#LV S2 analysis

[talaofthevalley]

if it hasn't been asked already. revolver for the ask game? your postings are fun to read

smacks my desk MY BOY, THANK YOU FOR GIVING HIM TO ME. also thank you that's so sweet of you to say

Why I like them/why I don’t Where do I even start-

He's one of the most honourable characters in the whole franchise. He's ridiculously composed, that the few times he's rattled you know it's significant. He's carrying the sins of his father like they're his own, even though he was eight when the incident happened. But it's like he understands he's the only one who can carry that burden and deliver closure to the ones affected because he wasn't one of the perpetrators, but was still involved and wrapped up in it all.

But he's also a dork who strikes poses during duels. His deck consists of gun and bullet dragons. He's so extra and camp in the best way and is never not taken as a very serious threat. He's one of the strongest duelists in the show. He doesn't consider himself a victim of anything. He was willing to die at the end of S1. He regularly finds the villain of the arc/his enemies first and almost murks them. He's connected to flower and ocean imagery. He gave one of the most beautiful description about loved ones who has passed away I've ever heard. He cares So Much but isn't the best at showing it, yet can help in just the way others need. He hates himself so damn much. But does not let that get in the way of what he believes needs to be done. But he's not completely close-minded either.

Ryoken's just such an amasing character. I love him so much.

What I like about their appearance Everything Since I did the same for Aoi I'll do both his real world and LV designs.

Ryoken: Gorg. Beautiful beautiful boy. I love the soft tones used for his eyes and the blue in his hair. The feathery side bangs are so pretty. And I'm so weak for white hair. I'm not above to admitting I'm not fond of his outfit, but that's just because it's very far from my taste in clothes. I don't think it's as bad as people claim it is though. Love his pink shirt, and that his colour scheme overall in the real world is very soft-toned and almost pastel in contrast to the bolder colours used in his avatar. And of course the eyes, and the eyelashes. My god he is so pretty.

Revolver S1: I like this design! I do think it's usurped by his second avatar, but they share a majority of the same elements and design points, so I'll cover those in the next part. I think his mask is pretty cool ngl, and it's Very yummy to chew on for analysis. The red hair with lighter shades running up the sides looks great as well.

Revolver S2-3: I do think this is just, an absolutely banging design. The way it's separated into parts through use of colours and lines. Love the long gloves, and the coat is so cool, it really adds to his presence. The second avatar did a good I think by adding these cut-ins at the hips to give it more definition and volume.

The new hair colour is really good too, adds another change besides the mask showing more of his face to show his growth from the last time we saw him. Like a visual sign he's mellowed out after the breakdown he had in the S1 finale. Especially love the grey-violet eye colour they gave him, it's really nice. And that visor.... I know it's a crime they hide half of his beautiful face, but it's also so exciting to catch glimpses of his fringe under it. And it does look cool, I can't lie.

And of course I have to point out the bullet earrings. Top tier design. Just immaculate. It's so distinct and memorable. It even got made into official merch. Just iconic.

Do I prefer their dub names or original names? His name only gets a letter hacked off in the dub, thankfully, but I cannot take Varis seriously. It's a bit silly, but also in my first language it's spelled and sounds very close to a word for something less than pleasant =_=

OTP Datastormshipping my beloved, datastorm my everything. I can say so much about them but it would make this post even longer.

NOTP Datastorm is such an otp to me that I don't romantically ship either Ryoken or Yusaku with any other character. I don't think anything comes close to NOTP status for me with Ryoken though.

OT3 But I can accept Ai into the mix, since I see him and Yusaku as very queerplatonic.

Favourite card they use Am I basic if I say Borreload Dragon. I love that giant gun boy so much. The colour scheme is very nice, especially with the contrasting teal wings.

But also. Mirror Force is so iconic. It is SO FUNNY they had Revolver use Mirror Force and built it up so much. And for Link monsters it technically is! They can't be put in defense position! How effective it is makes it even funnier. You know he was having a blast blindsiding people with all these old trap cards.

Favourite moment they were in I can't pick one oh god-

Okay but, seriously I can't pick just one. He has so many good moments over the course of the show. All the duels against Yusaku. The first irl conversation he has with Yusaku. First time using Storm Access. Crashing the Ignis reunion party and curbstomping Windy into putty. The due against Lightning. The AFTERMATH of the duel against Lightning. Both duels against Takeru. The final scene between Ryoken and Yusaku. Yeah no I can't pick one. And a lot of his best moments are built from past scenes and the development he's had across the show.

Least favourite moment None, my perfect boy has done nothing wrong in his whole life- /j

[wings-of-a-storm]

This is literally just a general thought with very little analysis, so if you have any more in-depth thoughts on it I'd be happy to hear them, but I can't but feel like maybe Benji was afraid of being a "basketball boyfriend" partly because of the way the team was already treating Victor, and then it just happened to work out that Benji came around to the idea and started supporting Victor at the same time the team did. Any thoughts?

Hi there! Honestly, thank you so much for popping over and asking this question because it is something I have actually been thinking about a lot lately!

I think Benji absolutely was afraid of being a 'basketball boyfriend'. Not for the label itself but for the environment he would be exposed to.

To start with, it is canon that Benji has been the target of casual homophobia around Creekwood High. There are two incidents we already know of. Remember this charming event that took place all the way back in 1x01?

Benji saw a bunch of jocks bullying Victor, recognised him as the new student with gorgeous eyes and cool kicks, and came over to help him. As soon as Victor accepted his help standing up, an onlooker catcalled them with "Owh owh! Get it new kid!" simply because Victor touched Benji's hand. Like Benji had gay cooties. Even Felix warned Victor that Benji was gay in case Victor didn't want to be associated with that label...

And now in 2x03 we learn of this incident occurring:

Who knows how many times Benji has been the target of these kinds of aggressions on a day to day basis at school.

Add in jocks, who are notorious for this kind of behaviour in high school. (We saw them throwing someone's backpack around in S2, even.) And Benji is absolutely scathing of them for it. ("You play sports, which is not exactly the most evolved group you could be a part of." / "Victor is in the early stages of jock recovery. He just escaped the cult of cheap body spray and casual misogyny.")

So yep, in summary, I think the last place Benji would ever want to be in is the lion's den of jock turf. He doesn't respect jock behaviour, he's probably had run-ins with them in the past, and he just isn't into sport. He's a creative boy who likes his music and art. And let's face it, there is kind of a tribal disconnect between sporty kids and creative kids in some high school environments. Benji prides himself on being more evolved than the beer-guzzling sports crowd. He's erm a bit pretentious. But I still love him.

And even though Benji was clearly in the wrong when he made those highly insensitive, cruel, judgmental 'jokes' about jocks in front of Victor, I give him so much kudos for reflecting on his own behaviour, not making excuses for it in his apology, going out of his way to prove in action how much he meant his apology, and actually turning up to that basketball game in the lions den on his own without mates to keep him company or lessen his discomfort.

Go Grizzlies! ;)

[tsugarubecker]

Rewatching Love, Victor season 2 and all I can think as I’m watching is that Benji is cooonstantly putting his own feelings aside and instead striving to put himself in Victor’s shoes and empathize with Victor. Victor, for his part, gladly takes that from Benji and then proceeds to fail to put himself in Benji’s shoes in return. (We’ll leave Benji’s issue with conflict avoidance/not stating what he wants aside for a second but we’ll get to that shortly.)

Long-ass post, prepare yourself :P

Example exchange: in ep 6 after Isabel is so nice to Rahim and Benji fails to be #stoked about it, Benji comes up to Victor at the coffee shop the next day and says something like hey, sorry I wasn’t supportive when you were so excited that your mom was being nice to Rahim. And Victor just goes thanks for saying so yeah she was really being nice to him and I think we made some real progress yesterday!

Like. Okay. rewind noises

Let’s do that whole exchange over again but in the way a healthy couple would, shall we?

Benji: Hey Victor. I’m sorry I wasn’t supportive yesterday when you were excited about your mom. I know you wanted me to be excited with you. Can I tell you a little bit about my own feelings around your mom?

Victor: of course you can.

Benji: Okay. To be honest, I feel really hurt when your mom gives me the cold shoulder. And that’s been something I’ve been dealing with for a while now. So, as much as I want to be supportive of you and excited for you when you see her seeming like she’s making some progress, it’s hard for me. Because it would hurt for me to get my hopes up that she’ll treat me better, only to be disappointed.

Victor: Damn. Wow. I’m so glad you told me how you feel about that. That makes a ton of sense. I would really like your support, because I love my mom and this whole thing with her is hard for me, but I understand now why it would be painful and complicated for you to get too excited. Now I get it. Thanks for telling me. I’ll keep that in mind when I bring it up to you from now on and we can navigate all of it together.

fast forward noises OOC cause I just wrote that as I thought about what I would say in a similar situation, but you get the idea.

