#like. what does that entail? nobody really knows

[baalzebufo]

me when I fucking GET you

[maxgicalgirl]

I’m not going to lie I’m like really stuck and don’t know what to do with my feelings about All Of This. I dont have therapy until next week and they don’t have space to move me up and I dont really have anyone else to talk through how I feel ? I dont know what to do.

[squishyneet]

Goo's dedication to his job really deserves more attention. Even before he became this supposed responsible adult, he was always, and i means, ALWAYS dedicated to his job once he agreed to it. Even at 16 years old, he negotiated with Charles to make sure he got what he wanted and proceeded to do his job perfectly.

This man was working three jobs as a teenager. Debt collecting around the entire city every month (which he had to do all on his own), bodyguarding Charles Choi (bc he was the real bodyguard, not Gun), and eventually becoming HNH chief of security, (lord knows what that entails). Not to mention the couple of times he showed up ON BEHALF OF GUN when managing the crews was Gun's job. He was truly working overtime and I completely understand why he's upset about being used by Charles Choi. Goo was always willing to do the work, but Charles got greedy and used him. But nobody understands this. Even Gun says this:

And Charles says this earlier in the series:

His frustration is totally warranted, even if he was not personally betrayed.

It really shows how even though he was high up in the HNH group, in the end, he got the same treatment as the Four Crews, just with a little more respect.

He even got put in the fucking hospital by his partner and was expected to just be okay and keep doing his job. And when he does go to the hospital later, he doesn't even mind, all he wants is for his hospital fees to be paid. He's not even picky.

Goo was always holding up his end of the bargain. He understood showing mutual respect while having individual interests. Y'all need to show some respect bc he did what half the characters literally cannot do.

Dude was working 2-3 jobs at a time, and still managed to get his driver's license, scout out secret friends, keep tabs on the gangsters of Seoul, and spend time with Gun. Not to mention personal upkeep like dying his hair, going shopping/getting fitted, working out regularly, and taking care of himself. Talk about multitasking.

[d-criss-news]

“As an artist, there is no right way to do something” – Helen J Shen in conversation with her Broadway co-star Darren Criss

New York City’s Belasco Theatre first opened its doors in 1907 with a production of A Grand Army Man, going on to premiere productions of seminal plays such as Rocky Horror Picture Show and stage Tony-award-winning adaptations of Shakespeare classics. Now, it is the stage on which Helen J Shen will make her Broadway debut. Having risen through the ranks over the past few years on a series of off-Broadway productions, Shen is starring opposite Golden Globe and Emmy award winner Darren Criss in Will Aronson and Hue Park’s sci-fi, romantic musical Maybe Happy Ending. Set in late-21st century Korea, the story follows two life-like Helperbots each at the end of their warranty, whose chance encounter unravels a tale reshaping the traditional mould of relationships.

Darren Criss: Good morning! We started our first day in the theatre yesterday. How does it all feel? Helen J Shen: It was wild to be there because it’s a gorgeous theatre. It’s like a little jewellery box, it’s so ornate and intricate. I saw How To Dance in Ohio in the balcony at the Belasco Theatre, and I was thinking about how many shows specifically in the Belasco that I’ve been a fan of, not even having seen them, but just knowing the impact of them. Knowing that this will be a part of its legacy forever is wild.

DC: By ‘this’, you mean yourself, Helen J Shen. Your name is on the marquee in lights. HJS: Nobody told me about that before it happened. I just got a picture of it when it was up.

DC: Really?! You didn’t know that your name was going to be up on the marquee? HJS: No! It wasn’t something we had talked about or agreed upon, I feel like the production and the powers that be have been like, “This is an introduction moment for you.” They didn’t have to do that.

DC: It is. It’s a fitting gesture to have your name outside to let people know who is lighting up the theatre inside. While we’re talking about the Belasco and your love of going to Broadway shows, you grew up in Jersey so you weren’t too far from the city, did you grow up going to Broadway shows? Tell me about your experience in two ways, the actual going to Broadway and the consumption of Broadway culture, which are not necessarily the same thing. I didn’t grow up near New York, I wasn’t a ferry ride or subway ride away, I was across the country so for me, Broadway was what I would pick up in record shops. Cast albums would come out and that’s how I would familiarise myself with what was going on. You were much closer to it and you grew up with more resources on the internet. I want to hear how Broadway was part of your life as baby Shel? HJS: Baby Shel was introduced to the tenth anniversary concert of Les Misérables, I had the physical VHS.

DC: I had that same one! HJS: We wore that VHS to its strings, it was replayed so much. I came into the city more so to do piano stuff because I was competitive starting from six years old. I would go to Carnegie Hall and Steinway Hall.

DC: Wait, unpack that for me. When you say you were competitive, what does that entail? HJS: Classical music competitions.

DC: A literal piano duel. HJS: Correct.

DC: How would one be adjudicated? HJS: How accurate you were, or how close you could get to perfect, which is an interesting way for me to have been introduced to music.

DC: I have so many thoughts on that. HJS: As an artist, there is no right way to do something. So to have such a narrow idea of what successful musicianship is was kind of soul-crushing. Now, I love classical music, I love playing the piano but I had to rediscover that love because it was so intense.

DC: How old were you when you were doing this? HJS: The first time I competed on a national scale I was ten or eleven.

DC: Wow. What was your piece that you always got ‘perfect’? I have strong feelings about what that means but within the rules of the competitive piano world. HJS: Chopin Nocturne no. 2 in D flat major was a huge one for me. Concertos were huge, I did a Bach concerto, and a Chopin concerto – I just love Chopin so much. Romantic music is the genre for me.

DC: Agreed. HJS: No shade to the Baroque period. [laughs]

DC: I’m with you, I did a lot of Baroque stuff because the violin is the same. I didn’t compete but I played in a lot of Philharmonic and Baroque quartets and as a result, it’s a lot of cocktail hour music for dukes and duchesses, as opposed to the romance of Chopin and Tchaikovsky. It frustrates me to no end that you guys had to compete. HJS: I already knew my passion for it was in music in general and being on stage. Piano brought me to Italy a lot, I spent a lot of time going abroad at a young age. It was my first time being away from home, I was ten the first time I went to Italy by myself.

DC: By yourself?! HJS: The piano teachers were there and there were chaperones.

DC: Yeah but without parents, to me that’s kind of by yourself. When you’re ten that’s a big deal. HJS: I remember being like, “Mum, dad, stop being so on top of me! I’m trying to be cool around my new friends.” Then the first day I got there I got motion sickness from the plane, I didn’t want to watch the horror movie that everyone was watching so I stayed in my room and suddenly had a wave of, “Oh my god, I’m in another country for fifteen days without my parents!”

DC: Fifteen days?! At ten years old! That’s hard graft, dude. HJS: It’s an eternity when you’re ten. The SIM card wasn’t working, first panic attack – woo!

DC: Wow, you wear that like a champ. I can’t be casual about that, that’s pretty intense. On top of this, assuming you had to compete. HJS: Yeah. Also timing-wise in Italy, everything starts later, plus jet lag.

DC: I never really thought about soloist musicianship being a competition, but if you’re on this track and you’re studying classical, at what point does it pivot to being an actor? Or singing? I don’t know which one was the first gateway. HJS: I did theatre, my first community theatre was doing Gretl in The Sound of Music in a local production. It was never the thing that was the main focus, it was always the tangential thing if you have time. My parents heard about Paper Mill’s [Playhouse] educational programme and the thing about Chinese immigrant parents is, if you’re going to do anything, you’re going to do it to its fullest extent, you’re not going to half-arse it and you’re not going to quit even if it’s hard. That’s been engrained in me from an early age. Theatre brought me so much joy, it was undeniable that I was going to pursue it. It unlocked something else in me. I grew up sort of isolated, I’m an only child and I was like, “I don’t want to sit in a practice room by myself anymore, I want to do things with other people.”

DC: Were you doing this at the Paper Mill programme while you were competing in piano? Was there a clear turning point? HJS: In high school, the summer months were prime real estate for the things that I wanted to do instead of school, the fifteen days of that Italy programme directly conflicted with the July conservatory at Paper Mill so I had to be like, “This year I’m going to do this, next year I’m going to do Italy.” Then starting in mid-high school I was like, “I think that there is something that I love to do and there’s something I feel obligated to do.” I wanted to be with my Paper Mill fam. That was where I first sang Cornet Man from Funny Girl which ended up being my college audition song.

DC: Nice! Did you learn Cornet Man from that or were you a fan of Barbra [Streisand] or Funny Girl before? HJS: It was a deep cut.

DC: Funny Girl for teenagers is categorically a deep cut. That’s not something teenagers are listening to, call me completely out of touch. HJS: Barbra has always been ingrained in the canon for me. Growing up it was always like, here’s Audra [McDonald], Barbra and Lea [Salonga], these are the voices.

DC: Was there a point where you knew you could do this to a degree that was a little more serious than the other kids? I’m not trying to blow your shit up, I think we can both agree you have a very strong voice, that’s why we’re here. [laughs] But, if you’re playing a piano all the time you’re not sitting there singing, so when did you realise? HJS: I don’t know, but the role that is highlighted in my head is when I played Mushu in sixth grade in Mulan Jr.

DC: [laughs] Does Mushu get a song in the junior version? HJS: She does. It didn’t age well.

DC: Well, it gave you a gateway to singing, so regardless of its content it sounds like this was a moment. HJS: It was a moment where I was like, “Not only do I like it but it likes me a little bit.” My house was filled with music but it was always a secondary thing. Doing something scary like pursuing art as a career, I remember fighting so hard and being like, “My parents don’t understand, they want me to find something that has stability.” Then I was talking to my godmother about it who I’m very close with and she was like, “How risky and scary was it for them to come to America?” Not knowing the language, not having any financial stability, just on a hope and dream – building a community out of nothing, helping each other out. All of these things that I definitely took for granted and was like, “They don’t understand!” But to then reframe, they were so punk for coming here. [Darren applauds] I will never understand how scary that was, but also they did that with the hopes that I could pursue something I am passionate about. When I graduated from high school my dad made a speech about how he was very inspired by the risk I was taking, to have that transition of “I thought you had all the answers, I’m mad at you for not having all the answers,” and then to be like, “They’re learning from me?!” It’s wild.

