Poem: "The Closet Is Vast"
Jan. 14th, 2022 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem is spillover from the October 5, 2021 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from siliconshaman and acelightning73. It also fills the "Dress up / Costumes" square in my 10-1-21 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred, ng_moonmoth, janetmiles, and edorfaus. It belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.
Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes a lack of self-awareness, overcontrolling and manipulative parents, bad fit at a fraternity, spiked punch, sudden illness, superpower manifestation, confusion, university forcing students to change their major or minor, personal discomfort, fear of being cut off from family support and funding, sexual repression, unsympathetic teachers, unwilling sexual discoveries, lack of friends, abandonment, activism, self-discovery, hope, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.
"The Closet Is Vast"
[Fall 2012]
Sam Johnson grew up
in Lafayette, Louisiana.
He was kind of a geek,
more interested in literature
and Louisiana history than
sports or school dances.
He didn't mind being
a bookworm. The books
never made fun of him.
Sam rarely showed
much interest in girls,
but that was okay -- he
had other things to do,
always busy with school.
His overcontrolling parents
ensured that he didn't dare
think much about anything else.
In September 2012, Sam enrolled in
the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
He wanted to major in English - Literature,
but his parents were paying for the tuition.
They insisted on Business - Management
instead, as a more practical degree.
"Reading books won't pay any bills,"
his father said, shaking his head.
"No, but teaching literature would,"
Sam grumbled. "I wanted to be
a teacher, not a businessman."
"Teachers die poor," his father said,
which had been true in the past,
though it was getting better.
They did let Sam choose
Literature as a minor, though.
He also wound up joining
the Sigma Chi fraternity,
like his father before him.
The company wasn't fun,
but it gave him a place to live
that was a lot nicer than the dorms.
He had a big bedroom to himself,
instead of sharing a tiny one. Plus
the house had a kitchen, a living room,
and a huge rec room in the basement.
The business classes were every bit
as boring as Sam had feared, but
he did manage to take a couple of
writing classes for the requirements.
He also found a batch of classes
about conserving the environment and
its resources, which got him thinking
about sustainable business. His father
might be convinced to go along with
that, as long as it turned a profit.
College might not suck too much.
[Fall 2014]
Business classes continued
to be just as boring as ever,
but the ethics class was
rather more interesting.
Sam was almost done with
his Literature minor, too.
Louisiana Literature was
fascinating this semester,
although he wasn't sure what
he'd pick to finish in spring.
Then disaster struck.
The Sigma Chi fraternity
got caught spiking the punch
with an alleged love potion
during a wild party at the house.
This caused many of the students
to get sick, and a few of them
never regained their health.
Sam was rather more concerned
with the fact that, after he stopped
throwing up his toenails, odd things
began happening to him now and then.
Sometimes nobody seemed to see him,
or else they'd jump when he spoke to
them as if he'd come out of nowhere.
Then he started falling through things,
instead of bumping into them as usual.
Even more startling was the discovery
that Sam could bend around things as if
he had no bones, or stretch incredibly far.
So he did what any frisky college boy
would do, and used his mouth on his cock.
It confirmed that, yeah, dogs had it good,
because that was a lot more fun than
his few fumbling attempts with a girl.
The university could not prove
exactly who spiked the punch.
However, they were outraged
by the incident, so they decided
to punish the fraternity as a whole.
The three suspected culprits
were given a choice of leaving
the college or switching their major
to Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Only one of them actually stayed.
The other brothers in the fraternity
had a choice of leaving the college
or switching their minor instead.
"That's not fair," Sam protested.
"I only attended the party because
the house rules require meeting
a minimum of social events hosted
by the fraternity. I had nothing
to do with planning the thing!"
"It doesn't matter," his advisor
said with a shrug. "You belong to
Sigma Chi, so you change your minor
to Gender and Sexuality Studies or
you have to leave the university."
"Yeah well, you get to tell my parents
that they have to pay for more tuition,
because there's no way I can finish
my major and a whole new minor in
just three semesters," Sam snapped.
"That's another eighteen fucking credits!"
His parents agreed with extreme resentment,
not wanting to waste the money that they
had already invested in his college degree.
Sam could cram the first couple classes
for the new minor into his senior year,
because he was damned if he'd give up
Literature when it was almost done, but
he would need the summer semester
to finish the rest of the gender classes.
[Spring 2015]
The spring semester was ...
rather challenging for Sam.
