#but gosh that last scene really pulled at my romantic tragedy heart!

[skylessknights]

You're scaring us and all of us, some of us love you. Achilles, it's not much but there's proof.

                                                   — Achilles Come Down, Gangs of Youth

[allie1804-fan]

Please Assist Me (Chapter 12)

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8,  Chapter 9, Chapter 10 , Chapter 11

He Said                                                                                    

I could tell as soon as we’d committed to a date for the deed that nerves were getting the better of Sophia so I did my best to calm her even though I was nervous myself.

I planned our date day to include the outdoors again as I knew she’d enjoyed our bike ride and beach days and I got great food too from my favourite deli for lunch and a chose a renowned Italian restaurant that was doing food delivery for dinner. I just hoped that enjoying an activity and great food would take the edge off any anxiety she was feeling about finally making love. It had been about 6 weeks since we’d first confessed we had feelings for each other, but really much longer for both of us that our affections had been growing.  No wonder we were feeling the pressure.

When I had the table  set up and our dinner had been delivered with the hot food placed in the warming oven, I headed to my bedroom to take a shower. Sophia had already showered and was dressed in her beautiful yellow sundress.

“Oh gosh, I love you in that dress!?”

She smiled as she put on a matching ear-ring and necklace set before sliding into her heals.

I started to strip for the shower, throwing off my t shirt and jeans quickly. I teased Sophia by grabbing the waist band of my boxers as if to whip them off too making her squeal and make to run out of the room.

“I’m kidding , sweetheart – I’ll be super quick showering and then we can go and enjoy our appetizers on the terrace OK?”

She agreed, giving me a peck on the cheek before she left me to get ready.

Our meal was delicious starting with the promised crostini and champagne on the terrace and then moving to the dining room where we feasted on different flavours of ravioli (pumpkin for me and asparagus and ricotta for her) I promised to take her there to eat when it was open again for dining – the fish was really great there but I hadn’t gone for it today fearing it might not travel so well.

 She said

Dinner was amazing and I couldn’t wait to go there in person and try the fish he raved about – if the pasta was anything to go by, it would be worth the wait.

We moved to the sofa in the living room after dinner where conversation turned to childhood experiences. I asked him about his passion for food and where it came from which he said was probably down to the mix of cultures in his background and the nomadic childhood in early years exposing him to varied cuisines. And Toronto, where he’d made his home at around 6 years old, was an eclectic, multi-cultural city to spend your formative years too.

It was spooky how similar our growing up experiences were. My dad was in the military so we moved a lot until I was 7 when my mum and I settled in Phoenix when she and dad got divorced. I then moved to LA when I was 12 when Mom married again. Keanu had been in Toronto from 6 to 20 and was settled in that way but his mom had married again 3 times with 2 of them being in Keanu’s life while he still lived at home.  And we both shared a strong connection to our mothers despite the disruption that their relationships had brought to our own lives.

We also talked a little bit about our exes including Javier, the kids’ dad. I admitted I’d had a little bit of a wild phase in my teens and early twenties especially when I was in the modelling scene but we’d got together when I was 29, married by 30 and Eva was born a year later. Since the divorce 3 years ago there had been no-one.

 I think he was a bit shocked at that, I could tell by the way he took a breath then a gulp of his wine.

 “Come on, I couldn’t get out there!” I protested “I was battered emotionally from the divorce and Miguel was 2 and Eva 4 – I kind of had my hands full!”

 “I didn’t say anything”

“You didn’t have to!”

He blushed at that.

“Sorry, you know all week, you’ve seemed more nervous than me about this night but, well now I’m kind of freaking out”

“Why?, I don’t get it?”

“Because, I don’t know, it puts the pressure on, you know …”

I burst out laughing at that.

“What!! YOU? YOU? You’re feeling the pressure?” I was incredulous “I mean, Keanu what have you had, like I don’t know, hundreds of lovers?”

  He Said

 I almost spat my wine out when she said I must have had hundreds of lovers. The truth was I didn’t know how many which was embarrassing in itself.

 Her eyes were wide as she said it and I tried my best to reassure her.

 “Listen, I admit I’ve had a lot of sexual experience. I’m ashamed to say I have not kept count but the thing is,  I haven’t had so much experience with, you know, this”

 I gestured between us to show I meant relationships.

 “Especially not since Jen. You know about Jen right and Ava?”

 “Well I do but not really, just the facts, you know”

 “Well that’s a story for another time but let’s just say, everything about that was very bruising you know, so since then I’ve kind of always kept things light and, I’ve used work as an excuse oftentimes …… I know it’s a bit cowardly….”

 “No, I get it, once bitten twice shy huh? Is that what you did with Anja?”

 “I tried…………  but she called me on it, said it clearly had nothing to do with me being busy with work and everything to do with you …. And that I owed it to myself and you to see if we could make a go of things”

 “What? But that was before Christmas! Is there no-one around us who wasn’t match-making?!”

