#not to say harveys in the clear here. i can see just. GLIMPSES of how kind he is but he hides it and hes casually cruel and manipulative

[accidental-spice]

*face-palming* I swear, Harvey and Mike are gonna send me to an early grave

[jesncin]

So Two Face in Caped Crusader (spoilers)

Out of all the characters that were announced for Caped Crusader, I was most intrigued over their potential re-imagining of Harvey Dent as Two Face. His description as "a corrupt DA who uses his position to help rich criminals evade justice [...] when he gets his face disfigured, for the first time in his life he actually feels empathy for other people" felt the most substantially interesting a change, even if it sounded like a huge departure from his standard origin. I'm here for shakeups, this show is already establishing itself as having an out there elseworld energy to it so I was curious.

for reference, this is how I'd visualize a very standard Harvey origin story. It's a typical, straightforward tragedy that works. A mix of Harvey's fall from grace as Gotham's good boy to a criminal makes it all the more devastating when he's close friends with Bruce Wayne- someone who keeps giving Harvey second chances because he feels he can see just a glimpse of his old friend there. A great dark reflection of Bats, 10/10, no wonder people consider Harvey as strong an arch-enemy as Joker. Simple, effective, functional.

This is what I thought Caped Crusader was going to do based on what Bruce Timm said in promotion. It's a take with some good merit- I'm imagining a Harvey who's a corrupt, privileged hot jerk who gets humbled when that corruption bites back and disfigures him. But instead of that accident awakening "previous violent tendencies" or an alter identity, perhaps (as a switch up) it's instead something that marginalizes him. His pretty privilege is literally half effective now, and suddenly he is on the receiving end of judgement he so willingly gave others. He'd be depressed, anxious, maybe some PTSD going on over the acid face incident- recognizing that many of the rogues are like him but he chooses empathy instead.

The standard tragedy of Bruce seeing glimpses of his "old friend" in Two Face would have to be changed. Maybe this time Bruce is surprised at this change of heart? Believes in second chances even if Harvey's methods can be sorta out there (kinda reminds him of himself)? Would Harvey even be violent at all? Perhaps he genuinely became a kinder, empathetic guy but has a tragic end- forcing Bruce to wonder if that kind of hope for change is possible. Or bolder yet, make him a redeemed bad guy and one of the people on team good. Maybe he's the exception to the One Bad Day theme- perhaps Gotham doesn't poison everything good.

I'm not saying my take on their description is perfect or anything (it's certainly not as perennial and self-sustaining a villain motive. Feels more built for a tragic end or redemption, etc.), just that this is where my brain went, and thought "yeah there's something here, sure I'll hear you out."

So imagine my surprise when Caped Crusader delivered what's basically a very non-committal version of Two Face's standard origin???

The lack of contrast between his pre and post-accident transformation (other than "he's more extreme now") makes the change way less dramatic. Harvey starts off as a corrupt DA who butts heads with Good Lawyer Barbara Gordon, but apparently he's not corrupt enough to take an offer from the mob. So when he does eventually accept their offer out of pressure, it doesn't feel as dramatic a descent since he was already set up to be some level of corrupt. His "good change of heart" post-accident doesn't feel that dramatic when the whole reason he got acid-faced is because he grew the morals to reject the mob's assistance.

Then there's his relationship with Bruce. It's worthy of a whole other post so I won't go too deep into it, but Caped Crusader makes it clear that Bruce Wayne in this take is a performance. Not only do we barely see Bruce and Harvey interact throughout the first half of the show, but when they finally do they don't feel particularly close. Bruce went missing one time and Harvey was concerned for him, but they forgot to wrap that up. Later after Harvey's acid-accident, Bruce takes him out to dinner. This is revealed to be a play Batman's doing to pressure Harvey into telling Bruce who assaulted him. It's framed... very strangely. The show makes it look like Bruce pushed Harvey over the edge to get answers, but what Bruce did wasn't particularly cruel or unique to him. If it wasn't Bruce, someone else would have asked Harvey out to dinner eventually. If Bruce forced him to do a public interview with the press (putting Harvey on the spot publicly before he's ready), then I'd get it. But taking Harvey out to dinner among friends isn't the cruel and inconsiderate act the show frames it to be. Then they have a meet up again in Arkham, where Bruce attempts to comfort Harvey into accepting Barbara's offer to represent him. It's still not a very genuine interaction. "Don't start growing a conscience now, Dent." it still feels like a play on Batman's part. Like he wants to protect Harvey so that a less-evil politician is in charge of Gotham. Not as a friend.

By creating a Bruce that isn't personally close to Harvey, we lose what makes their standard dynamic so tragic. There's literally a line of dialogue where Harvey has to tell us, the audience, that Bruce is his old friend because what they've shown us isn't very convincing. So who does that leave as his foil? Barbara Gordon. Yes, because when you make a Batman that doesn't care to have genuine relationships with his cast system because he's so dedicated to the mission, that means other characters who care more (Barbara) have to fill that void. There's a reason why it's Barbara who causes Harley to turn over a new leaf, the reason why the police force are more centered in the narrative compared to Bats, why she's the one targeted with an assassination attempt.

I was honestly surprised that post-acid face incident, Two-Face's arc was fairly standard? He goes on a killing spree and doesn't believe in the Justice system anymore. Only this time Harvey's moments of "humanity" are signaled with him covering his pretty boy face, framing his disfigured side as the empathetic one instead of his pretty boy side. That's basically it though, it's an aesthetic change and the story would play out the same regardless of which half of his face he covered during those moments. I thought the disfigured face representing empathy was meant to symbolize something. Like marginalization of a sort? But it really was just that- "it's the other side that's the nice one now".

After Harvey's murder spree he's shown to be kinder, but I wouldn't really call it empathy (as described in the promotion). It felt more like guilt. Harvey felt he wasn't worth saving or protecting because of his actions (pre and post acid face). He's disgusted by what he's able to get away with because of his privilege, but that's not exactly empathy is it? There's that moment Harvey helps an Arkham inmate get his comfort plush returned to him, but we don't know where that kindness comes from. What informs his empathy to criminals? It just sorta happened, unmotivated or thematic.

I figured if they're not committing to a drastically different Harvey, it meant they wanted to keep him as a long standing rogue so they made noncommittal changes to his origin. But nope, they killed him off in the last episode! Which makes me think "well then if you were going to kill him, then why not go all the way with a drastically different Harvey then??" That very obviously click-bait moment where Batman picks up a gun and fake-shoots a corrupt cop after Harvey is killed didn't even feel motivated because he was barely friends with Harvey. I'm not even convinced he's sad about his supposed friend being killed. Harvey risks his life to save Barbara after all.

It's all just a mess of pieces. They want to make brave new changes to Harvey's origin, but are held back by their noncommittal choices and their "crime fighting machine" version of Bruce. Out of all the rogues, Harvey was essentially the only one we got to see his fall from grace happen in real time. The rest of the rogues skipped to having a gimmick/costume/villain motive already and I think that robs us of being able to empathize with them. Yet even Harvey struggles thematically. The duality theme is absent, the tragedy of a childhood friend gone rogue doesn't exist, and the inclusion of the coin toss felt like an obligation instead of an integrated part of his ideals.

Batman said "Dent put his thumb on the scale in court sometimes, but he did care about justice." Really? Because the show started with Dent trying to get an innocent boy convicted as an ad for his mayoral campaign. You can't keep telling me this version of Harvey "cares about Justice" only to show me something else. If you had a Harvey who faked evidence or forced witnesses to lie in order to convict a bad guy Barbara didn't realize she was defending, then we'd have a properly morally grey situation that matches how Batman describes him in the show. Alfred ended the season saying "Harvey Dent was twisted by ambition. He lost sight of his own humanity." That's not what I watched. The Harvey Caped Crusader showed me started off as corrupt and every now and then did the right thing, and felt guilt over his power, post-acid face incident. It means something that the show essentially had to tell us how to feel about him, because the show itself certainly wasn't sure what to do with him.

[glittter-skeleton]

Oswald Cobblepot as seem in “Gotham” may have Borderline Personality Disorder, my dudes

So I want to prefix this by saying that this is no way meant as an attack on people with BPD. I know he’s a murderer and a bad person in general but he’s also the best thing about my favorite show. He’s a great character and not just in a fun villain way. I think he’s complex, interesting and I haven’t seen this take on him a lot outside of some posts like him on @bpdcharacteroftheday. I like learning about neurodivergency and relating it to stuff I like really helps with remembering and staying invested. I myself do not have Borderline Personality Disorder or relate to many of the symptoms so I really hope this is not offensive. I tried getting my research from reliable sources but I’m real sh*t at reading so it’s mostly YouTube videos. Most of this is from MedCircle and Dr. Ramani, my beloved. Usually you need 5 out of 9 symptoms for a diagnosis as is with most diagnoses because all people experience the world differently (so if my examples for some of these are more flimsy than others that’s kinda how it is in real life). I should also note that we as an audience don’t really know what is going on in his brain so a lot of these are based on my personal reading of the character. Let’s begin with the symptoms!

1. Intense, rapidly-shifting moods. What makes these mood swings different from periods of mania as we see in people with bipolar disorder is that they are a lot quicker with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days. People with BPD are usually described by experiencing emotions way more strongly than neurotypical people do. This is what we get a lot with Oswald as he is practically characterized by his big emotional outbursts. A good example of a shift would be in the beginning of season 5 when he goes from angrily threatening his men to cooing Edward in the matter of seconds.

2. Intense/inappropriate/repressed anger. Again, a thing we see with him very often in scenes where Robin Lord Taylor looks like he’s about to choke on his own spit. This is totally normal for the amount of sh*t this man goes through but he does it even at pretty minor inconveniences like when after when Jim gets shot in season 5 and Harvey assumes it was him only to get a “temper tantrum”. Like, yeah, he got punched but that’s a clear overreaction or an absolutely normal reaction from a man with BPD.

3. Fear of abandonment (real or imagined). In most of the stuff a watch it was stated that this was one of the most important factors that form the rest of the symptoms.

The fear of being abandoned as in being scared of it. Like in the scene with Barbara telling him to get his sh*t together. Ed has not left nor betrayed him at that point, but he still seems to be falling asleep on the sofa and crying his eyes out. We see this again with him passing around the room and throwing vases when Fries and Brigit leave. And of course the most clear example is with Isabella as (among other reasons) he sees her as the beginning of the end that will make his love abandon him.

Rapidly initiating intimate (physical or emotional) relationships. We can see this most clearly with Ed as on screen Oswald goes from aggression and disinterest to singing songs and laughter quite quickly. There is no in between scene if you think about it. He goes from threatening Ed with a knife to killing with him and that’s that. Later in the show he is much slower with forming these connections like with Sofia but here we get a glimpse of what his natural response is.

Difficulty trusting, which is sometimes accompanied by irrational fear of other people’s intentions. Wow, isn’t that just him in a nutshell. As quick as he is to idealize (which we’ll talk about in a second), getting through to him is very very hard. Just think of how much stuff Sophia had to do in order for him to believe her and even then he would have constant doubts. This, however, is probably not an innate quality of his as in the world he has found himself in there isn’t much place for trust as most people around him really cannot be trusted, so this argument is a bit flawed.

4. A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation). Though we don't see this type of behavior with everyone he does seem to idealize the people that do get close. After saving Oswald life Jim immediately becomes a friend and ally though he did nothing more than offer basic human decency; his mother who we as see wasn’t perfect and often quite patronizing is seen as a saint and Ed who he had known for like 3 months at best and has had some questionable behavior (going behind his back for the sake of a grand reveal, refusing help when Oswald needed it most after Arkham) is the love of his life. The rest, however helpful they may be, are just stepping stones for him be that Butch, Fish or Mr. Penn

5. Unstable self-image/low self-esteem. This one doesn’t fit him that well as he has a pretty clear image of who he wants to be aka. the king of Gotham. He also presents himself extremely confidently and we don’t really know how he feels about himself or whether his suits are a protection mechanism or just a preference. What I am going to point out is that this more casually manifests in things like frequent changes in image. He does a lot of this with his hairstyles and multitudes of styles of suit. (Yes, they’re always dark and vaguely alternative-inspired but you can’t tell he didn’t get a full wardrobe change somewhere after his first stay in Arkham and in the beginning of season 5)

6. Chronic feelings of loneliness or emptiness. He’s when we stumble across that “can’t read his mind” problem but to me personally he does seem lonely throughout most of the show. He doesn’t have many friends and from his speech to Ed the popsicle we know that even in a moment of triumph he sees himself as frozen. He has everything he could want and even some confidants yet still feels unhappy.

7. Self-destructive behavior (substance abuse, self-injury, excessive spending or sex, eating disorders, gambling, risky driving, etc.). Just… drinking. So much drinking with him, god.

8. Suicidal thoughts or behaviors. This one is another that doesn’t line up very smoothly as he’s very protective of himself and doesn’t threaten his life unless completely necessary but one can only put his life in danger so many time before it becomes a pattern. The fight for Gotham was a suicide mission thought so there’s that.

9. Feelings of dissociation, such as feeling cut off from oneself, seeing oneself from outside one’s body, or feelings of unreality. Again, no way to confirm or deny but in my read I’m leaning towards no.

So… yeah, I think they somehow accidentally managed to write a character with BPD and stayed true to it unlike Ed’s autistic coding that just… disappears. I hope this was interesting and encourage you to learn more about this and supporting neurodivergent folk

[it-was-all-a-beautiful-dream]

Silva Lining (Saul Silva x Reader) Chapter 5

Warnings: Mentions of blood/swearing

Word count: 2.2k

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-Unknown POV-

“Y/N! Y/N, wake up, it’s not your time yet. There’s much to be done! Dangers are close. They won’t be able to stop the danger without you. You must wake up, for you are the key to it all, you hold the dragon soul.” 

-Saul’s POV-

“Where the fuck is she?” Saul screamed out, partly because he was in pain from his wounds, partly because he’d just seen the girl he loved fall like a sack of bricks to the ground with blood gushing from her mouth and nose. A couple of Specialists had helped to drag Saul to Mr Harveys lab, he’d been there for all of 20 minutes when he regained consciousness and started flailing around like a mad man, the only thought on his mind, you. He’d passed out when he watched you fall through the portal, only to wake up with the professor poking and prodding at his burned one wound. He couldn’t help but scream in pain, the infection spreading through his body, crawling through him like he was covered in thousands of ants. His veins black, filled with the dark disease. 

“Saul, she’s fine, she’s in the medical wing, in a secluded room, i’ve had to suspend her body in a comma like state for the time being.” Farah stroked Saul’s head as he lay getting his wounds tended. She could see the pain and shock flutter across his face. “She will be okay Saul I promise, it’s just a precaution while her powers regenerate, she should be awake by the end of the day.” Farah looked at him sadly.

“You know? How?” Saul could tell that Farah knew about his and Y/N relationship, but how? For how long? 

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. How long have we known you Saul? We’ve seen the way you look at her, the burning desire you have to always protect her. God, if I wasn’t mistaken i’d even say sometimes I can physically see the energy between the both of you. You’ve never looked at anyone like that in the years i’ve known you, not once.” Ben smiled and Farah frowned. Saul couldn’t believe that both of his friends knew and yet, they hadn’t done anything about it. 

“Please Farah, i’m sorry, I never wanted to keep it a secret, I didn’t meant for it to happen, it just did.” He placed his hand over his heart, worried that now the secret was out, things were about to change and not for the better. 

“Mate, you don’t have to worry, your secret is safe with us. We just want you to be happy, you can’t help who you love.” Ben finished cleaning the wound and helped Saul lay down fully, patting him on the shoulder. 

“I need to see her, Please, you should have seen what she did out there, it was scary, amazing, i’ve never seen anything like it before. She looked so fragile Farah, please I have to see her.” Farah patted Saul on the hand, explaining that Y/N needed rest and so did he, it wouldn’t be a good time and a good thing for him to see her the way she was. He tried to fight it he did, but before he could fight any more, the medicine Ben had given him started to kick in and the world faded into a blur of colours and objects and eventually, nothing. 

-Your POV-

You groaned. What a weird dream you’d had. Your eyes flickered catching glimpses of a fluttery sparkly, silver force surrounding your body, then they closed again, your body still tired from your excessive use of magic. 

They opened. Again, the same fluttering force surrounded you, it felt almost warm, powerful, like a battery, charging you, regenerating your life force. The sky outside was lighter now, but your eyes still fluttered, closing for a second time, your body still not ready to awaken.