His Human Resources class
brought up all kinds of issues
that he had never thought much
about before hitting that homework.
He had also decided to get a jumpstart
on the gender stuff by picking a class in
Queer Literature, Media, and Culture
to complete his English minor.
That was making Sam start
to think uncomfortable things
like how most people who weren't
into girls were actually not straight
like he'd always been told he was.
So if he wasn't straight after all,
then what the hell was he?
Sam watched the protests and
rallies for queer rights that he
could never hope to attend.
If he dared step out of line,
then his parents would cut off
his tuition funding and thus
all hope of graduating.
Instead, he stayed home
at the Sigma Chi house that
he hated more every day,
and did his homework, and
felt ever more uncomfortable.
"What do you have to complain
about?" his father said. "You
met their fool demands, so
you get to stay in college."
"If only you knew," Sam said
as he looked the other way.
[Fall 2015]
Sam had finally gotten through
most of the stupid requirements for
his Business degree, leaving him
room to choose electives for it.
He found a senior seminar
on Local Businesses, so that
wasn't a total waste of his time.
The Ideas and Issues class
for his new minor just about
made him want to climb out
of his own skin, though.
"Your paper lacks depth,"
the teacher said quellingly.
"I expect to see more detail
in the future if you want
to pass this class."
"I'll try," Sam muttered.
"This isn't really my area."
"It is now," the teacher said,
"so learn to deal with it."
Sam was trying, really
he was, but it was hard.
Nothing seemed to fit
the way that it used to,
and he didn't like that.
There was nothing
he could actually do
to change it, though.
Sam was gay.
He couldn't hide it
anymore, at least
not from himself.
He had to hide it from
his parents, if he didn't
want to get kicked out.
So no coming out for Sam,
no party with rainbow cake
and glitter-glazed flowers,
not for a year or more.
If then. He didn't really
relish the idea of having
his whole family refuse
to speak to him ever again.
[Spring 2016]
Sam managed to land
an internship about
sustainable business,
so that had potential
for future employment.
He also had a minor class on
Sociology of Sex and Sexualities,
which made him squirm inside.
He wasn't comfortable with
that stuff yet, but he needed
the class for the requirements.
Sam should have been
getting ready to graduate,
but now he couldn't.
He didn't really have
any friends on campus,
but almost everyone he
knew was preparing for
graduation and going
out into the wider world.
Being left behind sucked.
So Sam took advantage
of his new superpowers of
Phasing and Elasticity.
He bought a bodysuit of
sparkly metallic krevel with
rainbow stripes and started
going out as Everygayman.
It made him feel powerful
and even a little fabulous
in a way that nothing else
had ever done before.
He went to all the protests
and rallies that he couldn't
afford to attend as himself.
He began advocating for
queer rights in a state
that pretty much wished
queer people didn't exist.
Whenever things turned
dangerous, Everygayman
used his abilities to help
the other queerfolk escape
from bigots and police alike.
Once he even got interviewed
by another college's newspaper.
"What do you think about the closet?"
the student journalist asked him.
"Most people think the closet is
a small room," said Everygayman.
"When you're inside it, though,
the closet is vast. You can
do a lot in there, more than
anyone ever imagined."
He wasn't ready to come out,
not yet, and he knew that.
He wasn't finished
growing into himself.
However, he still had
four more classes
to take for his minor.
Maybe they would help.
* * *
Notes:
This poem is long, so its notes appear separately.
siliconshaman and acelightning73. It also fills the "Dress up / Costumes" square in my 10-1-21 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred, ng_moonmoth, janetmiles, and edorfaus. It belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes a lack of self-awareness, overcontrolling and manipulative parents, bad fit at a fraternity, spiked punch, sudden illness, superpower manifestation, confusion, university forcing students to change their major or minor, personal discomfort, fear of being cut off from family support and funding, sexual repression, unsympathetic teachers, unwilling sexual discoveries, lack of friends, abandonment, activism, self-discovery, hope, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.
"The Closet Is Vast"
[Fall 2012]
Sam Johnson grew up
in Lafayette, Louisiana.
He was kind of a geek,
more interested in literature
and Louisiana history than
sports or school dances.
He didn't mind being
a bookworm. The books
never made fun of him.
Sam rarely showed
much interest in girls,
but that was okay -- he
had other things to do,
always busy with school.
His overcontrolling parents
ensured that he didn't dare
think much about anything else.