I laughed at that – she was right, everyone and his dog seemed to have realised before us what was going on with our feelings!

“I know, I mean don’t you remember how it was at Xmas? My head was battling my heart over saying something but I didn’t want to rock the boat before going away for months. And that day, when the kids made us kiss goodbye,  I so wanted to properly kiss you and even way before that Alex knew I was falling for you!”

She Said

My heart was racing when he said those words “falling for you”

There’s something so romantic about them and as he said it, he ran his warm hand up my  leg and under the hem of my dress

“You really are lovely you know? The first time I saw you in this dress, you took my breath away. Do you remember that day you came over after you got the job and I took ages to ask you into the house? Well that was why. I’d been all about the job when we interviewed you and then, there you were,  a vision in yellow on my doorstep”

I was blushing at his words as he pulled me to him to softly kiss me and his hand moved further up my leg towards my panties.

“I promised you this”  he said in a low voice as he reached my panties at last and started to circle my clit through the fabric.

I had to pull away and let out a moan into his shoulder, my  fingers pressing into him as the pleasure bolted through me.

“Good?”

All I could do was hum my agreement as he scooped me up and carried me through to the bedroom.

He set me down on my feet and put on a lamp casting soft light through the room. Then he walked to me and took my hands in his. The atmosphere felt electric.  Keanu took a deep breath. He seemed to be trying to calm himself.

“Let’s just be in the moment ok? Don’t think about the past, yours or mine.  Just be with me, here, now”

I sighed and pulled him down for another deep kiss. I could feel him reaching behind me and slowly pulling down the zipper before lifting the dress up, over my head and off.  He stood back, I felt admired,  adored even as he looked at me standing there in my underwear.

 “Beautiful, just beautiful” he said softly.

 Then he undid his pants and stepped out of them.

 I took charge of removing his beautiful blue shirt.

 “I love you in blue, you know? It lights up your whole face. You should wear more blue”

 “That’s why you bought me the blue scarf isn’t it? “

 I nodded.

 “Yes. Is that why you wore blue, for me?”

 “Yes,  for you, everything tonight is all for you”

@fortheloveoffanfic @kindainlovewithkeanu @omg-imagine @iworshipkeanureeves @fics-not-tragedies @ficsnroses @keanureevesisbae @penwieldingdreamer @witty-wallflower @paperplanesandwallflowers @bitchyslut99 @ladyreapermc @toomanystoriessolittletime @fanficsrusz @keanuficfiles  

[paladinspride]

Hopefully this is my last VLD S7 discourse post.

I usually try to stay out of the drama but LGBTQ rep is near and dear to me and I have spent the last few days totally caught up in the discourse surrounding S7, despite my best intentions. Can I blame myself though? It is every where!  

So I am hoping if I just put all my thoughts in an under the cut post, maybe I can move on and go back to enjoying the show for what it is and creating and assuming the fanon content I enjoy. I really do like the show. I just have feelings about some decisions.

Warning, there is an essay under here:

I’ll start by reminding people, I am in my 30s and I came out as bi in the 90s so I grew up in a totally different stage of society than most of the fandom. I mention this because it is important to keep in mind that the western world was not as open and accepting as it is now and my generation did a lot to make progress happen. There is still a lot to be done, but that is another matter.

I grew up in an age where LGBTQ characters, if present, were usually evil, tortured or killed off. At best, they were a comedic side kick. When we started to get LGBTQ content, shows like Queer as Folk, were given late night time slots and considered adult and taboo.  

Shows like Modern Family were an amazing win for LGBTQ rep but animation still had/has a lot of ground work to do.

Dreamworks got flack for Gobber saying, “And that’s why I never married,” in HTTYD 2 and that was super vague.

Conservative groups were adamant that children’s content be free of “discussions of sexuality.” Gosh forbid, someone be gay so any references had to be vague and nearly undetectable. LGBTQ content was heavily censored and often out right forbidden.

Legend of Korra’s Korrasami pushed the envelope and broke ground but it’s rep was still at the very end of the series and quiet enough to sneak by censors.

Right before I watched VLD, I watched Yuri on Ice and was so moved that there was a well written animated series that depicted a same sex relationship where it wasn’t played for comedic effect, tokenism or tragedy.

When I finished YOI, I got sucked into VLD by the fan art. When I watched the show, Keith and Lance’s relationship intrigued me and I had fun imagining scenarios where they could end up together and live in domestic bliss.

The fandom ate it up. There was so much K/lance content to create and consume and so much positive response to it, that I fell in love. They became an OTP and I have dedicated my blog to them ever since.

However, this whole time I have been cautiously optimistic about the likelihood that K/lance could become canon because I imagined the crew would have a fight on their hands to make it happen. My experience with representation in media made it hard for me to let myself hope.  

But I let myself believe because of LOK, Disney having a gay character come out on one of its youth series, and shows like One Day At A Time.

