#and my first talking point would be how his beauty is textually posited to be a working factor of his manipulation and so cannot be denied

[greensaplinggrace]

do you guys remember this. because it lives rent free in my brain every single day. this is still some of the funniest shit I have ever seen. like what do you mean no 😭😭

[bthump]

I wanted to touch on the whole gutsca thing with someone (I know zero people in this fandom so you're my lucky pick!). Am I alone in feeling like their first time together came out of no where? My meta with Guts is that he was not at all comfortable with sex at that time of his life (this instance being his first time [outside of the rape he experienced as a child]). His choice of words too, "here I go", translated to me like someone only doing what they felt was expected of them rather than something he was yearning for. He clearly wasn't even ready given how rough he was and how he regressed and attacked her. This moment seemed very forced and almost rang to me like Kentaro's declaration of "no homo though". I would be curious to know how Kentaro felt about homosexuality (bisexuality, etc) and if he ever addressed the ever blatant gay tension and romantic-non-platonic-love blossoming between Guts and Griffith pre-eclipse. I do get the sense that this may be a case of severe queer baiting or perhaps a PSA against gay love altogether ("falling for a man will literally destroy you and send you and everyone you love to hell" type of message); but I'm a very jaded person so I hope to be proven wrong. Sigh, my point being Gutsca seems pretty dang forced and empty of true development. I buy them more as besties than anything romantic. Especially since both he and Casca are actually in love with Griffith (what a fucking triangle!). Does anyone in fandom have any opinions on the sad possibility of this whole beautiful and ultimately tragic love between Griffith and Guts actually being a fucked up anti-gay PSA? Are there any interviews with Kentaro shooting this theory down so I can stop being sad and bitter about it? What are your thoughts?

Thanks for sending this, I'm definitely down to talk about it! I hope you connect with more people in the fandom but don’t worry about sending random asks even if you do lol.

Anyway you’re definitely not alone. I have a lot of thoughts on Guts and Casca's hook up, and they're all pretty much "it feels really forced and not particularly romantic but I think you can argue that that's deliberate" lol. For instance I discuss in a lot of detail here how various aspects of the scene indicate that Guts and Casca having sex is shown to be a case of both of them rebounding from Griffith and sort of giving to each other what they were unable or failed to give to him.

And I talk a lot about how Judeau essentially orchestrates it all and what that suggests about Guts and Casca's relationship here.

And lol sorry for all the links but also this post is about how their relationship feels one-sided to an extent and is used to illuminate a lot of Guts' flaws, using Judeau as a comparison point.

Oh shit and also one more lol, here's a comparison between the sex scene and Griffith's with Charlotte that suggests that both start as ways for the dudes to repress their feelings.

(Don't feel obligated to read all those posts if you don't want, you should get the gist of what I'm saying w/ those descriptions.)

But yeah basically I do think that Guts and Casca getting together felt forced and awkward. At best it might be intended to be seen that way, as two friends hooking up awkwardly in an emotionally intense moment but probably doomed to failure because neither of them are ready for a relationship with the other, or particularly interested in one deep down, once they finished "licking wounds." At worst it’s just bad writing lol. But again like I think there are good arguments for the former.

I also totally agree that their relationship has a strong vibe of doing what's expected. Like for real, at least to me both Guts and Casca read so easily as gay and repressed lol. Casca talks about her feelings for Griffith in terms of “he was a boy she was a girl can I make it any more obvious”

and I can’t help but see it as Casca like, wow I have strong feelings towards Griffith, he’s a man and I’m a woman, so clearly these feelings must be romantic, there’s no other option. Then when she has sex with Guts she keeps contextualizing it essentially as repayment for Guts saving her, like she owes him. “I too want a wound I can say you gave me.” “Not just being given to... maybe I can give something as well.” Which just doesn’t make her desire for him look all that genuine lol.

And then you have Guts. The way he tells Casca that from the start only her touch was okay with him after he has sex with her, referencing the scene when he wakes up with her on top of him and starts to panic before realizing she’s a woman, is soooo suggestive of repression to me. Like, first off because it’s incorrect, he was also okay with Griffith going in for a face-grab after winning a duel Guts had been projecting his rape trauma all over, which seems like a pretty conspicuous omission. And secondly because the reason he was okay with Casca’s touch specifically is solely because she’s a woman, not because she’s special or because they have a magic romantic connection - it’s because she’s not a man. To me that just screams that Guts was open to sex with Casca because she’s the only woman he knows, and he’s afraid of the idea of physical intimacy with men, regardless of what he might actually want deep down.

So yeah that’s basically how I feel about Guts and Casca’s relationship, strong agree with you.

When it comes to Miura’s intent, I can tell you that Miura was asked about the subtext in an interview once, back in 2000, and he responded with something along the lines of ‘two men can have passionate feelings for each other without it being romantic.’ The interview is here, but this is a paraphrase the translator mentioned in the comments.

Other than that I’ve never seen him address it directly, but on the flipside he has cited several textually gay stories as inspiration (off the top of my head: Kaze to Ki no Uta, Devilman, Guin Saga, mangaka Moto Hagio in general), and he has straightforwardly said that the (magical intersex) central character of his other work, Duranki, was intended to have romances with both male and female love interests. Also people tell me there are strong griffguts vibes with the main, presumably canon or intended-to-be-canon ship there. So there’s that lol.

As for the no homo aspect and the potential homophobia in the griffguts subtext... I can’t deny I’ve also considered the idea that it’s a deliberate anti-gay PSA (though I haven’t seen anyone else address the idea as far as I remember, and I’ve only briefly mentioned it offhandedly). Like, Guts and Griffith’s relationship turns bad because they’re both too invested in each other, maybe the barely-subtextual desire is meant to look like a sinister twisting of pure platonic feelings that ruins everything, if Griffith hadn’t loved him the Eclipse never would have happened, etc.

But honestly I don’t think that reading holds up compared to a much more positive reading of their feelings, in which it’s their failure to understand them and act on them, thanks largely to formative childhood trauma and self-hatred, that leads to tragedy.

I don’t know what Miura intended, and there certainly are aspects of the story that are homophobic regardless of his intent, even if my best-faith reading is entirely correct, like the only textual gay attraction being pedophiles and over the top heretic orgies lol, or yk, Guts and Griffith both assaulting the same woman while looking at/thinking about the other in a very sexually charged way.

But the reading of their relationship where it’s positive and good for both of them, even including sexual desire, and only gets fucked up because they both incorrectly think their feelings are unrequited is legitimately so weirdly strong, much stronger than a reading where the sexual nature of their feelings is what fucks everything up, so I’m pretty happy just rolling with that take.

And as much as Casca can be seen and may very well be intended as a no homo, it’s also very easy for me to read her relationships with both as less of a hopeful opportunity for positive heterosexual romance and more of a “here’s how repressing your feelings thru attempts at heterosexuality fucks you up” PSA lol. Griffith and Charlotte too, for that matter. It’s definitely a stretch to think that’s intended, but whether it’s intended or not it’s an easy sell for me and I’m fine with not really worrying too much about possible authorial intent there.

Finally, I also want to link this post that goes pretty thoroughly into why I interpret griffguts as very positive rather than as a cautionary tale or predatory gay lust etc

And also have this shorter post about Femto on the same subject too, why not

Oh and maybe this thing where I split hairs about Guts’ lust for Griffith and desire for revenge to make a point that the homoeroticism isn’t necessarily being equated with violence by the narrative lol

[cipheress-to-k-pop]

Bus Rides and Sweet Times

Pairing: Sam Alexander x Parker!Reader

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: None

Anon asked:  Can you do a Sam Alexander x Reader, but you're Peter Parker's sister??

A/N: Totally staying with the tradition of badmouthing Peter at the end of my oneshots and I’m proud of it. Sorry it’s so late btw, I was on a hiatus when you had requested it

On your first day of Advanced Biology you had been sweating buckets. You were attending a biology class ahead of your grade through the Accolades programme and were considering faking temporary illness to skip the day.

It was nerve wracking to have to go into a class where everybody was older than you and could bully you. Last thing you wanted was people to shove you in lockers like your older brother, Peter.

Well that was before he became friends with the school’s toughest football player but still. You didn’t really want to go through the embarrassment of being shoved in a locker for 5 years before finally making an unlikely friendship and then have a last good year of high school.

But when you stepped through the door, you were immediately relieved to see a familiar face.

Sam Alexander wasn’t a friend of yours, he was one to your brother and they weren’t even that close, but even then, seeing recognition on his face made you oddly relieved.

“Sit wherever, Miss Parker.” Said the teacher before returning to the board.

For a second you wondered about sitting next to Sam but then realized it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. So, you just moved to the back of the class and tried to blend in with the walls.

It was no secret that you were insecure about being the youngest person in the class. You never answered, never asked questions and always tried not to participate. That’s why the teacher was always surprised whenever you got the highest grades.

She always made sure to praise you in front of the entire class which made you embarrassed but still proud.

And that’s when she got the idea of you tutoring one of her students after school. And you being the innocent girl who just didn’t know how to say no to a teacher, agreed.

That’s when you started to spend more time with none other than Sam Alexander.

You should be annoyed but really you were relieved that it wasn’t any stranger.

Yet another time that Sam saved your sanity by just having a recognizable face.

**** 

“Hey do you mind keeping this whole tutoring thing a secret?”

“Why?”

A part in you was half expecting him to say something like he didn’t want people to know he was hanging out with a geeky younger girl even though you knew he wasn’t the type to be so rude, regardless of what Peter said about him.

“Well, your brother and my friends are really smart. If they found out I was getting tutored by a girl who was a grade below me...”

He scratched his cheek nervously and you melted. He was just as insecure and unsure as you were and while your intellect sometimes made you feel out of place, he felt the same way about his.

So, you nodded and set a hand on his shoulder, giving him a reassuring nod.

“I promise I won’t say anything.”

“Your brother won’t be curious?”

“I’ll think of something.”

Unfortunately, you wouldn’t have too long to come up with a suitable excuse.

You quickly got to work and explained the concepts and making sure he understood everything you were telling him, even drawing diagrams and things like that because you figured he was a visual learner more than textual.

After nearly an hour spent in the library together, you noticed your brother come in with Harry and MJ, probably wanting to get some lab manuals for chemistry. Once he saw you with his sort of friend, he immediately made his way over to the pair of you.

“What’s going on?”

“Tutoring session.”

Sam immediately shot you a betrayed look but you didn’t even blink, turning back to your notes.

Just as you knew he would, your brother laughed and pointed at a slightly embarrassed Sam which made you irritated on the inside but you covered it with a plain expression.

“You’re getting tutored by my little sister?”

“Actually, he’s the one tutoring me.”

The two boys turned to you with shocked faces and you folded your arms over each other, raising a brow at Peter.

“What?”

“Yeah, I keep missing class because I’m the lab assistant and I end up running late so Sam here promised to keep me in the loop.”

It wasn’t a lie, you were the lab assistant during Chemistry and as a result always had to clean up after your classmates after the period was over, but Peter didn’t need to know that you still managed to reach class on time because the teacher would spend the first 5 minutes reviewing the previous lesson.

Just as you knew he would, Peter bought the excuse, returning to his friends and telling you that he’d pick you up from your part-time job today, trying to be a good brother. But you knew it was because he found your co-worker cute.

“Thanks for that.” Sam spoke gently and you waved him off, leaning towards him again and pointing to the diagram of an operator.

“No problem, now back to Lac Operon.”

****

The next few weeks are spent the same way. Sam slowly brought his grades up in class tests and progress quizzes but the teacher still wanted you to continue with the tutoring sessions as your midterms were coming up.

That’s how you end up meeting and spending hours of your time with Sam, but it never really goes beyond tutoring and you never see each other outside of the library.

That is until one day you’re going straight home instead of going to your job like you usually do. You end up taking the same bus as Sam and sit beside him because it was the only seat open that wasn’t beside some older guy or a child.

Sitting next to you, he plans to do the same but when he glances at you, you’re slowly drifting off to sleep, letting your head lol to the side in an uncomfortable position.

So, he gently rests your head on his shoulder, his heart skipping a beat when you cuddled closer to him. He watched you on the ride home, just wondering when was the last time you got some rest.

You were beautiful, yes, but he wondered about the dark circles underneath your eyes and the tired frown on your face as you leaned against him, silently realizing how haggard you looked for such a young girl.

You were trying to take all advanced classes but wasn’t naturally intelligent like your older brother so you ended up working till all hours trying to keep your grades up. He always knew that you worked hard but it was obvious that it was taking a toll on you.

So why hadn’t you ever said anything?

He wanted to tell you that you were perfect just the way you were and that you should take it easy but he knew you liked working hard and he found that really admirable.

The rest of the bus ride was just spent with him making sure you weren’t stirring or getting uncomfortable. Silently thinking you were beautiful. At the time it felt like you were the only 2 on the planet.

But what he didn’t know was that everybody on the bus were fangirling about how cute the two of you looked cuddled up on the bus seat. An older man was musing something about young love but Sam just thought he was remembering the good old days.

When the bus pulls up to your street, Sam gently wakes you up and tells you that your home. He even gets off at your stop to walk your drowsy self to the door where he meets Aunt May for the first time.

You were so tired you barely remembered Sam’s arm wrapped around you as he pulled you to the door. You thought your eyes were open but they were definitely closed and so he rang the doorbell for you because you were not awake enough to fish for your keys in your bag.

****

Ever since that day, Sam began to pay more attention to you. He always looked out for you in a silent way, never trying to bring to your attention that he was thinking of you.

“Hey check it out! The vending machine gave me two strawberry milks! Do you want one?”

“I got this pack of nuts but it has peanuts in it and I’m allergic so you can have it.”

“I’ll do a practice test and you can check it after I’m done. In the mean time you can take a nap.”

He took the bus home with you every day since then, saying that he came to your work when you were getting off for a smoothie even though there were a hundred places in New York that didn’t need him to come so far out

But you never said that to him because you liked going home with him, sometimes falling asleep together and sometimes listening to music, sharing earphones or even just quietly talking.

In the beginning he was afraid that you’d sleep and end up missing your bus or that you’d end up with a crick in your neck because of the position you fell asleep in but he liked taking the bus home with you, playing with your fingers gently while you napped peacefully beside him.

Once after Sam dropped you off at your house, you said your goodbyes to him and went inside, telling him you’d see him tomorrow. He politely declined Aunt May’s invites for dinner, saying that he had to get home because he had chores to do (training).

Around 10 minutes later, you left home again, going to pick up some rolls for dinner when you notice someone walking ahead of you but it’s only when the person walks underneath the lamppost do you recognize him.

“Sam?” You call out, wondering where he’s heading late in the night when his house was in the opposite direction.

“Oh shit.” 

Sam freezes in his steps, silently contemplating whether he should just run for it or actually turn around to face you. You call his name again and wonder if you actually got it wrong and he was just some random kid in your neighbourhood.

But then he turns around and it’s him, blushing bright red that you could see it even in the dark and his heart began beating quickly, seeing you make your way over to him.

“What are you doing here? I thought your house was down the block?”

He tried to think of something but his mouth got really dry before he figured he should just give up.

“Well, about that, it.... isn’t.” He explained, rubbing the back of his neck nervously and trying to avoid making direct eye contact with you.

“What?”

“I live close to the school actually.”

“But you’ve been taking the bus home with me every day for like 2 weeks now.”

“Yeah, it’s just because I like taking the bus....and sitting next to you. Taking the bus was my excuse to spend more time with you.”

You could’ve sworn you swooned.

It was the first time you noticed just how crazy for you Sam was and it was exhilarating. To see this older boy standing in front of you and being vulnerable enough to be sweet and thoughtful.

It was kind of that little girl fantasy that you dreamt about back when you thought Cinderella and Rapunzel had been real. So, you can’t stop yourself from smiling when you notice how awkward Sam is beginning to get underneath your stare.

Sure, he wasn’t exactly prince charming but to be honest, to you, he was much better.

Prince Charming forgot what Cinderella looked like.

Like what the heck?

“You could’ve just asked me out on a date.”

“Well I wasn’t sure that you’d say yes.”

“Ask me now then.”