In September 2012, Sam enrolled in
the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
He wanted to major in English - Literature,
but his parents were paying for the tuition.
They insisted on Business - Management
instead, as a more practical degree.
"Reading books won't pay any bills,"
his father said, shaking his head.
"No, but teaching literature would,"
Sam grumbled. "I wanted to be
a teacher, not a businessman."
"Teachers die poor," his father said,
which had been true in the past,
though it was getting better.
They did let Sam choose
Literature as a minor, though.
He also wound up joining
the Sigma Chi fraternity,
like his father before him.
The company wasn't fun,
but it gave him a place to live
that was a lot nicer than the dorms.
He had a big bedroom to himself,
instead of sharing a tiny one. Plus
the house had a kitchen, a living room,
and a huge rec room in the basement.
The business classes were every bit
as boring as Sam had feared, but
he did manage to take a couple of
writing classes for the requirements.
He also found a batch of classes
about conserving the environment and
its resources, which got him thinking
about sustainable business. His father
might be convinced to go along with
that, as long as it turned a profit.
College might not suck too much.
[Fall 2014]
Business classes continued
to be just as boring as ever,
but the ethics class was
rather more interesting.
Sam was almost done with
his Literature minor, too.
Louisiana Literature was
fascinating this semester,
although he wasn't sure what
he'd pick to finish in spring.
Then disaster struck.
The Sigma Chi fraternity
got caught spiking the punch
with an alleged love potion
during a wild party at the house.
This caused many of the students
to get sick, and a few of them
never regained their health.
Sam was rather more concerned
with the fact that, after he stopped
throwing up his toenails, odd things
began happening to him now and then.
Sometimes nobody seemed to see him,
or else they'd jump when he spoke to
them as if he'd come out of nowhere.
Then he started falling through things,
instead of bumping into them as usual.
Even more startling was the discovery
that Sam could bend around things as if
he had no bones, or stretch incredibly far.
So he did what any frisky college boy
would do, and used his mouth on his cock.
It confirmed that, yeah, dogs had it good,
because that was a lot more fun than
his few fumbling attempts with a girl.
The university could not prove
exactly who spiked the punch.
However, they were outraged
by the incident, so they decided
to punish the fraternity as a whole.
The three suspected culprits
were given a choice of leaving
the college or switching their major
to Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Only one of them actually stayed.
The other brothers in the fraternity
had a choice of leaving the college
or switching their minor instead.
"That's not fair," Sam protested.
"I only attended the party because
the house rules require meeting
a minimum of social events hosted
by the fraternity. I had nothing
to do with planning the thing!"
"It doesn't matter," his advisor
said with a shrug. "You belong to
Sigma Chi, so you change your minor
to Gender and Sexuality Studies or
you have to leave the university."
"Yeah well, you get to tell my parents
that they have to pay for more tuition,
because there's no way I can finish
my major and a whole new minor in
just three semesters," Sam snapped.
"That's another eighteen fucking credits!"
His parents agreed with extreme resentment,
not wanting to waste the money that they
had already invested in his college degree.
Sam could cram the first couple classes
for the new minor into his senior year,
because he was damned if he'd give up
Literature when it was almost done, but
he would need the summer semester
to finish the rest of the gender classes.
[Spring 2015]
The spring semester was ...
rather challenging for Sam.
His Human Resources class
brought up all kinds of issues
that he had never thought much
about before hitting that homework.
He had also decided to get a jumpstart
on the gender stuff by picking a class in
Queer Literature, Media, and Culture
to complete his English minor.
That was making Sam start
to think uncomfortable things
like how most people who weren't
into girls were actually not straight
like he'd always been told he was.
So if he wasn't straight after all,
then what the hell was he?
Sam watched the protests and
rallies for queer rights that he
could never hope to attend.
If he dared step out of line,
then his parents would cut off
his tuition funding and thus
all hope of graduating.
Instead, he stayed home
at the Sigma Chi house that
he hated more every day,
and did his homework, and
felt ever more uncomfortable.
"What do you have to complain
about?" his father said. "You
met their fool demands, so
you get to stay in college."
"If only you knew," Sam said
as he looked the other way.
[Fall 2015]
Sam had finally gotten through
most of the stupid requirements for
his Business degree, leaving him
room to choose electives for it.
He found a senior seminar
on Local Businesses, so that
wasn't a total waste of his time.
The Ideas and Issues class
for his new minor just about
made him want to climb out
of his own skin, though.