Returning to Benji for a sec. I’m a cliiiiinically conflict avoidant person, and I recognize a lot of myself in Benji. He doesn’t want to take up space. He makes funny stories and jokes out of his trauma (strip club, crashing car into Wendys). He doesn’t stand up for himself even if he has a legitimate reason to be upset - he finds reasonable reasons to apologize for his part in the situation and tries to make amends. (Certainly not always a bad thing, just can definitely be a conflict avoidant thing.) I mean, we saw him behaving this way even in s1. Think about on their anniversary when Derek said “can we just go catch that show” and Benji said “you go ahead, I’ll catch up” instead of “hey, I know you don’t care about anniversaries but I do. This means a lot to me. I want to spend time together.”

So yeah, Benji has some serious issues with avoiding talking about his own feelings, standing up for himself, etc if it basically doesn’t “go with the flow” of what the other person is thinking or feeling. Conflict avoidant. He doesn’t want to rock the boat. I don’t know why, yet. I don’t think we as the audience know why at this point, but I hope the writers will get into it. Probably isn’t “because alcoholism” - rather, I think the alcoholism is another symptom of the same issue.

Victor, for his part (and I’ve touched on this in another post), probably has spent so much of his life being the fixer for his family that he kind of unconsciously latches on to people who will give him a break from that and take care of him (think Simon, for instance??? Lol). And he forgets that it’s not black or white, it’s not one or the other: care or be cared for. In a relationship it goes both ways. I really think he got this massive crush on Benji, put him on a pedestal, made him out to be perfect; almost saw him as kind of a savior. Someone who could come, sweep him up, and make everything okay. Fulfill all his fantasies. Victor doesn’t seem to see Benji as a real person yet. And he doesn’t seem to realize that he needs to proactively take care of Benji, not just let Benji keep taking care of him. That they need to meet each other halfway.

And speaking of avoidant people, Victor does seem to have a pattern with this behavior doesn’t he? Dates Mia -> not working out -> run to someone who is new and seems perfect. Dates Benji -> things are complicated and hard -> oh look a handsome boy who is wonderful in every way (runs to someone who is new and seems perfect) (and will fix all his problems). Boy needs to stop running off to the next person who’s gonna “fix all his problems”. He needs to invest in his current partner. He needs to invest in being the one to care about his partner, being the one to put in the effort. Not just being the one to be cared for. He needs to stop waiting for someone to come sweep him up and fix all his problems. It’s not realistic, Victor. Get yer shit together & learn how to be a better bf. For reals. Smh

That went off on a little tangent lol, but honestly, at the end of the day, none of this is really even either of these guys’ faults - yes Victor puts Benji on a pedestal and is just beginning to see him as a real person with complexity and flaws, but to be fair Benji basically did the same thing: put Victor on a pedestal. “I broke up with him. I just want to be with someone where I can be myself and that’s enough. That’s how you make me feel, Victor.” = a really similar pattern to what we’ve seen Victor do. Relationship failing, abandon ship for the shiny, new, and better-seeming option. I’m not saying that that’s always the wrong choice. I don’t think that it is. But I am saying that both Benji and Victor are experiencing something very natural: having big crushes, letting infatuation and rose-tinted glasses go to their head, and then experiencing whiplash when their partner isn’t perfect. Honestly I think we’ve all been there to some extent.

At least in s3, now that they’ve seen some low times and their rose-tinted glasses are off, they should get a chance to create a deeper bond if they choose to do that (I feel confident that they eventually will). Benji needs to own his conflict avoidance and start advocating for his wants, needs, and feelings. Victor needs to recognize that although Benji seemed like a dream boy and is way more experienced yada yada, he’s not there to save or take care of Victor - he’s just a person, who also needs to be taken care of sometimes, and Victor needs to meet him halfway in their relationship and do that for him. They need to be able to exchange care as equals.

There I fixed their whole relationship you’re welcome afhffjhgfgjfgjg

(…….oh god I just realized how the writers are gonna have Victor figure out that sometimes he needs to take care of Benji too, and it’s totally gonna be bc Benji relapses with alcohol. Probably. Sounds like a TV-show move, doesn’t it?)

[cladeymoore]

How we scaled data streaming at Coinbase using AWS MSK

By: Dan Moore, Eric Sun, LV Lu, Xinyu Liu

Tl;dr: Coinbase is leveraging AWS’ Managed Streaming for Kafka (MSK) for ultra low latency, seamless service-to-service communication, data ETLs, and database Change Data Capture (CDC). Engineers from our Data Platform team will further present this work at AWS’ November 2021 Re:Invent conference.

Abstract

At Coinbase, we ingest billions of events daily from user, application, and crypto sources across our products. Clickstream data is collected via web and mobile clients and ingested into Kafka using a home-grown Ruby and Golang SDK. In addition, Change Data Capture (CDC) streams from a variety of databases are powered via Kafka Connect. One major consumer of these Kafka messages is our data ETL pipeline, which transmits data to our data warehouse (Snowflake) for further analysis by our Data Science and Data Analyst teams. Moreover, internal services across the company (like our Prime Brokerage and real time Inventory Drift products) rely on our Kafka cluster for running mission-critical, low-latency (sub 10 msec) applications.

With AWS-managed Kafka (MSK), our team has mitigated the day-to-day Kafka operational overhead of broker maintenance and recovery, allowing us to concentrate our engineering time on core business demands. We have found scaling up/out Kafka clusters and upgrading brokers to the latest Kafka version simple and safe with MSK. This post outlines our core architecture and the complete tooling ecosystem we’ve developed around MSK.

Configuration and Benefits of MSK

Config:

TLS authenticated cluster

30 broker nodes across multiple AZs to protect against full AZ outage

Multi-cluster support

~17TB storage/broker

99.9% monthly uptime SLA from AWS

Benefits:

Since MSK is AWS managed, one of the biggest benefits is that we’re able to avoid having internal engineers actively maintain ZooKeeper / broker nodes. This has saved us 100+ hours of engineering work as AWS handles all broker security patch updates, node recovery, and Kafka version upgrades in a seamless manner. All broker updates are done in a rolling fashion (one broker node is updated at a time), so no user read/write operations are impacted.

Moreover, MSK offers flexible networking configurations. Our cluster has tight security group ingress rules around which services can communicate directly with ZooKeeper or MSK broker node ports. Integration with Terraform allows for seamless broker addition, disk space increases, configuration updates to our cluster without any downtime.

Finally, AWS has offered excellent MSK Enterprise support, meeting with us on several occasions to answer thorny networking and cluster auth questions.

Performance:

We reduced our end-to-end (e2e) latency (time taken to produce, store, and consume an event) by ~95% when switching from Kinesis (~200 msec e2e latency) to Kafka (<10msec e2e latency). Our Kafka stack’s p50 e2e latency for payloads up to 100KB averages <10 msec (in-line with LinkedIn as a benchmark, the company originally behind Kafka). This opens doors for ultra low latency applications like our Prime Brokerage service. Full latency breakdown from stress tests on our prod cluster, by payload size, presented below:

Proprietary Kafka Security Service (KSS)

What is it?

Our Kafka Security Service (KSS) houses all topic Access Control Lists (ACLs). On deploy, it automatically syncs all topic read/write ACL changes with MSK’s ZooKeeper nodes; effectively, this is how we’re able to control read/write access to individual Kafka topics at the service level.

KSS also signs Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs) using the AWS ACM API. To do this, we leverage our internal Service-to-Service authentication (S2S) framework, which gives us a trustworthy service_id from the client; We then use that service_id and add it as the Distinguished Name in the signed certificate we return to the user.

With a signed certificate, having the Distinguished Name matching one’s service_id, MSK can easily detect via TLS auth whether a given service should be allowed to read/write from a particular topic. If the service is not allowed (according to our acl.yml file and ACLs set in ZooKeeper) to perform a given action, an error will occur on the client side and no Kafka read/write operations will occur.

Also Required

Parallel to KSS, we built a custom Kafka sidecar Docker container that: 1) Plugs simply into one’s existing docker-compose file 2) Auto-generates CSRs on bootup and calls KSS to get signed certs, and 3) Stores credentials in a Docker shared volume on user’s service, which can be used when instantiating a Kafka producer / consumer client so TLS auth can occur.

