#like surely karl has?? but also i cannot think of a single instance of him actually putting them on so idk

[jefferythejelly]

shark glasses!🦈🕶️

[bl-garbage]

coming out, like in the movies.

There are far too many reasons, wide-ranging and on varied degrees, for why coming out is That One Thing all queer people share in suffering. Yet, in the end, all of these boil down to that one overarching fear: that society will reject us. 

Those who soften the blows of this reality will hold our hands, like Anna does (I love her so much, I fucking do), or will offer a safe space and let us cry it all out, like Ate Judit does. Others simply know and will let us come out of our own accord, like Tito Santi does. 

These are warm instances of comfort, but ultimately they are mere consolations to help us come to terms with our mad realization that we had been ‘different’ all along. That we were unnatural. Sinful. A fraud. A phase. An illness. A mistake. An abomination. A wrong. The elements of horror that society has instilled upon us cast a looming shadow, that which would follow us even as we try our damned hardest to step out into the light. The truly laudable thing about Gaya sa Pelikula is how the show willingly offers an opportunity for introspection, a clearance for one to delve into the trajectory of their own stories.

I myself have never come out. Imagine that. A hundred gay-themed movies, one massive crush on Chris Evans, and a desire to be TayNew’s personal bodyguard later, and I still have not said the word out loud. I know because I keep track. My friends know I like boys, and I have never hidden it to those that truly matter, but the reality is that I have never admitted it either. For good measure, I would often create buffers, perhaps in an attempt to make things more palatable: I talk about boys, in all their chiseled glory, but from time to time I make sure to let someone hear, whoever has an ear, that I too had been in love with a girl ‘back then, when I was a teen, back in high school, I guess’ - which is true anyway. I will not discount that experience. But then here comes the shameful part: ‘So maybe I’m not totally gay,’ I would rationalize. ‘And why not? I could very well be bisexual.’ Or perhaps fluid. Or perhaps I was simply too afraid of a label.

Back then, I had probably already guessed this One Thing about myself, but perhaps as a defense mechanism, I had subconsciously ignored it. To friends now, my official story is that I had been in love with a girl - had expressed so myself and had written things about her and had bought her gifts - but then, eventually realized that I was also capable of liking a boy. This narrative is only partly true. What I leave out is the very real possibility that liking a girl could have very well only been part of this overall journey, one that had just been all too complex to understand for my nascent, horrified self. I was only what, 15, when I was first confronted with the reality that loving a boy was possible. 

(One day I had found myself walking with a boy and realized butterflies had been swarming in my stomach. One day I was much too filled with a desire to message him that maybe things were feeling different. One day my mom caught me with that very message, saved as a draft on the phone, and my desperation may have betrayed my concocted excuse that it was just a joke, mommy, really. Didn’t matter what I said; it was what she said that had stuck with me anyway: In tones of pleas, she said, son, please, don’t. One day my mother and I agreed never to talk about it, but I knew better. There was no joke about all this: not what I felt for that one boy, but what I felt within myself. And a more brutal reality: That there was no way in hell my mother would ever except my truth.) 

I had no one to help me understand. Things did not look the way they were over half a decade ago. Liking a boy seemed so wrong. 

Which is why, I know exactly what Karl felt. Vlad had asked him, “Ano ka (What are you)?” and immediately told Karl that he should not be scared of the word. But the truth is, gay is a scary word. As much as we hate to admit it, being gay means being shunned, facing the worst of the world without any armor. It feels as though walking bare naked, unsheltered, with simple questions otherwise borne out of genuine concern feeling like sharp daggers thrown from all directions. 

Things like these, one does not really get used to. They’re not ones that are suddenly okay, just because another person professes that they accept us. The bravest souls in the community will attest that they, too, fight to have the courage every single day. I recall the coming out video of Dan Howell, who had so perfectly articulated why the word ‘gay’ feels so uncomfortable. To me, ironically, the word seems like a label that, once uttered, would permanently seal me in a box, devoid of any guarantee of an out. What if things changed and I suddenly found myself liking a girl (though I doubt that anymore)? The answer to this is one I already know: that only I hold this decision. Would society then, as I have been so predisposed to believe, think that I had lied, that I had failed to be honest? Even when the honest truth of it all is that doubt and fear are two sides of one coin? To my mind, the word ‘gay’ already seems like a conclusion, and henceforth any acts that I do, the word would hinge itself. What if there’s no eject button? That is the truly horrifying thing.