****

Dating Sam was everything you’d expect it to be. He was sweet and thoughtful, always taking you out and loving to spend time with you. Your tradition of him picking you up after work and taking the bus home turned into you greeting him after getting off with a kiss and then inviting him inside for dinner.

Even though you knew he didn’t live close here, he still wanted to drop you home. He said he was being considerate and loved spending time with you, which was true, but it was also because he was afraid you’d fall asleep on some other boy’s shoulder and fall in love with him.

Which was ridiculously specific but you still indulged him.

Peter didn’t find out initially because he always managed to miss Sam right when he got home because he was out crime fighting.

And you didn’t feel the need to bring it to his attention.

You knew he would find out one day though and the opportunity presented itself when he brought his friends home to live in the house because a fire had destroyed their dorms.

And with him came your boyfriend, outright grinning at the sight of you and you had to hide your laughter because you knew Sam was excited about having alone time with you at home without seeming suspicious.

But something was telling you with so many people in the house, you wouldn’t be getting any solitude for a long while.

May being kind of strict between the two of you, saying that you can’t close the doors was not surprising even though you knew she loved Sam. To Peter however, it was kind of startling.

The two of you manage to spend time without drawing suspicion. Going on grocery store runs quickly became your favourite kind of date because it was just the two of you roaming around the store with Sam pushing you in the shopping cart.

Peter one day sat the two of you down with a seriousness that made you want to laugh in his face because you could see how awkward it was, demanding to know exactly what was going on between the two of you.

What he wasn’t expecting was you to admit that you had been dating for nearly 4 months now.

Apparently neither were his teammates.

The rest of the night was like an interrogation while the two of you just curled up on the couch and ignored the rest of them until Aunt May came home and told them to stop bothering you.

At which point they all just shut up and decided to watch a movie.

Your boyfriend held you close to him underneath the blankets, holding your hand in his, clutched to his heart and you used your free hand to feed the two of you pizza without even looking away from the screen.

Half-way through the movie, just as you were beginning to drift off, Peter scared the shit out of you by jumping up and shouting.

“Oh my god! I left the two of you at home alone so many times because I didn’t think you liked each other!”

Your face burned and you just hid underneath the blankets, trying to avoid the teasing faces of the others and try not to combust.

“Oh, just can it Parker!”

“Excuse me?”

“I meant the other Parker and you know it!”

[janiedean]

Hi, you're very good at explaining stuff so I was wondering if you could write something about how Brienne ending up as someone's bodyguard/in their kingsguard or whatever isn't a good ending for her (even if the person is supposedly worthy?) Thank you!

I think I went into it more in depth back in the day in case it's under the janie writes meta tag but in short:

there is a thing named character development which means that if brienne starts the series wanting to be in renly's kg then ending the series being in someone else's kg... makes no sense

specifically: brienne wants to be in renly's kg because she doesn't literally see any other way to be in songs/be the closest thing to a knight she can get/be near the man she loves

breaking it more in depth: - brienne is in love with renly because other than being her type he's also the one person who treated her with some basic decency like not even WELL just with some basic decency - renly knows that and he admittedly said he kept her around bc he knew she was loyal but like... he didn't care about her - brienne thinks that she can't marry anyone bc she's not marriage material nor love story that is reciprocated material but also that like... she can't be a knight officially bc she's a woman so basically being in renly's kg is the closest she can get to it - which means that basically she's gone like 'okay I'll live a celibate life forever in the shadow of a man I love who doesn't love me back for whom I'd die when he doesn't care either way because it's the closest to being a knight I can manage in this shitty society even if I'm technically a highborn lady and I would actually like to have a family and someone to love me back' - which is... a pretty miserable position to live also I can 100% assure you that thinking you'll never get anyone and you have to settle is like Not Standard Attractive Experience™ and like... so she's an ugly™ woman who can't have what she wants but tries anyway and settles for the best thing

also: kingsguards in asoiaf are coded as bad like I've said it since forever but the kingsguards are rotten organizations, knighthood is a rotten thing and all the good knights in these books are people who are reviled, laughed at or not consider themselves one (jaime brienne and sandor l m a o) and all the ones that are considered good/great/spotless are... bad or shit or gregor clegane and as I've ranted more than once (here and here) brienne is slated to be the in-verse recognized truest/best knight including actually getting the title so if she's that good the point is... she can't be part of a rotten organization now is it

now: the moment renly's toast and she can't be in his kg anymore brienne's sl goes like... she swears herself to the first woman who doesn't treat her like crap/respects her which is supposed to become her own aerys and meets the guy she's canonically in love with by the end of affc with whom she has a storyline that's like... stated to go in a reciprocation way and meeting said guy makes her realize that she sees the world too much in b/w and that guy also gives her a priceless sword and sends her on a quest and oh hey after that she has to... do what killed *his* will to be a good knight ie killing her former mad liege lady bc the choice is that or the guy she loves (I mean going on speculation but that's what was the affc choice) and like... the difference is that she won't throw in the towel and go on and then she'll get to shine and be the knight she was always 100% meant to be and so on

and like... point in brienne's sl: she hates that she's not fit to be a worthy son or daughter for her father bc she was too freakish? well she's going to get both as in if these books don't end with ser lady brienne of tarth being with the man of her dreams I'm eating my own hat because as I ranted above it's all textually there

and guess what... brienne has her own storyline and she's going to come out on top and for that she has to be front and center of her own piece of story

which....... if she gets into a kingsguard doesn't happen because she would swear herself into a life of service for someone else to whom she'd always come second and if it's sansa's it's even worse bc it means she should sacrifice her personal wants, the chance at being with a man she loves, her own title and having a family bc she's serving... the standard attractive lady bc she's idk she owes catelyn a debt? iiii dooon't thiiink so and like since sansa is also stated to have her own love story in a book where it says both beautiful girls and ugly girls get it if the ugly girl gets into the kingsguard then.... what message does it send? the one that dnd did which is not the one grrm wants to send

brienne bodyguarding ppl means that she's playing second fiddle to someone else and sacrificing her own wants and needs because she doesn't believe she deserves them beyond TRYING TO BE A KNIGHT and her arc isn't going like that, so if she starts it like that then there is no way in hell it ends in the exact same place

brienne is stated to be the first anointed lady knight and to do whatever the fuck she wants with it/after and to have her cake and eat it (knighthood and love story) and anything that goes against that/says that she has to end up in a subservient position to someone who only values her skillset and her loyalty goes against everything the text has stated

also, tldr: brienne ending up in a kg has an 'ugly girls have to settle and can't be happy romantically and if they follow their dreams they can only have it halfway and in a demeaning way' message printed the fuck over it in neon letters and that's not what grrm wants to say or ever wanted to imply and I'm dying on this hill /two cents, welcome to my ted talk

[tigerdrop]

Cringe is dead, talk to me about the funny half-life men and their relationship

okay here is my essay. it is titled These Guys Actually Like Each Other, and Gordon Freeman Is Just Kind Of A Dick*

(disclaimer: these are just my 2 cents. dont take me too seriously! im just some guy online who has watched this shit too many times.)

first things first. these guys actually like each other. this is a key aspect of their relationship. benrey, obviously and textually, digs gordon freeman - you dont flirt that heavily with guys you arent into, and so much of what he says and does is geared around making gordon crack up. thats pretty gay.

but the counterpart to this is that gordon freemans pretty fucking gay for benrey, too. you may say, “oh, but word of god says its not requited!” and to you i will say: bull shit. gordon is uniquely obsessed with benrey compared to all the other characters. if gordon didnt like the fucking guy, he wouldnt giggle with him and share in-jokes with him and bring him up every 5 seconds when benreys not around. thats concern, bro. thats worry. thats real shit

but i cant blame people for thinking that gordon freeman genuinely doesnt like benrey. benreys partially responsible for some of the worst things that have happened to him, the Arm Thing among them. and gordons very insistent afterward that he doesnt like benrey. he even goes so far as to try to kill benrey a couple times. to this, i must argue that gordon freeman is just kind of a dick.

lets talk facts here. canon. Lore. from the moment we hop into gordons shoes, we can see that he is a jerk to every npc on his way into black mesa. this is his default: a dude who just runs his mouth and says rude shit. he calls tommy a freak within 5 minutes of meeting him. he infantilizes the guy and barely considers him a real scientist. he doubts that bubby is a real name for like no fuckin reason. in “real life”, this is because its funny, and wayne is trying to make a funny half-life stream. in a textual sense, this is because gordon “hlvrai” freeman is a dick. this is the way he acts, consistently, throughout the series.

(brief aside: this is why the whole “gordon is a nice guy and a great dad” characterization baffles me. the way he actually acts in canon is, in short, bitchy and lacking in self-awareness. and i love that for him, i really do. it makes the moments where he just tries to be a nice guy stand out. but thats the thing: his intermittent moments of decency and kindness are not the whole of his personality! this dude kind of sucks most of the time!)

the way that gordons general asshole attitude extends to benrey is complicated. in fairness, benrey makes it his job to annoy the shit out of gordon as much as possible, and that warrants a negative attitude, but gordons pretty paranoid and ends up blaming benrey for nearly everything that happens to him, regardless of if its warranted. this is a pattern he exhibits both before and after the Arm Thing. its a little bit of a dick move! especially considering that, prior to the whole “betrayal” subplot (which was not exactly planned very far in advance), benrey is no more malicious or annoying than anybody else gordons having to travel with.

(okay, this is kind of a subjective evaluation, but still. my point stands that benrey is not any more of a hindrance to his progress than anybody else in the science crew, and neither is he particularly more violent or murderous. hell, gordon freeman has probably killed more guys than benrey. benrey just tends to get.......special treatment.)

all that said, i am still convinced that gordon really fucking likes benrey. please consider with me the following: it would be remarkably easy for gordon to just ignore him and do what he has to do, but he doesnt. he could stop engaging. he could stop thinking about benrey. he could stop bringing benrey up to the rest of the crew every time benrey leaves to do his own thing for awhile. but he doesnt. and, again, yeah, the extra-textual reason for this is “two guys are doing an improv comedy thing and bouncing off of scorpy is kind of the point”, but within the text it reads to me as gordon not being about to get the dude off his mind.

and this is in addition to all the times we see gordon being genuinely nice and receptive toward benrey! its in the little things: laughing the hardest and longest at benreys jokes. only ever reciprocating that stupid underwater “BBBBB” thing with benrey. trying to catch benrey when he falls, despite his insistence moments earlier that benrey should hop in the wack ass crystal generator and get hypermurdered. fondly remarking that benreys sweet voice sounds beautiful. his sort of flustered responses to most of benreys overt flirting. none of this is the way normal people react to a guy they hate. this is all fuckin gay to me, man.

its this combination of the outward insistence that gordon hates benrey with his inner eagerness to be around him and think about him and engage with him that gives off strong “repression” vibes, to me. for whatever reason - pride, embarrassment, resentment - gordon maintains a front of hating the guy and wanting to kill him for a lot of the series, but it doesnt gel with the way he fucking giggles and plays along half the time that benrey starts fucking with him. its a game, and that game is one of the only ways gordon knows to manifest affection for him.

(remember “oh my god, hes got a knife!”? that was the gayest shit i ever seen in my life. tittering like a schoolgirl while benrey chases him around like “im gonna get you haha”. insanity.)

the cool thing about repression is that you can have it manifest in a lot of ways! and this is where things like “headcanons” and “my own personal affection for repressed bisexual men” come in. a lot of how i characterize their relationship is an extrapolation of a lot of things like gordons canonical insecurity issues/anxiety, gordons whole anti-bootboy thing screaming “internet wokeboy who means well but probably has a lot of repressed baggage” to me, etc.

how do you get massive amounts of sexual repression out of what you see in canon, you might ask? well. if wayne would stop having gordon talking about being jerked off by the suit, or talking about chugging a 40-gal drum of potion and having to hold his piss, or worrying about being eaten by benrey the moment he sees benrey at setscale 10, maybe i would have a higher opinion of gordon “hlvrai” freeman and whatever latent psychosexual issues hes got going on. but here we are

i havent even touched yet upon how benrey feels about gordon. this one is helpfully made a little more plain by the fact that benrey very much wants to suck his dick in canon. (i dont even have to go into details. we all know.) but IMO the best part about this ship isnt just that they dig each other, but how. benrey gets overtly flirtatious in the second half of the series, but IMO his preferred method of flirting is just fucking with gordon: chasing him with knives, shoving him around in a bathroom, trying to get scans of his feet. but all in like a slapstick, giggly, fun-and-games sense, you know? at least when it works.

a lot of the time, though, it doesnt work out that way. he clearly just likes doing it whether or not gordon responds positively. which is, you know, Weird. not very nice. but also in line with the way everybody else treats gordon freeman. gordons kind of the universes chew toy in any given universe, and the same holds true here. hes kind of helpless......subjected to 4 demons attempting to make his life as difficult as possible. in a way its cathartic.

sorry. i got sidetracked. anyway, benrey very much likes to mess with him and unnerve him and demean him and i will be perfectly frank with you: that is hot. i have problems and illnesses and one of them is that i am a masochist who goes crazy for that kind of thing. calling gordon a “dirty lil boy” and telling him to “look at the mess [he] made” is some straight up kink scene shit.

i like to imagine that a lot of this behavior isnt caused just by the guy who played him wanting to be funny and antagonistic, but by benrey as a character not really understanding what constitutes “pushing a joke too far”. hes not human, and whatever he is doesnt have a very normative way of understanding the world around him, full of people who actually get hurt for real and die for real. benrey expresses what seems to be genuine surprise and distress after the Arm Thing, as if he didnt know that his actions would have serious consequences. and it doesnt seem to fully sink in afterward, either.

it reads a lot to me like hes used to video game rules and treating people around him like NPCs. if they get hurt, its no big deal, because its not real. he likes jamming random buttons on gordons interface and seeing what comes out. its probably a lot of fun for him, the same way that seeing a streamer or a youtuber suffer for our amusement is fun. its like, you know, in my opinion, gordons very cute when hes frazzled. hes also cute when hes laughing. pushing gordons buttons has a 50/50 chance of either of these things. and this is how he ultimately flirts with gordon: by pulling his pigtails.

but at the same time, benrey does legit care about gordon and knows some boundaries. benreys the one most often shooting at enemies to protect gordon, and he spent most of the last act trying to convince gordon to turn around and not fight him because they were friends (best friends, to be specific). he just lacks a lot of the emotional intelligence it would take to express the feeling of “he digs gordon and likes seeing his face get all red and sweaty regardless of the cause”. and gordon lacks the emotional intelligence it would take to express the fact that he doesnt know if he likes or hates benrey and hes scared as hell that its the former

because, lets be real. unironic benrey-liking is a sign of problems disorder. just look at all these words ive written about it.

can you imagine? this bizarrely powerful, non-human entity that can shrug off gunfire and grow to the size of a building has decided that youre his new plaything. benreys the bored guy booting up skyrim and fucking around in the console, and gordons the hapless favorite follower that hes taken a liking to. its a really fun dynamic IMO

after all this, its safe to say my title is a little misleading. the asterisk stands for * and So Is Benrey, Actually. they are both kind of awful dudes who thrive off of teasing each other and they deserve each other. and i am crazy about it. thank u for coming to my TED talk

[everyhowlmarksthedead]

TACO DATE.

Hank “Tranq” Loza x Reader

Anon asked: i wanted to request an imagine with hank where you are younger like him about your early 20s

Word count: 1k

Thanks to my lovely beta reader @chibsytelford 💖

Author Comments: I hope you all enjoy! Gif isn't mine.

Tag list: @starrynite7114 ​ @chibsytelford ​ @dazzledamazon ​ @mara-mpou ​ @sammskellington ​ @gemini0410 ​ @1-800-imagines ​ @briana-mishell24 ​ @sassymox @whyisgmora @aquamento @sadeyesgf @viviansafizada @samcrobae @jade770 ✨ (if you wanna be tagged, send me a message!)

The first time you saw him, he was sitting on the porch of his clubhouse with other Mayans members. You parked your truck at the entrance of the yard, getting out of it to take a huge cardboard box from the back seat. The guys went to help you, holding it before introduce themselves.

“I'm (Y/N), the new delivery girl”.