Rich Data Stream Tooling

We’ve extended our core Kafka cluster with the following powerful tools:

Kafka Connect

This is a distributed cluster of EC2 nodes (AWS autoscaling group) that performs Change Data Capture (CDC) on a variety of database systems. Currently, we’re leveraging the MongoDB, Snowflake, S3, and Postgres source/sink connectors. Many other connectors are available open-source through Confluent here

Kafdrop

We’re leveraging the open-source Kafdrop product for first-class topic/partition offset monitoring and inspecting user consumer lags: source code here

Cruise Control

This is another open-source project, which provides automatic partition rebalancing to keep our cluster load / disk space even across all broker nodes: source code here

Confluent Schema Registry

We use Confluent’s open-source Schema Registry to store versioned proto definitions (widely used along Coinbase gRPC): source code here

Internal Kafka SDK

Critical to our streaming stack is a custom Golang Kafka SDK developed internally, based on the segmentio/kafka release. The internal SDK is integrated with our Schema Registry so that proto definitions are automatically registered / updated on producer writes. Moreover, the SDK gives users the following benefits out of the box:

Consumer can automatically deserialize based on magic byte and matching SR record

Message provenance headers (such as service_id, event_time, event_type) which help conduct end-to-end audits of event stream completeness and latency metrics

These headers also accelerate message filtering and routing by avoiding the penalty of deserializing the entire payload

Streaming SDK

Beyond Kafka, we may still need to make use of other streaming solutions, including Kinesis, SNS, and SQS. We introduced a unified Streaming-SDK to address the following requirements:

Delivering a single event to multiple destinations, often described as ‘fanout’ or ‘mirroring’. For instance, sending the same message simultaneously to a Kafka topic and an SQS queue

Receiving messages from one Kafka topic, emitting new messages to another topic or even a Kinesis stream as the result of data processing

Supporting dynamic message routing, for example, messages can failover across multiple Kafka clusters or AWS regions

Offering optimized configurations for each streaming platform to minimize human mistakes, maximize throughput and performance, and alert users of misconfigurations

Upcoming

On the horizon is integration with our Delta Lake which will fuel more performant, timely data ETLs for our data analyst and data science teams. Beyond that, we have the capacity to 3x the number of broker nodes in our prod cluster (30 -> 90 nodes) as internal demand increases — that is a soft limit which can be increased via an AWS support ticket.

Takeaways

Overall, we’ve been quite pleased with AWS MSK. The automatic broker recovery during security patches, maintenance, and Kafka version upgrades along with the advanced broker / topic level monitoring metrics around disk space usage / broker CPU, have saved us hundreds of hours provisioning and maintaining broker and ZooKeeper nodes on our own. Integration with Terraform has made initial cluster configuration, deployment, and configuration updates relatively painless (use 3AZs for your cluster to make it more resilient and prevent impact from a full-AZ outage).

Performance has exceeded expectations, with sub 10msec latencies opening doors for ultra high-speed applications. Uptime of the cluster has been sound, surpassing the 99.9% SLA given by AWS. Moreover, when any security patches take place, it’s always done in a rolling broker fashion, so no read/write operations are impacted (set default topic replication factor to 3, so that min in-sync replicas is 2 even with node failure).

We’ve found building on top of MSK highly extensible having integrated Kafka Connect, Confluent Schema Registry, Kafdrop, Cruise Control, and more without issue. Ultimately, MSK has been beneficial for both our engineers maintaining the system (less overhead maintaining nodes) and unlocking our internal users and services with the power of ultra-low latency data streaming.

If you’re excited about designing and building highly-scalable data platform systems or working with cutting-edge blockchain data sets (data science, data analytics, ML), come join us on our mission building the world’s open financial system: careers page.

How we scaled data streaming at Coinbase using AWS MSK was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

from Money 101 https://blog.coinbase.com/how-we-scaled-data-streaming-at-coinbase-using-aws-msk-4595f171266c?source=rss----c114225aeaf7---4 via http://www.rssmix.com/

[wings-of-a-storm]

I have a question. My favorite character is obviously Benji, but this season I started to get an ultimate rancidity of him.In the end I understood why he was acting like this, he has a PTSD because of dating Derek, his parents shitting him and alcohol and the accident. It's about the accident I wanted to know about, I didn't quite understand what this accident was and why he started drinking. I get upset that Benji's story is the least explored in the series, in my opinion, it should be explored more

Sorry for late reply to this, Anon! I know a few others already replied to this but I figure I’d still add my take into the mix for you. :)

I think many of us share your frustrations about Benji’s story being drip fed to us instead of being looked at more deeply. It’s a very interesting history so I really hope that in season three we might actually get a more decent look at it…

BENJI’S HISTORY / WHY HE STARTED DRINKING:

Throughout both seasons we learn that Benji has struggled with mental health.

In the most simplest of summaries: Benji struggled with internalised homophobia -- he hated himself for being homosexual and fought against it. He even experimented sexually with girls (which he briefly mentioned in S1), but in the end, he couldn’t deny that he was gay. But acknowledging he was gay and being able to accept it are two different things. He hated being gay.

In order to cope with that self-hatred and fear, he turned to alcohol to dull his reality and in turn everything he felt. He’s still learning to like himself even now in season two.

In Benji’s own words: “Before I came out, I was kind of a mess. I knew I was gay but I didn't want to be. So I drank. A lot. (1x07)” And: “Coming out was really hard for me, Victor. And it is still hard for me to be who I am. (1x05)”

BENJI’S CAR ACCIDENT:

Benji said that when he was younger, he drank 'a lot'. From that statement alone we can infer that he knew he was drinking more than his peers were. Most likely that went beyond social drinking -- he was probably also drinking by himself at any opportunity.

There is an age limit for drinking for good reason: our brains don’t fully develop until we are in our twenties, and as such, when we are younger we are more likely to make riskier choices. Adding alcohol into the mix is just asking for trouble -- as Benji found out when, one night, severely inebriated, he lost control of his vehicle (or misjudged his surroundings) and drove through/into a building. “One night I got super wasted and decided that I wanted Wendys real bad. So I took my Dad's car to the drive thru and that's exactly what I did -- drove through the Wendys. (1x07)”

That is some serious stuff right there! On so many levels!

Firstly the physical toll: he ‘totalled’ his dad’s car. To have a car written off as too smashed to be driven, that car had a huge impact! And not surprising since Benji said he drove through the building. Whether that was through glass or a into a sturdy wall, to crunch up the metal of his car, that is a massive hit. We don’t know the extent of his injuries (he just said he was ‘banged up’) but we do know that he was at the very least knocked unconscious and/or had a head injury from it (“Waking up in the hospital with my parents standing over me…” 1x07).

Secondly, the emotional toll: when Benji gained consciousness and woke up in hospital, he said he “realised that I could have died." (1x07) That is a very frightening thing to confront -- your mortality. It spooked him enough that it was the catalyst for his Coming Out. He didn’t want to die without “ever really being who I was” (1x07); to have only lived his life as a lie and not known his true self…

Most of us, I’d wager, haven’t had to confront our mortality at such a young age -- like truly confront it after going through a life-threatening experience. In that sense, he is on a different level to his peers and Victor -- a big part of his innocence has been broken and re-formed.

There is more to the emotional toll though -- not explicitly mentioned in canon but pretty much common sense:

The pain of recovery in hospital and at home (whatever “banged up” means, he was injured in some way)

The guilt of knowing his actions could have caused innocent people to have been hurt or killed. No one was hurt, he said, but just knowing they could have been is a really heavy thing to have on your conscience.

The stress of dealing with insurance (for the Wendys, for the car). He would have had to burden his parents with sorting that all out.

Police would have been involved to investigate the incident and lay charges. That’s pretty darn scary.

Losing his licence and thus part of his independence

Seeing the physical damage of the Wendys if he ever went past it again -- knowing he had done it, knowing he had been in the car that made that damage and reliving the knowledge he could have killed himself…

He was so ashamed by it all, he didn’t want anyone at school knowing about the accident or about his drinking that caused it. In 1x07 the school still didn’t know so he really guarded that secret hard.

There’s just so much heaviness linked to that accident. And Benji has only had one year to process all of that. On some level, that stuff has got to linger.

THE INITIAL AFTERMATH:

We learn that after the car accident, Benji was in an ever worse state of mind than when he was drinking his life away before it. His mother reveals: “After your car accident last year you were so hard on yourself and things were pretty dark for a while there. And you decided to put in the hard work [to go to AA and get better]. (2x07)”

Referring to Benji's post-accident self as being in 'a pretty dark place' is a pretty big alarm bell. His mental health sounds like it was pretty much destroyed. It is so hard to rebuild yourself after falling into such a dark well, but over the year he must have pulled himself back from the brink. That is so, so heavy!

It’s hard to gauge whether Benji chose to go to AA himself (which seems to be implied), or whether it was a condition of his charge through the police, but he went there none-the-less to change his life and learn healthier coping mechanisms to handle stress/his inner conflicts.

Something else worth noting is that, timeline-wise (as messy as that always is in LV), Benji was dating Derek through all of this. His one year anniversary with Derek was in S1 but his one year sobriety was only in S2. Who knows how that would have complicated things. He wasn’t Out to his parents or anyone but he was dating a (adult) man. So he was simultaneously hating that he was gay and drinking his mind blank but still dating a man. That is a super stressful and conflicting dichotomy that he was dealing with in amongst all this… (“It is still hard for me to be who I am.” 1x05)

THE MOST IMPORTANT INSIGHT FROM BENJI’S DRINKING AND AA:

It is so important to take time and realise what being in AA means about Benji: as a young teen, Benji self-medicated his way through his worsening mental health by drinking to handle stress and internalised homophobia. He didn’t have any proper methods of handling stressful situations. He is now having to unlearn those behaviours and learn new strategies through AA and his sponsor. But he has only been doing that for one year! That is a blip of time in the hourglass.