This is an experience all too common, which is why it resonated with every viewer. Similarly, the experience comes with more aggravating instances: Throughout the whole episode, there was the atmosphere of great unrest, which we all know had been a directorial intention. From the cold open, we are shown a slow motion that signifies how overly conscious Karl was to everything; we are shown the way Karl’s voice had been muted when he was trying to talk to Tito Santi; we are shown just how problems are kept hidden and in secret, as when Ate Judit and Tito Santi were talking over them and Karl just being quiet, silenced, until it was he who had been put on the hot seat, ever so suddenly. 

These people who are supposed to be allies have talked over Karl, drowning out his voice. Only at their own signal did they let Karl talk, and by then, it was to answer the question Karl had dreaded all along. We know they want the best for the boys, but this is important to note just the same: No one must be forced out of the closet. It will only harbor more pains. As expected, this unsettling atmosphere has paved the way for the confrontation we had long known was coming. 

The heartbreaking part is that Vlad understands, so much so that he has been patient. Karl needs to find his own self, just like Vlad did. Just like everyone does. The montage of their own perfect life, lived in a large box that is their apartment, was but a sweet escape, and Vlad knows that. This was their shelter from harm. But a time must come when this has to end and they must come out. What has happened there so far - the dance, the hugs, the kisses, and all the memories - it was all real, but it was also hidden. And if one of you denies it happened, how would you trust your own truth? Vlad had taken the lead, because he had the pass to come in and out of this large box, sharing this precious space with Karl. Yet, it was understandable that Vlad had also been itching to help Karl come out on his own. To Karl, that is the most terrifying thing. When he said, we’re okay, Vlad, okay? he was desperately looking for normalcy, to abort this mission and go back and just - just stop. 

Vlad has been through that, and was all over it. No longer.

Neither of them is to blame. On one hand, you own your truth; and on the other, you can never force one to live a lie and go back into the closet, just so that they may be at your own pace. 

The bold truth about Gaya sa Pelikula’s penultimate episode is this: Neither Karl nor Vlad is wrong. It is they who have been wronged. By a society that has forced each one of us to hide, to man up, to woman up, to believe that the only way of seeing people was on the basis of what's between their legs and not what 's inside their heads. And Ate Judit, Anna, or Tito Santi may try their best, but they can do no more than to assuage the horror that comes with living your own truth.

I cannot stress enough how important shows like Gaya sa Pelikula are. For those who are only in the first laps of this journey of coming out, it can be their console. To me, this is a way of understanding why things came out the way they were. To others, this is a welcome respite. An embrace.

This is the magnificence of Juan Miguel Severo’s love letter to the LGBTQI+ community. This was just masterfully done. I find comfort in Vlad’s own love letter to Karl. I’ll bid goodbye for now, go into a corner of this box, and mull over the choices I've made thus far. (Reader, to be honest: I’m now writing this in my dormitory, in my own box I suppose. For the past six episodes I had been watching the show at home, but now I had to stay in the dorms. I guess, this was fate, too, to help me process my own feelings, alone.) Anyway, for those who have not seen it:

God, I am just overwhelmed with emotions. Just gonna cry now.

[thejourneymaninn]

Januanders Day 3 - Anders and Justice

I know its a few days late, but in addition to some Anders positivity, I really needed some Justice positivity, so I thought I’d ramble about Justice (and his merger with Anders) for a bit anyway.

The game pretty much presents is as a fact that Justice has turned into Vengeance, with Anders being “too angry” and having “corrupted” Justice thrown in as an explanation. Admittedly, that explanation comes from Anders’ himself, who isn’t exactly an unbiased/reliable source, but it’s not like we’re ever given any information or opinion (except, possibly, Hawke’s) that contradicts it.

Now, I have several problems with this, but I’m going to focus on the first and most basic one:  Justice’s behaviour isn’t about vengeance.

