with Gwen.

He wants to hear people talk in the same flat cadence that Gwen does and know it as her own, as her accent, her marker of home.

Pay attention to how he is only curious about Canada and completely incurious about the rest of the world. Remarkable, innit?

These sprouts are far more fragrant than the ones in the commercial market, though they are not as visually appealing. Kalp wonders at the inanity of cultivating the visual quality of an herb over its ability to add flavour when all one is going to do is chop it up for the purpose of adding flavour anyway.

They’re at a market, where the vegetables are so much more… authentic! Than at the supermarket. Kcraplp: furry alien hipster.

It almost comes to fisticuffs. Kalp has hold of Basil’s arms as best he can, his long fingers wrapped around to restrain the furious human. Gwen comes rushing to their aid and to Kalp’s surprise, is even more vocal in her reprimand of the vendor than Basil, though she helps Kalp keep Basil’s fists in check. Kalp supposes that her vocabulary of impolite words is even more extensive than Basil’s because she says several things he does not understand (but nonetheless perceives the meaning), and then she speaks in an entirely different language: “Cer i grafu! Y sais afiach!”

Hey hey. Remember how Kalp parsed Canada as “Kanada”… and yet he can parse two sentences in Welsh, a language he doesn’t know, perfectly? HMMMM.

But the police man does not yell at his team, he yells at the vendor. He calls the vendor “bigoted” and “slanderous” and tells him to pack up his cart and go home.

As you know, Bob, in the world only two types of people exist: Raging Bigots and Perfectly Nice People. Policemen, being all very Lawful Sparkly, must of necessity fall into the second category. As are all figures of authority and politics in this book. We’re also dealing with racial bigotry as directed toward, oh… a freakishly huge blue cat furry alien. JM Frey is so enlightened.

Bemused, the police officer then shakes Kalp’s hand, apologizes for the “display” of the argument, welcomes him to Earth, and strolls away. Kalp is confused. Basil is still puffing through his nose, cheeks mottled and red, and Gwen’s hands keep balling up and flexing alternately on her hips.

“Finish your shopping, dear,” says the woman from the herb cart. She comes over and pats Kalp’s arm affectionately. “Go on. Don’t take nothin’ old Rudy says seriously. He’s always off on ‘those Pakies’ and the ‘dirty blacks,’ huh! As if he weren’t the boy of immigrants himself.

It’s “Pakis,” isn’t it? And HERE WE ARE, conflating “bigotry” toward a small Na’vi with real-world racism toward Indians and Africans. JM Frey is so white. If we bleach her, will she be any whiter, do you think?

He points out what he’d like, squeezing and sniffing and grinning back at the vendor. For every one he purchases, she gives two for free. He is as flattered by her generosity as he ever has been with any human’s.

See, see, people who like the blue furry are all nice people unlike people who don’t, and people who don’t? Are all mean asshole bigots. JM Frey either lives in a D&D campaign or is a white person in real life, take your pick.

“What that man said and did was inexcusable,” Gwen says, and she is weary from her own anger. “And unfortunately, common. For such a bloody enlightened race of people we’re still a big group of back-stabbing bigots.”

Consider the irony of this: the author of this passage does not include a single character of color in her (not short) novel. Walk-through morticians and directors with a handful of speaking lines don’t count, baby.

Kalp thinks that if all children react to him as favourably as the ones he’s met thus far, men like Rudy will eventually become obsolete as people outgrow their bigotry. It is a comforting notion.

Fuhahahaha. Hey, JM Frey, you think you are one of the good ones, don’t you? Don’t you. 

He is here now. He is on Earth, surrounded by healthy humans, on a conveyance of amusement. He is not in space, surrounded by shrieks and corpses, on a conveyance of despair.

I am on Earth, surrounded by shitty writing, on a conveyance of horror and pain.

He walks swiftly to the bottom of the ramp, as the signage requests he do, turns into a small grove-like area made up of large potted flora, and empties the contents of his stomach at the base of one.

Some small part of his brain that is not occupied with the retching wonders if his unique stomach acids will harm the plant.

Why does an extraterrestrial retch like a human. I mean his digestive system is identical to that of a Homo sapiens despite having evolved on a planet god knows how many galaxies away. Why do I bother anymore.