DC: That’s how it works, in teaching you shall learn. I love the idea that them embarking on this wild west hope and a dream tale is parallel to your own. How old were your parents when they emigrated to the United States? HJS: They were in grad school so about my age.

DC: If we’re talking about parallels, I was also 24 when I made my Broadway debut. HJS: I know! We’ve been talking about it feeling like a homecoming of sorts for you, can you speak more about that?

DC: Well, it’s a relief they haven’t kicked me out yet. I’ll just say that. I tend to hang out at the party longer than I probably should so I’m always very conscious of the host being like, “Alright, this is it.” HJS: The host being the ghost of David Belasco.

DC: He’s definitely on the invite committee, for sure. I wouldn’t say it’s a homecoming, it’s just a continuous grateful lap around the arena. Sometimes I’m in the crowd, sometimes I’m on the field, but for most of my life I was outside dying to get in, they haven’t kicked me out yet and I’m just happy to be in any part of it. We both went to the University of Michigan and you told me a great story that I would love to share, we were talking about what show really knocked you on your ass? HJS: Impact-wise, the show you’re talking about is Passing Strange. I was deck electrician on practicum one of my freshman year, it was my first semester of college and there was nothing to do for this show because it was so hands-on by everybody in the cast. All I was tasked to do was to watch and be an audience member, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart was the director of this production and so many amazing alumni are in this production, it changed how I thought theatre could be. Passing Strange is sort of autobiographical of Stew’s [author, Passing Strange] life, him and his writing partner Heidi Rodewald wrote it for The Public Theatre and then it happened on Broadway at The Belasco. Seeing the Michigan production made me realise my peers were part of this intricate storytelling and were so hands-on in creating, there were things that were divisive and I didn’t know theatre could do that. It inspires me as a hopeful writer and performer in general that we can experience and understand life through these other mediums and make it artful and beautiful. I saw it twenty times and sobbed every time.

DC: You’re speaking to something that really hit me when I was also at Michigan, when you’re in those amazing sponge years of eighteen to 22. I’ll be frank, the musical theatre department at The University of Michigan is a very prestigious, well-known and really incredible programme – I was not a part of this programme. [both laugh] The reason why I’m saying this is because I was completely blown away by the musical theatre kids – it was the first time meeting kids my age doing things that pros do. As we approach your Broadway debut, is there anything from the vision board or the dream catalogue where you’re like, “When I get to Broadway, I’ve always wanted to…” HJS: This already being the Broadway debut is such a glorious victory. I would like to sit on the stage and soak it all in. [laughs]

DC: Empty theatres to me are churches, they’re these very sacred holy places. HJS: We have ghosts in ours!

DC: We do have ghosts. The Belasco is famously one of the most storied theatres on Broadway. There is a holiness to the literal or figurative ‘ghosts’ of the theatre, this is a place where people go to be moved and to feel some kind of catharsis, not unlike the many holy houses of any house of worship around the world throughout time. Being in a theatre alone is a really sacred experience, I hope you find a second amongst all the craziness to do that. Are there any heroes that you grew up idolising? Because I guarantee you whether you like it or not, in a few months’ time there are going to be kids watching this that will forever hold the name Helen J Shen sacred because of this cast album. Not to say the pressure is on but it’s more of a polite reminder that the wheel does spin around. HJS: It was Lea [Salonga] in that 10th- anniversary concert.

DC: Yeah dude, me too honestly. HJS: For her to have done Miss Saigon at the age that she did is just so wild, it’s amazing. I have since been fortunate enough to meet and work with amazing people who have also been doing incredible work, for way longer than I’ve been alive.

DC: Well, that is how I feel about getting to work with you and you’ve only just begun… [Darren sings] And… we’ve only just begun our day because we’ve got to go to tech. HJS: We’ve got to go to tech!

[goodoldfashionedengineer]

Feeling a Little Blue - RK1K

(Read here on AO3)

Summary: Now that he and Markus are dating, Connor tells Hank what android dating looks like

-----

“So, let me get this straight. You’re dating now?”

“I am,” Connor said with a smile.

“And this boyfriend of yours is Markus? The deviant leader? The one we were supposed to track down?”

“That's the one,” came the enthusiastic reply.

Hank sat there, eyebrows raised, mouth agape, nodding slowly.

Connor didn't interrupt, wanting to let the other process it. Other people would be afraid over a reaction such as Hank’s but Connor couldn't help but smile. Thinking about Markus does that sort of thing.

A few seconds later and the lieutenant sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Jesus fucking Christ, I can't even say that's the weirdest thing I’ve heard out of your mouth.”

Maybe he would need a little push.

“We are very happy, if you're wondering.”

Hank looked up again, analyzing his face. “You really like him, do you?”

Connor furrowed. “Yes, of course, that's what I just said.”

Hank looked away again, expression going soft. Then his eyes wandered around the precinct, but nobody else was even near the break room right now.

He sighed again.

“Alright, tell me all about ‘android dating’.”

Connor’s smile grew wider. “I was hoping you’d ask that actually.”

He told Hank about lying next to each other, holding hands and going into standby-mode together. About interfacing, how you become one being for just a few seconds, feeling and seeing what the other has gone through, being able to send words unspoken. How close and safe it feels.

“Oh, and last week we went to the aquarium together!” Connor looked back at Hank, having briefly forgotten where he was and who he was talking to, so lost in the good memories they’ve built together.

Hank seemed amused, if his smirk was anything to go by. “Anything else?”

Connor hummed. “We go on walks together multiple times a week, exploring the city. Sometimes we just watch the other do stuff.”

“And what does that entail?” Hank had his head angled, eyebrows scrunched together.

“Well,” Connor’s eyes drifted, suddenly looking sheepish, “Markus is an amazing artist and great at the piano, if I dare say so.”

Hank leaned forward with a sparkle in his eyes. “And Markus?”

Connor’s eyes shot wide open. “What about Markus?”

“What does he watch you doing?”

Caught of guard, Connor was trying to pierce together an answer, not the easiest thing with a racing thirium pump.

“Fighting.”

Hank’s eyebrows went up. “Huh. Didn't take you for the MMA guy.”

Connor brought his hands up, shaking them in front of him. “It’s not like that! Just North and me-she’s a real firecracker, you know? Did I use that right? Doesn't matter- Point is that North and I like sparring from time to time or going to the shooting range.”

Hank slowly raised his head before letting it fall again. “Aha. And Markus is watching you guys doing that?”

“Yes! Yes, he does.” The smile from earlier returned. “One time he told me he wanted to paint me while I was shooting and wanted to hang up the painting because I looked ‘badass’.”

His cheeks gained a light blue hue. “And another time, we had a family visiting from Canada here and the little girl told us about her fox plushie that she lost. They left it in a motel, so I went to that motel and got it for her. Markus told me how much he loves how empathetic and caring I am.”

Connor’s smile widened, blue getting more saturated, hand going up to the back of his neck. “Sometimes, when it’s just the two of us, he likes to tell me that I’m precious.”

Hank leaned back, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised, smirk still proudly present. “You into that stuff?”

Connor blinked, LED turning yellow with a little bit of red. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You into that stuff? Praise?”

The android's mouth opened, but no sound came out. On the other hand, the blue on his cheeks only grew stronger and more and more red appeared on the LED. “I have no idea what you mean, Lieutenant.”

The other one rolled his eyes, head going with the motion. “Come on, you know what I mean. Don't you think I’ve forgotten that case at the Eden Club. We both know you aren't as innocent as others might think.”

Connor’s shoulders came up, mouth forming a straight line, voice sounding strained, “This is no topic to be discussed at work.”

Hank shrugged. “It’s not a bad thing, you know? Pretty tame, actually. Vanilla, even.”

Connor took a deep breath, eyes up to the sky, but doing nothing at hiding the blue from his face and neck. “I swear, if I’m going to self-destruct because of you, you’ll be charged with murder and spend the rest of your life behind bars.”

He didn't even say anything as he walked away, probably to return to his desk.

Hank chuckled. “Maybe you should call Markus, ask him if he’ll be there when your shift is over.”

Connor paused. Hank couldn't see his expression, back still turned towards him, but the laugh was unmistakable.

“Hank. Fuck off.”

[crashing9against9the9walls]

Before any of y'all could begin to dunk on Olly, may I remind you all that Israel once urged the BBC to pull out Olly Alexander for petitioning against Israel's participation in Eurovision since last year.

I get what Queers for Palestine is urging him to do but to put him in the pedestal ALONE like that and not call out for all the other artists (or at least the other LGBTQ artist) is just so infuriating. And the worst part of it is, whatever he does will not be enough for them. He already release a statement and it wasn't enough for them (it had likely gone through many revisions in order to get past the BBC). Had he remained silent, people would start accusing of of being complicit despite the fact he's been vocally pro-Palestine from the beginning.

Also, I feel like people are not getting the financial and legal consequences of him or any of the other artist just withdrawing all willy-nilly especially since they are all under contract with the broadcasters*. Like, some of them might be working part-time job, some like Silia are still in High School, some literally have music as their only source of income and we all know that's not enough to cover the legal fees and potential lawsuits that would entail. Also, there's a huge risk of being blacklisted, not only in the broadcaster from ever returning to the song contest, but also in the entire music industry, which is already hard to enter/make it. On top that, poorer countries like Albania or Moldova just couldn't afford to do that and jeopardize everything.

It's literally just impossible to win.

