Status Updates From Toxxic

This picks up right where book 1 left off and we are plunged into action. There is a vaccine, men can now leave their facilities, they are no longer a homicidal threat to women. 50 years after the catastrophic outbreak that cleaved society, the world is a different place.We have factions for and against integration. And there's the men born into this divided society, second class citizens, wary, hopeful...

Intertextual discourse:
“ I'm off, like Gulliver, like Prospero, out into the wide world - or will I be Mirando? Forever proclaiming in awe: O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!”

Tony compares himself to Gulliver and his travels
-negative Forshadowing? From Gulliver’s travels

Prospero from Shakespeare’s the tempest

Neg foreshadowing
-maybe referring to his exile and that of all men

Tony and vaccine trial- maybe inspired by Covid human testing

-volunteers willing to be one of first male human subjects to get vaccinated against moths and be part of foster program trials
-spent entire life in captivity under care of female gates called carers-never go outside at all for fear of being infected by moth threads and becoming manics’
-young boys live in prep schools
-men live in men’s facilities

“These are all horrible stories, of course, but that was so long ago. Even when I look at Sean’s picture. i don’t think that it’s real. Just a cold detail of history”
-Evie
First generation born after the initial outbreak
Never lived with men or in a traditional nuclear family
Wonders what their facial hair feels like
Already the distance between the violence and present safety of institutionalized men

Theme: survivor stories being glorified and sanitized

Difference between personal story vs story of event as whole
what someone experienced -feelings, emotions, creates empathy from audience
Connection of personal story and experience humanize event

Theme: generational trauma

Normalize and sanitize violence of historical events to younger generations through omission and glossing over the past
Distance in time - acts as safety barrier for younger generations

LGBTQIA+ narrative
Sam-was trans but forced to return to her birth gender
Tony-gay inlove w Logan
Cant do hetero vists because unable to perform
Prefers skirts to pants

“Men went from being monsters, to a necessary evil, and eventually becoming a novelty, a rich woman's pastime.“

How to get pregnant in a world without men

1st Gen of women-lived before and after - sex with men in sanatoriums
2nd -insemination programs developed
Present:hetero-recreation visits

XX104- opposed to vaccine
Survivor of 1st wave infestation
**£ note implying multiple waves**
Feel like Covid lived experience for author was mirrors in text and informed how people reacted, the viewpoint and political divisions and governmental actions within the narrative
Questions about:vaccine and eithics mirrored in text

3 protagonists allow reader to understand the political viewpoints of all in regards to vaccines
-each discuss own beliefs and those close to them that are opposed
Allows reader to see all arguments and make their own conclusions as well as understand the narrow view of the character and how this informs their actions and decisions moving forward
Character driven plot

Setting:UK in future -alter reality
XX104- incarcerated somewhere
Tony: men’s facility
Evie: small town and geriatric ward

Perspectives:
XX104-before, during infestation-her experiences
-rebuilding of Society
Tony- male perspective of present
Evie- younger generation’s views-never exposed to men, only ever known matriarchal society-women marry each other -somewhat nuclear family structure remains-

“Pictures of men are weird. I stared at that photo for ages. It was probably only the second or third time I'd seen the picture of a man's face and I marvelled at all that extra hair. I wanted to reach in and run my fingers over the dark shadow. Was it soft like the hair on my head or thicker like the hair on my legs?”
Evie clearly never met a man? No sad
Exotic like zoo animals
Not talked about socially

“These are all horrible stories, of course, but that was so long ago.”
- already at distance from event that is removed enough to dismiss the terror and horror as in the past and no longer a threat
- tells stories of families that died brutally at hands of Male husbands/dads
** stories about the male violence, hunting and slaughtering of family members during infestation discussed to point its been normalized

Present syllabus:
“….it was always heavily skewed towards science, but now they study social engineering, civil logistics, agricultural and marine development, genetic research and so much more.There just isn't the space in the timetable for history…”
Women not taught about the events that occurred
-glossed over Taught a sanitized almost Disney version of events
***problem=society forgets about it***erasure

School teaching the infestation :
-20 years ago -evie studied it “at school, we learned all about the infestation, the reformation of the government, the fertility and contribution programmes. “

Theme: stories

“These stories can catch you out. I've been doing this for a while now and I sometimes think the dollies sneak these stories in just to see how you react.”

-all three characters discuss stories in some way

Emma: older geriatric patient of evie’s who’s chatty about before outbreak
-don’t have air travel in future - ** implications not globalized capitalist economies or societies

She watched her father tie up her mom in kitchen, cover her in lighter fluid and set her on fire in first outbreak -killing her
Gore and gruesome details about the smell when tell story

Evie-protagonist
Nurse born after the 1st outbreak
-Mary is on her rounds and under her care
-find out that Mary is not ok and deteriorating
Has 4 older women in her care -all born before 1st outbreak
Women born after don’t know what it’s like to have husbands or sons*** what happens to male babies??!**

“When you're locked up your whole life, doing the same thing day in day out, you get a sense of when things are a bit off. Change has a vinegary smell.”
-Tony
Men have no freedoms basically jailed
Entire lives spent inside at men’s facilitie
-what kind of quality of life is that?
-questions of ethical treatment of men? Are they just seen as breeding tools for women to repopulate?
-human test subjects -.covid**