It was light again by the time your eyes opened all the way and open they stayed. The fluttering force field of energy was replaced by black tendrils of your magic wrapped around yourself like a cocoon. You reeled them back in and winced as you sat up, your throat dry like sandpaper. You saw movement from the corner of your eye, then a glass of water was handed to you by a familiar pair of hands. Silva. His eyes were still tinted with black, he looked tired and his face was pale. Taking the water you drank greedily then set it to the side, you couldn’t help the sob that escaped your lips, Silva moved you over and lay down on the bed with you taking you in his arms, you didn’t fail to notice the wince he gave when he lay down. He was still infected. He was your safety blanket, your safe haven, your home and he was dying. 

“How long was I out? How long has it been?” Saul kissed your hair, his other hand tracing circles on the skin exposed on your hip. 

“You’ve been in a coma for a week Y/N, I thought i’d lost you, Farah said you would have been awake by the end of the day, when you didn’t come round, we feared the worst.” He nuzzled your hair with his nose, breathing deeply, holding you a little tighter, happy that you’d finally woken. 

“You’re still infected? Why haven’t they killed the burned one yet.” You sat up slightly craning your neck to look at Saul, he sighed and his head fell into the crook of your neck. 

“Sweetheart, the problem is a lot bigger than we initially thought, there wasn’t just one burned one, there’s a whole group of them.. fighters killed one this morning, but as you can see, it wasn’t the one that got me.” Your jaw clenched, gritting your teeth to hold back the tears. 

“I won’t let you die Saul, you can’t leave me, you’re all I have in the world.” Your arms wrapped around him tighter and you snuggled down, listening to your mans steady heartbeat. 

-Later that night- 

After the morning spent with Saul, after him telling you that Farah and Ben knew about your relationship and they were going to keep in hush hush, you were given the all clear and were aloud to leave the medical bay. It hadn’t taken long for you to get roped into going to the Specialists party, and you couldn’t help but notice the stares and smiles people gave you in the hall, which you later found out was a new found appreciation for your powers and the fact you saved Silva from a worser fate. 

The party was in full swing but you didn’t feel like drinking, just incase anything happened to Silva, you wanted to be able to help if it came to it. He had reassured you that he would be spending the evening with Farah and Ben, reminiscing about the days when he trained at Alfea, telling you that he was one that started the annual Specialist keg party, but that was apparently a story for another time. 

Looking across the crowded room, you noticed Sky wasn’t drinking either. He was looking around, then caught your eye, suddenly making his way towards you. All of a sudden you were scooped up into a hug, by the taller Blonde guy. You laughed shocked and awkwardly hugged him back. 

“You saved him, you got him out of there, thank you.” You smiled. “I always knew there was something between you two, he never shuts up about you, you make him so happy.” You blushed. 

“God it seems that everyone knows about us when we were trying to keep it a secret the whole time, is it really that obvious?” He laughed and shook his head, his har falling in front of his eyes slightly. 

“No, only the people who know Saul best, so now that me, Headmistress Dowling and Prof Harvey know, I think your secret is safe.” Sky leant against the brick wall, taking a look around the room, a slight frown on his face. He still had a lot on his mind. Stella was across the other side, she noticed the two of you talking but all she did was raise her cup and nod in your direction, knowing that nothing would ever happen between you and the guy she loved. 

“Y/N, he’s dying you know. You’ve been out for a week so you won’t have been able to see the difference. He was better at the start, he’s just gone down hill from here. He didn’t want me to tell you but he tried to tell me goodbye earlier, just incase things went wrong, he didn’t want to worry you. We have to do something.” Well shit. Way to ruin the party mood you thought. Your heart felt like it was squeezed in a vice, your stomach tied in nots and all the air seemed to leave your lungs. It was really that bad? You knew that something had to be done, and that’s when you and Sky came up with your plan. 

It was around midnight when you met Sky at the edge of the barrier. Accompanied by Bloom? You didn’t ask.. the more the merrier you guessed, you needed all the help you could get and you knew that for some reason Bloom was able to sense the Burned Ones near, it was like having your own sniffer Fairy, you snickered to yourself which landed you strange looks from the pair. 

To say you were nervous was an understatement, you’ve seen first hand what the masters are capable of, but you also knew how much you were capable of, your powers sometimes making you feel untouchable. Bloom had lead you into the middle of the woods, she could hear it. It wasn’t until you saw the red eyes and heard it’s cry that you jumped into action. The three of you were pushed back, you hit the floor with a thud, the wind knocked out of you. 

“Close your eyes!” Stella? You turned and caught a glimpse of her before you closed your eyes. Even behind your eyelids you saw the forrest come to life with the light of Stella’s powers. Great, now it really was the more the merrier, you should have known that your roommates would come to the rescue, you were grateful, but you also feared for their safety. 

Stella and Musa helped you stand while Bloom hit the monster with the force of of her fire powers, Aisha hit it next sending the thing crashing to the floor where Sky finished it off with his sword. You winced, noticing you’d bumped your head on a rock when pushed back, blood matted in your hair, but you’d live. 

“I don’t think its dea-“ Musa started but never got to finish her sentence when the burned one burst into pieces. You all turned slowly when you heard the pissed off voice of Headmistress Dowling. 

Walking back in silence was weird. You still had a shit eating grin plastered on your face though. What if this was the one? The one that had got Saul. He’d be saved. You practically ran with Sky when you got to the barrier. Both of you walked cautiously through the green house doors, Ben was taking off Sauls bandages, you felt like you’d been holding your breath for hours. Letting Sky go in first, you felt a little dizzy, so tried to catch your breath. 

“You are an idiot, a stupid, impulsive, reckless idiot!” Well, he sure did sound like the old Saul you know and loved. 

“Is it better?” Sky asked in a frantic voice. You held your breath again. At this rate, you’d be able to give Aisha a run for her money at swimming with the amount of breath holding you had going on.

“Don’t smile at him” Ben laughed as Saul told him off and you peaked your head around the door to see Saul and Sky hugging. Happy tears ran down your face, it felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. You coughed a little to gain their attention. Saul’s face flickered with a load of emotions, anger, surprise, happiness, love… then worry as he noticed the blood matted in your hair. 

“I had some help.” Sky pat Saul on the shoulder and left the room, giving your shoulder a pat too. Ben noticed you and took it as his cue to leave and give you both some much needed privacy. Then it was just the two of you. 

“Before you say anything I know it was stupid I know, I just couldn’t stand back and watch you die!” You’d barely pushed yourself off the edge of the door before Silva was in front of you, hand on the side of your face, drawing you in for a kiss that made you almost grateful that you didn’t have wings because the feeling he gave you in that kiss, would have had you soaring up into outer space. 

“So, you’re feeling better then?”

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Okay so I feel like this is slightly filler? IDK. I just hope you guys enjoy it, I can't believe the amount of support i’ve been getting over this story... im so grateful you don't even know! Let me know what you think in the comments... what you think should happen next, what you like/don't like.

Chapter 6 pt1 ------- CLICK HERE 

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[somedew-fictions]

okay so, the prompt! basically, it's summer year two and the player is completely overwhelmed. he doesn't know how to manage his farm properly now that he's starting to expand out, and it's really been getting to him. harvey notices and decides to help clear out some of the farm and do some sweet things for his husband to help? plz n ty!

I'll admit its a bit choppy, but there was so much I wanted to include in such little words! I hope you enjoy it!~

"Harvey?" the farmer asks, yawning as they leave their bedroom and enter the living room. "Did you put the coffee pot on already?" They wander into the kitchen, expecting to see their husband, only to find him missing from his normal spot at the dining table, already reading yesterday's morning paper from Zuzu City.

What is there is a pot of coffee, ready to be brewed with just a press of a button. The farmer walks over to it and turns it on before looking around the remainder of the kitchen for clues.

By chance they glance out the kitchen window at the farm to catch a glimpse of a strange figure leaning over in the tomato field, and instantly their already sore muscles tense. The farmer rushes out of the kitchen and through the front door to confront the figure for being on their property, but as soon as they are at the bottom of the steps they realize who it is-

"Harvey? What are you doing this early in the morning?" The farmer calls out to him, making their way across the farm in their slippers, stepping along the makeshift dug out path they had created. "You are going to throw your back out!"

"Morning honey!" Harvey stands up straight and grins, waving at the farmer with one hand, a watering can in the other. "I thought if I watered the crops over here, you could focus on setting up the new field with sprinklers! I can handle this~" he exemplifies his talents, watering another tomato plant.

The farmer stops advancing towards him, a little star struck at his words and actions. Harvey never really showed much interest in helping with farm work before. Harvey continues to water the plants, giving the farmer nothing else to say, so they simply return inside the farm house to drink their coffee, have breakfast, and get dressed for the day.

The farmer spends all morning setting up the South side of the farm, tilling new farmland and planning out the new sprinkler system they want to install. Its only their second year in Pelican Town but the farm has suddenly picked up interest at the beginning of Spring. This means the farmer is getting orders for a large amount of crops that they have no space to grow because people in neighboring towns miss having fresh, local produce after their grandfather passed.

They return to the farm house at noon to rest and grab proper tools, realizing a large stump and quite a few trees are in the way of them tilling the new farm land in the area they want. Upon entering the house, the farmer is greeted by Harvey who rushes out of the kitchen with a grin.

"I put together a lunch for you! It should give you enough energy to continue expanding the farm today," he beams, leading the farmer into the kitchen where a bowl of freshly cut fruit and a smoothie is waiting for them.

"Aw, thank you," the farmer kisses Harvey on the cheek, giving him a grateful smile. "There are still a bunch of trees and stumps left in that area I want to expand to though, so I have to go back out and clear it for the rest of the day."

"Is that so?" Harvey asks, the farmer nodding as they put pieces of fruit into their mouth. He thinks for a moment before leaving the kitchen entirely, the front door opening and closing after a few minutes passing.

Thinking that Harvey is acting weird but deciding to ignore it, the farmer quickly eats the lunch Harvey had prepared for them and goes to grab their tools so they can continue working. Yet to their confusion, their axe is gone. Unable to find it anywhere they might have misplaced it, they decide to go back and at least finish planning their expansion to spot Harvey in the distance, the missing axe in his hands as he lifts it up into the air and strikes the tree in front of him.

"Harvey!" The farmer yells, running over to their husband. "Don't hurt yourself~"

Harvey looks over his shoulder at the farmer with a grin, sweat already matting down his hair to his forehead. He is dressed in pants and a sleeveless shirt, his glasses slipping down his nose. He looks proud of himself as the farmer rushes over with concern over their face.

"I have to stay in shape somehow," he assures them as they go to take the axe away from him. "Its okay~"

"Harvey, what has gotten into you today?!" The farmer exclaims, blinded by their concern for their husband's safety.

"Sweet heart-" he tries to stop them but they talk over him.

"You could blister your hands, Harvey!" They scold, but Harvey sets his hands on their shoulders and stops them, making them look him in the eyes.

"I. Am. Fine." He says more firmly this time. "Your blood pressure has been through the roof for two weeks now, and your stress levels are simply too high. I want to help you. This is OUR farm now, isn't it?"

The farmer stares at him for a moment, letting his words sink in. Unable to think of a reply, Harvey's smile returns and he sets a kiss on their forehead, taking the axe back from their hands.

"OUR farm," he repeats. "If you finish marking the plans, I can keep chopping down a few trees and you can focus on what is important."

"O... Okay," the farmer sighs, giving into his words. "Our farm," they confirm before lifting their head more confidently, smiling at their husband.

Suddenly, everything feels a lot easier, knowing that Harvey is at their side.

[grandhotelabyss]

Speaking of his comparatively small output, Ishiguro said: “I don’t have any regrets about it. In some ways, I suppose, I’m just not that dedicated to my vocation. I expect it’s because writing wasn’t my first choice of profession. It’s almost something I fell back on because I couldn’t make it as a singer-songwriter. It’s not something I’ve wanted to do every minute of my life. It’s what I was permitted to do. So, you know, I do it when I really want to do it, but otherwise I don’t.”

Giles Harvey, “Kazuo Ishiguro Sees What the Future Is Doing to Us”

(A long New York Times profile to crown the publicity campaign for Klara and the Sun, which I will read and review just as soon as it arrives, though I have a foreboding that it won’t add much to Never Let Me Go. 

We here at Grand Hotel Abyss are interested in what we have elsewhere called “esoterica in the literary press”—what in other genres of writing would just be called themes or subtexts but which demand a more menacing appellation in the field of journalism, where writing is supposed to be transparent as glass. The undercurrent in Harvey’s piece is dolce far niente, which you can see if you compare how Harvey characterizes Ishiguro’s writing practice—as inspired laziness—to the way it’s described as an almost spiritualized martial art in the Guardian profile [“a process he compares to a samurai sword fight”]. 

Why this cryptic defense of the indolent? It accompanies an attempt to reinterpret the politics of Ishiguro’s fiction for the present, even though the first novels belong to the early triumphalist neoliberal moment in their skepticism of all organized politics. Never Let Me Go extends this skepticism to the organizations that have taken the place of politics and therefore breaks through into a true critique of neoliberalism. Never Let Me Go speaks to so many on a nearly forbidden channel because it is, more specifically, a critique of the feminine modes of domination that our era brings to the fore [e.g., as I’ve mentioned already, “why won’t men go to therapy?”]. 

We’ve discussed Nancy Armstrong before in these electronic pages; she wrote the book on the realist novel as a feminine mode of domination, and when she turns to Ishiguro’s science fiction—noting, as did the late Swedish Academy secretary Sara Danius, his odd resemblance both to Jane Austen and to Franz Kafka—she seemingly gets the message:

That is to say, as Kathy verbally replenishes her biologically depleted emotional life by describing all the connections she has made by means of this ruthless logic, what can only be called positive affect pulses back through the web of pathways which end in death. As it does so, her story converts the deaths of individual students into the form of life in common shared even by the dead in Walter Benjamin’s poignant lament for the passing of the traditional village storyteller. As it thus converts loss into connection at once banal and unavailable to normal individuals, Kathy’s story, I would argue, proposes a model of community that does not hark back to a bygone pastoral world, as Benjamin’s does, so much as open up the possibility that even individuals who consider themselves irreplaceable can and must acknowledge the continuous biological substratum on which they are already inscribed.

But Armstrong’s dense theoretical disquisition on a new post-novelistic model of community, as much as Harvey’s journalistic portrait of the artist as neo-social-democrat, doesn’t penetrate to the real Ishiguran esoterica. The author presents himself as a genial bumbling Englishman, a very decent liberal, a kindly multi-genre humanist like Gaiman or Mitchell—see his Amanda-Palmer-quoting daughter—who lacks even the grit in the eye you get from Amis or Rushdie. This is the softer book-club version of what Harvey and Armstrong are selling. Harvey writes,   

Ishiguro came of age as a writer in the early 1980s, when market fundamentalism was sweeping Britain and the West, a development that caught him entirely off guard. “I never wanted revolution,” he said of his younger self. “But I did believe we could progress towards a more socialist world, a more generous welfare state. I went a long way into my adult life believing that was the consensus. When I was 24 or 25, I realized that Britain had taken a very different turn with the coming of Margaret Thatcher.” Although his books never explicitly address Thatcher’s neoliberal project, they reflect its dismaying human consequences. For Ishiguro’s characters, not working is not an option, or even a proclivity. 

So much in his work is “not an option.” I think of the doomed clones torturing the fly in Never Let Me Go, the pianist enacting his great performance only when thinks he’s alone in The Unconsoled, the painter becoming a fascist because he sympathizes with the poor and oppressed in An Artist of the Floating World. The temptation is to recuperate this for a progressive politics in some watered-down Adornian reading that would show his works’ negativity to subtract from the world the very shape our hopes ought to take so that they become handbooks for utopia once you reverse the writing [I weakly lapsed into this at the end of my essay on Never Let Me Go]. His post-Nobel insistence on his genial liberalism points this way as much as does Armstrong’s summary of his work’s purpose as “provid[ing] a glimpse of what it might be like to live without the misbegotten notion that being a self-contained subject is the best and only way of being fully human,” or Harvey’s quiet argument for social democracy as a system that will allow us to be productively lazy just like the author. 

