#michael being a romantic is a tool that will help us make everything way worse later!

[katabay]

some other fake byzantine empire ocs! completely unrelated to the other ones, these guys are for a story focusing on the viscera of the imperial household

[mittensmorgul]

I love Eileen. And I love Saileen. I love that they introduced a character with a disability and made Sam happy But I agree with a lot of what you say about Saileen. They’re NOT canon. Yeah, they very well could be. But as of now, they aren’t. They seem more like a “will they/won’t they” relationship rather than a real established relationship. And with everything with Chuck and his control over her... idk. I love hearing what ppl think about it but they need to let you have your opinions

Thank you for this, seriously. I just feel like I’ve been pressured into seeing it differently. And I’m sorry for that, honestly! I wish I could see it as a purely cute, happy, no complications relationship. I wish I could see the parallels to destiel as direct mirrors instead of “spot the difference” mirrors.

I love Eileen as a character, and have seen potential for her to have a relationship with Sam since 11.11. It seemed like the show was seriously considering that in 12.17. And then the show proved they weren’t... Yes I was fully on board the “she can’t actually be dead because that was stupid and terrible” train back then. I was for a good long while afterward. (lol read my fic Winchester 275, with fun happy saileen!) But eventually, when it becomes obvious that the characters have moved on, we have to move on and see reality, too.

But after the show made her return a direct tool of manipulation by Chuck, and after she herself has expressed that because of that, BECAUSE Chuck’s interference in “writing Saileen” into the show as a romantic plot, when she questions what is real, she’s talking specifically about her relationship with Sam. If that wasn’t the case, if Chuck’s plot for her had been about ANYTHING else, I wouldn’t have so much difficulty with the state of Sam and Eileen’s relationship now. But Chuck specifically brought her back to romance Sam.

When Eileen says she doesn’t know what’s real, she specifically means between her and Sam. Between 15.06 and 15.09, Sam repeatedly denied they were like that (when Dean teased and then talked seriously to him about their obviously developing relationship based on what he’d seen of their interactions, and lampshaded by Dean himself as him viewing their interactions through the lens of his own personal issues he was struggling with at the time, having literally projected his own feelings onto their relationship). And I understand the desire to see Sam happy, to see him find a relationship like this. But I will always want that relationship for him to be real, of his own choosing, and with someone who can freely consent to it. And I want the same for Eileen, too. 

I’m doing my level best to look critically at what Chuck wants, at the plots and situations that he specifically engineers, and asking myself why. He’s been Gabriel-level manipulative/trickstery, Lucifer-level “smashing his own toys,” and Michael-level “monster apocalypse ftw,” and Raphael level “it just needs to be over.” I just watched Mystery Spot on the TNT loop, so maybe that’s why I’ve got Gabriel on the mind here, but I’m betting this week’s episode will have some heavy Gabriel style callbacks. What is the truth? What’s their own choices and what have they been “tricked” into believing was their only choice?

As long as Eileen feels that she had no choice in anything that happened between her and Sam, I’m gonna be eternally grateful that Sam had his foot on the brakes regarding their interactions to the point they learned of Chuck’s manipulation. Because it could’ve gone a hell of a lot worse if Sam had jumped into a romance with her, you know? Imagine if he had taken her up on her proposition in 15.07, only to have her doubt if it was even her choice after the fact? That would’ve been so, so much worse. For both of them.

The narrative has at least left them with POTENTIAL. Eileen could reexamine her whole relationship with Sam and decide she really does have feelings for him that are her own, completely untainted by Chuck’s interference. But I really need that to be her freely-made choice. Sam could welcome her back with open arms, ready to proceed with a relationship on their own terms, to build something real between them. If they’d consummated the relationship while Eileen was being controlled/used by Chuck, it wouldn’t even be a potential. Or maybe it would, but there would’ve always been that specter of what had happened to her hanging over the relationship, leaving them both to question if it was actually real or only based on what Chuck had pushed them into, you know? For however cute the potential of their relationship is or could be, it’s not founded in their own free will.

I completely understand why some people refuse to question Eileen’s feelings for Sam, rather than just questioning which of her actions are “real.” If Eileen hadn’t specifically been brought back for a “romance plot” with Sam, I don’t know if she would’ve doubted her feelings for him, either. They did have a history of friendship, at the very least, before Chuck’s incredibly specific plan for her unfolded in s15. We WANT good things for Sam, we want him to be happy, to find someone to love and be loved by in the way he really deserves, and has wanted for a very long time, but heck I can’t stop hearing Charlie’s voice in 8.20 here:

Sorry you have zero luck with the ladies

I need for any relationship that Sam chooses for himself to defy that statement, not to be burdened by Chuck’s incessant campaign of destroying Sam’s love life  over and over again for his own personal entertainment. He uses Sam’s hope as a weapon against him, just like we saw in 15.09. Two of Sam’s biggest character arcs for the entire series have involved his perception/understanding of reality, and hope vs hopelessness. That is, what gives Sam hope, and what strips it from him. It’s been a key metric for him in every season, and it directly affects the choices he’s willing to make, and possibly more importantly, what he’s personally willing to sacrifice.

At this moment, I’m watching Jus In Bello, and this is... exactly the plot of this entire episode. This is Sam’t plot through all of Kripke Era, throughout Chuck’s original apocalypse arc. This was Ruby’s entire purpose in the narrative: romance Sam to manipulate him into Doing The Thing. In 3.12, it’s framed around Sam’s hope vs hopelessness against the army of demons surrounding them. It’s framed as “not having a choice,” and then working together to “find another way.” Only for Ruby to show up at the end of the episode after they think they’ve succeeded, to inform them that because of their choice, everyone they’d been trying to save was now dead. And it was STILL a manipulation on a bigger level of the narrative that won’t be proven out until the end of s4 and Ruby’s Grand Reveal moment as Lucifer rises.

THIS IS A BIG ISSUE FOR SAM, and dismissing it all for the sake of smushing his face together with Eileen’s is... at the very least, a wee bit problematic. 

Obviously, Ruby was conscious of this deception from the start. She was planted with the knowledge of what she had to accomplish, and willingly participated in Sam’s manipulation. Eileen... wasn’t complicit in ANY of the manipulation, at least not consciously. I’m not attempting to frame Eileen as evil here, but just as much a victim of Chuck’s plotting as Sam was.

If Eileen didn’t feel this way herself, if she didn’t directly question and doubt her own feelings for Sam, she wouldn’t have left. She left for HERSELF. I can’t even imagine being in her position here, you know? Saved from the torment of Hell, given a tiny bit of hope for the future (still with the question of whether her soul was still doomed to Hell when she eventually died again, or whether she got a clean slate and could enter Heaven eventually, LITERALLY ALSO BECAUSE OF CHUCK). Only to discover that her second chance had been provided by Chuck because he cavalierly intended to use her AGAIN, not for her own sake, but to drive Sam’s “plot.” Romance-loss-manpain-angst-hopelessness-”Butch and Sundance” lather rinse repeat. That’s Chuck’s plot, and in leaving, whether she sees that bigger picture or not, Eileen has chosen not to participate in it. Not to let herself be used by that plot.

