#repeat it with me: we need hundreds of gay films!

[lazzarella]

“The film only shows one part of the gay scene . . . it does not cover everything as many people wish it did. But such a hope or expectation is only a reflection of the dire situation in which there are so few films with or about gay characters. Almost any film starts off with the burden of trying to redress an imbalance, to make homosexuality visible in the cinema. We need hundreds of gay films, not half a dozen.”

- Ron Peck, director of Nighthawks 1978, quoted in The Celluloid Closet revised edition by Vito Russo

[kjack89]

Christmas Wish

Modern AU, E/R, established relationship, misunderstandings with a happy ending. Because sometimes you have to make your own entirely self-indulgent Christmas present :)

“A young boy has just come running out of the park...Let me see if I can get a comment...Did you see anything?”

“It's the real Santa! His sleigh can't fly cause nobody believes in him!”

“Now, this is feeling more and more like some kind of elaborate Christmas hoax.”

“Typical,” Combeferre said dismissively over the sound of Elf playing from the TV in Courfeyrac’s living room as all of Les Amis lounged around, ostensibly watching the film, which was one of their holiday traditions. “The mainstream media agenda at work, propping up a capitalist system by decreasing belief in Santa Claus.”

Grantaire snorted and shifted from where he was lying on the couch, his feet propped up on Bossuet and his head resting in Enjolras’s lap. “I realize that you deny nothing, which apparently extends to Santa Claus, but I don’t think you can dismiss lack of belief in the Big Guy as a media coverup.”

“Besides, all you need is to call it the ‘lamestream’ media and you’ll sound more like a QAnon supporter than anything else,” Jehan added blithely, ignoring the wounded noise that Combeferre made at the insinuation.

“You take that back—” he started, but Courfeyrac elbowed him.

“Shh,” he scolded, “I’m trying to watch.”

Combeferre rubbed his ribs and grimaced. “Right, because we haven’t seen this movie a hundred times before,” he muttered.

Courfeyrac ignored him as the kid in the movie flipped through Santa’s book. 

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Charlotte Dennon, New York 1.”

“Lemme see...Charlotte Dennon wants a ‘Tiffany engagement ring, and for your boyfriend to stop dragging his feet and commit already’!”

Courfeyrac cackled and for some reason twisted around to smirk at Grantaire. “Looks like the film writers cribbed from Grantaire’s Christmas list for that one,” he teased.

Most of the other Amis laughed at that, though Enjolras frowned, his hand stilling from where he had been running it through Grantaire’s hair. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, and Grantaire squirmed, trying to get Enjolras to resume stroking his hair.

Courfeyrac arched an eyebrow at him. “It means that you and Grantaire have been dating for, what, five years now?” he said, as if the answer were obvious. 

“Off and on,” Enjolras said, feeling defensive even if he wasn’t entirely sure why.

“Right, so five years of dating, and you’ve been living together for two years now…” Courfeyrac trailed off and Enjolras just stared blankly at him. “Do I really need to spell it out for you?”

“Leave it alone,” Joly said, a little sharply. “Not everyone wants to be married and live in the suburbs with two point five kids, a dog, and a white picket fence.”

“Though to be fair, there is nothing wrong with wanting that,” Cosette piped up, patting Marius’s hand loyally.

Marius glanced at her. “Is the point five part of the kids negotiable at least?”

Bahorel cleared his throat. “Can we please,” he started, an unspoken threat clear in every word, “go back to watching the damn movie?”

Everyone fell silent, all remembering far too well the Sound of Music fist fight of 2016, where Bahorel took Jehan’s then-boyfriend outside to beat him up for mocking the movie. The rest of the movie passed in relative silence, and once it was over, everyone took their leave. 

“Merry Christmas Eve Eve,” Courfeyrac said as he held the door open for Enjolras and Grantaire. Combeferre cleared his throat pointedly from behind him and Courfeyrac reluctantly added, “And, uh, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Grantaire said easily, giving Courfeyrac a one-armed hug before he and Enjolras left.

But Enjolras was not so quick to forget, and he was silent as they walked towards their place, the chilly December night lending itself better to walking than waiting for an Uber. After the silence between them had stretched for several minutes, Enjolras glanced over at Grantaire, who sighed. “Don’t,” he said warningly, and Enjolras scowled.

“Don’t what?” he asked defensively.

“Don’t even start.”

Enjolras’s scowl deepened. “I have no idea—”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow at him. “You weren’t going to bring up what Courfeyrac said?” he asked pointedly.

“No,” Enjolras said immediately, and when Grantaire just gave him a look, he sighed and amended, “Ok, yes, I was, but—”

“But Courfeyrac has a shitty sense of humor sometimes,” Grantaire interrupted with forced levity. “That doesn’t mean we need to ruin our Christmas Eve Eve by indulging his idiotic fantasies.”

Enjolras glanced at his watch. “Technically, it’s now actually Christmas Eve.”

“And that’s not the point.”

Enjolras made a face. “No, it’s not,” he agreed, hesitating before giving Grantaire a sideways glance. “And you’re not normally that rude about our friends. At least, not behind their backs. You’re plenty rude to their faces.”

Grantaire didn’t quite meet Enjolras’s eyes. “Yeah, well, our friends normally know better than to stir up things that they shouldn’t,” he muttered.

Enjolras seized the opportunity. “Since it has been stirred up—” he started, and Grantaire snorted.

“Hell of a segue.”

“—I think it’s something we should talk about,” Enjolras finished doggedly.

Grantaire groaned. “Must we?”

Enjolras gave him a look. “Is there a reason you don’t want to?”

“Answering a question with a question,” Grantaire said sourly. “That’s a neat trick.”

Enjolras nudged him. “So is deflection.”

Grantaire sighed. “Fine. The reason I don’t want to is because it’s Christmas. And we’re supposed to be, y’know, holly jolly and shit.”

“Holly jolly and shit,” Enjolras repeated, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “Well that certainly captures the festive mood.”

But Grantaire didn’t seem amused. “You know what I mean.”

“So why do you think talking about this will ruin the holly jolly mood you’ve clearly gone to great lengths to cultivate?” Enjolras asked mildly.

“Because I don’t think this conversation is going to have the outcome you’re hoping for.”

Grantaire delivered the words bluntly, but Enjolras didn’t flinch. “Because you want us to get married and I don’t,” he guessed, less a question than a statement.

To his surprise, Grantaire barked a laugh. “No,” he said, with actual amusement, “quite the opposite.”

Enjolras stopped in his tracks. “Wait, you don’t want to get married?” he asked, a little stupidly.

“Absolutely not.”

Enjolras hesitated. “Like, you don’t want to get married to me, or you don’t want to get married at all?”

It was Grantaire’s turn to stop in his tracks, turning to face Enjolras, something urgent in his expression. “I love you.”

Enjolras looked warily at him. “I know, and I love you, too. But why—”

Grantaire shook his head. “I just don’t want you to go into this conversation that you insist on having with any kind of doubt in your mind about that.”

Enjolras’s expression softened. “I never would doubt that,” he said, tugging Grantaire close and pressing a kiss to his temple. “So you love me, and I love you, and like Courfeyrac said, we’ve been dating for years, living together for years...isn’t marriage the next logical step?”

“For some people, sure,” Grantaire said with a shrug. “But that doesn’t mean it needs to be for us.”

“Because you don’t want to get married.”

Grantaire arched an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that you do want to get married?”

“No,” Enjolras said, a little too quickly, and he winced. “I mean, not because of you. If I were to marry anyone, it would be you. I’m just...not big on the institution of marriage, the perpetuation of the patriarchy, certain segments of the gay community acting like marriage equality was the end of the fight for equal rights…” He trailed off. “But you know all of that.”

“I sure do.”

Enjolras frowned slightly. “So is that why you don’t want to get married? Because you think I don’t want to?”

Again Grantaire laughed, and again, it took Enjolras by surprise. “Enjolras, believe me, if I wanted to be married to you, we’d be married, whether you wanted to or not.”

Enjolras stared at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean that you’re historically terrible at denying me something that you think I really want,” Grantaire said easily. “Which is probably a consent issue that we should discuss more some time, but that’s not really the point.”

It wasn’t, so Enjolras didn’t press it. “So you really just don’t want to marry me?”

“Not so much, no,” Grantaire agreed.

“But...this is – this is a forever thing for me,” Enjolras said, before hesitating. “You know that, right?”

“Of course,” Grantaire said instantly.

“And don’t you want this forever too?”

Grantaire grinned at him. “There is absolutely nothing I want more.”

“Then why…?”

Grantaire sighed and looked away. “This is why I didn’t want to talk about this at Christmas,” he said. “Total mood killer.” Enjolras didn’t smile and Grantaire sighed again. “I don’t want to be married to you because if we were married, you would never divorce me, or walk away, no matter how much you might want to.”

“I—” Enjolras started, but he couldn’t seem to find any words to say to that.

Grantaire arched an eyebrow. “Am I wrong?”

As much as Enjolras wanted to tell him that he was, he knew better than to try. “No.”

Grantaire nodded. “Because when you make a promise, you keep it. It’s just who you are.” His tone turned fond. “Too damned stubborn to admit defeat, no matter how much you should.”

Enjolras frowned. “Ok, but again, isn’t that what you want?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

Grantaire cocked his head slightly. “You think that I would want you locked into a marriage, which is an institution you don’t even believe in, just so that you could never leave me?”

“I—” Enjolras broke off, flustered. “Honestly, I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“Wise man. I don’t want you to be with me because you have to be with me. I want to know that you are with me because you want to be, not because you made some arbitrary vow.” Enjolras opened his mouth to interrupt but Grantaire didn’t let him. “I want to wake up every day in your arms and know without a question of a doubt that you could walk away any time you wanted, but that you choose to stay. That’s what I want. And I’d like to think that’s what you want, too.”

For a long moment, Enjolras was silent, staring at Grantaire as if he’d never quite seen him before. “Well,” he finally managed around the lump in his throat, “when you put it like that...”

He didn’t even bother trying to finish his sentence, just cupping Grantaire’s cheek with one mittened hand and kissing him deeply. Grantaire returned the kiss with equal enthusiasm, balling his hands in Enjolras’s red coat.