This whole mess is a lose-lose situation where nobody but Israel wins. Like, if they do withdraw, that's exactly what Israel wants because less competition for them. But if they compete, that's also what Israel wants because it meant validation of them being there even thought everyone wanted them gone.

All and all, this is literally the EBU's fault by allowing Israel compete in the first place. They literally created a impossible situation where, one way or another, the artist will be thrown under the bus.

Tl:dr... BLAME THE EBU, NOT OLLY!

Edit: * I just really need to put the one out there.

[leporellian]

How are we meant to look at operas, anyway? (and what are they?)

Operas are my favorite art form of them all. This is because I think they are "just really neato" and "the most interesting to study". However, if you were to go around and ask what Defines an opera? Nobody would have a concrete and true answer to the question. They aren’t ‘sung through stage works’ because many operas aren’t sung through and non-operas that are. They have no specific orchestra or singing requirements. Even determining them on a cultural basis doesn’t entirely fit. I actually think ‘art’ is too loose and philosophical a term for what they are either. (I mean, yes, they are art. But how are they so?)  

I think that while there’s no concrete definition for what an opera actually is, there ARE certain sets of… rules (for lack of a better word) that dictate how operas Are and what we should do when Seeing them. Funnily enough, the most complete rules I’ve seen for operas I found in an essay that has nothing to do with operas at all- “Monster Culture: Seven Theses” by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. My rules for How To Look At Operas are heavily derived from that essay, interpreted in ways to best fit the art form. 

My Rules of Opera (with apologies to Mr. Cohen):

1. The Opera’s Body is a Cultural Body.

Operas are sociological and anthropological records that entail a gap in time between their composition and their performance. They contain as many perspectives as there are people aware of them. Every time you watch an opera, you are negotiating with something or someone else. And these records are always being added onto- no opera is ever truly ‘complete’. 

Operas cannot truly be escapist entertainment because they directly reflect societal problems in both the composer’s time and ours. La Traviata’s main conflict- the way sex workers are demonized and unsupported among ‘polite society’ and how societal expectations and the pressure to conform destroys lives- is something that existed in Verdi’s time, and our own. La Traviata is about the sex workers of today who can’t find work anywhere. It is also about how Giuseppe Verdi’s wife was poorly-treated by the people around her for having been sexually active before their marriage. It is also about the gap between these two events, and how one thing became (or still is) another. 

An opera production is not a recreation. No matter how ‘original production accurate’ they claim to be, they are always a negotiation. There is no such thing as accuracy, as civic law. Once one is freed of the expectation of ‘canon’ or ‘what ought to be’ in an opera, one can deal with these creatures more handily. 

2. The Opera Always Escapes.

No matter how many times Don Giovanni is dragged off to hell at the end of Mozart’s opera of the same name, he always reappears again in a fresh new staging. He never stays down there. Maybe the gates to Hell are looser than we imagine- or, more likely, this is because he represents something that cannot be defeated. What does the character represent? Abuse, sexual violence, power (with class, with gender, with religion); grief, loss, death. None of these things will go away in our lifetimes or the next, and so Don Giovanni as an opera remains relevant. 

In fact, there are no ‘irrelevant’ operas in the standard canon as we know them. Any irrelevant operas that did exist are long gone because there would be no reason to revive them. Even operas that have ‘aged poorly’, like Turandot, confront us with why they’ve poorly aged and force us to reckon with some part of our current world. We react to them in some way and therefore they are worth further looking into.

I call this the “All Dogs go to Heaven” theorem because it doesn’t argue that all operas adhere to the same standard of quality, or are even written with good intentions in mind- but it does argue that they all are worth studying and experiencing. And any opera, as long as a copy of its score and libretto exists, can come back from the dead. So just like the movie, not all of them stay there.

3. The Opera is the Harbinger of Category Crisis.

One of the most common ways to explain away what an opera is, against a musical or a straight play, is to claim that operas are sung through while musicals feature spoken dialogue. Respectfully, this is wrong and insane. Two of the most famous operas of all- Carmen and The Magic Flute- feature extensive spoken dialogue, while Hamilton and Cats (both sung through) are musicals. The notion of operas having specific orchestral or voice requirements isn’t quite true, either- each era of opera, and each opera, is a separate animal.

Is Porgy and Bess an opera, or is it a musical? It features many musical qualities with the latter, and was written by musical-writers - yet it is referred to as an opera. Sometimes it is both. Maybe at some point it could also be neither. Operas do not participate in the general categorization of their Western theatrical siblings. Musical, straight play, ballet- these art forms are immediately distinguishable as themselves. (Note that musicals, despite having a lot of variety, do not have as wild a diversity as operas do owing to their relative youth as an artform.) But an opera can be all three of these and still be an opera. Not only that but there’s so many ways for operas to be- chamber opera, verismo, singspiel, music drama, opera-in-jazz. The opera may borrow from any art, at any time. Its incorporeal form grants it the ability to shift. This is both opera’s great weakness and its greatest boon of all, maybe its most defining operative feature of them all- it can be anything you want it to be.

4. The Opera Dwells at the Gates of Difference.

With their characteristic exaggeration and other oddities, operas are immediately recognized as depicting a world that isn’t quite our own. It’s a world rooted in our own (see point 1) but it isn’t our world. We don’t sing, or gesticulate to that degree, or stab people at the drop of a hat to solve a problem. As much as opera tries to be ‘like us’, it never is entirely so, in a sort of Frankenstein way. 

In this way it is no wonder that all operas focus around difference- from each other, from society, from ourselves. Sometimes this difference is explicit- the ‘othered’, shunned main characters characteristic of the Verdi operas, as in Rigoletto and La Forza del Destino- and sometimes it is more implicit (Tamino and Calaf being strangers to the people around them, Figaro’s position of a lowly barber among Counts and Dons, even Orpheus out of place in the Underworld). The opera seeks to represent the Other. Oftentimes the opera itself is the other. We are all made to learn a new set of social rules when we come to the opera- this equalizes us as an audience, and paradoxically renders us the Other. Opera is about othering and being othered. This is not necessarily good, or bad- it is just a neutral feature. 

5. The Opera Polices the Borders of the Possible.

Every opera begins with- and then revolves around- some kind of transgression. Moral (Don Giovanni slays the Commendatore), cultural (Pinkerton marries Cio-Cio San), societal (Alfredo falls for the courtesan Violetta). The way the opera’s narrative body reacts to this transgression is what will come to define that opera’s theme and what it stands for. Even in the most comic operas, the inciting incident is always a transgression; it is up to the interpreter to detect what the transgression actually is, and from this point the opera emerges all at once like a cracked egg.

Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg is an interesting case study in transgression. The initial transgression may be seen as Walther joining the Meistersinger contest to win the hand of Eva- he is, after all, not initially a singer, and an intruder on the world of the (educated, cliquey) Meistersingers. But this is not true. Walther initially disrupts status quo when he boldly joins them but he doesn’t stay that way- he is a literal knight in shining armor; masculine and chivalrous, the exact image of how men ‘ought’ to be. Beckmesser, the clerk of the Meistersingers, is consistently depicted as an Other, the nitwit among geniuses; he is effeminate and overconfident, we laugh at his attempts at music making. It is Beckmesser entering the contest himself as a competitor to Walther that is the true transgression in the opera, and the opera surmises this as a bad thing that must be punished through public humiliation and further exclusion. While there is no proof that Wagner wrote Beckmesser to be explicitly antisemitic, the character appears to subconsciously reflect many of Wagner’s antisemitic talking points, adding a particularly cruel underbelly to the way the opera sees the transgression of Beckmesser’s inclusion.

6. Fear of the Opera is Really a Kind of Desire.

Operas are marked by multiple features: Their otherness, their transgressions, their propensity to shift. These all give operas a certain other quality: They are a vehicle for catharsis. The fact that opera is so physically demanding adds to this- an opera is a workout in which emotions about a certain endless topic can be expressed. Salome is terrifying, but through her we can express rage and pure obsession that otherwise would have no place in society. This is also where the falsehood of opera as escapism takes root: When the opera is not given the space to threaten, its catharsis is cauterized into fantasy.

Opera is a space where we can play- already something rare in adulthood- and through the opera we are allowed to play with terror (something even rarer). It is an abstract liminal location only maybe rivaled by a rollercoaster, a playroom, or a shrink’s couch. This sheer radical expression of emotion makes it also easily-mocked by a popular culture unfamiliar with it. I suspect this is because, really deep down, operas are envied. They are so upfront, so passionate, so heartbreakingly sincere that they make those who laugh at art seem small, laughable. But the art form carries on, being unapologetically itself because it cannot be anything else. 

7. The Opera Stands At The Threshold… of Becoming.

What Cohen writes here in the original essay is maybe my favorite paragraph about literary analysis ever written so I’m just going to leave it here in its entirety:

Why do we love opera? What are we meant to do with them, and why are they the way they are? We come to the opera to find ourselves. The rest is just postscript.

[sufferu]

the characters are being way too protective of subaru( and he isnt too self destructive that fate was averted in arc 4 where he grew past that) I feel someone in the camp should flat out say no we know him for longer then you did in between arc 4 and know we had a year to bond with him. subaru isnt self destructive subaru knows what it means to be a knight and what happened in arc 4 shows him growing passed the mindset and pointing out that what you are doing what you are trying to do is damaging his mental health and risking him reverting ( we should not change how we treat subaru ) other then possibly trust what he says more if he were to warn us

���Okay, so, first of all, regressions are almost always a realistic possibility — is what I would say even if this wasn’t the case, but we also have an actual, massive, in-canon example of Subaru actually fully regressing: Arc 8. The existence of Natchuki Subawu is proof enough that Subaru is perfectly capable of regressing in terms of his self-destructive tendencies. And also that line in Arc 5 where he very nearly regresses as he chokes out for Capella to just kill him already. And also his canonical self-harm habit that literally nobody but Beatrice knew about despite the fact that it was continuing throughout the entire year between Arcs 4 and 5. Machines complete levels and are one-and-done, but human psychology is rarely that simple.