"Your paper lacks depth,"
the teacher said quellingly.
"I expect to see more detail
in the future if you want
to pass this class."
"I'll try," Sam muttered.
"This isn't really my area."
"It is now," the teacher said,
"so learn to deal with it."
Sam was trying, really
he was, but it was hard.
Nothing seemed to fit
the way that it used to,
and he didn't like that.
There was nothing
he could actually do
to change it, though.
Sam was gay.
He couldn't hide it
anymore, at least
not from himself.
He had to hide it from
his parents, if he didn't
want to get kicked out.
So no coming out for Sam,
no party with rainbow cake
and glitter-glazed flowers,
not for a year or more.
If then. He didn't really
relish the idea of having
his whole family refuse
to speak to him ever again.
[Spring 2016]
Sam managed to land
an internship about
sustainable business,
so that had potential
for future employment.
He also had a minor class on
Sociology of Sex and Sexualities,
which made him squirm inside.
He wasn't comfortable with
that stuff yet, but he needed
the class for the requirements.
Sam should have been
getting ready to graduate,
but now he couldn't.
He didn't really have
any friends on campus,
but almost everyone he
knew was preparing for
graduation and going
out into the wider world.
Being left behind sucked.
So Sam took advantage
of his new superpowers of
Phasing and Elasticity.
He bought a bodysuit of
sparkly metallic krevel with
rainbow stripes and started
going out as Everygayman.
It made him feel powerful
and even a little fabulous
in a way that nothing else
had ever done before.
He went to all the protests
and rallies that he couldn't
afford to attend as himself.
He began advocating for
queer rights in a state
that pretty much wished
queer people didn't exist.
Whenever things turned
dangerous, Everygayman
used his abilities to help
the other queerfolk escape
from bigots and police alike.
Once he even got interviewed
by another college's newspaper.
"What do you think about the closet?"
the student journalist asked him.
"Most people think the closet is
a small room," said Everygayman.
"When you're inside it, though,
the closet is vast. You can
do a lot in there, more than
anyone ever imagined."
He wasn't ready to come out,
not yet, and he knew that.
He wasn't finished
growing into himself.
However, he still had
four more classes
to take for his minor.
Maybe they would help.
* * *
Notes:
This poem is long, so its notes appear separately.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-01-14 10:51 pm (UTC)Sam, though, with his flexibility and stretchablity has the chance to literally fuck himself.
That should help on those lonely nights... :-)
Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-14 10:58 pm (UTC)LOL yes. If nothing else, it's one hell of a motivation to work on your yoga!
>> Sam, though, with his flexibility and stretchablity has the chance to literally fuck himself.<<
Yep.
>> That should help on those lonely nights... :-)
It won't help loneliness; he is miserably lonely. It does help with sexual expression, and is a healthy activity.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-01-15 12:58 am (UTC)I may well end up prompting you for a follow-up to this, because Sam deserves WAAAAYYY better than he's currently getting, hopeful ending or no. And someone should seriously take that university administration to task for their epic mishandling of the love potion mess. Bonus points if it's the quiltbag community raising the objections that get the ball rolling. If I were in a gender and/or sexuality-related class, the last thing I'd want is to discover that a resentful dudebro with a suspected creepy history had crashed it, and didn't want to be there. Add to that the wider issue of open, admin-lead coercion...
Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 02:04 am (UTC)Yeah, they suck. >_<
>> as well as his university (that is a seriously dirty and coercive false choice there) and his advisor of the oh-so-unhelpful commentary swift kicks in the pants. Several swift kicks in the pants, even.<<
This is more complicated. Local-American universities handle sex crimes very badly, tending toward doing far too little or far too much. This at least has the advantage of giving students a choice -- if they're attached to the campus, they can stay; if they're attached to their educational path, they can take it somewhere else. It has a good chance of teaching young lunks a wider perspective on sex/gender dynamics.
The places where it falls down: the use of guilt by association, and the complete lack of support for someone forced to change programs in a way that disrupts graduation schedule.
>> I may well end up prompting you for a follow-up to this, because Sam deserves WAAAAYYY better than he's currently getting, hopeful ending or no.<<
I agree that he deserves better.
>> And someone should seriously take that university administration to task for their epic mishandling of the love potion mess. Bonus points if it's the quiltbag community raising the objections that get the ball rolling.<<
Well, they couldn't just ignore it, but they didn't have a way to pin down exactly who did it. They could only distinguish between more and less likely suspects. They were able to hold the fraternity, as an organization, responsible for it because it happened at their party in their house. That's better than nothing, but hardly optimal.