They stayed that way for a long time, long enough that when they pulled away from each other, they both immediately looked up at the sky. “Is that snow?” Enjolras asked stupidly.

But Grantaire just laughed, and Enjolras smiled at him. “What?” he asked.

“We are kissing in the snow on Christmas Eve,” Grantaire said, grinning up at the flakes swirling from the sky. “If this were a very different story, you’d get down on one knee right now and ask me to marry you, and we’d have a happily ever after for Christmas straight out of a Hallmark movie.”

“If Hallmark wasn’t a bunch of homophobic cowards, anyway,” Enjolras grumbled good naturedly.

Grantaire just laughed and shook his head. “You know what I mean.”

“I do,” Enjolras said, grinning, and without warning, he took a step back from Grantaire before kneeling down on one knee. “And you’ve just given me an idea.”

“What are you doing?” Grantaire asked, staring at him. “Did you seriously just not listen to a word I said, or…?”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras said, “I absolutely listened to everything you’ve said, because I love listening to you talk. I love everything about you. You don’t want to get married. I don’t want to get married. And I know better than to make a promise to you, even if you deserve all the promises in the world. But it is Christmas, and it’s snowing, and I love you more than anyone in the world. So Grantaire, I have to ask – will you not marry me?”

“You are such a fucking dork,” Grantaire said, exasperatedly. “Of course I will not marry you.”

“Good,” Enjolras said, satisfied, and he stood up, kissing Grantaire once more before taking his hand. :Now let’s go home. I want to make love to the love of my life.:

“Romantic,” Grantaire said with a snort, but he was grinning.

“Whom I will never marry,” Enjolras added.

“You sure know how to woo a boy,” Grantaire said wryly, still grinning, and he leaned in and kissed Enjolras’s cheek. “Merry Christmas, Enjolras.”

Enjolras wrapped his arm around Grantaire’s waist, turning to kiss Grantaire lightly on top of his head. “Merry Christmas, Grantaire,” he whispered.

[watchinglikeafangirl]

Lovely Writer Episode 11 - analysis

I'm still not quite over yesterday's episode and I have a lot of thoughts about it, so I just need to get it out of my system and write yet another analysis because I'm so much invested.

I saw some people saying this week's episode was the weakest of them all and I can only disagree because in my opinion, Lovely Writer gets better week after week. The weakest episode so far was the first one. The truth about Nubsib is revealed pretty slowly and you can only see the entire picture after ep 7 or something and I believe this is very well done. First, Lovely Writer is about Nubsib and who he is and this show thankfully doesn't get boring as soon as we get to know everything. Then, another conflict steps up and they deal with the angst of them coming out to, not only their parents, but basically the whole world. It's just a very interesting and clever storywriting because it feels like the creators of this show know what they are talking about.

Sexuality

Just because I've seen this post about the dinner Gene has with his friends in ep 4, I'm gonna talk about how his sexuality is handled and how much he grows with it. Gene never has a real conflict with his sexuality, at least it never seems that way. He has his moments with Nubsib and when they kiss, he likes it a lot but it's never a topic. He never says "I'm gay" but you can feel that he's not uncomfortable because Nubsib is a man but because Nubsib is invading his personal space. When Gene has dinner with his friends, they ask him more than once if he is gay or not. This whole scene was just very awkward and Gene doesn't really give them any answer. He doesn't deny it but he doesn't clarify it either. It's just a vibe we're getting that he's sure he's not straight. But this is an unspoken truth and I believe, he is not ready to clarify it yet because he doesn't want to say anything if he's not 100% sure.

Later in the show, Gene clarifies his sexuality alongside his sort of love confession when he shouts at his father. I find this extremely powerful because Gene waits until he's really in love with someone until he says anything about his sexuality. Like him falling for a man was his verification. And after he said it and stood up for it, he's a lot more relaxed and self-confident. He never denies it, even when his father first looks like he's not approving the relationship, because that's who he is. That is his identity.

Them vs the outside

It's something I've already addressed in my other analyses, but this devide returns every single episode. The first 20mins of this episode, we get cute SibGene scenes in Nubsib's apartment and it's basically them just being happy boyfriends. But then, Hin calls and the fairytale is over. The real world is back and it's again, nothing positive. As soon as the outside invades their lives again, the amount of couple moments stops and things are more serious now. Here, the problem grows slowly until it's huge and over these, I guess, 70mins, every argument and point of view is presented to then draw a big picture of the whole conflict itself and the tough decision they have to make. First, we have Gene not worrying, then him saying their love is between two people only, then Bua saying others rely on this and then Tum's sister saying fans are going wild. It's a lot to take and right before the big blow, we get a scene of Gene and Nubsib just holding each other (here). They still haven't seen the entirety of this problem and believe they will overcome it.

They feel sort of untouchable now that they have promised each other grand things and all that. They overcame the fight with the parents and bonded even more over it, so nothing could come between them. That's why we don't get their reactions to the Tweets, because they feel invincible and don't really worry about it. It is a sign of their seriousness and belief that they are strong together.

This episode started with their "love being between two people" and ended with their "love breaking beause of other people".

Love vs reputation

This brings me to this section of my analysis. The problem with this conflict is that there is no right solution and I still don't know what I would've done. Nubsib doesn't care about others but Gene does. It's a dilemma with no right or wrong. Both sides are understandable. The problem is that they both misunderstand each other. Gene thinks Nubsib is selfish and Nubsib thinks Gene only cares about others. Right now, they can't have both: love and the others. It's either one of them and both options mean a great sacrifice.

Repuation means a lot in the show business and even though Nubsib doesn't seem to care about it, it's very important and what the film industry relies on. His love for Gene causes the whole production to collapse and backfire because "SibAoey is not true". Their real love feels like a crime because it could mean the end for a few people (talking about Tum). So, it's love vs reputation, truth vs lie and them vs the outside.

In the end, Gene doesn't want to cause even more damage. He choses to damage two lives in order to keep hundreds save and I totally get where he is coming from but he's sacrificing his happiness. Nubsib was his redemption. A door to love and the end of loneliness. Now, Gene is back where he was and even more closeted now.

But his decision is very in character because he has proven before that he has his shell he's crawling into whenever things get too tense. He shuts the world and everyone else out in order to be alone in his head. So, he even pushes Nubsib away even though Nubsib showed him a happy life outside of that shell which is why Gene porbably feels really depressed living alone. If you once get to see, taste and feel happiness, you can't just let go and forget it.

During the break-up we even see Nubsib changing his mind (mentioned here). First, he wants to convince Gene to see things like he does and is not ready to change his mind. But then he realizes Gene is still the creator of "Bad Engineer". He put a lot of work and heart into the novel and Nubsib's solution to the problem would cause peple to badmouth Gene's story. So, Nubsib is ready to even agree to the option the company presented: only meeting in private. But Gene is so worked up at this point and has made up his mind that he sees no point in them being together and storms off to go back into his nutshell. In this moment, hiding seems to be easier for him than enduring the confrontation.

Protection of the fairytale

As I already said, Gene and Nubsib live in their fairytale and up until now we thought Nubsib is the only one who would do everything to protect it and prevent the outside from stepping in - and people still think that. But guys, don't forget that Gene knew about the Twitter thing as well. He also didn't address the issue. He also wanted to protect this faitytale and happiness.

This protection of what's very dear to them got puched in the face during the tough meeting. There's a lot of pressure and they have to decide what to do. They have no time to discuss and come to an agreement. People want answers right now, so each of them doesn't know what to do and just seeks understanding in each other's face. Nubsib and Gene don't sit next to each other to make the decision together, unlike the coming out to the parents when Nubsib took Gene's hand. This time, they look at each other with a look of horror and that's simply all they can do. They can't hold hands to reasure each other they will endure this no matter what (mentioned here).

What this show always showed is that Gene and Nubsib are strong together. They might act tough sometimes but they are both weak in a way that they need each other, that they need to lean onto each other. But that's not possible here and this protection of the fairytale no longer exists and is no longer possible. They can't protect their hearts right now and don't even have a chance. It feels like a metaphor to predict what is about to come. It's "a heart ripped in two" or "two hands ripped apart" if you want to be dramatic.

Nubsib

I still can't tell who Nubsib is. I feel we're lacking of information about him. Does he have any hobbies? Does he have at least one friend? Does he have a life apart from Gene? I feel like I'm watching Twilight. When Gene was driving back to his apartment and left Nubsib on the bed, I got really excited for a second we would finally see what he does in his alonetime but no, they cut to Gene and Hin's talk.

But really guys, what does Nubsib do when he's alone? Gene seems to be his hobby, his friend, his life...talking about toxicness here. And Gene still doesn't see it...

Aoey

Well, what should I say? I have no sympathy or pity left for him. I already analyzed his behavior this episode here and don't want to repeat myself.

Conclusion

This episode, again, contained a lot of angst, tension and uncomfort. Things were crashing down again and I just have to shout out to the actors and director and all of them. The scene of the break-up had me crying for 10mins and when Nubsib said "don't cry", I broke. Honestly. This made everything even more bittersweet and painful because you can feel the love they have and Nubsib still cares a lot, so he tries to comfort Gene but Gene pushes him away. It is an act of desperation. Nubsib doesn't want Gene to leave and tries to make it better but in the end Gene has made his decision.

But, but, but, what is going on with Tiffy? Why is she mistrusting Tum so much and pushes him away again? And why the hell doesn't she say anything to Aoey and believes his mindgames? Does she know something I don't? Can she tell what's real and what isn't? Because I can't and I'm usually good at reading people. And where is Mhok? Did Aoey scare him away? Did he just give up? So many questions and no answers.

I'm excited for next week!

[dangerouscommiesubversive]

Gai/Naomi/Juggler, B

Skipping ahead in my prompts kind of a lot because I just finished Orb last night and I’m in the mood to write for it. Contains spoilers for the end of Orb. B is for basorexia, the overwhelming desire to kiss

The thing that actually surprises Naomi, when Juggler shows up at the SSP offices several weeks after the defeat of Magata no Orochi, is not that he’s alive at all but that he’s wearing a different suit. “Gray looks good on you,” she says, cutting him off before he can offer some quip about being hard to kill. “I mean, I know it’s not as dramatic as the black, but gray and red is a good combination.”