The theme, the subtext, the esoterica is something else, though, something less like socialism in cipher and more akin to a philosophy of quiet retreat, inner exile, beneath the posture of conformity, something like Kierkegaard’s Knight of Faith or Jünger’s Anarch, though let me finish Eumeswil before you quote me on the latter. 

The 20th century is dying more slowly than Onegin’s uncle, but it’s still clear what the future holds: corporatist biosurveillance city-states, which will come in “woke” Zuck/Bezos forms with democratic-socialist veneers and “based” Thiel/Musk versions that are more frank, but which will be the same in the end. Why else does even the present political left’s theory of “equity,” as encapsulated in this genuinely disgusting meme, imply the coerced correction of inherent biological inequality? This is the point I’ve been making since my essay on Spike Jonez’s Her in 2014: what the woke and the based want is basically the same thing—the juridical and biological extermination of the human being. Some will advertise this state of affairs as the expansion of humanism and the alternative to neoliberalism Ishiguro says he was hoping for. They will buy and sell our information and our atoms and tell us it’s freedom, they will bribe us a pittance to be serfs and call it socialism, and like Kathy and Ryder we will do our best to play our part with pride and decency. It is to this future that Ishiguro’s best novels offer a guide.

Further reading: check the Kazuo Ishiguro tag over at the main site for me on A Pale View of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World, Never Let Me Go, The Buried Giant, and a first response to Ishiguro’s Nobel. Confession: I’ve never read When We Were Orphans; I should have by now, but I know so little about its historical setting and am always intimidated by the word-problem aspect of detective novels, so I’ve put it off.)

[thefroggod]

Suits 8x16

So for the entirety of the episode we really only get Harvey’s internal turmoil, Donna only gets a few scenes, which is understandable, it is a season finale & it is titled ‘Harvey’. But the few scenes that we get with Donna still don’t fully explain why at the end of the episode she understands that Harvey is ready to take that next step.

So here is my attempt to explain what I think is going on in Donna’s head.

So first let’s break down the scenes that Donna does have, the very first is obviously happening on the same night as Hardman turning up with the lawsuit, Donna’s conversation with Thomas is there to set up the fact that she didn’t expect her action of telling Thomas he was a stalking horse to cause this much hassle, if Thomas hadn’t put out the press release they could have said that he just got a better deal from his original partner. It also means now, that Thomas is aware of the actually stakes going on.

 The proceeding scene with Donna, when she meets up with Harvey after he has gone to Hardman with an offer, gives us a better understanding of her headspace, she is really coming to terms with what her actions have done to the firm, and that they may in fact have repercussions for Harvey specifically.

She wants to take action, to fix what she caused, but is told by Harvey to do nothing, let him and Louis deal with it, and she has learned from the previous episode that she should trust them. The conversation between her and Harvey is not ridiculously tense, but I feel like Donna leaves the conversation with the intent on giving Harvey space.

 Now I’m going to mash the next two Donna scenes into the same paragraph as they lead into each other really well.

 So we get a glimpse of Donna witnessing Harvey’s physical frustration at the situation when the ethics board hearing is set. Now we don’t know what she was originally heading to Harvey’s office for but it clearly isn’t important enough that she feels she will get through Harvey’s emotions, it also sets up why Alex goes to Donna, and the guilt she feels in the moment.

The conversation with Alex is a very important scene but still not the one that really makes Donna think that Harvey is ready to move forward with her. Alex clearly lays down that Donna was trying to, not quite self sabotage, but to try and distance herself from Harvey & almost say that she doesn’t know him as well as used to, which is why she lost faith in him. I think it is vital here that Donna says she didn’t tell Thomas the information to make Harvey realise that he wanted her.

 Finally we get to the scene that I feel we, as a fandom, are only focusing on one aspect of.

Thomas comes to Donna before the hearing, which she says she is getting ready to go to. Thomas explains that he could understand Louis’ motivations for asking him to lie, that it would benefit multiple people. Louis also has a decent history with Thomas, so trying to make an appeal to his business responsibilities makes sense.

Thomas then doesn’t understand the motivation for Harvey asking him to lie at the hearing & point the blame at Harvey, Thomas clues in pretty quickly that this really only benefits Donna, as having a name partner break privilege is still going to have a ripple effect through the firm. Now it isn’t clear to me whether Donna at this very moment is fully aware of how significant this action taken by Harvey is, as the conversation moves on pretty quickly. However I think that Donna being told that Harvey was going to sacrifice his career for her mistake is her biggest indication that she is his highest priority.

As far as we know from the last 7 & ½ seasons, Harvey lives to win, and he doesn’t have many hobbies outside of his job save for boxing maybe. So the fact that he is willing to admit defeat and intentionally lose a battle for her, when although he wanted to he never went through with it for Mike, demonstrates that he has taken stock of his life and pretty much puts her life above his.

 Now the rest of this conversation is also important as we finally get some admission from Donna that she also needs Harvey, whereas in the past we have only ever really heard that Harvey needed her. Now I am really glad we got this statement from her, given that she has been fired/quit the firm twice now, I was always a little disappointed that we never really saw her struggle with not being around Harvey or what she exactly feels like only Harvey can bring to the table other than some history. In previous times when she left the firm she always came back quite quickly.

I digress though, to me this is the scene that sets up Donna’s understanding of Harvey’s headspace, and why she changes her mind about going to the hearing. I postulate that she decides not to go as she can’t see Harvey throw away his career for her, and go against his usual motivations, and that she would possibly also get quite emotional, or just admit that it was her at the hearing. What I do find interesting is Donna doesn’t try to convince Harvey otherwise, unlike the situation with Mike (obviously there is no jail time here, which is what she was really worried about last time) but unlike with Mike Harvey didn’t seek her out either so that she could talk him out of it.

So that is my reading of the episode to better explain what is going on inside Donna’s head, as we really don’t get much of a chance in the episode.

 tl:dr

Harvey’s action of being willing to give up his career for her, demonstrates for Donna that he is ready to admit that she is more than just a friend, so when he turns up on her doorstep with that look in his eye, she knows exactly what he wants.

[dcarevu]

Batman Adventures: Joker’s Late-Night Lunacy

Batman Adventures #3 Robin: No Writer: Kelley Puckett Penciler: Ty Templeton Inker: Rick Burchett Colorist: Rick Taylor Letterer: Tim Harkins Editor: Scott Peterson Date: December, 1992

So if y’all remember, the last two issues featured Penguin and Catwoman each doing a favor for the Joker in exchange for basically nothing other than a fun idea as a way to kill some time. This is the issue where we see what it is amounting to, and after seeing so much of Batman TAS, it’s nothing to get excited over. We’ve seen the Joker hack the airwaves several times just like he does here, so the stuff involving Penguin and Selina’s help seems like wasted buildup. Where the issue’s strength lies is in how brutal the Joker is. He has his scary moments in the show all the time, sure, but first panel of the comic, he ambushes Commissioner Gordon in his own office, waving around a gun. It only shoots tranquilizers, but Joker saves the real damage for later, when he can broadcast it all over the city.

After Gordon passes out, the comic shifts focus to a hostage-situation on top of a rooftop. It doesn’t really relate to the Joker story, but it does give a reason for Batman to be at the right place and the right time to catch Joker’s show. It also serves as a glimpse into Batman’s nightly patrol. What’s pretty crazy is that it appears that the hostage is the thug’s girlfriend, and once Batman leaves, she says, “How dare you point that thing at me.” You can tell that she’s rightfully pissed. He assures her that it was all an act, but goes to hit her several panels later when she accuses him of murder. Batman returns before contact is made, but you don’t see too many scenes like this in the cartoon. I love how when Batman swings away, she just goes, “Bye.” Like she’s thrilled that maybe her boyfriend was taught a lesson.

Next, Batman passes by an electronics store, and sees on the screens that the Joker has Gordon all tied up. Not only that, but he starts beating the poor man with a baseball bat and promises to bring more the following night. Jesus! The actually slugs are not shown, but you see the public’s and Batman’s reactions. The people of Gotham have their eyes wide and their mouths wider. Batman just stares in silence. After the beating, the Joker is visibly sweating, and he has to comb his hair back into place. Even though it’s left up to our imagination, we get a pretty clear picture in our heads of what the wood-to-bone connections were like. Wasn’t this comic for kids?

Batman gets a hunch of who Joker will like nab next, and so he pays a little visit to…Harvey Dent! Who…is using the Bat-Signal. Oh. Okay. Well, here’s the first real continuity error of the series, and this is what I’ve been so excited to research and talk about (continuity stuff in general, not this specific case)! So let’s talk about it! Harvey Dent should not be able to use the Signal, because it made its first appearance way after Harvey should have become Two-Face. This is true whether you go by production-order or airing-order. So to make this work, you’d have to rearrange the episodes a bit and mess with the timeline. Some fans are into this, I’m not really. But, this is a minor detail, and to me, it’s not enough to label the entire issue as non-canon. We can retcon the signal, and pretend it was never there, and that works for me. Anyway, Harvey Dent and Batman figure out a plan, and also Bullock is there being a useless obstacle as he so often is. I wish I read this before the Two-Face episode, it’s more Dent character development, and therefore, more sad to watch him eventually crumble.

On the next page, the Joker and his men break into Dent’s home, but the Joker thinks that it’s going way too smoothly, and that Batman is sure to show up. And just like that, he does, but is shot with the tranquilizer and knocked out. This surprised me when I read it. Batman and Dent discussed their plan, and then it immediately failed. Well, so I thought. That night, when Joker is broadcasting his new victims, Dent and Batman, he tells Gotham that it’s time to unmask the passed-out Dark Knight for everyone to see. But when Joker takes Batman’s mask off, we see that it is actually Harvey Dent. The one whom Joker thought was Dent is revealed to be Batman in disguise and… You guys know I hate this kind of plot-point, right? But here it’s even worse. We see “Batman” very clearly during these panels, and it’s so obvious that it’s just not a drawing of Harvey. Their jawlines are completely different, and hell, I refuse to believe that Joker wouldn’t notice that. Disguises should not follow Scooby Too logic in Batman. I feel like it’s a cheat, and way too hard for me to believe. That is why, though, Batman and Dent were so easy to capture in the prior scene. They wanted to be captured. Batman had to let himself get beaten up as Harvey, and Harvey as Batman actually stood up to the thugs pretty well! But he’s a big guy, and I wouldn’t ever wanna mess with him. From here there is a little bit of a chase scene which takes us to a boat on the ocean (which features some really awesome nighttime drawings), but Joker ultimately gets away. The colors in this scene rock with the sky being black and the water being a bluish-green. At the very ending we get a really cool drawing of Batman treading in the salt water, and the moon glowing behind him.

The Joker drawings all looked really nice too, and even when he was off-model, it seemed to be off-model in an okay way. The same design, but elongated, or overly-expressive. He’s basically the same blend of scary and funny that  we get in his best episodes, but amped up a little bit, showing more of his serious side. We see a lot of him without any kind of smile on his face. A lot of times I feel like DCAU-drawings have a hard time with Joker’s face when his mouth is closed. Here it wasn’t an issue at all. Related to that, I kept thinking about how tough it must be to consistently capture the magic of someone else’s art-style, in this case, Bruce Timm’s. Especially since you must so often get creative with the angles and draw them in positions and actions that we just never happen to see on the tv show. There’s no frame of reference for it! A little artistic skill that I think should be considered and praised more.

Continuity status: Issues exist. Next time: Riot Act

[lalaurelia]

Quick Gotham 5x10 thoughts

Finally watched it. No Gobblepot, again. Babs is amazing, Bruce is amazing, Oswald is reduced to hysterics just for the heck of it, and despite all the pizzas the episode is kind of meh. Oh, and Dr Strange is incredible as always and I love him.

Now let’s get into details a bit. Since I’m not in the usual morning hurry, I’m afraid it might get lengthy.

Eduardo’s becoming Bane through Hugo Strange’s experiments, and oh, BD Wong’s voice is too enjoyable XD The scene is a bit disturbing though.

Then we get to Jim and Harvey, and a military general that’s supposed to give the all-clear for the Gotham reunification with the mainland and all that. Jim’s pessimistic. It’s kind of cute seeing him all anxious-like. He gives another speech, urged by Harvey who congratulates him on having a kid. Yay. Another speech. Does anybody love Jim’s speeches? As much as I adore Jim as a character, he simply doesn’t have the charisma necessary to giving a good, rousing, motivational speech. Now Oswald, yeah, that’s a speaker. Jim... not so much. But we get some close-ups of him smiling and I’m thankful for that.

Then we get the submarine plot and Babs arriving in style. Oswald bickers with her about the luggage, her contractions start and yay, she drives away leaving Oswald and Ed attempting to escape Gotham without her. Then there’s a cute scene with Alfred and Selina which I’m not going to dissect, because what follows is a scene of Jim being a major DICK and it overshadowed most of the episode for me.

So, Lee contacts Jim by radio saying Barbara showed up and he should come. He says he’s on his way, asks them to wait (played for laughs, I guess), and then. And then he fucking adds “I love you” over the radio, when talking to Lee. Like. Jim. Radio is loud. Babs can hear you. We don’t know what she might be feeling for you at this moment because we were never shown that, but I’d imagine her to be at least somewhat hurt by that. And Jim. It would’ve cost you zero effort to hold those words back. It’s not like you’re going across enemy lines to make it to the hospital and that’s why those words could be your last and therefore important to voice. No. It was routine going to the hospital through a pacified area of Gotham. Not a hot zone. Nobody was dying. But Babs was in a lot of pain and stress and emotionally vulnerable and Jim couldn’t find it in himself to spare her just a little bit of pain.

Seriously, whenever Lee is in Jim’s life, Jim becomes a major and unlikable prick. So nope. Never gonna enjoy this pairing. And I refuse to consider this exchange canon, ffs, because I think Jim really is capable of kindness and he could at least be kinder to the mother of his child. Ugh. Gotham. Why must you torture me so and twist the characters into disfigured reflections of themselves?

And of course, Jim never makes it to the hospital because he promptly gets kidnapped. Bane gives us and Jim his backstory about Pena Dura, and ugh, it’s very gruesome, and I like Jim warily trying to give Eduardo what Jim thinks he wants - some compassion. Which Jim, I suppose, lacks severely this episode. Then Walker shows up, brings in Bruce, they torture Jim to make Bruce suffer, it all is perfectly villainy and I like this plot, it’s good. It reminds me of the major plots of the previous seasons. Now, if only we had more episodes to really explore that...

Oswald tries saying goodbye to Gotham, claiming his heart will always remain... duuuh! As long as Jim’s in Gotham, Oswald’s heart remains in Gotham, so there! But alright. It’s making Oswald look pathetic and dramatic and then Ed shows up to say there’s no leaving Gotham since Babs took some valve. Yay. We get Oswald dramatically screaming Barbara’s name. I see no reason for that, just that the writers seem to enjoy making Oswald do dramatic and over-the-top stuff with his emotions, because, yeah, he’s spectacular at that, and yet... it makes little sense. But alright. Let’s go on.

Babs and Lee are at the hospital, making awkward talk, alright. Walker sends Bane after Barbara, Jim tries to stay his hand by saying she’s pregnant, she has a kid, like... okay, Jim. Does it work this way in your mind? The baby has to live because it’s yours, but screw Barbara because you don’t want her? Like, yeah, maybe the baby argument would work with many people, but... Bane? A pretty much merciless mercenary at this point, probably brainwashed, too? Is that why you can’t plead with him to spare Barbara for Barbara’s sake? Ugh. I don’t know, it seems logical but this scene still irks me a lot. It’s like Babs is some sort of a walking incubator, disposable... I hate this thought.

Oswald and Ed show up at the hospital, we get a glimpse of admittance of the events of S4 with the relationship between Ed and Lee, a bit of comic exchange between all the participants - Oswald tries to threaten Babs with a gun, gets chastised by Lee, immediately feels sheepish for doing the threat and whatnot, and it’s actually kind of cute. Bane shows up, breaks it all up.

Poor Barbara. Having to deal with all of this during childbirth, and with the people you cannot rely on to protect you, either physically or emotionally. Lee wheels her away as Ed agrees to buy them some time, and Oswald is weirdly excluded from this exchange, ugh. I hate Oswald getting ignored. And oooh, we get more comic fits from him and hyperbolized reactions to blowing shit up as per Ed’s suggestion. Oh joy.