“What happened to Derrick?” The one with ‘presidente’ patch asked you. “I mean, it's good to see new faces around”.

“He said you scared him”. You can't help but chuckled. “Especially you”.

Pointing to the big one, called Hank, the men turned towards him.

“Well, I hope I don't scare you too”. He said clearing his throat and noticing how nervous he was.

“You need something else than a kutte, a Harley and a gun to scare me”. You shook your head and a giggle in your throat. Offering the delivery note to the president, you smiled at him. “Sign, please”.

He did it, satisfied with your answer after hearing Tranq telling him that he was feeling love at first sight. You gave him a copy of pink colour, after underlining your number.

“Call me if you have any problem with a shipment, I'm working twenty four seven”.

“My friend has a problem with one. His heart. Seems like someone stole it”. Anither of the tattooed men palmed Hank's shoulders, pushing him a little into you.

“You're Angel, right? Derrick said you're a little clown, with all these bad jokes”.

“And you? Are you a clown?” He frowned, pretending to be outraged.

“Man, my father had a leader. I'm the whole circus”.

The men laughed while you kept the other copy inside the back pocket of the jeans, trying to no look nervous. Everyone knew them, and what they used to do, but there you were pretending that they were another customers more.

“See you tomorrow, gentlemen. I saw you've another orders coming”.

With a slight chin' nod, you turned back to your truck, setting it on with all their gazes on you. Hanging out your head throw the window, you looked at big one.

“Good luck with your heart!”

Between laughs, you left the yard, seeing by the rear-view mirror how his friends were palming his back and shaking their head with laughter accomplices.

━━━━━━ ﹅ ━━━━━━

For the next weeks, you used to go almost every day. Because of the car scrapping they received mechanical components very frequently, so you started to lose the nervousness you felt the first days, treating you very kindly every time you were around. Of course, Tranq was the most gentle with you, always helping to take off of your trunk the different boxes, offering you water or beer, or whatever you could need. And because of Chucky, you knew he was trying to ask you for a date, since he met you. But he was so worried about your age and his, that he didn't want to bother you, or something like that. So you decided to take the first step.

Your turn is finished, so after changing your Fedex' shirt by your own one, you drive your Camaro to a foodtruck you hear them talk about. ‘A new mexican one with the best tacos I ever tasted’, Hank said textually. So, taking two big menus from it, you continue your way to the Mayan clubhouse. All the bikes are there, leaving your car next to the ring under Coco and Angel's eyes with curiosity on them. Walking towards them, you point the door asking with no words if Tranq is there.

“Yea', Romeo is inside”. Coco says with a big smile on his face.

You nod chuckling, crossing the frame and looking for him. The Templo is opened, and Taza, Bishop, Riz and Hank are inside, but they don't notice you till you knock the glass, standing over your feet in the middle of the entrance to it.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure, kid, what's up?” Bishop says putting out his cigar.

“Can I talk with you, Hank?”

He swallow. He's starting to sweet. Taza has to throw to him the lighter, making the man react. He gets up from his chair, putting well his clothes on and clearing his throat, Tranq follows you to the bar. He's confused and he also looks terrified, you can't help but laughing because of his face.

“Chucky told me you would like to have a date with me”.

“With you? Nah... Nah... He's wrong”. And he's lying, shaking his head trying to look convinced.

“Is he?” You raise an eyebrow, supporting an arm against the wooden bar, holding both hands.

“Yea'. I mean, you're pretty smart, and... beautiful, but that's all”.

“And the age, right?” You're teasing him, 'cause you know he's not telling the truth and he's getting more nervous.

“Yea', I ca—I can be your father”. Clicking his tongue and putting his gaze away, you know he wants to end the conversation thinking there's no possibility to him with you.

“Yea', you could. But you're not”. Nodding then, and getting up from your position, you clap your hands. “Well, I came to have a date with you. 'Cause I think you're amazing, and so interesting, and you can't scare me at all. You have that... bad guy look, but you're sweet and cute with me, so I thought maybe you could want to have it. But, nah, it's ok. I'll eat those big menus I bought in that foodtruck that you said are the best that you've eaten, even if you haven't tried mine”.

He's freaking out, seeing you walk towards the door giving your back to it, so you can still facing him with a soft smile on your lips. Hank has to shake his head to know it's not a dream, nor an illusion.

“Are you serious?”

“About that my tacos are better? Yea', pretty sure”. He laughs going close to you. “I could do it for a second date. But, nah. You don't even want a first one”.

“Yes, I want”.

“You said 'no'”.

“'Cause I thought you don't like me”.

“You didn't ask”.

[oneweekoneband]

meet me behind the mall!!!!!!!!!

I don’t know why Taylor Swift thinks that teenagers drink wine, and I don’t know why she chose to record and release a wistful high-school-other-woman song which left me feeling naked as a frog and therefore furious. Some questions we ask only so as to be soothed by the familiar sound of our own voice, still there after all. The answers are not coming. 

The Taylor Swift Teen Love Triangle Triad of “cardigan”, “august”, and “betty” is the part of folklore that makes me most bullish about where Taylor is going as an artist. A turn away from writing songs which are intentionally meant to appear confessional and toward, instead, songs which reveal the personal as refracted through fictitious circumstances and made-up characters is a better use of her big, weird brain, and allows that brain to be unleashed on a broader plain of experience. It’s incredibly embarrassing to be an adult woman with my own problems to manage and to have living in my head Taylor Swift’s demented YA fiction, but it’s an embarrassment that feels appropriate, like I could never really have escaped this fate. On “betty” she gets to play-act as a contrite teen boy who knows he’s done wrong, and while obviously the most charming thing about the song is Taylor saying “fuck” (and also her giving us a little of the ol’ razzle dazzle by way of some light twang), her experiment with imagining what it’s like to be a skateboarding kid who hates dances, trying on an imagined teen boy interiority as a costume, is effective too. 

“cardigan” is more removed, less plaintive and shouty. This is a song from adult Betty’s perspective looking back on this period in her life and in her relationship with James, who the song seems to imply she is still with now. While—full offense—I believe marrying your high school girlfriend or boyfriend is a disorder which should have its own listing in the DSM, restoring order by putting the original couple back together so as to make the story one of true love triumphing over adversity, rather than a series of sketches of kids doing fuckup kid things just because it is not easy to be alive and to be alive alongside others and with gentleness, least of all when you are very new at it,  is the only conclusion this saga could ever have reached with Ms. Swift at its helm, and I do appreciate the consistent, if baby-brained, internal logic. I’ve never known a teenage girl whose signature garment was a cardigan and, frankly, this Betty sounds like sort of a self-absorbed drip (I do love, love, how Taylor’s own voice comes through so clearly on the lightly threatening, smug lines, “I knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired / And you’d be standing in my front porch light” !!) so I’m not totally surprised she got cheated on, but that’s very uncharitable of me and probably comes from the same meaty polyp in my brain that is responsible for my still loving all the hilariously mean-spirited, woman-hating songs on Speak Now.

“august” is about the other girl. The “her” in James’ rather pathetic defense, “slept next to her, but I dreamt of you all summer long”. “august” tells a story that brings to my mind another story. It is a story I won’t belabor because it is neither exciting nor unique. It will not illuminate an unexplored human experience, as it is, in fact, incredibly boring, regular, an incident which would be at home in any normal Tuesday, ordinary as meeting at the mall. This is a million years ago and there is a boy whose basement I go to sometimes after swim practice. We have matching team sweatpants with our names embroidered above the pocket at the right hip and I like to switch pairs. I’m you and you’re me and when we have pushed and bent the tiredness out of our muscles together, making experimental declarations in hushed voices down there while the furnace groans, well, then I’m you and me and you’re you and me and we are we are we are. 

One February day at twilight I bound out of the school building with wet hair and a fleece jacket, but his car is already gone. No worries. Standing at my locker the next afternoon like in a movie he will say, easy as anything, that he has a girlfriend, a family friend, two towns over, she goes to private school. You’ve probably met her, he says. And right then I remember that I have. Last year I did her zipper in the bathroom at a dance. We were fighting but we never really broke up, he says. For months you’ve been fighting? is all I say back. Fighting since October? As if that matters. Like that’s the point. My voice is pinched and ugly and I know I’ll hear that sound forever. Well, anyway... I feel bad. He doesn’t clarify for whom he feels bad. He’s got one sneaker toe working against the other one atop the tile floor that’s the murky green of sea glass. He looks at my St Brigid’s cross necklace, at the blue Masterlock hanging open like a broken jaw, at someone in a hoodie who punches his shoulder as they walk by. Nothing personal, he says, and there is a tiny smudge of cafeteria pizza at the corner of his mouth that I hadn’t noticed until that second and a day ago would’ve reached up and wiped away with the pad of my thumb, laughing. I get it, right? Oh, sure. 

The worst of it was not skipping pre-calc to cry in the bathroom, since, I mean, I couldn’t actually do pre-calc and would never learn how, but was inspecting my soul in the dark when I couldn’t sleep that night and finding part of me had known this all along, had chosen to pretend, wanted the wanting so badly I’d knocked from my brain the truth of how it was going to end. This would not be the last false love from which I’d find myself unceremoniously discarded, and in time I’d learn to be the liar myself, too. It’s unseemly to pathologize bad decisions, to take on poor impulse control or self-destructive patterns as an identity, but I do think that just as some people are born serial monogamists, part of a twosome forever with very little mess in-between, some of us were built from the very first cell to live like a pool ball struck and banging teeth first into the wrong mouths and hearts. I can examine my romantic history and tap my finger against the obvious errors, the times I chose what I knew would hurt me, when I ascribed hope to situations where it did not belong, when I, like the narrator of “august”, regarded someone as not mine to lose but still put myself in the position to be harmed by the losing, yet I can’t produce alternative choices that feel realistic. If you are in love and it doesn’t work out, there is mourning, there is pain, but there is all the while a record which shows something happened, it was real. “august” stands somewhat apart in the Taylor Swift catalog as a song neither about the glory of true love or the heartbreak when it’s over, but about the small, paper cut heartbreaks that are inescapable during each day of an untrue love. “It was never mine”. When it turns out you were wrong the whole time, fooling yourself, then even remembering that you’d been happy in the lie is like being trapped in a fun house, body bent and broken in the mirror, a thing not built right for this world. 

“august” is about the girl who James was with over the summer, the girl he leaves to return to Betty. Taylor said it’s the first of the three that she wrote, and I fear this has warmed me to her in some new and unsettling way. I fear this means she’s matured as a person and writer, capable now of a more expansive view of situations, to be generous. It’s like how you shouldn’t feed gremlins after midnight; there is no telling what new and more dangerous creature this woman might turn into if she’s suddenly been taught empathy. When Taylor-as-James in “betty” sings, “Would you trust me if I told you it was just a summer thing?” in his effort to woo Betty back I hate him a little, that thoughtless child undeserving of the kind of adoration in lines like, “your back beneath the sun / wishing I could write my name on it.” I try to extend grace to this fictional boy, but I think of the “Do you remember? in “august” and I feel a little sick from being so certain that no... No, he doesn’t. Not really.

“Back when we were still changing for the better / wanting was enough / for me it was enough”. I’d like to think there is no last chance to change for the better. I’d like to think wanting is enough so long as you want the right thing. I’d like to think that God made sure Taylor Swift became a singer instead of a young adult novelist because the absolute last thing this world needed was this freak joining the circus that is YA Twitter. Most of all, I like thinking that Judy Blume knows that her beautiful, searing, devastatingly romantic and also textually gay 1998 novel Summer Sisters is the only important book that has ever been published, and, further, that the world will show me the respect of understanding and accepting that “august”, when removed from the context of the Swiftian child romance trilogy, sounds as if it were specifically written in homage. Taylor, I know I’ve accused you of at least fifty crimes this week alone, but if you want to talk about Summer Sisters, please get in touch.

[tiesandtea]

SUEDE – now with humour

Suede featured in the Danish free music magazine GAFFA shortly after A New Morning came out, October 2002 (no. 10). An interview with Brett and Mat, short comments on the album tracks, and a review. 

Photos by Casper Helmer and Morten Larsen. The magazine can be downloaded as .pdf here (look for pages 22-24 and 50).

Translation of the interview by Peter Albrechtsen under the cut. Own work.

OUT OF THE DARK

Brett Anderson and the rest of Suede have acknowledged that the substance that dreams are made of can neither be ingested nor inhaled. It has to come from the heart. And it does on their new album A New Morning, which was one of the topics of conversation when GAFFA met a transformed band in Copenhagen

FIRST HE TURNS LEFT, TAKES A FEW STEPS FORWARD and looks towards the mirror in front of him. Then he turns right, but keeps looking at himself. Everything is taking place in sliding movements, and there is evidently some satisfaction with what the mirror shows: The black leather jacket with a retro cut and a white back label sits tight around the slender, yet top-trimmed body.

If you didn't know better, you would think that Brett Anderson was practicing for a catwalk. The 35-year-old Suede frontman is hardly going to throw himself into that kind of thing for the time being, though he would be guaranteed to do well with his obvious expertise in hip twists, affectations and flirting from the edge of the stage. Right now, though, Brett is in a Copenhagen luxury hotel, where he's trying on a jacket just purchased by the band's British make-up artist, Nicci Welsh, who eagerly watches Brett's shameless poses. Brett is satisfied, but he has a twinkle in the eye at the same time, which reveals that something is hiding behind the charismatic singer's wide smile and chalk-white teeth.

–What do you say, Mat? Isn't it cool? Brett asks and looks over to his childhood friend, bassist Mat Osman, who understands well the look Brett's sending: Now, Mat must nod affirmatively. So he does. Brett looks over at Nicci with "thank you – yes, he would like to take the leather jacket home with him to London". But Nicci has also noticed Brett's hidden agenda and politely but firmly points out that "if you just thought to give it to a friend when you get back to London, then you can easily forget that."

Oops. Brett is exposed and quickly hands the jacket back to Nicci, but his now even cheekier grin shows that he certainly does not feel guilty, but simply perceives the whole scene as a bit of a show-off. As he himself puts it, a few minutes later: –Had it been three years ago, I would have kept the jacket for fun and given it to a friend 14 days later – simply to take advantage of my position as a pop star.

In other words, Brett Anderson has undergone certain changes over the three years since Suede's previous album, Head Music, and their brand new, fifth opus A New Morning. And the changes apply not just to his relationship to leather jackets, but simply to his whole lifestyle. In fact, the whole band's lifestyle.

Breakdown

Ever since the ten-year-old debut single, The Drowners, Suede have been heavy consumers of drugs all over the world, and they have never hidden that. Right from deliberately ambiguous song titles as Heroine and The Chemistry Between Us for opinions on the benefits of narcotics in provocative interviews, which the sensationally horny British press has lapped up themselves. "Coke is good for sex", "it's great to hear music on ecstasy" and "it's better to take drugs than to drink, because then you have a better next day" – all immortal quotes from Anderson.

But now it's over: Suede is clean – or something like that – and Brett clearly states that "I have become a happier person. My life on hyperspeed is a chapter over. I've even gotten into a good shape!"

–You start taking drugs because you want to feel good. It's that simple. And at some point, you do not feel good any more. It's that simple, too. That's what happened to us, Brett states in a dry and declaratory way.

Since Head Music, Suede had to say goodbye to keyboardist Neil Codling, who collapsed due to overexertion on Suede's tour in Australia in the autumn of 2000 (actually 1999). Half a year later, he quit completely because he suddenly had a relapse after having been recovering otherwise, and was about to break down completely. Neither Brett nor Mat clearly want to talk about it, but then admit that "it made them reflect on some things around both the band and themselves“. Brett, however, insists that “It was many different elements that led to what has happened with our lifestyle in recent years. Both the band and I myself have entered a new stage."

The changes around both Brett and Suede have also taken place over a longer period. First, Anderson started with giving the critics right who had complained loudly that he repeated himself on Head Music. Then he moved from the hectic London into his newly acquired country house in the peaceful natural area of Croydon (somewhat similar to when he moved into a monastery to write the texts of Suede's eight-year-old masterpiece Dog Man Star). He totally isolated himself, lived without a telephone and television, "buried" himself in literature and wrote the first lyrics for A New Morning.