Now let’s look at the events of S2: Benji has been inundated with stress while still learning how to cope with it without drinking. And he’s had to learn and practise these new coping strategies while:

Being in high school

Holding down an assistant manager job

Watching his significant other being emotionally wrung out by his mother’s treatment of him; dealing with his own rejection and banishment from Isabel

Reliving both his own coming out stress and homophobic aggressions at school directed this time at his significant other

Trying to deal with the shame of being in AA and keeping that a secret from all of his peers at school

Like far out, that is a ton of stress! Anyone would crack under all of that, let alone a young and recovering alcoholic!

So yes, when faced with stressful situations, Benji is not always going to react in the right way or say the right things. He’s still learning how to do that with his sponsor and AA meetings. He might come off as ‘rancid’ in S2, but really he is just a kid who is struggling and trying to do his best.

[wings-of-a-storm]

One of the things I hate most about the way the love triangle was handled, other than the fact that it literally came out of nowhere, is the fact the writers decided to throw all these (real) relationship problems at Venji to give Victor the excuse to get close to someone else. Plus the fact that Rahim said he didn't mean to get between them, but he had no problem sweeping in and telling Victor how he felt and kissing him after witnessing Venji arguing. He saw his opportunity and he took it.

Anon, I love your passion.

To start with, yeh, I think it was a disservice to Victor and Benji to skip over a lot of their honeymoon period just because it was too smooth-sailing and not dramatic enough for television. To start the season focusing a lot on the outside forces making them sad and putting strain on their relationship pretty much biases people against Venji before they’ve had a fair chance to show their strengths. The average viewer isn’t going to spend time imagining the good stuff but will only focus on the emotions right in front of them -- the tough stuff. It gives an unbalanced perception that their relationship is just full of tension from the get-go. Throw us a bone, writers!

The Love Triangle:

Okay, to be fair to Vahim, I don’t think the love triangle completely came out of nowhere. The direction/camera-work did show us a lot of small breadcrumbs leading up to their day out, like prolonged stares and white privilege connection and Victor openly oogling Rahim’s naked torso. But that being said, an attraction to another human and a new friendship that covers a few areas that weren’t previously being covered does not automatically lead to a love triangle dilemma. It just means Victor has eyes and room for all sorts of friendships, you know? So in that sense, it did feel (for me) like the love triangle was kind of an over-the-top reaction for Victor once it eventually appeared…

I really feel you with the frustration of the writers throwing ‘challenges’ at Victor and Benji, not so they can work on them like all new couples, but to justify space for a third party to wiggle through for dramatic purposes…

Like, a few times the situations felt less like an organic occurrence and more like a plot device -- namely whenever Victor had to explain anything to Benji without actually explaining anything. The ‘lesbian aunt with a thing for dachshunds’ was meant to mean something obvious to Benji, same with Adrian referring to Benji as Victor’s ‘french toast’ as a sign of acceptance. Would Victor really be that continually obtuse as to explain things only via in-joke phrases that Benji obviously was never present for to de-code?? I kept having to suspend my disbelief for that level of ineptitude and vacancy…

I also had to suspend my disbelief for the climax of Victor’s dilemma in the final episode. Like, it is canon that Victor made a hell of a lot of deep and varied memories with Benji throughout season one, over the summer we never got to see much of between seasons, and then throughout season two (eg. the secret hand signal of epic sappiness that contained Benji’s patience and sacrifice and touched Victor enough to come out at school; the peaceful and meaningful I Love You exchanges in the early morning light, etc).

These were Moments and they happened over months. And yet we were meant to organically believe that the very recent memories with Rahim, as charismatic as he is, would be on equal footing with a developed relationship? Even just with memory recall, wouldn’t that be like short-term memory versus the deeper retention of long-term? So I could understand Victor’s confusion while he was still in shock/processing the kiss, but it felt a bit forced to have that lead to an actual Dilemma of who to choose that very night…

Rahim S2 VS Victor S1:

Ah yes, Rahim making his move was an interesting one… With only season two in mind, I confess I can’t really blame Rahim for making his move. He was longing to experience a relationship, he really connected with Victor, he saw Benji was probably prepping for a breakup and the time was near, and he is a romantic who saw his chance to confess his feelings instead of always regretting staying silent. And since he is a romantic, notions like ‘fate’ and ‘timing’ would inspire him to want to go for it in case it was fate that Benji and Victor were having problems because Rahim is The One meant for Victor. Like I totally get that mindset, especially in high school where anything feels possible.

But with season one in mind, where we had a parallel of this kind of moment with Victor in Rahim’s shoes, you obviously can’t help but compare Victor’s choices compared to Rahim’s. And yeh, I agree that Victor’s come off in a far better light -- Victor didn’t want to cause problems between Benji and Derek when he was forced to see the reality of the mess with Derek and Benji fighting in public. He didn’t want to put Benji through a ton of stress. He wanted Benji to be happy. So he stood in front of Derek, rather like an unarmed man facing a sword pointed at his throat, and defended Benji and tried to compliment Derek’s and Benji’s supposedly amazing relationship to patch things up. He then surrendered and left them alone to their relationship.

Rahim…didn’t do that. He didn’t try to chase after Benji to reassure him about the slow-dance despite knowing how sad Victor had been without Benji. In fact, he made it harder for Victor by escalating the unnamed thing between them right into cheating territory. And that sequence did rub me the wrong way because from my own experience, when you really like someone, like truly like them, you want them to be happy, even if that isn’t with you. You don’t want to get between them and the partner they are in love with and take that away from them. You feel all of that because the person you adore deserves the world, you know? And yeh, Victor did that for Benji but Rahim didn’t do that for Victor… (And Rahim saw Venji’s good moments together at school and envied them for it and photographed it, so he knew how happy they were together when they weren’t fighting so…no excuse, bro...)

I think you summed everything up nicely, Anon, with a simple but efficient: I hate it! XD

[wings-of-a-storm]

Alrighty lovely peeps, here is the final part of my thoughts on Victor’s infamous ‘love-triangle’ journey in episodes 9-10 (and why the undercurrent is full of Benji).

MOURNING A LIFE WITH A LOVER ALMOST LOST: HURT AND ANGER

Our first understanding of how Victor is holding up in episode ten is through the visual of the wedding invitation he is holding. It’s a very strong visual with so many connotations -- weddings are romantic, full of love and celebration, and most importantly a lifelong commitment to a loved one. That is Victor’s dream too and one he was working hard on (not necessarily a marriage but certainly a life-long commitment). But the person he wants to work on that commitment with isn’t talking to him and quite likely easing them into a separation.

What is even more of a mockery is the envelope -- Victor and Benji’s names are printed together in gorgeous cursive, like they are a team, a unit, a done deal. It’s almost like how their own wedding invitation might look, if they ever wanted to have one. But it is a dream that only exists on a piece of paper right now.

It is clear in this scene that Victor is feeling a mix of three things: sad, hurt, and anger. The anger is quite clear when he puts the invitation aside with the shake of his head. He’s angry that Benji ditched the wedding commitment last minute, yes, but no doubt a lot of that anger is born from how hurt he is that Benji is seemingly giving up on them. A glance at his unanswered message to Simon where he says something similar confirms it.

This anger is channeled into a practical matter -- the etiquette faux pas of being a last-minute wedding guest now messing up catering. Victor needs to find a substitute plus one (which to be honest feels like a plot device but shh). Enter Rahim, sans Pilal. Once again, Rahim is a welcome friend that Victor knows he will have fun with, be comfortable around, and more importantly experience a nice distraction with again.

Fast-forward to the next key scene, for me: Victor’s fascinating response to hearing Harold’s and Veronica’s wedding vows. Which brings me to:

VICTOR’S DESPERATION FOR SOMEONE TO LOVE HIM ENOUGH TO FIGHT / BUILDING A SAFETY NET P2

Guess what themes happen to be in the wedding vows Victor hears? A) Fighting for a relationship you love. B) Not giving up on someone in the tough moments.

“I know there will be tough days but it's on those days that I vow to love you the hardest” / “I vow to always remember that we are worth fighting for. Forever. No matter what.”

Gee, what an extraordinary coincidence!

And what does Victor do in response to hearing a loving couple voice his own feelings and goals? He looks at Rahim. Or rather, to Rahim. He knows Rahim is a romantic (like himself and Benji are), so he knows Rahim would share those goals too. And Rahim certainly is transfixed by the vows, very much feeling their sentiments too.

Rahim just ticked a box Victor is currently desperate for: someone who looks like they value fighting to beat the odds for the person they love, unlike what Benji is seemingly doing. Victor can project that onto Rahim. In reality, there is no way of knowing what Rahim would actually do in a relationship, but he feels safe right now.

It rather feels like VIctor was trying to distance himself from Benji in that moment and find a sanctuary with someone else who would give him the love and commitment he really needs right now. Like a protective, defense mechanism. He is so terrified that Benji has reached his limit of fight; that this time their argument and Victor’s breach of trust pushed Benji too far and Victor will end up severed from him and alone. With each hour Victor is closer to processing the end of that relationship and is now trying to put up a shield to block the impending tsunami of pain that he really doesn’t want to be hit by.