Then we get a scene with Strange trying to modify Jim the way he did Bane, but Jim, surely, manages to free himself. Hugo Strange is a delight in every scene, seriously, I love how dramatically, theatrically creepy he is. And - just because the thought strikes me so hard in this scene - Jim is really at his best when he has to act. When he has to do something, to free himself or someone, to help someone, when it’s his driving force, he is so much in his element, he becomes twice as alive as he usually is. And this makes me think he’s never going to feel completely comfortable in his settled married life, he’s a bit of an adrenaline junkie, he’s always going to chase that.

Babs and Lee make it out of the hospital, Lee asks Barbara why she’s so set on running away, and when Babs says she has doubts about Jim leaving her to raise the baby, Lee tries to persuade her it’s not so. And okay, I’m biased. Very. But... I don’t trust Lee when she says that? She might be feeling some compassion for Barbara because she’s going through pain, but I believe that the moment it passes Lee’s gonna be back to her pretty callous and unkind self, the one that nagged Jim at the precinct and slapped him for no reason. So no. I don’t trust her within a mile of Barbara and her child. Even if the scenes they have here are kind of cute.

I don’t even want to get into the scene of Ed having that valve all the time and Oswald calling him out on that. It’s good for that throwback to S4 and Ed and Lee’s relationship. But... I don’t like that the writers seem to have no idea what to do with Oswald in this episode and so they reduce one of the smartest, genuinely compassionate and resourceful characters to a comic relief. Which is unsettling and frustrating. The way he behaved with Barbara last episode, I’d have thought he’d be more inclined to help her, since he basically tends to adopt the less fortunate people around him, in some sense, especially if he connects to them, and boy, does Oswald have a connection with Barbara.

So. much. wasted. potential. guys.

Okay, time to wrap this up somehow... Bruce was really good, I loved his scenes. Alfred and Selina were very touching too. Jim is still at his best when he’s saving people.

And I’d go to enormous lengths if it meant we’d see a Gobblepot scene, ugh, please! I’m starving! Also it’s such a waste to not use a character such as Oswald more actively. He only reacts this episode. Do you even know who that man is, writers? He’s fucking King of Gotham. He’s always proactive. He always has a plan. And he lights up like a thousand watt light bulb in the presence of Jim Gordon. Now that’s worth watching anytime.

[adamxanzio]

“I Love My Friends. I Hate Bullies” [working title]

I posted this on stupid-ass FB a while ago. It deals with my views on human rights, and how I tend to handle tense situations. Copied and pasted from my notes app.

💜🌹🌷Soooo... I met some really great friends a while ago. Two of them I’ve been kickin’ with steadily. Both of them female (</sarcasm> because, despite what pilgrims like Steve Harvey tell you, it’s totally possible for dudes and girls to be actual friends without wanting “other shit”, or having “other shit” going on; which is totally fine, and not shameful in the least... or maybe that’s just me).

😕Recently, while we were out at a club, dancing and goofing off, as I usually do, some dude standing close by tried to touch the bum of one of my friends. I saw it clear as day, in this dark room, with flashing lights. I decided to keep my eye on this... “person”, as he didn’t make actual contact with her that time. I know I should have done more, at that very moment, and I’m sorry for that. So, this dude tries it again, and makes contact. I look at him right in the eyes, and shake my head “no” at him. My friend didn’t seem to notice. He does not respond. Once again, I didn’t do what I really felt like doing, and I am very sorry. SO, he tries again, a third time. I slap his hand away, get right in his face, and shout at him that I will fuck him up if he touches my friend again. Here I am, shouting in this guy’s face, pointing, and being openly aggressive with him. Not my usually behavior, but it comes out now and then.

🙁The guy walks a short distance away, while I continue to keep an eye on him. The only reason this guy isn’t either thrown out or battered on the ground, is because I myself didn’t wanna risk getting thrown out (though I like this club, I slowly stopped caring if I got banned for fighting, because the safety of my friend is obviously more important). This dumbass comes up to me, like 5 fuckin’ minutes later, trying to put his hand on my shoulder (which I did not let happen), and talk to me in my ear. I keep a short distance, and I decide to hear him out (which I didn’t want to do. I wanted to choke-slam him, among other things, but I was still trying to not have things go there); standing ready for anything else to happen. He says: “yo, don’t ever come at me like that again, bruh. I don’t play that shit”, and a bunch of other flexing horseshit. I shout at him in his ear “FUCK YOU, IDIOT! You grabbed my friend’s ass! Shut the fuck up, you piece of shit!”. He tries to talk over me, shouting about how I shouldn’t talk to him the way I did. FIRST OF ALL... If he is more concerned with my tone and choice of words, than he is with being caught grabbing a strangers ass, then he’s a piece of shit. That’s exactly what I told him at that moment, along with some other choice words. I’m not affected by words, but I could tell that he was. I shouted every hurtful, demeaning thing I could think of about him, not caring about the outcome. I continued to berate him, expecting him to try something, but he stepped away after a few seconds. I told my friend’s boyfriend, who was not too far away, what happened. Turns out this turd who was touching my friend improperly was related to the owner of the club, and was rolling with some “gangsta” types. I told him: “fuck you, and your stupid-ass friends. I don’t care who your friends are, and I don’t care who you’re related to. If your concern is my tone, and choice of words, over what you tried to do with my friend, then fuck every last one of you! You piece of shit! You turd! You scum! You fucking nothing! ...The situation was taken care of, without me having to do anything more. We then went to a quieter place, and talked, as friends do.

☹️I don’t care who you are, who you know, if you’ve been drinking (I definitely don’t care about that. I have zero tolerance for people making excuses for themselves and for others based on if they’ve been drinking), or whatever other meaningless shit people use to feel good about themselves, or feel cool or important; if you do shit like in this situation, your humanity and your “rights” go out the fucking window. Fuck that “gangsta” bullshit. Fuck that whole image. I’m neither impressed nor intimidated by that garbage. Buncha fuckin’ clowns. Even if my friend was a complete stranger, it would have been dead wrong, and would not be tolerated. Also, I must stress that I’m aware of my friend’s feelings toward this kind of treatment to people. I didn’t just go off, blindly, in defense of someone. I know how annoying and unnecessary that can sometimes be.

🤔Some would say: That’s the risk you run being at a club, that’s the risk you run being an attractive woman, etc. ...Well, you also run a risk of messing with people that will not accept, or will not brush off that kind of behavior.

😢Please keep in mind, I don’t like talking about violence, fighting, or altercations like these. I really don’t. The point of this story is to express how I feel about my friends, and give a glimpse into how I handle situations like this. ......I’m a big, brown guy, and it’s easy to stereotype me the wrong way. I don’t go around looking for fights, but I do stay ready for them, even in my most vulnerable, fun-loving moments. Also, I know I also look like a big, soft, androgynous, gigantic dork, who wouldn’t do anything, and doesn’t stand for shit. Both of those are wrong. I may look like a “pussy-ass faggot” (not my terminology. I don’t use words like that in that context, because I think they’re stupid, but I hear it pretty often about myself), but imagine how soul-crushing it would be to get stomped the fuck out by a “faggot” like me. There is a time and place for everything. Just because I’m capable of causing a great deal of harm to others, doesn’t mean I go flexing that everywhere. I don’t think it’s cool, sexy, or even tough. I don’t flex. I don’t walk around trying to be some character. “Putting on a show” doesn’t win fights, but it does show how weak you potentially are. It’s like glass, as I can see right through, and it’s easily breakable. I don’t want to hurt anybody, but I most certainly will, should it ever come to that; which I hope it never does. I can be a cuddly teddy bear, or a full grown grizzly (I prefer “teddy” over everything else in life. All I want in life is good music and hugs from sweet people; but that doesn’t keep me from being prepared for the worst. I don’t like that, but that’s just the world we live in). ...Maybe you think my approach is “wrong”, or contradictory in some way. Well, I’m sure you’d handle it MUCH better. Your templated ethics, and evident lack of experience will only do so much.

🤫I don’t know how long I’m going to keep this post up, because of my feelings toward violence, how upset I was, and the look of discussing things like this. ...At the same time, I’ve let a lot of shit slide that I shouldn’t have in the past, and it makes me really sad that I didn’t do what I felt in my heart, and what I felt was right, for the people I care about, or myself. I didn’t stand up when it was right, and sometimes expected the person affected to stand up for themselves, as I stood by quietly, letting the idiot talk, so they could reveal how shitty they really were. It makes me really sad, to the point of tears, and I’m so sorry to those who I could have stood up for, especially as someone who claims to care a great deal about human rights. I believe the same energy we used to smash neo-Nazis years ago, should be used on misogyny, homophobia, and, dare I say it, this aggressive yet watered down Puritanism that still lingers here and there.

🙅🏾‍♂️Fuck acting “tough”. Fuck fragile masculinity, and “being a man” in general. Fuck entitled idiots. Cherish your actual friendships. Stomp this kind of behavior out, as soon as it shows its ugly-ass head.

With love. ❤️💜💙

Theee end. 💐

🌹🌷🌹🌷🌹🌷🌹🌷🌹🌷🌹🌷

[aion-rsa]

How Foundation Brings the Asimov Novels to Life on Apple TV+

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This article is presented by Apple TV+. Click here for a free trial to stream Foundation!

When considering the adaptation of a classic science fiction universe as massive as Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, the sheer scale of such an enterprise seems quite daunting. How can Apple TV+ take a story that spans centuries in a galactic empire with thousands of inhabited planets and make it accessible both to hardcore fans and to audiences unaccustomed to “space opera” sci-fi? When viewers watch the first three episodes of Foundation, set to release on September 24, they’ll see Asimov’s world come to life in an expansive yet character-driven vision that will please both groups.

The key lies in building upon the skeleton of the original Foundation trilogy, which in turn was formed from a series of short stories written in the 1940s. By its very nature, the Foundation narrative was composed primarily of exposition, dialogue, and events happening off-stage. Readers learn of Dr. Hari Seldon (played by Jared Harris in the show) and his scientific predictions of the long-lived Galactic Empire’s fall, but then they quickly jump ahead 50 years to witness the decline through reports and visitors to the titular foundation, which seeks to preserve human knowledge during the inevitable dark ages to come.

There’s plenty there to work with and expand upon. In the book, the predictive mathematics of psychohistory were explained to Gaal Dornick, a green recruit to the Seldon Project from a backwater planet. The television series digs deeper into this characterization for actor Lou Llobell’s version, making her a math prodigy from a deeply religious, scientifically repressed world. There’s much more to her participation than simply bearing witness to the Empire’s reaction to Seldon’s seditious theories.

In fact, where Asimov’s short stories skipped ahead in time, the Foundation of Apple TV+ is able to explore more of how the burgeoning colony that sprung from Seldon’s theories developed and survived, allowing Dornick to continue a character arc that didn’t exist in the original novel. Additionally, the Emperor himself, played by the formidable Lee Pace, takes a much more immediate personal interest in the foretold end of his reign than anything found in the books.

Asimov himself realized the narrative possibilities when he revisited Foundation for a new trilogy in the 1980s. In the author’s note for Foundation’s Edge, he says that, upon re-reading his earlier work, “I kept waiting for something to happen, and nothing ever did. All three volumes, all the nearly quarter of a million words, consisted of thoughts and of conversations. No action. No physical suspense… each book in the trilogy had at least two stories and lacked unity.”

Just as the author discovered he could revise the format of his storytelling for the next book in the series, the television adaptation does the same for a visual medium. An off-stage emperor, for example, isn’t as interesting as a triumvirate of clones led by Brother Day, who rules alongside younger and older versions of himself, known as Brothers Dawn (Cassian Bilton) and Dusk (Terrence Mann). Each has their own foibles based on their age and station, giving the fall of an empire personal stakes that viewers will sympathize with, even in villainy.

Neither Asimov nor the Foundation television series stopped there. One enigmatic character  that the author didn’t even introduce until the second trilogy makes an appearance in the first round of episodes on Apple TV+: that of Laura Birn’s character, Eto Demerzel, an imperial advisor who carries an interesting secret. Asimov repurposed Demerzel from one of his other famous novels in order to create a shared universe, and now the TV series likewise has brought her forward to the start of the story to add a different perspective on the empire’s decline.

As for waiting for the fall to happen, Foundation doesn’t immediately fast forward through time to see signs of societal uproar as in the novels. Instead, the show reveals the seeds of discord in an interplanetary rivalry between two cultures on the edge of the Emperor’s sphere of influence. This subplot acts as an illustration of Seldon’s predictions, magnifying Brother Day’s justifiable fears that the forecast doom will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Despite all the changes Foundation made to some characters and circumstances in its source material, fans of the novels will be in awe of the depiction of Trantor, the planetary seat of imperial power. The sky of metal, the vast underground network, and the star bridge are rendered with such accuracy, viewers will think they sprung directly from their imagination and remembrance of Asimov’s descriptions.

In fact, all of the planets that Foundation visits in the opening few episodes have their own special atmosphere, from the vast waters of Dornick’s home on Synnax to the harsh wastelands of the foundation’s settlement on Terminus. All of the landscapes are beautifully shot, and viewers will quickly feel immersed in these environments, even if they only get to visit them for a short time. Even though the story jumps back and forth in time, it’s always very clear where things are happening.

That’s because Foundation necessarily tells its stories in parallel, teasing the future of the Seldon Project with glimpses of Leah Harvey’s character, Salvor Hardin, the warden of the colony world where the foundation carries out its mission decades after Dornick and Seldon meet. The nature of information secured within a Vault that repels any attempt to approach it is shrouded in secrecy at the start of the season, and readers of the Asimov novels will anticipate its opening as eagerly as those who don’t know its contents.

Of course, the Empire must fall before a new order can rise, and some fans may wonder whether they will see important figures like The Mule, a key conqueror in Asimov’s first trilogy. Can there be a Foundation adaptation without The Mule? And the answer is that this is not a limited series on Apple TV+. There is plenty of time to cover the many twists and turns of the galaxy’s history in this and future seasons of the show.

In the meantime, viewers who have read the books can enjoy the irony of Gaal Dornick’s rejection of her home planet’s strict faith in order to join a foundation whose science is destined to become a sort of religion of its own during the less advanced civilization that will follow the collapse of imperial rule. Throughout Asimov’s work there was always the question of how much Hari Seldon really knew and planned for, and the television series can capitalize on that mystery equally well.

There’s so much packed into the first season of Foundation, and the groundwork laid by the source material provides endless inspiration for stories within the larger story of the fall of an empire. Even the preparations for survival and the subsequent colonization of Terminus, details of which the novels never chose to explore, provide a wealth of drama during the first few episodes of the show. So while the Apple TV+ series departs quite a bit from the Asimov tale, the foundation, so to speak, of Foundation remains.

Foundation releases Sept. 24 on Apple TV+. You can stream it for free courtesy of Apple! This article was produced in paid partnership with AppleTV+. All opinions expressed are those of the author.

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[darveyfics]

7.10 post ep based on the song only love can hurt like this by Paloma Faith

“Timing”

A/N: The idea for this story came when I saw this video (slightly spoilery) on twitter (the first part is new, the second was filmed before, but is likely from the same episode). Anyway, ideas started rolling and this story was born. I also incorporated the lyrics to this song because I think it more than fits the theme. I also have another take on this possible darvey scenario written here.                                                          

Say I wouldn’t care if you walked away,But every time you’re there I’m begging you to stay,When you come close I just trembleAnd every time, every time you go,It’s like a knife that cuts right through my soulOnly love, only love can hurt like this

He knows something is off the second he steps off the elevator, the air around him thick and palpable. Harvey makes his way further into the space of the firm, catching the eyes of everyone around him, noticing how they give him a solemn glance before quickly looking away, almost in shame.

His forehead knits in confusion and just a touch of agitation as he continues to make his way to his office, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach for a reason he can’t quite discern.

Entering his office, he sees it almost immediately. The small silver device too familiar to his senses for him to miss.

There, sitting on top of his desk, is the can opener.

Harvey feels his throat go dry. He knows things haven’t been good between them lately, they’ve barely been civil. Almost two weeks to the day since she had waltzed up to him, kissing him without a moment of hesitation. He had stood there, numbed and speechless for what felt like hours, before any of his senses could awaken and he was able to make his way out, to look for her.

They had fought- a lot. They argued more in the last two weeks than they’ve had in the twelve plus years they’ve known each other. He’d been so angry, though, angry at her, angry at the situation, angry at himself….