–Oh, now it's starting to sound like I've gone and became boring, Brett chuckles, but hurries to add: -This is certainly not the case. In the old days, I deliberately avoided literature because I was terrified that literature would spoil my pure language. I would not be a sexless secretary who clapped on a typewriter. But now, I have found out that it doesn't necessarily have to end that way, and I read like an obsessed now. I read like a motherfucker. In one of the new songs, Obsessions, I refer to Bret Easton Ellis, but my favorite author is Albert Camus.

Actually, my paranoia about literature just says all about how far out I once have been. I was so afraid that my mindset would be infected by everything possible, but honestly, I must have had a hysterical tendency to pump everything up to pretentious heights. After all, both love and music are in fact very basic emotions, Brett says, who, however, admits he let out a roar when he went as far as to get his hair bleached last year ("it looked like crap, for God's sake," he sighs with one head-shaking laugh). However, it was an obvious sign that Brett felt the changes coming. And enjoyed it to the fullest drag.

Producer problems

In fact, Brett enjoyed being away from the big city so much that he persuaded the others to go to Iceland for a while and work further on the material that gradually became structured. In Iceland, the band briefly collaborated with Sigur Rós producer Ken Thomas, who, however, should turn out to be the first in a series of failed attempts to find the perfect producer.

–The magic was missing, Mat explains, but the creativity did not fail, and the band engaged in vastly different concepts around the upcoming album – "we considered making both a pure acoustic pop and an electronic folk record."

A New Morning became none of those. After leaving former Beck producer Tony Hoffer, Suede ended up slipping into the studio with Stephen Street, who is best known for his collaboration with The Smiths and Blur, and with Street behind the mixer, a renewed focus was there. The opening number Positivity took only three hours to write, and Brett describes it as "one of those magical moments in a band where everything melts together in the most beautiful way."

Those kinds of moments are, of course, the result of the fact both I and the rest of the band are dedicated to the music in a different way than before. Every single moment in music is important to me now. Every single moment in my life is important now. I have rediscovered both myself and the music, proclaims Brett, who hasn't changed in one aspect: He is still extremely talkative, well-worded and energetic – even when he explains it new album title:

–It's not so strange if A New Morning sounds as a religious quote – the last few years have truly felt as a bit of a revelation. We have chosen to see life from a new perspective. We have pretty much spent the 90s on an insanely exalted search for success, fame, money and all that sort of thing. Of course, music was the starting point, but it was all about consuming, savouring and worshipping life excessively. For me, this record is about having a completely different approach to life: Life is something small, fragile and completely unique. Something to watch out for. The new record is simply more intimate, human and much more honest.

This shouldn't be perceived as if Brett is now taking distance to his characteristic textual universe populated by the sad fates of the big city. On the contrary.

–I still have a great sympathy for people who are left in the lurch by the system and politicians, and I will continue to have that, he emphasizes, adding that "it's very much my self-understanding that has changed recently – not my worldview". Osman nods approvingly at Brett's side and adds with no hidden allusion to the title Dog Man Star, that "if you were born in a pigsty, you have so much to achieve, so much to flee from" – both Brett and Osman originally come from the unglamorous London suburb of Haywards Heath.

–Our songs have always been about ordinary people who achieve extraordinary things, and that's how we have been as a band as well, I think. You can easily be something special, even if you come from the pure nothing, and we have stuck to it, even though we have personally driven it too far into the extremes. We are still very much real people who have lived very real lives, and our songs are still about very real feelings, Brett points out.

–We will always fight for all the people who are trying to cope against all odds, and who try to maintain pride in adversity and frustration. Now we just have more surplus, passion and energy ourselves to fight the battle. Now we can really do it with an open heart.

Photo descriptions: "I HAVE RE-DISCOVERED BOTH MYSELF AND MUSIC" Brett Anderson "I HAVE BECOME A HAPPIER PERSON. I'VE EVEN GOTTEN INTO A GOOD SHAPE!" Brett Anderson

A New Morning

– according to Suede themselves

Positivity

Brett: –In many ways our programme statement: It really strikes a new, more cheerful tone. As I said, it was written in no time, and that's pretty incredible for us, because we're really perfectionists when it comes to songwriting.

Lost In TV

Brett: –Probably my favorite track on the album. The melody is based on backing vocals, and in that part, the song is more related to the Beach Boys and the Beatles than to old Suede. Why is there no one doing that kind of thing anymore?

Obsessions

Brett: –This is the last piece we wrote for the record. That's my favorite text. The fun of it is that the lyrics are in a way very personal, but at the same time guaranteed incredibly universal. I will undoubtedly receive many fan letters about that song.

Lonely Girls

Brett: –One of the first songs we wrote. A lovely lullaby-like groove. We even use bongo drums on it. A really nice number, which probably comes from the fact that I originally wrote the melody while I was in the countryside.

Beautiful Loser

Brett: –One of those songs where I really sing in a different way than usual: Harder, raw, dirty. In many ways, it's the album's ultimate live number: The energy is fearless, and the chorus is silly.

Streetlife

Mat: –It started as krautrock: The same groove that ran and ran and ran for eight minutes – it was totally Germany in 1971 – but it changed radically when the chorus appeared purely out of nowhere.

Ashtray Girl

Mat: –Ashtray Girl and Beautiful Loser are perceived the most as “old-school Suede”, but actually, they were both written by Alex Lee, who is our brand-new keyboardist. Funny, right? Another funny thing is that the lyrics are totally meaningless.

Untitled

Mat: –My favourite along with Streetlife – right complex and yet a simple song. Originally a very folk-like song, but our producer Stephen Street made it more electric. Suddenly we began to sound like a whole band.

...Morning

Mat: –It's about getting up in the morning, and we discussed a lot how we could underpin that with sound. Several weeks later, we ended up sticking a microphone out of Brett's kitchen window. So simple. So difficult.

One Hit To The Body

Brett: –It's our attempt to make an I Will Survive. It's about me having to pull through, no matter how smashed I am. Actually an old song we rediscovered in the studio. Reminds of Bruce Springsteen, oh.

When The Rain Falls

Brett: –Believe it or not: it was originally a spoken-word number in the style of Serge Gainsbourg. I sat down and breathed heavily into the microphone. Now it has become something else after all, for I had to admit that I sounded neither French nor sexy.

Suede: A New Morning

Reviewed by Jan Opstrup Poulsen

After the very electric Head Music, Suede landed soft and comfortable in the poetic corner of A New Morning. Brett Anderson still sings about beautiful losers and self-created troubles of youth, but melodically, A New Morning is a luminous and optimistic album. As on the masterpiece Coming Up, it’s the individual songs that are in the centre, like little stars in the night sky. But Suede doesn’t have the usual tempo of melodies at all. A New Morning is distinctly an album of ballads, and in Brett Anderson's most captivating moments, the album hits sublime moments. There are more typical Suede songs on the album, like the excellent Beautiful Loser, that we have heard from them before. A ballad like When The Rain Falls doesn’t change the state of affairs either, although one has to indulge in a grumpy admiration how Suede fabulously handle these ballads. On the other hand, great things happen in the opening song Positivity, which is a proudly towering pop song. This magnificent approach to pop songs fits Suede's finely tuned melodies like a glove and is well followed up on several songs on the album like Lost In TV and Astrogirl. Brett Anderson hasn’t become less affected, and guitarist Richard Oakes balances, as always, on the edge of disruptive, to end up in a harmonious melody line. But on the more ordinary songs, Brett Anderson sings with the desperation of an angry rock singer and to that extent, he reaches beyond the edge of the stage as a performer. A New Morning therefore has all the ingredients for a good Suede album that will divide the record people between rapture and contempt for these assumed excesses, respectively. But it's just too sour to be negative when the world can be so bright and inviting.

[raptured-night]

Hello! I was wondering: how do you read Lily's feelings for Snape? JKR seems to give some conflicting clues as to this by saying on the 20th anniversary edition that Snape's love was doomed because Lily loved James, while having said in an interview back in 2007 that Lily might have loved him romantically if it wasn't for the Dark Arts. I know interviews aren't much to go on, but it seems she goes back and forth ...

(2/2) on this question. I just wonder because of the idea that Snape "could have it all" if he had taken a different path. Whereas if Lily was always going to end up with James, then Snape was always going to be doomed to lose her because she would always marry his bully.

When it comes to Rowling and her interviews they definitely function better as supplementary support to any canon interpretations because they do tend to be more unreliable due to their inconsistency. For instance, there exists an interview from around 2005 where Rowling denied the idea of Lily and Snape ever having any kind of relationship because several of her readers had begun to catch on to the fact that might be a possibility well before her twist ending would confirm it (coincidentally if anyone has a link to that interview, I’ve been trying to find it again as I had it bookmarked on my old laptop before it crashed). Ultimately, Rowling's thoughts on various aspects of her series seem to go back-and-forth, which isn’t all that surprising; many authors tend to have evolving ideas about the stories they write. 

That being said, Rowling’s inconsistency is a good reason why using interviews to prove an author’s intentions for their canon is seldom very convincing. When you have one person quoting from one interview and another countering with another interview that seemingly contradicts the first it becomes a debate over which interview Rowling most clearly stands behind. In the end, the most reliable source is that which we can find within the main text. I’ve discussed some of my thoughts about how Snape may have viewed Lily, written a more detailed feminist critique of Lily’s relationships with Snape and James, and even explored the some of the dynamics that might have existed in the relationships of Snape, Lily, and James as supported by the text; however, when it comes to how Lily might have felt about Snape I’ve mostly only alluded to my thoughts here and there. 

I personally believe that there exists enough textual evidence in the Harry Potter series to support an interpretation of Lily as someone who may have been conflicted about what her feelings were for both Snape and James. I’ve argued before that there were some suggestions within the canon that Lily was becoming more attracted to James even before she had ended her friendship with Snape conclusively. Notably, even when she tries to tell James off during SWM, she ultimately exposes how much attention she must have been paying James for her to be aware of certain key faults (such as the fact he deliberately messed up his hair to look like he’d come from flying on his broom). Overall, the entirety of her “telling off” of James during SWM reads a bit as if Lily protests a little too much. The fact that she was also able to confront Snape about James saving his life revealed that Lily had likely already been talking more with James for him to have been able to share some of the details that led to him saving Snape’s life. 

Alternatively, Rowling also gives us a moment between Lily and Snape where Lily is described as blushing under the intensity of Snape’s stare. This could be interpreted in one of three ways: that Lily was aware of the possibility that Snape’s feelings had evolved for her and she felt awkward and/or embarrassed by how intensely he was looking at her; that her own feelings for Snape were changing enough she was becoming more aware of the fact her friend was a boy she could like as more than a friend; or that Lily’s feelings for James had been changing and under Snape’s intense stare she felt as if she were under scrutiny and wanted to hide the fact she didn’t dislike James quite as much as she claimed. 

So, I think there is room to interpret Lily’s reaction to Snape’s intense look as evidence of attraction or, in the very least, an awareness of Snape as more than just a childhood friend. I also think there’s room to argue that Lily may have been conflicted by her changing feelings for Snape and for James and this might have contributed to her later readiness to cut ties with Snape. That is not to say that Snape hadn’t given her a valid reason to want to end their friendship; however, I’ve theorized before that her refusal to hear him out and her rush to speak over him all suggested to me an idea that Lily may not have wanted to give him the chance to change her mind. 

Ultimately, she may have resolved to walk away from Snape for more complex reasons than just because she believed he had chosen to go down the wrong path. If she had begun to talk with James and already developed an interest in him then her friendship with Snape might have begun to feel like an obstacle to her, in that so long as they were friends and Snape hated James then she might have felt she was obligated to feel the same way (whereas being seen with James would certainly have counted as a betrayal of their friendship). However, if in addition to that, she also found herself going back-and-forth with her feelings for James and for Snape then Snape lashing out at her in SWM may have also given her the opportunity she may have been looking for to make a choice. Indeed, there is strong evidence within the canon to suggest that Lily might have already been putting some distance between her and Snape, enough so that Snape felt the need to question if she still saw them as best friends. This further points to a potential conflict on Lily’s part, in which case, her ending her friendship with Snape may well have been a way for her to free herself to be able to spend more time with James without feeling as if she were betraying a friend. Furthermore, the events of SWM might also have helped her finally come to a decision about whether Snape was someone she wanted to seriously see as “more than a friend,” which can be a scary transition for two people who grew up as close childhood friends even without Snape having further complicated things by being in a rival house to her own and rumored to have been associating with people who had reputations for dark magic and even darker prejudices.

I would also argue that we could read Lily as someone who may have been struggling to balance her friendship with Snape against the peer pressure she might have been receiving from her friends in Gryffindor to stop associating with him. The issue of so many complicated feelings combined with a teenage girl’s conscious awareness of social pressure may have just been too much for Lily and it might have felt like a relief to end things with Snape (an “intense” boy) and pursue something easier and less contentious with James when it seemed he had started coming around and was making positive changes. In the end, I believe there is enough in canon to argue that there is evidence Lily might have been able to love Snape romantically. However, I would also argue that Lily made as much of a choice as Snape did, in that she might have opted for the path of least resistance and found what seemed like a less complicated relationship with James versus the boy from Spinner’s End with the intense stare who had not only known her since they were children but had known what she was even before she did (i.e. a witch with loads of magic who was so good she’d never have to fear dark places like Azkaban) and who had grown into someone who managed to make her feel so confused, uncertain, and shy when he looked at her like she represented everything beautiful and good in the world to him, as if he could still see things in her she didn’t realize about herself. 

[xoruffitup]

Burn This 7/14: Final Show Recap

Burn This is over and I’m a mess of feels. This play has gifted me with four solid months of incredible performances, late NYC nights with friends both new and old I will treasure forever, and short but beautiful moments of dreams coming true at stage door. The final performance was overwhelming, hysterical, and oh so bittersweet. 

First – A conclusive update about the letter book! After Adam didn’t come out to stage door on Friday or Saturday (understandable tbh because both nights had giant, rowdy crowds), the crowd was absolutely MASSIVE on Sunday after the last matinee. People were pushing, crowding, yelling Adam’s name and it was absolute madness. When Adam got down to me, the crowd was literally pushing in from every angle and there were about ten people reaching their Playbills out to him around my head, but I just started talking. Given the manic atmosphere I only had time to get out something like: “I’ve seen the show several times and had incredible dialogues about it. This is a collection of messages from people about what the show meant to them.” Adam literally could not stop moving or else the crowd would have caged him in, but he looked back at me, still listening, and when one of the security guys took the book Adam looked straight at me to acknowledge and thank me! Both he and the security guard assured me it would get to him. I didn’t get to explain it fully but I think he understood what it was and the book will speak for itself!

This is the cover I made for the collection:

You can see me hand over the white laminated book right at the beginning of this video, and Adam look back to say thank you. 

My friend next to me also took this video where he looks back at me for half a second :’D And gives a tiny smile! (in the middle of that pandemonium, poor bb) 

Let me quickly say a big THANK YOU to everyone who contributed. <3 After that insane crowd at stage door, those wholesome, thoughtful messages about his work in this play would be the perfect remedy. Thank you so much to all of you for taking the time to write out appreciation for everything he gives us. :’)

NOW, the show!

Okay so firstly, the downside: I was NOT impressed by the audience. A lot of people seemed to have seen the show before (not that I’m judging, clearly) but were laughing CONSTANTLY at everything Adam did. To the point where you couldn’t even hear his lines half the time, and the audience failed to grow appropriately somber in the moments when he falls apart. Not a very courteous audience at all.

But the cast!!!! There were some poignant moments when it really seemed to be their real emotions coming through, bleeding into the way they played certain scenes. During the infamous, always-entertaining exchange in Act 2 while Adam’s sitting on the couch in the robe asking “Who’s the apple and who’s the orange? You never had an apple tart glazed with orange marmalade?” I SWEAR there was a second where that grin was all him, having an absolute ball of a time. When he said “who’s the orange?” he literally kicked his feet up like an overexcited little kid and it was THE. PUREST.

Okay so in the interest of remembering as much as I can, I’ll go in order from the beginning!

