#bigwhispersmusic

[alilyamongroses]

Thoughts on Katherine Howard x Thomas Cromwell?

It could be interesting under the right circumstances. There's that russel quote about how Kat's marriage was bookended by "celebration of slaughter," and Cromwell was the first death of that marriage. @edmundhoward pointed out how Katherine wrote to Cranmer saying she would look after him if he backed her: maybe she had Cromwell in mind.

[catty-words]

can you please tell me how you interpret otis' relationship with jean?

mm, so, while i don’t always find it enjoyable on a minute-by-minute basis because jean’s boundary issues touch a nerve and because i’ve imprinted so completely on my boy otis and hate to watch his autonomy challenged, there can be no denying that otis and jean’s relationship is incredibly rich and complex. there’s So Much to talk about, it’s kind of hard to pick a starting point.

but the aspect of their relationship i find most fascinating, i think, is the way both jean and otis’ number one priority is to mold otis into/become a man who doesn’t at all resemble remy. jean tries to accomplish this by constantly reframing otis’ reactions to her in the female point of view. like, think of the moment in 1.02 where otis says something to the effect of “you're stalking your son” and jean responds “that word carries a lot of weight, young man, don’t misuse it” or even the scene in the pilot that establishes their relationship for the audience, where otis takes jean’s latest sexual conquest to task and jean points out the sexism inherent in the argument otis is making.

and i like how years of this kind of guidance, this encouragement to see the broader cultural consequences of the worldview you’re imposing on others, has both helped otis flourish as a compassionate person and given him a crippling self-consciousness. he can both offer useful and mature sexual education to his peers, and fail to step outside his preoccupation with his insecurities in order to forge sexual relationships of his own.

also, one of the compelling consequences of the fracturing of their family and their subsequent preoccupation with remy’s part in it is the way jean’s unwillingness to be emotionally available to a partner affects otis. he’s watched her hedonistic approach to sex and leaned that sexual intimacy can - and perhaps even should - be developed only with people you don’t care about on a deeper level. it’s a way to invite intimacy into your life while maintaining steady boundaries around your heart. even remy’s absence, and the reason for remy’s absence, reinforces this for otis. having sex with someone you care about, with someone you’d willingly adopt as a life partner, gives them the power to hurt you beyond repair.

we see this guiding life principle take its toll on otis throughout season two, where he struggles with the idea of jean dating jakob and chooses ola over maeve again and again because he sees her as the safer alternative to being with someone he cares for deeply and in a way that’s already painful without it being as intimate as it has the potential to be. otis’ lashing out during the season comes from the fact that he’s unprepared to deal with his mom changing the foundation upon which she’s built their lives. that foundation being suddenly called into question by jean willingly becoming emotionally intimate with another person post-remy only makes otis’ latent anger more pronounced. now that he actually has a sexual life of which to speak, he’s building it in jean’s own image. so if she changes her mind about what makes physical vs. emotional intimacy worthwhile, that means otis has to deal with the fact that he could have followed his heart all along instead of choosing the closed-off and pragmatic option. what he’s missing, of course, is the way emotional intimacy after all this time doesn’t come naturally to jean. she’s working very hard to go against her nature in order to maintain - or fail to maintain, as it were - her relationship with jakob and that, in point of fact, the effort is what speaks to the relationship’s worth. relationships are the work of two people, they don’t magically spring into being by nature of intense chemistry and they aren’t time bombs that blow up in your face at random. for all jean’s preoccupation with keeping her dynamic with otis open and communicative, she certainly fails to pass along the idea that, above all else, passivity is the worst thing you can bring into any relationship.

which brings us to the other aspect of otis and jean’s relationship that’s of most interest to me: the aforementioned boundary issues. both otis and jean are very internal and largely private people. for otis, we see it manifest mostly in his relationship with jean. he doesn’t want to tell her about maeve, or the sex clinic, or his fight with eric. for jean, it’s in her consistent shutting down of anything more than sex with her various suitors and, most notably, in the 1.06 scene about otis’ thrashed wardrobe with jakob - “do you always avoid questions like this?”