Basil comes around the corner a moment later, tucking the black animal hide fold in which he keeps his currency back into his pocket.

…if he can correctly name something a pocket (rather than a bit of fabric sewn onto a garment), why can’t he name a billfold?

He knows he is behaving as an abandoned stray animal might — slavishly devoted to whoever rescues him first, no matter how kind or cruel they may be — but he cannot help it. It has been so long since Kalp has been shown such simple, honest kindness. Had he a tail, he is sure it would be wagging.

L-l-lampshades. This can work well… sometimes. This isn’t one of those times.

Gwen and Basil are in their room, and their heart beats are worryingly fast. Their bodies sound the same as they do when they are angry, the rushing blood, the zapping nerve endings, the labouring lungs, but there is no shouting. Neither are they vocalizing, outside of some soft sighs and grunts, and there is the repetitive rippling feel against his skin of flesh slapping against flesh.

They are fighting.

Kalp knew that they were volatile species, quick to anger, but he never considered that partnered humans might physically beat each other like this; at least, not Gwen and Basil. Alarmed, Kalp runs up the stairs as quickly as he is able and rushes to their door at the far end of the upstairs hallway. Without announcing himself — for fear that it would cause one or the other of them more harm — he throws back the door.

Oh good lord. Why didn’t they just… lock the fucking door? Why is it that whenever a writer employs this cheap device the couple never locks the bloody goddamn door?

The pornography literature did not describe how it would sound, but Kalp now feels horrendously incompetent for not guessing what the sighs and slaps meant before this.

Porntube it up, mate.

He backs out of the room because — and it is selfish — he wants to see as much of their nakedness as he can before he departs, even if their faces have gone white and their eyes and mouths round.

…but not long ago he thought they were gross, squishy, colorless, and hairless. I mean we’re talking about an alien who has ears which can droop or swivel, who has sharp teeth and claws, and blue fur. Why would he find humans sexy ahhhhh.

On Wednesday night, Gwen produces a small bottle of purple lacquer, and Kalp watches in fascination as she coats the small blunt claw-nails on her toes with the shiny liquid. When it hardens it sparkles and makes the skin around it look pale and delicate and even more attractive. He realizes that it looks similar to the flush of blood under the nails that signals mating. It is another cosmetic trick that females use to make themselves look more aroused, more physically attractive, like the donning of red lip paint that mimics the engorging of the genitals.

I nominate Kelp for the creepiest alien flatmate ever.

Only, the frenetic motion of their bodies and blood would have wakened him anyway, even if he had not already been conscious. Intercourse cannot be performed while laying still. He cannot help but find the wash of tender motion arousing and this time when his genitals distend and slide into the open, he does not work to hold them back. He feels guilty for using his friends in this manner, in featuring them in his own private pornographic imaginings, but he feels such an aching fondness for both — their squishy skin, their oblivious generosity, their acceptance — that he cannot help but want to be a part of their intimacies as well.

He masturbates to the sound of them entangled together and finishes with them.

Aaaaaahhhhhh why god why. THIS IS THE CREEPIEST. HE MASTURBATES TO THE SOUNDS OF THEM HAVING SEX. Creeeeeep.

He comes downstairs and participates in breakfast and is surprised to find that without his input whatsoever, his mouth has seemed to mould itself into the shape of a smile, and it cannot be undone.

Remember when he had to consciously arrange his features into a smile, because among his species smiles don’t mean anything? He’s not a human in a funny furry suit, surely?

Gwen is at both of them for urinating with the commode seat up and then leaving it there after they have finished.

Gender theory, the fandom-approved version.

Kalp is an engineer, is familiar with force and angle and trajectory, and he repays the men for all the money he has won in their wager by buying them Strawberry Daiquiris, his favoured alcoholic beverage.

Do you see. Kalp likes to cook and enjoys strawberry daiquiris. Gender binary? WELL AND TRULY BROKEN. Is JM Frey… twelve? She calls herself a “fanthropologist,” by the way.

Here’s JM Frey being a total fucking weeaboo and wearing a kimono. This explains so much. We should all count our blessings that Kalp isn’t called, I don’t know, Kawaii Aoi Neko-kun or something.

Posted by acrackedmoon on January 22, 2012

http://requireshate.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/triptych-lolblog-p-2-furry-blue-aliens-and-their-ribcage-cocks/