On knighthood: unless you are Ferris, being a knight in the world of Re:Zero very explicitly means physically protecting your liege lord. And in the worst case scenario, this means dying in their place. That’s just — the job. Julius even refers to the soldiers dying in the first fight against the Witch Cult as them “fulfilling their duty as knights.” Furthermore, in Arc 8 Priscilla refers to Subaru’s actions as Natchuki Subawu (including All That, and it was A Lot) as him being “a brilliant knight.” If being a knight does not mean being prepared to defend the lives of other people (especially the ones they serve), often at great personal cost — then I have no idea what else the job title is supposed to entail, lol. Emilia does not want Subaru to die for her, and Subaru has mainly internalized his role as her knight as him standing by her side as a loyal confidant — but he HAS still been training to fight for her sake, and I think it’s pretty clear that he’s prepared to die for her sake if need be. —And it REALLY says something that the version of Subaru that gets referred to as “a brilliant knight” is SPECIFICALLY Natchuki Subawu at the end of Arc 8 (or at least, Subaru gets called a brilliant knight in explicit reference to the actions he just took as Natchuki Subawu).

And then — like, how would YOU react to learning that someone you knew had apparently died SEVENTEEN TIMES behind everyone’s backs? And not just learning about it in the abstract, but actively watching it happen? Often in very brutal and nasty ways, sometimes involving torture, sometimes involving people that he now calls some of his dearest friends, sometimes involving him apparently being arguably incapable of recognizing danger on the same level as other people? And also now he has developed a self-harm habit that he has managed to keep almost entirely hidden from the people who were supposed to — and have already pretty much completely failed in — looking out for him? I think being overprotective — especially in the immediate aftermath — is a pretty understandable reaction to something like that.

[graysbullshit]

a list of brazillian fun facts you might want to know for your qsmp fanfics! (or in general lol)

DATING IN BRAZIL (because I know at least 50% of yall are gonna be writting slash):

Phase 1 can be or texting/talking or ficando (infinitive: ficar), it depends on how shy you are;

Ficando means to be actively seeking a person out consistently with the intent of talking for a bit and then making out (it does not entail any level of loyalty);

Brazillians only consider it "making out" if you french kiss;

Kissing without tongue is considered weird and viewed negativelly;

A little peck on the lips is cute, but not really what we consider kissing;

There are two types of brazillians: the ones that will start dating after a week and the ones that take months to make up their minds;

If a brazillian is interested in you (even if you don't know each other) and you're in a party there is a very good chance they will walk up to you and ask if you want to make out/ask for your instagram handle (it depends on what kind of party it is tbh);

Also, most brazillians kiss and tell lmao;

It is not uncommon for outgoing brazillians to make out with random strangers, especially during carnival;

We are a sex positive country mostly;

We are very sensual, even if we have no romantic interest;

Mock-flirting or Joke-flirting is very common in friend groups;

People who make out/date with the person their friend likes are called Talarica or Talarico;

When you get cheated on you're called Corno;

People usually go on dates after ficar for a whille;

Usually, if you're going on dates with someone it is expected of you to be faithful or to end things (you can't go on dates with a guy while also going on dates with another guy, that's fucked up);

We call dating namorando, from the infinitive namorar which refers back to namorado (boyfriend) and namorada (girlfriend);

brazillians are typically very direct when they are interested in someone, which doesn't mean they will say "oh, i like you" right away, but they will flirt for sure;

in Brazil saying "I love you" isn't a big deal, most brazillians will say it pretty fast and not saying it back (if you're in a relationship) is considered VERY WEIRD;

brazillians have the tendency of being very jealous lmao;

GEOGRAPHY:

Brazil is a continental sized country, being the fifth biggest country in the entire world. It is bigger than the USA, if counting only directly conected land (ignoring Brazil's islands and Hawaii and Alaska);

Because of it's size, brazillian states have a great number of differences in language, culture, food, climate, and politics;

There is as much animosity between states as in the USA (the difference being: brazillians will always defend each other rather than gringos);

The brazillian streamers are all from the Center-West, South-East and South of Brazil (unfortunatly there is nobody to represent the North and North-east);

The south-east is the are of biggest economical impact, while the center-west is known for the capital of the country (Brasília) and the agriculture, while the south has a terrible reputation (they have livestock too, but mostly a bad reputation);

Brazil has two of the biggest cities in the world: the 5º biggest, São Paulo, and the 19º biggest, Rio de Janeiro;

Nobody fucking likes São Paulo (the city) except from the people that were born there or lived there their entire lives;

Brazil has a mostly warm climate, and most brazillians consider anything below 20ºc to be cold (vai sulista, fala que no sul é mais frio, fala);

Brazil's seasons are more often defined by the level of humity, rather than how hot/cold it is;

Brazil is a giant when it comes to agriculture and livestock. We have a lot of grains, and red meat. If you drink coffee and eat meat you have definetly tasted brazillian products without knowning, since we do a lot of exportation (especially to europe);

Brazil has natural diamonds, pre-sal (which can be used in the making of combustives), gold and other precious stones.

HISTORY:

Brazil was mostly colonized by the portuguese, but there was also a presence of the Spanish, French, Dutch and British. You can tell by the architecture;

Rio de Janeiro was the capital of the Portuguese Kingdom for a little while;

Brazil (much like Mexico) was once an Empire;

Brazil (as it's own coutry) has had only two Emperors;

the Brazillian Empire was a big deal despite ending fairly soon;

Brazil's Empire once eliminated about 90% of the male population of Paraguay during a war, which is def a war crime. We have repayed them for what happened, though;

Cities like Rio de Janeiro have a lot of Imperial architecture, but most of the colonial architecture can be found in states like Minas Gerais;

Brazil sent troups in WWII to Italy, the famous Smoking Snakes;

Brazil was forced into a dictatorship by the USA (surprising no one);

Brazil had a president that decided to develop highways instead of trains (i fucking hate him). It's the same guy that moved the capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília;

Brasília was build with the blood of poor people and it fucking sucks, but it has the shape of an airplane so everything is fine ig /s;

Brazil's first woman president and it's current president were both tortured during the dictatorship;

Brazil is a concervative country, despite everything;

Do not ask me about Brazil's politics, because it's so fucking insane lmao;

GENERAL CULTURE:

Brazillian culture exists on top of three axes: Portuguese, African, and Indigineous;

We take A LOT from Japonese culture (since we are the country with the biggest Japonese population outside of Japan). I've never met a brazillian who hasn't watched anime, even my grandma knows what Pokemon is /srs;

Some other important diasporas in Brazil: Lebanon (we have more lebanese than Lebanon itself lol), China, Germany, Italy, and many different African countries;

Most brazillians listen to funk and sertanejo, but other brazillian music you might be interested in: samba, BRrock, mpb, BRpop, Axé, and Pagode;

Some other famous brazillians you might not know, but you should: Silvio Santos, Celso Portiolli, Rodrigo Faro, Angélica, Eliana, Xuxa, Luciano Huck, Pyong Lee, Mauricio de Sousa, Ariano Suassuna, Clarice Lispector, Machado de Assis, Guilmar��es Rosa, Fernando Pessoa, Vinicius de Moraes, Toquinho, Mateus Hwang, Tiago Leifert, Tadeu Schmidt, Boninho, Guilherme Briggs, Fernanda Montenegro, Rodrigo Santoro, Wagner Moura, Seu Jorge, etc;

Most brazillians only drink tea for medicinal reasons (like cammomile tea);

Most brazillians love coffee and hate iced coffee;

Most brazillians start drinking coffee at a very young age;

Drinking (alchool) age in Brazil is 18yo, but most brazillians start drinking around 15yo;

Most brazillians love meat and barbecue. Here is a picture of a brazillian brabecue:

Brazil, differently from other American coutries, didn't have potatoes/corn as it's basic food, we had a root called Mandioca. Although it is still very beloved in brazillian cusine, the base for brazillian meals is currently Rice;

In Brazil we usually don't eat a lot during breakfast, but have a big meal (with rice, veetables, meat, and beans) for lunch and dinner. And our dinner is usually around 20h-22h;

We don't use AM or PM;

We use the metric system and Celcius, and we very much deslike the imperial system and what's-his -face is an abhorrent scientific disgrace;

brazillians who suck up to gringos are called "Vira-latas", which can be translated to "mutts" or more directly "eat-trash";

brazillians have mutiple coffee breaks during the day, mostly in the afternoon;

brazillians brush their teeth at least 3 times a day (mostly after every big meal);

brazillians shower at least once a day, some going as far as to shower three times a day during summer;

brazillians do not use snapchat and they think it's obsolete (because it is);

brazillians will pirate anything that isn't made by other brazillians, and I mean ANYTHING. There is no shame in pirating in Brazil and we are very proud of being the country that pirates the most in the world! We will also buy counterfeit products knowing they are counterfeit;

brazillians rivalry with argentinians is REAL. And, although is mostly a football thing, it really translates to everything else (especially if it's online);

brazillians have a hierarchy when it comes down to rooting for stuff, and it goes like this: brazillians, sibling countries, latin americans, other african countries, other third world countries, japan, other asian countries, european countries, anglo-saxon americans, argentina (if it's football), germany, portugal;

[genderqueerdykes]

I'm afraid that my hesitancy about going on t might come from an internalized fear of masculinity

it could, and if it does, all you have to do is face it. we all have unhealthy internalized thoughts and feelings. perhaps the current resurgence in rad feminism is the culprit, maybe there's another reason you're concerned. if that is what's happening, it's okay to acknowledge it. it's okay to say hey, right now, i'm scared of masculinity because of how the outside world is making me feel. when i feel up to it, i will tackle that and unlearn it

it could also be a fear of the unknown. nobody knows how HRT will affect them. i had no clue. i sat there and went well i could just go bald an never grow body hair and my voice could say high pitched. but i might as well give it a shot. fortunately, the changes that hormones bring come on very slowly. so if you decide to take it, especially at low doses, if you see more changes you don't like than ones you are expecting, it's okay to stop. the irreversible changes don't happen overnight, they come over time

it's okay to be concerned about one's health. it's okay to be concerned about how the hormone will affect you, how people will perceive you, what becoming more masculine will entail. you being masculine isn't a bad thing, but being scared of becoming masculine also isn't bad. it's complicated. there's a lot of feelings to be had. my general rule of thumb is if you feel the pull to try it, it's worth doing so. you can start at a very low dose and decide it's not for you if you really don't like what it does. you can always say "no, this isn't for me" before the bigger changes come

hope you start feeling a bit better soon and can get some clarity on what you're feeling at the moment. take care of yourself, feel free to come back any time

[broomsick]

Hi,

I was wondering if you have any advice for learning to believe that the gods care about us as individuals?