Eileen had her agency stolen from her by Chuck’s BMoL storyline, and she spent three years in Hell because of it. At this point in the story, leaving to regain that lost agency was the best thing she could’ve done FOR HERSELF. And Sam, of all people, who had his agency stolen from him when he was 6 months old and fed demon blood, can understand that.

If Sam and Eileen are meant to be, they BOTH need to come to that decision for reasons other than “Chuck wants to hurt us with each other for plot reasons.” And as important as Eileen as a character is for representation, she’s also elevated herself to another important level in the narrative: She chose HERSELF. She chose her own life and freedom. She chose to walk out of the story and refused to be used by it.

If Eileen comes back to the story again, it will truly be because she CHOSE it for herself. Her entire life up to 11.11 had been the same sort of “revenge narrative” that the Winchesters had endured. She got her win, and then was faced with the question (posed to her by Sam) of what she was going to do next. When we next see her, in 12.17, we see that she has apparently continued her life as a hunter. She’s drawn into helping with an “all hands on deck” situation, in finding Dagon and Kelly Kline, and then her involvement in that hunt directly leads to her death in the most awful and ableist way possible-- literally hunted down by Chuck’s “big bad threat” of the season, to drive Sam and Dean into Chuck’s ever-narrowing maze of choices leading up to their confrontation with Lucifer in 12.23 (and Cas’s death by Lucifer’s hand, and everything that followed... including Dean’s formal complaint of a prayer to Chuck himself in 13.01. I mean, given Chuck’s favored story, he must’ve been wringing his hands with glee at Dean’s hopeless suffering in early s13, you know?). 

I need to go back to Sam’s experiences with the BMoL himself. In Sam’s ongoing, lifelong issues that I’ve been tagging as “Sam vs Reality” for years now, the weapon of torture that Toni Bevell used to manipulate Sam... was specifically a fake/drug-and-torture induced romance plot. After 12.02 aired, please recall the abject horror of the entire fandom over the rape by deception plotline between Sam and Toni-- after spending the entire hellatus wondering if Toni was being set up with a “love at first stab” redemption arc in much the same way Cas had in s4. For folks that hadn’t been in the fandom during the post-s11 hellatus, this seemed to be a serious potential, until 12.02 burned that notion to the ground. Eileen’s suspicious return to the narrative in s15 rang alarm bells in my head for this exact reason.

I need people to understand why I feel so viscerally uncomfortable with Sam and Eileen’s relationship as it stands in s15. Everyone has the absolute right to find their relationship cute, or truly romantic, or to hope that they are endgame together. But I also think I have the absolute right to feel wary of it, considering all of this ^^. 

Plus, to me, all of this *IS* the interesting character stuff we’ve all been here for all these years. We’re all giddily engaging with Dean’s long-standing issues with anger, abandonment, fear, self-worth, and identity coming to fruition in s15. Even the most die-hard destiel shippers haven’t ignored the deep underlying character arcs of both Dean AND Cas as their relationship is finally being defined, clarified, and hopefully resolved in the narrative. Do we not owe at LEAST that much to Sam, and his character’s underlying issues? Because I think that’s what the narrative is pushing us to examine here.

And as you said, I also see it as a potential relationship. Yes, one with a LOT of potential based on their chemistry. As things stand after 15.09, there’s every reason to think that Eileen could come back, could accept the offer Sam made with that kiss. I saw it as him laying a potential foundation, his way of saying “maybe it wasn’t real up to this point, but we could choose it if that’s what you wanted, too.” I also see it as up to Eileen herself if she can lay that baggage down and begin building a relationship based on mutual choice, understanding, respect, affection, and potentially love and romance. If Eileen is Sam’s endgame love interest, to me it would necessitate their choice to give a future together a shot. It would be a beautiful new beginning in life, for both of them, rather than the culmination of more than a decade of emotional relationship issues that Dean and Cas are facing, you know? There is a difference, and equating the relationships on a surface level is fine, but the presumption that we’re supposed to just accept that the two relationships are equal in terms of underlying emotional context is... at least a little disturbing to me, because ^^^^^^.

Heck, I think I’ve officially emotionally wrung myself out typing about all of this again, but I appreciate having the space to actually work through my own feelings about all of this, too.

[esta-metamorfose-ambulante]

Pros and cons of Jane The Virgin over the seasons (in no particular order)

Pros:

An amazingly talented cast.

Overall positive latino representation.

Distinct and interesting characters.

Plot twists that kept the story entertaining.

The Villanuevas bond.

Focusing on the reactions and the human side of the characters whenever something crazy would happen to them.

I’m personally not a fan of Latin novelas because they usually just throw one plot twist after anoter, but JTV used to do a great job showing its characters’ struggles dealing with those events.

Cons:

The love triangle. On season one it was important to Jane’s arc so she could find confidence in being a single mother before marrying Michael, but continuously resurrecting the Michael/Jane/Rafael and Jane/Rafael/Petra was uninteresting, repetitive and tiring to its viewers.

Its representation of black people. Roman Zazo was a killer, who not only killed his own twin brother, but also made Petra have sex with him when he kidnapped her.

Nadine was another neglected character that ended up being killed.

The poor treatment they give to Luisa, who has made terrible mistakes, but is also a metally ill woman that battles addiction. However, she is merely used as comic relief and described as a ‘trainwreck’. If my memories serve me well, the show has used this specific word regarding her, more than once.

Its unreleastic representation of romantic love. In the beginning, Jane was happily engaged to Michael. Then, they broke up and she fell for Rafael. Later, the two also broke up. Eventually, she got over him only to fall in love with both of them in a couple of episodes and almost immediately after she realized it’s always been Michael. Seriously? I don’t think science has a consensus about how someone falls in love, if you can love two people at once or whether you can fall in love with a previous lover after you were over them and in a happy relationship with someone else, but that’s not even the point. The thing is, you cannot trust its own narrative. It’s become repetitive, confusing and incoherent with its previous statements. You can’t even trust on the heart glowing thing, because that happens whenever the characters feel strong emotions with their loved ones. It happened when Jane was holding Mateo after he was born and when the Villanuevas were celebrating Mother’s Day. The only way to have some certainty is based on how the actors’ performances and their declarations, because imo they are even more responsible for developing their characters than the writers. The writers keep moving in circles and the actors need to try to make the best of it and deliver their lines convincingly, but I believe even for them it must be difficult to buy it. Therefore, I take their acting and declarations more seriously, because they at least keep a line of thinking instead of the writers that just go back and forth.

Rose - who used to be an intriguing character - got reduced to a I don’t even know what. She was/is a huge crime lord, but all that potention was thrown way. The show didn’t explore her criminal life at all, only her relationship with Luisa and multiple disguises. Currently, she is back for a mysterious reason, but after four seasons, I believe it’s safe to say she will be neglected as well and whatever she does will be anticlimactic.

The objetification. I don’t get the obsession they have/had with Rafael’s abs and why they would make Petra sleep with every basic/trash white man they introduced. On season three they focused more on Jane managing to have casual sex with Fabian than her book and dream of being a published author. I get that was important for her, but releasing her book was everything she ever worked for her entire life. Ignoring that was disrespectful.

Losing its essence and becoming like every other telenovela: throwing a twist after another, not exploring its effects on the characters and repeating storylines everyone’s sick of.