BENJI MAKES HIS OWN VOW

Victor doesn’t know it yet but we, the audience, get a hint of good news: the romantic vow exchange cuts to Benji staring at a picture of Victor on instagram, clearly missing him. From that piece of storytelling timing, we know what that probably means… (Flashback please to Benji’s declaration of “I don’t think I could give up on you. Even if I wanted to.”)

Benji is fighting. Or trying to.

What seals the deal is the beautiful conversation Isabel has with him -- her promise that Victor adores him and that Victor did actually stand up for Benji to the point of impressing her with his moxy. For a lot of the season, that is so much of what Benji needed -- to know he was worth standing up for, fighting for. Gee, what a familiar theme…

The next time we see Benji, he has come to the wedding reception, after his shift, as Victor’s belated plus one. His appearance symbolizes a promise, a vow of his own that is yet to be said out loud: that he is committed to fighting for their relationship to work.

I found that a really nice piece of storytelling -- that Benji is linked to the wedding vows at Brasstown and then fulfils them (or at least will try to make the sentiment a reality as best he can).

VICTOR’S CROSSROAD

Unfortunately for Benji, Victor does feel a connection with Rahim. New friendship is exciting and thrilling on its own let alone having the opportunity to suddenly slow dance with that person. Lines can get blurred. Plus the atmosphere is completely romantic and Victor has never had the opportunity to experience this particular romantic act before.

Victor and Rahim spend quite some time staring deep into each other’s eyes without even saying a word to interrupt the Moment. Because it is a legitimate moment of intimacy between the two. Which is exactly why Victor doesn’t stop immediately and run straight to Benji as soon as he notices Benji has come to see him. His head is still half in the Moment and it is tricky to extricate himself from Rahim.

That Moment is also why Victor doesn’t keep chasing Benji through the yard after Benji sasses him with his ‘Sure, Jan’ energy after Victor insists Rahim is just a friend.

Consciously Victor thinks he is telling the truth, but his “That was crazy, I’m not allowed to have a friend?” defense had the same energy as S1 Benji’s “I know I didn’t do anything wrong when you kissed me!” before scuttling his ass out of Brasstown with all of his belongings. Hello guilt.

The question is how much is Rahim a friend-cum-something-more. Which is the crossroad Victor finds himself at when Rahim confesses his feelings and kisses him.

We have Rahim who confessed so sweetly and endearingly, who at this moment is comfort and warmth and safety because Rahim isn't going to break up with Victor any time soon. And whom Victor does feel a connection with.

And we have Victor’s relationship with Benji which feels like a dying ember, especially now that Benji is even more furious at Victor and it will be a very hard battle to win him back around again. It won't be a romantic running into each other's arms moment if they were to reunite…

So Victor has a dilemma to figure out now in Mia’s room: does he fight a very hard uphill battle with Benji to win him over (a fight filled with inevitable painful emotions being unleashed), or does he just let it go since that appears to be the trajectory for them... Or does he try exploring things with Rahim where there is a 100% success rate guaranteed in the short-term if he accepts Rahim’s declaration…

If the big theme of this episode is vowing to love someone on their tough days and committing yourself to a relationship worth fighting for (something Victor had been obsessing over even before he heard the wedding vows), it would feel like a strange conclusion for Victor to choose Rahim over the partner who proved he was mutually willing to fight for their relationship against the odds, especially when they have already been tested through tough times and found their way through. (And of course Felix’s visualisation exercise would have reminded Victor of all the qualities he loves about Benji...)

THE WINK OF VICTOR’S PARENTS’ PARALLEL

And finally we have the culmination of an underlying parallel: Victor's parents’ relationship, which also slips into the theme of those wedding vows.

Isabel and Armando, the high school sweethearts who were stuck in a cycle of fighting, fore-sake choosing a new partner with less baggage and instead make the choice to get back together. This doesn’t influence Victor’s decision because he doesn't know about his parents’ progress yet but we, the audience, do know. We can see the underlying parallel there. They are making it work, so so too can Victor and Benji if they keep putting the work in to understand each other better and learn how to communicate.

But that’s just my take on ep 10.

[wings-of-a-storm]

Thoughts on Benji in ep 6? I personally don't think Benij had anything to apologize for. I mean, sure, Vic was happy that his mom seemed to be making progress, but until the last episode, Benji never actually got to see any of that. All he did was hear about it from Vic, and what makes it worse is that it was directed at another gay guy, not Vic's boyfriend. I feel like throughout S2 Benji kept apologizing for things he shouldn't have just because Victor was hurt by it.

Oops, I covered some of this already in my previous ask! I do think Benji needed to apologise for so quickly pouring cold water on something that had given Victor joy and hope. While true that it’s dangerous to get your hopes up too much, it was something that was helping Victor cope in a time of anguish, so it was a little harsh to pull that away from him. But I also think Victor needed to apologise in return for dismissing Benji’s hurt and concern for Victor, which he had been experiencing for months at that point.

Throughout S2, I pretty much found myself watching a tennis match of valid arguments and counter-arguments. That’s what made them so hard to watch - both boys made good points even if sometimes their wording was a little out of line. Neither one in their arguments felt petty at the core and it revealed a lot of underlying issues that legitimately need to be worked on… (The AA argument in particular is a can of worms, which deserves its own post, to be honest.)

You mention 2x06 specially though so I must say: doesn’t it hurt the soul knowing that a lot of Benji’s underlying insecurities throughout the season would have been eased if Victor had thought to reassure him that he had actually been fighting for Benji’s rights directly to his mother behind the scenes?

Like the final argument in 2x06 could have been avoided if Victor wasn’t so rubbish at explaining stuff! *melodramatic scream*

Because the thing is Victor legitimately had made some great progress with his mother when he blasted her with his unadorned thoughts and frustrations outside the church! He even stood up for Benji and guilt-tripped her re: Benji not feeling welcome in Victor’s own home. But did he explain any of that to Benji? NO!!! His literal ONLY reassurance to Benji that he had made significant inroads with Isabel was: “She told me about her lesbian aunt who had a thing for dachshunds!”

Benji be all:

What is that supposed to mean, Victor? How is that helpful to Benji? How is that supposed to make sense? Why didn’t you even tell a full anecdote to at least give the boy some sort of context for your excitement?

And the biggest head-scratcher of all: why didn’t Victor even mention the incredibly important fact that he had taken a stand for Benji in specific? Is that not something Benji would have found incredibly uplifting to know? Why were dachshunds the superior take?

Victor, why are you like this, buddy? XD

[wings-of-a-storm]

When Victor says to Rahim that Benji "wasn't too thrilled that I told you about AA", I get so frustrated with him, because of course Benji wasn't happy about it. Victor told a virtual stranger, at least to Benji, about a part of Benji's life he's made clear he hates, is embarrassed by, & doesn't like talking about, & what's worse is Victor acknowledges more than once that he shouldn't have done it, but he still did it. If it wasn't for that, I don't think Benji would've suggested a break.

I've been thinking about this particular situation a lot, to be honest. I was nervous to put my feelings down on paper until now though because I wanted to try and be as fair as I could to human error. But…it’s kind of inescapable that Victor was in the wrong, so being ‘fair’ will have its limitations…

Okay, here are my serious feelings about all of this, so like, brace yourself.

LOOKING AT VICTOR’S POV -- THE GOOD AND THE BAD

The thing that sucks about this whole situation is that Victor telling Rahim about Benji’s drinking problem/mental health came from a good place. He was really worried about Benji -- the type of worry that takes over your every thought and you can’t shake it off no matter what you do. Victor has a huge heart. He was struggling with that worry and in a weak moment, in a room that gave the illusion of privacy, like a dark and secluded tunnel deep underground, he needed to express those feelings.

Another factor was that Victor's emotions were out of control because they had just been compounded by the shock of hearing Mia was leaving. That’s now two big shocks to process in a limited time. And as far as the Mia news goes, Victor would have wanted his boyfriend there to process it with him and comfort him. Like Victor has said in the past, he and Benji tell each other everything. And like Benji has recently said, Victor needs to talk things through a lot with Benji to unpack and process. Victor needed his boyfriend on his own emotional level but he didn’t know where he was and if he was doing okay and it was a lot to feel.

So on a human level, I do understand why Victor let slip a very personal secret at a time of overwhelming distress. I really want to make that clear.

HOWEVER, I also am very disappointed that Victor did that because there are ways to unload emotion without setting loose confidential information. Benji missing from school and un-contactable after a big fight is an incredibly valid cause for concern in its own right. For further context, Victor could have added some vagueness like ‘I’m really worried because Benji’s struggled a lot with stress in the past and I don’t know if he’s doing okay’. Something like that allows the catharsis of expressing the depth of your worry without compromising your partner’s privacy.

I’d like to think your partner deserves more consideration than just blurting out his dirty laundry, especially when it is something that clearly stresses the hell out of him if he couldn’t even disclose it with his own boyfriend and that he has specifically verbalised is something he is very embarrassed about. It was a clear line drawn that Victor stepped over.