When I see people saying that the gods really don’t care about us in the grand scheme of things, I find that easier to believe than to believe they care about us, which kinda feels .. shit. Although maybe it’s true, I’m not sure.

I honour Loki, but because I find it hard to believe that they care about me at all (especially given I can’t communicate with him – so he can’t tell me if he does or not, and I don’t want to assume), I feel like it puts distance between us on my end.

I apologise if this is a bit heavy or difficult to answer, don’t stress if you can’t, you’re fine to delete it! But if you have any advice, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Hi there! I definitely understand the way you feel, and from time to time, I experience this very same sentiment as well. I think asking oneself this sort of question comes naturally to many of us, because pragmatic thinking could have us believe the divine is somehow too great to care about us measly earthlings.

But let’s break down this idea that’s being spread around pagan social media platforms, according to which the Gods are too busy, too grand, or too powerful to care about their followers. I’ve never been a fan of this sort of over-the-top cynical rhetoric. Still, I think there’s no better way to tackle pragmatic thinking than in a pragmatic way. The way I see it, this perception of the divine stems from a will to fully detach oneself from common monotheistic concepts. The fact is that a lot of neo-pagans, including popular pagan content creators, come from a Christian background. Some of these creators, whether polytheistic, animistic, both, or else, seem very keen on rejecting any spiritual concept or practice deemed monotheistic in nature, such as the idea that the divine can love us. Neo-paganism entails new ideas, and therefore, any perception of the divine that’s akin to that of the big monotheistic religions is either naive, or shows remnants of monotheistic thinking. However, there’s nothing naive about believing that the divine can care about us. I can believe this, just like I can believe that this or that deity presides over this or that matter in life. Belief systems work in a way that allow for specific ideas of the divine to form, and to vary from person to person. And after all,—just as an aside—, if an entity is powerful enough to be considered divine, then they are powerful enough to know about each of their followers, regardless of how many there are. Now, I don’t think there’s any need to specify that polytheism is inherently spiritual. This means that its very foundations are built upon personal gnosis, and belief in concepts that cannot be proven. No such thing as logic regulates matters of spirituality. So why should we, as theists whose beliefs aren’t commanded by any sort of authority or rule set, be so rigidly pragmatic in this case?

In the end, it all comes down to what we personally believe, and what we’ve personally experienced. Who’s to prove that the Gods don’t love us? And if I saw some stranger on social media tell me “hey um, your God doesn’t care about you by the way”, I would think that 1. Me and this person probably don’t even perceive the divine in the same manner at all; 2. Nothing and nobody dictates belief but the believer themselves; and 3. My experience has proven to me that the Gods care for us, and it’s proof enough. But let me elaborate on that matter further.

In most pagan paths, deities embody different natural phenomena and elements of human life. That’s the way the very first forms of polytheism developed. And to me at least, that’s also the way we as pagans experience their presence firsthand. The Gods are all around us: we can see them because we can see forests, seas, storms, fire, rain… And when you see it that way, they are infinitely closer to us than some cynical social media accounts would have us believe. They don’t sit on golden thrones above the clouds, far away from the human condition. Their presence is tightly intertwined with the earth. So why should “the forest, seas, storms” etc etc care for us? Well my friend, have you ever spent time by a river, and felt that it had a soul of its own? Have you ever felt a bond with a specific tree, or got the sense that the storm was alive somehow? That is something I worship as a pagan. And in my personal experience, the God’s burning, all encompassing love can be felt in these sorts of moments. I don’t need for them to tell me directly. It’s like looking into a loved one’s eyes and feeling that they love you, even though not a single word was spoken. I know how difficult it can be to put one’s faith in such a thing, when it’s already hard for us to even communicate with the Gods. That’s why we keep an eye out for signs from them. And even so, we might never truly grasp their thoughts. If anything, that’s something we know for sure about the divine. If you want my opinion, believing that the Gods love us is a perfectly sound choice to make. They send us their blessings in too many ways to count, sometimes in the form of well-needed change, reassurance, comfort… And if you believe that a certain blessing was sent by the Gods, doesn’t that already showcase a certain care? Even for those who see deity worship as purely transactional (an offering for a blessing and vice-versa), the very idea that a deity would send a blessing implies care for the followers who make the offering. And since me, along with innumerable other pagans, have received blessings without necessarily having to ask or perform some sort of huge offering ritual, I’ve naturally decided that the Gods love their followers. Everybody else can feel free to believe what they will, but my faith, intuition and experience have told me so.

Don’t let your mood be undermined by what people say on the internet, but more importantly, don’t let other people dictate what’s true and what’s false about your experience of spirituality. Let yourself believe what you want to believe, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. You don’t owe anybody proof of what you have faith in.

[luvsdive]

listen... i've been thinking about this...

stripper lisa who's fucking the club owner! and all the other girls hate her because she has So many perks because of it! all her outfits are designer and her jewelry is worth pretty much their entire years' salary and whenever the boss is in the club lisa doesnt even have to work and they don't think she's worth all of that! and lisa who is always acting so snobby and uppity towards them because she knows she's That much better than everyone else working there! turns her nose and scoffs at their conversations because they're so beneath her but none of the other girls really know what fucking the boss entails...

whenever the manager lets lisa know that she gets a day off because the boss wants her company for a 'business dinner', that a spa day and a hair appointment was scheduled for her to help her prepare, the girls rage and complain about how unfair it is, but lisa know they wouldn't last a night in her shoes, because none of them have what it takes to please you, to take what you want to give, like she does.

they don't know that if they walked into said business dinner, they would find lisa as the only completely naked person in the room, sitting in your lap with your hand fondling her tits, smacking them around and pinching the puckered skin of her nipples as your free fingers slam wildly into her cunt. lisa's moans sounding pornographic as she widens her legs to allow you better access, skin glistening with sweat three orgasms into dinner. the other occupants eye her with anticipation, because everyone knows what happens when you bring out your whore to dinner.

but you call the shots when it comes to lisa, and you always get first dibs on her. nobody touches her unless you give permission, and nobody gets permission until you've had your fill. she's already vocal, pleading and begging as she puts on the type of show she knows you like, and you curve the fingers scissoring and twisting inside her, slamming the digits against her walls and earning another loud, screaming orgasm, this time with a jet of clear liquid squirting out of her, earning a round of amused laughter from the expectant crowd. lisa pants loudly as you remove your fingers from her cunt, cleaning the juices on her face and pushing the girl to her feet without another word. her legs are wobbly, and she struggles to walk over to the table, but lisa know what to do by now, bending over the fancy table cloth and waiting for whatever came next.

what comes next is complete debauchery, orgasm after orgasm as she gets passed around from businesswoman to businessmen and back, holes abused and spanked and stretched and filled with cum, face stained with sweat and tears and drool and other people's cum, and lisa is sure she loses conscience at some point, but she doesn't get a reprieve until everyone is done with her, until the dinner slut has served her purpose, videos and pictures of her on the guests' phones as they carry their mementos from the pleasant evening, and lisa's ears are buzzing and her whole body is aching and her throat is sore but you give her a pat in her naked, sore and reddened buttcheeks as your personal driver helps her regain her footing, guiding back towards the luxury vehicle.

and if she kneels down on the car and goes down on you on your way back to your house, scalp tingling with the painful grip you have on her locks as she feasts on your juices and smothers herself on your cunt, desperately fucking you until you find your orgasm, before you send her home with a pretty gucci bag and 15 thousand dollars inside of it. pretty bag that she wears when she returns to work after 3 days off, making sure to rub it on the other girls' faces with a snooty glance, earning herself even more animosity in the workplace, but being unable to care less about it.

because they really don't have what it takes to be lisa.

[capricornlevi]

bokuto x reader // sfw, gratuitous fluff, established relationship // wc 1.6k

planning birthdays is just one of bo's many talents <3

an: this is a little birthday present for my favourite bo stan in the entire world @brainrot329 ! she is a ray of sunshine and one of the best people i know and it is an honour to write a bo fic dedicated to this wonderful human !!!

you had never figured bokuto for much of a chef. you've been together for four years, lived together for two, and so you feel you know him pretty well by now -- the man has multitudes of talents, but preparing food is not one of them.

he has no trouble with eating, obviously, since pretty much every team barbeque ends with him being physically dragged away by a teammate or long-suffering coach, begging for someone else to be allowed their pick of the steaks.

but his appreciation for food does not extend to cooking or baking, shopping for ingredients or meal planning. his lack of culinary proficiency is not from any form of uselessness or incompetence -- he's good at pretty much anything he turns his hand to, plus the msby nutrition team supplies most of his meals anyway -- he just doesn't have much of an interest. which is more than fair; nobody can be expected to be good at everything.

but this is also why you find it to be very shocking that today, your birthday, he has offered to prepare you a four-course meal to mark the special occasion.

he had informed you of his plan this morning over pancakes at your favourite diner while you were mid-sip of coffee. as you smiled and expressed gratitude, you had to put in a copious amount of effort to prevent your jaw from dropping open and accidentally spitting coffee everywhere.

again, it's not that he's incapable of achieving this task. he’d likely be very capable should he puts his mind to it, but it's just ... this is his first time cooking. you don't attempt the tour de france before learning how to ride a bike, and you can't imagine that a four-course meal (with accompanying wines, he informs you) is the easiest introduction to the culinary arts.

but he seems certain, and the last thing you want to do is discourage this newfound enthusiasm.

the rest of the day was spent out with friends and family as bo headed home to get everything ready. he didn't give many hints as to what the rest of the evening would entail, but he did say that he knew you'd love it.