>> If I were in a gender and/or sexuality-related class, the last thing I'd want is to discover that a resentful dudebro with a suspected creepy history had crashed it, and didn't want to be there. <<
Point.
On the other hoof, most classes have a large number of students who don't want to be there, even in college -- and that's much worse today than when I was there. I've seen colleges that require everyone to waste the whole first two years on general prerequisites before they are permitted to declare a major and take classes they actually care about. 0_o
>> Add to that the wider issue of open, admin-lead coercion... <<
Do you think it would've been better to close the fraternity house and expel all its members? Because some colleges have done that. A few have even shut down their entire Greek system. I can't blame them for doing that when the Greek system has a tendency to rape, poison, and sometimes kill people; but I'm dubious whether expelling everyone in a house is necessarily a good route to responsible citizens. Or do you have better idea?
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 04:12 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 05:37 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 04:28 am (UTC)Edited to add: I've just had a further thought. A forced change of major or minor to gender/sexuality is likely to teach those students to resent the subject, coursework or no coursework, which could easily have the opposite effect from what it sounds like you're going for. Good citizen and a thorough resentment of, say, the vastness of the gender spectrum don't easily go hand in hand.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 10:00 am (UTC)That depends on the person. Remember that a lot of people no longer go to college for the academics, but for the socializing. I think that's nuts, but it is so prevalent that college-ranking websites frequently score something like "party scene" and/or "Greek life" along with "academics." :/ Further consider that people don't switch fraternities, but frequently do switch majors/minors. In which case, people may feel worse about losing a fraternity than losing a major.
>> For a related idea, maybe *threaten* fraternity closure if whoever spiked the punch doesn't come forward. That's not certain to work, but it stands a better chance of sniffing out the culprit(s), not to mention saving those undeserving of punishment from having their lives disrupted unnecessarily.<<
I like that idea. It would be well worth trying at a college that was willing and able to ban the fraternity. Too many places either support the Greek system or don't feel able to fight it due to political reasons, despite its many disadvantages.
>>Edited to add: I've just had a further thought. A forced change of major or minor to gender/sexuality is likely to teach those students to resent the subject, coursework or no coursework, which could easily have the opposite effect from what it sounds like you're going for. Good citizen and a thorough resentment of, say, the vastness of the gender spectrum don't easily go hand in hand.<<
That's possible. But they're going to resent any solution, whether it's a new major/minor or the whole school -- and given the sexual aspect of this incident, they're almost certainly going to blame the girls anyway, for "not being able to hold their liquor" or some such nonsense. It's like this kind of personality is given to much responsibility.
Also, remember that they had a choice. Two out of the three main suspects chose to leave, either dropping out altogether or finishing their major at a different school. Only one decided to stay. He might have looked at the new program and figured it was something he could use.
Consider that it depends a lot on a person's major. Switching from one liberal arts degree to another is a lot less of a problem than switching from, say, engineering. If you're studying something like psychology or sociology, you can find things that'll overlap. Even some unrelated things like business have useful overlaps. For Sam, who likes to read in general, the main aggravation was just the extra time requirement -- and his parents' response, but he rightly made the college handle that end.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-01-15 04:03 am (UTC)There's so much we don't know here. We get a very brief reference to people getting sick--this party was not a private event. It was a "wild party", so there were a lot of people there, both fraternity brothers and others. The others were likely nearly all women students at the college. Lots of people got sick, so presumably that includes a lot of the women too, not just fraternity brothers. Some of the people never regained their health. The aftermath of the party would have been very public indeed, with police and doctors involved in trying to figure out who spiked the punch and what with. How many other people developed super powers? How many non-students snuck in? I'm betting that at least one person asserted that the fraternity was innocent, that some supervillain snuck in and spiked the punch.
I'm wondering why they allowed the fraternity to remain on campus at all. There has to have been a big stink about all of this, and likely the "take gender and sexuality studies or leave" was some kind of horrible compromise, not just something dreamed up by some anonymous administrator. It's certainly not something that anyone at the college would be happy about, but at least it wouldn't be a surprise to the other people in the gender and sexuality studies program that the remaining members of the fraternity are there. It would probably be a matter of debate how many of them were creepy dudebros and how many were just as much victims as the women attendees of that party.