Apparently thrown for a loop by this calm non-greeting, he stares at her for a moment before saying, “I was hoping we might have coffee.”

“At dawn?”

“I have reason to believe that the sunrise tomorrow might be well worth seeing, and while my preferred coffee spot has closed, I’ve found another one that’s very nice.”

She nods, says, “That sounds lovely, I’d like that,” and then bursts into tears and has to push her chair back to keep from crying into her keyboard.

Juggler freezes like a rabbit staring down an oncoming car and then comes around her desk and rests an awkward hand on her shoulder. “I don’t, ah. I’m not sure what to do in this situation.”

Naomi sniffles. “You should hug me now, weirdo.”

He’s an awkward hugger. It’s cute. She cries on his silk waistcoat anyway and lets him pat her nervously on the back, because maybe he deserves to be a little uncomfortable.

Once she’s done, though, she says, “Do you have anywhere to stay around here? If we’re having coffee at dawn then we’ll need to be able to find each other then.”

“I don’t sleep,” he says, reflexively, and then, “also, no.”

“You don’t--maybe you’d have spent less time trying to be a bad guy if you got some sleep once in a while. We have a space here, as long as you don’t mind it being where Gai crashed when he was here.”

An odd look crosses Juggler’s face. “No...no, that’s fine, I don’t mind. Thank you.”

--

She plans on going to the office and waking him up for coffee, and sets her alarm for it, but then doesn’t have to, because he shows up at her apartment just as she’s stepping out the door to go get him. “Wow, you really don’t sleep.”

He shrugs. “Not much.” Then, with a courtly bow, he offers her his arm. “Shall we?”

The sunrise is beautiful. The coffee, while not as sublime as Black Star’s, is very good. And Juggler’s much better at kissing than he is at hugging, especially when the sky is red and pink and orange and the clouds are thin and lacy and his mouth tastes like excellent coffee. Naomi has to take a moment to catch her breath when he pulls back. “Nobody’s ever kissed me like that before.”

Juggler raises an eyebrow. “Not even Gai?”

“Gai hasn’t kissed me at all yet, the slacker.” She resists the urge to pout, and then the incipient pout turns into a smile as she realizes, “So there you go, you got to be the first one.”

He does, as expected, look tremendously pleased with himself, and then says, “You’ll have to remind him of his duties the next time you see him. And give him this, from me.”

This kiss is very different from the first one, long and lingering and not sweet so much as it is full of intent. She can’t talk at all for a few minutes after, too red-faced and abruptly shy to attempt it. It feels like she’s walked in on something private, never mind that she was invited, offered it directly even.

“You’ll remember, of course?”

She’ll never call Juggler on how uncertain he sounds, but she’ll always remember it. “I promise.”

--

Juggler is gone two days later, to...wherever it is that he disappears off to, and it’s back to business as usual. Or rather, business as much better than usual; the SSP website’s really taken off, and she and Shin and Jetta spend a lot of time running around interviewing people and filming strange phenomena and writing articles. They’re making enough money that Naomi’s actually been able to quit a couple of her part-time jobs, which is a relief.

Gai gets back to Japan a couple of weeks after Juggler leaves. He doesn’t announce himself, of course, he’s just at the offices when they get back from a trip to a haunted bathhouse, sitting at Shin’s desk, drinking Ramune. Shin and Jetta fall all over themselves in their excitement to greet him, and then see how Naomi’s looking at him and very quickly find that they have other things to take care of.

“You’re late,” she says, “you missed Juggler by two weeks.”

He actually jumps slightly. “Juggler was here?”

“He was.” She crosses her arms over her chest, enjoying the hunted look on his face. “You’ve got some catching up to do, buddy. Also, he gave me something for you.”

“He...gave you something for me.”

“Yes. I’ll give it to you later. Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

He doesn’t kiss her in a rooftop cafe at sunrise. Not that it isn’t just as romantic sitting on the couch in her tiny apartment, but it’s a very different mood otherwise. He’s hesitant about it, too, not as cool or as obviously prepared as Juggler was, both of them bursting into nervous laughter after a couple of shy first pecks, but then he reaches for her again and it’s very nice.

After about ten minutes of increasingly confident kisses traded back and forth there’s a pause, as both of them clearly try to decide whether this is going to go any further tonight, and Naomi remembers. “Right, yeah, I should give you that thing.”

Gai nods, frowning. “The...the thing Juggler gave you for me?”

“Yes, that one.”

She does her best to kiss him the way that Juggler kissed her, and from the shocked look on his face afterward she’s at least partially successful. “He asked you to give me that.”

“He was very specific about it, yes.” A beat, and then, with more mischief, “He was very pleased to know that he’d gotten to kiss me first.”

Gai rolls his eyes. “Of course he was.”

They don’t go any further that night, and that’s fine, because Naomi finds after only the briefest consideration that she’s way too nervous about the prospect of asking Gai if he wants to stay the night. Eventually he does get up to go--only back to the SSP offices to sleep there, but that’s still going. But at the door he stops and says, “If Juggler doesn’t come around before I have to leave again, please give him this for me?”

Another shocking, private kiss, filled with yearning, dizzying in how lonely it makes Naomi realize Gai‘s been, his hand on the side of her face gentle in a way that’s entirely different from how he’s gentle with her. She nods, dazed. “Sure. I’ll keep it safe for him.”

--

Juggler does not, of course, come back for another three weeks, by which point Gai’s long gone. He receives his message from Gai with stunned pleasure, and gives her another one to send back.

He and Gai only miss each other by three days this time, but it’s still what happens. Naomi gives Gai the kiss she’s been saving for him, and he gives her another one for Juggler.

It takes three more repeats of this before she realizes that they’re avoiding each other.

--

It’s not like either one of them has a cell phone, is the really frustrating thing.

So she puts a note on the website, which has been doing very well. She knows they both check it, too, and that they’ll both notice the one-line addition to the right side of the main page, under the embedded Twitter feed, that just says, I miss you. - N.

Two days later, she and Jetta get back from an interview to find Juggler staring at Gai’s open bottle of Ramune like it’s personally attacking him.

Gai, for his part, is squinting at Juggler’s chest. “Did you get a new suit?”

“Oh, good.” Naomi hangs up her jacket. “Shin, when did they both get here?”

Shin is hiding behind his latest invention, which is fair, the atmosphere is pretty tense. “Gai’s been here for exactly two hours and seventeen minutes, Cap. J-juggler just got here ten minutes ago.”

“You planned this,” Juggler says accusingly.

“Obviously I planned it. You fell for it.”

“Can I take that note down now, Cap?” Jetta, bless him, is just acting like it’s a normal day, heading to the computer with camera in hand to move his footage over. Granted, both he and Shin were in on the plan, but he was the one who thought it was funny, so it makes sense that he’d be calm about things.

“Yes, please. I’m going to be out for the rest of the afternoon.”

Shin starts to protest, looks at the frozen expressions on Gai and Juggler’s faces, and shuts up.

--

They follow her back to her apartment in a deeply awkward silence, and then proceed to take up more space in her minuscule living room than she would have ever thought possible. She stares at them for several minutes, tapping her foot, and is about to start getting impatient when Gai, finally, says, “Was there. Ah. Something you wanted to talk to us both about?”

“Yes,” she says, with vehemence. “I am an independent woman and I would like my own kisses, please, if you two want to kiss each other then you ought to stop avoiding each other and do it yourselves instead of making me your go-between.” At Gai’s protesting noise, “Look, I don’t entirely mind, they’re extremely nice kisses! But you’re, what, a few hundred years old?”

Juggler coughs. “Thousand.”

“Ok! You’re a few thousand years old! And I know, I know you’ve spent a bunch of that time not talking about your problems, but I’m fairly sure you can behave like adults! You don’t need a, a kissing proxy!”

Neither one of them answer. Gai scratches the back of his head, and then actually shuffles his feet like a child who’s been scolded. Juggler is staring fixedly at her one little bookcase with its painstakingly curated collection of books about aliens and supernatural phenomena. She’d think he was mad, except that he’s blushing, which is very charming of him.

She gives them a moment to feel awkward in silence and then says, “Look, I’m going to, to go to the bathroom and then when I’m out we’ll order dinner from somewhere and you two have to talk to each other.”

She spends longer in the bathroom than she’d really like, because as she washes her hands she finds that she’s shaking. Obviously this whole thing makes her nervous, obviously it’s all strange and new, obviously her first serious relationship would be with two thousand-year-old aliens, and also she’s planning on finally asking if one or both of them wants to stay the night. It’s a lot! She’s taking a lot of steps, very quickly, and they’re going to get easier if Juggler and Gai will just talk like normal people instead of...thousand-year-old aliens with a longstanding feud. Which is what they actually are. And that’s, you know, hot, but maybe it’s also intimidating right now.

Also she can’t decide what to order for dinner.

Finally she stops staring at herself in the mirror and straining to understand the occasional murmurs she can hear through the door, takes a deep breath, and leaves the bathroom. “So I’m not sure what to get, would you two like--oh.” And then, “Well, finally.”

Because they aren’t answering her, they’re probably not thinking about what to order for dinner right now, Juggler’s got his back to the wall next to the bookcase and his hand in Gai’s hair and there’s a kiss happening that’s definitely a culmination of all these kisses they’ve been sending each other through her, or at the very least a continuation of them. Most people wouldn’t be able to see it, the hundreds of years of pent-up longing and regret and desire, but then most people aren’t her. Most people haven’t been couriering it back and forth for months now.

It’s almost heartbreaking to see.

It’s also quite possibly the hottest thing Naomi’s ever seen in her--admittedly, comparatively short--life. She’s not sure she can remember how to breathe.

When she does finally start breathing again, she says, “I think when you’re both done I’ll order us a pizza.”