(and you will; regardless of the final product, you can see how much effort he's put in. you just hope you won't arrive home to the scent of singed hair and an eyebrow-less bokuto standing forlorn in the kitchen.)

when your college friends took you out for cocktails in the early hours of the evening, you stuck to just two margaritas so as not to take away from the rest of the night. they dropped you back home with gifts in hand and plans to meet up again next week to get your nails done – a strange suggestion since you haven’t gone to the salon as a group in years, but you wave it off. 

now, standing at your doorstep, you take a deep breath before twisting the handle and letting yourself in.

the place smells ... nice. really nice. it's a medley of scents from multiple dishes but they all come together to paint a very positive picture; hints of citrus, the buttery aroma of your favourite pasta sauce, something sweet you vaguely recognise as being your grandmother's french vanilla cake recipe.

suddenly overcome with a sense of awe and burning anticipation, you make a beeline for the kitchen.

you find everything in it to be clean, perfectly presented, except for bokuto himself. he stands by the countertop, spatula in hand, covered with a light dusting of flour and with a scorch mark on his light-blue shirt.

"never promised it'd go completely without a hitch, did i?" he grins, expression as close to bashful as you've seen it. setting down the utensils and dusting himself off with a kitchen towel, he closes the distance to take your hand, guiding you to your seat at the table. with a professional flourish he pours you a glass of sparkling wine, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head once you've sat down.

"you enjoy that while i go change," he mumbles against your hair, "and i’ll also make sure I'm not still smouldering."

you laugh as he walks away, heart swelling in your chest as you survey the space around you.

he's bought a bouquet of your favourite flowers from that little old florist who lives three doors down from your apartment, the one whose displays you always admire when you head out to work in the mornings. he has your favourite album playing on vinyl, the low reverberations of the music filling the candle-lit kitchen.

distantly, you wonder if bo's fire incident came from the cooking or the decoration.

but before you have much time to consider, he's arrived back in the kitchen with a fresh shirt and almost-tamed hair, paired with that signature bo smile that lights up all of his features.

"ready for course number one?" he exclaims, clapping his hands together as he heads over to the counter space. once you voice your assent he produces two dishes as if from nowhere, heading over to the table and setting yours down in front of you.

you find yourself looking down at a perfectly presented salad, crisp leaves and a citrus dressing that reminds you exactly of the one you had --

"on our first date!" you burst out before even taking a bite. "this is the salad from that bistro by college!"

the bistro where he had taken you after finally mustering up the courage to ask, waiting until after you both had graduated to make his move. you're still not sure why he was so anxious since your class had no qualms about intra-departmental fraternisation, but you're just glad he went for it eventually.

he nods, clearly relieved you picked up on the connection.

the salad is wonderful, a light and refreshing starter for the evening, and you inform him as much.

your response clearly encourages him. he gets up again to start heating the next dish, pouring you a glass of wine beforehand for you to nurse while he gets things ready.

this time, he presents you with a bowl of soup. the same type of soup ...

"that you made for me that time i got the flu!" he informs you this time, voice achingly fond as he watches for your reaction. "and no word of a lie -- it cured me."

his earnestness draws another laugh from you, the soothing smell of herbs and vegetables bringing you back to that afternoon.

you had never seen bo so sick before and you haven't seen it since. with the combination of his healthy approach to life and sheer stubbornness to remain top of his game, he ends up avoiding most illnesses, and so when he called his coach to inform him he wouldn't be making 8am practice, you knew things were serious.

he ran a temperature, cheeks flushing an adorable shade of pink that you would have appreciated more were he not suffering, and had started shivering by noon.

"you need to keep your strength up," you had whispered softly to him, setting a glass of water down at his bedside and perching yourself on the edge, watching as he slowly started eating the soup. it was difficult with a sore throat but he managed to polish the whole thing off.

that soup was the only thing he could stomach for forty-eight hours, eating it for every meal until his shivering subsided and his muscles stopped aching.

it's one of the few dishes he knew how to prepare before tonight, since he insists on making it with you whenever either one of you starts to show any signs of impending sniffles.

once the soup has been finished and cleared away, the third course is presented with another glass of wine and near-giddy smile from bo. just as you had guessed from the hallway, he serves up your favourite pasta dish, the recipe having been scribbled down on a napkin after the chef from the aforementioned first-date bistro was kind enough to let you have it. 

bo managed to replicate it perfectly, albeit not without slightly singeing the accompanying garlic bread (explaining the scorch mark on his shirt).

as you take your first bite, you realise that he was right earlier when he promised that you'd love this.

it wasn't that the food was michelin quality (though it was undoubtedly delicious, especially for a first-timer) -- it was the thought that went into every dish, every ingredient, every element. the effort that went into telling a story with each course.

you've never felt as loved as you do in this moment.

that is, until he brings out dessert in the form of your grandmother's french vanilla cake. it’s been frosted to the best of bokuto's ability, with 'happy birthday my love!' edged in pink font and surrounded by flickering candles.

there's also a design under the words. a little shape, something you can't see without squinting.

he carries it over to you proudly, though with a slight tremble in his hands you can't quite understand ...

after blowing out the candles, you lean in to examine the cake closer.

it takes a few seconds for it to land, to determine what bo attempted to draw in icing format, but once it hits you ...

"is that a ring?"

your heart pounds in your chest, each word leaving your lips in a flurry as you try to gauge whether or not your exhilaration is merited.

and in lieu of an answer, bo sets the cake on the table before getting down on one knee, producing a velvet-bound ring box from the pocket of his new shirt.

[seyaryminamoto]

Do you have any particular thoughts on Netflix Avatar Season 1? I haven't watched it myself but I would be curious to hear what you have to say.

I do indeed! I didn't watch it right away, but I have watched it indeed. I think there are merits to certain changes they did, I can see the sense in many of them, that doesn't mean EVERYTHING they changed was good, but it does feel like they were engaging with the original content in a far more creative way than a lot of people are willing to acknowledge or try themselves. No, it isn't a perfect remake of ATLA, but being the critic that I have been of the original show, nobody could ever convince me that the original was perfect, just as this new show isn't perfect.

I want to make a big post on the subject one day and try to get to everything it brought up... once I have more time on my hands, I'll try to do that. But, to give you a bit to chew on... I'll try to do one good vs. one bad on my part, of whatever I can remember right now.

GOOD: I actually do not mind the multiple prologues in the first episode, even though I don't think the changes were handled perfectly. I do believe that showing the genocide is not nearly as bad a choice as a lot of people pretend it is (the way it was portrayed is questionable mostly from a tactical point of view but that's just me being a freak about that... studying basic warfare really fucks up your suspension of disbelief when it comes to war scenes). Mainly, I think it IS important to show it due to the amount of people who are still convinced that Aang didn't suffer nearly as much as most other popular characters did -- that soooo many people have made these claims without a care in the world throughout the twenty years since ATLA first aired proves that the genocide was not treated with the severity it should have been by the OG show. I'm not even sorry to say it. It doesn't feel like a trivialization of violence, it feels like actually setting straight the degree of violence a genocide entails. People asking for a less intense version of genocide basically appear to be asking for the actual gravity of such events to be sanitized so they can chew on them more easily... and that's exactly what leads to it being trivialized, minimized and not taken seriously, if you ask me.

BAD: I don't particularly like the way Fire Lords are so... casual with commoners. Both Ozai and Sozin stood on the same level as a rebel/spy right before setting them on fire, no doubt it's meant to be some sort of flex, but... men of their ideologies and pride would not want to be up close and personal with anyone they consider that far beneath them. Odd choice there, imo.

MOSTLY GOOD: Aang does feel way more serious and has much more dramatic gravitas in everything he does. And this is not a bad choice, in essence. I don't particularly love that they tried to lessen it with occasional "Aang's a silly kid!" verbal reminders that don't actually have any proper visual evidence, because most the silly things he's up for are things the two older kids (Sokka and Katara) are perfectly fine with doing too, hence, he doesn't feel childish at all and it comes off out of place for him to talk about being more childish than he actually is. So... they really didn't need dialogue to try to emphasize his childhood if they weren't going to write him being a goofball. It's fine if he isn't one. He always could be a more serious character, it's only a problem when there's no further substance to him than just brooding (which is what I remember from the Shyamalan movie...).

WEIRD: Aang and Katara both had weird scenes of standing around doing nothing but smiling at their hometowns in episode 1. Maybe it was done as a parallel between them, but it felt a bit... overly theatric? If that makes sense? Like... I know we need to see their daily lives and the context in which they've lived... but it doesn't feel entirely logical for that to happen with them just standing in place and smiling fondly at their world. Most people do not do that in their daily lives...?

GOOD: ... Contrary to what a lot of the fandom seems to think, I actually like the suuuuuper slowburn Kataang here because any potential romantic payoff those two might get isn't nearly as in-your-face as it was in canon. The way their friendship is growing feels far more organic. And some of my favorite character moments in the show were actually between them. Which is not something I'd EVER say about the original show. There's a different sense of maturity for the characters here, and I like that.