Still, I bet that in addition to feeling isolated from his parents and fraternity brothers because he knows (or believes) they will not accept him coming out, he is also feeling isolated because his classmates, in the new minor and elsewhere, are looking at his socially awkward self and the fear at least some of them can see, and not imagining that he's hiding a normal thing like being gay. I would expect some of them are avoiding him because they fear that he's hiding being the person (or one of the people) who spiked the punch. If people see him exhibiting superpowers, that could intensify that suspicion, especially if the punch didn't give lots of the victims such aftereffects, or at least if people don't know that the punch gave some of the victims superpowers.
And he is certainly socially awkward and lacking significantly in awareness of the people around him and their emotions. This poem is written from his POV, and what he doesn't notice about the big hullabaloo happening around him makes me pretty sure he was never neurotypical, even before the potion caused or triggered his superpowers.
I wholeheartedly support prompts to hear more about Sam and about other people affected by this incident. I enjoyed watching his poor clueless self start to grow up and get some clues.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-01-15 04:34 am (UTC)Yeah, the other things were/are problematic, but that's what hits close to home right now.
Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 09:46 am (UTC)However, all the affected students had a choice between options -- leave and finish their studies at another school with the same major/minor, or stay and change it. Local-America doesn't offer that. It tends to do nothing, or simply expel people. This way, students can think about which option they can live with.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-16 01:04 am (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 04:52 am (UTC)Woohoo!
>> There's so much we don't know here. <<
There's still a lot I don't know, too.
>> We get a very brief reference to people getting sick--this party was not a private event. It was a "wild party", so there were a lot of people there, both fraternity brothers and others. <<
Correct. It is wild in the way that fraternity parties often are, and why some colleges are vexed with them -- that environment invites trouble, and makes it difficult to determine what went wrong after trouble has in fact occurred.
>> The others were likely nearly all women students at the college. <<
There was a liberal mix of students, but it likely did lean toward sorority girls. That sort of fraternity likes a target-rich environment, but they also like having other guy buddies around. Aside from being their idea of fun, it muddles the search for culprits if multiple fraternities are represented.
>>Lots of people got sick, so presumably that includes a lot of the women too, not just fraternity brothers. Some of the people never regained their health.<<
Correct.
>> The aftermath of the party would have been very public indeed, with police and doctors involved in trying to figure out who spiked the punch and what with. <<
Ohhh, yeah. Much fuss and hubbub was made. But with zetetic materials, it's extremely difficult to pin down anything even if you have a pure sample rather than whatever is in the bodies of the people getting sick. Pinning it down to the party was easy with so many people there. Pinning it down to the punch bowl was only a little harder. Beyond that, they managed "Someone dropped a metagen in the bowl" and not much more.
Figuring out who might have done so generated a vast list of possibilities -- anyone at the party could, theoretically, have done it. But it's more likely to be a host than a guest; they'd have the opportunity to spike the punch before it was served. If they thought they were using a harmless aphrodisiac that would just put everyone in a horny mood, then they wouldn't mind dosing their brothers or even themselves, much the same as when punch is spiked with alcohol. The times you see controlled aim with things like roofies, it goes in something that only the target group will consume; jello shots are popular for targeting girls because many boys think they're too girly to touch.
So then you have to look at context. We've got a fraternity with a reputation for questionable behavior, which makes its members more likely suspects. The people responsible for planning the party and its beverages would be the leading suspects; possibly also the party monitor if they had one, but they're often unaffiliated and thus less implicated, and they can't be everywhere at once. Logically the university would've whittled their list down to the boys with the most responsibility for the event, whose records also indicated they made a habit of misbehavior in keeping with this example. Anyone with a clean record and/or little to do with the event would be implicated only by association (i.e. may have helped but not known all about it, or may have heard about it but not said anything). Without the hard evidence to make a court case worth pursuing, the college used the tools available on its own turf: academics.
I expect that the parents of other students likely sued the college for failure to maintain a safe environment. This is all fairly similar to what happens when punch is spiked with ordinary drugs or alcohol and someone(s) gets hurt.
>> How many other people developed super powers? <<
Probably two or three. The exact number may not be known if not everyone had a conspicuous ability, or if someone left the school. A big frat party like this can have several hundred people moving through it over the 6-8 hours of its activity, most or all of whom would indulge in free food and drinks. If you figure 1:100 people who drank the spiked punch later developed superpowers, that's a typical strength. Stuff with a higher manifestation rate tends to have worse side effects. Here, some people had permanent health damage but nobody died. That group is probably same size as or slightly larger than the ones who developed superpowers.