First, a bit of textual analysis. Every time I see the play, I’m struck by how incongruous the first twenty minutes seem in comparison to the rest. I know that’s on purpose, because Pale’s entrance is very much supposed to shake up and tear into Anna’s world with pure chaos – turning everything on its head. But knowing everything that’s going to come after, all the lofty discussion in that first scene about myths and epic love tropes all seems terribly self-aware. It’s more than foreshadowing. It literally seems to be a self-narrating framing device for everything that’s about to follow after:

“The wives of the sailors out at sea. The women waiting for years and the men never coming back. What sustains them through loss? Through pain? I think they felt things in a more profound way.”

Robbie is never coming back, and Anna is searching for something inside herself – some feeling – in order to push through this mess of grief and frustration that she can’t make sense of even to herself. She has a shell around herself at the beginning, and nothing to break through it or guide her way; no direction.

“The Flying Dutchman – Senta throwing herself into the sea to save the Dutchman from perdition.” (I mean come on – In this story Senta literally “has this boyfriend hanging around” getting in the way of the epic love and this couldn’t be more meta if it tried.)

Knowing what’s to come, it’s striking that Anna doesn’t seem to realize she is the real subject of conversation here, not Burton’s lofty novel ideas. Even a mere ten minutes after she recounted the funeral where she swore she was expected to “throw herself over the casket” – she doesn’t seem to relate herself to the story about Senta hurling herself into a watery grave because of the love and loss of a man.

In some performances, I think Anna is closed off because she’s purposely trying to avoid such a fate for herself. After losing Robbie, she doesn’t want to “sacrifice herself” through deep connection to another person ever again – Not even to Robbie’s memory as she refuses to give in and confront her grief. And hence her resistance to starting a real relationship with Pale. In other performances, it seems that she’s genuinely blind to the walls she has put up around both herself and her own emotions. You can see the walls in her physical body language – How she always seems to be sitting in defensive, closed-off positions when Burton tries to get near her. (Contrast that with how she literally wraps herself around Pale while he’s crying on that same couch later.)

Anyway, I just find it incredibly cool that what at first seems to be snobby, “arty” (to take Pale’s word) aimless talk at the beginning is actually all the characters indirectly reflecting on everything that’s about to happen to them – to Anna, particularly. This same exact self-examination resumes in the first lines of Act 2, when Anna finishes reading Burton’s draft script.

“It’s so sad.” “I thought they were having fun.” “But beneath it all, they’re so lonely.”

There it is – The deceptively simple three lines that sum up the entire play and spell out the tragic beauty of Pale and Anna’s relationship.

OKAY I’ll stop with the analysis now. On to the details everyone cares about!

So when Adam charged out, holy shit his voice sounded SHOT. It took a good few minutes for his yelling to warm up enough for his voice to stop sounding completely hoarse. It clearly cracked a few times and I just wanted to brew him some tea. (A pot, of course, because a cup wouldn’t even be economical…)

But by around the time he got to my favorite, side-splitting monologue about imagining you’re a tree and you get made into toilet paper or money to get passed around or parchment for a restaurant or music paper for the Boss to write on… but either way you end up drifting down to get stuck in some Saudi Arabian oil tank propellers. (Bending down and spinning his arms like propellers and cue me absolutely falling apart each and every time.) …. His voice finally sounded fine by then! :D

I’ve forgotten to write this in previous posts, but in plays I always LOVE moments when the actors come right to the front of the stage and just stand there for a long moment, wordless and motionless, just staring out into the theatre without really seeing anything, lost in the gravity of their own emotion. Keri has a moment like this before Pale’s entrance (I think when she says, “I thought everything important to the future of dance was going to happen in this room.”) Adam has his moment while Anna is talking about Robbie’s dancing, how good he was and how Pale would have liked it. Adam just stares out into infinity for a long moment, while it demands physical effort from him in order to take in what Anna’s saying. He doesn’t smile while he says, “You saw him and say he was good. I never saw him and I know he was shit.” His long moment of stillness here – finally facing the audience in close proximity and unnerving silence (a striking moment after he spent the last fifteen minutes raging around the stage and often having his back to the audience) is when you can see the very beginning of him unraveling. This is when he starts to plateau – tumbling from his coked-up high into a dark, helpless pit that cleaves him clean through.

After bitching about his pants getting ruined and putting his leg up on the sofa to show Anna, he did the most RIDICULOUS twirl this time! After slowly lifting his leg over the table, never breaking eye contact with her once, he then did this slow, melodramatic twirl - complete with extended ballet fingers and everything. It was nothing short of glorious.

After he kneeled down and screamed, he rose completely shattered. I don’t think I’ve ever heard his voice so devastated with sobs and tears – to the point where you could barely understand him. “No, I don’t do this. This ain’t me” sounded like he was begging desperately, but had no idea what for. There are a lot of stunning things Adam does in this play, but rising and sinking and rising again through these completely polar opposite, all-consuming emotional states within the span of twenty minutes has to be the most incredible. He truly embodies the transformations with his entire body – The way he paces around aggressively then helplessly, the way he spends long, silent minutes simply rubbing at the same place on his chest in pain, the way he doubles over as the brunt of his grief settles upon him like a crushing physical weight. The way he channels his very physicality to embody menacing one moment, then vulnerable and helpless the next. It’s just nothing short of breathtaking and awe-inspiring.

Okay okay, after he drops the hilarious bomb out of nowhere: “You know you got no tits at all.” And when the exchange ends with “It makes a man want to look, see how much there is” – Afterwards he just looks over at her with this hilarious, seedy smirk that was GOLD. Almost like “so is this hapless seduction working????”

Watching the couch kissing scene was, again, like being seduced yourself. He just stares at her for such a long moment before finally leaning in for it. She knows what he’s thinking – she knows what he’s going to do, and she’s completely mesmerized by the intensity of his single-minded focus; even as his hand reaches out for that gentle, tentative brush along her hair. Making sure she really wants this before he slides into it.

And then…. God, the way he delivered the lines that are some of my favorites: “Let’s start the engines real slow here. Go halfway to the city, stop for something to eat. You’ll find there’s times I’m a real good listener.”

jsdfjadlj his voice is so soft and deep, while he’s looking at her so intently, almost communicating the words with his gaze alone. He speaks so slowly and purposefully. The words themselves might be flippant in the double entendre, but there’s a sincerity behind them that wraps itself around your heart completely. You can see it wrap itself around Anna, as she falls into him completely. Every single person in the audience would probably do the exact same.

When he leaves the next morning, it never fails to make the audience crack up how he just waltzes out the door with no great to-do as he calls “Alright people, I’m outta here!”

CLASSIC.

Act 2:

After Burton flips him onto the floor and keeps yelling at him, the way Pale just rolls away onto his side and goes “Good night” all mischievous and cutesy asldfjsadlkfj. And then “Good night, Bruce!” after Burton finally leaves.

Other honorable mentions from this scene:

Pale, from offstage: What the fuck do you know?! Larry: Hmm… what do I know? That’s one of those questions you don’t know whether to answer with hubris or humility.

“Who’s Bruce Lee?!”

After Anna and Larry left the room, Pale’s fighting with his coat was extra aggressive this time. He was basically windmilling his arms as he repeatedly yanked at the back of the jacket until finally flipping it up and off and over his head.

Okay okay so I know I already talked at the beginning about the robe scene but I swear this one was EXTRA delightful. He was just grinning and cheesing all over the place at his own cleverness with the “hat trick” joke. Looking SO pleased with himself and just infuriatingly adorable for a giant brickhouse of a man in a stupid purple kimono I mean wtf!!!!

Oh and right before that! When he brought Anna the cup of tea after sabotaging her phone call with Burton and then hiding his face behind the robe sleeve all coyly, he was extra sweet about it this time :3 After handing her the mug he kissed her twice on the forehead, then just stared for a second at her grumpy face before kissing her on the nose too. (!) Then he proceeds to do the cute thing where he tucks her hair behind her ear while asking, “You want some eggs?”

Even when Anna shuts him down, the way he went over to sit on the couch, picked up his tea, then gave these awkward looks to both Anna and Larry like “welp, guess we’re all sitting together now” was sO funny. How the man can deliver such comedic effect without saying a word is beyond me.

Then, Anna starts to blow up at him. When she delivers the final, most devastating blows of “I have nothing for you. I don’t like you, and I’m frightened of you” – I’ve taken to watching Adam as the blows land. He stands there completely still and his face barely moves, and yet there’s this unmistakable, silent devastation about him. The man’s been called the “King of micro expressions” for a damn good reason. This time, after several long moments of tense, pregnant silence – He just did this minute shake of his head as he looked right at Anna. Even for all her anger, he still doesn’t really believe that she means what she’s saying. But that tiny shake of his head spoke volumes. It was almost disapproving, almost pitying, maybe a touch frustrated. While in previous performances he often seemed to be completely crushed – all spark drained from him; There was this bare, subtle moment of disbelief and lingering defiance. Disbelief that Anna was really deluding herself so thoroughly. He is so sure in this scene – while he’s telling her she’s not really afraid of him, she’s only afraid of caring and feeling something – that she feels the exact same way he does. He’s sure their connection is on equal terms; just like he’s sure it’s the only honest, true thing in either of their lives. And in this performance, rather than being crushed by Anna denying it all, he seemed more upset on her account – That she wasn’t letting her walls down to let the truth in, as he already has.

That^ is Adam Driver’s talent, ladies and gentleman. I literally just wrote a whole paragraph about one barely-perceptible nod. Damn. Okay. Give me a second here to pick up the pieces of my feels.

Okay, so I have detail-level and meta-level thoughts on the final scene from yesterday. Detail-level first: Last night was the only time I’ve ever heard Adam deliver the “That was me and you up there” line softly and earnestly, rather than pitching it into a teasing joke with “me and youuuuu up there.” Instead, he kept the tone of the scene gentle and almost timid. I adore in this scene the way he asks her about her dance piece. How at first, he’s not there for himself or even for the idea of them together. He tells her how much he enjoyed the piece, and when he says that he knew it was Robbie – that he could see Robbie in it – there is no greater or more moving praise Anna could receive. Nothing could mean more to her in this moment.

This scene is so quietly gorgeous, and it was simply spellbinding yesterday in how the tone remained so tender all the way through. Throughout the entire scene, the two of them mirrored each other with absolute perfection. A large part of that is because you can tell these are two actors who’ve been playing off each other for months and developed such keen awareness of each other’s physicality and tiniest displays of body language. Even in the way they stand at opposite sides of the stage at first – It’s like they’re tied together by invisible threads. They face each other directly – neither turned away or trying to hide – and when one moves, the other seems to respond exactly the same way. It continues once they sit down together to burn the note. From the way they sit beside each other to watch it burn, to the way they slowly turn towards each other and draw together, they move in perfect harmony and symmetry. They are tuned into each other simply effortlessly and it’s so satisfying and beautiful to watch.

At a higher scene level: It’s so lovely how different this scene feels in comparison to their explosive earlier scenes. (One with sexual energy and another with an angry fight.) There’s this feeling of undeniable rightness and ahhfinallyrelief when they’re back together for this final scene. And as they talk about Robbie through Anna’s dance piece, everything feels different. It feels peaceful for the first time, even a touch reverent as they speak with a shared understanding of each other’s loss that no one else in the whole world could take part in. While earlier in the play, discussion of their shared feelings of loss led to negative acts of self-destruction, aggressive frustration, or self-denial; this time there is finally the feeling that these two can come together and create something positive out of the loss they’ve shared. Thanks to what Pale unlocked in her, Anna’s feelings of loss that were once so unbearable she could not even face the honest thought of it, now became the fuel for an act of creation she’s been striving for her whole life. And the fact that Pale made time to come see it; the fact that he appears in her apartment and can voice so precisely her same sentiments that went into the piece – It means they’ve finally reached a place together where their connection becomes a source of creation and positive beginnings.

Adam does such beautiful acting in this scene. “I don’t know what to do with myself here. I’m 36. I’ve got a wife, two kids…” He paused here, and when he spoke again his voice quavered with feeling that simply overflowed, “I ain’t never felt anything like this.”

One of my favorite images from the whole play is when they both silently sit together on the couch, watching the note burn away in the ashtray together.

(For the first time, I thought back to Act 1 when Pale cryptically answers Anna’s question about what he does with “I’m a roving fireman. I put out fires. Sometimes… just let it burn.” In this case, perhaps this fiery thing between them would be safer if it were put out. But they watch the flames dance and dwindle together, and the warmth and light slowly growing between them is something neither of them have the will to put out.)

And then, that touching, movingly desperate final moment. After “I don’t want this” / “I don’t want it too” – when Anna sinks into his arms and he hurriedly gathers every bit of her in his lap and in his arms that he can fit. He clutches her like she’s part of his very being, rocks her, and reaches up to smooth her hair back so he can kiss her head. His voice breaks again when he confesses, “I didn’t expect nothing like this.” Another moment of desperately holding each other, until Pale half-sobs in helpless apology, “I’m gonna cry all over your hair.”

Every single time, the way Adam says it delivers a swift, sweet blow straight through the heart. Honestly, I would do anything to relive that wrenching heartache again. <33

It’s been an incredible run. I miss the show already, but I couldn’t be happier with the moving, magnificent nights I spent in the Hudson Theatre. Thank you to Adam and the whole cast for touching so many of us every night with this beautiful play. :’’) It has been such a thrilling, joyful ride!

-Until Adam’s next play!!! :)

[pureheartdefiance]

Episode 15x09 The Trap - first watch impressions

Overall really enjoyed! Lots of Destiel :)

The prayer was kind of hard for me though because it’s difficult for me to know that something is coming two and a half months ahead of time. Inevitably, my mind comes up with all these different scenarios, and I read a bunch of other people’s scenarios as well, and it creates a really difficult standard to live up to. Even though I intentionally went into the episode with my lowest expectations so that I would have fun and be pleasantly surprised, I still felt a little disappointed? And looking back on it it seems unfair because it was pretty amazing! But I was pretty thrown off by the “best friend” inclusion because my immediate perception was that it was a shutting down, no-homo type of inclusion in the text, but I know that’s of course not necessarily the case and I hope that’s wrong, it’s just that that was my gut reaction to hearing that, so that made it difficult for me to appreciate the rest of the prayer on the first watch. 

The "explanation" part of it was basically on par with my lower expectations - the like "I just dunno why I did this/am like this!" is kind of what I was expecting but it's not really an explanation - I think Jensen used the word “explains” on both occasions when he talked about this scene (”explains why he feels the way he feels and why he treated Cas the way he treated him” / “explains his position on why he’s had so much trouble with that relationship”) so I suppose I was thinking there’d be a little bit more of something specific that he would explain, and that part of the explanation would be something specifically about Cas, because there really wasn’t an explanation about why he’s had so much trouble with his relationship to Cas in particular. ‘I have anger issues’ doesn’t specify why it came out at just Cas, and not at all at Sam, even while Sam and Dean had a conversation last season when Sam was pointing out to Dean that he knew something was wrong with Jack the same as Cas, and Dean agreed pretty readily that he obviously knew something was wrong too, so if he was going to keep being mad, he openly textually had the same reason to be mad at Sam, and himself, as at Cas, but that obviously did not happen.

Dean apologized, thank god. I was a little worried because of the word “explain” being used instead of “apologize” in the lead up to this episode.  

“I should have stopped you” (which also typically has a very romantic connotation) ugh my heart, the panicking, the crying, the looking around to make sure there weren’t any monsters around so he could drop to his knees (when I was thinking about how I wanted Dean to beg for forgiveness on his knees for weeks on end I never thought I'd see him actually on his knees, though wouldn't it have been amazing if he had actually asked for forgiveness? but anyway), the breathlessness... I mean come on. Beautiful to watch Dean break open for a bit, and beautiful acting to watch, too.

I just loved Cas’ “You didn’t leave me a choice. You couldn’t forgive me, and you couldn’t move on. I left, but you didn’t stop me.” (It was kind of like ‘you couldn’t move on so I had to do it for you’). I love how he seems more comfortable in his worth. He’s speaking openly and honestly, and like he deserves the respect of a normal human relationship. I also thought it was impressive how open he was when he was talking about his feelings of guilt about the Leviathan, etc. but not being weighed down by communicating those feelings.