[romansleftshoulderpad]

Almost Had You (But I Guess That Doesn’t Cut It)

Tags: @fandermom @my-analogical-romance @patchworkofstars @poisonedapples @hogwarts-my-love @opaque-puppet 

Words: 1,706

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of doing drugs, the word “slut” used in lyrics, weed, Deceit and Remus mentioned but not by name

Ship: Prinxiety

Quick note: the formatting might be a little off on mobile, but it works fine on AO3!

---

I almost got drunk at school at 14 Where I almost made out with the homecoming queen.

It had been 12 years since Roman and Virgil met. It had been 10 since they became friends. It had been 8 since they started dancing around each other like pining, gay ballerinas.

Who almost went off to be Ms. Texas, But lost to a slut with much bigger breastes.

Roman could remember the exact moment he started to fall in love. It was the end of their senior year. They had been messing around in Virgil’s “studio”, an extra walk-in closet in his dad’s apartment. Virgil was painting a stormy sky while Roman played around with an old guitar that hadn’t been touched in years (save for specks of paint and purple storm clouds painted on the wood). Roman had been messing around with different chords but he found himself enchanted by Virgil. His bangs were tied back into a bun and his arms were covered in white, lilac, and navy blue. His tongue stuck out between his lips in concentration as he tried to paint the moon just right.

That’s when it hit Roman. He could easily see them doing just the same in 20, 30, or 40 years. Maybe in a different town, maybe with different hairstyles or clothes, but still them. Still happy. Still soft and domestic.

Married. He could see them together and in love. It was terrifying, but as he closed his eyes, he played a love song.

I almost dropped out to move to LA Where I was Almost famous for Almost a day.

It was college that separated them. Roman was going to a fancy music school and Virgil wasn’t going anywhere. It was one of the worst fights they’d ever had.

“Come on, Virge! It’ll be perfect!” Roman pleaded.

“Perfect for you, maybe,” Logan muttered.

“Oh shut up, nerdy wolverine,” Roman snapped.

“Even combined, how are we supposed to afford an apartment in L.A?” Virgil asked, not looking up from his sketchbook.

“We’ll figure it out!”

“You mean I’ll figure it out while you get a degree.”

“Just forget about rent,” Roman said. “We’d have so much fun! We can watch Tim Burton movies every week and cook together and go on adventures!”

“Roman, if I may add some input-“

“Logan,” Virgil said quietly, “can you give us a moment alone, please?”

“Don’t sign any contracts without a lawyer present,” Logan said, and with that, he left.

“Roman, I can’t just pack up and leave because you need a roommate,” Virgil said. “I’m not even sure why you’re asking me anyway. Obviously, there are better options.”

“Better options?”

“Yes! Like Logan-“ Roman scoffed. “Or Remy! Or even your brother!”

“I’ve lived with my brother for far too long, thank you very much,” Roman said. “But why do you think there’s better options? Why is it so hard to imagine me wanting to be closer to you?” Virgil chewed on his lip, visibly becoming more anxious. “Virgil, you’re my friend. I care about you.”

“You shouldn’t!” Virgil yelled but it echoed like a scream. Tears pricked at his eyes and as Roman took a step forward he took a step back. “I gotta go.” He grabbed his backpack and ran out of the door before Roman could go after him.

I almost held up a grocery store Where I almost did five years and then seven more

Virgil was 22 and living with a friend of the brother of a friend. It sucked. He spent most of his nights' painting and wondering how much better his life would be if he had said “yes” to Roman’s offer. He picked up a drawn on canvas he had titled “Two Lovers” And began to paint as his thoughts spiraled.

Instead of loud music and loud... other sounds coming from his roommate’s bedroom, he’d at least only have to deal with Disney songs and rapping along to Hamilton. And yes, Virgil would have to admit, watching The Nightmare Before Christmas would be a lot more enjoyable than airing out the living room to get rid of the smell of weed.

He looked at the painting. The two lovers were still just a sketch. He took a pencil and adjusted one of the lovers to be male instead of female. “Could be gayer,” he mumbled to himself as he did so.

What would watching movies with Roman be like anyway? Virgil grabbed a clean brush and started painting in the couch the lovers sat on. He’d be annoying and talk through the whole film, of course. Probably eats popcorn way too loudly. Of course, he would have been the one insistent on making popcorn. Probably homemade because he would insist that it’s superior to the bagged stuff.

He’d probably fall asleep during the movie. It’d be far too much of ask of the arrogant asshole to actually appreciate art. He’d lean onto Virgil as he’d begin to doze off. He’d pretend to yawn and put his arm sound Virgil’s shoulders, holding him tight. Virgil chewed his lip as he painted. He worked on the lovers’ clothes and skin. Roman was always a deep sleeper; he’d be impossible to wake up. This would, of course, keep Virgil trapped on the couch. Virgil hated being trapped.

But would being stuck with Roman even be a bad thing? Virgil had slept on plenty of couches before, surely it wouldn’t be worse to share that space with someone warm holding you tight. Roman’s heartbeat would be calming and lull Virgil to sleep.

Cause I almost got popped for a fight with a thug Cause he almost ran off with a bunch of the drugs That I almost got hooked on cause you ran away.

Virgil looked at the two lovers holding each other tight and dressed in red and purple.

And I wish I would have had the nerve to ask you to stay.

Roman dropped out of that college after two years. It was a tough choice, but it was for the best. He’d looked at a picture from his high school graduation. He wasn’t the same anymore, but that wasn’t a bad thing. He just had new interests and passions.

And at 26 he was going back to a new college to pursue a writing degree. But he kept drifting back to that graduation photo. He hadn’t seen Virgil in 5 years, but he still had a soft spot for him. He still had so many things left to say.

Here I go thinking ‘bout all the things I could’ve done.

He pulled out his laptop.

I’m gonna need a forklift cause all the baggage weighs a ton.

Virgil pulled the rest of his boxes out of the moving truck. He finally got away from roommates and memories of the past. He was free.

He opened a box labeled “Paintings” and saw it staring back at him. The two lovers.

I know we had our problems. I can’t remember one.

Roman kept typing. It was a stupid email to write to someone he hadn’t seen in years but getting all of these feelings out was pure ecstasy.

I almost forgot to say something else And if I can’t fit it in I’ll keep it all to myself.

Virgil put the painting in a frame and hung it up in his unfurnished living room.

I almost wrote a song about you today. But I tore it all up and then I threw it away.

Roman deleted the email.

And I Almost had you, But I guess that doesn’t cut it.

Both of them sat, miles apart, staring at their screens and silently begging for contact. For nostalgia. For a second chance.

Virgil hated risk. He hated change. Yet, as he looked around at the unpacked boxes, he knew a tiny bit of change between him and Roman wouldn’t make that much of a difference. He picked up his phone and scrolled through his contacts.

Almost had you.

Ringing. And ringing. And ringing.

“Hello? Who is this?”

Virgil’s heart raced. He hated phone calls and Roman probably didn’t want to talk to him anyway and- oh this was such a bad idea. “R- Roman?” he asked, his mouth dry. “It’s Virgil. You still live in L.A right?”

“Virgil,” Roman repeated. His heart was beating just as fast. “It’s been a while. And yeah- yeah I still live here.” He took a deep breath. “How are you?”

“I, uh, just moved to California. Exciting, right? Uh, and I- I was wondering...” He took a deep breath and tried to steady his shaking hands. He exhaled slowly. “Do you want to grab coffee?”

And I didn’t even know it.

“Coffee,” Roman said with a smile. “Coffee would be great. You can tell me where you’re near and I can meet you somewhere. You must be tired.”

“You have no idea,” Virgil said with a laugh. He glanced to the painting and let his anxieties melt away. He smiled. “I’ve missed you.”

“I- I’ve missed you too,” Roman said, barely above a whisper. He wondered if Virgil could hear his smile.

“Meet me at 4?”

“4,” Roman said. “See you there.”

You kept me guessin’ And now I’m destined To spend my time missing you.

He looked the same way he did six years ago. He had his hair pulled back into a bun with colors on his arms, only now they were stray tattoos and not paint splatters. He looked more tired and spaced out. Surely from the stress of moving, but Roman was one hundred percent ready to take this man home and properly lull him to sleep.

Roman was different though. Dressed to impress as if meeting a stranger and not an ex-best friend. It was appropriate, almost. They had become strangers. Almost. Strangers didn’t spend years thinking of one another.

“Virgil,” Roman said with a smile and open arms.

“Princey,” Virgil said with a smile, falling into his open arms and holding him tight. Past fights and years of regrets faded away. They were together now, and Virgil knew he’d have his chance.

I almost wish you would have loved me

Wish you would have loved me too.

[keyofjetwolf]

GIFTENING Bonus Rounds

For each category, I included a “bonus round” question. YOU GUYS KILLED IT. I loved all the answers, but listed below are some of my particular favourites.

Haruka Tenoh is trapped in the wrong anime! Which would you have her visit next?

I want her to earth shake Kyubey out of existence, please and thank you

My bride is a mermaid. She can relate. :P

i think she would THRIVE in bodacious space pirates. gay teenage space pirates whose job is to dress up, be Dramatic, and rob the wealthy??? that shit is RIGHT up her alley

Hamtaro

Princess Tutu - where the world is finally as dramatic as her

PGSM (and Michiru is trapped with her, for REASONS)

Pokemon because everyone deserves to be happy

Any moe-style series so hijinks can ensue at her being baffled by everyone's ages

1960's Speed Racer

is is this a captcha or something i missed oh god

Free! so she can be indifferent to all the hot men and slightly uncomfortable because she still can't swim. 

Stick Haruka in a Gundam!

Dump her in Pretear or one of the Precures! It would be hilarious! She's never in the genre she wants to be!

Revolutionary Girl Utena, so she can be offended by misuse of roses.

Initial D, she will out-drive and out-drift all those guys and steal all their girls.

Evangelion. I would feel bad to watch her suffer, but it would be so, so funny for her to be the comparatively most normal person around.

Yakitake Japan! SO SHE CAN HAVE A SNACK OF DELICIOUS RIDICULOUS BREAD BEFORE THE NEXT INTERDIMENSIONAL ANIME STORM WHISKS HER AWAY.

