#after experiencing someone accepting/seeing her without that narrative at play

[milfbrainrot]

ty arcane cast afterglow interview for leaving jinx's fate ambiguous which basically confirms she's fine lol.

Thinking abt it and as much as I want a happy whole family ending in an idealistic world, it's so much better for her to escape the narrative around her in zaun. Something something hard to heal in the place that broke you, even in a situation where she would've solely worked toward building something good there.

[lurkingshan]

After reading this post from @waitmyturtles about her read on Fire and Dynamite, I was thinking a bit more about the way the show has handled their story and what I love about it. And I think it comes down to a crucial point: Cooking Crush, unlike most Thai bl, is NOT in the bubble, and the presence of homophobia, both internal and external, cannot be separated from their story. This is a queer narrative to the core.

Both Fire and Dynamite are shaped by their sexuality and their experiences or fear of rejection because of it. Dynamite is out and proud and unapologetic about what he wants, and as we learn when his backstory is revealed to us, this is a direct response to the familial rejection he experienced when he came out. Dy is defiant and in your face with his desires because he has already experienced the worst kind of rejection and is always bracing for more. So he dares people to do it right out of the gate. He likes to know where he stands with people, so he’d rather be his brashest self and suffer the loss early before getting attached. He deals with fear by daring people to prove him right.

Fire takes his fear in the opposite direction, denying who he is and rejecting anything that makes him think too hard about the aspects of himself he does not want to deal with. Even without Dynamite in the picture, it was clear that he was trying to talk himself into liking Jane in a way he simply did not. Once we got to know his mother, the source of his fear became crystal clear, and it was easy to see why he worked so hard to suppress himself. Fire was unhappy living that way, and Dynamite was a constant reminder of what he was trying to keep down, so it’s no wonder he reacted so viscerally to him.

But that’s exactly why their story works. Fire needed someone who he couldn’t ignore to draw out his true self, and because Dynamite is so unwilling to put up with mixed messages and half-hearted declarations, Fire had to work himself all the way out before Dy would accept him. One of the genius things this show did in their arc was have Dy pull away as soon as Fire began sending mixed signals. Dynamite was fine in the face of Fire’s firm rejection—it as what he always expected to get from him along with everyone else. But he wouldn’t allow Fire to run hot and cold on him and play with his emotions, because that was where he knew he could get really hurt. And this boundary that Dy set forced Fire to figure out what he actually wanted and communicate it clearly.

Which is why we saw Fire change so much as soon as they were together, because in the process of deciding what he wanted from Dynamite, Fire had to make some decisions about who he wanted to be and how he wanted to live. And he chose to embrace his queerness and live a more authentic life. He is a new man in this relationship because he is being himself for the first time ever, and he’s finally breaking free from the weight of his own internalized homophobia. It’s a positive change and one that is clearly making him happy, and part of him must feel grateful to Dy for pushing him into figuring out what he wanted.

But crucially, that is where Dy’s pushing ends. He is utterly unwilling to make any further demands of Fire regarding coming out, to the point that Dy puts his own friendships at risk to hide their relationship and protect Fire until he’s ready. He understands the fear of rejection Fire is still dealing with because he lived it. And he has already proven that he’s up to the task of handling Fire’s mother whenever Fire is ready to face her. These two are still early in their relationship but they have already fallen into a very natural and easy pattern of providing each other emotional support and stability, and we can see them shoring each other up. They make a great pair and theirs is a story that can only exist between queer characters.

I just love that in this show that feels so light on the surface they have made room for such depth in the storytelling. Watching Cooking Crush feels like a warm hug because even though it’s gentle and funny and often silly, there are real emotional struggles to ground us, and the story takes them seriously. We’ve seen this consistently in the main storyline with Ten and Prem, and Fire and Dynamite are no exception.

[lilac-murder]

I do not say this in a way of meaning that I wish they would stop being shipped (it's a work of fiction do whatever you want), but i am tired of going to AO3 to read fanfictions about "The Great Gatsby" where Gatsby just realizes that he loves Nick instead of Daisy like the flip of a switch.

I can understand why people feel that Gatsby falling in love with Nick would be easy, given how we see a lot more of the two's friendship and interactions throughout the book than the interactions between Jay and Daisy, which is ment to be a dynamic that we are ment to find romantic purely based on their past together. But this is of course because Nick isn't there to see them be together in the present except for chapter 5 where he helps to bring the two of them together for tea, chapter 6 where Tom and Daisy attend one of Gatsby's parties with Gatsby and Daisy sneaking off together at the end, and chapter 7 where they try to execute a plan of confronting Tom and having Daisy leave him for Gatsby. The main reason why some of the interactions between Gatsby and Jay have any sort of hint of romantic tension is because it is from NICK'S point of view, and for as much as i am writing here about how against i am about the current perception of how a romantic relationship between Jay and Nick would play out, there is no denying that Nick Carraway is about as gay as F. Scott Fitzgerald could accidentally write him.

Ever since chapter three Nick has had at the very least an infatuation with Gatsby, given how he describes his smile alone when he first meets the weird rich guy next door and how even just before Gatsby is shot in chapter 8 Nick proclaims to him that those around him are a rotten crowd and that Jay is worth the whole bunch put together even as he narrates of how he hates Gatsby at the same time. But even for all of Nick's subtle romantic feelings, it's most likely that Jay only truly sees Nick as a friend or at most someone that he can truly confide in about his worries or troubles.

There is also the matter of Jay's obsession with Daisy, or in other words, THE VERY DREAM AND HYPER FIXATION THAT HAS KEPT HIM GOING FOR YEARS. For as much as his love for Daisy is shallow and only exists because Jay can't grasp the concept of letting someone get away, he is VERY dedicated to his fantasy of having Daosy as his wife in a big house with lots of money. He has literally thrown himself into a very dangerous career of being a bootlegger just so that he could make the amount of money he didn't have when he and Daisy first met just to show her that he can take care of her now, and has wasted countless fortunes throwing extravagant parties just in the hopes that Daisy will come and see how much he has accomplished. In my eyes I don't see how there could be a way for Jay to just forget about his entire false love for Daisy just because someone that he's only known for less than three months is kind of cute and is really nice to talk to.

And wouldn't a story about Nick pining from a far without even realizing it with Gatsby constantly reminding him that he is in love with Daisy and Nick wondering why that makes him feel like crap and Nick only realizing he had feelings for Gatsby after he's dead be a more intriguing story than something like "Jay realizes he loves Nick at the slightest sign of rejection from Daisy." Nick realizing he loves Jay after his death would also give more meaning to Wolfshine's line in chapter 9 about showing someone your feelings when they're alive instead of waiting until they're dead, stabbing the dagger in his heart in further by giving him the false hope that Jay would have some how accepted his love when he was still around and breathing. This kind of grief powered wishing would also give Nick a tie to George Wilson in how they both experienced the loss of a close person in their lives that sent them into a bad mental state, with a narrative foil coming in with Nick deciding to move on with his life at the end of the book where as George decided to act on his grief by getting what he thought was revenge.

But I also don't really care and you can do whatever you want with your fanfics, I just can't write fiction for the life of me.

[starsreminisce]

Before HOFAS Elriels claimed Elain will play a major part. Plus SJM said this book will set the future ACOTAR book.

After HOFAS came out, it was obvious that Elain didn't make an appearance. Some Elriels continue to argue the book points out to Elain's book. . . However Az had A MAJOR part it the book. I believe he deserves HIS story to be told.

Az definitely deserves to have his story told, and I believe that Elain isn't the right person for him to share it with.

SJM tends to follow a formula that works well for her. She often pairs characters who have experienced trauma, allowing them to relate to each other and help each other heal.

To me, it seems that SJM isn't overly concerned with how one character feels about another, as the plot is the primary focus. Throughout her books, she has portrayed pairs that start at opposite ends of the spectrum and end up in completely different places. What matters to SJM is how well-matched and similar her planned couples are. She's not necessarily changing her formula; rather, she's now emphasizing why Gwyn is perfect for Az and why Lucien is perfect for Elain, something that was lacking in both ToG and CC

The main takeaway from the series for me is that both Cassian and Rhys have reached a level of self-assurance where they can accept their own flaws. It's simply a matter of finding someone who can accept them for who they are.

It's significant to note that both Cassian and Rhys have expressed their fears but haven't shied away from sharing them with their partners. Az explicitly states in his BC that he's afraid to open up to Elain, and I don't believe it's Elain's responsibility to reassure him. That's something Azriel needs to work through on his own.

The dynamics between Azriel and Gwyn are different. Azriel refrains from touching Gwyn not because he fears tainting her but because he's aware of her discomfort with physical contact. He finds solace in Gwyn's presence and is less focused on his insecurities when he's with her compared to when he's alone with Elain.

Azriel's behavior towards Gwyn aligns more with mate behavior. He constantly considers her comfort, abilities, strengths, goals, and reactions, which was lacking in his interactions with Elain.

HOFAS spoilers ahead

We have ample evidence that Az is refusing to embrace his Illyrian heritage, only to discover that the Illyrians rebelled against the Daglans, and he wields the weapon of the Illyrian who led that rebellion—a figure now idolized and memorialized. This revelation is a tremendous burden for Az to bear, especially considering his struggle to see any merit in being Illyrian.

This is a unique struggle that Elain doesn't share. Despite her transformation into a fae, she doesn't exhibit resentment towards her new identity, as evidenced by her active involvement in aiding fae readjustment post-war, similar to Lucien's efforts with humans. Both Elain and Lucien initially harbored prejudiced views towards each other, yet they've both made strides in overcoming these biases.

Elain's main challenge lies in grappling with her mating bond, a struggle Az can't fully comprehend given his intense desire for such a bond. Lucien, on the other hand, was willing to wed without a bond, highlighting another difference in experiences.

While Lucien also deserves to have his story told, it's evident that SJM is currently emphasizing Az's narrative. This suggests that Azriel's journey is distinct from Elain's.

Az deserves to have his story told alongside someone who truly understands him, someone who has decided to step out of the shadows despite the comfort they offer and who comprehends his struggles, particularly regarding his hands.

As for the timing of when to tell Azriel's story, that's a discussion for another time. As a strong supporter of Elucien, I believe Elain's absence in HOFAS indicates that their narrative is next in line to fill the gaps between Nesta's ability to remove the mask to save Feyre and Azriel's need for her to list those she loves.

Nesta's relationship with Elain has yet to fully mend, unlike the understanding reached between Nesta and Feyre by the end of ACOSF as demonstrated by Feyre's support in HOFAS.

Therefore, the question of whose story comes next remains uncertain for me, but fortunately, we won't have to wait long for the next announcement.

[dianapana]

SH Day 9 – Never Have I Ever

@sasuhinamonth

Rated T, Modern AU, OOC

Oof , for this one ideas just wouldn't come to me, so once again I looked through older stories I never finished and found this one which I thought fit to a certain degree. I didn’t really wanna go the normal route of the game itself, so I just interpreted the prompt as a new experience. I hope you enjoy, ~Love, Dia

It wasn’t uncommon for people to randomly sit down at his table, especially if those people were girls. They’d stumble onto the seat and act like it was all an accident, like they didn’t see him and thought the table was empty, or that they tripped and ‘landed’ on the seat. Other times they’d ask if they could sit because there were no free tables anymore, granted this last excuse happened to be true once or twice, but usually, it was just a lie and the two would sit in awkward silence for a few moments staring at each other with a number of empty seats all around.

However, the person sitting across from him was a girl he saw around the diner quite often, urgency written all over her face. Sasuke raised an eyebrow at her, but the situation didn’t faze him at all, thus he continued eating, putting 2 French fries in his mouth and slowly chewing, waiting for her to state her reason and purpose.

“I need you to pretend we’re here together” Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her. “My ex just walked in and I’m not in the mood to deal with him. If I’m here with someone, in this case you, he’ll either leave me alone or he’ll at least leave sooner.” His eyes moved to a guy that was just walking to the counter still obvious to his ex-girlfriend. “Please…” her eyes were begging him to help.

Sasuke sighed and pushed his milkshake her way. “It’d be strange if we were here together and I was the only one that had ordered something” Her pale eyes lit up like Christmas trees.

“Thank you so much. I’m Hinata by the way” She gave him a genuine smile. He nodded her way.

“Sasuke. I’d shake your hand but that would look strange since we’re supposed to be here together.”

For a second, silence fell over their table but Hinata started giggling at what he just said, her laugh could have also been intertwined with nervous laughter for it was a little too loud for Sasuke’s own liking, either way, he couldn’t help but smirk her. Naruto would freak if he saw Sasuke talking to a stranger, a girl no less, and not only that, but he was actually putting in the effort to help her and maintain a conversation. He had never willingly had a conversation with a stranger before.

Sadly Hinata’ sudden laughing fit turned the attention of a white-haired guy, also known in Sasuke’s head as the girl’s ex, to them. The said guy looked their way, moment in which Sasuke noticed the myriad of feelings showing onto his expression, he seemed to go from hopeful to confused to slightly irritated and then settle for putting on a fake smile and strolling their way.

“Hinata, long time no see, how are you?” The ex-boyfriend looked at her and gave Sasuke a not-so-subtle glare. He took in their table before raising an eyebrow and immediately asking another question, essentially cutting Hinata off before she could answer his first question. “Matcha milkshake? I thought you hated those”

“Oh, I used to yea, but I think they changed the receipt here. I tasted one sip from when Sasuke ordered one last time and it was pretty good, so today I wanted to see for myself” She said smoothly and took a big sip of her, well…his milkshake. “And I’ve been pretty good. How about yourself?” She smiled way too sweetly at him.