And to me, it kind of reflects that Victor doesn’t respect Benji’s feelings as much as he thinks he does because if Victor had really taken Benji’s feelings into consideration, it wouldn’t have happened. There would be enough of a voice in his head saying ‘be careful what you say, you don’t want to betray your boyfriend’s deep embarrassment to anyone’ because you’d understand where your boyfriend was coming from and want to protect him from further pain.

WHAT FRUSTRATES ME MORE THAN ANYTHING:

So at first I was glad Victor acknowledged to Rahim that he shouldn’t have told him about Benji’s alcoholism. It felt a bit like vindication for Benji, like Victor did now understand the hard way not to dismiss Benji’s feelings and need for privacy.

Well, that was until the next sentence that came out of his mouth! “But it’s not just that [behind out break], we’ve been fighting about everything lately.” That reallllllly went beyond frustrating for me because it pretty much contradicted what Victor just said. I was like: Okay, so you don’t actually understand the gravity of the error you made! Because like you, anon, it was pretty obvious to me that the breach in trust was exactly why Benji had enforced a break.

Yes, they had been fighting a lot, and yes Benji expressed he was concerned by that, but he was also holding close the good memories like the soft-serve day and was feeling things while looking at the sweet candid photo that had been taken of them at school. It was only the reveal of the breach of trust that had Benji up on his feet and truly distressed.

And the thing is Victor had already absolved Rahim of any guilt for being the proxy recipient of Benji’s secret, so what Victor said about the breach of trust not being the main reason for the break was something he really did feel. In Victor’s head, their past fights must have deserved equal condemnation (the cultural differences tension, undermining the coming out to Adrian, etc), which lessens Victor’s role/responsibility for Benji needing a break. And yes, those fights were factors in the current state of their relationship but the deal-breaker was the breach in trust, not Benji’s patience eroded over time after the cruel treatment and constant invalidation from Victor’s mother.

Were the writers trying to balance things out with the undermining of Adrian’s Finding Out versus Victor’s alcoholism slip? Since neither were deliberate/malicious slip-ups and both occurred after losing control of emotions? Because the thing for me is that those two situations are not proportionate in impact -- Adrian finding out that Victor and Benji were dating affects Victor indirectly (Victor wanted Adrian to know anyway, which Benji knew; the slip just affects his mother’s plan and rate of processing things), while the alcoholism slip to Rahim affects Benji directly:

A) It’s a real threat to Benji if his alcoholism becomes public knowledge in the rumour-saturated environment (ie. Creek Secrets) of their high school. Your image/identity is so fragile at school and crucial to your self-esteem and mental health. Benji has worked incredibly hard to make sure even his accident was kept secret. His personal mental health would take a massive hit if any of those secrets got out. It would be ruinous. It could even be life-threatening.

B) It was a significant breach of trust from his significant other. His struggle with alcohol was something so personal and held so tightly to his chest that he couldn’t even handle his boyfriend knowing about it. And it only took like a day for his boyfriend to pass that information on to a peer at school. How can you be in a relationship with someone who couldn’t even respect your feelings enough to hold onto your secret for more than a day? How could you tell them anything after that?

So yeh, if the writers were wanting things to look balanced so the ‘break’ appeared more mutual and complicated to lessen Victor’s culpability with the upcoming wedding kiss, I didn’t really vibe to it…

Well, it looks like my frustration matches yours, anon! We feel what we feel, I guess. :)

[wings-of-a-storm]

Same anon with another general thought here, but I don't think enough people are talking about how crushed Benji must be to know that not only is he not allowed in Victor's home because of Isabelle, but that also Isabelle was right off the bat so accepting of and friendly towards Rahim. Not even Victor seemed to give it much thought, and I get that he was happy that his mom was "doing better", but he really should have considered Benji's feelings on the matter more and noticed how hurt he was.

Hello again! Another wonderful general thought to ponder. A very complicated one though, as it turns out, as this particular situation is full of nuance and mental health minefields…

When you’re that overwhelmed by external stress (and it intermingles with your mental health), you can’t think or behave on a level you would normally have the energy and clear-thinking to be able to do. And Victor’s situation with his mother is impacting on both boys. Both are distracted by their own stress and trying to stay above water in their own ways, which makes some of their reactions very self-focused.

Victor’s stress is pretty evident because we have his point of view and are living in that pain with him.

Benji’s is more subtle but the clues are there to piece together.

For me, it is pretty clear that Benji has had to compromise a lot of himself in their relationship so far due to the more dire nature of the stressful situation Victor is currently going through. Normally, that level of compromise could possibly be maintained in the short-term for someone who is at a healthy-enough headspace in their own life, but I don’t think Benji is there yet. Not just because he is a recovering addict, but because of the root cause of that addiction -- his own journey of coming to peace with his identity.

Events happened in Benji’s life -- like his violent car crash -- that reshaped him into someone who survives internalised hatred about himself through mule-headed determination and idealism. Like, Benji is very idealistic about living an authentic life and expecting others to be better in society. And most of the time it is well-meaning, if not misguided, idealism, such as telling Victor he shouldn’t compromise with the basketball change room because he should only ever hang around people who accept him for who he is.

And so much of that attitude has probably come from the trauma of that car crash -- it would have affected his tolerance level in life. He realised he almost died before ever getting to freely be who he is and the horror of that realisation completely shifted his priorities in life. He isn’t going to let anyone or anything get in the way of him living as his authentic self.

Derek’s influence would have only re-enforced that perspective, as Derek is also someone who is very much in the mindset of ‘I’m going to be exactly who I am and screw heteronormative bs.’

For over a year, Benji was able to live his own freedom and solidify his identity. It was really important to him to be able to do so. But then along came Victor who isn’t at that stage yet and that created a big imbalance in their relationship, through no one’s fault.

When Benji and Victor first got together, we saw Benji intuitive enough to display that concern -- that it might be tough to date Victor since he is so new to accepting his sexuality and hadn’t even said the words out loud yet, whereas Benji would have to relive being stuck in the closet. But even worse this time, because he had already had his car accident epiphany and would feel extra suffocation. But Benji decided Victor was worth all of that and he’d be there with him every step of the way through his coming out process.

For several months, Benji had to compromise who he was, relive a shame that literally took a drunken car accident to break through (more or less), and watch the person he really cares for feel rejected by his mama over and over again. Living that sort of cycle, even within a perfect summer bubble, takes its toll over time. It slowly erodes your patience and strength, exacerbates old wounds, makes you feel helpless… And for someone with such incredibly strong ideals as Benji, it is even tougher to sit on the sidelines and be unable to change anything. Benji has no control over that situation at all, when normally a sense of control helps manage anxiety (especially for a recovering alcoholic).

But Benji is dedicated to Victor and willing to (temporarily) compromise a lot of the steps he made to get to where he is today so that he can be Victor’s support. Where S2 starts, we see Benji still trying to stay strong in himself and be as patient and supportive as he can be for Victor. Cracks are there though because he has his own baggage that he’s constantly having to push aside.

Victor absolutely deserves that support and his situation takes precedence, but it would be a little unfair of us not to acknowledge the toll it does take on a partner. Both parties’ mental health matters.

And then, through all that compromise and unspoken toll on Benji’s end, Benji gets to hear how another gay teen is treated almost flawlessly by his boyfriend’s mother. It really is a lot of salt in the wound -- this other teen got to just show up at the Salazar house and be treated courteously, whereas Benji put so much effort into giving Isabel space and time and tried so darn hard to bond with her, only to be rejected at every attempt.

It would start to feel like the problem is with him; that’s he’s not good enough as a person (and feeling good enough as a person is clearly an insecurity Benji is still fighting through because we saw how much it meant to Benji in 1x05 when Victor told him he thought that who he was as a person was pretty darn good).

Rationally Benji might be able to acknowledge that it will always be easier for a mother to accept a gay friend than a gay boyfriend, but with the baggage of internalised hatred Benji already had growing up, rationality is so easily subsumed by negative thought patterns. So his control slipped and he couldn’t hide his hurt and bitterness when Victor told him about Rahim’s success. I really can’t blame Benji for having that initial reaction…

On Victor’s end, he is going through a lot himself. So so much. And when you’re in that amount of stress, it can be hard to look up out of that maelstrom and notice someone else’s stress. There’s just so little reserve left of your own to offer someone else when you’re depleted and trying to keep your own head above water. So for Victor, surviving that stress and pain meant focusing solely on his own situation. That, I also absolutely get.

It’s just really unfortunate that they’re both so exhausted that neither could spare extra energy to give the kind of support each other needed in that phone call. Victor needed to hear acknowledgement of how well his mother was doing, which Benji didn’t give at all. And Benji needed acknowledgement from Victor that it hurts that Rahim gets a free pass while Benji has to walk through fire for the same thing (except so far it has just been a lot of fire and no headway).

And to make things even worse, when Benji pushed through that hurt to apologise for his negative reaction, Victor had no intention of returning the sentiment for his own lack of support. He somehow didn’t see why Benji would be upset even after Benji pointed out the double standards with Rahim’s treatment. So we have uneven needs being met… Which is why Benji stumbled again so soon in the same encounter and couldn’t contain his bitterness once more. If Victor had recognised he also needed to apologise, Benji would have felt more seen and acknowledged and regained some positive energy to give back to Victor. But alas….bad cycles.