but even while jean shares otis’ preference toward self-reliance and contemplativeness, she battles against his every assertion of privacy, wandering into his room to look through his stuff both when he specifically asks her not to and at random. the kid doesn’t get a lock for his bedroom door until he’s sixteen for crying out loud and, when he finally does, jean kicks open the door in a violation of what the lock symbolizes - namely, otis’ ability to choose when and what he shares with her.

so while this parent-child dynamic is far too close to home for me to make me particularly warm toward jean or identify with her, i do appreciate the way it brings endless complexity to the character. her whole persona is built on respectful and direct communication. it’s her greatest tool as a therapist, and it’s her greatest pitfall as a mother. because for every spoken “let the negative energy dissipate” and ‘let’s have a calm and rational discussion about this,” there’s a choice she makes to actively violate otis’ spoken and unspoken requests for stronger boundaries.

aside from her practice, otis is jean’s whole life. and you can clearly see the ways she’s done an exceptional job at raising a compassionate and thoughtful human being with all the energy and time she’s focused on doing just that. on the other hand, otis is jean’s whole life and you can clearly see the ways him behaving similarly to her both reinforces jean’s perception that she’s entitled to his life on her terms and creates tension around the fact that all otis wants is to assert the self-reliance she’s instilled in him.

[vangoghs-moved]

I finished watching season 3 and even though I symphathise with Ruby, I still don't like her and I still don't get why people love her and ship her with Otis.

Like honestly, she literally tried to change his whole damn volume and his hanging out with them at lunch gave me S1 Aimee Gibbs vibes.

I really can't bring myself to like a slut-shamer.

I've honestly never liked her and this season didn't change it at all. I find her just really horrible, she bullies every one around her. I don't like that they tried to make us feel sorry for her with her entire storyline with her dad, as if what she has going on is a valid excuse to be a terrible person lol

I do however think it was super weird that they just tossed her to the side after she was done with Otis, she literally disappeared and only came back to fight Hope in E07.

[catty-words]

unpopular sex ed opinions: I get why Otis did what he did in that party in season 2 and Maeve stans are way too harsh on him

Issac isn't as bad as the fandom thinks he is and considering how well Adam was handled in season 2, I wouldn't mind if Issac gets a redemption arc.

Also, Issac is made way too evil in Otis x Maeve fanfics.

okay, so, i'm sympathetic to the way otis lashing out at the party comes from a place of frustration. because he chose to stay with ola based on this exchange with his father:

o: now i have to choose between cutting maeve out of my life or losing my girlfriend.

r: yeah, i was in a similar situation once. it's a difficult decision, but the heart wants what it wants.

o: is that what happened with mum?

r: yeah.

which clearly casts ola as jean and maeve as the other woman for whom the desire is so strong it's worth destroying a committed relationship over in otis' eyes. and since otis lives with his mother and the consequences of going with the - in remi's case, certainly, but not necessarily in otis' - most selfish option does to a person's life, it's no wonder that he ultimately decides he should remain committed to the relationship he's in. and it's also no wonder that ola rejecting that decision leaves otis more confused and angry than ever.

the thing about what he says about maeve at the party, though, is that he's mad at himself for the missed opportunity to get what he truly wants, and he takes the bad timing of it all out on maeve. so. certainly. i get why otis did what he did. but he's not at all justified in the content of his speech, and that's an important distinction.

as for your other opinions, i heartily agree! issac is as complex as any character on the show, and i'd argue that he doesn't need something as dramatic as a "redemption arc" because the one act of deleting the voicemail isn't straight-up evil. it's easy to sympathize with the way his life up until that point makes him destructively protective of people he deems worthy of making time for. and i expect the show to continue to play with the way his most selfish urges make him human without excusing him from the bad choices he makes - again, as it does for all the characters.

[vangoghs-moved]

What kind of bullshit are the Ruby Matthews stans making up about Maeve ?

I need the tea

Honestly just go on twitter, it's full of shit takes lol

[vangoghs-moved]

what's your opinion on Ruby Matthews? (sex education)

I think she's a one dimensional character with almost no storyline so far and I don't get why people like her at all. She's a horrible person, she's constantly bullying everyone at school and she doesn't have one redeemable trait so far. Let's not forget she probably r*ped Otis in S2. In short, I don't like her.