“Uh…can’t complain” He took another second to examine them again. “Well, I was actually thinking maybe we can get together and have dinner sometime next week?”

“Dude, you don’t ask out a girl when she’s already out with another guy, that’s just fucking messed up” Sasuke said, without actually meaning to his voice got deeper and he glared at the ‘ex-boyfriend’. He didn’t care that he and Hinata weren’t there together for real, it’s a universal rule you don’t ask out a girl if she’s there with a date, that’s just a douchey move.

Hinata was grinning at him from behind her hand, her eyes glittering with amusement. Sasuke had to admit something to himself, the strange girl was pretty, but she was even more beautiful while she smiled.

“Chill dude. I didn’t think this was a date” he said raising his hands as if trying to say he meant no harm. “I mean who the fuck brings a date at this shitty diner” He whispered under his breath, but both Hinata and Sasuke heard him and their moods turned pretty dark. Sasuke’s instinct was the punch the guy’s lights out, another new feeling he hadn’t experienced, at least not because of a girl. He is usually in control of his emotions and rarely loses his cool.

“Sasuke wanted to go have a sweet picnic in the park near my house, which was so thoughtful and sweet, but sadly the weather didn’t agree with him because it started raining. That’s when I remembered how I wanted to taste the milkshake, so I proposed we came here to wait for the rain to stop.” Sasuke had to admit, her lying skills were top-notch, her story had a natural flow to it, she composed a strong and believable narrative with pretty much no holes, her delivery too added to its credibility, fot she spoke with such ease. Hinata reached for his hand that was on the table and squeezed it while spreading her web of lies. Sasuke noticed the ex-boyf rolling his eyes, and a part of him felt utter satisfaction from the jerk’s annoyance.

“Whatever. I gotta bounce anyway. See you around” He turned and started walking out the diner without waiting for a reply. Sasuke snorted when he noticed that the ex didn’t even purchase anything. He was lost in his own world of trash-talking the guy but was got distracted by the petite girl in front of him that whispered not so quietly “I fucking hope not.”

“Well, that was fun.” He smirked at her. “Let me guess, bad break-up?” Hinata sighed and ran both hands over her face.

“The worst. It was a set up and we went on a few dates which were fine I guess, but I just didn’t really want a relationship at the time, or at least not with him. Either way, the break-up itself took like 3 hours cuz he just wouldn’t accept it.” She took another sip of his milkshake and gaged. “Oh god, I forgot how awful this tasted.” She said more to herself, it didn’t take her a full second to turn beet-red.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry this is yours. I d-didn’t mean to drink from it, it just happened. Let me buy you a new one” She got onto her feet but Sasuke grabbed her wrist and forced her to sit back down.

“Don’t worry about it. You barely drank any”

Had he been in his right mind he’d tell the girl to buy him extra fries too for the trouble and then he’d tell her to scramble. But for some reason or another, he didn’t want her to leave just yet. He pulled the glass back to him and drank from it just to prove to her everything was fine.

“I don’t understand how you can drink that. It’s not even sweet” Her nose wrinkled in disgust, Sasuke didn’t throw the world ‘cute’ around easily but she looked adorable.

“I hate sweets. So, this is perfect” Her jaw dropped, she looked like he had just said he hated puppies and his mother. Hinata blinked a few times, closed her mouth and opened it to say something, closed it back again. She looked genuinely confused, like someone that hated sweets wasn’t meant to exist.

“I-I don’t understand. How can you hate sweets? T-They make the world a better place. Don’t tell me that after a shitty day you don’t go home to eat a gallon of ice cream with a dozen of cookies because I will not believe you”

Now it was his turn to gag just thinking about the amount of sugar in the ‘snack’ she described. His reaction repulsed her.

“Oh wow. I’m perplexed. I had no idea people like you existed”

The fact that she said it with straight face made him believe she honestly didn’t think that what he said could be true, which for some reason he found extremely funny.

“Huh, you learn something every day.” She said with a smile, it seemed she had gotten over her confusion and found the whole conversation quite as amusing as he did.

A waitress came over to take Sasuke’s now empty milkshake glass.

“Would you like anything else?”

“Could you please bring me a veggie burger and a blueberry lemonade? And some fries too” She ordered and it relieved him that she did, he hadn’t had a lunch companion besides Naruto in a while.

“I’d also like some fries and another matcha milkshake”

“I’ll be right back,” The older woman said and left right away. When he turned back to the girl before him, she was staring at him with a small smile on her lips so he raised an eyebrow at her.

“I was sure you’d tell me to leave, or tell the waiter you’d like the bill and left yourself.” She put both of her hands on the table and played with her bracelet. “I’ve seen you around the diner. You’re not the…most welcoming face here and I’ve also saw you get up and leave on multiple occasions when someone sat at your table”

Her cheeks were a shade or two darker and she didn’t look at him but rather looked at her fidgeting hands. She was embarrassed for admitting she noticed him way before this encounter, she was nervous that she had crossed a line. What she said was true, he knew he wasn’t the nicest person but he did genuinely enjoy her presence, also he’d been in a number of situations where he would have liked someone to pretend to be there with him so he’d escape an acquaintance or a fangirl. Plus, the very same day Naruto told him he should do an act of ‘kindness’ a day or his karma would turn bad. He didn’t believe in the nonsense his blonde friend talked about, but when she sat down she looked in so much distress even he didn’t have the heart to tell her to leave.

“You’re right, But, you looked frightened, I’m not heartless,” He said in a neutral voice and Hinata blushed even redder. His lips twitched upward. Where did her confidence and acting skills go?

“I-I-I didn’t mean you are heartless…just…umm, uh” she was at a loss of words.

“It’s fine. You didn’t offend me” Hinata looked up at him relived.

“I didn’t? Oh, that’s really good, because I didn’t mean anything rude by what I said” her shoulders relaxed and her blush faded, not completely she was still a bit flushed but not quite as red as before.

“Since you knew there was a chance, I’d leave why did you sit here?”

Her smile softened a little. “Have you ever seen a person and had the urge to talk to them? For them to be your friend? I don’t mean to sound creepy, but every time I saw you here, I always wanted to talk to you, I just never had the courage. I guess the situation gave me the opportunity to do so. And I’m quite glad because, I don’t know about you, but I’m having a pretty good time talking to you” her cheeks flared even redder with each confession, for some reason admitting her thoughts in front of him was embarrassing. “Oh, just so you know, I’ve never done this before. I just had a pretty bad day and didn’t want it to get worse by having to be in his company for long.”

Their talk continued for a while longer until finally, their food arrived. The older waitress placed their orders on the table.

“There you go. Enjoy your food”

“Thank you” Hinata nodded at the waitress with a smile.

“I have one more question.” Sasuke said as Hinata took a sip of her lemonade, but gestured with her hand for him to go on. “What happened? When he was here you were a very smooth talker, but when you thought you offended me you seemed to be drowning in your own words”

Her blush came back and Sasuke decided he quite liked how she looked with it. She played with the tips of her hair, rolling it onto her finger. “W-when I was little, I was extremely shy, I couldn’t even look at strangers, my parents entered me in acting classes in hopes that I’d get over it. It didn’t really go as planned. I’m a lot better now, obviously but I still get anxious easily. Even so the acting classes did help me, when I’m in a crisis I seem to calm down and I’m able to collect my thoughts” She looked a bit over his shoulder in deep thought. “It’s like a defence mechanism but it doesn’t always work. Case in point when I o-offended you, which I’m sorry about again”

“I see…also you didn’t offend me, I told you this before. You only stated your opinion, which was true by the way”

She smiled at him once more and they started eating, it wasn’t complete silence, they made small talk asked about normal things, hobbies, friends, school and all that. Once they were finished and Sasuke asked for the bill since it was getting pretty dark and the rain finally stopped, he noticed her playing with the bracelet again.

“Something wrong?”

“Huh?” she looked up at him confused.

“You were fidgeting your hands like you did before when you were nervous. Is something bothering you?”

Hinata opened her mouth. They had spent about 2 or 3 hours together and he was able to pick up some of her habits already. He did seem like the type of person that paid attention, he was quiet but observing. Without meaning to she associated him with one of those old people from the park that sit on a bench and watch everyone pass by, like they don’t belong to this world, they just witness it, they are watchers that see the smallest details.

He didn’t know what she was thinking about, but her smile was beautifully tragic, she seemed sad, or at least contemplative.

“I was just thinking how much I enjoyed our…lunch? Dinner? And was wondering how awkward it would be to…a-ask for your number m-maybe?”

He also liked when she stuttered a little. “I don’t see why not. I enjoyed myself as well”

If only Naruto saw him give his number to a girl, the blonde would never let this slide, which was also why he’d never tell his blonde best friend about the petite blue-haired girl that made his ordinary day a little bit extraordinary, she proved that sometimes doing things you’ve never done can have a good end result, in this case talking to a stranger and pretending to date led to a pleasant evening and hopefully a friend and maybe more.

[ratingtheframe]

10 Films to watch this Valentine’s Day if you’re single as hell.

If anyone or anything is making you feel worthless on the Capitalist Holiday that is Valentine’s Day because you’re single AF, then don’t fret because it means one of two things;

You’re happy enough with yourself to not need anyone else.

You’re allergic to people.

Though mine is both the former and the latter, I can still get down to a good romance movie now and again. Now I’m not talking about those horrendous rom coms that Netflix seems to be churning out every damn minute, but those emotionally invested, earthy and well written dramas that has you ugly crying into your bathrobe for 17 minutes straight (me at the end of Her.). Here is a compiled list of some of the best romance films I’ve seen over the years and how each one doesn’t showcase an abundance of clichés and brands them as “acts of love”.

A Star is Born (2018 or 1953, take your pick)

I’ve found that both the 1953 version of A Star is Born with Judy Garland and the 2018 newer version to be a perfect and well rounded love story. What makes this love story so fierce is the vulnerabilities and downfall of its characters, which even though there are many sad moments, it perpetuates and strengthens the acts of love shown in the film. Both versions are similar in that they follow a woman who’s rise to fame as a performer becomes overshadowed by her jealous partner, who is also a notable celebrity. In the 2018 version starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, Gaga’s character Ally is helped by a country singer, Jackson Maine to become a successful singer and icon amongst the music industry. As she rises, Jackson falls and the character dynamics and intensity between them is a fitting love story. I was thoroughly bawling at the end and I guarantee you will too as Lady Gaga’s rendition of Love Again was the true scene stealer of the film. 

Call me by your name (2017)

I have an incredible bias towards this film and it has nothing to do with the film’s context or characters or even Timothée Chalamet The reason why I feel so connected to this film and proclaim it as my favourite film of all time is because of when I watched the film. It’s almost like seeing a film about a political event right after it's happened; you have this rush and connection towards something that’s actually affected you in the real world. I had the same feeling with Call me by your name after going through a rough and confusing patch whilst trying to get over someone I thought I truly loved. Turns out I didn’t (thank god) and yet Call me your name was almost like a shoulder to cry on. It’s a film that’s taught me to love and love hard but most importantly, not beat yourself up or try to distinguish the pain felt by true love. If you haven’t been fortunate to catch this beauty of a film, it follows two men, Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer) and their brief relationship in the summer of 1983 in Northern Italy. 17 year old Elio lives with his parents and his father (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a scholar who invites students from outside the country for the summer in hope of passing on his wisdom to them. This is when Oliver arrives, a handsome twenty something American who becomes the infatuation of Elio. 

I’ll never forget the first time I heard the monologue that Elio’s father gave his son at the end, explaining to Elio why he shouldn’t feel embarrassed by the pain he felt after loving Oliver:

“We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster, that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste”

That, ladies and gentlemen and all in between, is what love is.

Her. (2013)

Once again, another film about love that had a profound effect on me because of when I watched it. Her. follows the story of Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) and his search for a story using an A.I to help him write. However, after getting to know this A.I named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) and hearing the way she adapts and shows emotions, he soon falls in love with it. Some may deem this as rather sad (which it is) but I think it speaks to bigger constructs like internet dating and letting go of people you loved thus diminishing the fantasy and world you created for the two of you. This part of the film got to me a stark way as I felt the pain of letting go of not only a person, but a fantasy, just like Theodore had to do in letting his past partners go. Her. is truly beautiful, with some great production design, cinematography and acting.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

The absolute queen of love stories would be Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a film about the romance between two women in the late 18th Century. Definitely not a narrative you see every day or one that’s been painted in such a way (pun intended). Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is commissioned to paint the beautiful and stubborn Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) and the portrait is to be gifted to a suitor of Héloïse’s from Milan. But instead of getting the painting done and sending it off, Marianne and Héloïse unexpectedly fall for one another at a subtle and well timed pace that had me gawping at the screen the entire way through. Slow, sensual and moving is Portrait of a Lady on Fire and I would definitely say is one of the best LGBTQ plus films ever made to date.

Broke Back Mountain (2005)

Ang Lee scooped up a BAFTA, Golden Globe and Oscar for his direction on his adapted screenplay of Brokeback Mountain. Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) form a romantic bond after shepherding alone together on the side of a mountain. Once their time herding sheep comes to a close and they return back to their respective lives, it's clear that their bond is stronger than they had anticipated. They live in constant fear of their relationship becoming apparent to those around them, which leaves one of them taking matters into their own hands. A controversial yet extremely successful film of its time, Brokeback Mountain does a fabulous job of showcasing the consequences and despair of love using two of Hollywood’s finest actors.