Not having the characters dealing with their traumas and metal illness or having almost all of it happening off camera. Luisa struggles with alcoholism and an on and off abusive relationship, Rogelio was kidnapped, Mateo was kidnapped, Petra was kidnapped, Petra forced herself to have sex with the man who kidnapped her so she could find a way get out of her captivity, Petra lived with an abusive mother, Petra was freaking paralyzed by her own sister, Petra had postpartum depression, Michael was shot, almost got killed and then he was tortured with eletroshocks until he got amnesia and lost five years of his life and I’m sure there is more that I’ve missed. Still, what do they focus on? Ridiculous love triangles.

Although Rafael is not my favorite character, he and Petra were the ones that had the most interesting potential backgrounds. Petra grew up without a father in Czechoslovakia, Alba always used her as a tool to get by and she left the country running away from a man who attacked her mother. Even in the United States, there is so much they could’ve shown of her before and after meeting Rafael, getting married, pregnant and losing the baby. On the other hand, Rafael could’ve had a journey of self-discovery and found his biological family and finally getting the love he didn’t receive from his adoptive parents. All wasted pontetial as well.

Changing the entire dynamics of the show in order to execute one storyline. To get to a point where Jane chooses Rafael, they had to: ‘kill’ Michael, do time jumps and have the characters almost ready to be together. Rafael basically became a different character, they got rid of Lina so he would be her best friend and even in some scenes that there would’ve made more sense to have an Alba/Jane moment because they both lost their husbands, they made a jafael moment.

Its frustrating depiction of family. I don’t hide the fact I’m a villadero shipper and would’ve loved to see Michael/Jane/Mateo being a blended family. I know I won’t get that, but the twins barely spend time with Rafael. Or they do, but it’s mostly off camera. And that’s not enough. I don’t need fourty minutes of them together or therapy, but it’s important to show that on television. It’s important to show parents giving their kids equal love and attention, just like it’s important to show mentally ill characters getting help. This speaks to the audience and can even change the way somebody acts. Television is powerful. Still, even if Rafael does give the same amount of attention and love to their children, the show doesn’t illustrate that. And that’s one of the reasons why I think Ellie and Anna are basically perfect. So Mateo is the one who is distracted, sad, confused or whatever. And no, I’m not criticizing a kid. But we see Mateo being comforted by Rafael, having Rafael telling him stories and things like that. We get way less scenes from Rafael and the girls and sometimes it is just him saying he will pick them up or something off camera. And I really can’t remember any moment where they were the ones who were vulnerable and Rafael comforted them. Or just them playing and having fun. Not even with him when Rafael was with Jane and Mateo.

Not even between Mateo and the twins. They love to say they are family and I more than anyone know siblings fight, but siblings also love and protect each other. I can only remember one soft scene with the three of them and it was because that was convenient at the moment. But a scene of them playing just for the sake of it, or maybe even comforting or supporting one other would be adorable. Like, have they ever hug? I get that if Rafael and Jane live together with Mateo they will consenquently spend more time together and that’s not a problem. However, the show just executes the stereotype of only biological families being valid and sends the message it’s okay to neglect your other children if you’re not dating or married to their mother.

It also took them FIVE FUCKING SEASONS to show Jane and Petra being friends and having fun. And again, it was only out of convinience. Jane couldn’t decide what to do regarding her situation with Rafael and Michael and no one could give her advice. So she goes to Petra and they drink their asses off and sort of have fun. And that other day when they went to a lesbian bar. They say they’re friends and even family, but certaintly doesn’t feel like it. Do they care about each other? Yeah. Still, it’s like that cousin who lives in other part of the country and you see once a year. Firstly you’re happy, but after they spend a week in your house you realize why you barely see each other or keep in touch when they’re gone. I get they are very different, but everytime they are together they sort of argue. An honest and deep conversation like some that Jane’s had with Lena? I’m afraid it’s never happened or going to.

Total disrespect to their own character, Brett who was generous enough to return while he is part of another show and his fans. Not only they brought him back to play a minor role, but he didn’t even get the respect to have his point of view shown. The man was almost killed, tortured, lost five years of his life, came back to see that everything had changed and felt like a burden, but they don’t actually focus on what he feels? Just as how sad Rafael is? It’s one thing to show both sides, but to only explore Rafael’s feelings as if he’s the one who had it worse is ridiculous and insensitive.

Rafael’s deppression. Again, I don’t want to get technical about it, specially because that’s not my professional area and I could be wrong. The thing is, I don’t think he has depression. I do think he had a lot of shit happening to him and he used to have unhealthy habits whenever he got upset, but there is a difference between getting drunk when you are sad (what almost everyone has or will do once in their lifetime) and having depression. Feeling sad, worthless, suicidal all can be symptons, yes. But there is also not getting any sleep, food or eating/sleeping a lot and more. And I don’t think they show up altogether after one event. Rafael’s had a past drinking when he was feeling low, but that was it. No worthless or suicidal thoughts. No insomnia or sleeping too much or anything else. And that wouldn’t last long. Now I am supposed to believe he has depression? Then actually DEVELOP THAT and SHOW IT TO ME (If A Million Little Things can do a decent job, other shows can too). Don’t get me wrong, I think Rafael might have something, but not actually depression. He sure as hell have reasons to. However, It just seems they threw it so we could empathize with him after the way he treated Jane and root for him. And I bet that will be gone in two seconds once him and Jane reunite. Which leads me to...

The way they insinuated his state was Jane’s fault is disgusting. And I’m sure they will forget this depression storyline once jafael makes up. So yeah, they might have not actually said the words, but the route they took is that it’s Jane’s fault and once they back to their relationship he will be magically healed with their love. Yikes.

Also, the whole Michael x family conflict. That is so LOW. My parents are divorced and their separation was really messy. Despite my personal experience, I’ve seen complicated divorces before and ex-spouses using their children against one another. If Jane ended up with Michael, that wouldn’t make her less of a mother or neglect her family by any means. If anything, Mateo would have a step and godfather who would basically do everything to keep him safe and happy. Mateo would have another person who loves him. Sure, Jane’s priority must be her son, but to give the idea a mother needs to lose her independence because of her child is ridiculous. Mothers are allowed to be divorced, single, marry someone else, have their own time with their friends and even have male and ex-lovers as friends. What makes Jane a good mother is the way she treats her son, the love, attention she gives him. NOT being in a relationship with Rafael. Believe me, I’ve seen some people saying this kind of thing.

Now that Jane and Michael got closure, it looks like he will barely be on the show anymore. Which is wrong on so many levels, because first of all, he was her best friend. Real Jane wouldn’t want him out of her life, but apparently that’s what’s going to happen. And again, it sends a terrible message. She should keep being his friend, talking to him and everything, because being in a relationship doesn’t mean you should lose your (male) friends. And they won’t actually say it, but I don’t see Rafael as the guy that would be okay with Jane being best friends with her ex-husband and therefore we won’t see them interact. Just like we didn’t get Michael to see Jane’s family, that he loved and loved him back. And that’s a terrible message to give to young girls, even if you won’t have it said out loud. Showing it is already enough. The fact some of them are buying it frustrates me. 