So was Dean going to leave before the time ran out? Leaving would mean leaving Cas forever, but staying would mean leaving Sam who was also currently kidnapped by God. He doesn’t find cas til 2 minutes so maybe he was planning on staying, or was Cas right by the rift and was waiting for dean to come back so they could go through together, meaning Dean was on his way back to the rift bc he was planning on going back, and also that Cas expected him to do that? Also curious why we didn’t get a shot of them going through the rift either time - it just felt missing kind of for flow, and also because going through/not going through the rift is so important to their history together.

That convo when they were walking behind the Leviathan - I got confused when Cas said "I was talking about Jack" what? no? You were talking about Leviathan and Purgatory last time which was seven years ago? I think I missed something in the flow of the conversation...

Omg in the flash forwards!... I had to put him in the box, not we. I. I! Amazing.

[secretlyatargaryen]

I'm that poster that sent you that asked about Cat and Sansa's favoritism. I didn't ask you question to start another Arya versus Sansa circle-jerk. I looking at Sansa's relationship with her parents on micro level. There is not much textual to support Cat favoring Sansa over Arya, but there is textual support for Ned favoring Arya over Sansa. My Ned issues might flared-up, and that's why my ask came across as me trying to pit Sansa against Arya. Sorry about that.

Well, sorry for accusing you, but I did not say that Sansa was favored over Arya. I said that Sansa was favored as the dutiful daughter and perfect lady, and she was.

“Sansa was a lady at three, always so courteous and eager to please. She loved nothing so well as tales of knightly valor. Men would say she had my look, but she will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was, you can see that. I often sent away her maid so I could brush her hair myself. She had auburn hair, lighter than mine, and so thick and soft … the red in it would catch the light of the torches and shine like copper.

“And Arya, well … Ned’s visitors would oft mistake her for a stableboy if they rode into the yard unannounced. Arya was a trial, it must be said. Half a boy and half a wolf pup. Forbid her anything and it became her heart’s desire. She had Ned’s long face, and brown hair that always looked as though a bird had been nesting in it. I despaired of ever making a lady of her. She collected scabs as other girls collect dolls, and would say anything that came into her head. I think she must be dead too.” When she said that, it felt as though a giant hand were squeezing her chest.

Obviously Catelyn loves both of her daughters, and again, it’s not a contest, and I feel like you’re still trying to make it one. But the Catelyn quote above IS textual evidence that shows great love for both her daughters, but also shows how she viewed them next to each other, and it does show that she considered Sansa to be the perfect image of a lady, and gave her special attention because of that.

Here’s another quote that shows Catelyn comparing the two girls and thinking about how Sansa is a perfect lady, where Arya needs work.

Sansa would shine in the south, Catelyn thought to herself, and the gods knew that Arya needed refinement.

I’m not trying to say Catelyn loved Arya less because of it, and I think metas about that are bonkers. I’ve seen a lot of metas by both Arya and Sansa fans about which child was loved best, and tbh, it’s bullshit. However, Sansa WAS considered by her parents to be the more perfect child, and Arya IS unfavorably compared to her sister because of her lack of ability to fit gender expectations.

And since someone else also brought up Catelyn’s favorite child being Bran, I guess that comes from this quote, which, is the sentence right after the one I previously quoted.

Reluctantly, she let go of them in her heart. But not Bran. Never Bran. “Yes,” she said, “but please, Ned, for the love you bear me, let Bran remain here at Winterfell. He is only seven.”

I can see why people could point to this quote especially to say Catelyn’s favorite child is Bran, but I still think it’s pretty silly. I don’t think either Ned or Cat had favorite children, and I think it’s weird and creates unnecessary drama to try and argue it. Because parenthood should never be a contest about which child is the favorite. As far as why Catelyn says this about Bran, she tells us in the quote. Bran’s her baby. He’s not the baby of the family, but he’s the youngest boy after Rickon, who is still literally a baby. He’s past babyhood but not yet a man. He’s in a position where in his society he’s beginning to be pushed into manhood - shown in how this story begins, with Ned bringing Bran to his first beheading (and I’ve talked before about how much I hate that SEVEN is considered the ripe age to witness a beheading, but whatev.) Catelyn can “let go” of sending her girls to the capital because girls are supposed to exist in the social sphere, and are raised with the purpose of joining another family. So Catelyn’s prepeared to let her girls go South, but Bran, her little boy on the cusp of manhood? She wants him to be a boy a little longer.

Now, do I think this viewpoint is damaging? Hell yeah I do, both to boys and girls, to consider girls as disposable and valuable for their ability to perform femininity and raise them with the mindset that they will soon enough leave the family and belong to some other man, and to treat boys as already grown men and not to allow them to have childhoods. Do I think this means Catelyn loves Bran the best? No, I don’t. This is also before Bran’s fall causes Catelyn to need him. But what I think it means is that she wants to hold on to that sweet, childish boy a little longer, because she knows what her society does to boys. She also knows what that society does to girls, and she knows it first hand, but again, I think her own upbringing comes into play here. Because she was the dutiful child, who grew up to be a woman who always knew her duty, with her daughters she is more resigned to the fact that they have to grow up and leave her. I think that’s what’s going on here. That’s also why I think she values so much Sansa’s ability to be the perfect, dutiful lady. It’s what SHE had to do, and although, as I’ve said before, she has her own problems with it, and her own trauma, she doesn’t know another way to live, and she’s also aware of how women are punished if they don’t conform. I think there’s a mixture of that in her thoughts about Sansa and Arya. That’s also why she calls out Robb when he won’t trade Jaime for the girls, and her thoughts on Sansa being married to Tyrion show that she fears the worst, because she knows what this society does to girls. She’d hoped, I think, that Sansa could find a good husband, the way she did, if she were always the dutiful lady, the way she was. But she knows what the worst scenario is. Which I think is both why she values Sansa’s ability to be a lady and worries for Arya.

I also am opposed to this discussion about Catelyn’s “favorite child” because I feel like there is more of a tendency to analyze Catelyn’s POV because she’s the mother. I think this is also a problem with the way GRRM writes her. Ned never has any monologues where he explains to the reader how he feels about each child. Ned’s feelings come out more organically in the narrative so they’re a little harder to parse.

I’ve seen the metas about how Arya is Ned’s favorite and they mostly use as proof that Ned sat and had that discussion with Arya about getting along with Sansa and about the danger in King’s Landing, where he apparently had no such discussion with Sansa, or if he did, it was offscreen. But I don’t think he felt the need to have that discussion with Sansa, because again, Sansa is the good girl. I think a lot of the criticisms leveled at Ned are that he let Sansa be naive, which I can see, but I think that’s because Sansa is supposed to be naive, she’s supposed to be the good girl, she’s supposed to do her duty. And there’s a strong social connection between femininity and purity, so I think Ned probably assumed that Sansa’s naivete was normal, or kept it that way on purpose, because pretty, pure, naive girls are valued and adored.

Arya, on the other hand, fails at being a lady. I think part of why Arya is less naive in certain respects than Sansa is because she didn’t grow up being idealized by people around her. So that could be a reason Ned finds it easier to talk to her and to be open with her. Arya is not an idealized image of femininity and thus less seen as in need of protection. I guess you could make a case that Ned finds it easier to relate to Arya because of this. 

You could also say that Ned blundered with Sansa during the Trident incident because he expected that it would be fairly straightforward to have her tell the truth in front of everyone. But Sansa is much more introverted than Arya. There’s also the fact that Sansa has increased social pressure to take Joffrey’s side, which Ned does understand, because he tells Arya so. Now, I guess Ned could have taken that information and spoke up during the incident, and maybe said “My daughter is hesitant to speak against her betrothed, but here’s what she told me in private…” But Ned is like Sansa in that he is also more introverted, so maybe that’s why he didn’t. And I think the situation quickly spiraled out of control from there because of the stronger personalities of Arya, Joffrey, Robert, and Cersei. And I’ve spoken about this before but I really get annoyed when people try and point blame over what happened at the Trident at anyone other than Joffrey and Cersei, because the whole thing is a huge clusterfuck and the people who are ultimately responsible are the people who know what really happened but who think they have the right to steamroll over people. Secondly would be Robert, who is king, and just didn’t want to take the responsibility to deal with finding out the truth, which I do blame him for, more harshly than if it were a mistake made by someone else, because again, he is the king.

I’m looking for text evidence that Ned favored Arya over Sansa and frankly, I don’t see any. I do see, like with Catelyn’s POV, a lot of idealization of Sansa as an innocent. Which supports the reading that Ned sees Arya as less naive and feels like he can be frank with her more. But also supports the reading that Sansa is favored as the perfect image of a lady, which is what my initial argument was. And in Ned’s thoughts about Sansa’s innocence and purity, there’s an interesting connection.

He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once. 

Ned usually associates Lyanna with Arya, but what he associates with Lyanna here is Sansa’s “pleading.” Sansa’s innocence. Sansa as an idealized, feminine victim in need of protection.

Which in fact gets to what I think is the most distilled description of Ned’s thoughts on Sansa, which is what he says about Lady.

He left the room with his eyes burning and his daughter’s wails echoing in his ears, and found the direwolf pup where they chained her. Ned sat beside her for a while. “Lady,” he said, tasting the name. He had never paid much attention to the names the children had picked, but looking at her now, he knew that Sansa had chosen well. She was the smallest of the litter, the prettiest, the most gentle and trusting. She looked at him with bright golden eyes, and he ruffled her thick grey fur.

He is describing Sansa’s direwolf, of course, but not only is the direwolf a reflection of their owner, but he’s REALLY describing Sansa here. This description IS Sansa. The lady, the prettiest, the most gentle and trusting. Which is why it’s so sad and why Lady’s death affects Ned so much. Why he has her buried at Winterfell and wants to protect Lady from Cersei even in her death.

I think Ned also tried to preserve Sansa’s innocence and gentleness and belief in stories once they got to King’s Landing out of a love for that in her.

He had promised to watch the final tilts with Sansa; Septa Mordane was ill today, and his daughter was determined not to miss the end of the jousting.

…

Ned Stark would have loved nothing so well as to see them both lose, but Sansa was watching it all moist-eyed and eager. 

Ned is sort of watching this with disdain, and thinks Sansa’s idealizing of it is kind of silly, but then the idealist in Ned comes out, too.

By then Gregor was striding down the lists toward Ser Loras Tyrell, his bloody sword clutched in his fist. “Stop him!” Ned shouted, but his words were lost in the roar. Everyone else was yelling as well, and Sansa was crying.

This isn’t just about protecting Sansa, it’s about Ned’s own values and what he thinks is right. So maybe Ned loves Sansa’s idealism not just because she’s a perfect lady, but because of his own sense of justice and belief in goodness.

By contrast, I think he admired certain things in Arya that Sansa didn’t have: Arya’s forthrightness and her lack of caring for what other people thought. Which is why you have that scene in Sansa’s POV of her thinking jealously of how Ned accepted wildflowers from Arya and didn’t even punish her for being unladylike. This is actually a really interesting scene because even though it highlights Arya’s lack of ladylike qualities, Arya is bringing her father flowers which IS a very feminine thing to do. And the reason this is something she did for Ned is because Ned has that complicated relationship with femininity because of his love for his own sister. And I’ve talked before about how Lyanna is idealized in the text, by Ned and others, both for being the perfect pure lady victim AND for being a romanticized, wild figure. This creates a really complicated dynamic between Ned, Arya and Sansa. I also think there is more to say about how Ned’s more subdued personality was shaped by his relationship to the stronger personalities of Lyanna and Brandon, and I think you could connect that to how he relates to Sansa and Arya, especially in the Trident scene where he expects Sansa to speak up and she doesn’t, but can’t himself speak for her or doesn’t know how to comfort her, and then has that long talk with Arya in private about what happened, I think because Arya’s anger and outspokenness was very Lyanna-like to him.

So no, I don’t think Ned favored Arya over Sansa, I think he loved different things about both his daughters. And I do think that what I originally said is true, not that Sansa was the favorite child of either of her parents (I don’t think either of them had a “favorite child”, tbh), but that the thing Sansa was favored for was her ability to be the perfect lady and dutiful daughter. Which also kind of sounds like I’m saying that her parents were shallow or that they objectified her or that their love for her was shallow. I don’t think innocence and kindness and softness, idealism and belief in goodness, are shallow traits. I think Sansa should be valued for those traits. I think they’re very good traits. But I also think there’s a gendered expectation for women to have those traits and I think both Ned and Catelyn participated in society’s favoring of ladylike and dutiful qualities in girls.

[theorynexus]

Fudge, I already did 57/ Now I have to do 58/ 13 over 12, man / I guess we’re doing human stuff instead of trolling, today.

Coincidentally via some sort of textual wonder possibly related to authorial intent and/or miracles, we now have to focus on Roxy, now. Somewhat ironic, considering Terezi just said she and John wouldn’t work out. ...

***shift eyes, something about knowing the unknowable and the vagueries thereof, possible interference by the new Narrator, et cetera*** Hmmm~

What, so black holes cause suck up all the voidiness into themselves via proximity?!   Noooo~      Who’d have thought!     (In all seriousness, that gives some interesting resonance mechanic relation, here. I want to know whether it’s just Alt!Calliope that can sense said thoughts, if it’s just Roxy being over-emotional, or if any other observer would be able to pick such thoughts up and it’s just a mater of proxy-imity.)

Okay, then. I thought the point of this was to look like a completely passive observer and not tip people off other than via the black eyes, but you do you, I guess-- if that’s intentional.  Nice gazing out through the fourth wall, though. I’m sure Jade would be/is vaguely proud, knowing the narrative resonance, here, given her own fourth wall breaking shenanigans. 

I blame time and void interactions. Also Dave being an insufferable prick. Good to know, regarding Roxy and their feelings toward Dave, though.

Is Dirk going to literally shoot him in the arse?   That would be horribly ironic, and probably quite crippling to Joke Jake’s reputation and/or the power of his endorsement, if so.   Semi-related:   I do sortof understand Dave’s belief/concern with regards to the importance of this event.    What I want to know is why there are not thousands of Daves running around, all helping the campaign and being available to deal with other important tasks.

“Iced” cream is the best fricking thing, Dirk, and I don’t know what you’re talking about.

This really reminds me of Equius and Nepeta, and that is sortof cute. I almost can’t stand it.  Honestly, this relationship is actually quite similar, except Alt!Calliope is much more dominant in the relationship than Nepeta was. Also Dirk probably has more potential to damage things than Equius did (other than way out of the temporal frame of that moirallegiance, as part of Lord English--- and even then, Nepeta ironically acted as a counter to his muscle-bound rage, albeit way after much of the damage had already been done [thanks, Davesprite {albeit, unrelated to the matter at hand, this relationship was probably why Davepettasprite^2 was destined in such a way to handle Lord English, in addition to the prophesies surrounding Dave dealing with him, Davesprite being the first one to get Caledfwlch, and the flying off into the sun prophesy (which was aided greatly by Seppucrow, the true hero of the story)}]).    I guess that makes this relationship relatively more important, maybe.

So fricking wonderful and adorable.   I do wonder why there are not that many consorts, though. Maybe they are just too distracted and hyperactive to have much in the way of drive to participate in politics.  The humans I sortof vaguely understand, albeit I’d have thought that more might show up specifically for Jake’s speech, assuming that it was announced beforehand.

Dirk feels predictably antagonized, and is lashing out. I have a feeling that he’d intended to do something major before all this control was taken from him, but this will probably make it worse. Hmm.

Heh.   I don’t think that he means to “pump her full of daylight,” at the moment, so this is still funny instead of terrifying.

Huh. Dave already knew about Calliope’s gender and is chill with it. Neat.

Oh. Umm... while I’m sure that he does not need that in order to target Jade’s body if he intends to do so, that is quite foreboding. He is indeed quite capable of tricking people into doing things, at times, isn’t he?

HAH!   That is horrible, you self-obsessed weirdo! XD

More serious than being mind controlled by a space witch with bad intentions who has mind powers stolen from all the major players of her species, huh?  (I seriously still wonder how the fight against her went so relatively-seemingly easily, and what happened with her curse.  Maybe it only transfers in LE’s proximity, or something. )      ... Also, it wasn’t entirely just a joke, Roxy, geeze.