Carol (2013)

It’s difficult to fully appreciate LGBTQ plus films set in the past as they mostly focus on the persecution of homosexuals as opposed to the love they wish to express. However, this was pretty accurate of the time and it's only very recently that we have begun to accept one another’s sexualities and genders fully so much that we play these stories out on screen without the persecution part. Carol is a film directed by Todd Haynes and stars Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett. I found them to be an extremely intense pairing whilst they unravelled as their characters on screen. Therese (Rooney Mara) works in the toy department of a department store when one day she lays eyes upon Carol Aird, a beautiful and elegant married woman who becomes the infatuation of Therese. Therese throws all caution to the wind in order to be closer to Carol and because of this and the 1950s society they live in, their relationship is doomed from the beginning. I was in complete awe of the way Carol had been shot and created into this sensual and rich drama set in the 1950s. From the costumes, to the lighting to the acting, everything about Carol held weight to it showcasing the devotion of a truly talented director.

Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (2004)

Usually I’d pass on a Charlie Kaufman film, seeing as they make no sense, however I felt that it was time I delved into this cult classic starring Kate Winslet, Jim Carrey, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood. It’s a really well made film with a clear and distinct message to it that’s represented in some phenomenal filmmaking techniques. The plot line of this film follows a man trying to erase a past lover and his memories of her get wiped away physically before your eyes on screen. It made me wish that I could do the same with people I’ve liked in the past, but the contradictory of this would be the trauma of eventually ending up with someone you had already met in another life. I haven’t experienced a break up nor felt the pain of one, though I could judge that this film tells that experience really well.

Moonlight (2016)

Moonlight is one of few films that I would genuinely worship if it were a religion. It's also one of the films that I outwardly shame people for not having seen, as it is truly a masterpiece and film lover’s film. Deep, emotionally connected, colourful, harsh, moving and eye opening, this film takes you on an emotional rollercoaster through the eyes of Chiron and the three stages of his life that have carved out his essence as a human being. Not only that, but he falls in love with another boy at his school, and when he does, he’s hurt rather badly. Literally. Moonlight is the definition of profundity and was awarded the top prize of Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards. 

Loving (2016)

When I think of a truthful and honest testament of love, the film Loving comes to mind which is a fitting title for such a delicate yet strong story. The film is based on a true story of an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred (Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga) being banned from Virginia in the 1950s for choosing to be together. If that ain’t a true sacrifice of love, then I don’t know what is. Choosing someone you love over your own home is an unfathomable thing and certainly shows the strength that this couple had in facing the judgements of others whilst remaining emotionally truthful to themselves. 

The Shape of Water (2017)

The Shape of Water is a strange yet enlightening love story between Eliza, a deaf woman (Sally Hawkins) and a creature being tested on in a laboratory. Awards season went mental for this back in 2018, winning four of the THIRTEEN Oscars it was nominated for. I would categorize it as quite the niche film and wouldn’t usually think that such a film could be garnered with Oscar success. However everyone who worked on this film really pulled out the stops in creating an entire new world and perspective that has many layers to it, as well as an abundance of conflict and dynamics for audiences to lull over. The relationship between Eliza and the feared swamp monster that’s being cruelly tested in the laboratories where she works, is heartfelt and honest, which is strange seeing as Eliza’s virtually in love with a monster. The casting in this was outlandish yet it really worked as all actors in this melded well into the story as their prospective characters. It also has one of the most touching endings to a film I’ve ever seen.

And there you have it, ten Romance films for you to enjoy this Valentine’s Day. Watch them all at once, or maybe just watch one. Whether you watch it alone or with someone, it doesn’t really matter!

Lots of love

Ang x

[vocalyunho]

Strawberry Kisses

pairing — Yunho x reader (fem, referred to as ‘she’)

genre — fluff, smut

word count — 3k

warnings + tags — third person narrative mode, this fic portraits a hypothetical reader, all characteristics & traits are used incidentally, Yunho’s hella whipped and soft for reader + Yunho with butterfly hair clips, finger sucking, inexperienced reader, handjob, fingering, clit play.

synopsis — Yunho will never forget the first time he heard her needy voice, the one that proved everything she wanted without having to say a word.

Yunho thought she was a work of art, one he couldn’t take his eyes off of. Regardless of how many times he had told her, she could never control the pink blush that creeped up her cheeks every single time. He wanted her to accept it, he wanted her to know he meant it, but she never did. She belittled herself and Yunho hated it.

Every little flaw and every (in)significant trait of hers was precious to Yunho. They were the reasons why he fell for her in the first place. Later, though, he found more of them and now he can even make a list, preferably on papyrus, -for dramatic reasons- like those you see on cartoons. He already knew she’d make fun of him for even thinking that, but he knew exactly what he’d put on that list, one by one...

Her lips were always plump and cherry colored, though if he kissed her, she tasted like strawberry and Yunho could never get enough of it. The way she’d nibble on her bottom lip after they kissed, like they shouldn’t have, made his head spin uncontrollably. Even the wrinkle of her nose whenever she laughed had his heartbeat increasing in a matter of seconds. But what he admired most was the hope and the million little galaxies that danced in her eyes every time she looked at him. Yunho could easily get lost in them and he had noticed that he had, a couple of times before. The galaxies only disappeared the times she was upset. Then, the disappointment or anger were all he saw in her in the form of a soft gaze. Her cheeks would turn red and her eyebrows would either furrow or raise, each time forming little wrinkles on her forehead that Yunho wanted to caress. Her lips would pout and, maybe, tremble if she couldn’t control her emotions, but these were, always, only temporary.

When she talked, her hands would fly everywhere, gesturing, showing, bringing the conversation into life as if what she talked about was the most majestic thing someone would hear. Yunho cherished her for that because she made him love the little things. She talked about them like they were the most important thing ever and the way her eyes widened and her body tensed, proved it.

When she walked, sometimes it seemed like she did it hesitantly, not really wanting to go anywhere, as if someone had forced her to go. Other times, she jumped around while walking, little legs moving fast, backpack bouncing up and down on her back and phone struggling to stay in the little pocket of her pants. However, Yunho always managed to keep up with her and her pace.

As for her fashion, it wasn’t stable. Though, she did have a fair amount of mom jeans she wore on a daily basis if the occasions let her. Yunho didn’t know they were called ‘mom jeans’. In, fact, he didn’t know jeans had names. When she first told him about ‘mom jeans’, ‘boyfriend jeans’, ‘bootcut jeans’, he felt like his entire life was a lie. So many different types and he had no idea! After he got a hold of her taste in fashion, he started noticing other small details about it on her. She liked tucking her shirt inside her pants, she loved colored cardigans and oversized sweaters and he couldn’t help but notice the way she rolled up the bottom of her jeans. Her ankles and socks were on full display most of the time, and even if she had told him this was just a fashion statement, he knew this was her way of letting the world know of her bisexuality.

Necklaces were her favorite accessories. She had hundreds of them and Yunho didn’t complain because he found them hot. He always had a thing for necks and especially hers, so seeing her decorating it with pretty necklaces did something to him and his newly discovered kink. The rings were her second favourite accessory, Yunho had found out. Just like her neck, her fingers were always decorated too and, sometimes, she’d even lend some of her dearest rings to Yunho. Not the one her grandma had gifted her, though. This one was always on her index finger and no matter what, it never left its spot.

Her voice was soft and when she talked it was like honey was dripping from her lips right into Yunho’s ears. He’d figured out it was the timbre that made it so special, not the tone neither the words she used. When she talked about her day, Yunho would zone out sometimes not because of boredom but because he gave more attention to the vibrations of her voice and its rhythm, unintentionally. He loved listening how it changed depending on how she felt, one moment she was happy and it echoed like a melody, the next minute she was disappointed and it came out in whines through pouted lips, but he never found it annoying. However, she had a terrible singing voice and even if she knew it, she liked singing her heart out in karaoke’s or during showers, making Yunho make fun of her afterwards, which always led to giggles from them both and occasional make-out sessions on the couch of her small living room.

You can tell, he loved the variety of emotions she showed only through her voice, but his favorite one was her desperate voice, the one that proved need and the one only he had ever heard. He’ll never forget the first time he heard it. It was a night they had decided to stay in and watch movies instead of going out in the coldness of winter. They were cuddling, after having watched Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone. The ending titles were lowly playing in the background as they talked about the books and how she loved them but Yunho hated, because he found them boring. She was a pouting mess from the disappointment that her boyfriend didn’t like the books she’s been reading since she was young but Yunho couldn’t stop staring at her lips, not giving a damn about the books and the movies.

“how can you prefer the prepared world of the movies, instead of the one you can create by yourself while reading the books?”

Her eyes glistened and the pouting revealed a dimple on her chin, Yunho had never seen before.

“the prepared world entertains me more”

He shrugged with heavy eyes, and moved his hand up to take her chin between his fingers. His thumb brushed the dimple, pressing on the small dent before resting on it. She didn’t respond to his previous answer, instead she remained silent and after a while Yunho travelled his thumb up to her lips which stayed closed. Her eyes were on his, totally leaving their previous conversation in the past, and as he pressed his thumb on her glossed lip she let it fall open slowly.

Yunho didn’t think much of it and after playfully pulling her bottom lip with his thumb, he pushed the digit inside her mouth. She whimpered and her eyes fluttered but before Yunho could pull it out, afraid that he shouldn’t have done something like this, she wrapped her lips around it. Her tongue brushed hesitantly the underside of it, her nostrils expanding to exhale through her nose in an attempt not to let his finger leave her mouth and Yunho only stayed there, watching her closely. His lips opened agape loosely, the feeling was new both to Yunho and her but they loved it.

He felt himself starting to lose control of his body. His bulge had already started creating a tent on his grey sweatpants and he could do nothing to stop it. She moved her head backwards to take his thumb out of her mouth only to lick the tip and press it in again. Yunho groaned at the sight, momentarily picturing his cock replacing the finger between her lips and as she kept bobbing her head, ever so slowly, soft moans vibrated his thumb.

She was sitting on his lap with her back against the couch and Yunho’s back against the sofa arm, their bodies creating a cross and, at a sudden moment, he felt her pressing her legs together. Everything was so new. His free hand rested on her exposed thigh, but no one’s eyes left each other’s. She was in her underwear, with only a yellow t-shirt -that was his- covering most of her body. It wasn’t weird, she’s usually dressed like this when they stay in. His fingers trailed the flabby skin on the inner side of her thigh until he stopped it right under her panties and when he squeezed it, she flinched with a louder moan getting trapped inside her closed mouth.  

“fuck”

She left his thumb with a pop and the pouty lips were back, tempting him to sin.

“I…don’t know what that was, I’m sorry”, he had told her but he knew exactly what that was, both of them knew.

“Yunho, I need you”

Her voice was small, similar to the one she used when she whispered into his ear during class, but not similar to the context. Her eyes became puppy-like and as he was about to think this was the cutest state he’s ever seen her in, her hand moved to rest on top of the small tent on his crotch. Yunho’s breath hitched, her palm was on top of him, slowly closing her fist and taking him in her hand as she did. He needed her so bad, too.

She noticed the sudden difference in his body language “is this okay?” she asked hesitantly, ready to stop her action, if needed.

“y-yes please keep doing t-that”

She wasn’t very experienced, neither was he, but it was like her hand was moving magically on him. She mentally decided that his sweats were too much of an obstacle, so her hand went slowly under it and under his underwear too before grabbing him with her entire palm. A worried lip got trapped between her teeth because she had no idea of what to do next, but the friction she offered, felt like heaven to Yunho.

In a moment, he giggled and she looked at him worriedly, a pink blush already creeping up her cheeks. Yunho pecked her lips and gave a caress on her thigh to reassure that he loved all of it but he never told her what he giggled for. He never told her that he found it too cute that her hand was too small to wrap around his length completely. She seemed to forget fast about it though as he groaned close to her lips and, at that, she gave him a squeeze that made him jolt. His pre cum had already spread through her movements, giving her the chance to go faster and she did. Only a tad bit, though, because she wanted him to feel it all. Her thumb stopped on his slit after a few strokes and Yunho moaned loudly, feeling his body getting weaker. His head fell back as she massaged it and the rough texture of her digit against the little opening had curses slipping out his mouth in whispers. The moment she pressed particularly hard on the tip, he brought his head back up so fast that his hair fell on his face.

Now it was her turn to giggle, her confidence boosting, and before he could push the loose strands back, her free hand grabbed one of the butterfly clips on her hair and placed it on Yunho’s. With a small clicking sound, it stayed there, the bright blue color of its wings contrasting the pink of his hair. It felt surreal. One of her hands did something so innocent while the other sinned.

Yunho felt his heart skipping a beat. It was going too fast, anyways, but seeing her being thoughtful even in this case, sent the butterfly from his hair right into his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to pin her down and make her see stars right that instant, but instead she was the one who was leading him to that.

Yunho grunted loudly. She changed her movements into quicker and shorter ones, pumping only the middle part of him and making the lewd sounds echo louder. Her short nails got barely dragged over the sensitive skin of his cock and Yunho hissed, letting his face take an unreadable expression.

“do you-do you like that?”

“baby girl y-yes, keep doing that”

Shock waves were sending electricity throughout his body, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with force and the slight sweat that glistened on the side of his neck proved he was close.