Also, like, it baffles me the fact Rafael is getting way with all the ultimatums he gave Jane, the fact he showed no empathy when Jane had the scare of thinking she would lose her mother who is fighting CANCER and he kicked her out of their house the very same night. Or that he turned their son against her or did nothing to get him to talk to Jane again until she called him out. She shouldn’t have to call him out. He is a grown man on his late 30s (or early 40s? idek anymore after the time jumps), he should’ve known better. The breaking point was when he didn’t discipline Mateo for running accross the street, something that could’ve KILLED HIM, just because he was mad at Jane. I get Rafael has gone through a lot of shit, but this doesn’t give him a pass to treat people the way he wants to. Everyone on this show has gone through enough and they don’t behave that way. He might have depression, but he knows when he is wrong. And you can actually see on his eyes when he is talking to Jane that he is defying and provoking her. Just terrible.

The fact Jane is choosing him after all of that pisses me off. If he were still zen Rafael and all, I would be frustrated, but not angry. This gives a really dangerous message for anyone who watches it. Abusive relationships start just like that and even though Rafael never raised a hand to her, that is abusive. Rafael is not a bad person, but he has a lot to work on before he could be with anyone else and for me they don’t belong together. Still, he is manipulative and disrespectul with Jane. And I have enough experience with abusive relationships to say that’s how it begins. Then, they have one conversation and sort of a perfect fairytale phase until the next fight. And media romanticizing this kind of relationship is part of the problem.

Last but not least, the fact Jane will have to FIGHT for this after everything turned something that was already bad into something worse. Not only it’s not worth it, but she is supposed to humiliated herself just because she dared to have feelings and be confused when something totally crazy happened to her? Way to go, writers! That’s how you treat you Latin female protagonist and kill your show. The cast deserved way more, but the writers deserves exact rating numbers they are getting.

So to that troll who said Michael fans were racist for dropping it after he died, there are other reasons why we gave up. Those were things that already bothered me, but I still found the show worth it to keep looking foward to the episodes. And after Michael died, I kept watching it, out of respect for its diverse cast and to give it the benefit of the doubt, but I could only do it until the finale of season 3. I just decided not to waste my time anymore because after 10 episodes it didn’t get any better. For many, Michael was vital for the show. 

Besides Jane, he was the one who interacted with most people. He was close to Jane’s family, Rogelio’s best friend, Mateo’s stepfather/godfather and a detective. After he lost his job/’died’, the criminal aspect of the show was basically ignored.

One season one, he wasn’t with Jane, but he was there and things were still intriguing. Once he was gone, the show changed completely. Characters were written off, time had passed and it didn’t feel organic. And there were a lot of other stuff that kept people from watching it again. The fact you want to bring race for something that has nothing to do with (breaking news! Rafael is white too! Just because your boy has some tan and speaks spanish he is not a person of color) is pathetic. That’s not being woke. Bye.

[planetsam]

“How were you going to tell me?”

Michael tilts his head to try and look at Alex but he can’t. They’re chained up on either side of the narrow column. Soon they’ll be driven off to god knows where. Interest and duty are the things keeping them alive in Jesse Manes’ eyes. For the moment he’ll take what he can get. 

“Is this really the time?” He asks.

“Come on,” Alex prods, “you had a plan right? Or were you just not going to?”

“I—“ Michael wants to deny but he can’t in any kind of serious way. Not if they’re about to be hurt again. The powerlessness echoes in his bones, “yeah.”

“And?” Alex prods after a moment of silence.

“I don’t know! I had a couple of them okay?!” He bursts out, hating the stupid defensive note in his voice. He drops his head with a huff because honestly what’s this going to be? More embarrassing? “I had a lot of them,” he says, “I wanted to tell you in the museum, point out everything that I knew. In one i was just going to say it the morning after, when you stayed. Or one of the times you were home and we got away—“ he leans his head against the column, “maybe at the drive in if we could get away.”

Alex listens, his heart skipping. Michael isn’t answering his question. He’s telling him all the times he wanted to explain. Alex wishes they didn’t line up so well with the times he’s walked away. Had to get away. He knows they aren’t interconnected. Their traumas just somehow line up almost damningly perfectly. Right down to the fucking timing. Michael is silent and Alex wonders if seeing his face would help. 

“How?” He asks.

“How what?” 

“How were you going to tell me?” He asks.

“I don’t—“ Michael knows he can’t take the cowards way out, not if they’re about to die, “I was going to show you. I didn’t think you’d believe me otherwise.”

“What? Take my clothes off telekinetically?” He asks.

“Hey!” Michael objects, “and only in one of the trailer ones. I was going to do better shit in the rest of them.”

Alex is quiet as he lets this sink in. But how many grand romantic gestures did he dream up to tell him they could be together? Before all of this, before the hammer and the aliens and the fact that their relationship is as tangible as his missing leg. He knows the bitterness Michael must be feeling. The taste of broken and lost. Michael shifts his weight and clears his throat, getting his attention.

“What did you think? When you found out?” He asks, his voice quieter than Alex has heard it in a long time. 

“I thought I had to protect you,” Alex says simply. He can only maybe feel one of Michael’s arms but he knows everything tenses, “Same thought I always have.” 

“I don’t need your protection, you realize that don’t you?” Michael says, that old defensiveness creeping back into his voice. Alex rests his head against the column, “I’m an alien, I can—“

“Take care of myself,” he finishes, “that doesn’t mean I don’t want to protect you.”

“Why? Because your dad taught you to protect the things you love?” Michael challenges.

“Hey!” Alex objects, “don’t bring him into this.” 

“It’s hard not to, considering—“ Michael jangles the chains that keep him tied to the pole. Alex knows he’s got a point.

“But yes,” Alex continues, “I want to protect you. Why is that so hard for you to believe?” 

Michael scoffs and Alex tries not to wince at the sound. He knows why it’s hard for Michael to believe that. And he knows he hasn’t helped a lot in that department. But Michael is dangerous. And it’s got nothing to do with being an alien. He’s dangerous on a personal level and the more time they spend together the more dangerous he becomes. Alex can’t say he’s hiding something. He can’t say he’s pushing him away or choosing family. All of Michael’s excuses have good explanations and his—they don’t. 

“After,” Michael says, “after you figured it out and you did your whole protection thing. How did you feel about finding out I was an alien?”

Alex exhales and Michael wonders how this can possibly feel worse than any of the other shit when it comes to Alex. If they weren’t fucking chained together, he imagines that Alex would have already run from the conversation. Which adds a whole new layer to this because while Michael’s a firm believer in finding moments of good, he really doesn’t want to find anything positive about being chained up by Jesse Manes. 

“I don’t know,” he says finally, “and then I thought about all the other shit I didn’t know about you,” he explains, “then I thought about the shit I did know. I felt sad, you had to spend so long in the system with all these secrets.”

“I don’t need your pity,” Michael says, suddenly not liking the turn this has taken. 

“It’s not pity,” Alex snaps, “I thought your biggest secret was being bi. Not being an alien. You were in the system and they could have taken you. Easily.”

Michael cringes because hearing his biggest fear laid out like that by the one person he wants to convince he’s not afraid of anything, well, kind of sucks. But Alex isn’t finished with him.