He knows he had screwed up continuously in the last thirteen days, the way he had treated her making his nights sleepless and his dreams painful. Blame had fallen off his lips in waves every time he saw her, seemingly ignoring the way her eyes would well up, her voice would shake… He couldn’t seem to fathom how he let things get this bad so quickly, it wasn’t like he didn’t love-

But it was complicated. They were complicated. There was too much too lose, too much of a past and too much of an unknown future. Harvey didn’t like unknown, he liked predictable. Except he’s always known she was anything but.

Donna Paulsen will forever remain an enigma in his eyes- a vision of all that is good and pure whilst remaining mysterious in all her wit and charm. He still didn’t know why she had kissed him. He knows, she had told him, but he couldn’t for the life of him understand why now, after all this time, when he was with Paula, when she knew full well how he felt about cheating….

Yet, he knew the anger he held inside, that had been directed at her, had been purely to mask his own fear and confusion.

His hand shakes as he lifts the can opener, their can opener. Over a decade’s worth of a history between them in his hand, the very weight of it feeling heavier now. Before he can try to decipher the meaning of her leaving it on his desk, he sees the envelope. Her all-too distinguishable handwriting staring back at him.

Harvey.

One word, six letters, and his heart was in shambles. He didn’t need to open the letter to know what was inside, but still he did.

He ignores the way his hand shakes, ripping the letter apart as quickly and carefully as possible as to not tear the contents it held inside.

He swallows back the tears that were pricking behind his eyes, finding two letters before him. Taking both of them out, he quickly identifies one as a formal resignation letter. He feels his world spinning then, despite the fact that he expected this, he still felt his vision fogging up, his heart squeezing in its current confinement. He skims the letter quickly, turning his attention to the other letter he held in his hand.

Harvey,

He feels his head throbbing, a tear finding its way to the corner of his eye.

This isn’t easy for me to write, as I know this won’t be easy for you to read either. You have to understand, that I tried so hard to move on, from you, from us. I tried to ignore what we had- abided by the rule I had set all those years before. But, Harvey, there comes a point when you can’t ignore anymore. When you can’t let go of the past just for the off chance that maybe things could turn out differently. I never meant to hurt you when I kissed you, you have to know that. I knew you were with Paula, I know that kissing you brought on too many feelings of anger and resentment, but I had to. I’ve stood by your side for longer than I’ve ever stood by anyone. I kept putting you first, because that’s what you do for the person you love.

Harvey closes his eyes for a moment, letting the words wash over him, his throat constricting too tight, making it harder for him to breath.

I know you love me too, in whatever way you say you do. A part of me thought- hoped- that maybe you would see me in the way I see you. Love me in the way I love you. And perhaps you did, but it’s clear to me now we don’t want the same things. I can’t make you understand why I did what I did. I know I told you I had to know- know that I did want to be with you, know that you felt something for me too. And I did feel something when you kissed me, or at least I thought I did. But I don’t know, I can’t be sure of that, not when you look at me like you’ve been doing so for the past two weeks. Not when you’ve been blaming me for your break up… The only thing I do know is that I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep playing this game with you when I only end up losing in the end.

Jessica offered me a job at her new firm, in Chicago. I decided to take it. It pains me to do this, to leave my family, my friends, you… but I need to move on. I have to. And I’m sorry it has to be this way, but I have to put myself first. I have to be able to try and be happy, because as much as I tried, I can’t be happy with you there. Not with the way you look at me every time I walk into work, not with the knowledge that maybe we never really were meant to be. I don’t regret a single moment I spent with you, but this is where it must end. Maybe I won’t ever stop loving you, but I have to try. My flight for Chicago leaves in a couple of hours, so I have to wrap this up now.

Just remember one thing, Harvey, for all the things I’ve claimed to have known over the years, I never knew how much I could ever love you.

-Donna

The world before him blurs suddenly, his head is spinning and a vile taste creeps into his mouth. He tries to tamper down the nausea that overwhelms him, tears clouding his vision, making the words below him start to blend.

She was leaving him, for good. She wasn’t going to work for Louis down the hall, she wasn’t taking a new position at the firm, leaving her a good few feet away from his own office. She resigned. She was moving. To Chicago.

He checks his watch, suddenly, noting that it was already eight fifteen. He realizes he doesn’t know what time Donna must’ve dropped this off at his desk. He’d been at a meeting with a client for the past two hours, the minutes dragging on as he only half-focused on what they were saying, too distracted thinking about her. Again.

Something snaps in him then, and he finds himself sprinting out the door, jogging his way to the elevators. He clutches her letter in his hand, unable to quite loosen the visceral grip on the paper that held her words to him.

I never knew how much I could love you.

His eyes are stinging with the manner in which he tries to keep more tears at bay, not wanting anyone at the firm to catch him in his vulnerable state.  

He sighs in relief when the elevator doors open before him, thankful to be alone, not in the mood or mindset to have unimportant small talk with anyone right now.

When he gets to the lobby, his heart beating against his chest, he starts a jog as he subconsciously looks outside the glass windows, trying and hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of red hair. Though, knowing his own damn luck, she would be far gone by now.

He tries to flag down a cab, eyes and movements frantic as he curses under his breath, impatience running through his veins.

When one manages to stop in front of him, he all but jumps inside, the words “JFK airport” escaping his lips in one breath.

He doesn’t even know if that’s where she’ll be. If she went home first to grab a few things. If she already left….

He takes out his phone then, finding her contact in five seconds flat, and waits. He curses under his breath when it goes straight to voice mail, shoving the device into his pocket again.

Harvey takes this moment to close his eyes, hand still gripping the letter she wrote.

I never meant to hurt you.

He somehow manages not to let out a sob, remembering the words she had written him, filled with too much honestly and pain. He should be the one apologizing, he is the one who never meant to hurt her. He should’ve done something, said something. Guilt resides in him, drowning him from the inside out, numbing his every sense. He’d been such an idiot, a goddamn asshole to her the past few weeks. Too damn scared and blind and angry, too much of a fucking coward to notice how much he had been hurting her, to see that she had been slipping from his grasp more and more everyday….

It’s not until the cab driver stops the car that he notices they’re parked right in front of the airport. He mumbles out a “thanks” and drops a fifty on the man’s lap, sprinting out the door before making his way inside.

He had to buy a goddamn ticket. But it’s not the money he had to spend that annoys him, the mere fact that every second he loses stretches the possibility of him not finding her at all. He takes comfort in the fact that there were currently only three flights to Chicago, all set to leave within an hour. Still, paranoia sits low in his stomach, too many variables standing in the way of him getting to her.

Jogging his way to the designated gate, his eyes roam the area, trying to catch a glimpse of her, knowing she wouldn’t be hard to miss. When he sees the numbers come into view, he halts to a full stop, his heart beating erratically. He surveys the area, jumping from one person to another sitting and waiting for their flight.

Nothing. No sign of red hair. No sign of Donna. The weight of her letter, now sitting on the inside pocket of his jacket, right beside his heart, grows heavier with every second.

“Dammit, Donna, where are you?” He mumbles under his breath, frustration and fear seeping into him all at once.

Harvey scans the area once more, hoping he may have missed her in the sea of people, but there weren’t even that many to begin with.

Sighing, he starts to turn around, a new plan forming in his mind to try and track her down. Maybe Rachel knows where she is….

Just as he’s about to walk out, head deeper in the labyrinth that was the airport, he sees her. Unmistakable, poised, elegant, Donna, right in front of him.

Her eyes are wide as she stares at him, feet frozen in place, breathing shallow. A myriad of emotions fill her- confusion, anger, a slight ounce of hope she quickly tries to tamper down….

“Harvey, what are you-”

His lips are on her then, hands cupping her cheeks, angling her face to his in a way that allows him to keep her in place.

Her body goes numb for a second, lips still against his own, too shocked to react in any form. It’s not until she feels an arm wrapping around her, pulling her flush against his chest that she comes to life. Dropping the bags she held, she kisses him back just as fiercely, if not more, her arms winding around him. Their mouths open at once, together, letting their tongues slide and duel against one another.

Donna feels hot tears against her eyelids, the feelings welling up inside spilling out without her consent, trailing down her cheeks, meeting her lips, still fused to his.

She parts from him then, the need for oxygen becoming too apparent and overwhelming, her tears making it harder for her to breathe.

When she opens her eyes, she has to blink a few times against the wetness, in order to see him in full. His own brown eyes are clouded over, cheeks stained with the tears that he had let fall in the last minute or so.

“Harvey…” Her voice is hoarse when she speaks, low and broken, too many questions dripping with every syllable.

“Don’t leave,” he speaks at once, head shaking, his nose a mere centimeter from her own, “Don’t- don’t leave me, Donna.”

She feels more hot tears springing to her eyes, her vision becoming less clear by the second. Her mouth opens, but no words come out, trapped in her throat.

“I don’t- I can’t lose you.” His voice is watery, fighting against the emotions welling up inside his chest, failing more every second with each new wave of tears that fall. His left hand still cradling her cheek wipes a few tears away, his thumb continuously caressing her skin.

She closes her eyes, trying her best to compose herself, an array of emotions making it more difficult to set her heart and mind at ease. “Harvey-” She tries again, but when her eyes open and she sees his all-too familiar face, staring back at her, tears in his red-rimmed eyes, she feels her face crumpling further.

His forehead meets hers, their eyes closing simultaneously, and for a moment they just remain in that position- breathing slow and shallow, mingling in their proximity.

“I love you.” The words fall from his lips, easy and difficult all at the same time. He feels her stiffen against him and he makes sure he has a good hold on her, fear of her leaving his grasp too great. “I love you- so much.” Harvey whispers. The emotions that well up inside of him not allowing him to take his voice an octave higher.

Donna grips his biceps then, the need to hold onto something, to him, too much for her. “Why are you doing this?” Her words surprise him, low and dripping with too much pain, and he feels like he could pass out any second.

His eyes shoot open, glancing to see her own closed tightly, her eyelashes lined with tiny tear drops. Swallowing, he lifts her chin up, angling her face to his.

“Donna,” he speaks slowly, “Donna, look at me,” her eyes flutter open, hazel orbs meeting his, “I’m a goddamn idiot.”

She stares at him, forehead knitting at his words, watching how his jaw clenches.

“I never should have- I treated you like shit.” He spits out, disgust in himself, flashbacks of the past few weeks washing over him. “I was just- so angry that I-”

“Blamed me for everything.” Donna finishes for him softly.

He shakes his head, the grip on her tightening still. “I never meant to- I don’t- I was angry at myself. I took it out on you, and- there’s no excuse for that, and I’m so so sorry, Donna.” His voice shakes as more tears flow down his cheeks.

Confusion clouds her mind, a mix of emotions and desires trying to one up the other continuously. “Harvey, I can’t-”

“Can’t what?” Anxiety oozes from his words, eyes searching her face for the answers he desperately seeks.

“I can’t- be who you want me to be. I can’t keep doing this.”

His forehead knits, bewilderment shadowing his face. “I don’t-”

“You tell me you need me, and you push me out. You start having panic attacks when I leave to go work for Louis. I tell you I want more and you go to her.”

“I’m here now.” He defends, voice trying to remain steady, his gaze pleading with her to understand, to believe.

Donna shakes her head. “It’s-”

“Don’t tell me it’s too late, Donna, don’t. Please.” Fear drips with every breath, crippling him to the spot.

“I love you, Harvey, I do, but-”

“But what?” Frustration bubbles in him now, floating at the surface.

“But- you’re only doing this because you’re scared. You don’t want to lose the firm’s COO, you don’t want me to leave you high and dry…”

“You’re damn right I’m scared, but I don’t give a shit about the firm, I care about you. Can’t you see that?” His eyes plead with her, voice low and desperate.

“I see a man who’s hurt me for the past two weeks. Who blamed me for cheating, for his break up with his girlfriend. Who treated me like shit for whatever goddamn reason he’s turned into an excuse.”

“I told you, I’m sorry.”

“That’s not enough, Harvey.”

“Of course it’s not enough!” His shout takes her by surprise, flinching slightly at the higher octave of his words. “It’s never enough! I’m not enough,” The grip he had on her loosens then, arms flailing about, catching the attention of the few patrons around them. Neither notice, however, the world around them blurring into dust.

She stares at him wide-eyed now, watching the way his breaths come out short, his tear stained cheeks turning red. “Goddammit, Donna, I don’t deserve you. I never did. I doubt I ever will.” Defeat leaves his lips, voice cracked and small, head shaking as he watches the surprise in her eyes stare back at him. “You deserve the world, you deserve everything, and I know I can’t give you that, can’t ever be what you deserve, but I want to be the one who tries.” He takes a moment to breathe then, taking a tentative step toward her again.

“You were right, you have been putting me before yourself for over twelve years, always being there for me, while I just expected you to be at my every beck and call. It wasn’t fair, the way you would put my needs before yours- it wasn’t right.”

His words are hitting her in full, a massive blow to her emotions with every breath he takes.

“When you told me you wanted more, I panicked. I didn’t know what you meant. I thought maybe, at first you meant us, and the idea of it just scared me because I knew I could screw it up within moments. As long as we were working together, side by side, it was fine, we were fine. But we weren’t.” He lets out sigh of defeat, of exhaustion filled with shame and regret.

He takes another step toward her, taking her hands in his own. “I know I can’t stop you from leaving, I know this is your decision to make, but know that I don’t give a shit about anything else in this world except you. Nothing matters if you’re not here, by my side- as my COO, my friend, my anything, my  everything.”

Harvey waits a beat to gauge her reaction, watching as the tears fall freely from her eyes, and he feels himself sinking lower into the ground.

“You once asked me how I love you, but I didn’t know how to respond,” he lets out a breath, standing a little straighter. “Ask me again.” He whispers.

Her head shakes sightly. “Harvey-”

“Please.” His eyes are soft and pained, boring into her own.

Donna clears her throat, voice low and shaky. “Love me how?”

Harvey cups her cheek then, his other hand splayed at the small of her back, pulling her closer to him. He makes sure his eyes are aligned with her own, “Like this.” His lips slant over hers again, need and desperation converted into a slow passion that has her toes curling into her heels. His lips pull and nip at her own, slowly yet fiercely, tongue snaking out in a torturous pace that she feels her own meeting his half way. He pours all of his in love into her, not holding back an ounce of emotion, of need, of want.

A low groan reverberates through him, and she swallows it down immediately, sucking on his tongue, setting a low flame of passion inside of her.

She feels him pulling her closer to him, the gentle way in which he holds her bringing fresh tears pricking against her eyes. He tastes like coffee and warmth and him, the sweet and bitter flavors making her head spin and her knees buckle. She’s thankful for the visceral grip he has on her, gentle but firm, making sure she stays in place, safe in his arms.

Their kisses slowly come to a stop, their lips still pressing against each other, the need to taste each other never dulling.

Harvey plants a lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth, taking the moment to breath her in, hold her to him. He sighs, “I’m not very good with words,” he confesses, eyes opening to meet her own, hooded with desire and love, “and I don’t want to screw things up- further, anyhow,” he shifts in place, making sure he has her full attention, “I don’t expect you to forgive me easily, hell, I can’t even begin to do that, but, know that I do love you, fully and completely, with all of my heart, for as long as I can remember, Donna.”

She swallows against the tears that can’t seem to stay at bay, mentally cursing at the way she must look right now, in the open, exposed to him and the world around them.

“Took you too damn long to realize.” She finally whispers, voice low with a twinge of amusement, despite her serious expression.

His lips quirk ever so slightly in a sad smile. “I know,” he says softly, “and I’m sorry, for everything, just- please, don’t go.” Fear seeps back into him then, not knowing if his words were enough, if anything he says will ever be.

Donna studies his gaze for a moment, letting out a sigh. “I- don’t want to,” she begins, her heart fluttering at the way his face brightens with hope for a moment, “but-“

“No, no buts please.”

“I just need- some time.”

His brow furrows. “Time?”

Donna nods, “Yeah, time.”

“So, you’re still leaving,” Harvey deflates.

She shakes her head, thumb reaching up to caress his lower lip, swollen from their kisses. “No, just- I’m gonna need some time off work.”

His eyes light up slightly again. “Work? Does that mean-”

She lets a small smile line up her face, “You can throw out my resignation letter, Harvey, but I’m still going to need some time off.”

“Haven’t we already wasted enough of that?” His voice is low as he steps even closer to her, his breath hot against her ear and she tries to tamper down the arousal that sits low in her belly then.

“Harvey-” She closes her eyes, trying not to let his touch and voice affect her anymore.