A weird feeling travelled all the way from where her hand was pumping him to his ears, turning them the same hue of red, his tip had. He felt like his entire body was burning, a burn that had his mind spinning and his legs trembling. He knew exactly what that was and how close to release she had brought him, but he didn’t want it to end like that.

He tried his best not to give into it and with a move slower than her strokes, he rested his hand on top of hers and her gaze met his “I’m sorry baby b-but...” he inhaled sharply “...I’d much rather come inside you than on your hhand”. Her eyes widened and her little shenanigans stopped but Yunho got the chance to calm his breath and move the hand that was on her thigh, upwards, closer to where she needed him the most.

“Yunho-”, she gasped. Her legs closed, trapping Yunho’s hand in between them and her own hand that was on his member found his wrist. He pressed a finger against her panties, making her tighten her hold and bite her lip. Yunho had noticed from moments ago the little circle stain of wetness that had formed on her underwear. He knew he was the reason behind it but he also wanted to be the reason behind her relief. Just some inches above the stain, he found the magic bud and pressed on it, receiving a low moan from her. Her head fell against the couch and her hand, even though on his wrist that was between her legs, didn’t stop him. Yunho circled the bundle of nerves, feeling it swollen against his thumb as her moans became more frequent, and progressively more loud “does that feel good?”

She didn’t dare to open her eyes or bring her head up “y-yes”

He chuckled but his concentration was on how her expressions changed in a matter of seconds. Just before, she was giggling, leading him to his climax, yet now she had given into him and his touch and Yunho couldn’t help but think that, maybe, this is how she’ll look when he’s inside her. He was still hard, but tried his best not to touch himself. His middle finger pushed the fabric of her panties to the side slowly, and before giving her a warning he pushed the digit in.

“ohmygod Yunho-”, she cried out and her legs fell open. Yunho brought her head up by the nape until their faces were inches away from each other’s, their brows were furrowed, their noses were already touching and Yunho could feel her heavy breath against his lips. Only when he kissed her, did he realize how dry her lips were. It was the first time they felt like this, like all the moisture had left them, though the strawberry taste was still planted on them.

“I’m gonna c-cum”, her eyelashes fluttered close and her voice was barely a whisper.

“will you do it for me?”

“y-yes”, he twitched.

Her hips started moving against his fingers, the friction becoming more intense and the wetness increasing. Yunho was sure that if he detached his hand from her heat, he’d see a string of her soft silk connecting them, but he didn’t stop. He needed to see her falling off the edge for him, because of him. She convulsed and he felt it, but Yunho added his index finger in her warm hole too. Moans filled his open mouth and high pitched cries he couldn’t get enough of, as he pumped them slowly. The whole place was spinning for her, Yunho being the center of her attention, and the only colours she could tell apart were the ones of his hair and the butterfly clip’s. Her upper body was trembling too, now, and Yunho wrapped his free hand around her waist to keep her steady, but she cried out louder “pplease don’t stop-”

“come for me honeybun”

They hadn’t realized how their foreheads never left each other’s, nor how the entire couch was shaking. The pumping of his fingers quickened and so did the circles on her clit. Her eyebrows were furrowing and unfurrowing on their own and the squelchy sound of her wetness getting fucked into her, echoed in the almost silent living room.

Electricity travelled throughout her, when her high reached her and her body stopped functioning almost completely except for the sudden flickering of her muscles. Her jaw went completely slack and her notes were as high pitched as before, only now the waves of her voice were trembling too. The hold on Yunho’s wrist tightened sensibly and as she came, he pulled his fingers out of her seeing the thick, white liquid glisten on them.

Her moans were weak but full of need and her chest was rising and falling fast, until her body stopped jerking and she moved her hand from Yunho’s wrist to his palm to intertwine their fingers. Her release got spread between their hands but she didn’t mind it and bit on her lip in an attempt to stop her sounds, before resting her forehead against his again “Yunho-”

“take me, right here...pplease”

[senorpugbean]

Marcus in the comments got a lot of Kara 's character right but I wanna add some things that I've learned about her 👉👈

She (and Alice) both inherently follow the ideology of "It would be better if I was human", Alice being able to accept her identity way she is faster than Kara could ever 💀

Here's one thing I think is very interesting is that Valorie describes Alice twists as something that can be used for Kara to love herself. It is basically described as "Oh Alice is human and loves me and I love her, she is special and makes me feel special because she's not like other humans who are violent and hate Androids", then when she finds out Alice is android she goes through that dilemma of "oh she's just like me" , which could imply Kara has self loathing for what she is. Internalized hatred for androids in some way? Maybe insecurity. The narrative switches when Kara is sent to camps (with Markus revolution), you're given a choice to choose certain dialogues and one of them being "brave" and one of lines are "maybe one day they'll realize how much they've wronged us", it either comes off as hopeful or her views on humans changed, developing an ideology similar to North's, more of the latter if you take into account of How the line was said, rather than what was said.

While her main goal is to protect Alice (or the determination to make sure she'll do everything she can to make Alice happy again), Safety is her second priority (not really for herself knowing she can just jump into a freezing cold river), it's probably something she realized after seeing Mary and Andy. (They essentially recreate the scene if Kara and Alice get injured during the escape from Jericho 💀)

Kara has her nosy and curious nature, while not explored fully in the game, it's still there. Even as an android she still had that curiosity but never took it into account (with anti depressants and drugs and just Todd's general behaviour, looking at Alice's books and trying to open the box before getting the key, looking into Luther's bag, following Rose when checking on Mary and Andy and picking up the photo of Adam's dad, and just exploring their house. She also just plays with snow) she does try her best to be empathetic, offering her condolences to North if Markus doesn't make it to crossroads. One person she never really forgave was Connor, she never actually said "I forgive you to him", she maybe has her guard up when it comes to men, after having been wronged by so many. The situation surrounding Connor is either she doesn't remember or she's afraid of it not lasting.

She also manipulates, lies and steals. She isn't some innocent angel the fandom deemed her to be 💀 she often guilt trips in order to survive, she uses Todd's story against him at the bus station, Telling Adam "if you freak out, you'll see your mother in prison, do you want that?" Knowing full well Adam is very attached to his mom. She also uses Alice's story when threatening the Cashier at the convenience store. It's very much, "if I want something, I'll take it"

If you've done the "by River" flowchart, you'd get set options of Kara being able to talk about herself, one of the things she admits to is wanting to find out who she is, not knowing what she actually wants and wanting to learn how to love, implying she never knew how to do it. Kara has a wide array of knowledge, for some whose education can start from kindergarten to university level, but she's always fascinated when it comes to actually experiencing it. This applies to all androids of course.

She's very capable of being someone who micromanages, ignores her own feelings and thoughts, she never talks about her own doubts, only doing it one time with Luther (about RA9) and immediately got shut down . she's also confident, she often throws herself into fights with a 50/50 chance of winning, sometimes even less. Hell, she's even brutal if she wants to be, she can pull out the bathroom android at Zlatko's heart out without much thought, the action is even labelled as "Silence" 💀💀

I really want to write a Kara-centered fic but I struggle to think of anything because well...

(I mean this as someone who likes Kara) remove Alice & what is Kara's goals? It's just really difficult for me to fully understand her character because I know you'd probably end up writing both Kara & Alice BUT - i'd like there to be more to Kara than just mommy-caretaker angst reciever the character(TM).

I know in a way her character is fluid & can be interrupted different ways (it's a game with choices) but almost ALL of her choices are [way to take care of Alice]. ;_;

I'm just thinking out loud ig

[serpenteve]

Hii, I didn't know with whom to share this and then I thought of you!

This antis are giving me these 18th-19th century vibes when expressing independent opinions that clashed against the status quo was deemed a near crime. Ex- Anne with an E when the female teacher Miss Stacey is condemned for her unique knowledge and wearing pants and many more period dramas where a certain group of people are like - "Dishoner on your family!", "Disgrace to our society!", "Think of lil children!", "You learn what we teach you, must not impure your image with sinful opinion!", "You know nothing!", infantalization women, misogyny etc. and that has always enraged me. Just like how old tropes are subverted and then re-subverted bringing the former back, I feel like those 'traditions' are making their back here. And That is terrifying.

There does seem to be a resurgence of purity culture rhetoric and policing in fandom spaces and I also don't think that's coincidental considering all the terfy bullshit going around on this platform as well.

I was initially annoyed with people calling this "purity culture" because this is a term that usually refers to evangelical pearl-clutching about women's hymens but the attitude, arguments, and even policing about what is and isn't acceptable to ship in fandom is very similar to what I experienced growing up.

The problem is that culturally we are still very uncomfortable with women's sexualities. In church, women must not even have sex drive lest they get shamed for it. In fandom, women can only be attracted to whatever the fandom police deem "pure enough" or "acceptable". The fact that people can ship something toxic like Darklina or dare to have alternative character interpretations or wanted the narrative to allow Alina to be a little more evil or ruthless is too "problematic" to express. But the thing is, people's shipping preferences or fictional interests are just never going to be PC or good enough for polite society. That doesn't make them abuse apologists or evil people in real life. Are we going to go after BDSM community because they are "romanticizing abuse" next? Or harass actors because they like to play villainous characters? Because it's all made-up, it's a safe place for people to explore a toxic dynamic without the actual drama of one.

There's also this narrative that Darklina shippers are either (1) deluded little girls who need to be educated about the toxicity of their own ship or (2) old hags who are intruding on a fandom space that apparently has an age limit of 20 and need to get back in the kitchen. So we can already see the patriarchal assumptions in the narratives themselves: you are either a pure infantalized little girl who needs someone to tell you right from wrong or you're a grown woman who needs to do her womanly duty instead of participating in fandom. Gee, why does this sound so awfully familiar to me 🙄

Every other day, there's a new post in the #darklina tag from a "concerned" fan who feels compelled to talk down to shippers and say "Well, actually, the fact that you guys still ship Darklina after everything he did just proves Leigh's point that you're all stupid whores who would welcome abuse if it had a good jawline 😌". Or a "confused" fan who's compelled to say "How can people ship Darklina? Literally what is wrong with you? Are you fucked in the head to ship X with Y? I'm so glad I'm not like that uwu 😌"

Like, do these people have such little faith in women that they feel compelled to constantly cringe and post PSAs on the dangers of a sexy jawline? How little faith do they have in themselves that they are so obsessed with making sure a group of shippers (who have always acknowledged and always historically acknowledged the toxic aspects of their ship) are sent anonymous hate mail? That they think all this is okay because they can hide under the banner of "activism" and "concern for women's safety" or "think of the children!".

I've seen it all before in church. People who can't stand that others have a mind and body of their own or dare to have fun "the wrong way" and need to be reminded about their "true" social role in society. People who need to constantly slut-shame you because something about your actions reminds them of some part of themselves they are deeply ashamed of and can't acknowledge. People who are just looking for an excuse to be an asshole and are thrilled to hide behind "well im just helping silly little girls spot abusers" rhetoric.

[esther-dot]

I think the Jon/Dany romance just has nothing going for it. I never thought that Jon and Dany would make a good pair and the show confirmed it. In my mind, part of the while point of J/Y is to set Jon up NOT to fall for the same relationship dynamic again. The Jon/Dany romance just felt like a poor attempt at recycling Jon/Ygritte story line thinking it would connect with audiences. The whole J/D thing felt unnatural and OOC for Jon. It was boring from a narrative and personal perspective.

How they did J/D in the show made no sense at any level. There were a dozen ways they could have written it better, and they just gave us a self contradictory mess. How badly they wrote it is impressive.

Maybe I haven't talked about this before, but part of the reason I have such an overwhelming hatred for Jxnerys and a much more rational approach to J/Y is because when J/Y happens, Jon is so young. He's left his family and had his dream of what the Watch is shattered. Then he is removed from those people, placed in a life or death situation in which he has to play along, and there's this girl who smiles at him, who sings (which incidentally is a parallel to his mother...), and pursues him. While we objectively read her behavior as sexual harassment, the kid was made to feel unwanted/an outsider during his childhood (even though his siblings loved him), finds himself in the worst situation of his life, and then, there's this person who wants him, wants him to belong with her, loves him (because he believes Ygritte loved him even if we think she mistreated him), and that's a powerful thing. Ygritte is meeting fundamental emotional needs. And then, they have sex. And of course, it feels good, but also, it also means Jon has a bond with her that he has never had with anyone else. The kid is a romantic, very emotional, and I think the circumstances are such that he wouldn't be able to not have deep (if confused and conflicted and perhaps even misidentified) feelings.

Also, the goodness of Jon cannot be overstated here. He did not want to get involved with Ygritte, felt that he had to, and then, when contemplating leaving, he worries about what it means for her safety. He takes on so many burdens here, has such a sense of responsibility and guilt. So, to me, Jon is not an idiot for caring. He isn't wrong for caring. He is a good person, a boy, and I only have sympathy for him.

I guess my concern that J/D will happen regardless of it not really making sense to me is that I don't see how Jon and Dany face off without having a personal relationship. It just feels too clear cut if he doesn't. It doesn't have to be sexual, but it's hard to see how he will care too much about an aunt he didn't know he had after he is reunited with the Starks. If she's a threat to them, how would he view her with any positive emotion? Dany will not be a girl on the wrong side of the Wall, a soldier in someone else's army, she isn't even Mance. She is coming with dragons to subjugate the entire continent because she wants to rule it. There is nothing she can say to justify it, she is only a threat, and she will be at war with someone who Jon will sooner or later learn is his brother (or might be his brother, I guess we don't know what Jon will think). But even so, she wont be the only other Targaryen family he suddenly has, so I just don't see what their connection would be.