The Holograms or the Misfits? DISCUSS

Holograms

both? both. BOTH IS GOOD

misfits bc Evil Ladies Hot

Steven and the stevens

Misfits.  How dare you make us try to think about anything in our lives.

Both, you mad fool. Those combined songs were the best.

The Misfits, their songs are better

The Misgrams: A group of girls who form a singing telegram start up company, but constantly deliver the telegrams to the wrong people.

kimber & stormer

Neither. Limp Lizards all the way. BROKEN GLASS.

I do not know what these things are

Misfits because guitar motorcycle

The Isle of Misfit Holograms

Holograms is just arguably better

I mean, I’m told the Misfits’ songs are better, but my true answer is the band Kimber and Stormer made in that big gay episode you liveblogged (checks) almost four years ago.

I've no idea what these words mean and I hope this does not make me TOO uncool.

this is about jem, right? right?? im hip i swear

Misfits, because Jasper is a member apparently

I don't know from Jem, but I mean...I certainly prefer holographic material to Glenn Danzig? So I guess there's your answer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Stingers

LIMP LIZARDS FOREVER

Senshi Band

You can make me liveblog a full series of any show you want! You also hate me. What do you have me watch?

Pick a GoT rip-off, any GoT rip-off

The Bachelor?

The Bachelor :(

depends on how much i hate you, but....probably the bachelor. quantity AND lack of quality

Critical role, it would take forever

If I were a horrible person who sought only malice?  Big Bang Theory.  Entire series.

Toddlers and Tiaras

The Mandalorian - Disney would come after you and kill keyofjetwolf just as dead as keyofnik.  We would all be very sad, you would have to go through a second round of restoring things to a new tumblr account, and your organizational heart would weep over adding yet another hosting site out of chronological order.

You are liveblogging Eva, and must discuss in full detail Shinji's emotional state at all times.

Hannity & Colmes

The Kardashians. And all of their spin offs. *kisses*

The price is right

the bachelor

Probably something with lots of romance and no friendships. Soap operas are like that, right? My college roommate used to watch General Young Light Restless Hospital of Our Lives (which one had Like and Laura?) And it was torture.

One Piece, because it's over 900 episodes so you could maybe do 10% before you die, also you will hate how the women are treated most of the time.

Fushigi Yuugi. Not only do you hate it but it also comes with you squirming when you admit to watching the whole thing. ;) 

Plus belle la vie. It's an ongoing French soap opera that has been airing five days a week since 2004, they're nearing their 4000th episode and there's no end in sight. Imagine all those hours upon hours submerged in French drama, mwahahaha!!

The Bachelor.  Or the Bachelorette, maybe - more straight dudes in that.

The Young and the Restless - IT IS THE LIVEBLOG THAT NEVER ENDS. IT WOULD OUTLAST THE INTERNET.

The entirety of the Bachelor franchise.

You can only play one game for the rest of your life. Which game would it be and why?

Kingdom Hearts Complete Collection. A) I love them. B) I beat the system and get like 10 games instead of one.

Gemcraft. This game actually takes a lifetime to finish.

Hatoful Boyfriend. It is the best game ever created. Feel it in your heart.

that's a mean question and you can't make me answer it

Pathfinder, which you could play for the rest of your life and still never finish.

Civ VI , so I can rule the world without leaving my house.

I am legitimately perturbed by this question and refuse to answer it.

Pokemon Go. I would have nothing else, but I would catch them all.

The Elder Scrolls Skyrim: I'll never run out of side-quests.

Mass Effect--it's the only way I'll get full completion. 

The dinosaur game on Chrome when the internet doesn't connect because my life is monotonous and it's a welcome relief. 

Stardew Valley. Peaceful farmer life and turning my children into doves when I'm bored with them.

Crabs Adjust Humidity

Oh my! A number of things come to mind, not one of them fit for print. Just, you know...*gestures vaguely* sex shit. 

I can't even stick to the ones I play now.

This is the worst of all possible things and I refuse to answer. 

Monopoly, I hate myself :(

Probably Minecraft! I haven't gotten into it because I know if I start I will NEVER STOP. Who would do things like build a hundred foot tall statue of Mako-chan? A-THAT'D BE ME.

the game. Of LIFE! *shrug emoji*

I don't believe I'll tell you, because I AM a salty little fish and it was HARD to cut that 11th choice off my vote.

Holligay and I are going to be the leads in a new buddy film. What's the premise? How does it end?

Be gay do crimes. Thelma and Louise. Duh. :P

I have no idea but only just surviving disaster is how it ends.

You break down in a small town during a roadtrip- your stay is full of hijinks and ends with you teaching the townsfolk the true meaning of friendship.

Doctor Holligay, Esquire, PhD, renowned Jewish femme of many talents, is assigned one Operative Jet Wolf as her bodyguard on a foreign diplomatic mission/vacation/culinary tour of the world ("same difference, shut up, narrator"). One problem: Operative Wolf needs a bodyguard herself, as the good doctor discovers when in one night her toilet is destroyed ("IT WAS A SECURITY THREAT") and Operative Wolf nearly breaks a leg falling down a small set of stairs ("THEY PUT A CLIFF OUTSIDE THE DOOR"). Worldwide shenanigans ensue as Holligay and Operative Wolf learn the true meaning of friendship, and also how to take care of themselves... by taking care of each other.

I’m not sure about the premise, but DEFINITELY it ends in murder.

Someone posted a major spoiler during one of your liveblogs. The two of you track them down seeking revenge. It turns out it was the original creator of the series trying to stop you. For some reason Holligay is a CGI badger.

It's clearly a buddy cop movie, and like all good buddy cop movies, it ends with Doc almost dying, and you saving her, and slapping her wound in the hospital as the credits roll.

It ends as it began: with Holligay roasting you.

A straight detective and her lesbian partner have to solve the case of the missing cinnamon buns.  It ends with nobody getting the guy OR the girl and you drive off into the sunset together, perps behind bars sans cinnamon buns.

I don't know what it's about but I know it will be the only movie that ever existed. 

Holligay is the lesbian chief of staff to you somehow being elected President and she's basically running the country while you're the charming face of the administration

Nerd and cowgirl meet at a bar, justifyingly murder some gross dude, go on the run from the law and have a life-changing road trip, on the way Nazis are punched

carrying a delicate object through a forest after your helicopter goes down

Thelma and Louise, but instead of dying, your deaths are clearly faked and you live on a ranch in Montana with your respective spouses and animals. One time a cop comes by the restaurant/bar you joint own with Doc and says, "You look familiar." Doc, in perfect lesbian, answers, "Jet's just got that criminal look, on account of how much she'd love to steal my cheesecake recipe. More pie?"

Queer Eye with a Straight Goy. The two of you do the show but in your own special ways.

Doc Holligay is the wild-west no-nonsense sheriff. Jet Wolf is the all-fun cyberpunk cop from the future. They punch nazis and argue about food. It ends as a tv series ala B99.

Your lives are already a buddy film, don’t get greedy.

Hands and socks.  You know how it ends.

See Grumpy Old Men for details.  How does it end?  Badly.

I can't imagine the premise, but I'm pretty sure the planet explodes.

A Coen Bros film. It ends poorly.

Wait? You're not already living this now? 

REI HINO

REI HINO

Sure. Why not?

HINO REI

<3<3<3<3

REI HINO!

Rei who? ;)

REI HINOOOOOOOOO

Plush Is being hugged by Zoisite in your banner.

MINAKO AINO

MAKOTO KINO

The best

SOCKS

MICHIRU KAIOH

It's time tooo.... REI! THAT! HINO!

sponsored by Here! curry

LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES USAGI LOVES REI [THIS REPEATS A LOT A LOT AND IS GLORIOUS] [...] LOVES USAGI LOVES REI LOVES JETWOLF

(THE REAL ONE)

Isn't how you spell Makoto Kino!

THE REAL ONE™

obviously

IS NOT A RHINO

In conclusion: Rei Hino

Rei Hino is giving this Giftening finger guns

BEAUTIFUL, STUNNING, SHOW-STOPPING, TALENTED, AMAZING, WONDERFUL

Hot stuff, lights my fire, blazes it regularly. I am out of fire jokes.

PASSION FLAME, SAILOR MARS

These hot feelings are C'EEEEEST LAAAAA VIIIIIIE c'mon rei-chan why aren't you singing along

IS THE BEST (I know who I'm talking to)

Ara!

DID DOCTOR HOLLIGAY PHD NOMINATE THE OPTION OF TALKING ABOUT MICHIRU KAIOH FOR 6 HOURS!!

If Hot Pocket were to plan One Last Heist, what do you think would be his objective? What would be Mina's role in his master plan?

Master Hot Pocket seeks BREAD. His friend and loyal companion, Mina-pup, acts as a distraction, as he has learned the humans are easily distracted by cute. While she does her sworn duty as Best Friend and Cutest Goodest Girl, probably with lolling tongue and glee at all the pets she receives, he picks the locks on the newly childproofed pantry, and Master Howard H. Pocket FEASTS AS NO CAT HAS BEFORE.

Every bag of flour in Montana; Mina runs distraction with her adorable puppy eyes

Open every container, leave none unmarked. Mina is the lookout who greets whoever comes and is completely ineffective at her job.

TAKE ALL THE FLOUR. Do it straight from the source: FlourCo Inc. What does a 10-pound cat do with eighty thousand tons of flour? If you can't figure that out, there's a reason he's the brains of this outfit. Mina would obviously be the bumbling lovable distraction to security or other people.

Bread.  Mina is The Face who provides distraction to the Keepers of the Bread by walking up to them and being herself.  Mina has absolutely no idea that Hot Pocket is using her in this manner because Hot Pocket is that Machiavellian, but Mina is a pocket full of sunshine in canine form and probably would just be happy to help out.

Hot Pocket knows that no mammal of the floor believes in flour anymore. It went away a long time ago. It doesn't exist. But what he also knows is that they're wrong. A lack of opposable thumbs won't hide the truth from him. He'll find the stash, and when he does, he'll stick his paw in it. Mina, with her limited climbing skills, will lick its remains from his claw and prove his discovery. As well as provide a warm place to curl up on for the aftermath of their adventure.