“Then I felt ashamed,” he admits, “I spent years telling myself you couldn’t understand what it was like to always be looking over your shoulder at home. Spending every second afraid of what would happen if you were found out. That was the thing I had that you couldn’t understand,” he shakes his head, “but you’re an alien. I’m just—“

“Hey!” Michael cuts in, his voice so sharp Alex looks to the door as much as he can, half expecting his dad to be there, “I don’t think that. You know I don’t think that.” 

Alex digs his teeth into his lip because he wants to believe him but it’s hard. It’s always hard to feel this way, like on paper his problems are insane but in reality they’re a wave that constantly breaks over him. Sometimes in the familiar nightmares he runs from the wave and thinks that if he keeps running he can outpace it. But he never does. Those nights he doesn’t wake screaming. He hates himself the most those nights. 

“Look it was both of us that got us here, right?” Michael says when Alex can hear him again instead of the rushing in his ears, “your dad might’ve found out about me anyway. Government’s been looking for us for a long time—no epic sex required.” 

Alex opens his eyes. 

“I can’t believe we made out in the museum about your spaceship,” he says. Michael laughs, “that wasn’t weird for you?” Alex demands. 

“I was kind of more focused on kissing you,” Michael admits and Alex can see the grin Micheal has on in his head. It makes his chest ache. It makes all of him ache. “So yeah, that’s how I was gonna tell you,” Michael continues, “not sure how you would have—“ he trails off.

“Reacted?” Alex supplies, “probably badly,” he admits, “i hate surprises.”

“I know,” Michael says, “i was trying to think of the least surprising way to do it, you know?”

“I don’t think there is a not surprising way,” Alex admits. The unspoken hangs between them.

“How far do you think you’d have run?” Michael asks after a moment.

Alex licks his lips, hating how it’s not even outrage that curls through him. He doesn’t have an answer. Right now running isn’t even an option. His dad was smart enough to take his leg after all. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. 

Michael lets out a huff but doesn’t say anything, he knows when Alex is done with a particular train of thought. They are both minefields, but hiding his around Alex is second nature. Alex is all live wires and traps. Love can guide him all he wishes, it doesn’t change the fact that he will set off something. Always. Inevitably. 

“When are you leaving?” Alex asks.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Michael says, raising his wrist as much as he can.

“On your ship,” Alex corrects, “if you finish it—would you leave?”

“Maybe?” Michael puts aside the sick feeling in his stomach, “it’s not done. So it doesn’t matter.”

“But if it was—“

“It still doesn’t matter,” Michael says.

“But—“

“No,” Michael cuts in, “you don’t get to guilt me for wanting to put this place in the rearview mirror, okay? You don’t.

Alex stings from the valid point. But he still stings. Being right doesn’t make it hurt less. He can feel himself being closed in. He hates that feeling. Trapped is home and the tool shed and the overturned humvee that took his leg. It’s that trailer and the endless desert. 

“Yeah, okay,” Alex says. Michael makes a noise like he knows everything in Alex’s head and finds it just as disgusting, “what?” He asks, his voice maybe a little harsher than he wishes it was.

“How are we supposed to get to know each other if we can’t talk?” Michael questions. 

“We’re tied up and my dad might come down and you want to talk about this-this—“

“Our friendship? Yeah, yeah i do,” Michael says, “your dad’s always been a threat in this.”

“Not like this!” Alex protests. Michael’s hand says otherwise. “I don’t know,” he says finally. 

“Neither do i. We both can’t keep doing this,” Michael points out, “my secrets are out. Your turn,” he shifts to try and see Alex and then gives up, “you gotta give me—“

“I don’t,” Alex snaps, “how the hell could you sleep with Maria?” He demands, almost without meaning to, “we’re friends!”

“I’m friends with her too!” Michael says, the defensiveness in full force, “i like her.” Alex says nothing, “you made it clear you didn’t want anything to do with us as a couple. What was i supposed to do? Pretend you didn’t say that?” Alex grinds his teeth together and Michael twists, “you gotta be fucking kidding—that’s bullshit.”

“I know, okay?” Alex snaps, “i know it’s bullshit. And it’s not fair—“

“No. It’s not,” Michael says, “but when’s life ever been fair to us?”

Alex looks down, shame coiling through him. He  knows he can’t tell Michael who to sleep with and who not to. Not do that and also tell him they can’t be together. Logically he knows that. Emotionally however, he feels very differently.

“I needed time to figure things out,” he says.

“You could have asked me to wait,” Michael snaps.

“Would you have?” Alex asks, voice heavy with disbelief.

Michael doesn’t know if he has an answer for that. For any of this. And maybe that silence is just as much an answer as the actual words.

“It doesn’t matter,” Alex says finally, “you and Maria—“

“No, fuck that, this is between you and me—“

“Not anymore!” Alex says

“And whose fault is that?!” Alex cringes even though Michael can’t see and Michael who says he isn’t a mind reader immediately seems to get it, “shit, i’m sorry—“ he says, “Alex! Alex—“

Alex grinds his teeth again. He’s not going to pieces. Not right now. Not after that.

“I’m fine,” he says, “it’s not—“

They both turn to the door as it rattles. Back to back against the pole, Michael’s hand fumbles and he grabs it. It hurts to touch him and the adrenaline isn’t helping. The door slams twice before it opens and Michael almost weeps with relief as Max comes charging in like a bull. His eyes go to them and he scrambles over.

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Michael gets out.

“You okay Manes?” Max asks.

“Yeah i’m fine,” he lies.

When Michael lets go he can almost pretend that it’s to get rid of the cuffs.

Almost.

Outside he leans against the car while Max finds his leg. Michael eventually joins him, giving him enough distance that he has the illusion of this being a choice. 

“We can keep trying to be friends,” Michael says, “but the rest of it—“

“I know,” Alex says. He looks at Michael, “I want to get to know you,” he repeats, “to be friends. It’s just—“ he blows out a breath.

“Hard,” Michael supplies, something indefinable in his eyes, “yeah i get it.”

“I still want to try,” Alex adds quickly, “i don’t care how hard it is.”

Michael bits down on his lip and looks away. Alex realizes he’s fighting a smile. He can’t exactly help his eye roll.

“Come on, seriously?”

“What?” Michael asks innocently, shoving his hands into his pockets, “we can’t make jokes?”

Alex shakes his head and lets himself relax against the car. Michael scoots a bit closer and Alex shoves the ache with the rest of them. He can do this.

“So what would two friends do on a Saturday after escaping from one of their psycho dads?”

“Well,” Michael says, “they would probably take the alien that saved them out for a beer.”

Alex glances over at Max. He’s probably the biggest shock in this alien thing. Even now, knowing what he does, Alex sometimes has a hard time believing it. But a beer sounds good, right now. Or anything that lets him pick the ball up on this friendship. Or keep that hopeful look in Michael’s eyes. 

“Okay. Yeah; a beer sounds great, let’s get it,” he says.

[wellthatwasaletdown]

Just a mess but post whenever you're bored lol. Great blog btw.