BAD: I... do not like Sokka's changes. No, it's not about the sexism. It makes sense to me that this aspect of his character would be changed, updated in a sense: you can even still read him as sexist in some regards! It just isn't as simplistic and straightforward as it was before. But that's... not what bugs me the most. The show genuinely surprised me by taking him far more seriously as a character than I anticipated they would, but they absolutely picked weird choices with him in stuff like his family issues (... the Hakoda changes are just straight-up cringe for me, there's no justification for making him some sort of bitchy soccer mom who congratulates his son but then shits on him behind his back??), his insecurities as a warrior and the frequent remarks about how maybe that's not his path in life even though he does just fine at it, and... his romantic relationships. It's wild, because I actually think they did Sukka a thousand times better than it is in canon, and yet in doing so, they absolutely deadlocked themselves into a whole other problem: Sokka bonding that much with Suki and then hitting on a random Fire Nation soldier like two episodes later?? Then having the romance of his lifetime with Yue by the end of the season?? Ngl, it feels like we're watching one of those sitcoms where characters switch love interests in the blink of an eye. Changing this element of his character this way, when Suki's romance in particular was given new qualities and way more substance... may not have been a great call since it makes him come off insanely shallow, ready to get with any girl he comes across, and frankly, he didn't feel like that in the original show to me. He's also not really funny when he's supposed to be? Part of what made Sokka funny originally was his role as a voice of reason while everyone else ignored him. They occasionally tried to mimic that here... but in ways that didn't really work? Also, the Ron-Weasley-In-HP-Movies brand of comedy of "watch this guy scream, it's soooo funny" is... so trite at this point. Please, don't. Personally, this really feels like a whole other character who isn't Sokka. And some people might think that's great... I'm not one of them. Maybe I'm just experiencing the crisis a lot of people are over Katara with Sokka? But where changes with her do seem to go for things I actually wasn't fond of in her character, I don't really feel like they did better with Sokka in the least.

GOOD: ... "Katara learned waterbending too fast", they say: she did in canon too. A month of training under Pakku is not nearly enough time to justify her being deemed a master in canon. Complaining about how she didn't get that training at all here and still got deemed a master gets a "meh" out of me because I frankly do not see it being remotely as different from what canon did as people want to think it is. Katara was fighting Pakku with way too much power in the OG show for a kid who never got formal training to begin with, and somehow nobody minds that. I don't think someone who was on that level of power in the OG show was nearly as inferior to a seasoned master as a bunch of people want to believe. So... outrage about how they sped up her learning process when we in fact see a LOT more internal growth for Katara, and a lot more depth to her bending source here, makes no sense to me.

Along with that: bending has always been connected with a bender's internal energy, which is related to their peace of mind and internal balance. This show did not invent that. Firebenders are the ones who are most explicitly shown to be connected to their feelings that way, sure, but if you needed ATLA or LOK to non-stop feature characters talking about how a person's chakras had to be cleansed and their hearts clear and their every spiritual thread cleaned up in order to reach their best possible shapes as benders? You probably have bigger problems in analyzing this show than just whining over whatever the liveaction did. A straightforward connection for Katara with her emotions and bending isn't a negative choice in the slightest to me, more so with a character who has constantly been characterized as deeply connected to her emotions: it makes sense that her bending works and evolves the way it does in the liveaction to me. Sorry not sorry.

BAD: Zhao. Uh... I've seen people say they like him here? I felt like I was watching a con artist. It's not the actor's fault, clearly he was given this concept to work with and he did the best he could with it, but the idea of removing Zhao from all prior connection to the Royal Family, making him a total unknown who came out of nowhere and rises to prominence through conniving and scheming feels like they decided to merge him with Long Feng, maybe? And it might even backfire if they DO have Long Feng next season (... they should???) and he has a very similar profile to what they did with Zhao. I didn't enjoy his characterization at all, he was just... weird. So, not a change I was big on.

GOOD: Iroh. My god. I hate the fact that I'm saying this. But I will say it was insanely cathartic to watch that EK soldier beating him up. And that's not all: Iroh actually seems to be struggling actively with right and wrong here, showing hesitation over the war, and most importantly... HAVING A PERSONAL DYNAMIC WITH AANG??!!! I never imagined I would be that happy to see that, but I was. The few moments those two had together were damn solid, some of the best in the show (and the best for Iroh, sorry not sorry, I have never ever been an Iroh-Zuko obsessive fan and I genuinely find myself more intrigued by Iroh's potential bonding with other people, never thought about it with Aang but this show 100% blindsided me with it in a good way). It seriously made me mad that the OG basically never gave them that chance besides... that one scene in the catacombs that was very much just Iroh being a fortune cookie? Aang actually being an element that basically waters the seeds of doubt in Iroh's head is a GREAT change. I said it and I'll stand by it.

BAD: Hahn and not because of the usual reasons: their characterization rework of Hahn was fine. More than fine. The actor they cast was also very pretty! All of which makes it EXTREMELY questionable that Yue somehow has this perfectly decent guy and... uh... chooses the reworked Sokka instead? Like, I know that's how the OG story went, but when you turn Hahn from an opportunistic dick to a perfectly admirable warrior and individual, and feature Yue saying he's great but he's "not the boy of her dreams" (you... dreamt about him ONE TIME?? He's never been in the Spirit World besides that, so wuuuut...??), it makes her choice in romantic interests feel extremely questionable and weird. I'm all for Yue being given more to work with, but this seriously feels like she's... a little crazy. Hahn comes off waaaaaaay too decent for her not to be interested in him... ofc, as long as she's someone attracted to men, which, considering she picked ANOTHER GUY, it's to be assumed that she is?? Ergo nothing makes sense to me. Come to think of it, a lesbian Yue rejecting Hahn is probably the only way her rejection of Hahn would make sense... and it would also not cast such a questionable light on reworked Sokka if he and Yue weren't romantic at all, right after he had that big connection with Suki back when the show began?? So, heh, maybe lesbian Yue is the only thing that would've made sense if Hahn gets reworked for the better like this, sorry not sorry....

GOOD: The full-blown, outright display of Ozai's abuse on Azula rather than subtleties and insinuations. Again, much like in Aang's case with the genocide: PEOPLE DENY AZULA WAS A VICTIM OF ABUSE ALL THE TIME. People pretend Ozai actually loved her on some weird level or that she FELT loved, ergo she was fine and Zuko's the one who was abused. This is not new. We've been dealing with people barking that kind of nonsense since almost twenty years ago. And the backlash from that exact crowd when this show made it evident proves that they refuse to accept Azula as a victim of abuse to this day. Ergo, sorry not sorry: I'm glad they handled it as they did here because it makes it undeniable that Ozai is pushing Azula to extremes and she's pressured to deliver and become the weapon he wants her to be.

BAD: ... the Mother of Faces. That may have been the most egregious offensive and bullshit moments in the entire show. I was so mad when she was brought up at all. It was awful. I hated it. It really must be my most hated moment in the whole thing. UGH.

GOOD: Katara apologized to Sokka once. You know. One time. That, I think, marks the single time in any official Avatar content where she has done that. Call me a salty asshole, but I'm genuinely impressed that they did that, so they get a point for it.

BAD: Bumi. I know some people think the rework for Bumi is great... I could not disagree more. His treatment of Aang is really unacceptable, his behavior is very irresponsible but this time in a vindictive way... I was even reasoning with the fact that he knows Aang is the Avatar, which ALSO happens in the OG, without having known it in the past! The difference? It feels too arbitrary and random that he'd know that here, whereas in the OG show, he IS random and arbitrary, yet somewhere amid so many nonsensical ramblings, he shows insight and intelligence that makes you think there's more to him than meets the eye. I may need to rewatch episode 5 of the OG show in order to confirm this, but I also think that most of the implications there regarding his challenges is that they were actually harmless even if it doesn't look that way all along. Here? They're not harmless at all, he's basically vindictively trying to get Aang to either die for his "sins" or get himself killed through him and neither thing sits well with me at all with this character.

GOOD: Gyatso, expanding on his character and making him a much more straightforward equivalent to Iroh for Aang actually is really helpful, it makes him less of a "stock character" victim to the Fire Nation, it gave him more depth and it makes Aang's bond with him feel much more real. I am very sorry to all OG apologists, but I continue to believe Aang's cheerful behavior was written primarily to appeal to the children demographic that Nickelodeon was aiming for as their audience, which meant he could not be particularly human and truly grieve for everything he had lost. This show doesn't hide that pain at all, and it's particularly good that it does that by showing what a constant presence Gyatso was in Aang's life and by letting them have a manner of final farewell in that episode (... even if I didn't particularly like the episode, but still, it wasn't a bad idea to do that).

BAD: ... call me a consistency freak if you will, but I did not spend all these years obsessively trying to make sense out of the wobbly worldbuilding of the Avatarverse to be told that the entrance to the Cave of Two Lovers is within Omashu and that it leads into the arena within Bumi's Palace. Sorry. I can't accept that. I can't. I legit laughed throughout that whole situation because that's not where the cave of two lovers was, the badgermoles would be causing earthquakes non-stop through the city, and the sewers system would not even work because they'd constantly get fucked up by the creatures (as we know, there's a scene in Book 2 of the kids climbing out of the sewers, so either they won't do the pentapox or they'll forget about the badgermoles conveniently by then...). So. No. Sorry but no. Also, why did they kill Oma??? I know they turned both lovers into women, but... precisely because they did that, why exactly was there any need to change which one died?? Either one you kill is a woman now anyway so... what's the difference? WHY the difference?? Odd.