His goal is to sample every edible thing he can get his teeth on. Mina pulls triple duty as step stool, distraction, and scape goat

The Silver Crystal. Mina would play the role of Sailor V.

He is getting ALL THE FLOUR. Mina is a lovable distraction.

Looting all the carbs in the pantry. mina is distraction.

mina's role would be the "dopey" but talented best friend who it looks like HP is going to betray for the sake of the plan but then it all comes together when HP mounts a dramatic rescue. i dunno i'm still in film mode from that last one.

The Holy Bread Locked Within the Cupboard.  Mina would be the distraction, but she'd forget what she was supposed to be distracting from and end up leading you to him.

I am the Void. I am the Night. I am the Darkness with no hope of dawn. The Flour trembles before me in it's bleached fluffiness. It shall not escape my chaos, which will descend upon it like the Terrors of the Deep, claws and teeth and gnashing. It will howl at my claws. It will scream for my teeth, sharp and white, stars in the night of my fur. I shall tend and tear and -- Dammit, Dog-thing! How am I supposed to be terrible and terrifying with you wagging your tail and panting at me!? Oh, you found a good warm sunbeam? I guess I can stalk stuff later. I am the Void. I shall absorb the Sun's light and warmth and bring it into my Darkness where it cannot escape...

I'm new here and don't know all the complex lore of Jetwolf(fairly sure Mina is dog), so I'm going to assume that Hot Pocket is an actual hot pocket and his heist is robbing Fort Knox using Mina as his loyal stead/get away car. Then he explodes a microwave or something.

i lik the bred

Mina as the distraction while he takes one last tastes of EVERYTHING 

objective--stealing more chips; Mina--surprise betrayal 

The scene: Mama Jet's pantry The Objective: the bag of cake flour Aunt Doc made Mama Jet buy but she's never used Mina: confused but excited escape vehicle and/or scapegoat

RAIDING THE KING ARTHUR FLOUR FACTORY. Mina is of course adorable and keeps everyone's attention while Hot Pocket swan dives into the flour like Uncle Scrooge

Hot Pocket would definitely try to steal a monument, Carmen SanDiego style. Mina, of course, is the multi-talented and super cute face of the operation.

I have no idea who Hot Pocket is

HP would try to scale the tallest building in the world. Not to steal anything, just to be up there. Mina would be the adorable diversion.

It would be to get whatever food you've left on the counter. Preferably bread. He would tell Mina that he'll give her some of she acts as a distraction. She's a good dog so she does. He's a cat so she gets no food.

Truly, truly, THE GIFTENING winner is us all.

[choupichoups]

Press F (Instagram/College AU) Ch.11

Lucas swears he’s the absolute master of undetected stalking. Or: Eliott is instagram famous and Lucas is the disaster gay who accidentally likes his post.

Lucas watches the numbers on his notifications blow up. Ten, fifty, a hundred— mostly messages from curious strangers inquiring about the status of their relationship. Lucas doesn’t understand how any one of them would think that Lucas would spare them an answer. 

He messes with the settings until his direct messages are only open to the people he follows. 

Eliott’s been silent for so long, even on social media, that everyone’s frantically latching onto this update on his story— Lucas included. But he doesn’t understand. He listens to the song over and over, looks up the lyrics to make sure his English isn’t failing him, and ends up back on Eliott’s story. 

The song can’t be directed at him, right? Lucas can’t think of anything that went wrong the last time they were together. Well, everything went wrong but nothing between the two of them. 

Honestly, it’s evident that something suspect is happening when he saw Idris post something on his account the day prior. Idris had told him before that both he and Eliott shut off their technology whenever they have to seriously work on a project so why is Idris available for contact but Eliott is not?

lucallemant Is your project going okay? 

idrisomd What project?

lucallemant The one Eliott said you guys need to work on? His phone’s been on airplane mode no?

idrisomd Oh yeah, that project Uhhhh  Maybe it’s better if you ask him?

lucallemant Haven’t seen him since Saturday

idrisomd  oh

lucallemant Was there even a project at all?

Lucas isn’t dumb, he’s had a bad feeling about this whole project thing three days into Eliott’s abrupt silence. There’s just something very strange about the fact that he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of him despite Lucas orchestrating ‘chance meetings’ by hanging around his boyfriend’s building at the most convenient times. It’s like Eliott’s gone airplane mode not only with his phone, but with life as well. 

All he needs is confirmation before he can allow himself to get angry at the sudden disappearance— and what a confirmation it is when Idris doesn’t respond to that simple question. 

His jittery legs begin bouncing under the table. What did he do to drive Eliott away now? Lucas runs a hand over his face, chewing on his bottom lip. He wasn’t too clingy last Saturday was he? He didn’t say anything scary either like, wanting to adopt two babies or something so he doesn’t know what’s—

Ah. His mother at the clinic. The shouting match with his father. 

Did Lucas scare his boyfriend off with his fucked up family? 

He gets up from the lounge, determined to get to the bottom of this. There’s nothing he can do to fix it, sitting around making assumptions by himself. 

When Idris gets out of class sans Eliott, Lucas steps into his way and Idris jumps about a foot in the air at the sight of him. 

“Jesus!” Idris has a hand to his chest, steadily looking more and more afraid for his life the longer Lucas stares unblinkingly up at him. “Shit, I’m innocent, I swear!”

“So there really is something wrong then?” Lucas’ eyes narrow and he moves closer as Idris very visibly struggles for words. There’s something comical about the way the larger boy is trying his best to cower away from Lucas’ gaze but the latter isn’t in the mood to laugh at anything until he figures out what the hell’s up with Eliott. 

“Listen, Lucas.” Idris takes in a breath, glancing down at his phone in the same movement but the screen’s already darkened by the time Lucas instinctively looks as well. “Things are a little rough right now.”

“That’s not helping. Why did he lie to me?” 

Idris grabs his arm and moves them to a more secluded area, noticing the stares they’re beginning to attract. Lucas doesn’t know what he does but Idris lets out a pained groan when their eyes meet again. 

“Stop looking like that,” Idris says, fidgeting restlessly with his phone. 

“I can’t control my face,” Lucas retorts. “Did he say what I did?”

“Dude…” If conflict had a photo, it would be Idris’ expression right at this moment. “Talk to him. Please. It’s not,” he sighs, shaking his head. “Just talk, okay?”

“He’s not responding.”

“Fuck, make him respond.” Idris types something on his phone before he looks back out to the hallway. “I have to go. Talk to him, please,” he repeats his own words before leaving Lucas with no choice but to contemplate those obscure words by himself. 

And fuck, yeah, whatever, he’ll just go for it. Talk to him it is. 

lucallemant Look, I know your project excuse is bullshit And even if it’s not, you kinda gave yourself away with that story  Can you fucking respond to me already? I know you can read these

srodulv Sorry, I just needed time to think

lucallemant About? 

srodulv Us I think it’s best if we don’t see each other for now 

lucallemant You’re kidding right?

srodulv No Sorry

lucallemant Don’t fucking ‘sorry’ me Where the fuck are you we need to talk

srodulv I don’t think that’s a good idea

lucallemant I don’t give a shit Eliott I’m serious  Either talk to me properly or there’s no ‘for now’ We’re not seeing each other again ever

srodulv I’m at home

Lucas can’t remember the last time he’s felt this livid. 

When Eliott opens the door to his apartment, Lucas shoves in without preamble. He’s a little startled to bump into Emir as he does so— Omar’s also at the side, slowly putting his shoes back on. The two boys don’t say anything, throwing acknowledging nods in Lucas’ way as they put on their jackets. On his way out, Emir shares a look with Eliott and it lasts the entire time it takes for Eliott to close the door back up.

An uncomfortable silence surrounds them once the lock clicks into place. 

“So?” 

Eliott turns to face him— he looks like shit. Or as shitty as Eliott can look anyway. Lucas still thinks he’s beautiful because of course he’s fallen in love like the massive dumbass he’s always been. 

“I already told you over the phone.” 

“Well I don’t agree. I think it’s a stupid thing, not seeing each other and all. So convince me.” He’s trying his hardest to sound as confident as he wishes to be. 

“I’m just… not sure if we’d work out together in the long run.”

And no, no no no. This isn’t happening to him. Not with Eliott. 

“No?” Lucas asks, ignoring the prickle in his eyes. He swallows once, twice— desperately hiding the catch in his breath, the shiver in his voice. “Cause you seemed pretty sure of it when you were fucking me last week.” His voice fails him, cracking in the middle of the sentence. “Is that just… did you just…?”

Eliott’s head snaps up, meeting his gaze finally. But Lucas isn’t sure he wants the contact any longer. Even so, he doesn’t turn away, desperation to fix whatever the fuck is happening between them right now takes priority over the anger simmering in his blood. 

“Lucas.” Eliott sounds wrecked by the implication. Good. Lucas hangs onto that last thread of hope. “Lucas, no. It’s not— fuck it’s not that at all. Please never—” Eliott cuts himself off, hands waving about in front of him. “Never think I— you’re more than that. To me, you’re so much more.” He shakes his head, stepping closer to Lucas. “It’s not you.”

Lucas laughs, harsh and humourless. “What the hell am I supposed to think when you’re over here, using that it’s not you, it’s me bullshit? We’re not in one of your films, Eliott. I’m real,” he almost shouts the last word, wanting and needing Eliott to understand. “So please, if you’re going to leave me, at least have the decency to give me a real reason.”

Eliott goes silent, eyes wide like a child caught in a lie. Lucas’ mind swirls at the raw emotion he sees there, doesn’t know what to think anymore when Eliott stands there looking at him like Lucas is holding his whole heart in his clumsy, unstable hands. And yet. And yet.

“I’m only going to hurt you, Lucas,” Eliott whispers, frozen in position just out of Lucas’ reach. “I’m the exact kind of person who can hurt you real bad.”

Well, he’s not wrong about that. “You don’t think you’re hurting me right now?”

“Not like this.” Eliott swallows. “It’s better to end it now before I…” He trails off, looking away, moving only to clasp his hands together. His thumbs run restless circles over the back of his own palms. 

“Before you what?”

“You won’t understand.”

“Try me.” 