My advice to Harry for HS2 (this eh… got away from me)

First would be head over to Sweden to Max Martin and beg him to write songs with a kind of racketing Northern UK 80s vibe (think Jessie’s girl), some rollicking early George Michael, and a little bit of Tom Jones cheese on top. No hair metal, no 70s dreariness, no bombast. (Stop trying to reincarnate FM and GnR through a British xfactor contestant Irving – its making everyone look silly!). Second he should head back over to Nashville for some nice country song songs he can pour his wee heart into. It’d be a mixed bag but so were Midnight Memories and MITAM and they’re great albums imo. ‘Girl name’ songs and hook-up songs are mostly banned because HS1 has forever tainted Harry singing songs like that with a truly nasty level of misogyny. Instead the songs should be as follows but in no particular order:

‘A boat from an Island up my Own Arse’ (James’ song) : about what happens when you fall for your own follower count and start acting the arse – relatable for loads of kids in these days of social media notoriety.

This song could be deep and introspective and Harry could get Kodaline to help him write it (they already have a good one on this called The Answer) or it could be a fun rocking slap up his own head, a tongue in cheek send up of his own hype. His choice, artist input is important. You could have loads of fun with this video but Jaffsen (James, Jeff, Ben) are banned from any involvement, except they can cameo as themselves maybe.

2 ‘Look At You Now’ ; continuing on from the theme of 1. This song could be a counterpoint, fast where the other is slow or vice versa. Its not a love song, it’s about that one friend you took for granted, and mean-girled in front of your cooler friends just because they were all awkward laughing and train-track braces but now they’re all grown and fit and you’re looking a bit past your sell by date. Also relatable in a post high school sort of way to a lot of people. Perfect chance for a bit of open-ended homoeroticism - like a love song to how fit and thick your former best male friend has gotten and how you kinds wish you were him.

4. ‘Guess I’m just a Tool’ ; about what happens when the only friends you have, only met you when you were already famous and all your old mates got sick of you. Not a ‘waah haterz abe jealous’ song (the world has had enough of those) – a little insight and something new to say will be required. Sloppy lyrics or ideas not accepted.

5. ‘Looking at me, looking at me’ ; this could be Abba-esque, and the. one. song. where Jeff is allowed to adlib, with ‘Ah-Haaa’ (he must dress as Alan Partridge for the video though that’s non-negotiable). This one is about narcissism in the present day when you realise even on other people’s birthdays you’re always just checking out yourself in the selfie. Could be all deep and sorrowful eiher – but then no Jefe, no adlibs. It would be most fun as a joke song though. We’ll leave it to Harry and his hopefully new therapist to figure out where the song goes.

(Corden would almost certainly want to do the video but he’s banned, along with all the Kardashians. Jefe could cameo as above but not contribute any ideas at all. This could not be Kendall does Protest levels of bad, it’s a song about narcissism, not an exercise in narcissism)

6. ‘You’re to coo-ool for meee, in all the ti-ings you beee’ ; this is about what it’s like when your best friend always looks like Apollo fcked a Disney princess and sent the child to be brought up by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix. Also a good chance for open ended homoeroticism. Every piece of clothing you own looks better on him and he just does everything so much cooler. You hate him but you love him, this love is tainted. A mea culpa for the dark sided shit team Azoff have almost certainly pulled on Z.

7. ‘Don’t you wish you could be Louis’ Girl’ ; a straight up rip off of Jessie’s Girl really. This sounds bad but in a surprise twist it would actually be a paean, a celebration of the string of fit girls Louis has loved, in the best tradition of Northern UK rock. It would be updated to include an element of empathy for, and celebration of, the millions of us who aren’t size E.

The song would also have a note of the longing that comes from your best friend always being in long term relationships along with lots of nice non-misogynistic celebration of women of all shapes and sizes and family types. A mea culpa for Kiwi and all the other nastiness of HS1. Girl Almighty but raunchier music and better lyrics.

Larries will be happy thinking it’s about Harry wishing he was Louis’ girl, but the kindness in the lyrics will cut off the nastiness they tend to spew. Harry will pull on his big boy pants and reiterate the need for fans to stop trashing other women in interviews, while humbly admitting the song is a rip-off, a tongue in cheek homage to

8. ‘Untitled’ ; this is about what happens when your best friend gets on a leetle too well with your love. They have all the same interests, they start to finish each other’s sentences, they get each other’s jokes when you don’t…. they touch each other alot … ‘jokingly’. You don’t wanna act Zealous but fucks sake! …. Cue 1 million Zouis fan vids and Zourry triangle angst fics! I live for them!

9. ‘I got caught up in the wrong kind of love’ ; this one could be serious, country and western vibes, that pulls together a lot of the earlier themes. Its about what happens when you let down the love of your life because you get too caught up in loving your own career. That hot friend from song 8 ends up being their shoulder to cry on and they end up comforting each other in all kinds of ways. You’re all wronged but you all did wrong. Everybody hates everybody but no one can move on. There is potential for two more songs looking at same situation from different angles.

Ssshh, these don’t have to be real - cue aaall the fics, this fandom runs on them after all.

10. A cover of ‘I can’t help falling in love with you.’ Don’t … touch me.

11. Bonus Track: Harry, Liam and Tinie Tempah cover Don’t Worry, Be Happy. It is released as a single and they donate the proceeds to a shelter in Thailand that rescues trafficked girls.

TLDR: Harry ceases to be as ass about 1D and himself and remembers that he got famous by being fun and light and bringing a little joy to people’s lives. He doesn’t have to abandon attempts to write his own deep and / or experimental album, he just has to postpone it until he has the groundwork done, musically, intellectually, spiritually.

Promo: Jaffben are not allowed anywhere near the recording process except for Jefe on song 5. Jefe does not go to RS or NME for promo. He goes to Closer and OK. Harry goes on Loose Women and Elvis Duran and Jonathan Ross and gives intelligible answers about the end of 1D, his last album, his new direction etc and doesn’t act all disingenuous like he doesn’t know why the interviewer would want to know. He gives 0 long-form masturbatory interviews to glossy magazines.

He can draw whatever lines he likes around his personal life as long as he states it clearly, gives a reasonable explanation on his take on privacy now vs the family feel of early 1D, and then sticks to it. Jefe does not use the gossip rags as promo. If he’s being all private then his mother and sister are 100% silent on him too, no backdoor gossip mongering, no nepotism, no encouraging invasive stalkers. He ceases to let all and sundry use him to shill their shit. This fandom has been bled dry enough already. He gets his passive aggressive tendencies under control and only uses them to silence the nastier elements of his fandom.

There is no perfume ad, no docuwank, unless Jaffben want to film themselves actually jerking off to their HS shrines - they can put that on pornhub at their own discretion. Basically Jaffben and Apple are not allowed to monetise the shit out of this fandom. Harry puts himself out there and sells his music. The End.