GOOD: ... Zuko keeps a notebook on his research and investigations into the Avatar. There were many changes to his character but that's the one that stood out the most to me. He actually seems a little bit more methodical, if not smarter, but you know? Kinda smarter anyway for at LEAST thinking that keeping a book with the results of his investigations could help?? Feels like he's actually trying rather than just whining about how rude the world is and how hard he has it. Which, in the end, might ALSO come down to him actually having some hope that Ozai didn't hate him irremediably... which, too, is a good change. I've talked about it before, other people have too: a firstborn firebending male prince has no business being discarded because of incompetence unless he's just THAT pathetic, and even in canon, Zuko wasn't as bad as to justify pushing him out and treating him as shittily as Ozai did without an actual, THOROUGH, exploration of Ozai's motives. You can elaborate, but the show never really did it, and if anything, it offered a bunch of conflictive information about why Zuko thought his father liked him. Here, it makes more sense that he thinks Ozai isn't as much of a bitch as he really is: the Agni Kai is a lot more interesting because they merged both Zuko vs. Zhao and Zuko vs. Ozai into one. The fact that Ozai actually burns Zuko and defeats him BECAUSE he was punishing him for not taking advantage of an enemy's weakness? It's a million times more telling about Zuko's character than what we saw in canon, where he was down to fight an old man out of hybris and then shat himself as soon as his father stepped up instead. So... I don't like this Zuko, which tells you they're doing him right anyway x'DDDD but I find there are a few elements about him that make him at LEAST a little more respectable than he was in the OG show. Among them? He's not constantly ranting about honor but actually lashing out at dishonorable choices out of principle, which makes it sound like he has a WAY better grasp on that concept than he does in canon :'D sue me. This is a Zuko rework too, and fortunately, not ONLY geared towards sanitizing him (even though there IS a fair amount of sanitizing too... which annoys me, but what else could we expect in the era of political correction).

BAD: ... Why the fuck did they decide the way to fix Iroh harassing June was to make her horny for him? Please? Of all things??? All they had to do was just... not make any romantic/sexual implications there. At all. Was that so hard to achieve? This is probably the second worst thing for me in the entire show, ngl. I do not understand the need for it at all. Most of all when they CLEARLY changed it due to knowing Iroh absolutely was a bastard in the OG with his behavior towards her. Isn't it easier to just NOT put any implications of attraction in there? I mean, I should be happy June didn't fully harass Iroh but the way they presented it, it felt like he wasn't even comfortable with it either! This... is not the way you take revenge for a character sexually harassing another one. Bad, bad take, I don't know what made them do this but they absolutely did not "fix" this, they overcorrected it and made it gross as fuck to me anyhow, most of all with the context of knowing that Iroh was the one being inappropriate as fuck back in the OG.

ALRIGHT. I know there's bound to be more, and I probably could think of more soon but I think I'm giving you this for now or else I'll end up making my major post here x'D

All in all, I don't think this show is unwatchable, I absolutely understand people who think it was fun, I also understand people who couldn't get used to the changes and outright dropped it. What I can't understand/accept is either pretending this show is the greatest thing ever (much like I don't think the OG ATLA is...), or pretending that it's the worst one either. This show engaged with a lot of elements in different ways than the original did: not all of it was a miss, not all of it was a hit. And I feel like it's a matter of fundamental, human decency and respect not to go completely berserk taking a ten-ton dump on this show, which to this date is the biggest production in Hollywood with a primarily Asian cast and crew of all time, from what I know, by pretending it has destroyed this franchise completely and that any support for it must come from brainwashed idiots or "not true fans". The gate-keepy attitude comes as absolutely no surprise in this fandom, ofc, but it's still disgusting to see. You CAN be critical of this show with dignity. You CAN do it while respecting other people who enjoyed it completely. It's not too much to ask. I may have learned that lesson the hard way with the ATLA comics, but even then, it wasn't my M.O. to jump into every single comics-positive post to tell people why they sucked and how dumb they were for enjoying them.

That's what I've got for the time being :'D hope it's enough for now.

[pizzabox-box]

ngl i feel like the song fruiting bodies by riproducer fits Peppi-no really well. curious to see what your thoughts on it are

Just gave it a listen, It does fit really well!

(if I had a nickel for every time this song came up with the connection to Fake Peppino I would have two nickels, which isnt a lot but its weird that it happened twice)

Oh, lately I’ve been awaking at night, out of breath and feeling scared

I think I must be under attack, but nothing’s ever there

(The flashbacks/dreams)

Oh, I try to be the best version of me, so I push all the bad thoughts away

But, something snaps in the back of my mind, and I think about it anyway

(Peppi-no is repressing what happened, or atleast trying to)

My mind’s eye is defined by contrariety

(The conflicting nature of his newly gained human morality and his old ways)

I just wanna itch and scratch (I just wanna itch and scratch)

People say I am not the one I claim to be

(Self explainatory)

Won’t you tell me what you think of that? (Won’t you tell me what you think of that?)

A little fruiting body buds under my skin

A trauma to the system’s all it needs to begin

(Cracks in Peppi-nos disguise starting to appear)

No, don’t come any closer! It’s a trick-trick-trick

And it terrifies me more than I intend to admit

(Peppi-no is keeping people away both because hes afraid of being exposed. Also self loathing)

Left discarded and forgotten right under your nose

(Could be a refference to Peppino's corpse...)

Oh, how did we end up in here? Nobody knows!

My rotting body is the perfect fit-fit-fit

Unbeknownst to anybody, the mycelium grows

Picture me, unable to sleep, not a sound rings out in the house

(Unable to sleep could be both refference to Peppi-no not being able to sleep because of the nighmares but also Ghost Peppino unable to rest)

The voices tell me something is hiding underneath the ground

I repress my fright, and I cover my eyes and surrender myself to my fate The ones like me weren’t built to last

I’m not leaving it up for debate Something’s wrong with the form of my identity Suddenly, I’m coming to

(Suddenly, I'm coming to)

(Losing his form further)

I am not in the body that was meant for me

(This one explains itself)

Tell me what I am supposed to do

(Tell me what I am supposed to do)

Another fruiting body sprouts out of my skin

A tiny opportunity planted within

Now, look away I’m gonna be sick-sick-sick

(Breaking down)

I’m not one to cry, but I have been unable to since

They’re coming after me

I can’t run away

They hear me screaming in fear

(Peppi-no fear of being exposed blending with real Peppinos last memories before dying)

They think it’s hilarious

We’re coming after you

You can’t run away

We hear you screaming in fear

Isn’t it hilarious?

(Among other things this could also be refference to Pizzahead finding this whole situation rather entertaining. ) I don’t know how my mind acquired these memories

Tell me what it all entails

(Tell me what it all entails)

Now I wish I had guarded my naivety

I have shed the universal veil (I have shed the universal veil)

(Peppi-no messed up, killing Peppino was a terrible decision)

A hundred fruiting bodies burst out of my skin

The countless amanitas are doing me in

You’re allowed to take me out if you so wish-wish-wish

No such thing as second chances

it’s a hit or a miss!

(All hell breaks lose, Peppi-no goes bananas after he gets exposed)

And a thousand fruiting bodies are spreading their pores

It’s impossible to tell which ones are real anymore

My organs and the colony will mix-mix-mix

Now my body is the keeper of the roots in my core

[yujeong]

Vegas not knowing about Pete's boxing past is nothing but sloppy writing if you ask me. Paranoia is family trait of the Theerapanyakul clan and no one can convince me Vegas hasn't made background check on every single bodyguard, staff member and associate of the main family. It's also interesting to point out that Vegas knows about Pete's grandma so he must've read something about Pete beforehand. Which is why Vegas not knowing about Pete being a former boxer and victim of domestic abuse is weird. (My God Vegas would've been a dick if he'd had held the latter against Pete.)

But since we're talking Vegas here his paranoia turns into obsession and he makes a file of Pete thick as the Bible post canon. Needles to say, this stirs some drama between the two because even saint like Pete has his limits with Vega's BS.

Hmm, honestly, I'm at this point in my brainrot with kpts/vp that I'd be able to rationalize any plot point, no matter how absurd, while still acknowledging that it's most likely a plot hole (though tbh, BOC could only do so much with the horrid source material they had to deal with, so hats off to them regardless).

For example, one argument I'd use for Vegas not knowing about Pete's backstory, is that Vegas seems surprised Pete has been through similar experiences that he himself has with his own father, not about him doing boxing. I rewatched the scene for the millionth time and as Pete is narrating his story, Vegas' face remains neutral until Pete tells him winning didn't change anything - he was still being beaten up by his bitter father who never became the boxer he wanted to be.

All I'm trying to say here is that Vegas could very well have known about the boxing, but not about the abuse. Maybe nobody from the family knew about the abuse, though I can't claim with confidence that Korn wouldn't know.

However

To Korn (and to Gun), what Pete's father was doing to his son wasn't abuse. It was discipline. It was him showing Pete he loves him. So, maybe Korn knew about it and thought it was good. Or maybe he compared him to Gun and thought Pete's father was a coward and bad at being a father.

Who knows?

I'm not trying to prove you wrong in any way, btw. As I said, if Vegas didn't actually know about Pete doing boxing, then that'd be super weird for someone like him. I just find it fascinating for Vegas to have known about everything in regards to Pete EXCEPT the most important thing that basically makes them connect from that point onwards in the story.

Though, I do have to disagree with you on one thing - or more precisely, express my doubts: I don't believe Vegas would have had the guts to use the abuse Pete suffered by his father against him. ESPECIALLY after Pete sees what happens at the basement between Vegas and Gun.

Vegas is a hypocrite and a coward when it comes to Pete. He'd be facing a mirror - and Vegas really hates himself and what the reflection would show back. We see it throughout their arc plenty of times and with the abuse element added in, it'd go to astronomical levels imo.

Did Vegas cross the line with Pete a million times? Yes. Would he cross it on this subject? Hmm, idk. I'm willing to believe so, but I'd never write it myself.

Now, about post-canon, many people in the fandom have said the same thing as you and I believe the same. He'd want to know e v e r y t h i n g about Pete, down to the last detail, and on the days he'd feel especially shitty, which would be most days, he'd want to drag Pete down with him.

We were talking just today with @wretchedamaranth about Pete snapping after everything that happened in ep14 + hospital era, and tbh we can add this one in it, too: Vegas' need to pry Pete open would push him to his limit.

And Pete isn't like Vegas. He wouldn't snap like Vegas does, and I'm trembling just thinking about what that would entail.