I can understand (without liking) J/Y because he was particularly vulnerable at the time that he met her, but when he meets Dany, it will be after he has reunited with a Stark. After they have reclaimed Winterfell, after he has experienced some sort of acceptance by the North (he might even be chosen as KitN), so all the things feeding into why he would be susceptible to Ygritte, just aren't going to be there when he encounters Dany. Ygritte was offering something to Jon that he didn't have, Dany would only be taking things away from him (which is exactly how it happened in the show). And the underlying implication of that, the psychological explanation would be that he is so traumatized by his experiences or swallowed by guilt/shame/self-loathing that he can't accept the love and respect of his family/people. Obviously, D&D didn't bother making Jon s7-8 coherent, but it seems to me that if J/D were to happen in a consensual way, it would have to be after parentage reveal when he is an absolute mess. I know that's not the conventional take, but they'll be meeting SO late in the story, I don't see how it happens before. I'm not saying that J/D will happen, I just think if Martin wants it to, he's going to have it come out of a really fucked up place. Jon would have to again have a feeling of not belonging/not being wanted that makes him vulnerable. I hated J/D in the show, but I think it would be so, so much worse in the books. It was boring on the show because they couldn't ground it in who the characters were, but when I think about how it could go down in the books, it seems like it will be another noncon relationship for Jon or the outgrowth of despair.

But, to your point, you can learn from bad experiences, or it can be the beginning of a pattern. If the Starks are to prevail, they must learn their lessons. So, I agree, that Ygritte and then Val, must be about teaching him about the duality of women. That while he thinks of women as people to protect, Ygritte would slit a man's throat and Val would kill a child. And then, there's also the fire-happy people he's around and how he isn't enthralled with that. It feels like he is being prepped to handle Dany.

Anyway, before I found the Sansa and Jonsa fandom here and was reading stuff on Reddit, I felt like people who liked J/D could be divided into two groups. Show fans thought the two actors were really hot and should be hot in the vicinity of each other, and J/D did share screentime so...I guess that's why they liked s7 even though the writers did awful things to Jon to facilitate it. Presumption that the main girl/main guy would get together fed into that too.

And the other group seemed to be very into Targ supremacy and the idea that they would save the world so of course J/D would fall in love, use the dragons to defeat the Others, rule Westeros together.. This ending would mean the Targs were right to conquer Westeros, that Rhaegar was right, and it would also justify everything Dany did because she/dragons would save humanity. It's very strange that so much of the fandom doesn't really focus on the why/how of things in such a character driven story.

In the show, I still don't know what they were going for because 8x01 felt like a course correct to tell us that no, J/D really is J/Y 2.0. The tone of that stupid dragon riding scene and their laughing together while being watched by all their advisors was very different than the entirety of their s7 interactions, and considering their immediate situation, felt forced and ooc for both of them. So, I thought it was something D&D felt compelled to do because of a change in plans. As in, if that's what they intended their relationship to be all along, I think they would have had more emotional bonding back in s7 and pushed their sex scene to a passionate eve of battle thing in s8, rather than the stupid flying thing. They really needed to sell the passion of J/D in s8 to offset all the red flags Dany was waving around, and instead they suddenly switched to cute which just...well, it was a total mess. Whatever J/D was, let's hope it was fan service/an attempt to hide Dark Dany, and nothing we will have to experience in the books.

[kemifatoba]

C/O Berlin Magazine | It’s a space for everyone, and everyone can come in — Thoughts for the future

“I cringe when I hear words like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion.” To quote the civil rights activist, philosopher, and writer Angela Davis, “diversity” and “inclusion” are terms that you, dear reader, might have also stumbled across in recent months, whether you wanted to or not. Inspired by global Black Lives Matter protests, mainstream media, corporations, and other institutions finally realized – in some cases as it seems overnight – that racism is also an intractable problem in Germany. Unfortunately, we need more than just hollow words and empty promises to solve this problem. You might be thinking to yourself: “But didn’t people take to the streets or write opinion pieces in newspapers to protest structural racism? And didn’t major institutions promise to offer diversity and inclusion workshops in discussion after discussion on television?” Perhaps, but don’t be fooled. Instead of critically questioning the role that white decision-makers play in perpetuating systemic racism, “society” was blamed. Over and over again, Black* people were asked to answer if they had really experienced racism through scrutiny of their real-life stories, while predominantly white “experts” were invited onto talk shows to discuss the so-called “racism debate”. Profound, structural changes are still lacking, at least as of the time this text goes to print. 

Presence equals power. This brings us to the current moment where you are reading these words about British photographer Nadine Ijewere’s solo show at C/O Berlin. Nadine Ijewere is the first Black woman to be given a space that has previously been occupied almost exclusively by white men. As such, this exhibition is significant not only for Black photographers, but for everyone more used to being treated as the object than the artist or curator in spaces like this where many people don’t feel welcome or simply don’t exist. As trivial as it may sound, visibility comes from being able to hang pictures on a wall—or write these lines.

Joy as an act of resistance. Nadine Ijewere belongs to a generation of artists and creatives who have realized that there are more options than simply following the traditional path. Knowing that society has long since changed—even if many gatekeepers in fashion, art, and the media still cling to the status quo—this DIY generation is creating its own platforms to elevate their own role models with an army of loyal followers. In their work, representatives of this generation create worlds that rarely center Eurocentric beauty norms. The same goes for this young British artist, whose work shows people in all their beauty and uniqueness. Her photographs regularly appear on the pages of British, American and Italian Vogue, i-D, or Garage, and she has collaborated with brands such as Nina Ricci and Stella McCartney. Ijewere proves that beauty is multifaceted and that fashion is fun and for everyone. 

More than a seat at the table. When artists like Ijewere make it to the top, it’s not because of nepotism, tokenism, or diversity as a trend, but despite all the obstacles that have been put in their way. And instead of assimilating after being accepted by the old guard, they continue to write their own rules. In Ijewere’s case, this means not only working with diverse models and teams, but also passing her knowledge on as a mentor to keep the proverbial door open. She’s less driven by the desire to stand out from the mainstream than she is to give back by inspiring younger generations, who are able to see themselves in magazines. “Within the time I have, I’ll use every opportunity I get and every space I can get into to expand the horizon of others.”

Representation matters. Celebrating Black people and people of color in a traditionally white space was also the goal of “Visibility is key – #RepresentationMatters,” a watershed moment for the German lifestyle magazine industry when it launched on vogue.de in spring 2019. The goal was to take first steps toward a forward-thinking future where inclusion and diversity would no longer be mere buzzwords, but lived practices. Part of that effort meant ensuring representation in front of as well as behind the camera. The results weren’t perfect and they might not have led to social change, but we proved that there isn’t a lack of creative talent among Black and Brown people in Germany. If anything, we proved that these talents are often denied the space to develop their full potential. 

Ideas for the future. As you see, dear reader, it takes teamwork to bring about long-term change, and for the first time the doors are open a bit. Nadine Ijewere's exhibition shows this, as does being able to write these very words in the C/O Berlin Newspaper. In the statements below, we asked German and international artists and creatives to envision a future where representation and inclusion are lived practices instead of rare exceptions. The results are ideas for a future that is reachable—as long as we all keep working towards it every day. Together.

Nadine Ijewere, artist Art is about art. It’s not about you personally. That’s why artists need to be seen as artists. We all get stereotyped and put into the same box—but we have our own identity. We are put into the same space just because we are Black, but we are all very different people.

Edward Enninful, OBE, Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue Nadine is one of the leading fashion photographers of her generation. She’s not only inherently British in her work, she’s also Black British. She really understands the complex mix of culture, fashion, beauty, and the inner working of a woman, so when you see her images, it’s never just a photograph. There’s also a story and a narrative behind it.

Benjamin Alexander Huseby & Serhat Işık, designers for the label GmbH Our work has always been about wanting to show our community and culture to tell our stories as authentically as we can. It was never about “diversity”, but about being seen. We want to create a world where not only exceptional Black and Brown talents no longer have to be truly exceptional to get recognition for their work, a world where we no longer are the only non-white person in the room because we built the motherfucking house ourselves.

Mohamed Amjahid, freelance journalist and author, whose book Der weiße Fleck will be published by Piper Verlag on March 1, 2021. It's time that Black women become bosses. Gay Arabs should get to call the shots. Refugees belong on the executive boards of big corporations. Children of so-called “guest workers” should move into management positions too. People with disabilities should not just have a say, they should make the decisions. Vulnerable groups deserve to put their talents and ideas to work in the service of the whole society. Not every person of color is automatically a good leader by virtue of their background, but all-white, cis-male executive boards are certainly incapable of making decisions that are right for everyone. That’s why we need more representation at the very top, where the decisions are made.

Melisa Karakuş, founder of renk., the first German-Turkish magazine For a better future, I demand that we educate our children to be anti-racist and to resist when others or when they themselves are subjected to racism. I demand that discrimination is understood through the lens of intersectionality and solidarity! I demand that even those who are not affected by racism stand up against it! This fight is not one that we as Black people and people of color fight alone—for a better future, we all have to work together. 

Tarik Tesfu, host of shows including the NDR talk show deep und deutlich When I look in the mirror, I see someone who grew up in the Ruhr region and loves currywurst with French fries as much as Whitney Houston. I see a person who has his pros and cons and who is so much more than his skin color. I see a subject. But the German media and cultural system seem to see it differently because far too often, Black people are degraded and made into objects for the reproduction of racist bullshit. I'm tired of explaining racism to Annette and Thomas because I really have better things to do (for example, my job). So get out of my light and let me shine.

Ronan Mckenzie, photographer The future of our industry needs to be one with more consideration for those that are within it. One that isn’t shrouded in burnout and the stresses of late payments, and one that doesn’t make anyone question whether they have been booked for the quality of their work or to be tokenized for the color of their skin. The future of our industry needs to go beyond the performative Instagram posts and mean-nothing awards, to truly sharing resources and lifting up one another. Our industry needs to put its money where its mouth is when words like “support”, “community” or “diversity” slip out, instead of using buzzwords that create an illusion of championing us. How there can be so much money in this industry yet so many struggle to keep up with their rent, feed themselves, or just rest without worrying about money is truly a travesty. If this industry is to survive then we who make it what it is need to be able to thrive.

Ferda Ataman, journalist and chair of Neue deutsche Medienmacher*innen A recent survey of the country's most important editors-in-chief revealed that many of them think diversity is good, but they don't want to do anything about it. This is based on the assumption that everyone good will succeed. Unfortunately, that’s not true. It’s not just a person’s qualifications that are decisive, but other criteria as well, such as similarity and habit (“XY fits in with us”). It's high time that all of us—everywhere—demand a serious commitment to openness and diversity. Something is seriously wrong in pure white spaces that can’t be explained by people’s professional qualifications alone. Or to put it differently: a good diversity strategy always has an anti-racist effect.

Nana Addison, founder of CURL CON and CURL Agency Being sustainable and inclusive means thinking about all skin tones, all hair textures, and all body shapes—in the beauty industry, in marketing communications, as well as in the media landscape. These three industries work hand in hand in shaping people’s perceptions of themselves and others. It’s important to take responsibility and be proactive and progressive to ensure inclusivity.

Dogukan Nesanir, stylist  The current system is not designed to help minorities. By giving advantages to certain people and groups, it automatically deprives others of the chance to attain certain positions in the first place. That's why I don't even ask myself the question "What if?" anymore. My work is not about advancing a fake worldview, but about highlighting all the real in the good and the bad. I strongly believe that if some powerful gatekeepers gave in, if representation and diversity happened behind the scenes and we had the chance to show what the world REALLY looks like, we wouldn't be having these discussions at all. I don't just want an invitation to the table, I want to own the table and change things.

Arpana Aischa Berndt & Raquel Dukpa, editors of the catalog I See You – Thoughts on the Film “Futur drei” In the German film and television industry, production teams and casting directors are increasingly looking for a “diverse” cast. Casting calls are almost exclusively formulated by white people who profit from telling stories of people of color and Black people by using them, but without changing their own structures in the process. Application requirements and selection processes in film schools even shut out marginalized people by denying them the opportunities that come with being in these institutions. People of color and migrants as well as Black, indigenous, Jewish, queer, and disabled people can all tell stories, too. Production companies need to understand that expertise doesn’t necessarily come with a film degree.

Vanessa Vu & Minh Thu Tran, hosts of the podcast Rice and Shine  It may be convenient to ignore entire groups, but we are and have been so much more for a very long time. We contribute to culture by making films or plays and bring new perspectives to science, politics, and journalism. We’re Olympic athletes, curators, artists, singers, dancers, and inventors. We dazzle and shine despite not always being seen. Because we have each other and we’ve created opportunities to do the things we love. We’ve created platforms for each other and built communities. Slowly but surely we are finally getting applause and recognition for the fact that we exist. That's nice. But what we really need is not just the opportunity to exist, but the opportunity to continue to grow and to stop basing our work primarily on self-exploitation. We need security, reliability, and money. That's the hard currency of recognition. That would mean being truly seen.

*Black is a political self-designation and is capitalized to indicate that being Black is about connectedness due to shared experiences of racism.