“Donna,” his gaze meets hers again, warm brown meeting dark hazel. “I almost lost you tonight, for good, I don’t want to waste any more time.” He speaks with persistence.

“Harvey, I’m not saying no, I’m just saying, I’m going to need a day, or two, just to wrap my mind around this.” Her eyes plead with him, the idea of spending any kind of time apart from him already pulling at her seems, her lips still tingling from their kiss.

He nods in understanding then. “Okay, I- I’m sorry, I don’t want to push you, I just- I’m scared.”

“Of what?” She speaks softly, reaching her hand up to caress his cheek.

“Of losing you. Of wasting too much time that we can never-”

She shakes her head. “That won’t happen.”

“You sure?” His eyebrows raise, wonder and hope and worry creasing into his features all at once.

“I don’t want to lose you either, Harvey. I’ll stay- I just need to process this. For a little while, anyhow.” Her face is riddled with an ounce of guilt, despite it all. A couple of hours ago, she was angry, hurting, and she was still feeling all those things, but leave it to Harvey Specter to suddenly make her regret the very words she was speaking now. She did need time, but she still didn’t want to leave his side.

“Okay.” He leans over to plant a kiss on her forehead, her eyes closing when his lips meet her skin.

“I do want this.” She tells him softly, eyes glassy.

“I know. So do I.” He gives her a small smile and she resists the urge to kiss his dimples then.

They remain quiet for a second, gazes remaining locked, the reality of what had transpired in the last few minutes hitting them all at once.

“So,” Donna clears her throat, “I take it you got my letter.”

Harvey sighs. “You’re one hell of a writer, Paulsen.”

She smirks slightly, “I just- had to tell you why. Didn’t want to leave without you knowing.”

“I wish you had just told me in person.”

She shakes her head. “I couldn’t- it would’ve been too much.”

He nods in understanding, “Still, would’ve saved us some time.”

“What? And miss the chance to see you coming to profess your love for me in the middle of an airport like some sleazy rom com?” She jokes.

His head tilts in amusement, a flutter in his stomach forming at the way she can toy with him now, after everything.

“You do like a dramatic flare.”

A chuckle escapes her then, making him release his own. It felt good, being able to laugh at each other, at their unconventional way of dealing with things.

“Uh, should we- get going then?” His words come out awkwardly, unsure.

It takes her a moment to realize what he’s saying, mind still reeling from everything that’s transpired. “Oh, uh, yeah.” She disentangles herself from him, suddenly feeling colder, even with the coat that hugged her body. She reaches down to grab her bags, holding one on each hand.

“Here, why don’t I-” Harvey reaches over, grabbing her carry on, while she held onto her purse.

“Oh, thank you.” She gives him a smile, cringing at the way things quickly grew awkward between them.

They quietly make their way out of the airport, Donna studying his face as they walk toward the entrance, catching him looking at her before he looks away, like a couple of teenagers hanging out with their first crush.

They manage to quickly grab a cab, and she lets him take lead, watching him as he spouts her address from memory, the simple action itself somehow making her insides fill with warmth.

When they reach her apartment, a good thirty minutes later, Harvey tells the driver to wait for him, and she momentarily curses herself for telling him she needed time, when all she wants in that moment is him.

“Wait,” she finds herself saying, her words surprising them both.

Harvey looks at her in confusion, concern written in his features. “What is it?”

“I-” she turns to look at the cab driver, “You don’t have to wait for him, he’s staying.”

Before Harvey could protest or question her, she’s pulling out a couple of bills from her purse, handing them to the driver. She manages to grab Harvey by the hand, leading him out of the cab in a near rush.

“Donna, wait,” Harvey manages to finally find his words, shaken out of the daze he had found himself in just moments before.

She stops just short of the door that led them inside her building, copper hair flowing slightly in the the cool breeze of the night.  

“I thought you needed some time.” He begins tentatively, trying to measure his words carefully, not wanting to say the wrong thing in the moment, knowing they were still toeing a fine line.

“So did I.” She breathes out, stepping toward him in slow measured steps, stopping when she’s just short of a foot away from him.

Harvey feels himself swallowing, the light from the street lamps catching her eyes just so, making them twinkle with mischief and mirth.

“Donna,” Her name is honey on his tongue, eyes searching her own, trying to decipher her intentions.

“Harvey,” She echoes back, a coy smile on her lips, stepping just an inch closer to him.

“I thought- you said you needed time, to process things, process us.”

A sigh escapes her, and she looks down for a second before looking back into his kind eyes. “You were right, we’ve already wasted too much time.” She tells him softly.

He shakes his head. “Yeah, but, I don’t want to rush you, rush us,” he’s quick to clarify, “If you need more time, I understand. I know I told you otherwise at first, but this is a pretty big step for us.”

“Harvey, we’ve played around with this for thirteen years now, closing on fourteen, I think we’ve had too much time already.”

She’s mere centimeters away from him now, and he feels his body grow hot suddenly, the cool air around them doing nothing to dilute the heat he feels filtering in and around him. “I don’t want this to- I don’t want you to regret anything. And I don’t want you to think I can’t wait for you while you think this through, while you process-”

Her lips are on him, warm and soft against his own. A sigh escapes him, arms wrapping around her on reflect, keeping her close. Before either has a chance to deepen the kiss, she’s pulling back, softly biting down on his lower lip, bringing out a low groan from him.

“Look, I know what I said earlier, but,” she licks her lips, his taste still lingering on her, “I really, really, need you. Right now.”

His throat bobs, eyes dilating as her low and sultry voice reaches him, making his blood rush south. “Are- are you sure?” He asks her, needing for her to clarify.

“Harvey, take me inside.” Donna whispers, voice laden with need and impatience.

He nods dumbly. “Okay.”

He shuts the door with her body, their lips fused together in a tight lock. His hands are roaming through every inch of her, trying and failing to get as close to her as possible. Their coats come off simultaneously, their hands making quirk work of his dress shirt next, lips never parting. She rakes her hands down his bare chest then, nails scratching his abs, a grin forming on her lips when she feels his muscles contracting beneath her.

Harvey turns her around suddenly, hands finding the zipper of her dress, beginning a slow descent, his lips latching onto her exposed skin, sucking on her shoulder blade and neck, anywhere he could find.

“Harvey…” A low moan escapes her, eyes closing out of her own volition, his lips finding that one particular spot on her neck that has her quivering in his arms already.

He presses one last kiss against her freckled skin, the zipper of her dress now all the way down and she immediately shrugs out of it, the material pooling at her feet. She kicks the black dress away, stepping out of her heels in the process.

She turns around to look at him, catches his eyes mapping out the length of her body, dilated and clouded over with arousal and pure unadulterated need.

“You’re- so beautiful.” He breathes out in wonder, his eyes finally meeting her own.

Her heart suddenly jumps a beat, his words having a bigger effect on her than she would like to admit. When he doesn’t move, she takes a step toward him, grabbing his hands and placing them on her bare hips. “Harvey, take me to bed.”

His arms are around her in a flash, guiding her legs around him, hands supporting her weight as he lifts her up, carrying her to her bedroom, a loud gasp leaving her lips at his spontaneous action.

“Impressed?” He breathes against her, guiding her to her room.

“Hmm, more like surprised. You pulled that same move last time, mister.” She teases.

A low chuckle escapes him, reaching her bed and gently depositing her on it, looming over her. “I promise,” he begins softly, hand tracing down her body, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake, “this time,” he kisses her neck, followed by her cheek, until he reaches her lips, “will be better.”

His bare chest is molded to her back, arms surrounding her naked body, pulled closely against his own.

“Hey, there,” he whispers, lips meeting her clavicle, “you asleep yet?”

“Hmm, you didn’t tire me out that much, Specter.” She chuckles.

His own chuckle leaves his lips, low and vibrating against her back. “I’m not done with you yet.” He whispers against her ear, pleased at the way he feels her shivering in his arms.

She turns around then, her eyes meeting him in the dark of her room. “Look at you all smug,” she pinches his cheek, her grin mirroring his own, Cheshire Cat-like and annoyingly adorable.

Harvey places a kiss against the inside of her wrist, a low hum following. “Tonight was amazing.” He tells her softly.

Her features soften at his words, a small smile playing on her lips. “Yeah, it was.” She still feels her body tingling, aching in all the right places, a heat radiating through every inch of her lithe figure.

“You were particularly amazing.” He pulls her toward him, making her turn in his arms until she was fully facing him.

“And you had a couple of tricks up your sleeve.” Donna tells him, voice impressed.

He wiggles his eyebrows comically, and she lets a loud laugh leave her lips. It was amazing, surreal, honestly, how much things had changed in the last couple of weeks, the last couple of hours in particular. When she had woken up that morning, alone in her bed, after another near sleepless night, she expected to be sleeping in a different bed that night, in another city, miles away from him.

But here she was now, wrapped up in his arms, naked, teasing each other like they used to, except more.

“What are you thinking?” He asks her quietly, hand trailing up and down her arm.

“Hmm?”

“I can hear you thinking pretty loudly there, Donna. You okay?”

She almost laughs at how concerned he sounds. The fact that she’s in bed with her best friend of thirteen years, the man she loves, the man she’s been in love with for the better part of those years, nearly convinced he didn’t love her in the same way, will forever rival any other moment she faces in her life.

“I’m just,” she lets out a small sigh, closing her eyes for a moment, relishing in the warmth that radiated from his skin, “really happy, Harvey.”

A slow smile creeps on him, eyes crinkling as he watches her. Her hair is a tangled mess, yet still flowing down in waves, her pale skin is flushed and her eyes are bright. He doesn’t think she’s ever looked more beautiful.

“Good,” he whispers, leaning over to place a chaste kiss on her lips, “I am too.”

They settle into a comfortable silence, their lips meeting each other lazily between staring each other in the dark, like first time lovers, doing everything they could to take in every moment.

“So… you still going to take some time off?” Harvey muses after a few seconds.

“That depends… do you think you can take some time off too?” She trails a manicured finger up his chest, her eyes landing on his, doe-eyed and innocent-like.

“I think I can manage a day or two.” He murmurs, shifting to pull her closer to him, body aligning his perfectly.

She tangles her legs in his, seeking even more contact with him. “I mean, we do have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Thirteen years worth.” He whispers against her lips, words holding more weight in them than either expected.

“Thank you.” She finds herself telling him.

His forehead knits in confusion. “For what?”

“For going after me, tonight.” Her words are low, almost shy.

His whole demeanor softens, a sigh leaving his lips. “You don’t have to thank me for that,” he swallows back the guilt that kept building up in him, “I’m just glad I wasn’t too late.”

“No,” she reaches her hand up, caressing his cheek, “you were right on time.”

[meeedeee]

Shin Godzilla: Disasters, Tropes & Cultural Memory RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

Warning: spoilers for Shin Godzilla.

I’ve been wanting to see Shin Godzilla since it came out last year, and now that it’s available on iTunes, I’ve finally had the chance. Aside from the obvious draw inherent to any Godzilla movie, I’d been keen to see a new Japanese interpretation of an originally Japanese concept, given the fact that every other recent take has been American. As I loaded up the film, I acknowledged the irony in watching a disaster flick as a break from dealing with real-world disasters, but even so, I didn’t expect the film itself to be quite so bitingly apropos.

While Shin Godzilla pokes some fun at the foibles of Japanese bureaucracy, it also reads as an unsubtle fuck you to American disaster films in general and their Godzilla films in particular. From the opening scenes where the creature appears, the contrast with American tropes is pronounced. In so many natural disaster films – 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact, Armageddon, San Andreas – the Western narrative style centres by default on a small, usually ragtag band of outsiders collaborating to survive and, on occasion, figure things out, all while being thwarted by or acting beyond the government. There’s frequently a capitalist element where rich survivors try to edge out the poor, sequestering themselves in their own elite shelters: chaos and looting are depicted up close, as are their consequences. While you’ll occasionally see a helpful local authority figure, like a random policeman, trying to do good (however misguidedly), it’s always at a remove from any higher, more coordinated relief effort, and particularly in more SFFnal films, a belligerent army command is shown to pose nearly as much of a threat as the danger itself.

To an extent, this latter trope appears in Shin Godzilla, but to a much more moderated effect. When Japanese command initially tries to use force, the strike is aborted because of a handful of civilians in range of the blast, and even when a new attempt is made, there’s still an emphasis on chain of command, on minimising collateral damage and keeping the public safe. At the same time, there’s almost no on-the-ground civilian elements to the story: we see the public in flashes, their online commentary and mass evacuations, a few glimpses of individual suffering, but otherwise, the story stays with the people in charge of managing the disaster. Yes, the team brought together to work out a solution – which is ultimately scientific rather than military – are described as “pains-in-the-bureaucracy,” but they’re never in the position of having to hammer, bloody-fisted, on the doors of power in order to rate an audience. Rather, their assemblage is expedited and authorised the minute the established experts are proven inadequate.

When the Japanese troops mobilise to attack, we view them largely at a distance: as a group being addressed and following orders, not as individuals liable to jump the chain of command on a whim. As such, the contrast with American films is stark: there’s no hotshot awesome commander and his crack marine team to save the day, no sneering at the red tape that gets in the way of shooting stuff, no casual acceptance of casualties as a necessary evil, no yahooing about how the Big Bad is going to get its ass kicked, no casual discussion of nuking from the army. There’s just a lot of people working tirelessly in difficult conditions to save as many people as possible – and, once America and the UN sign a resolution to drop a nuclear bomb on Godzilla, and therefore Tokyo, if the Japanese can’t defeat it within a set timeframe, a bleak and furious terror at their country once more being subject to the evils of radiation.

In real life, Japan is a nation with extensive and well-practised disaster protocols; America is not. In real life, Japan has a wrenchingly personal history with nuclear warfare; America, despite being the cause of that history, does not.

Perhaps my take on Shin Godzilla would be different if I’d managed to watch it last year, but in the immediate wake of Hurricane Harvey, with Hurricane Irma already wreaking unprecedented damage in the Caribbean, and huge tracts of Washington, Portland and Las Angeles now on fire, I find myself unable to detach my viewing from the current political context. Because what the film hit home to me – what I couldn’t help but notice by comparison – is the deep American conviction that, when disaster strikes, the people are on their own. The rich will be prioritised, local services will be overwhelmed, and even when there’s ample scientific evidence to support an imminent threat, the political right will try to suppress it as dangerous, partisan nonsense.

In The Day After Tomorrow, which came out in 2004, an early plea to announce what’s happening and evacuate those in danger is summarily waved off by the Vice President, who’s more concerned about what might happen to the economy, and who thinks the scientists are being unnecessarily alarmist. This week, in the real America of 2017, Republican Rush Limbaugh told reporters that the threat of Hurricane Irma, now the largest storm ever recorded over the Atlantic Ocean, was being exaggerated by the “corrupted and politicised” media so that they and other businesses could profit from the “panic”.

In my latest Foz Rants piece for the Geek Girl Riot podcast, which I recorded weeks ago, I talk about how we’re so acclimated to certain political threats and plotlines appearing in blockbuster movies that, when they start to happen in real life, we’re conditioned to think of them as being fictional first, which leads us to view the truth as hyperbolic. Now that I’ve watched Shin Godzilla, which flash-cuts to a famous black-and-white photo of the aftermath of Hiroshima when the spectre of a nuclear strike is raised, I’m more convinced than ever of the vital, two-way link between narrative on the one hand and our collective cultural, historical consciousness on the other. I can’t imagine any Japanese equivalent to the moment in Independence Day when cheering American soldiers nuke the alien ship over Las Angeles, the consequences never discussed again despite the strike’s failure, because the pain of that legacy is too fully, too personally understood to be taken lightly.

At a cultural level, Japan is a nation that knows how to prepare for and respond to natural disasters. Right now, a frightening number of Americans – and an even more frightening number of American politicians – are still convinced that climate change is a hoax, that scientists are biased, and that only God is responsible for the weather. How can a nation prepare for a threat it won’t admit exists? How can it rebuild from the aftermath if it doubts there’ll be a next time?