So yeah wow, I guess in summary to your ask, both boys played a part in each other’s hurt, both boys could have handled themselves better, and yes, I think in an ideal world Victor should have been able to take a moment to look up and really see where Benji’s own mental health is at. Because it was obvious that Benji was struggling with something -- if Victor was able to take a break from his own pain and have the reprieve of a clearer head, he would see the correlation between an increase of passive aggression from Benji and him suffering from something he isn’t voicing out loud to Victor. But both boys’ mental health isn’t that great at the moment and they are only human so monumental stuff ups are going to happen on both sides… :(

[wings-of-a-storm]

You said in your last ask about Victor telling Benji he loves him:

“It came after watching his boyfriend sleeping, the morning after Benji had been so understanding and reassuring about Victor's fears of inexperience. Victor seemed so grateful for that and touched by it.”

Do you think it changes anything in episode 7 when Benji uses Victor’s inexperience to criticize him and say it’s shit he has to put up with from Victor? Could that have affected Victor’s overall feelings for Benji? Because as you said, Victor has a lot of fear and insecurity surrounding being new to the gay thing. I feel like that, combined with the issues with Isabel, could definitely have an impact. When his boyfriend acted one way then made it clear he actually felt the exact opposite, idk how I would feel in that situation. But I think it definitely could have left some lasting damage and fester in the back of his mind.

A very interesting question, Anon!

It was a pretty heavy fight, so some part of it (hurt feelings etc) would have to linger, realistically? I’m not sure to what degree that would linger in the long-term though.

That big fight was a compact whirlwind of shock and messy emotions that only lasted for a few hours, overall. Like a very bad dream. And then the emotions started to shift back into a softer place in the near aftermath, reaching a kinder equilibrium of sorts when Victor talks to Felix -- a third party -- and hears a different perspective on might have caused such a brutal lashing out from Benji.

Victor goes as far as asking to see Benji straight after Felix calms him, and sort of panic-apologises to Benji because he starts to understand that other perspective. And luckily, Victor’s stress is visibly further reduced when Benji explains he didn’t actually mean what he said and it was just his way of lashing out in a freak-out to hide his own embarrassment of AA.

That type of fight is so common -- we’ve all done that to someone, even Victor in the next ep -- and so I think it would be understandable and believable for Victor that Benji is being sincere that he didn’t actually mean the things he said about Victor and it was just the heat of the moment. Or at the very most, they’re half-truths with specific context behind them. So after Victor hears Benji’s explanation for his outburst, I’d like to think that any damage Benji did to Victor’s insecurities would have at least been reduced under that bigger picture.

I know what you mean though about looking at a partner differently when you see a nastier side to them -- that they could recognise your insecurities and use it as a weapon against you in a fight to push the heat off themselves isn’t a great quality, no.

At the same time though, that sort of irrational, explosive fight doesn’t mean a person’s 100% authentic true feelings are revealed -- “I’ve put up with a ton of your sh**” has a similar energy to Victor’s “Your meaningless opinions”, which were both phrases used to bite but are not absolute truths. In a calmer, more rational state of mind they may be half-truths but with enough grey to be understandable and not deal-breakers once unpacked.

If anything, these half-truths reveal that both boys aren’t completely honest with each other in order to avoid conflict -- Benji wasn’t upfront about how Victor’s situation had been accumulating a lot of stress over time for him, and Victor wasn’t upfront about the cultural sensitivities that made him need to go slow with his mother at all costs. For example, Rahim’s conversation with Victor about Benji being too ‘white’ to understand a POC’s homelife context was a wonderful insight for non-POCs to start to learn the differences but at no point did Victor actually try to explain that to Benji. Benji isn’t a mind-reader and he isn’t even allowed into Isabel’s inner sanctum to observe how the homelife context works, so how is he supposed to understand why Victor is handling his coming out so differently, you know?

Going forward, both boys really need to try working on communicating their feelings with each other better -- whether as friends or more. (But I think that is something pretty much every viewer howls at their screens when watching any TV show ever, haha.)

But back to your original question: I think it is hard to know just how much Benji’s cutting remarks would have affected Victor in the long-term. That fight did reveal that Benji isn’t always completely upfront with how he is really feeling, and that could create some doubts/wariness/trust issues, yeh. It’s not all necessarily bad though -- it also revealed that even if Benji hides some of his inner-most feelings from Victor, he did so in order to be supportive of Victor and try to reduce Victor’s stress load. Those omissions occurred as a good intention because Benji was willing to forego his own stress in order to protect Victor (however misguided that may have become, especially when passive-aggression leaked out). It’s not a healthy way to handle things for sure, but it does show good qualities amongst the bad. I’d like to think Victor recognised that in his talk with Felix.

So I guess that fight has the potential to have left a bit of damage in Victor’s heart, but not necessarily to a huge degree? It’s rather hard to know without being completely in Vicor’s head/heart…

[wings-of-a-storm]

I hate to admit this, but I really can't shake the feeling that Benji loves Victor more than Victor loves Benji at this point. Like, if you're in a relationship with someone whom you really love, regardless of if you're currently going through a rough patch, you don't even look at anyone else, let alone let them kiss you or kiss them back. Maybe I have too much of a fairy tale opinion on love & relationships, but if Victor does choose Rahim, did he ever really love Benji to begin with?

This is a tough one to answer because it is very subjective and we're not fully in each character's head.

I think the good new is that both have shown love for each other in different scenarios. For example, to give Victor his due, he was the one who braved saying those very vulnerable words out loud first. It's not an easy thing to do at any age. It's a beautiful feat of honesty and there's real personal risk that comes with it when you open yourself up to rejection or hurt. It also adds a new layer to a relationship, a new dynamic; it takes things to a new stage. It's also a bit like a promise, of being serious and committed. I don't think Victor said those words without believing it. It came after watching his boyfriend sleeping, the morning after Benji had been so understanding and reassuring about Victor's fears of inexperience. Victor seemed so grateful for that and touched by it.

Victor also lost his mind with worry when Benji didn't show up to school and turned his phone off. It seemed to have consumed him all day with all the looks to Benji-less lockers and all that. He also looked visibly shaken and devastated when Benji initiated the break. We had that super emotional moment when Victor stares directly at the camera as he processes the shock and effect those words have on him. Isabel could also see how utterly miserable Victor was feeling being separated from Benji after that, to the point of even acting out and skipping school.

I think it was also telling that even though Victor was angry at Benji for the way he disrespected his mother in her own home, and even though he was frustrated and hurt that Benji hadn't trusted him enough to tell him about being in AA (don't shoot the messenger, I'm just saying it from Vic's perspective!), it still didn't occur to Victor that breaking up with Benji was even an option. He was willing (then at least) to fight for Benji through all the ups and downs. People could make the argument that it was in fact Benji who didn't love Victor enough if he was the one to actually implement a break (that isn't my opinion, btw).

With all of this in mind, I do personally feel that Victor feels strongly for Benji and it isn't all some whim he is just running with as an inexperienced teenager.

Rather, I think the unfortunate thing that happens to all of us humans is our fragility at the hands of overwhelming emotions -- so much was happening to Victor in a relatively short space of time and it all brought a crazy amount of emotions to process. Towards the end of the season, Victor was in a very vulnerable place in his relationship with Benji, and he was dealing with anger, hurt, and even grieving. It's hard to think straight in those conditions. It's hard to make sound judgement. And we can easily be drawn into a reprieve from those horrible emotions in whatever way is possible -- including the welcome distraction of hanging out with someone who is a third party to it all and genuinely makes you feel moments of happiness.

Under those conditions, I can understand why Victor got swept up in everything and could kiss Rahim back. I don't think it is as clear-cut as it being a case of if Victor truly loved Benji, he wouldn't ever be tempted by anyone else no matter how upset he was. I actually think it is a rare thing to never be attracted to anyone else and have a brief moment of 'what-if' if you're going through a rough patch in your own relationship and second-guessing if you're right for each other. The true test is if you stay, if you don't stray despite the tough times.

If Victor ends up choosing Rahim, then yes that would complicate matters. I still don't think it would mean he never loved Benji though. We love people in all different ways and at different times in our lives. Sometimes, like Isabel and Armando, that love needs a time-out to sort through some problems before a couple can return to a renewed commitment. If Venji end up separated for a period, and Victor tries things with Rahim, it doesn't mean Venji wouldn't ever find their way back together when the timing and their self-development is better. Love is a very complex beast.

So yeh I guess everything is just very subjective when it comes to this area. It's hard to really know what each boy is thinking. Hang in there though, Anon! <3

[wings-of-a-storm]

I hate the word toxic & hate seeing it used to describe Benji, but I can't help but feel like if that word is gonna be thrown around then Victor is actually the toxic one. People say Benji hasn't been patient or understanding, which he has (majorly), but when has Victor taken the time to be understanding towards Benji and how he feels? Isabelle told Benji that Victor stood up to her about their relationship, but he barely did. Plus he's betrayed Benji twice now without considering his feelings.