Something else we can tell from current information: whatever it was, didn't happen fast, at least in terms of dramatic effects. If it had, people would've noticed and the party would've been shut down, thus greatly reducing the number of affected individuals. They might have just thought they were extra buzzed that night, or unusually hungover the next morning, until things got worse. But once the first handful of students showed up at the campus health center with the same symptoms, it would quickly come out that they were at the same party, and then the college would try to contact everyone who went there in case it was contagious or toxic.
>> How many non-students snuck in? <<
Probably at least a few dozen. If they were fraternity alumni, they wouldn't have to sneak; graduated members are supposed to be a "responsible influence." (Consider that Sam is a legacy member; I wouldn't call his father responsible, but that's the theory.) Also, it depends on the house location and the campus parameters whether a frat house is considered part of campus or private property, which influences what rules apply; often they're not limited to student guests. Many colleges have fraternity houses either completely separate or offset, which is why Greek parties tend to be wilder and more popular.
>> I'm betting that at least one person asserted that the fraternity was innocent, that some supervillain snuck in and spiked the punch.<<
Well, yeah, anytime something is at a party that shouldn't be, the host insists that someone else must have brought it. This is often true. They can't search people, after all, that would be an invasion of privacy and thus illegal. Lots of people smuggle things into parties, but it's usually for personal use, or occasionally for sale. The hosts can't do anything about that unless they see it, in which case they can eject the culprit or in more extreme cases call the police. Think about it, if Heron caught someone doing that, he'd go apeshit. But if he thought it was zetetic, he'd be more likely to call SPOON than the cops.
Here's where the pattern of behavior comes in. If the fraternity has had problem after problem, nobody's likely to believe them that this time it was somebody else's fault. If the nerd party at the Foreign Languages department gets spiked, that's much more likely an outside attack, because they aren't in the habit of throwing parties that wild.
Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 05:16 am (UTC)Money and power: the same reasons fraternities usually get to stay at colleges here, even after proof that they gang-banged a girl or pushed a drunk pledge off the roof to his death. They can be banned from campus, but it's rare. The Greek houses tend to be rich and well-connected and full of manipulators. Look at Sam's father; that's the kind of person backing this particular frat house.
Of course, they're up against the parents of all the injured students, some of whom are also in the Greek system. So then it turns into a sort of civil war. The college literally cannot do anything without alienating lots of rich influential parents. The least-worst option for the college is probably to put the frat on probation (again) so they can't hold events or accept new members, and will be banned if they get into more trouble. If the probable lawsuits hand down a verdict blaming the fraternity and requiring it to disband, then the college will get less heat from alumni because it was somebody else's decision.
>> There has to have been a big stink about all of this,<<
Very much so.
>> and likely the "take gender and sexuality studies or leave" was some kind of horrible compromise, not just something dreamed up by some anonymous administrator.<<
That's actually a common solution in Terramagne, although the exact choice of new major/minor depends on what a given college has to offer. Gender Studies is a popular choice because sex crimes are among the leading disputes serious enough for that much punishment. Not everybody has that, so some colleges go for something else like Psychology or Sociology. If they have other uncommon options, like Peace Studies or Ethics, they might throw that in. A related point, remember Stylet's thread -- students who cock up in the sciences can be obligated to take ethics classes or even something like Bioethics as a major/minor. The overall trend is that they don't think shutting down someone's education for an act of idiocy will make them any less of an idiot, whereas directing them to more targeted education might.
Of course, there's another factor to consider. Most college sex crimes are acquaintance rapes, and a lot of those are based on people being horny, inexperienced, stupid, and often drunk. They're often accidents rather than premeditated malice. Still crimes, but a very different thing than spiking a bowl of punch on purpose. Someone who doesn't understand what consent is supposed to be like is a lot more likely to be helped by education than someone who purposely sets a trap for victims, if that makes sense. On the third hoof, the college didn't just slap a penalty on the most likely perpetrators, but also on their housemates. While it's a hell of a penalty for the majority of the boys who had nothing to do with the damn punch, they are also good candidates to be educated into realizing that the fraternity is not actually doing them any favors and its ideals are not laudable.