Watching Shin Godzilla, I was most strongly reminded, not of any of the recent American versions, but The Martian. While the science in Shin Godzilla is clearly more handwavium than hard, it’s nonetheless a film in which scientific collaboration, teamwork and international cooperation save the day. The last, despite a denouement that pits Japan against an internationally imposed deadline, is of particular importance, as global networking still takes place across scientific and diplomatic back-channels. It’s a rare American disaster movie that acknowledges the existence or utility of other countries, especially non-Western ones, beyond shots of collapsing monuments, and even then, it’s usually in the context of the US naturally taking the global lead once they figure out a plan. The fact that the US routinely receives international aid in the wake of its own disasters is seemingly little-known in the country itself; that Texas’s Secretary of State recently appeared to turn down Canadian aid in the wake of Harvey, while now being called a misunderstanding, is nonetheless suggestive of confusion over this point.

As a film, Shin Godzilla isn’t without its weaknesses: the monster design is a clear homage to the original Japanese films, which means it occasionally looks more stop-motion comical than is ideal; there’s a bit too much cutting dramatically between office scenes at times; and the few sections of English-language dialogue are hilariously awkward in the mouths of American actors, because the word-choice and use of idiom remains purely Japanese. Even so, these are ultimately small complaints: there’s a dry, understated sense of humour evident throughout, even during some of the heavier moments, and while it’s not an action film in the American sense, I still found it both engaging and satisfying.

But above all, at this point in time – as I spend each morning worriedly checking the safety of various friends endangered by hurricane and flood and fire; as my mother calls to worry about the lack of rain as our own useless government dithers on climate science – what I found most refreshing was a film in which the authorities, despite their faults and foibles, were assumed and proven competent, even in the throes of crisis, and in which scientists were trusted rather than dismissed. Earlier this year, in response to an article we both read, my mother bought me a newly-released collection of the works of children’s poet Misuzu Kaneko, whose poem “Are You An Echo?” was used to buoy the Japanese public in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami . Watching Shin Godzilla, it came back to me, and so I feel moved to end with it here.

May we all build better futures; may we all write better stories.

Are You An Echo?

If I say, “Let’s play?” you say, “Let’s play!”

If I say, “Stupid!” you say, “Stupid!”

If I say, “I don’t want to play anymore,” you say, “I don’t want to play anymore.”

And then, after a while, becoming lonely

I say, “Sorry.” You say, “Sorry.”

Are you just an echo? No, you are everyone.

      from shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows http://ift.tt/2wJXCVQ via IFTTT

[statusquoergo]

I HAVE! A LOT ACTUALLY! Harvey helping Mike picking up a suit for the wedding at Renes. And like he eould look at Mike trying one and just knows... like not realizing he loves him, but accepting, embracing it. He would just get lost in his thoughts for a moment and Mike would go like "Harvey? What do you think?" and... i'll leave to you to continue. Happy ending pleaseee

Read on AO3

It’s a long drive over to Rene’s.

Actuallyit’s not, not even close, but Harvey lost his sense of temporal recognitionsometime during the brief drive from his condo to Mike and Rachel’s place; onceMike slides into the backseat beside him with a giddy little bounce, bitingdown on a perfectly innocent smile, the next fifteen minutes somehow bothstretch out to three hours and condense to approximately zero seconds. ThenMike grins at Harvey and opens the car door again, and Harvey thinks he pausesfor a second or two before he gets out (which would be confusing if true), butat this point it’s impossible to know for sure (so it doesn’t mean anything).

Mike has the good graces to hold the shop door open andallow Harvey to enter first; Harvey gifts him a gracious little quirk of hislips, and Rene is upon them the moment door snicks shut.

“Harvey,” he dotes, stepping forward with his handsclasped behind his back. “Come to discuss a new palette for the upcomingseason?”

“Not today,” Harvey says with as much authority as he canmuster, given the circumstances. “Rene, you remember Mike Ross.”

“But of course,” Rene says smoothly, turning hisattention to Mike with far more respect than he probably did when they firstmet. The man knows good taste; he can see how far Mike’s come. (Harvey smilesproudly.)

“Interested in opening your own account, Mister Ross?”

Mike laughs clumsily; to his credit, Rene seemsunaffected.

“I don’t think so,” Mike tries to recover. “I’m gettingmarried, actually, and I figured if I wanted to look my best, I needed to…go tothe best.”

Good boy.

The polite deference in Rene’s smile softens his featuresfor only a moment before it’s time to get down to business. Ushering Mike tothe fitting area, hidden away in the back behind a subtle corner, Rene beginsflicking through a rack of sample suits, commenting a little snidely that themeasurements he has on file from Mike’s last fitting are surely outdated, butat least the fabric will hang better this time around that he’s not such alittle slip of a thing.

Mike doesn’t look even remotely offended, craning hisneck to survey the samples for himself, and Harvey marvels silently at how wellhe’s begun to fit into this world. It’s no wonder, of course; he’s alwaysbelonged here.

Abruptly, Rene stops muttering under his breath and pullsthree suits from the rack; holding a decent brown one up in front of Mike, hefurrows his brow and then scowls briefly, putting it back and taking a darkerblue in its stead. Harvey nods his approval at the swap, not that anyone’spaying attention.

“In this order,” Rene directs, handing the suits to Mikeone by one. “Come along, Mister Ross,”he presses when Mike only holds them nervously, “I am a busy man.”

Mike nods and looks around for a chair or something tolay the two remaining suits on in the meantime; when Harvey offers his arms, hesmiles widely in relief and hands them over.

Harvey steps back to wait.

“Glen plaid,”Rene says as Mike buttons the jacket of the first suit, a nice neutral greynumber that reminds Harvey of Roger Thornhill. “Pay no mind to the fit, this isobviously a mere trial run, but you strike me as a man who has a healthyrespect for something with a bit of history behind it.”

Gripping the lapels, Mike turns slowly and looks backover his shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His lipsare parted slightly, his eyes focused but just a touch narrowed, and Harvey hasno trouble understanding his thoughts; he likes it but doesn’t love it, andhe’s afraid to upset Rene by disagreeing with his taste. Mike is right—the suitis a nice shade, and the cut will work well on him once it’s fitted properly,but there’s something too somber about it for the occasion, toobusiness-formal. This should be a happy day, the happiest of Mike’s life, andhis suit ought to reflect that.

For a minute there, Harvey remembers Mike’s splittingsmile, his child-like wonder when he’d passed on that simple message, You got in, and reminds himself thatMike’s happiness is the most important thing. (That’s why we’re here, afterall.)

Rene must see Mike’s hesitancy too, because he shakes hishead and gestures for Mike to remove the ensemble.

“Not a soul will appreciate it in context,” headmonishes, “this won’t do at all. Go on now, the notch lapel.”

Mike looks blankly at Harvey, who has the good sense topass over the other grey suit; this one is darker and without pattern, andHarvey hopes to god it fits Mike to a T because he has nothing but respect forRene’s eye for color and tailoring, but Harvey’s been present for enough ofMike’s five-year fashion odyssey to know that the strong shoulders and higharmholes will flatter Mike’s figure perfectly, and that dark grey makes theboy’s eyes light up like a night sky full of stars.

Well that’s a hell of a thing to notice.

The whole journey has been quite the adventure, hasn’tit.

From the very first day, dumping his plastic bags of potall over Harvey’s meeting room at the Chilton, Mike has put a spark in Harveythat he’s been missing since… He isn’t even sure how to finish the thought. Itprobably hasn’t been missing “since” anything, whatever it is that Mike adds tohis life; it’s all Mike, irreplaceable and incontrovertible. His cockinessthat’s been tempered with practice and defeat into a more dignifiedself-confidence, but never quite lost its edge; his enthusiasm for life that’sonly grown the more he’s seen of the intricacies of the world outside his ownexperiences; his determination in the face of overwhelming odds to protect thethings and the people he holds dear, to always do the right thing, or the wrongthing for the right reasons…

There has never been a man quite like Michael James Ross.

“Harvey?”

Harvey looks up at Mike on the fitting stage.

Whatever happens, from now on to whenever, he’ll probablylove him ‘til the end of time.

Mike twists his spine and then tries to stand upstraight, smoothing down front panels and raising his chest with some dignity.

“So?”

Handing the remaining blue suit back to Rene to return tothe rack, Harvey crosses his arms over his chest. Yeah; this is the one,alright. It’ll run up some kind of bill—he estimates about five thousand, giveor take—but it’s worth it.

“What do you think?” Mike presses a little nervously atHarvey’s lack of response.

Here we are, at the end of the line.

Just give me a second, kid.

This’ll take some getting used to.

It takes a little more than a second, but Harvey smilesand nods, small enough that Mike has to pay attention to catch it; he will,Harvey knows he will, knows it in the grin that breaks out on his face inresponse, the comfort with which he puts his hands in the trouser pockets, therelief in his relaxing posture. The sparkle in his eyes, like a night full ofstars.

Rene’s assistant appears out of thin air to take Mike’smeasurements quickly and efficiently, and Harvey slips his credit card to Reneduring a particularly distracted moment; Mike catches him all the same andHarvey raises his hand to stem any potential protests.

“Don’t worry about it,” he insists. “All part of beingthe best man.”

Mike is about to say something anyway before he thinksbetter of it. His face falls, just a touch, like he’s worried about something;Harvey hopes it isn’t the money. Whatever the final tally comes to, it’ll beworth it to see that smile on Mike’s face again as he stands in front ofHarvey’s windows, maybe on the balcony if it’s a nice day, backlit by the citythey both call home, on the happiest day of his life.

Yeah.

Mike steps down off the stage, shrugging out of thejacket.

“So, Harvey,” he says as he finishes putting his own trousersback on. “What’s wrong?”

Harvey stares, momentarily at a loss—surely he isn’t sotransparent—and then smiles as though the question is absurd.

“Nothing,” he says, the weakest of defenses. “Nothing’swrong.”

“So I know that’s not true,” Mike replies, unbuttoninghis cuffs to roll up his sleeves. “But how long is this gonna take? Ballpark.”

Harvey shakes his head; they’re not discussing this now.Not ever, but especially not now.

“Nothing’s wrong, Mike, don’t worry about it.”

“Harvey.”

God dammit.

Shrugging, Harvey tries to come up with something thatwon’t sound too self-incriminating. (Thisisn’t about you.)

“You’ve come pretty far,” he says. “I’m proud of you,kid.”

For a minute, Mike’s face is completely blank; he looksat Harvey like he doesn’t know quite what to make of him, like he’s just beengiven some important information that he isn’t sure how he’s meant to react to.Then it clears, and the pit in Harvey’s stomach lightens.

“It took almost six years,” he teases; “I was this closeto giving up, but here we are: Harvey Specter has feelings.”

This again.

This is safer ground; this, they know how to do.

“Don’t go spreading that around,” Harvey warns, raisinghis eyebrows, and Mike laughs.

“It’s on the record now,” he says, “no take-backs; can Iget it in writing, I’d like to have it notarized.”

“Not gonna happen.”

Mike laughs again, but it trails off weakly; his eyes dima shade or two, and though he’s still smiling, some of the luster is gone.They’re not kidding around anymore, and it was wrong to pretend.

Rene steps forward with his hands behind his back and anauthoritative coolness to his expression.

“Four weeks,” he dictates. “You will be notified upon thesuit’s completion and we’ll expect you to retrieve it in a timely manner.”

Mike blinks.

“Oh—thanks,” he fumbles. “Thank you.”

Rene nods, eyeing them for a moment before he turns tothe back of the shop and disappears. Harvey pats imaginary dust from histhighs.

Mike looks at the tie racks.

“Shouldn’t I be happier?” he asks idly, and Harveyfrowns.

“What’s wrong?”

Mike sighs.

“Nothing,” he says. “That’s the thing, nothing’s wrongand I’m getting married to a wonderful woman and I got into the Bar and all mydreams are coming true and I should be…happier, right?”

Harvey steps into Mike’s eyeline and thinks about puttinghis hand on his arm (but he doesn’t).

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Mikeinsists, “everything is perfect, butI…I dunno. Something’s…missing, or something.”

He looks into Harvey’s eyes then, and Harvey’s definitelyimagining it this time, but it’s almost as though he finds a little of whathe’s looking for (whatever it is).

“Are youhappy?”

Oh, Mike, don’t ask me that.

Harvey does clap his hand down on Mike’s shoulder now, affirming and steadying and trying to remind them (himself) what’s real,what’s important.

“I’m happy for you,” he says. “Like you said, you’regetting everything you want, and…I’m proud of you. I am.”

“You don’t think I’m settling?”

If that isn’t straight out of left field. Harvey shiftsback, just a bit, and drops his hand.

“I thought you and Rachel were happy together,” he says,because this isn’t about the job, can’t be about the job (not when Mike is backwhere he belongs). “Did she say something?”

Mike laughs under his breath. “No, but you kind of did.”

Shit, shit, shit—

Harvey tries to convey skeptical derision, hoping none ofthe panic shows through. He didn’t say anything, did he? (When?) No, definitelyno. (Did he?)

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s not what you said,” Mike clarifies, “but—just now,when I was trying on the suits, you had this… I don’t know how to describe it.This expression.” He shakes his head with a little smile and directs his nextcommentary out the storefront windows. “My grandmother used to get itsometimes, when she’d given me something that had been hard to find, or hardfor her to get; like she was happy I was happy, like all her sacrifices hadbeen worth it because I was getting something I really wanted, something thatwas important to me.”

Harvey’s answering smile is tight-lipped and narrow; heand Edith would have been good friends, he’s pretty sure. He’s sorry he didn’thave the chance to get to know her.

There’s a hardness to Mike’s stare when he turns back toHarvey, a set determination that Harvey doesn’t know what to do with.

“Am I missing out on something I don’t have to be?”

Harvey’s been in this game long enough to know when anopportunity isn’t going to come around again. All the signs are there; thesingularity of the surrounding circumstances, the trepidation of the otherparty, the risk inherent in taking the plunge, in saying “Yes,” the knowledgethat there’s no turning back once he does.

It’s a yes-or-no question, man.

Harvey steels himself and holds onto the tightness in hischest.

“Mike,” he says. “If there’s anything more I can do tomake you happy; you got it.”

It’s as much admission as he’s capable of giving at thismoment. Mike searches his face with those skylight eyes of his; he knows thesame, knows that they’re about to dive over the edge of a cliff without knowinghow long the fall will last.

His smile is small and uncertain, but that’s okay. (I’mscared, too.)

There’s just enough of a lead-in for Harvey to back awayif he really wants, but that would be ridiculous; then Mike’s hands holdhis head steady as he leans in and damn, the boy knows how to kiss.

Harvey brings his arm up around Mike’s shoulders, drawinghim in, holding him close, and it feels terribly sensationalist even though itreally isn’t; they’re behind a row of mannequins decked out to the nines, andanyway, no one spares them a single glance, no one gives a fuck; no oneunderstands how tremendous this is, how abruptly the world has been tipped onits axis. Righted.

Harvey opens his eyes a moment before they part; Mikekeeps his closed for a moment after as he drops his hands away.

“Uh-oh,” he says quietly, but he’s smiling as he does.

Harvey rubs his thumb up and down over Mike’s shoulder.

“You’ve got about a month before your suit’s ready,” hemurmurs, and Mike nods.

“Kind of sucks that it happened this way,” he says. Thecorner of Harvey’s mouth quirks in a little smirk.

“What can I say,” he offers, “I was tired of waiting.”

Mike bursts out laughing, raising his hand to Harvey’sneck and leaving it there as he looks away, regaining his bearings.

“Oh, god, I love you,” he says carelessly; Harvey waitsfor the retraction, the “oh shit” moment after he hears himself, but it nevercomes. They’re bigger than those stupid clichés, anyway.

“I’m following your lead here,” Harvey informs him,because this is fun and all, but there’s the real world out there with its realworld consequences waiting for the chance to eat them alive. Mike nods, his jawclenching surreptitiously.

“I’ll do you proud,” he replies.

Harvey kisses him again, quickly.

Nodoubt about that.

—

Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), the protagonist of North by Northwest (1959), iconically wears a grey Glen plaid suit.

This is a black version of the suit Mike ends up buying. (More accurately, it’s this, but in that picture it’s just draped over a chair.)

[oscopelabs]

Personality Crisis: The Radical Fluidity of Todd Haynes’ ‘Velvet Goldmine’ by Judy Berman

[This month, Musings pays homage to Produced and Abandoned: The Best Films You’ve Never Seen, a review anthology from the National Society of Film Critics that championed studio orphans from the ‘70s and ‘80s. In the days before the Internet, young cinephiles like myself relied on reference books and anthologies to lead us to film we might not have discovered otherwise. Released in 1990, Produced and Abandoned was a foundational piece of work, introducing me to such wonders as Cutter’s Way, Lost in America, High Tide, Choose Me, Housekeeping, and Fat City. (You can find the full list of entries here.) Over the next four weeks, Musings will offer its own selection of tarnished gems, in the hope they’ll get a second look. Or, more likely, a first. —Scott Tobias, editor.]