Written by: Alexandra Bondi de Antoni & Kemi Fatoba C/O Berlin Magazine April 2021

[shifuaang]

Just wanted to say it’s nice to see someone agree Aangs parenting in LOK is grossly out of character. I keep seeing people contort the situation into pretzels to make it work. It comes close to ruining the franchise for me

I almost have to divorce LOK from ATLA in order to enjoy it, which is really kind of sad considering how it's so integrally connected to its source material and yet seems to mishandle said source material at every opportunity.

LOK recycles the same familial conflicts as ATLA. Both Aang and Toph are painted as bad parental figures, which seems like a complete character assassination of the two of them as well as of Katara who was married to Aang and seemingly allowed him to mistreat Kya and Bumi. I wrote a much more in-depth meta on this narrative choice and how it contradicts the character strengths and flaws that were given to Aang in ATLA here if you’re interested. 

Basically, I think it’s very unlike Aang to show favoritism to his airbending son when he sees firsthand how badly favoritism affects both Zuko and Azula. Aang is shown to be extremely excited about sharing his culture with Katara and Sokka and is more inclusive than anyone else in the Gaang. I love Aang because he is human and has many flaws, but to make him a bad father taints his legacy, is lazy writing, and almost ruins the series for me as well. Forgive me for going on a rant, but I’ve wanted to talk about my grievances with LOK for a while, and your ask inspired me to make a list soooo away we go:

I hate that the rules of bloodbending are retconned to create the conflict in season one - it diminishes the Avatar's ability to energybend and take away bending as a means of justice (specifically Aang who had to defy all of his friends and the rules of the world in order to defeat Ozai without compromising his culture and morals). Why can Noatak and Tarrlok bloodbend when it's not a full moon? Just because they will themselves into doing so? If this is true, surely Hama would have figured out how to utilize this technique as she was also abused and had just as much motivation as the two brothers to be a survivalist and hone her powers.

The Harmonic Convergence allows airbending to come back too quickly. It all feels too neat and tidy. While I absolutely adore the restoration of air nomad culture and watching that come to life, it's not enough of a slow burn for me. I feel that it lessened the extraordinary pain that Aang experienced being the last of his people. If they're going to go the route of the lion turtle being the one to bestow bending (which I don't like, but we'll get there), why not include a plot where the Air Acolytes go on a quest (led by the Avatar who is the bridge between the spirit and physical world) to find him and have him grant them airbending? That would have been far more interesting to me than the spirit world conveniently opening up and restoring balance.

The whole concept of the lion turtle being the bestower of all bending leans far too much into the Western-centric idea of some kind of monotheistic creator. I was happy to accept the existence of benders, non-benders, and the Avatar without there being any sort of long-winded explanation for why they came to be. Sometimes when shows try too hard to give mystical elements backstory and lore, it takes away from the intrigue and magic behind everything. LOK in general is far more Western-centric than ATLA. The spirits of Raava and Vaatu aren't necessarily a bad addition, but they are written as completely black and white. The dichotomy of good vs. evil doesn't exist in ATLA - even Ozai's life is given intrinsic value and careful consideration despite the fact that he is, by all accounts, an irredeemable dictator. Tui and La, push and pull, lend themselves to a far more complex and morally grey narrative. 

With LOK moving in a more Western direction comes a blatant lack of respect for Asian cultures, particularly Buddhist culture. Nothing is as well-researched or planned as ATLA's plot and cultural references. From fartbending to straying from Eastern themes and spirituality, it all just feels very juvenile, which is ironic considering LOK was meant to appeal to an older audience. 

While I almost loathe to say this because Zaheer is such a well-written character and intriguing in ways that even ATLA's villains aren't, his achieving enlightenment and learning to fly is a slap in the face to true morality, concentration, and wisdom, which are the main pillars of Buddhist thought and training. You're meaning to tell me that Aang had to struggle with opening seven chakras, letting go of earthly attachments, and literally dying and being resurrected in order to go into the Avatar State, but all Zaheer had to do to achieve what only one other airbender has achieved is watch P'li die? He got to unlock a previously insurmountable airbending technique after breaking every moral airbending code, including taking life with his bending? I'm not buying it. 

On a similar note, the way cultural appropriation is glossed over in LOK is also incredibly inappropriate. LOK has a real opportunity to explore racism, blackface/brownface, and the sexualization of ‘exotic’ characters in Old Hollywood when Bolin is cast as Nuktuk, but his role in the films just becomes a running gag. It shouldn't sit right with anyone that someone who is half Fire Nation is playing a waterbending hero only about 50 years after the hundred year war in which the Fire Nation almost eradicated waterbenders.

The relationships are not very well-written. Love triangles are a terrible plot device, and Bolin's abusive relationship with Eska is played for laughs. I don't like Korra being cut off from her past lives in what feels like some desperate sort of ploy to get the fans to break ties from the old characters and only care about the new ones. The copaganda is gross, and Toph becoming a cop makes very little sense to me. The plot can be messy and contrived, and the pacing isn't great.

So you're probably wondering, why do you even watch LOK? It sounds like you hate it. I truly don't. The animation is beautiful, the fight sequences are amazingly choreographed, and I really enjoy some of the new characters like Asami, Tenzin, and Jinora. I think LOK is a good, solid show on its own, but it's impossible to hold a candle to its near flawless predecessor. 

[mc-critical]

Pertaining to MYK2, it’s an observation of mine that as Kösem got older she grew more bitter, more angry, and felt overall more resentment towards the overall Ottoman lifestyle and dynasty which was a mere glorified prison for her. I would even go as far to say that her actions toward her children later in life were possibly due to her seeing them as an extension of her trauma and imprisonment in a way? I believe she only clung to power and titles the way she did because she truly believed it would be all she could have going for her and the only thing that could get her to be afforded basic human decency on some level in the enviornment she was trapped in. I especially see it towards the end when she has plans to dethrone her grandson and remarks “when one grandson goes the other comes” and you can see how she’s just..gone. There’s no longer a shred of resemblance to the innocent and life-loving Anastasia. She completely internalized the hatred and the death that surrounded her and became it..I’d even call it a cinematic parallel to Saifye. What do you think?

Overall, I think you hit the nail right on the head.

The loss of innocence is the central theme of the show: we consistently see how it begins to flourish, all the little hints, all the big actions, and Kösem, being the protagonist, will of course be the epitome of it all. It's a given that everything she has experienced would lead to trauma sooner or later, a trauma that really brings hatred, bitterness and then again, misery, because when you look at it, she couldn't take a break even for a second. To me, Safiye killing her father, was namely where it began - Kösem, just like Hürrem, had to completely let go of her past to begin this new life, but unlike her, this character arc was quick and rushed and harder, and she didn't get the fullest time necessary to do it in narrative, for her to actually get used to it. Her past is quite a part of her innocence, of her previous being, and when people (like Safiye and Raihan Aga) tell her to forget about it, she resists so much more, because there is hope that things would be just like before. Say, Hürrem adapted so quickly and so efficiently, because there was a lot to win, but nothing to lose - everyone she knew was perceived as dead, she had nowhere to go, it was lost and it was gone and she had to move forward. (Nigar's advice and the dream with her parents highlight that.) And when Leo appeared, Hürrem had already adapted, already planted seeds in this empire and had found the man she truly loved. Anastasia not only didn't have this chance, she still had nothing to do out there, knowing she could return to her family once again (they didn't kill anyone when they kidnapped her, remember?), was fond of Ahmet, but that was it, and didn't have any heirs yet. What would she do there, why would she forget her home, especially when there was a person just as eager as her to return to his roots (Iskender), and we had someone who was the narrative culmination of her hope to put everything back to normal (her father)? I feel that her refusal to Iskender to escape with him was only an intentionally forced tool for her and Iskender's character arcs, she stayed only out of necessity back then and one could say that, she probably never truly adapted. When her father died, was just when she realized there is no turning back now.

When she symbolically became Kösem, she had fought many fights in her life: she fought because she wanted justice (her exposing Fahriye and Dervish/Handan), because she wanted revenge (against Safiye), she fought for her life. (post-E25 and season 2.) But she did it out of necessity, all the roles she had to take she took out of necessity, she represented the country, acted as a regent even when Murat took that away from her.. only out of sheer necessity. That's what she did in episode 7, she stood up to all these people in need, and when she did that, she was suddenly regarded as a hero, as this blessed angel who saved everyone and could do no wrong, but she obviously couldn't stay so. She perhaps could've gained some kind of a savior complex, to have something to protect out of obligation. And that something had to be connected with her "first act" and with her whole arc in season 1 - that is, the country. She took her whole life to represent the country and protect it. ("The country you talk about wouldn't exist, if it weren't for me!") It turned into the very meaning of her life, she merged herself with it and she had to fight for it. The fights she had throughout the entire show were very exhausting, draining everything out of her, because there were countless times where it was all about to be over. She had to face enemies much stronger, much sneakier and much more experienced than she herself was, and she knew very well that they wouldn't hesitate even for a moment to do what they had to do. They were brutal and they were ruthless, all of them. And they were against this very thing she cherished, the very power she equated to the country. She spent her whole life to fight and protect it, turning her heart into iron and stone, automatically realizing every threat and striving to remove it, no matter what it takes. That goes into her conflict with Murat and into the rest of her children (by that I mean Ibrahim), as well, once she feels they are a threat, she began removing them. But this isn't a facade that can be kept so easily, this isn't some worthy life, so it all bottles up inside of her eventually and she has no time to let it out, because this period, her life, is just so dynamic. All her enemies were tough and persistent, making something happen almost every other day, the revolts, the parental conflicts, the attempts, the traps, the intrigues, the backstabbing... All that including her daily duties and all the meetings she has to attend to to keep things running smoothly. It all takes a toll on her, and it's understandable why when everything falls apart, she just doesn't care. She took the very last strip of her innocence, her humanity, with sealing the pact to kill Ibrahim. And guess what? She did this only for the country, she did this because someone pushed that weakness, that pressure point of hers. All she fought for was doomed the second Murat took things into his own hands, and she realized it. By Murat's death, it was now or never, because the harder she fights for this position of hers, she loses what made her so remarkably human in the first place. It's going hand to hand, really.

There is a point to be made about the parallels S02 Kösem had with Safiye, because while their arcs hit many of the same notes, they divert from one another in quite a bit of ways. Safiye was everything Kösem fought against - she made the darker side of S01 Kösem what it was, because taking revenge on Safiye, what she took away from her, was the primary "shadier" motivator of her character then. Azis Mahmud Hüdai (I hope I'm writing his name right) even warned her to the dangers of power and the similarities with Safiye that slowly grew in her. And there is some irony in this, because Safiye also played her part in the tragic Osman storyline by manipulating him from the get-go that Kösem could act against him because she wasn't his real mother. And the guy she sent to manipulate him was there for a long time. What I mean to say is, Kösem and Safiye had that fight going until the very end, and Safiye openly gave her the thematic ring (тм), perhaps due to the similarities they share. Safiye had this desire for neverending power, she never gave up, even when all odds were against her. She became used to it after so many years and it as well became what defined her. On the surface, the same could be said for Kösem, as well. Both of them did the unthinkable to keep this prestige and these titles. Both loved their power, but in different ways: Safiye wanted power for the sake of power, she loved the very concept of it, to wake up in the castle, to prepare for the day, to issue orders and to eclipse everyone, for Safiye it wasn't something morally right, it was about her and her only. She would lose her life, but never her power. It was already something she had always had and losing it would mean they took something that was rightfully hers, without debate. Kösem had this power for the country she felt obliged to protect, to the point power and country became synonymous to her, whatever she did was for the country, but in her eyes, it was the right thing, for the state to live, for the people to be safe and sound, for everyone to have a tranquil life without imbalance. (in E47 we had this parallel act to E07, where she once again, stood up in front of the people, to calm them down after Murat's unexpected disappearance; we have her show Kasım to the people in E53? etc.) And she would lose her life, as well as her power. (the narrative delivered its own symbolic meaning with her death.) She thought it should be all hers for a long time, but not by right, rather through all she had achieved in her life. At the end, she realized this loss, and accepted it, symbolically giving the thematic ring to nobody, while Safiye did in her death after all, thematically continuing the cycle herself. She no longer gave a damn about the world and all she wanted was to die in piece.

There is also another key difference between Safiye and Kösem - Safiye kept her power through cunning and manipulation from the very beggining, while Kösem consistently reached out: to the people, to the Janissary, to Murat even. Safiye thought they misunderstood her, that you couldn't win this war by peace, while Kösem often tried to find the optimal, peaceable solution - she killed only as a last resort, only when she found out nothing else worked, it took her a whole season-long arc to realize that Murat wasn't worth it (and even in E60, it was hard for her to kill Ibrahim and it all had to come to Turhan's manipulation). Safiye, just like Gülbahar, who was the main enemy to S02 Kösem for a reason, had buried her conscience deep within, while Kösem, even with all she's done, still had the reflection of Anastasia in the mirror and in her head, no matter how much she tried to shut her up. ("Admit it, you liked having power!" - quoting by pure memory here.)

Thing is, what Kösem experienced, truly shaped up who she was, and just like so many, internalized that toxic way of living to a huge extent. And no matter how hard she tried to fight with it, she let it sink in and fully embraced it. And when she finally got out of it, what was done was done, and destruction ensued. But she probably found piece in her death, getting rid of this burden, plaguing her whole life.