Or y’know he carries on as is, lets Jefe bag him some more film roles, maybe a romantic ‘comedy’ with the same nasty misogynistic undertones as his album and the shitcom? (Think Apatow but worse) Does another derivative album, gets Irving to pull strings so its praised no matter what, rinse repeat.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I guess you could count how many of these I’ve written since I’ve lost my job.  It’s been six months of my life.  The entire process of whatever goes on in the shadows is far longer than that.  You start to look back in times of chaos at the things in your life that are stable.  I’ve been living at my address for about ten years now.  Yesterday I had a chance conversation with my landlord.  I asked them how they were doing.  They replied not good.  Mostly issues we’ve talked about on the property are ongoing.  About the only stable thing in my life that is one hundred percent tangible is the roof over my head.  I had just created a logo for my consultancy.  A nice Edwardian script that turned the LLC into a gordian knot by accident.  The website for it references the street address  along with the letters ‘vs.’  It’s very simple.  I have an appointment Monday with the bank to set up my checking with it.  I decided to pay  the rent early with a personal check of my own volition.  My personal discovery for anyone contemplating a small business is that Quickbooks is the easiest way to stay accountable for deductions.  A business check for rent does look nice.  It’s also nice if I ever have to hire someone.  I haven’t been in a lease for years.  My landlord is a family from Poland and not some huge land developer.  Largely my experience with being personally accountable for my own behavior and lifestyle is what gets me by in terms of security.  Being able to be always on in terms of being a people person is hard.  I have become an ‘on the spot’ sort of person by necessity since everyone is either up in your face or on the periphery here in Chicago.  People talk and gossip.  You can’t really hide anything here.  And yet, it’s hard to shake a stable foundation.  People talk a lot about clout out here.  When you think your history is buried and what you’ve done, it isn’t like you are in Hoffa’s grave or anything.  It’ll be dug up eventually.  And people will talk about it again and again.  There’s a point when stepping up is more like standing your ground.  And the more you stand your ground angry, the more people think you are looking for a fight.  Fighting is exhausting.  So is defending your every breath.  For however needlessly complex people process me behind my back, I’m pretty stubborn and predictable.  I’ve been on here saying the same thing for years though it has evolved considerably.  People ignore me on a level that is psychosocial at best.  I get invited to comment on professional threads on LinkedIn and it further proves the point.  Nobody listens or pays attention.  I’ve said it over and over again.  I begin to feel like the invisible man and it chews on my self worth like a meat grinder every day.  The basic metrics people use to evaluate their lives don’t really compare to what I’ve gone through.  This I know and am patient with.  People in business talk about the long term ‘scarring’ of what this economy has done to it’s people.  But they’re never in the streets with the people.  Their money is locked behind savings accounts, tax write offs, and bricks of gold not on expanding their payroll for professionals like myself.  And yet people are still hurting.  Nobody hurts more than I do even if I never show it.  I write about it week after week seemingly to an invisible audience.  An audience that probably feels exactly as invisible as I do.

That’s the trick, Mr. Potter.  I love that line.  I’ve been referencing it a lot mostly because Prometheus is on HBO.   It counts as a Christmas movie mostly because of Idris Elba’s line about time and the holidays.  Michael Fassbinder’s David is the one who is obsessed with Laurence of Arabia.  The scene is a trick involving a match.  The trick is not minding that it hurts.  How did I do it?  It was already done to me a long time ago.  And it always hurts every day the place I find myself in.  One might argue this is the human condition.  David is just jealous.  He gets his body torn in half by the maker.  Not his maker of course.  He’s just a slave to the Weyland corporation.  And later in the movie, the main tool for humanity to finally confront it’s maker.  I like the idea the main character is faced with a choice after losing everything.  Go back to earth and wait for the inevitable or head out into the unknown and face the truth.  The sacrifices are immense and the unknown just as expansive.  Just like the last couple of decades of my life.  I could go back.  Back to the workforce and fit into a tiny expectation of what my true potential is.  But nobody cares to know my name for the most part.  It does all hurt.  Sometimes it hurts all too well.  And it’s a familiar kind of hurt that is almost boring to me.  Pain for the most part and suffering largely don’t excite me very much any more.  I’m over it.  It doesn’t mean I’m beyond it.  A bass guitar literally came crashing down on my head the other day.  I’m over that as well.  It hurts more to settle with not being happy.  It hurts to be ignored.  To interpret the awkwardness of society not being able to meet you eye to eye as some sort of sleight or punishment.  The trick to breaking through people’s barriers are removing them in yourself.  What holds you back?  What overwhelms you deeply when you experience the mere hint of pain?  What keeps you from loving a person freely and what holds you back from opening your arms?  I don’t make those judgements for other people.  That’s love.  You wait and you are patient because you are free and open.  You don’t mind that it hurts.  To care about someone or something without any guarantee or expectation that they think about you at all.  The lack of validation does hurt.  It requires you to find the confidence to know that you matter.  And sometimes we overshoot this especially when our internal life isn’t in balance.  We over speculate or underestimate our value all the time.  We get ahead of ourselves or fall behind.  There is no pacing.  No self control.  The zen is somewhere in the middle through trial and error.  The trick is we feel pain and we work our way through it.  Just like I wake up sore as fuck from whatever exercise routines I keep up daily living in total isolation.  Being alone does hurt.  Having no real solid connections with people in real life sucks.  But once you get over that, you start to see the world a little differently.  It’s not about you.  It’s about the perception.  How did you do that trick?  Get your life completely fucked over time and time again and still be so cool about everything.  That’s the trick.  I’m cool as fuck.  And it hurts just as much to stay cool all these years.

It hurts less not to have to revisit the same failed ways and history.  It’s a lot easier to pay my rent no questions asked.  I can generate income doing things I like to do.  I can work as much as I want and see the results.  I can still look for a job to work for someone for less than what I’m worth as a tax write off.  I can wait six months and get vaccinated and be worth five times as much globally.  I can still participate in professional discussions and hope that if everyone ignores me the AI will eventually set me aside like Roko’s Basilisk.  And I can just keep making cautious decisions with my own investments and see where that leads.  I can be ignored year after year and feel like nobody wants me.  And then I can realize that every beautiful person I know still thinks the world of what I go through daily.  You see if you could look into my heart and see the emotion I feel after all of this, you’d break down and cry.  It’s horrendous.  I have been through literal shit.  And yet, everyone else has their soapbox.  It seems everyone’s problems are more important.  I’ve stopped trying to sell my victimhood.  It’s not a great look if you are sitting in a position of privilege.  Which to be honest, I’m not exactly living the same life of privilege as the entire professional network that pretends I died or became a spy.  The truth is I am in levels of pain nobody would ever survive.  What the world is asking of me isn’t something anyone would willfully put themselves through.  And then there’s the trick that I perform effortlessly.  How I show I care about someone without ever saying a word?  How it echoes through the net and the streets like a pulse instead of a shout.  How I never really know anything and yet I know we connect.  It’s painful to see the trick everyday expand in front of my eyes.  How I survive with little help but my own.  How people use me as a talking point and leave my name out of the equation.  How I feel like a fucking ghost and the quote echoes in my head like the memories of people that inspired me to even write here in the first place.  How nobody says anything remotely of emotional weight in reality.  How everything is just a punchline and joke to the horror nobody wants to face.  It hurts horribly to know the truth.  That it’s worse to get it half right.  To perform the trick but lose the magic.  To tell and not show.  To talk and not walk it.  To be the person who isn’t me constantly comparing themselves to someone they’ll never be.  To be on trial for the crimes of humanity and stranded just the same.  To move forward with little or no fanfare while the lies around you fall apart.  I pay my rent just the same.  I keep the faith with my friends without a word.  And I love you with no baggage other than that Jaguar rolling suitcase I picked up the other day.  Big fan of Pete Buttigieg becoming transportation secretary for the record.  I heard him say that airports are the most romantic places in the universe.  Different strokes for different folks.  Either way get used to seeing me at O’hare.  We can kiss and ride the train to my office all you want when the world comes together.  Just tell Pete to mind his own business.  Better than Rahm by a fucking lightyear.  <3 Tim

[doomedandstoned]

Talking the End of Days with Pale Grey Lore

With the release of their new record 'Eschatology' (2019) on Small Stone Records, Doomed & Stoned caught up with Pale Grey Lore frontman Michael Miller to talk about the Doomsday Clock and apocalyptic riffs....