Eliott stops his fidgeting, looking at Lucas with eyes so devastated he looks away, almost takes back his own words if only to remove that look permanently off of Eliott’s face. “I’m bipolar, Lucas,” he says, voice trembling as he continues, “I’ll never be able to give you the normal life you deserve.”

Once, when he was a kid, Lucas had jumped into a pool of water six feet deep, out of sheer misguided courage, in order to prove to himself that he was no coward. The way his world had shrunk into that little bubble of space underwater, and all he could hear was the endless nothingness of the water around him as he recalled everything he’d said and done that led up to that exact situation— it stuck with him. He can still feel it, intensely, the memory clinging to the tips of his fingertips. 

It’s strange how he comes back to that place, right now. He’s in Eliott’s apartment and he’s drowning. 

“Eliott,” he gasps out, forcing his head out of water, everything around him coming back to life. His own words from the last time they were together haunt him. The way he’d wished, out loud, for a normal family. For normal people in his life. “I didn’t mean it. God, I didn’t mean it like that.” 

“But you did,” Eliott says, his tone remaining kind. It kills Lucas inside. “And you’re right.”

“No.” Lucas wants to cover the distance between them but a conscious part of his brain tells him he no longer deserves that privilege. “I swear, Eliott, I didn’t mean it.” 

Eliott doesn’t look convinced. “Please, just go.” 

“No, not like this.” Lucas forces his feet to move forward, barreling past the invisible wall that’s begun to form between them. His hands slowly raise to cup Eliott’s face in between them, his touch the most gentle it’s ever been. “Please understand. I… when I said I wanted a normal family, it’s got nothing to do with my mother, I swear. I would never trade my mama for anyone else but I would give everything to have a— my dad,” he says in a rush, needing Eliott to get him but he’s not sure he’s expressing himself clearly enough. He doesn’t know how to explain himself. “When I said I wanted a normal life I meant that—” He chokes on a hiccuping sob, barely able to keep his tears at bay. But no, he’s not going to start crying now. It’s not about him. “If I could go back in time, I would change so much of my decisions from the past couple of years.”

Eliott softens but still shakes his head. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’ll be a burden for you eventually. I didn’t think it through before. You make me feel so good,” Eliott pauses, leaning into Lucas’ hands. “I was on such a high, I forgot I can’t keep you forever.”

“Why not?” Lucas tries to move closer but Eliott leans back. 

“Because everything is temporary,” Eliott says, removing Lucas’ hands from his face. “I don’t want to ever end up being one of the things you regret.”

���You’re not. You won’t be.” Lucas reaches for him again but Eliott brushes him off. 

“You only say that cause you’ve never seen me at my worst.”

“I don’t care.”

“How can you not care?!” Eliott pulls away completely, pacing the small space from the kitchen to the living room. “I can’t stand the thought of you crying and hurting like that every time I’m down or manic or whatever the fuck my brain decides to force on me without any fucking warning. You know this shit gets ugly, right? I’m not just going to lay down and sleep it off for a couple of hours. Sometimes it takes an entire week, Lucas. And I won’t always be quiet, I’m going to go off on you for no reason, I’m going to push you away—” Eliott stops for a breath, looking over at Lucas. “But you already knew that, didn’t you? Your mom does similar things sometimes, right? And the thing is your mom isn’t even with you all the time and it still affects you so much. How would you react when I’m the one losing my fucking mind?” 

Lucas shakes his head, stepping forward in a desperate bid to get through to Eliott. He doesn’t reach out this time, wringing nervous hands into his sweater sleeves as he shifts around trying to make Eliott look at him. “I can handle it,” he says when their eyes finally meet— Eliott’s gaze is steel but Lucas isn’t easily cowed. “We can handle it.”

“I don’t want you to handle it!” Eliott shouts back, sounding increasingly flustered by Lucas’ persistence. “You should take this as your warning and leave!”

“Well I don’t want to!”

“Why?!”

“Because!” Lucas takes time to breathe, closing his eyes as he reels his temper in. They’ll get nowhere, screaming at each other like this. “Because I’ve never felt anything like this before,” he says in a whisper. “Because I’ll also yell at you, I’ll also do stupid shit, also shut you out sometimes.” Lucas shrugs, looking up at Eliott helplessly. “But all I know is that everything inside me is telling me to keep you and I’m willing to fight for that. I want to fight for that.” He runs a hand through his hair, running out of steam. “So if you think I’m giving up all of this. You. Us. Just because you think you’re not good for me, then you’re wrong. Relationships are a two way thing, Eliott. You can’t just make a decision like this for the both of us. Do you understand what I’m saying?” 

A heavy silence follows. Lucas sighs softly, unsure of what else to do to get his point across. 

Until Eliott mutters the most quiet, “I need time to think on it.” 

And okay, he’ll take that. He’s got time to spare. 

Lucas nods, moving towards the door. He’s pretty sure their conversation ends here. But before he leaves, he lingers by Eliott’s side, taking in his hunched shoulders, the way his eyes are trained on the floor. Everything about him screams defeated. 

“I’ll give you all the time you need,” he says, soft in the wake of their loaded words from earlier. “But know that I still want you in my life, Eliott.” He pauses, taking in a shuddering breath. “All of you.” 

He leaves it at that, walking out the door, out of the elevator, out of Eliott’s building. He doesn’t look back until he’s standing outside, breathing in the chilly evening breeze. He doesn’t realize he’s hoping for something to happen until his eyes are greeted by the empty foyer. There’s a stillness around him that could possibly be peaceful if not for the turmoil knotting in his chest. 

If anyone had told Lucas years ago that he’d be standing in front of a boy’s apartment building, hoping for a scene straight out of a romance movie to happen to him, he’d have laughed in their face until tears streamed down his eyes. 

And yet here he is, waiting. 

But Eliott doesn’t come to chase after him. 

Eliott misses school for two days the week following their talk, and then another two days the next week after— he only knows this because Idris takes it upon himself to keep him updated. On a Wednesday when Lucas doesn’t even have any classes to attend, he sees a glimpse of Eliott around campus. He’s surrounded by people, shoulders covered by that signature brown jacket that Lucas infuriatingly misses. 

Lucas wishes Eliott would see him, wishes so hard that they’d meet eyes across the field and for Eliott to smile that genuine smile of his, eyes crinkling at the corners. He wishes Eliott would look at him like Lucas is the only thing that matters again. 

“You okay?” Arthur nudges him with an elbow, following his line of sight. “How’s it going with you two?”

He shrugs, instinctively unlocking his phone. Eliott hasn’t sent him any messages for the past two weeks. Lucas wants to send something, of course, but he thinks Eliott should be the one to break the silence once he’s ready to go forward with their relationship. If he still wants to that is.

Lucas is starting to have his doubts. “Nothing.”

Arthur sighs, raising an arm to tug Lucas close. “He’ll come around.”

“Sure.” 

On the third week of silence, Lucas isn’t sure Eliott would ever come around.

“Lucas!” Erin rushes inside from the front house, startling Lucas from his gloomy thoughts. 

“Yeah?”

“There’s someone asking to see you.” 

His heart skips a beat, and he almost stumbles out of his seat in his haste to get up. It’s Friday and he’s only here to cover for someone else’s shift but it’d be the best day ever if Eliott’s decided to end his suffering today. 

Marco, their pastry chef, barks out a laugh. “Careful, kid.” 

“Yeah,” he responds absently, jogging forward to peer through the glass window of their kitchen door.

His heart plummets to the ground when he sees the person waiting by the counter. “Did you tell him I was here?”

Erin’s budding smile drops. “No, I only said I’d check, didn’t know if you went out for snacks or something.”

“Okay,” Lucas breathes out, bidding for his heart to slow its beating. “Okay. Please tell him I’m not here.” 

Marco shifts closer. “You okay? You want me to get rid of him?” 

“He’s a paying customer,” Erin mumbles, apology all over her features when her gaze meets Lucas’. 

Lucas appreciates the offer either way. 

“Damn.” Marco grumbles, running a hand over his chin. “Can you handle the front alone? I’ll keep Lucas here to help out with the baking.”

“You really don’t have to—”

“You look like you’re gonna pass out,” Erin interrupts before he can even finish his protest. “I’ll tell him you’ve gone home. He should go away in a few hours, right?”

Lucas isn’t sure about that but he doesn’t want to worry them. “Yeah.”

Erin pushes the door open and Lucas can faintly hear her lying to Raphael for him. 

God, what’s Raphael doing in the cafe? How does he know Lucas works here? 

He walks back to the couch with surprisingly steady steps, sitting down as his mind reels with possibilities.  What the fuck is Raphael doing, trying to barge back in his life like this? The rest of his break is spent panicking in silence but thankfully, it doesn’t bleed into his work when Marco tasks him with frosting the chilled cupcakes. They turn out pretty good, considering his experience in that area is nothing but sometimes watching Manon decorate her stress baked goodies. 

At eight o’clock, he has to reassure Marco that he doesn’t need to wait an extra two hours to give Lucas a ride home. The guy has been there since early morning, working overtime to complete a gigantic preorder for an event their customer has the day after. Besides, Lucas knows Marco’s children are waiting for him to get home before falling asleep, as Marco likes to very fondly remind them all the time. At ten o’clock, Erin lingers, kindly offering to take the bus with him until Lucas reminds her that he walks home and urges her out with a simple reminder of that assignment she’s been procrastinating on for the past week. 

Alone in the cafe, Lucas doesn’t bother to hide the tremor in his hands. 

He calls Yann twice and gets voicemail for both before he remembers that his best friend’s taken off to Bordeaux straight after classes for a family reunion celebrating his grandmother’s birthday. Basile’s fallen asleep hours ago, according to their group chat, after having stayed up three days straight studying for an exam. Arthur would probably come for him but Lucas knows he lives too far away to arrive in time. Champ is waiting for Lucas back home, he can’t possibly waste more time hiding inside the cafe.