Like the glam rockers it gazes upon through the smoke-clouded lens of memory, Velvet Goldmine is most beautiful when it descends into chaos.

Stolen, the way great artists do, from Citizen Kane, the skeleton of Todd Haynes’ 1998 film is a chain of interlocking reminiscences of Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a David Bowie-like glam rocker who fakes his own onstage death in the mid-’70s. A decade later—in that most dystopic of years, 1984—his ex-wife Mandy (Toni Collette) and former manager Cecil (Michael Feast) relate their bitter tales of betrayal to a journalist (Christian Bale) whose assignment has him reluctantly reliving his own teenage sexual awakening under the influence of Brian’s music. Between the interviews, musical numbers, and onscreen epigrams, there’s also a mysterious female narrator who sometimes surfaces, like a teacher reading a subversive storybook, with dreamy exposition that reaches back a century to invoke glam’s patron saint, Oscar Wilde.

The film climaxes with a propulsive sequence of scenes that are exhilarating precisely because they merge all of these points of view, subjective and omniscient, into one collective fantasy. Brian and his new conquest, the Iggy Pop/Lou Reed composite Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), ride mini spaceships at a carnival to Reed’s “Satellite of Love.” Two random schoolgirls, their faces obscured, act out a love scene between a Curt doll and a Brian doll. In a posh hotel lobby, Brian’s entourage, styled like Old Hollywood starlets on the Weimar Germany set of a fin-de-siècle period film, recites pilfered sound bites about art. Then Brian and Curt are kissing on a circus stage, surrounded by old men in suits. They play Brian Eno’s “Baby’s on Fire” as Haynes cuts between the performance, an orgy in their hotel suite, and Bale’s hapless, young Arthur Stuart masturbating over a newspaper photo of Brian fellating Curt’s guitar. Stripped of narration—not to mention narrative—the film seems to be running on its own amorous fumes, its story fragmenting into a heap of glittering images as it hurtles from set piece to set piece.

Visual pleasure aside, it’s a perfect way of translating into cinematic language the argument that underlies Haynes’ script—that glam’s revelations about the radical fluidity of human identity go far beyond sex and gender. As the apotheosis of teen pop audiences’ thirst for outsize personae, fictional characters like Ziggy Stardust (who Velvet Goldmine further fictionalizes as Slade’s alter ego, Maxwell Demon) melded the symbiotic identities of artist and fan into a single, tantalizing vision of hedonism and transgression. Kids imitated idols they didn’t quite recognize as pure manifestations of their own inchoate desires. Musician and fan became each other’s mirror, and both could become entirely new people simply by changing costumes or names.

But it’s pretty much impossible to imagine Velvet Goldmine’s distributor and co-producer, Harvey Weinstein, appreciating this as he watched the film for the first time—or seeing anything in it, really, besides an expensive mess.

Haynes and his loyal producing partner, Killer Films head Christine Vachon, had already been through hell with Velvet Goldmine by the time they delivered a cut to Miramax. Bowie had refused Haynes’ repeated requests for permission to use six Ziggy-era songs in the film, claiming that he had a glam movie of his own in the works. And in a production diary that appears in her book Shooting to Kill, Vachon points out one unique challenge of making a film about queer male sexuality: “The MPAA seems to have a number of double standards. Naked females get R ratings, but pickle shots tend to get NC-17s. Our Miramax contract obligates us to an R.” She also mentions that an investor pulled $1 million of funding just weeks before filming.

The shoot was even more harrowing than the two veteran indie filmmakers could’ve predicted. As they fell behind schedule, a production executive started nagging Vachon to make cuts. “Todd is miserable,” she wrote in her diary the night before they wrapped. “He says that making movies this way is awful and he doesn’t want to do it.” In an interview that accompanies the published screenplay for Velvet Goldmine, Oren Moverman asks Haynes, “Was the making of the film joyful for you?” “I’m afraid not,” he replies. “We were trying very hard to cut scenes while shooting, knowing that we were behind and we didn’t have the money for the overloaded schedule. But there was hardly a scene we could cut without losing essential narrative information.” It’s remarkable that he managed to capture 123 usable minutes’ worth of meticulously art-directed ‘70s excess (and ‘80s bleakness) in just nine weeks, under so much external pressure, on a budget of $7 million.

When the film finally reached Harvey Scissorhands, after months of editing, Weinstein told Haynes it was too long and the structure didn’t work. “He made suggestions that I didn’t follow, and then he just buried it,” the director told Down and Dirty Pictures author Peter Biskind. What happened next comes straight from the Weinstein playbook: “Even afterward,” Haynes remembered, “they threw out a DVD, they didn’t ask for a director commentary, my name wasn’t on the cover of it, it was buried in the minuscule billing block. He can’t even do the really small things that don’t cost anything—he never shows any respect.” (That Haynes never found a distributor he preferred to Weinstein, with whom he reunited for I’m Not There and Carol, speaks volumes about the way Hollywood treats ambitious filmmakers.)

After it failed to blow audiences away at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, Miramax effectively dumped Velvet Goldmine. It debuted on just 85 screens that November, ultimately grossing about $1 million stateside. Its ridiculous theatrical trailer might well be a glimpse at the movie Weinstein was expecting: a “magical trip back to the ‘70s” with 100% more murder mystery and 100% less gay sex.

Critics were just as ambivalent about the film as festival audiences. While forward-thinking reviewers wanted to love it for its visual beauty and openly queer aesthetic, many lamented that its plot was slight and its characters hollow. David Ansen of Newsweek complained that “Haynes is unwilling to get too close to his characters. Slade, in particular, is a blank”—failing to see that Brian is a cypher by design. Like the Barbie-doll Karen Carpenter of Haynes’ debut feature, Superstar, and the fragments of Bob Dylan diffused across I’m Not There, Velvet Goldmine’s Bowie is less a portrait of the real person than a screen on which fans project their own fantasies about him.

At The Nation, Stuart Klawans rightly identified Arthur, not Brian, as the film’s protagonist. But he also wondered why he grows up to be such an unhappy adult. “Why is Haynes so tough on Arthur?” Klawans wanted to know. “Why, through the character, is he so tough on himself? It’s apparent everywhere in Velvet Goldmine that Haynes, like Arthur, loves Glitter Rock. He, too, fell for a mass-marketed product, which was no more likely than Mr. Clean to carry out a world-transforming promise. But instead of honoring the truth of his enthusiasm, so that he might look back on its object with a smile and a sigh…Haynes does penance for being a sap.”

Others found the film’s collage of ideas and allusions cumbersome. “Velvet Goldmine is weighed down with self-important messages, but it’s also splashily opulent,” Stephanie Zacharek wrote at Salon. “It’s as if Todd Haynes had plunged his hand into a pile of clothes at a jumble sale and come out with a handful that was half velvet finery, half polyester rejectables.”

All of these reactions make sense, coming from adult critics who had probably seen the film just once, after reading months’ worth of reports about its troubled birth, in the sterile environment of a press screening. But what’s clear from a distance of nearly two decades, during which Velvet Goldmine has become a low-key cult classic, is that few films are so poorly suited to be judged on the basis of a single dispassionate viewing. If you’re looking for tight plotting and complex characters, you’re not going to find them in this mixtape of music videos, aphorisms, and waking dream sequences. There is no actual murder mystery, and Arthur’s investigation into Slade’s disappearance isn’t a source of suspense so much as an excuse to keep contrasting an incandescent past with a dull, gray present.

I’m lucky enough to have first encountered Velvet Goldmine under what turned out to be ideal circumstances: at age 15, on premium cable, late enough at night that it easily bypassed my rational mind en route to my adolescent subconscious. I had no idea how many details it cribbed from the biographies of Bowie and his contemporaries, or how much of the dialogue was quoted from their (and their heroes’) most memorable utterances. I bought the soundtrack without realizing that it put ‘70s originals side-by-side with contemporary covers and new songs by younger bands like Pulp and Shudder to Think in yet another glam pastiche. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to find the 1984 scenes unsatisfying because I got so instantly immersed in the ‘70s spectacles that they barely existed for me.

Not that the film only works on an emotional level. Haynes’ ideas about fandom, politics, sexuality, and identity become even more profound once you can see the organizing principle behind what might initially seem like a jumble of indulgent images. Like the death hoax Brian Slade uses to escape a fantasy life that’s grown too real for comfort, Velvet Goldmine’s loose plot is classic misdirection, obscuring a tight and purposeful structure that delays the resolution of the ‘80s storyline until it’s primed you to feel the loss of the liberated ‘70s viscerally. But you’ll never get that far into dissecting the film if you don’t fall in love with it at first viewing. And that’s easiest to do when you’re as impressionable as young Arthur, who watches Brian Slade flaunt his queerness in a televised press conference and imagines himself shouting to his parents, “That is me!”  

Revisit it as you grow older, though, and you might discover that the disillusioned 30-something characters now feel as rich as their idealistic former selves. Velvet Goldmine is often called a gay film, but that obscures the universal resonance of its queer coming-of-age narrative. Better to think of it as a bisexual film that uses non-binary sexuality as a metaphor for the boundless possibilities of youth—the promise of a future constrained only by the limits of one’s own ambitions and appetites. Its characters can’t achieve permanent liberation by “coming out”; to maintain lifestyles that match their desires, they would have to reject the monogamy that defines adulthood for most people. Particularly amid the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, which haunts the film’s dreary present on a purely subtextual level, it’s obvious why they (like the real glam rockers they’re modeled after) retreat from the liberated lives they staked out for themselves.

But you don’t need to buy in to the incendiary claim Brian makes at his press conference, that everyone is bisexual, to see how this storyline reflects the many kinds of disappointments that await most starry-eyed fans in adulthood. Klawans’ objection to Haynes’ treatment of Arthur feels naive because it assumes people should be able to peacefully coexist with their shattered dreams. Why shouldn’t he feel bitter about having joined a sexual revolution that didn’t, finally, set him free? “It gets better” for Arthur when he leaves his homophobic family to move in with a latter-day glam act in London, but sometime after he hooks up with an unmoored Curt Wild at a tribute concert called the Death of Glitter, “it” just gets boring as the world gets worse.

And the world really does sometimes get worse, though audiences in the relatively peaceful, prosperous late ‘90s might have forgotten about that. Watching Velvet Goldmine for perhaps the 25th time, two weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration, at the end of an era that has brought unprecedented freedom of sexual and gender expression, I was struck by how vividly Haynes captures a culture’s flight from progress, and how rare it is to see that kind of transition depicted on film. His argument about fluidity turns out to be even more potent when applied to societies than individuals (or, at least, it seems that way in 2017). Our capacity for transformation may be infinite, but that doesn’t mean those changes are always for the best.

[viral-praxis-blog]

At 79 years of age and fresh from publishing a new book (Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, Oxford University Press), David Harvey is still reading social change with one eye on Marx and another on the social movements.

Professor Harvey, in your latest book you say that Marx chose revolutionary humanism above teleological dogmatism. Where might we find the political space for the realisation of this revolutionary humanism?

It’s not something that we have to create – there’s plenty of people out there at odds with the world they are living in, searching for a non-alienated existence and hoping to give some meaning back to their lives. I think that the problem lies in the historical Left’s incapacity to get to grips with this movement, which really is one that could change the world. At the moment, this search for meaning has above all been appropriated by religious movements (like evangelists), and politically that can imply its transformation into something totally different. Here I’m thinking about the anger against corruption, rising fascism in Europe and the radicalism of the US Tea Party.

The book ends with a discussion of three dangerous contradictions (unlimited growth, the environmental question, and total alienation) and a series of vectors of change. Is this a sort of programme, or will the revolt have to be based on a sort of fluid coalition of different forms of discontent?

The convergence of different forms of opposition will always be fundamentally important, and we saw as much with Gezi Park in Istanbul or the movement that took to the streets of Brazil during the football World Cup. Activism is fundamentally important, and again I think the problem here is the Left’s inability to channel it into anything. There’s a number of reasons for that, but I think the most important of them is the Left’s failure to abandon its traditional focus on production in favour of a politics of everyday life. In my view the politics of the everyday is the crucible where revolutionary energies might develop, and where we can already see activities that are seeking to define what a non-alienated life might look like. These activities are more a matter of the space where we live than the space where we work. Syriza and Podemos offer us a first glimpse of this political project – they are not pure revolutionaries, but they have awakened very great interest.

Syriza is playing a tragic role, in the classical sense of the word. Effectively it is saving the euro (which has played the role of an instrument of class violence), also for the sake of defending the idea of Europe, which has been one of the banners of the Left in recent decades. Do you think that it will find enough political space, or will it ultimately fail?

In this case I don’t think it’s easy to say what a success or a failure would be. In many regards Syriza will fail in the short term. But I believe that in the long term it will have achieved a victory, because it has put questions on the table that can no longer simply be ignored. At the moment the question mark is over democracy and what democracy even means when Angela Merkel has become the autocrat ruling over the lives of all Europeans. The moment will come when public opinion cries out that the autocratic governments have to go. Ultimately, if Merkel and the European leaders stick to their guns and force Greece out of Europe (as they probably will), then the consequences will be far more serious than they currently imagine. Politicians do often make grave errors of judgement, and I think this is a case in point.

In the book you predict a new cycle of revolts. Yet an appraisal of the last few years would have to say that the Arab Spring has proven a disaster, while Occupy has not been able to transform itself into an effective political force. Do you think the answer is something like Podemos, which has been able to give political expression to the 15-M movement?

Syriza and Podemos have opened up a political space, because something new is happening. What is it? I can’t say. Of course there will be those on the anti-capitalist left who accuse them of ‘reformism’. That may well be true, but they have also been the first forces to put forward some policies, and once we’ve started down that road then that will open up new possibilities. Finally breaking with the mantra of austerity and smashing the power of the Troika would, I believe, create the space for new perspectives, which could then further develop. I think that at this stage, this kind of parties we are seeing in Europe is the best thing that we can hope for, beginning to define the Left alternatives that we are currently lacking. They will probably be populist – with all the limits and dangers that populism entails – but as I have said, this is a movement: it opens up spaces, and what we can use these spaces for depends on our capacity to ask, ‘OK, now that we’ve got this far, what should we do now?’

Do you think that neoliberalism was just a moment of change and that post-crisis capital will reorganise itself by overcoming it, or do you think neoliberalism will be reimposed with new vigour?

I would say that it has never been so strong as it is now: indeed, what is austerity if not the transfer of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the classes above them? If we look at the data on who has benefited from state intervention since the 2008 crash, we find that it was the 1 percent, or rather, the 0.1 percent. Of course the answer to your question depends on how we define neoliberalism, and my definition (that it is a capitalist class project) is perhaps somewhat different from what other scholars’ would be.

What were the new ‘rules of the game’ established after the 1970s?

For example, in the event of a conflict between collective wellbeing and saving the banks, we save the banks. In 2008 these rules were applied in a very forthright manner: we saved the banks. But we could easily have resolved the problems of those who had been evicted – addressing people’s need for a home – and only then gone on to address the financial crisis. The same thing happened with Greece, which was lent a sackload of money that went straight to the German and French banks.

Why, though, were the Greeks a necessary intermediary in the transfer between the governments and the banks?

The structure that has been put in place avoided Germany directly saving the German banks or France saving the French ones: without Greece in between, it would have been too obvious what they were doing. Whereas this way it looks like Greece has been treated generously, pouring this massive amount of money into it – when in fact these funds went straight to the banks.

You mentioned the 1 percent. As a Marxist, do you think that this is just a useful slogan: does it have some analytical value, or does it just distract our gaze from the concept of a class struggle?

If we are really for historical-geographical materialism, then we have to recognise that contradictions are always evolving and so, too, must our categories. So by talking about the ‘1 percent’, Occupy succeeded in introducing this concept into common parlance. And it is clear that the 1 percent massively increased its wealth, as Piketty and all the data show. To put that into different terms, to speak of a 1 percent is to recognise that we have created a global oligarchy, which is not the same thing as the capitalist class but is at the centre of it. It is a sort of keyword that serves to describe what the global oligarchy is doing, saying and thinking.

By David Harvey