>> It's certainly not something that anyone at the college would be happy about,<<
No shit. However, I can't think of a much better solution, without being able to pin down an individual perpetrator. I mean, even if you had a telepath willing to toss a couple dozen boys, that's a major violation of boundaries for everyone who didn't commit the crime.
>> but at least it wouldn't be a surprise to the other people in the gender and sexuality studies program that the remaining members of the fraternity are there. <<
It's not a surprise. The solution is known. It's contentious, but then so is every other solution to fraternity misbehavior and sex crimes.
>>It would probably be a matter of debate how many of them were creepy dudebros and how many were just as much victims as the women attendees of that party.<<
True. Even given the fraternity's bad reputation, one person spiked the punch; he may have had an accomplice or two. But certainly the whole house wasn't involved. The fact that almost everyone was drinking out of the same bowl makes it harder to prove who did it, rather than if it was a targeted hit on girls like spiking jello shots.
Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 05:34 am (UTC)Given what we know about the parents, Sam is almost certainly right about them reacting negatively if they found out about him being gay. Given the fraternity's reputation, it seems likely that a majority of them would also be displeased. But 10% is 10% -- he probably isn't alone in that closet. 0_o
>> he is also feeling isolated because his classmates, in the new minor and elsewhere, are looking at his socially awkward self and the fear at least some of them can see, and not imagining that he's hiding a normal thing like being gay.<<
Yyyyyeah.
>> I would expect some of them are avoiding him because they fear that he's hiding being the person (or one of the people) who spiked the punch. <<
Maybe, but more likely they just resent everyone in that fraternity for being macho dicks.
>> If people see him exhibiting superpowers, that could intensify that suspicion, especially if the punch didn't give lots of the victims such aftereffects, or at least if people don't know that the punch gave some of the victims superpowers.<<
Reactions to superpowers are patchy. Some people are forks and hate them; some are groupies and love them. People would know that most victims did not develop superpowers, and probably know that a few did. Not everyone would necessarily know what happened to whom, though.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 05:49 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 05:59 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-16 01:05 am (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 05:45 am (UTC)Well, yeah. Sam didn't get a lot of social interaction, and what he did get was somewhat blunted by parental expectations. I doubt he's had much if any genuine intimacy thus far. Without that, it's hard to develop social graces or awareness.
>> This poem is written from his POV, and what he doesn't notice about the big hullabaloo happening around him makes me pretty sure he was never neurotypical, even before the potion caused or triggered his superpowers.<<
I hadn't really considered that as a possible explanation. I think he's an introvert and a nerd. He's certainly a survivor of emotional and psychological mistreatment, if not outright abuse, from his parents manipulating him. He's very withdrawn due to being forced into both a fraternity and a major that are completely wrong for him. He seems to deal with that by focusing on schoolwork, especially the parts that conflict less with his personality. So the hullabaloo is just ... more of the stuff he's been trying to ignore.
>> I wholeheartedly support prompts to hear more about Sam and about other people affected by this incident. <<
Cool.
>> I enjoyed watching his poor clueless self start to grow up and get some clues.<<
Sam really needs a lot more help with that. Right now, he's miserable because what he's learning makes him less and less able to keep glossing over his differences -- he doesn't fit with his family anymore, and that sucks. And nobody's given him any other strong connections or basis of support, so the poor kid is just flailing.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-05-10 06:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-01-15 02:23 pm (UTC)And speaking of the closet... coming out of the broom closet can be awkward, difficult, and possibly detrimental to one's career.
Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-15 08:37 pm (UTC)Yikes. But thanks for the vote of confidence.
>> Except that his took place in an environment specifically based on Egyptian mythology. He long since graduated from college, and he had one very close friend when he was in college, and I know that they decided to find out just how close they were (not that close, although it probably would have ended with trauma on both sides.) But he now has quite a few gay and notably fabulous friends!<<
Wow! That's cool.
>>And speaking of the closet... coming out of the broom closet can be awkward, difficult, and possibly detrimental to one's career.<<
True.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-01-20 05:14 am (UTC)When I came out of the broom closet to my parents, my mother was glad to know that I "at least believe in SOMETHING" (she had been unhappy when I explained that I had become an agnostic a couple of years earlier). And then she'd pester me to do magic for her friends when they got sick or were down on their luck. (I swore a very binding oath never to use magic to affect another sentient being without getting their express permission. There's a loophole for people who aren't capable of giving permission - preverbal children, people in a coma, or animals. But animals aren't always as non-verbal as people assume.)