[purplebass]

James Herondale and Cordelia Carstairs: 1001 Nights and Layla and Majnun

Yet another essay/analysis about James Herondale and Cordelia Carstairs and the references of their story with classic Middle East literature books such as “1001 Nights” and “Layla and Majnun” and how those books might have inspired some TLH storylines.

Similarities between “1001 Nights” characters and James and Cordelia

The Layla references by James and Alastair

The Scheherezade storyteller

The metaphor of James and Cordelia’s relationship

Cordelia as James’s link to this world

In the Classic Reimagined with Shadowhunters characters book, Cordelia and James are pictured as Scheherazade and sultan Shahryar from “1001 Nights”, and she is probably telling him a story in that art. This book is a collection of folk tales and it is often referred to as “Arabian Nights” and has elements of different Middle East cultures. In short, the sultan Shahryar marries virgin women and then he kills them after the night they spend together. After some time, there aren’t virgins anymore, so the vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, offers herself as the next wife/queen and survives because for 1000 nights she tells the sultan a story, which she never finishes, to keep him curious. The sultan spares her life because he wants to know how the stories end, and after 3 years (1,001 days) she finishes the stories but the sultan has fallen in love with her and he doesn’t kill her. 

Like Scheherazade, Cordelia likes books and likes to tell stories. Cordelia is Persian and this collection of tales also contains Persian elements, and the name Scheherazade means “of noble lineage” from Middle Persian. Cordelia also offered herself to marry James to save him from facing judgement from the Clave.

The name of the Sultan, Shaharyar, means “holder of the realm” as king/prince, because the “shah” was the crown king/prince/emperor in Persia/Iran. James loves to read as well and he has expressed several times in CoG2 that he wants to hear Cordelia’s stories. 

“Night” in Arabic is “Layla”, which is not only the title of “1001 Nights” in Arabic (“Alf Laylah wa-Laylah”), but it also refers to “Layla and Majnun”. The only time James calls Cordelia “Layla” is when he has the scalding fever and is in and out of consciousness. Alastair also calls Cordelia “Layla”, which is not just super cute but also a reference to their Persian heritage and it also refers to the aesthetic behind Cordelia and James. Cordelia is the night and James the day, but Cordelia is also the fire and James is the shadow. Cordelia is also a heroine like Scheherazade, of course. In literature, the Scheherazade storyteller is also someone who tells a story and is fighting with death, which means that they are telling their story to the reader but they know that they don’t have much time because death is around the corner. If you consider the trouble happening in CoG2, every character of TLH risks to die, especially since we have different POVs and each character tells their own story from their perspective. The only character writer in TLH is Lucie, who also notices how life is terrible and unpredictable, while she only wanted to put joy into her stories:

She felt somewhere in the core of her heart the truth of what her mother had just said. And one should put truth in books, she thought, but this would never be the sort of thing she put in the pages of The Beautiful Cordelia. Books were about experiencing joy. This was the raw and awful stuff of life.

It was much too terrible.

When James has the scalding fever, Cordelia reads him poems and tells him about “Layla and Majnun” by Nizami. From Days Past: Cirenworth Hall, 1900:

She read him the poems of Nizami, and especially the story of Layla and Majnun, one she clearly loved and had known since she was very small. Her cheeks grew unexpectedly red at the more romantic parts: the poor boy falling in love with the beautiful Layla on first sight, wandering mad in the desert when they were separated.

If we were to analyze this, we could say that it reflects James and Cordelia’s story to some degree. James didn’t fall for Cordelia at first sight because he had the gracelet in most of the times they met through the years, but when the gracelet is off and especially after this moment with Cordelia tending to him while he was sick, James is not able to keep her out of his mind even when he later meets Grace again in Idris. Now I don’t know what will happen, but until the gracelet is off, James will act as doesn’t love Cordelia unless their bond breaks the spell of the gracelet. Or Cortana could destroy the gracelet? The last part of this section I reported above “wandering mad in the desert when they were separated” made me think about the shadow’s realm. The realm is like a desert because there is nobody around, and when James goes there before he finally meets Belial, it’s deserted as there is no one there (even if I guess there are demons, but it’s mostly a lonely place). Cordelia is the only one who went to the shadow realm with James and seems to be a threat to Belial in that dimension, because of Cortana. Will James go back to the shadow realm and will Cordelia have to look for him again like at the end of CoG2? That could have been a foreshadowing for the ending and of James and Cordelia finally meeting Belial, but who knows if that won’t come into play again in the future. James could be unable to go back to the normal world and he could be stuck in the realm. Just a thought.

Even when James has the scalding fever and travels to the shadow realm, Cordelia is the only one who is able to bring him back and to their world, which means that there is a link between them, something in Cordelia and James both, a pull. Perhaps it’s the affection they feel for each other, the fiery passion that they could unleash after the gracelet is finally off. Like we saw in the whispering room. That was raw and unrelenting passion, the metaphor of Cordelia and James as a couple: fire and shadow. Cordelia is the fire/match that lit James on fire. Here’s more quotes from Chapter 3, Days Past: Cirenworth Hall, 1900 to support this idea:

He reached for her, and the shadow that was his hand caught hers, darkness against flesh. He wondered how his touch felt to her. His whole body was tensed, like a horse shying from thunder. The room smelled of lightning.

“James, you must hold on. You must. Don’t go anywhere,” Cordelia said. “Stay with me.”

“ ‘ I sought not fire, yet is my heart all flame. Layla, this love is not of earth.’   ”

He shuddered and felt himself come back to this world fully, felt his body return to the space he occupied. 

Note: There is also a parallel scene where it’s Alastair who tells Cordelia to stay with him, which could be a hint that Alastair might be the link for Cordelia to stay in this world if she ever falls into the shadow realm with James, perhaps (like Lucie could also be another link for James as his sister). In the flashback from Chapter 20, Days Past: Cirenworth Hall, 1898:

When he looked suspicious, she said, “I could use some help, Alastair. You see how careless my form is.” Alastair came and took the knife from her. “Very careless,” he agreed. “I know swordplay comes naturally to you, but not everything will. You must slow down. Pay attention to your feet. Now, follow my gestures. That’s it, Layla. Stay with me.” And she would.

To reinforce the parallelism between famous Middle East literature and English literature, we also have “The Beautiful Cordelia”, which is not a real book but a story in the making, since Lucie started writing it when she was 12 and she still hasn’t finished it. It’s also a story-within-the-story like the narrative in “1001 Nights”. Lucie is also telling her own story to the readers, and in CoG2 she is writing about Cordelia who is a beautiful red haired woman. Cruel Prince James, inspired by her brother James, is one of the characters of her book even though we don’t know if he is the Lord Hawke who adored Cordelia and supposedly is her main love interest.

One thing that differs in “1001 Nights” and “Layla and Majnun” is the ending. The first has a happy ending because Scheherazade and Shahryar fall in love and she doesn’t die because she becomes queen. In the other book, however, which is sort of a “Romeo and Juliet” love story, the ending is not happy. Layla’s father doesn’t want her to be with Majnun, because he considers the man mentally unstable (Majnun means “crazy”). In the end Layla marries someone else and Majnun roams in the desert because he can’t accept to live in a world without her. They die without seeing each other again, both heartbroken because they can’t be with the other person. 

Now don’t take the books word for word. They are inspirations for the main story for sure, but the good thing of inspirations is that they never have the same ending of the original.

Thanks for reading! I know it’s quite long, but I don’t have the gift of brevity, I’m sorry. 🤣

[chiconzin]

The unbearable smell of oranges

I

Maybe it was her untied black hair, maybe it was her strange demeanour, or the history of tragedy surrounding the house she lived in. Or maybe it was something more apparent that caused repulsion amongst the small group of children we used to play with: her smell. Eurydice was constantly surrounded by an unmistakable smell, no one could agree on what it was. It was like the smell of citrus, like the smell of rotten oranges. It took me my whole life to identify the source of that smell; that’s what this story is about.

Eurydice belonged to one of the old wealthy families in town. She lived with her grandmother, until one day, she presumably died from tuberculosis. Who were Eurydice’s parents or their whereabouts, no one knew. And because of her strange characteristics and behaviour, she remained an orphan, living in the same decaying old house.

Many of the details of Eurydice’s life and origin remains unknown because of her compulsive habit of lying. Lying was the thing she was best at, and throughout her life, it allowed her to live relatively comfortably without any family. She had a talent with words; she could convince anyone the sky was green if she wanted. Eurydice had a gifted writer’s soul; her stories were capable of stripping people of their most prized possessions. It was a strange relationship between the town and Eurydice. They had a terrific pity for her, but never enough to make a simple quick act of charity. She was an outcast, forever an outcast.

One day, while we were playing, the topic of reading and writing came up. We all were pretty amazed to discover Eurydice could do either. She said she formerly had a private tutor and that she had mastered the art of reading to perfection. Not believing her, I asked Eurydice to give me reading lessons. Surprisingly, she accepted and set a date to meet at her house. I didn’t know what to make out of this in the beginning, but I ended up going. After all, what was the scheme behind teaching someone to read?

II

It was one of the hottest days of the year, not a single soul was on the streets, not even birds would sing. It didn’t take me a lot to find where Eurydice’s home was, after all, it was one of the biggest in town. Like most old buildings, it was made of quarry and tezontle. It was two stories and what seemed like a thousand rooms. It almost looked like a cloister. Above the massive engraved wooden door was a family shield so eroded it was unrecognizable. A hot current of wind was flowing under the door and inside the building, like it was breathing very slowly. Fear travelled through my body as I felt I was in front of an enormous ancient beast. After knocking several times and not receiving an answer, I entered. When I got to the courtyard, I finally saw her.

She was laying on a hammock, reading with that dirty nightgown she invariably displayed, under the most immense orange tree my eyes have ever laid upon. The tree branches grew and spread throughout the balconies without a care in the world and there were thousands of oranges laying on the floor everywhere. The air was saturated by the orange’s scent, an unusual warm smell, maybe a little sweeter than the characteristic orange’s perfume.

This would be the end of the story if the orange tree was the reason behind Eurydice’s fragrance. Although similar, the aroma and aura from the house and the one emanating from Eurydice couldn’t be more different. The house fragrance was old and nostalgic, Eurydice’s one was longing, but a yearning for something not yet experienced.

Eurydice gestured for me to come and join her, so I did. She started by teaching me the alphabet and the sound of each letter, then she made me try to read some old children’s rhymes. She was a completely different person inside that house. Her charismatic tales, her spillable tenderness, and her infinite patience allured me quickly, and soon enough we became good friends. It wasn’t long before I started taking daily lessons with her.

I enjoyed how weirdly affectionate she was towards me and her even stranger ways of showing it. She would do and undo my braid over and over sometimes, other times while we lied on the hammock, she would curiously touch my face as I was the first human being she ever saw. I didn’t like when Eurydice did that. I was an insecure child growing up and my smallpox scars made me inhibited. But thanks to her tenderness, as time went by I started cherishing more of those times of idleness.

III

When I reached my teenage years, I finally started reading my first novel, I was a quick learner after all. As there wasn’t much Eurydice could teach me anymore, the moments of boredom and frivolity in the hammock during her lessons became more frequent. One of those days of sopor, Eurydice started touching my face again, caressing it rather, that’s when it happened. It was so faint and so light I didn’t read it as a kiss until she started engulfing me in them. Without knowing what was happening and unsure of what to do next, I lowered my head and stayed very still. She took notice after a while of my reaction and then abruptly stopped. The air became heavy, the atmosphere unbearably unpleasant and uncomfortable so the lesson of the day was cut short. After that, I stopped hanging with her for a while.

I tried resuming my daily life, but something ensued after I left that decaying house. Slowly but surely I was being excluded from the local social activities, like the atmosphere Eurydice brought with her was always following.My old-time friends started drifting away, and soon people began treating me as a foreigner. As I became more isolated, I started perceiving it too: the smell of rotten oranges. Eurydice’s garden had followed me.

Initially, I thought it was in my hair, in the braid she often did and undid, so I cut it. Next, I thought the odour was emanating from the books she had gifted me throughout our lessons, so I burned them. I started getting rid of anything in my life that was associated with her in hopes the curse would stop. The scent became unbearable; it wouldn’t go away no matter how many times I washed my clothes or myself. I couldn’t eat anything as everything tasted like those unduly sweet oranges, I couldn’t sleep at night as the warm smell suffocated me and made me feel dizzy.

There was only one thing I could do: seek help with Eurydice.

IV

The day I returned to Eurydice’s house the smell stopped. When I entered, she was in crisis. The young girl told me horrible tales of what happened after I had left. Tales blurring the line between fiction and reality. She was delirious! All her charismatic lying started to flop as she would often confuse events described in the horror novels she often read with daily occurrences without order or logic.

I led her to the hammock and started reading to her as we would always do. I held her tight, as if I released her I would lose her forever. As the lecture continued, and we began to be absorbed in the dull descriptions of that badly written book, I finally found peace. The atmosphere didn’t smell like anything in particular, nor anything felt special in a singular way. At that moment I felt like I could deal with Eurydice’s extravagances and daylight nightmares, I could even deal with being labelled as an outcast by the rest of the town just for little moments of peace like that.

After months of not seeing each other, I finally answered to the incident that made me run away from her and kissed her forehead as we lay under the orange tree.

As one often wishes while reminiscing of tales from the youth, I wish I could have made wiser decisions.

V

We would play pretend like when we were children, we would play to pretend to be in love with each other. Her particular talent in lying made her especially good at this. We would become the protagonist in her romantic novels to spend the infinite time that isolation offered us inside the house. The line between fiction and reality was non-existent in Eurydice’s rotten orange garden.