I do feel your frustration. I also get extremely frustrated -- and also sad -- when I see accusations of ‘toxicity’ attributed to just one character.

It is hard when you view a story predominantly through the Hero’s/protagonist’s eyes because you have to untangle that storytelling and camera-work bias from the events that take place. For that reason, when I was processing the emotional roller coaster of S2, I wrote a list of all the things I thought Victor could have handled better, and all the things I thought Benji could have handled better, and they ended up dead even.

I then wrote a list of unhelpful behaviours that caused tension in their relationship and found in most cases mutual participation. For the sake of brevity, I won’t list specific examples, but here is my list:

Guilt-tripping partner = both

Defensive reaction escalating a confrontation = both

Lack of empathy for partner’s situation = both

Verbal attack on partner = both

Putting pressure on partner = Benji, but turned out to be a misunderstanding which was resolved after proper communication methods were applied

Betrayal of trust = Victor, but first instance was due to thoughtlessness not deliberate malice, and second instance was...ouch

Looking at the events of S2, I can understand why at first glance it seems like Victor and Benji are in an unhealthy relationship. But when you look at why (eg. my list), it isn’t a problem restricted to the ship of Venji -- these are ‘character flaws’ that will transfer to every new relationship both boys have until they learn better communication skills, how to de-escalate confrontations, and practice being less self-focused and more empathetic.

So it really does make me grimace when I see some people only targeting one character (mostly Benji) with these ‘toxic’ allegations. Let’s be fair now, you know? And let's root for these guys to learn and develop more helpful behaviours for themselves and their relationship(s), not lay blame and write them off...

[wings-of-a-storm]

I really hope that in S3 the writers don't throw away the fact that Victor and Benji are in love and that this whole "love triangle" BS isn't about Victor picking between two guys he likes, but about choosing the one who he actually sees a future with. Seems like a no brainer that it will be Benji, but there's still a part of me that's terrified it won't be and the last 2 seasons would've been for nothing.

I feel this so hard too, don’t you worry!

As I said in a previous ask, I want Victor to work on the relationship he already has; to really give that relationship his full energy and respect and not leave it half-cooked. I think there is real value in showing the type of work you have to put into a relationship and the benefits you get from having that stable rock in your life.

And I think that it is entirely possible to still grow as a young person and discover who you are while in a relationship with the same person, as long as you grow at a rate that isn’t too dissimilar. Therefore, I think Victor can still discover who he is as a gay man and what he likes in a relationship without having to taste-test a bunch of different people. It comes down to shared values with your partner, and open communication.

And it really feels like there is so much material still there in Victor’s and Benji’s relationship to explore. I want Victor to be challenged by Benji (and vice versa) so they can learn from each other’s experiences and points of view. There’s so much potential there for them to help each other grow more aware of the world and themselves. (And I want them to learn more helpful communication tactics and skills.)

Beyond that, I want to see representation of what the reality of relationships are like behind the shiny façade: that every day you have to put work into your relationship, you have to learn compromises, you have to learn how to be a ‘we’ not an ‘I’ when making most decisions. And it’s not always going to be a whirlwind of hormones and lust and when that happens, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong or you need to break up, it just means that it is time for a new element or dynamic to be explored.

And I want to see how when a strong foundation is built, your partner will feel like a best friend and rock that you can always rely on. I want all of that stuff! And these elements bring their own challenges and tests so it isn't like there would be no drama for the writers to exploit.

It sucksssss that we are at the mercy of TV drama writers and cannot predict which areas they want to take the next season to. I wish I could offer more comfort than a mutual wish-list…

[wings-of-a-storm]

Hi there. I just read Part 1 of your Victor "love triangle" analysis, and I couldn't help but go back and watch episode 9 after reading your thoughts on it, and I noticed the lyrics to the song playing at the end of the episode and how much they relate to what Venji is going through during the back half of S2. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. The song is Fall by SG Lewis. Looking frward to your Part 2 analysis. :)

Hiiii! Well first of all, a huge thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to read through all that writing <3. (It was a lot.)

As for your observation about the lyrics playing when Victor was on the phone to Benji in the car:

It’s like a direct plug into Victor’s head!

The one thing you can definitely always count on with the Love, Victor production is how well thought-out their soundtrack choices are. (Don’t get me started on choosing 'Time After Time' for ep 10!)

The use of 'Fall' really heightened the emotions of that scene in the car -- it was like a palpable ache fed directly into our synapses. And the lyrics were clearly chosen for a reason. I mean gosh, let’s look at a few of them:

1) ‘You've been guarded, I've been blind / I took for granted the weight you bore’ That truly covers everything from Victor discovering Benji’s hidden struggle with drinking, right through to Victor and Felix’s acknowledgement of the constant worry Benji had been going through this whole time as he watched Victor go through hit after hit (not being accepted by his mother, and all the homophobia at school poisoning his position on the basketball team...).

And yes, like the song, Benji has been very guarded about his tightly held drinking problem. At the time, Victor was so shocked and worried about Benji, he barely had time to process the link between Benji not even being able to tell his own boyfriend about it and the deep shame fueling that level of secrecy. It’s a lot to process, and I can’t really blame Victor for needing to let it off his chest and seek guidance at some point -- just…..not with a stranger who is still within Benji’s realm? Benji needed to have control over that secret and at the very least vet who he judges is safe to know about it. Has Benji even met Rahim? He hasn't had a chance to judge his vibe in person. Victor really wasn't thinking straight because if Benji once begged Victor specifically not to tell anyone at school about his car accident, the same applies for the addiction that caused it...

But as that soundtrack also acknowledges, Victor now seems to understand on some level the error he made and the cost of it. Hindsight is a cruel mistress.

2) ‘You made your mind up, I'm losing mine’ Ugh, so vicious in its perfection of reflecting how shattered Victor was by Benji’s decision to step away and put distance between them while all Victor can do is wait in a maelstrom of heavy thoughts.

3) ‘But can we fall all over again?’ Ah, the crux of that lingering ache throughout the song, so succinctly voicing that yearning to return to the times when things were simpler, when Victor and Benji were so close and in sync, where there were no bad bits and mistakes to be made… Wanting a second chance to do better for each other…

I love their soundtrack choices but I also hate them!!

Thanks for your ask. :)

[wings-of-a-storm]

I've seen a few mixed opinions on whether Vic cheated on Benji, & I was wondering your thoughts on it? I personally think he technically did. They weren't broken up, after all, & Vic let someone else kiss him when he had every chance to stop it, after already committing a serious betrayal. They were supposed to be taking the time to figure things out, not "seeing" other people. As much as I want them together, if Vic does pic Benji, I wouldn't be surprised if Benji needs more time.

Yes. Victor did cheat on Benji. And I say that not as an opinion but because there are receipts.

The most crucial thing we have to go off is an insight into Victor's own headspace heading into the wedding. From his perspective, was he still Benji's boyfriend? Yes. Because Victor's assessment at the end of 2x09 (before the wedding) is: "I think Benji is breaking up with me." As in in the process of breaking up but still hanging on by a thread. As in still together. That is what he tells his mother.

People might argue: 'But maybe at the wedding Victor interpreted Benji's storming out as him officially breaking up with him, so the kiss that happened afterwards isn't cheating'.

While it is possible Victor may have interpreted that in the whirlwind of the moment, he unfortunately did still cheat because we only have to look the S1 Derek X Benji parallel the writers themselves set up to see why. Derek found out Victor and Benji kissed. Derek stormed off. Sounds familiar, right? Then Victor intercepted them to take the blame. Benji later comes over to Victor's bench and tells Victor: "I broke up with him."

So with that deliberate parallel in mind, it stands within reason that after Benji storms off after seeing the slow dance (not even the kiss yet), they still aren't officially broken up until the words are said. What they are in is the process of another big fight because Benji is too shaken to hear the context of the slow dance yet or hear any grovelling before any official decisions are made. (And he doesn't even know about the kiss, even though he wouldn't be surprised...)

The only murky part to all of this is something Victor said to Felix AFTER the kiss with Rahim: "Benji just showed up and he wanted to get back together."

I'm guessing he meant 'Benji wants to end our break' but that was too hard to explain to Felix and it was a matter of semantics? Otherwise Victor is counteracting his own assessment a day or so earlier and the writers are trying to make Victor look less in the wrong by twisting reality lol.

But facts are facts: this new murky wording from Victor only occured AFTER the damage of the kiss was done. Before the kiss, his perspective, that we the audience were privy to, was 'Benji is breakING up with me' not 'Benji has broken up with me.'

So yep, those are the receipts.

But if you want my actual opinion on the matter: yes, I do think Victor cheated. I did the first time I watched the season play out and the receipts only cemented that opinion.

Because taking a break may be a limbo status but it is not an ending. It means 'I need some time away from being in your proximity to process my thoughts' not 'You're dumped but I reserve the right to a cooling off period where I can change my mind.'

And like you, I don't think this bodes very well for Victor when he next sees Benji in S3...