Thaaat’s what happens when your world is under a corrupting influence that is twisting the fabric of reality to their whim.  (The question is: Is this Dirk or Calliope?  Does she really have the right to judge him for his actions, if he really is expressing free will in doing so?   Yes, yes she does, because he is strongly subverting the will of others, and justice in Paradox Space demands some sort of counterbalancing force.  If his excess relevance as the Narrator is the only cost he faces, rather than dying a Just Death, he should feel lucky.)

***peals of cherubic laughter peal out in the background***    Random reminder:  Angels (in Homestuck) are terrifying demons that should be taken as harbringers of the apocalypse. Alt!Calliope has already played this job once along with Lord English. Is her presence outside canon an ill omen by definition?  (I am not sure Calliope the younger entirely counts, given her special circumstances, by the way. Hard to say.)

Beautiful. It’s almost like he’s an open PAGE of Hope, waiting to be written! 

This is a somewhat wise impression.  But it’s complicated, and great power means great responsibility. Especially when the nuclear genie has already been let out of the bottle on account of someone’s great ambition.  (Note: I actually find Jane’s impulse to rule over her creation to be a reasonable one to have, all things considered. I am not judging her negatively for this. I am just not 100% certain that it is the right path to go on before they get a few dozen more years to wise them up, or maybe a few centuries.   Wisdom is a very important thing for leadership, and it comes with age!   Of course, experience also helps, but it might be useful to have some sort of smaller-scale experimentation with politic--  oh, wait, wasn’t she made a mayor at some point, according to the credits?  That really hasn’t been emphasized in the epilogue at all, but probably should be more heavily considered.    It’s still not enough experience for me to feel confident in her, but it’s something. Hmm.)

I mean... I can hear you. I thought your awareness was still there. I guess maybe having your position of control taken away from you might have sapped that as well, maybe.   And yes, it is very interesting, indeed. Now, please put down the gun and try to negotiate more reasonably and in a more civilized fashion than the mistaken cowboy diplomacy idea you’re now engaging in. I will give Dirk some slack insofar as he is still getting used to her identifying as such, but he is sortof making a fool of himself by lashing out at Alt!Callie like that. It’s rather irrational, and doesn’t reflect very well on his character. It makes him out as being rather petulant and inflexible when it comes to identity matters.

Yeeeeep.

This is true (regarding the last part).  It is also really sad to see them fighting like this. >:

Dave, you are being a dummy. You should really stop.

Aww. That is a very cute reaction. :3 Also, that is somewhat dishonest, Alt!Calliope.  You should say “seemingly” nothing.  ***harrumphs and wags my finger at them!***

It is somewhat rude of him to laugh, but I am almost tempted to laugh too, specifically at the fact that this is Alt!Calliope confirming emphatically the beauty of their other version in Roxy’s eyes. It has a sort of ironic tension and silliness to it. Possibly some pride.        I therefore cannot entirely blame him for his laughter, for I do not know whether that is what he is laughing at, or if he’s laughing at the idea of finding an alien skull monster beautiful (which she really is).

It is sortof nice to see this encouragement from Dirk, albeit it is probably laced with irony and sarcasm.  Knowing one’s self and admitting/accepting the things one feels is incredibly important to a person’s health! It feels brotherly of him.

I wonder if Roxy actually feels that way (that it is none of her business), or if it’s Alt!Calliope’s somewhat cold (and sarcastically-directed) interpretation of things. Hmm.

A very important question to ask for someone who is dealing with their own identity issues and/or worries about their friends judging them for them. This is really all there is to say on the matter.

That is a complicated question.  The answer is this:  Identity is only partially self-deterministic.  You can certainly struggle and hope and wish for certain things, indulge in certain behaviors, and see what rubs off on you, or what you feel right about, but in all honesty, you are who you are.    This CAN change over time, and that is something that most people don’t think about. To say you “change your mind” about “the person you wanna be” is not an accurate statement: you don’t necessarily choose anything at all, other than whether you want to actually embrace who you are and/or are becoming, and if you will actually tell anyone about it.  In that sense: whether it is too late to change your mind about who you say and outwardly project you are?---  no, it is not too late.  However, it can potentially be pretty fricking confusing to people, and some friends may not be able to handle it, especially if they have pretty deeply imbedded themselves in your own journey/identity, and/or anchored themselves in it as part of their own.   This can cause them to be pretty put off, and potentially to have difficulty maintaining their relationship with you. As such, in summary:   one should be careful and always very much self-reflective about identity issues.  The choice to come out with any sort of change or difference is not an easy one, and someone should not be blamed for either side they fall upon--- whether they want to keep who they are a secret and/or for how long, or if they want to project it to the world (unless they are really violent about it and/or attempt to shame someone/force themselves upon another person as a “necessary” thing to do for their own growth/impulses or whathaveyou: that is just abusive and wrong).

No. While there is some degree of social capital involved and thus you should attempt to time things properly and take the needs of others into account (which means you have no right to get upset at them if they don’t react a certain way and/or are too involved with whatever is going on in their life right then to grapple with your assuredly stunning revelation), one does not owe their friends any sort of bombshell moment, and any sort of desire for one and/or push on someone else’s part for identity-related drama and/or revelation is actually what is greedy.

***shrug***     I guess it’s funny insofar as it has psychological humor wrapped into it and it makes the phraseology more cutesy (thus more approachable, I guess), but it’s not mind-blowing or anything.

And that’s okay. Someone can be casual about these things and not make it a federal fricking issue if they don’t want to.  It’s also okay to have repeated revelations and/or constantly wrestle with who you actually are. It’s not something to be embarrassed about or paranoid with in a social respect, especially in a world with numerous different species of alien humanoids that have different and somewhat conflicting types of identities and drives.  Almost indisputably, that should make identity issues less of a socially big deal.

Yes. Just like you helped him before.   Oh wait, what was that? You had years to figure it out, but did nothing?    Ah, well. Couldn’t be helped, I guess.   Brothers do have their own separate matters to consider, after all.

***snickers***      Honestly, he’s probably right, but for different reasons than he’s expressing.    

***cough time travel, cough***       Note:  I actually don’t want to read that. It would feel like a really awkward sort of waste of narrative time.  I’m just annoyed at the very ironic lack of time manipulation he’s been doing. Though in this case it sortof does suit him, insofar as he is using time concerns that he obviously could get around as if they were a suit of armor and/or armaments for him to verbally exploit.  Very knight-y. Aaand this feels like about the right time to end this post.

[naruhearts]

OKAY SO I've just spent the best part of an hour scrolling through your blog and reading a bunch of your destiel meta and I HAD to message you... I was one of the many people who STRONGLY believed destiel had a chance of being canon after season 8 (more like season gr8 am i right), but throughout the years I slowly lost all hope. However, S14 has made me 110% invested in the show again and YOUR META IS GIVING ME HOPE FOR DESTIEL, which is TERRIFYING. Your writing is wonderful and I'm STRESSED.

Got back from Washington late last night!

Oh my gosh @alovelikecas, your message really made my day and I’m SO glad you enjoy my meta xox (even when most of my meta looks like, to me, sloppy-ass writing, haha! I’ll probably make an end-season meta post after 14x20 — if I have the time — that touches upon SPN’s current and repeating themes since Season New Beginnings S12/Dabb Era, not to mention I have, like, some more unfinished meta in my drafts >.>)

Yeah I mean, I didn’t join Destiel land until Summer 2016, and before that, I was late to the Season 11 party, so I basically had no narrative context for anything, and I’ll copy-paste what I said here: 

Looking back, one significant thing I recall? S11 gave me a sense of Destiel’s true narrative validity (as not a ‘fanon’ ship but organically developed in the canon) when I perceived it as a season that was ‘missing something’. Keep in mind I had no idea about Destiel yet while watching S11 at the time.

I was literally asking myself — repeatedly — why Dean/Amara seemed to contain odd narrative holes, considering A. Dean explicitly said that the non-consensual attraction he felt for Amara was NOT love and “it scares him”, B. Amara told Dean that ‘something stops you - keeps you from having it all’, C. Djinn!Amara stated that she can: ‘feel the love [Dean] feels, except it’s cloaked in shame,’ and D. Mildred’s iconic ‘You’re pining for someone’ —> which did not logically correlate with A and C, meaning: since Dean doesn’t freely love Amara and thus isn’t possibly pining for her — with female love interests as currently non-existent (I remember crossing off the dead/gone girls on a piece of paper lol) — who the hell was he pining for, then?

Originally posted by elizabethrobertajones

Obviously, without writing long-ass paragraphs of meta about it again in this post, S11 made sense as soon as I watched it within the Destiel context (especially after I read up on some grandiose pieces of Destiel meta (@charlie-minion was the very first person who inspired me to write meta; I followed her once I joined the fandom Oh my god, here we go, holy crap this subtext – I’m invested in this godforsaken ship because they’re in love with each other and I’m not getting off any time soon. The rest is history.

I’m aware that I do come off as positive (and I’m still Destiel-positive; whatever happens in 14x20 this week may or may not change that), but I hope you don’t mind if I use your lovely ask as an additional opportunity to clarify my meta standpoint: no one’s saying Destiel WILL become text. 

The general Destiel meta community (all subfactions: Destiel-positive, -negative, -neutral, and in-between) is not the Most Holy Canon Word, and we aren’t SPN writers, and again, we can’t actually speak to the veracity of Destiel as guaranteed-gonna-go-textual, but we — a diverse pool of critical thinkers from all walks of life: particularly those who have some degree of experience in literary academia/English literature studies (fun fact: I was actually pursuing a Minor’s in English until I changed my mind - my first love’s Health Science/Biology, which I stuck with, but here I am doing lit-crit analysis on the side *wink*) — can speak to the veracity of Destiel as a real, palpable, and ever-substantial long-running romance narrative aka the love story between Dean and Cas IS THERE. I see it. We all see it. We didn’t pluck it out of the random ether one day. It naturally evolved across the show’s overarching narrative like some vast spiderweb, linked together by numerous character arc amalgamations of Dean Winchester and Castiel as separate individuals who were then brought together — who brought themselves together, by the sheer force of free will and choice — and are now inherent parts of the other’s story (and respective character progression).

I say this too many times to count: the entire point of writing meta? Personally, it enables me to appreciate the literary gorgeousness of Dean and Cas’ relationship as, first and foremost, a tentative alliance offset by the very moment Cas raised Dean from perdition (it’s a poetic beginning). Their alliance then inevitably proliferated into a rocky — at times, necessarily turbulent — friendship, then a deep profound bond…one that crossed platonic boundaries since S7/8 and is, ultimately, indelibly rooted in romance. Together, Dean and Cas build up each other’s strengths, complement each other’s flaws, and narratively motivate the other to self-introspect — to become the best version of themselves that they were always meant to be: self-actualized entities who let go of their painful, horrifying, psychologically/emotionally destitute pasts.

These above reasons and more are why I think Destiel belongs right up there on the shelf of Ye Olde Classics, similar to epics by John Milton, Shakespearian tragic dramas, Homeric characteristic cruxes, and the great Odyssey journey: a legendary journey, fraught with circumstance, that finally ended with Odysseus (now an enlightened man) returning to Penelope, the love of his life.

Channeling the scope of Homer’s Odyssey, Destiel is an incredible storytelling feat of obstacles, both internal and external, romance tropes, mirroring, foreshadowing, and visual cadence/emotion, enhancing SPN’s already character-driven main plot in that Dean and Cas try to make it back to one another; like Penelope, their love holds true despite everything. If Destiel were an M/F couple, we all know their love story would be absolutely undeniable to the GA.

I do understand the bitterness S14’s fostered in some viewers, though. I do understand that Dean and Cas seem distant (and yeah, it’s a noticeable difference compared to S12/S13), but I believe the Destiel subtext is still heavy and holds steady.

Right now, at this point, there remains multiple personal issues for the characters to solve, you know? Dean and Cas aren’t talking properly; their love languages stay mistranslated, although we’re persistently shown that they still understand each other on a certain level that no one else can, and the visual narrative keeps framing them as on-the-nose solid counterparts: a domestic-spousal romantic unit independent of Sam.

Originally posted by incatastrophicmind

They want to be there for the other. They need to quash the final remnants of their respective internal loathing (Dean’s self-worthiness, Cas’ self-expendability) before they’re able to give the other 100% of their time, efforts, attention, and love (as flawed and complicated but compellingly beautiful as it can possibly be). During the times Dean and Cas do try to talk shit out, extraneous issues continue to get between them.

As other friends/meta pals discussed with me, S14 is like S10 in that it’s confusing the cast/audiences. And exactly: S8, besides S11/S12/early S13, also belongs in the close-to-canon serious Destiel narrative transition! I can discuss the showrunning/writer problem of SBL (Singer + Bucklemming; @occamshipper hits the nail on the head) that tugs subtext – especially subtext linked to Destiel – back and forth, sometimes in the weirdest nonsensical ways, but I won’t go too far into it here. I agree, however, with the recent idea that Jensen does seem a bit confused as to where he should bring Dean emotionally this season (don’t get me wrong, I do NOT believe Dean is OOC; OOC is a completely different concept vs expected character behaviour). And if Dean’s consistently romance-coded past interactions with Cas are any indication, Jensen would also — in the same vein as all of us — want Dean and Cas to start getting their shit together. Long-running fictional characters like Dean and Cas, conceived over 10 years, are so well-written to the point where you, the author, can predict what they’ll do even if you just plop both of them inside a room and give them no direction, and I personally feel that nowadays Jensen is prevented from achieving Dean’s further internal growth/unsure how to act in the moment because of some dumb SBL scripts saying one thing while his character’s heart says another. Wank aside—

Season 15 should hopefully convey a much more logical subtextual perspective e.g. unbelievably amazingly cohesive Season Destiel 11 that aired after choppy S10. Not all hope is lost!! I also want to clarify that I personally LOVED Season 14 in general. It’s been mostly Emotion-centric constant, with Yockey, Berens, Perez, and Dabb usually making my top-rank SPN writer list.

Currently the narrative’s still allowing pretty significant (imho) wiggle room for the lovers to fracture apart and get back together, where their miscommunication comes to a dramatic head. We just saw Dean and Cas argue over Jack’s well-being in 14x18 and 19. Dean — besides putting Cas at the top of his You’re-Dead-to-Me-Because-You-Lied-but-I-Still-Love-You-Goddammit hitlist (for clear spousal-coded reasons) and taking Cas’ actions to heart (he’s the person he trusted the most who lied to him) — no doubt blamed himself for what happened, and Sam was, like I said, the mouthpiece of truth. TFW were all culpable. They all failed Jack in some way, shape, or form.

I’m not expecting anything for 14x20, but I’m nervous either way! Thanks for sticking with my long answer

[wrockingwriter]

Unbreakable Vows: What is the Truth?

So, let’s start somewhere familiar: Snape and Narcissa’s Unbreakable Vow. From this chapter/scene in the books/film we get a pretty straightforward explanation of what a Vow is and how it works.

Bellatrix is shocked into silence when Snape agrees to the Vow. Her mouth drops open, it’s actively described that Snape kneels across from Narcissa beneath her ‘astonished’ gaze as they grasp right hands. It’s repeated throughout the actual process of the Vow that she is astonished, that she is shocked, that her eyes are wide; that she is astounded that this Vow is taking place. That it’s working.

Narcissa requests: 

1) Watch over my son, Draco, as he attempts to fulfil the Dark Lord’s wishes.

2) Will you, to the best of your ability, protect him from harm.

3) Should it prove necessary, if it seems Draco will fail, will you carry out the deed that the Dark Lord has ordered Draco to perform.

With each Request, there is a tongue of brilliant flame that coils around their hands.

The first is like a wire.

The second entwines itself both around their hands and with the first flame to make a chain from wire.

The third shoots from the wand, entwining itself with the others to make a rope from the chain, and is bright enough to light Bellatrix’s face in glowing red.

In the films there are three small flame strings that sink into the skin and leave behind scars- there is no proof that the book version leaves behind marks, but for the sake of consistency let’s say that it does- for there is no proof of otherwise, either.