As far as I recall, there are two instances of Justice making a (full) appearance in-game (three if you want to include the rivalmance, though I prefer to pretend that doesn’t exist, and also, technically, his taking over Anders’ body in the Fade): when they are faced with Karl having been made tranquil, and again when they find Ser Alrik threatening a mage with tranquillity and thereby uncover to what extent he has been using the Rite – and what he has been using it for: to make sure mages do “whatever he says”.

And yes, in these moments, Justice does rage. He does yell that he will have “every last Templar for these abuses”. At first glance, this really does sound a lot like it is motivated by revenge. But what actually happens in these situations is that a spirit of Justice, someone who embodies a clear-cut concept of righting wrongs and making sure the one who did wrong is punished for it, is faced with oppression, with injustice, on a systemic level, which means: there is no clear target. He cannot single out just one person to attack as there isn’t one person, or even a small group of people, who have committed injustices, it is the whole system (and given the role of the Chantry in Thedas, as far as he can tell, the whole world).

Yes, there is Ser Alrik as someone who is directly responsible, but he has a large group of Templars with him, there are more of those who support his methods in the Gallows, and even those that do not are unwilling to act (not to mention that tranquillity is an injustice in the first place). “Every last one of them” is, indeed, involved. In a case like the Baroness, Justice knew who he had to fight to set things right again, yet this is an endless battle. They are all part of the abuse mages suffer. He isn’t so much taken over by Anders’ anger, but rather by his helplessness at the situation, and given his embodiment of a pure concept and his limited knowledge of the mortal world - the “spirit version” of that helplessness must be infinitely worse. That’s what makes him lose control, and (possibly) attack the mage they tried to protect.

Well, that, and fear. Because as Justice tells us in Awakening, he is afraid of becoming a demon, and he doesn’t know how spirits become demons. So with Anders talking a lot about the way Justice changed, and thinking of that as a bad thing, using expressions like “warped by my rage” – how scared must Justice be that it might be true? After all, there is no denying that they do influence each other, that his presence has changed Anders and that Anders’ emotions affect him, sometimes to the point that Justice turns into a “physical” manifestation of them.

Yet…this influence doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In Jaws of Hakkon, we learned about the Avvar and how they routinely collaborate with spirits, even actively use spirit possession as a way to train mages. Conveniently, Anders was never mentioned (but well, neither was the fact that the Avvar have effectively found a way to train mages and protect them from demon possession without forcing them through barbaric rituals, since our companions were too busy yelling “abomination” every two seconds), because Bioware seems to be determined to keep presenting their relationship as an unhealthy one no matter what.

They did pretty much the same in DA2. There are a few slight changes depending on Anders’ relationship with Hawke, but in the end, even if you played a Hawke who fully supported Anders, it is pretty heavily implied that Justice’s influence has grown so much that Anders cannot resist it anymore and is starting to disappear. Which is both sad and infuriating, especially since their relationship could have been so much more. Of course, it is a challenging one, and there are dangers in it, but there is also endless potential for growth, for learning and exchange. They could have found a way to communicate with each other, or a way for Justice to be in control of Anders’ body without having to take over by force. They could have (willingly) merged even further into more of a single being (without the self-loathing part), or found a balance that allowed for both of them to remain clearly separated, enriching but not controlling each other. And the relationship with Hawke could and should have had an influence on that. I would have loved to see a supportive Hawke actually helping Anders (and Justice) get over their fears and self-doubts’ regarding their merger, and for their relationship to become more stable if they have someone around them who doesn’t vilify it. With that, our Hawkes’ behaviour towards Anders’ could have actually changed Anders’ story (not who he is and what he does, but how he feels about himself) for the better.

I’m saying could based on what Bioware gave us in the games, but since Anders is alive and well, it’s actually can. Avvar traditions clearly show that it is possible, and with Hawke (or any other supportive LI of your choosing) at his side, who could help him get over the abovementioned fears, get more information about spirit possession, and learn to better understand the nature of their relationship, I’d even go so far as call it likely. Especially since now that the mages’ fight for freedom has begun, they are no longer forced to stand still, one of the things that Justice (and I’d bet Anders, too) struggled with the most.