Photo by Tristan Weary

I’m intrigued by the title of the new album, “Eschatology.” Being a P.K. myself (preacher’s kid) it had been a while since I’d heard it used. What does the word signify and how did you come to be inspired by the concept for this album?

Eschatological doctrine lays out a particular religion’s conception of the ultimate fate of humankind and how the world is destined to end. It typically includes a salvation narrative which is designed to tie up pesky philosophical loose ends like the problem of how there could possibly be an all-good, all-powerful deity who allows so much unnecessary suffering to occur in the world. The standard line is that, despite appearances, all this suffering is actually part of some kind of divine plan for cosmic justice, and when the world ends as prophesied, everything will be sorted out in some kind of eternal hereafter.

Nobody in the band is religious at all, but we all grew up in (more or less) Catholic families, so these ideas are familiar enough. And although I’m highly skeptical of the idea of salvation or the prospect of an afterlife, the end-of-the-world aspect of eschatological doctrine struck me as particularly fitting given the way we’re marching toward impending climate disaster under late capitalism.

Artwork by Adam Eckley

It seems like we’ve had a kind of love-affair with the idea of apocalypse and living in a post-apocalyptic world for at least three or four decades, ever since Mad Max captured the popular imagination. How inevitable is an “apocalyptic” event in humanity’s future, do you think?

Recently, we’ve seen increasingly dire warnings about what the planet is in for over the next few decades (see the IPCC report from last October and if that doesn’t rattle you, go ahead and search “Deep Adaptation”). The fossil fuel industry has known about the coming climate catastrophe and how to prevent it since 1977. It’s still unreal to me to think about that.

Instead of sounding the alarm and fundamentally changing how they operate, corporations did everything in their power to suppress that information and sow public doubt about the link between carbon emissions and climate change. When scientists finally convinced the public that climate change was real, corporations cleverly dodged responsibility by pushing the false narrative that individual consumer choice was the real problem, rather than the structural dependence on fossil fuels that they imposed on us without our informed consent.

Meanwhile, the Doomsday Clock moves closer and closer to midnight as nuclear non-proliferation treaties continue to expire without being renewed and states race to develop deadly new weapons. What happens when coastal regions are inundated by rising seas, food production takes a nosedive, and we find ourselves in the midst of the worst global refugee crisis in human history?

It’s difficult not to feel powerless in the face of these realizations. For me, the best and most appropriate reaction is creative expression. So that’s really what the whole concept of the album is all about. Weaving a fictional narrative that explores these themes in a fantastical context provides a sense of control and an opportunity for catharsis. It’s in some ways escapist, but it’s also deeply rooted in reality.

Eschatology by Pale Grey Lore

Can you take a moment to walk us through each of the tracks and draw out any themes or points of interest (e.g. background, composition, recording, performing, etcetera).

Like the first album, each song on ‘Eschatology’ is a sort of vignette--a brief (though not necessarily temporally adjacent) episode in the grand timeline of our concept world.

Album opener “Sunken Cities” is told from the perspective of the survivors in the aftermath of the greatest and most destructive war the planet has ever seen. “Greed Springs Eternal” depicts disaster capitalism and unaccountable oligarchy in a flashback to the pre-war era. On “Before the Fall,” revolutionaries who resisted corporate neo-feudalism in the final days of the empire struggle to cope with nuclear winter. Flashing back in time again, “Regicide” depicts an assassination attempt that, had it succeeded, could have radically altered the course of history. The final track of side A, “Waiting for the Dawn,” is a morbidly romantic number that takes place after the nuclear winter is over and the surface finally becomes (more or less) habitable again.

Side B kicks off with “The Rift,” which describes the reality-warping arrival of cosmic horrors that feed on entropy, attracted to destruction and suffering like moths to a flame. We flash back to the great war on “Void-Cursed,” with the ruling elites fleeing into space as the planet burns behind them. “Silent Command” depicts the fate of unwary travellers who stumble across the strange towers that appear across the landscape once the cosmic rift has closed. “Undermined” is part of the liturgy of a pre-war religious sect that started out critical of the rapacious oligarchy but later transformed into an accelerationist death-cult. And finally, the title track “Eschatology” is a nihilistic sermon from the death-cult’s high priest urging his followers (who are largely members of the ruling elite) to achieve salvation by actively doing whatever they can to make things worse.

Film by Cleveland Underground Scene

What was the studio experience like for you this time around? Did you find it refined any of the songs written or that it brought more cohesion to the album as a whole?

Like the first album, Eschatology was recorded and mixed by our friend Andy Sartain at his Columbus home studio. Andy is very chill and always creates a relaxed and supportive environment, which is what you want if you are trying to coax the best possible performance out of a band. One big change from the first album is that in the interim we added a new member, our guitarist Xander, who went to college for audio engineering. His background in music production was immensely valuable and made a huge impact on the record.

We definitely didn’t rush the recording process on this one. I think the fact that we took our time with it definitely helped create more cohesion. We did the initial live tracking of drums, bass, and rhythm guitar in early December and spent the next month and a half doing the overdubs and adding layers. Some of the newer songs that we hadn’t really played live much only developed into their final forms in the studio environment after we were able to hear some early playback. Even the songs we had played a good amount live benefitted from the extra layers and dimensions we were able to add in the studio. The time spent in the studio really was a kind of final capstone component to the songwriting for us.

Photo by Tristan Weary

What are some of the tools of the trade that you’re using to produce your sound?

Adam plays a Gretsch drum kit and uses Zildjian K Custom cymbals. Donovan plays a Rickenbacker bass through an Ampeg V4b and an early 70s Sunn cab. Xander runs a Vox AC30 and an Orange Dual Terror and primarily plays a modded Fender Strat. I run two late 60s Sunn amps and alternate between a Gibson SG and an Epiphone Casino Coupe hollowbody, both with P-90s. We have many, many pedals. We also have a theremin.

You recently played Ohio Doomed & Stoned Festival. What are some of the things you do to ensure that your live sound comes across just the way you want it to?

Ohio Doomed & Stoned Festival was an absolute blast. I was very happy to help fest organizer Dan Simone (of the killer Cleveland band Black Spirit Crown) put together the lineup. Last year was the first year we did the fest, and it was a great success. This year was even better, and I’m sure the best is yet to come. Ohio has so many great heavy underground rock bands, and this fest is one of the best showcases of that talent. As anyone who plays heavy music knows, we need to be pretty loud to do our thing properly. That doesn’t translate well in some spaces and sometimes the person running sound at a venue is inexperienced or just doesn’t know how to work with heavy music.

What do you see are some of the common mistakes bands make when translating their songs to the stage?

As far as advice for up and coming bands goes, I would say the best way to ensure that you sound decent live is to practice your ass off beforehand so that even if you can’t hear anything on stage, you still play well because of the muscle memory.

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