Based on this, A Vow seems to require: 

3 people: Bonder (who holds the wand) Requester (who voices/asks for the Vow) and Bondee (who is held to fulfil the Vow)

3 terms: especially in this circumstance it seems to be a bit excessive to say three statements that equate to the same general task of protecting Draco if it weren’t a requirement.

The Bondee and Requester to hold dominant wrists/hands, with the Bonder’s wand touching where their hands are clasped.

I think it’s interesting to note the use of the number 3- it’s seen as the divine number in many religions, and so many things come in threes (past/present/future, faith/hope/charity, heart/mind/body) that I think it’s safe to assume that the requirement for these sets of three is FACTUAL and not circumstantial.

These rules also apply to the circumstances Ron describes when he talks about Fred and George trying to trick him into a Vow when he was a kid. And the fulfilment of these circumstances probably heavily contributed to Arthur being so distressed when he caught them at it.

But, more to the point, all of the terms given in this example are worded vaguely- but both the Requester and the Bondee know what’s specifically being referenced (the Bonder does as well, but the role of the Bonder seems to only be to confirm the verity of the promise and channel the magic of the Bond)

We know quite a bit about Snape’s actions concerning Draco in the wake of the Vow- but they are given to us through the biased view of Harry, so we must take them with at least a grain of salt.

- Harry hears, while listening at the keyhole, Snape berate Draco for ignoring repeated summons. Snape states plainly, in this moment, that he is trying to help- that he swore to protect him, that he took a Vow with Narcissa.

- Harry hears Snape sounding almost desperate in how he presses for information (what is your plan, if you tell me what you are trying to do, I can assist you, then why not confide in me)

- Hagrid lets slip (as he is wont to do) that Snape and Dumbledore had a disagreement (Snape saying Dumbledore took too much for granted an’ maybe he- Snape- didn’ wan’ ter do it anymore… Dumbledore told him flat out he’d agreed to it an’ that was all there was to it)

- Snape healing Malfoy after Sectumsempra (which likely would have happened regardless, but it’s still protection within his ability. Honestly, how did he know to come to that bathroom right then? Myrtle hadn’t been screaming loud or long enough to be heard from the dungeons, so what prompted him??)

- Dumbledore reveals during his confrontation with Draco that Snape was watching over him on his orders as well.

- Also during the Lightning Struck Tower, Dumbledore states plainly that Draco is hesitating, and Draco replies that he has no options

- Only after the series is over, once we have The Prince’s Tale, do we as the reader understand the truth of the line ‘it is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.’

- ‘Draco’s hand was shaking so badly he could barely aim’

- Dumbledore pleading with Snape (Severus, Severus please) as he gets to the Tower

- Snape actively pushing Draco out of the way, making his way forward with a look of revulsion and hatred ‘etched in the harsh lines of his face.’

- Snape killing Dumbledore

- Snape, after Dumbledore is dead and they are making their way from the castle, directly guiding Draco by the scruff of his neck.

- Snape yelling for Draco to run before turning to duel/fight with Harry.

The latter two could have simply been general care for Draco’s well being, but as these actions are particular to Draco I’m going to keep them on this list.

Now, the Vow didn’t directly do anything of significance that Dumbledore did not also desire. Snape might not have been as tuned in to Draco if not for the explicit ‘watch my son/keep him from harm’ portion of the Vow- but everything else would have been the same.

Has the Vow been fulfilled at this point? It depends on how we define the terms, and/or if (somehow) the Vow can understand that it’s confined to the year/specific task of killing Dumbledore without it being explicitly worded that way.

- Snape certainly watched over Draco as he attempted to fulfil Voldemort’s wishes for him to kill Dumbledore- but Voldemort will certainly have other wishes/tasks for Draco to accomplish in the future.

- Snape definitely did all he could to keep Draco from harm- but there’s a war on. One Draco just solidified his position in- so harm is closer at hand outside of these exact circumstances.

- There is no denying that Snape carried out the deed Voldemort had asked of Draco when it would seem he would fail. But does the Vow apply to any task the Dark Lord asks of Draco?

---

Now that we have the familiar territory laid out before us, let’s dive into the relatively unknown: Yusuf Kama’s Vow.

We know very little about this Vow, so most of this is extrapolation- to be perfectly frank,  the only thing we truly know about this Vow is that it exists.

But that doesn’t mean that there are not clues scattered throughout these new films- though we knows what will matter in the long run.

What do we know?

- Kama’s father Mustafa charged him to take revenge; that he charged him to kill the person Lestrange loves best in the world in his madness and grief.

- Yusuf was 12 when Lestrange took his mother (who died in 1901ish, 3 months prior to the new wife based on the years given in the screenplay) and that learning of his stolen wife’s death drove Mustafa to madness.

- We know that Yusuf was 17 or so when his father charged him with the Vow, as Laurena was stolen in 1896 and she died in 1901, so he was an adult.

- Yusuf has been searching for the subject of his Vow with his father for an undetermined amount of time.

- Yusuf Kama has been using the Predictions of Tycho Dodonus to justify his coming to the conclusion that Credence is the person he needs to kill.

Now that seems like a lot, but it all boils down to two things we know about Mustafa’s Vow:

1- To seek revenge for his mother’s abduction and death

2- By killing the person Lestrange loves best in the world.

If we take the rule of 3 into account, then we are missing 2 key ingredients to this Vow: a third term, and a Bonder.

Yusuf Kama came to his conclusion about Credence’s identity and managed to track him down to the Circus Arcanus (and then the mausoleum) within a year. This implies that he didn’t stop searching for Corvus after the boat sank in 1901- that he was always on the lookout.

Which would mean that the Vow has, without any seeming direct action toward being fulfilled, been sitting idly within Kama for at least 27 years.

We don’t actually know anything of substance about Yusuf Kama. We know his family history, and we know he’s made a Vow. That’s it.

In what ways could the Vow have impacted/directed Kama’s life? The career he chose? The skills he learned? Where he travels/lives? His very morals? Having taken a Vow at such a young age, who is to say that he’s made any significant decisions in his life without them being impacted by the Vow?

And, more importantly, can/does an Unbreakable Vow let the Bonded person know that they terms have been met? Can they tell when they’ve fulfilled their Vow? Or could a person accidentally fulfil their Vow and never know?

---

With all the textual bits out of the way, I’m going to throw the philosophy in here- we are here to figure out the Truth, after all.

To start, there are two basic kinds of truth: Objective, and Subjective.

Objective Truth is fact. The kind of statements that can’t be argued. Think along the lines of ‘humans need air to live’ or ‘water freezes.’ Objective Truths are universal, whether or not they are acknowledged/known to an individual/or recognised to be true. (Like with flat-earther’s, ignorance does not change these statements. They were true before discovery/acknowledgement.)

Subjective Truth is more personal. It’s the kind of judgement that may be true for the individual making the statement, but not for everyone. A more personal knowledge- think ‘it’s cold in here’ which, while true for you, may not be so for somebody else. Beauty is subjective- and even if there are widely accepted ideas of such things, they change wildly over time.

So when it comes to an Unbreakable Vow, what is the Truth??

Is it what the Bondee believes to be true?

Is it what the Bonder believes to be true?

Is it what the Requester believes to be true?

Or is it what is fact to the world/magic as a whole, whether known to any of the 3 involved in the Vow or not?

If a Vow is to be taken literally, as to-the-letter instructions, how are the Bondee’s actions judged? By their intent, or by the action itself?

If a Vow has somehow become defunct (if that’s even possible) what does that mean for the person who is Bound by it?

What circumstances cause the magic to kill a person?

---

Taking the things that we now know, or understand, of Truth- et’s try to make some judgement calls.

Severus Snape fulfills his Vow. He observes and watches over Draco’s actions, attempts to talk to Draco repeatedly, offers his assistance, kills Dumbledore in his stead, and directs him away from the battle (harm) in the wake of the murder.

Yusuf Kama is less clear. He has tracked Credence to the Circus Arcanus, kidnapped Tina to prevent her interference, pities the child but is entirely willing/desperate to kill not just the kid but anyone who would prevent him from doing so- but with the seeming-reveal of Corvus’ death, is more than willing to help protect Paris from Grindelwald’s Protego Diabolica with the very people he nearly murdered before.

How is Yusuf Kama alive?

There are a few possibilities:

1- Corvus Lestrange Sr. loved someone else most.

2- Corvus Lestrange Jr was already killed by Yusuf unknowingly.

3- Corvus Lestrange Jr is still alive somewhere (Grindelwald interference/manipulation?)

4- Corvus Lestrange Jr is already dead, as the text/film displays, with no connection to Yusuf at all.

Which brings me back to the big question- what is the Truth?

Does the Unbreakable Vow simply stop working if it becomes impossible to fulfil? Can magic itself tell if a Vow is still viable- does it already know if Corvus is truly alive or dead, or even the actual subject of Mustafa’s terms?

Is there a way to tell if a Vow has been completed?

Or do we just have to assume?

(2019)

[sazandorable]

so im gonna do that AAW meme thing! cw: tmi about aza’s thrilling life, some cringey or vaguely depressing/upsetting anecdotes, some happy things in a silly way, and fandom

1.      Sunday, 21 October:

o   Describe your experience of finding out about asexuality/the ace spectrum.  What source(s) did you find it from? How did it feel to find out about asexuality? How did it change your life?

~Sherlock BBC fandom~! /o/ Yeaaaaah.

To be precise, the kink meme, on livejournal. just a random prompt asking for something exploring the arrangement between asexual sherlock and uhhh probably john but tbh i don’t remember that. maybe Irene. I’m almost sure this was right after the Scandal in Belgravia episode had aired, and that episode was why people were playing with the idea of Sherlock being uninterested in sex.

I don’t remember my exact feelings when I read that word, but I do remember that I was delighted at the concept (+ the discussion in the same episode about falling in love outside of your sexual orientation) and immediately convinced, that I jumped into researching asexuality, and that barely a few weeks later I was very deep in contemplating and musing about my own levels of attraction and sorting out all that stuff. I do think I just instantly realized this concept applied to me; I found the AVEN site and its definitions very fast, and grey-a felt good instantly. (I found demi later, and it took me a bit longer to claim it for myself, though I don’t remember much details about that.)

Like, years later I’m very much bitter about and Over™ Sherlock BBC, its writers, and that episode in particular and their stance on the sexualities and orientations of all their characters, but... it did bring me something very precious, that it would have taken me years to find out about otherwise.

It did change my life in that this is when I realized that I really, really, really didn’t have to date, have sex, marry or whatever “one day” if I never wanted to and I wasn’t “late” on anything. Took off a lot of pressure, and also made me stop trying to dub-con myself into accepting things I didn’t actively want just because I didn’t actively hate them.

2.      Monday, 22 October:

o   Talk about your coming out experience.  Of course, one many never be finished coming out, but you could describe how you came out to friends, what reactions you have gotten, how you have felt by coming out, and more.

Mm, two:

not quite coming out, and I don’t remember how it came up, but I mentioned “ok but what about asexuality” at my mother, perhaps a year or two after finding out about it, and she just scoffed and said “that’s not a thing, it’s just being scared of sex,” and I just... froze. Blanked out. Zoned out. Possibly shook a little. This was my first first-hand experience of being just... disacknowledged, erased, denied out of existence, and I had absolutely not expected it, nor the violence of it, nor the casual quality of that violence. I couldn’t say anything in reply, and I don’t think my mother noticed anything at all.

on another hand, I once explained to a gay male friend of mine that, well, I don’t call myself a lesbian, I like girls but I don’t call my super-duper-precious-friend my girlfriend, we are extremely close but we don’t have sex or really date, I’m asexual; and his reaction was “?? THAT’S SO COOL. That fits you! I’m glad for you that you can just do whatever works for you without following conventions about relationships! Cool, great!” and that just made my day.

3.      Tuesday, 23 October:

o   Describe your experience of confronting stereotypes.  There are many stereotypes or expectations of what being on the ace spectrum is like, but of course aspec people are just as diverse as any other group.  How have you defied or corrected these stereotypes?

uuhhhhh

Mostly this happens when I talk about asexuality with people who are questioning themselves, explaining the many different flavors it can come in, that yeah you can be asexual at the same time as enjoying sex, masturbating, having fantasies, wanting to date, etc. Not so much smashing established stereotypes, more confirming that nop this thing that you think would “disqualify” you from being asexual doesn’t, actually, you still might be, you’re not “fake”.

4.      Wednesday, 24 October:

o   Talk about positive representation of aspec people in media which has benefited you or speaks to you strongly.  Aspec people are not often represented in media, so it will be nice to see which representations have the strongest impacts.

*STANDS UP, VIBRATING*

TWENTYACETEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

This year I got two cases of explicit, confirmed, canon, accurate and nuanced representation with central characters in two series that were already extremely close to my heart, and I’m so happy about it!!!!

Spoilers for both fandoms!

1) Shimanami Tasogare: a recently finished manga about LGBT community. In one of the last arcs, we learn that the very central yet mysterious character Anonymous (Dareka-san) is asexual. Like, the character says it, in full letters, and it’s discussed a lot.

Well, it’s more complicated than that, because it’s set in Japan and written in Japanese and Japan has different approaches, concepts and vocabulary around asexuality than English-language; what Anonymous initially describes might be closer to what English-language would call aromanticism. But they also later go “Am I interested in sex, or not? Who knows :)”, with their potential interest in sex represented with them reading porn magazines, and they’ve already expressed that they’re not interested in dating, so as it happens they’re probably both aro and ace (in English terms) anyway. (In the same sequence, they also explain that they might be male, or female, and generally aren’t overly concerned with how people think of them, anything works for them.)

This brings the other characters to think some more about their own desires for love, sex, relationships, human contact... There is a beautiful scene where the main character thinks that knowing this lets him finally understand Anonymous, that this must be why they are so mysterious and detached and fleeting — and Anonymous tells him point-blank that nah. They’re not just their asexuality. Don’t reduce them to that. They’re not “anonymous” because they’re asexual, and vice-versa — those are just two incidental parts of who they are. They are a full person, who just happens to be asexual, and also to enjoy being anonymous and unknown and find freedom in living their life this way.

It was just incredible to read entire chapters dedicated to a central character talking at length about their asexuality, and also how they relate, not only to straight people, but also to queer non-ace people. In the end the main character still doesn’t quite get Anonymous, and that’s how they like it.

2) The Magnus Archives: an ongoing horror podcast that’s casually LGBTQIA-friendly. (Like, a lot of horrible stuff does happen to queer people, but that’s because there’s a lot of them, and I do think that statistically more of them survive than straight people. Equal opportunity horror.) I had been toying with headcanoning the main character Jon as asexual for a variety of reasons for a while, and then in an episode that aired a few months ago a character casually mentioned that “apparently [he] just... doesn’t. At all.” Asked to elaborate, the writer confirmed on twitter that yup, he’s written as asexual (though who knows if Jon would use that word himself, he doesn’t really think about it).

I’m especially delighted because this came up, in context, because Jon has dated. At least once. We know his ex, and she is super chill with him. This reveal also comes up in the same breath as the reveal that a male character seems to have a crush on him, and IMO the show seems to hint that said character is aware that Jon doesn’t do sex, and doesn’t/wouldn’t mind this if they were to date.

Jon did start out as the usual cold, rational, unempathetic character archetype (in fact, he’s very reminiscent of BBC’s Sherlock in early episodes), but by the time this line comes up, the listener knows that he actually cares a lot and is full of emotions. He’s shown to be very, very protective of the people close to him — though also very bad at it. And at expressing it. But, still around the same time of the ace reveal, he is making deliberate efforts to communicate more and value everyone’s feelings. And of course, being the central character, he’s a veeeeery developed character with tons of evolution and nuances, and a huge fandom fave. The reveal that’s he’s asexual has changed exactly nothing in the show; but, like I said, it fits him, he read as asexual to the point that I was suspecting it despite zero real textual evidence until then.

When this episode came out and I heard that line (... I actually had missed it on first listen), I was at work, and I just started almost crying at my desk.

And then I got to go around yelling about it at my fandom friends.

... And at my non-fandom friends.