Shipping meta didn’t help.          

But I tried very hard to keep my hopes in check and remind myself that fanon isn’t canon and that I am hear for the fanon. Canon would be nice but it is not the end all be all. I had to repeat this to myself a lot.

The last little while I have found myself growing exceptionally tired of “KICK” and shipper’s insistence that K/lance will be canon because I knew the fandom was getting their hopes up and that fanon and canon are separate things and I didn’t want people to get their hearts broken when fanon wasn’t represented in canon.

Also, I wanted people to focus on creating and consuming fanon content rather than scouring the canon for proof and engaging in petty ship wars, but that is some people’s idea of fun, and I can’t judge them for enjoying the show differently than me.

Anyways, despite my reservations, I let myself hope.

Then we had Shiro’s reveal. I was so excited that we were getting a strong persevering leader and POC as LGBTQ rep in a children’s animation that I didn’t even care that the likelihood of K/lance was diminished for me because there was no way I could let my self believe that we could have three characters in canon m/m relationships.

But then I watched S7 and the rep fell a little flat for me, but I was still happy there was enough insinuation that m/m youth could see themselves in Shiro.

But then they gave Ezor and Zethrid a coded scene and killed them and Adam.

I don’t think the show runners did this with any ill intent. I think they were clueless to the fact that they were committing a dangerous trope.

The show is about war, yes, and people are lost in war, but we need to have enough LGBTQ characters in animation, media in general really, that the loss of one is not such a blow.  They should have predicted the fandom outrage, but I don’t think they did, and now they are on the defensive, seemingly making things worse.  

I also felt queer baited. And I don’t use that term lightly. I have defended them against queer baiting in the past because 99% of the time, the feeling is the result of the fandom building hype by reading into things and spinning things the showrunners and Vas said and not actually baiting.

And that happened again here.

But I feel like the showrunners contributed to it this time.

But I also am not sure how they could have shut it down.

I kind of wish they would not have said anything about Shiro at SDCC and just let the viewers interpret the scene for themselves. LM and JDS saying Adam and Shiro were engaged doesn’t mean anything if they don’t show it in the show. That was their mistake.

If they were not sure they would be able to give explicit rep, they should not have said anything about it. I don’t think people would have cared as much that there was not LGBTQ rep if we were not expecting it.

I get wanting to make everyone happy and being inclusive and not wanting to spoil anything or shut down ships but ugh it made an ugly situation. I  don’t know how they could have been more honest without spoiling things though.  

(But if they really didn’t want to shut down ships, why write Lance and Keith in any romantic arcs at all? They knew how popular the ships were to make some changes? I suppose the verdict is still out on whether A/llurance and K/acxa are gonna be cannon though so I really shouldn’t assume and get upset about that yet)

The fandom is partly to blame for the hype and perceived queer baiting in the past. If people didn’t ask questions that put show runners and VAs in awkward spots or spinning things said, the hype might not be so extreme.  

But this time it feels like the show runners went with it?

Did marketers encourage the hype for ratings though? Definitely. I don’t trust marketers. There goal is to get people talking about the show, be it good or bad. It’s important to remember the show runners and the marketers are separate. Netflix pulled some shady moves with the posters and that whole folding picture thing.

And that brings me back to K/lance.  

For awhile now I am have been thinking they pulled a Zutara with K/lance and S/hallura, (Zutara is the pairing of Zuko and Katara from Avatar the Last Airbender, and the plan was for them to be canon but studio pressure suggested the audience related to Aang more so they shifted gears and made Kaang the canon romance in the last season instead).

S/hallura could have been such a beautifully written loves story of two fierce leaders and no one can tell me they don’t have chemistry and corresponding arcs.

So I was surprised when it was revealed that Shiro was the LGBTQ rep.

This made me think maybe Shiro and Adam were to be just friends and K/lance was meant to be canon after all, which is why so many of us saw canon potential in S1-3) but then it got shut down for any numbers of reasons and they decided to make Shiro the rep instead.

Barlee recently tweeted that Shiro was always meant to be the LGBTQ rep and they had to fight for what they showed though.

So this combined with the fact that they had to fight to show what little they did and the insistence that Shiro “is the rep,” makes me think K/lance isn’t happening for sure.

And I am sad about that. And that is ok. I am allowed to be sad about it. My sadness that my ship won’t be canon should not dismiss my concerns about the bury your gays trope though. They are two different issues and I am sick that people are undermining the argument because of who people ship.

I am also sad, that Barlee’s tweet suggested that LM and JDS did not get to tell the story they wanted to tell because of studio meddling. I’d really love to know what that story was.  

But I will get over it and go back to creating and consuming content for K/lance and VLD because the world that VLD created is rich and inspiring to me. I love exploring the what ifs and alternate story lines the VLD universe has to offer because that is the part of fandom I enjoy.

I enjoy the canon too, but it is just one story in a list of endless possibilities.