At first, it was fine when it was just Eurydice and me in the bliss of youth, until I had to coexist with the ghosts of her past and her made-up spectres. The more open she became of her past and the enigmatic characters that were her violent parents and intrinsic family drama, the more confusing and inconsistent the overall narrative became.

On one thing she was saner than me: she wanted to abandon the house. But I wasn’t ready to confront the overwhelming smell of the outside world again. After all, wasn’t my fear of the aromatic curse the reason I bear with such a questionable character?

VI

As years passed by, Eurydice’s starchy whiteness started to become more spectral, and her body acquired more translucent properties. Her coal-black hair had grown so much it dragged like the tail of a dress, and when she bent her head to kiss me, I felt like a black rain poured on me. Her sentences didn’t even make sense anymore, and sometimes she would call me by strangers’ names.

She didn’t even remember who she was anymore. Sometimes Eurydice would stay still looking at something that didn’t quite exist. She was tired, a Quijote tired of hunting imaginary giants and offering love poems to Dulcineas.

And just like that, she stopped existing…

…. if she ever existed.

VII

When she was gone, I started repeatedly reading the badly written book that I read to her the day of my return to the house. Always the same story, always the same place. And just like that, one day I again felt Eurydice’s scent now merged together with the scent of the house. I felt the weight of another person in the hammock, but I didn’t care to see who it was as it is useless to talk with those who have already left.

Just then I understood that Eurydice’s scent was the perfume that loneliness wears.

[thewatsonbeekeepers]

Chapter 10 – Oh No Love, You’re Not Alone [TLD 2/2]

[A line from Rock’n’Roll Suicide, which titles the previous chapter – listen here! X Possibly Bowie’s best song.]

This chapter aims to break down the infamous hug scene step by step – I couldn’t handle this scene for a long time, Mary and Irene seriously breaking with the otherwise reasonably coherent series, but I have a reading. This reading is complicated in that it relies – like this whole meta series – on every character in the scene being a part of Sherlock. This is obviously sad because it means that our boys don’t come together in one of the only moments of physical affection they’ve been allowed in the last ten years, but bear with it. There are three important symbols we need to know going into this scene: our three main characters. The grounding of this meta series is that, within the EMP, Sherlock is our eyes, the part of his brain that is consciously navigating the subconscious and trying to make sense of it. John represents his heart, normally in antithesis with Mycroft as the brain, but in TLD really taking centre stage himself. To get a handle on Mary, I refer you back to my TST metas [XX]; TLDR, at the end of TST Sherlock stages Mary’s assassination attempt on himself via Norbury, only to replace himself with Mary at the last second because he cannot cope with the implication that it is the loss of him that has made John suicidal. To be colloquial, then, Mary is comphet – which is essentially her function in every Sherlock Holmes adaptation anyway, but you know. Thinking about Mary in terms of comphet is useful particularly in terms of her obsession with Sherlock wearing the hat which dogs the end of this episode, and which for many spoiled this scene the first time around (i.e. me). Wearing the hat is a euphemism in tjlc for masking one’s sexuality, drawing on the Victorian phrase ‘a hat of someone else’s choosing’ X – Sherlock’s throwing off of the hat was so momentous in TAB that many of us were reluctant to see it brought up again. However, this all makes sense.

Before we take this scene from the top, I feel the need to say that someone has brought me tea in a glass, by pure coincidence. I feel this is a good omen.

The scene opens talking about Eurus!Faith, and one of the first possibilities touted is that Sherlock made up a dream woman who gave him all the info he needed. Not subtle – although Eurus has other purposes in the narrative which become very important, she does also kick the narrative along quite nicely here. However, as mentioned in the previous chapter, she’s not the only character who does – think of the random comments that allow Sherlock to piece together ‘everyone’, despite having nothing to do with the case. So what our boys are saying about Eurus!Faith, if we think about it in the context of the episode, instead of just her, points to the artificiality that is casting such a massive shadow right now. John’s ‘magic dream woman’ comment comes straight after Sherlock talking about being able to predict anything – undermining the entire basis of the episode as magic and dreamlike, so we know where we stand. Sherlock is only experiencing all of this semi-lucidly – kind of like TAB – so it’s up to his heart to try to get him to twig it I suppose.

Sherlock then suggests that Eurus!Faith was a hallucination brought on by drugs, in keeping with the theme of the episode, but also with our own themes. Drugs are used to cover up one’s true sexuality, and Eurus up until this point has only been used in her various disguises to veil Sherlock’s desires as heterosexual, so in that sense she is linked to the mirage that drugs can cause. Heart!John’s response is to keep Sherlock off the ‘sweeties’, which is a good sign for us – the more we fixate on the sober region of Sherlock’s brain, the more we’re in the place where he can’t hide from who he is, and his heart is pushing him there.

It seems that comphet!Mary is the one pushing Sherlock to talk to his heart here, which might raise questions, but as we’ll see one of the first things she tells heart!John to do is to ‘make him wear the hat’ – everything she says is fitting in with the paradigm of Sherlock Holmes that the heart cannot cope with and needs to leave behind. Mary also suggests that Sherlock should wear the hat to her as a tribute, because she’s dead. I like to read this as the weird sense that we should be respectful of old classics, as though queering them is somehow disrespectful – this gets thrown up a lot in relation to Sherlock Holmes. One time it really got thrown up though was in the making of TPLoSH – the reason it’s not more explicit is because the Conan Doyle estate didn’t want Wilder to damage ACD’s legacy. The necessity for comphet of the Victorian era is dead and gone, but we still consistently pay tribute to it in our culture.

Sherlock keeps mentioning Culverton’s confessions, which we’ve talked about in the last chapter – but in this world of mirrors, he’s unable to map them onto himself perfectly yet. It’s the same thing as Eurus heterosexualising his interactions – we’re working in a world of mirrors and proxies, because the reality of queerness is so off limits in his mind.

Then we get the text alert. Irene Adler has long been established within the mind palace as a symbol of Sherlock’s sexual desire. So, at the end of this, as Sherlock is about to neglect his heart and let it descend out of Baker Street, we get this sudden cry of sexuality – and the heart turns back. Comphet!Mary, through the hat linked to conventional storytelling metatextually propelling Sherlock’s comphet well into the 21st century, immediately jumps to the conclusion that Sherlock loves Irene Adler. There are several reasons why this is absolutely wrong. Firstly, we are dealing entirely in symbolic people here, so why Irene would suddenly be a real person instead of a metaphor is tonally dubious. Secondly, Irene is a long established metaphor for sexuality anyway. But thirdly, and most importantly – this scene, which revolves around the Irene Adler text alert, is the beating heart of the episode and arguably the entire series. For Irene Adler to be referenced once more in the series, in a minor line, suggests that she is not the actual focus. It’s about what’s going on within Sherlock.

[A side note: Mary’s exposition in this scene makes me cringe – I hope I’m not the only one? But if you will set up a complex network of metaphors and then leave several years between series, maybe you need that.]

John then deduces that it’s Sherlock’s birthday – again, reasonably unbelievable that he wouldn’t know this, given that Mummy and Daddy Holmes would definitely have made a big deal of it. It’s difficult to know for sure what the birthday symbolises, but John saying he has always wanted to know it might make us remember Sherlock actually seeking out John’s birth certificate to find the name Hamish on it. This meta [X] explains why this represents hiding a part of ourselves that is essential – i.e., from birth – which would fit the concept of the birthday. However, this may be tenuous.

Heart!John’s outburst at the discovery of Sherlock’s sexual desire – not necessarily how it is directed, but that it exists – is basically: well, what do you do about it? Why don’t I know about this? It is incredible that Sherlock has managed to compartmentalise this from his heart for so long, but that’s the pro of having an incredibly intricate mind palace I suppose. The Harvester in High Wycombe situation is sex without strings attached – I think the veiled suggestion here is masturbation, because Sherlock has refused the heart any involvement in it, but Sherlock denies the suggestion. The level at which heart!John is losing it is desperate, and the idea that ‘High Wycombe is better than you are currently equipped to understand’ suggests an affection starvation of epic proportions. I had problems with John’s claim that romantic entanglement would complete Sherlock as a human being (Sherlock being ace is a common reading, often touted by the writers themselves, and whilst I don’t subscribe to the theory such a statement plays into a pretty harmful narrative about ace people). The line is still dubious when said by heart!John because of the wider narrative it plays into, but spoken by Sherlock’s heart to himself does suggest that Sherlock’s denial of his sexuality has been crippling him.

The idea that comphet!Mary sent heart!John back to Sherlock is a difficult one – there are two warring versions of Sherlock’s heart here, and comphet!Mary’s idea of heterosexuality (posh boy and dominatrix, even whilst metatextually acknowledging that it’s a boring cliché) does require the unity of Sherlock and his heart, just in a way that isn’t possible. However, another possible reading about letting Sherlock die without comphet!Mary might take us back to TST – the hypothesis assassination when comphet!Mary took the bullet for Sherlock at the last second admittedly slowed down Sherlock’s analytical processes, but it’s quite possible that his heart wasn’t ready for it, that the heart wouldn’t have let him realise it and Sherlock would actually have died in the mind palace. His heart was too afraid to show up – which, true or not, is echoed in the idea that heart!John wasn’t there when Sherlock/Mary were shot by Norbury, but attending to heteronormative domesticity (sorry Rosie). It’s also devastating that the heart wants to be the Sherlock Holmes of the stories still – and we’re breaking through, but it’s TFP which will finally push through that, not this scene.

Heart!John’s admission of cheating here is vital. Eurus as mirror for John has long been discussed, and as we’ve seen in a previous chapter (X) she takes on a female form to give Sherlock’s desires an acceptable outlet – but here we have an acknowledgement from heart!John that he betrayed comphet!Mary in his texting of Eurus. The texting is made to parallel Sherlock’s own engagement with his sexuality in terms of Irene – he’s later revealed to have texted her too. Whether that just suggests merely thoughts or masturbation (or something else?) I don’t know, but the parallel suggests that such engagement with his sexuality is the same as heart!John’s covert engagement with gay trauma Eurus – in other word, both romantic and sexual illicit desires have been acknowledged, and have existed simultaneously though compartmentalised. We can see the paralleling of heart!John’s romantic desires with Sherlock’s sexual desires in moments like when heart!John admits that he still wants more – the camera focuses on Sherlock, who looks at heart!John like a moment of realisation (possibly because he’s recognising the form his heart has taken – that’s the headcanon).

But this is not a happy scene. Heart!John declares that he has never been capable of comphet, but that he wants it, and comphet!Mary tells him to get the hell on with it – taking special emphasis to call him John Watson. There’s no Hamish here, which in a conversation begun on birthdays might make us worry, but crucially calling him John Watson rather than John is a link back to the original stories, when we know that using just first names is a big indicator of the modernity (read queerness) of the adaptation, not least in the EMP (see TAB). Comphet!Mary’s heterosexual compulsion is thus still going strong based on the historical stories. And what’s sad here is that the impulses are acknowledged! Sherlock not only acknowledges his sexual desire but even that he acts on it (the texts), and heart!John acknowledges his romantic attraction, and where they had been compartmentalised the hug as a moment of unity tells us that Sherlock has joined those dots, acknowledges his existence as a romantic and sexual being. And then – he puts the hat on, he still needs a high of some description to cope with his birthday. I believe that Sherlock’s acknowledgement of Mary’s ghost at the end, previously visible only to John, is a new recognition of the compulsory heterosexuality that his heart has been grappling with – but he puts on that hat in order to capitulate to it. (Never fear, the hat is coming off later).

The hat wearing comes in a separate scene, in terms of framing, to the official hug scene, although logically they must happen within 20 minutes of each other in the same room. [I am resisting the urge to make a crack joke about what happened in the interim. I’m sure there’s something on AO3 about it.] It’s a horrible addendum, because heart!John has just confessed his biggest secret, and Sherlock acknowledges it – but then immediately downplays it. Just texting. In superficial terms, this downplaying is personally not what I would want from a friend – in metaphorical terms, it’s deadly. It’s a subtle undermining of the entire previous scene. We can see that the wall hasn’t been broken through, that he’s still chickened at the last second (much like at the end of TST) in other ways – he still has the appearance of drugged Sherlock, in particular the facial hair, which is used to reference bearding typically in the show. I also maintain – though others may take issue with this – that Cumberbatch’s gait changes when he plays a high Sherlock, and although ostensibly not high here that slightly clumsy gait remains the same. It is not a good vibe. And then, the final shot of this scene isn’t one of acceptance or closure. After Sherlock acknowledges Mary’s presence, the look on Martin Freeman’s face is one of quiet but terrible sadness, as well as anxiety.

A final thought before I leave this scene, having discussed what happens at the end of TLD in a different chapter – it’s worth noting that Sherlock has a mug of an unspecified hot drink throughout this scene, but it’s left ambiguous whether it’s coffee or tea. (Yes, it could be something else, but given the heavy focus on coffee and tea earlier in the episode, along with the pre-established drinks code, we can assume.) This ambiguity, I think, is deliberate – it allows Sherlock to acknowledge desire but still mask it through vagueness and ambiguity. It’s a way of lying to himself – and goodness knows we’re all capable of that, and can probably see how such a fudge might apply to a mental analysis of such a situation. I’d love to hear others’ thoughts on this scene though – do let me know! Until next time.