But standing at the welcome mat right in front of the door, Lucas gives in, admitting to himself that he’s scared out of his fucking wits. 

lucallemant Eliott, I know I said I’d give you all the time you need And I mean it, you can have more right after this  But please, can you pick me up at work? I need you please Please

He walks around aimlessly, barely registering his own movements as he cleans up everywhere, making sure everything is sparkling clean and wiped down at least three times before he gathers his things so he can lock up. He makes an aborted move towards the curtains which he’d flipped shut earlier, resisting the urge to check if Raphael is out there, waiting. 

It’s ridiculous, it’s been hours.

But he knows. He knows it’s not irrational.

His phone remains silent and a quick check on the app tells him he has no new messages waiting. 

Okay, fuck, that’s fine. It’s fine. He’ll be okay. 

He fishes the cafe keys out of his pocket and unlocks the door from inside. It’s dark when he steps out, almost pitch black in the late hour. The quiet around him is disturbing, the streets abandoned on a typical Friday night. Locking the door back up proves to be a hassle as his shaky fingers fail to slot the key in twice. Irritably, he swats at his forearm— he doesn’t know if his brain is playing tricks on him or if there are really ants crawling up his sleeves at the same moment. 

A couple more tries and the latch finally gives a satisfying click. Lucas stands there, breathing out slowly. It’s still quiet. So, so quiet he almost convinces himself he’s been freaking out over nothing.

Until he turns around and sees the worst mistake of his life. 

Raphael shakes his head, tall and imposing in his fucking suit. “You know I hate it when you lie to me, baby.” 

Lucas shutters, turns around quickly so Raphael doesn’t get a whiff of his effect on Lucas. If the bastard realizes how Lucas feels right now, it’s over for him. He tries to leave without acknowledging Raphael, wanting to sprint back home but that won’t be a very good idea won’t it? With Raphael on his tail and all. His mind, slow as molasses, can’t come up with anything he can do to get away without revealing anything.

He hears footsteps coming up behind him, leisurely, like Raphael knows he’s got nowhere to go. 

“Come on now, Lucas. Don’t be so rude.” 

“What do you want?” If he’s going to be stuck here, he might as well deal with it. He gathers all the courage he can muster and turns to face Raphael, but his own voice sounds distant to his ears, as if he’s separated from his body somehow— a spectator of this hellish scene rather than a direct participant.

It’s been over a year since they’ve ended things, on a terrible note, so Lucas doesn’t understand why Raphael would bother to come back. 

The man shrugs, standing a safe distance away, hands in his pants pockets. “I thought we could revisit that talk from before, you know?”

“No,” Lucas scoffs, his answer hasn’t changed and it would be a waste of their time.

Raphael rolls his head backwards with a deep, showy sigh. “Stop acting like a child. You’re in college now, Lucas, can we have an adult conversation about this?”

How fucking dare Raphael talk to him like that? Lucas won’t rise to the bait, he’s long been over this. He’s worked hard to fix everything Raphael tore down and yes, it’s a work in progress, but he’s healing. “Fuck off.” He starts walking again to god knows where— he’ll go back to campus or sleep in a fucking church if needed. 

It makes Raphael chuckle. “I see. That’s how it is now, huh?” He doesn’t seem to be following so Lucas ignores him. “Careful there, you’re turning into your mother, all mean and moody like that. I heard crazy can run in the family, you know?”

Lucas has fireworks for temper. He’s learned to tone it down as he got older but the one thing that can set him off like nothing else is when people talk shit about his mama. Raphael knows that. Lucas knows Raphael knows that. But he falls for it hook, line, and sinker.

He rushes back to where Raphael is standing, gripping the neatly ironed collars of his dress shirt to pull him down to Lucas’ eye level. “Don’t talk about her like that, don’t talk about her at all, don’t even think about her, you fucker,” he hisses into the space between them, to which Raphael responds with a smile— unkind, predatory. Lucas knows what’s coming but he can’t seem to reign in the anger that makes him act on his most foolish thoughts. 

“Ah.” Raphael’s eyes light up like a demon in the night. “I knew you’d come to me.” His hands easily engulf Lucas’ wrists then, close as they are, and starts dragging him towards the parking lot. Lucas stumbles at first, unprepared for the change of pace but he forces his limbs to cooperate after a few heart stopping seconds. He digs his heels on the pavement, pushing back against Raphael with all his strength. The resistance only frustrates Raphael and Lucas barely has time to catch the angry look Raphael throws over his shoulder before he’s being pulled to the side of the building and slammed unceremoniously on the wall so that his back presses painfully against the rough bricks of the cafe exterior. “Stop making me angry, Lucas. I’m serious.”

“Then stop talking to me!” He yells back, impact behind his voice while also hoping for someone, anyone, to pass by and hear him. “Let go!”

Raphael shushes him, soft and amused. Lucas’ stomach lurches and if he’d eaten anything at all he might’ve thrown up right then and there. The grip around him tightens, heavy shackles of flesh digging into delicate wrists and Lucas just about manages to hold back a whimper. “You know I don’t want to hurt you but you’re making things very difficult right now. Do you understand me?”

Lucas wants to cover his ears— he can’t deal with those words. Not now, not ever again. Not with that same gentle, warning tone. A familiar bout of panic takes hold of him, all that time spent rebuilding himself flies out the window and suddenly he’s back to being sixteen, terrified but helpless under Raphael’s control. 

“You don’t…” He swallows, knowing he has to be brave. No one will protect him but himself. No one. His breathing picks up, vision darkening around the edges. No one, Lucas. Fucking save yourself. “You don’t get to talk to me like that.” It comes out as a whisper, too weak for what he’d been gunning for but the fact that he’s able to get the words out gives him strength. His vision’s no longer fading but he wonders why everything around him looks so damn blurry.  

“Shh,” Raphael hushes him and Lucas strikes his head against the wall behind him to get away from the warm breath near his lips. The movement should be painful but he feels numb to his core. “Oh come on, I’m sorry, baby. Please don’t cry.” Raphael uses one finger to brush against the wetness on Lucas’ cheek. Fuck, fuck, fuck, when did that happen? “Come with me, I’ll make it better, okay?” 

No. He’s going to say it out loud. Once he works up the courage. He’s going to. He’s going to. 

He doesn’t have to.

“Get the fuck off of him.” That cold voice is a welcome distraction from the suffocating conflict in Lucas’ head. Hearing it brings forth so much relief he barely registers everything that comes after. Through tear blurred vision, he watches Raphael stagger backwards as Eliott roughly pushes himself in front of Lucas, shoving Raphael towards the opposing wall.

“And who are you?” Raphael sneers, tone dripping acid. Lucas leans his forehead on Eliott’s solid back, desperately in need of an anchor. 

“None of your business,” Eliott responds, equally venomous. “Leave.” 

“I don’t think you understand, pal, but this is none of your business,” Raphael intones, trying for a calmer approach. “He’s mine and he’s not feeling well right now, so can you please move and let me take care of him?” Lucas hears footsteps approaching but he closes his eyes, unwilling to see any more of that man.

Eliott stands his ground. “Nice try, pal,” Eliott practically growls out, and when Lucas opens his eyes again he sees Eliott’s hands clenched into tight, shaking fists. “You can fuck right off or I swear to god.” 

Lucas doesn’t hear anything else— he brings his hands over his own ears and squeezes his eyes shut , waits it out until Eliott turns around and wraps him in his arms completely, so tight and all encompassing as if trying his utmost best to hide Lucas from the rest of the world.

“I’m here, I’m sorry I took so long, I’m so sorry, I have you, I have you,” Eliott whispers into his hair, barely audible above Lucas’ gasping sobs. He clutches onto Eliott’s jacket and tries to regulate his breathing but every attempt goes down the drain, washed over by the torrent of emotions rushing out all at once. For a single moment he wishes for that numbness from earlier back, if only so he doesn’t die of oxygen deprivation on the spot. 

Eliott tilts Lucas’ head sideways and presses him against his chest, taking slow, deep breaths that Lucas instinctively matches. Under the carefully timed breathing, Lucas can hear Eliott’s erratic heartbeat.

His wheezing tapers off, leaving him sniffling and coughing a little as a strange sort of calm takes over. Eliott, painfully gentle, runs his thumbs across Lucas’ face, wiping all traces of his tears. Lucas doesn’t know how to explain what just happened and he doesn’t think he wants to explain, as a matter of fact. 

Thankfully, Eliott doesn’t ask. “I’ll take you home,” he says, glancing at Lucas carefully before the latter offers him a nod in response. 

Lucas pulls himself away from their embrace, missing the safety in Eliott’s touch but with his head slightly clearer, he remembers, acutely, the status of their relationship. After everything Raphael’s return has brought back, Lucas’s now hyper aware of what he’s asked of Eliott. God, the other boy must think he’s such needy garbage, sending a message like that. Isn’t that considered emotional blackmail? Even if Eliott’s lost his feelings for Lucas, reading a text like that would still make Eliott rush to the rescue. Lucas knows Eliott’s heart is just soft in that way. 

He’s glad the walk home is fairly short. He doesn’t want to keep Eliott later than he has to.

“Thanks,” Lucas says, walking numbly towards the building. Champ must be bored out of her mind. He hopes she ate well— she’s usually good at pacing herself even when he leaves a large amount of food outside when both he and Yann will be out for a long period but sometimes the dumbass gobbles it all down in one go. Hopefully there’s no vomit for him to clean up once he unlocks the door. 

Locks on the door.

How did Raphael know where Lucas works? Why did he leave without much of a fight when Eliott arrived? Is it because he also knows where Lucas lives?

Lucas unlocks his door, fiddles with the mechanism a little, and decides he’s going to go out and buy some extra locks just for good measure. Tonight, in fact. He has to do that tonight. He’ll take Champ with him so she can have a little walk as well. 

“Hey, how are you?” He murmurs into Champ’s fur when she wobbles over to him, not bothering to switch on the lights. She’s the only one he needs to see anyway. “Sorry, I know it’s late now but we’ll go for a walk, alright? I’ll buy you a snack too.” He clips the leash on her collar but bundles her tight in his arms as he goes back out. 

When he gets to the entrance, Eliott is standing right where Lucas left him. 

“Why are you still here?” He’s surprised he’s able to string together a proper sentence around Eliott, seeing as his heart has been shattering anew for every time he catches even the slightest glimpse of the boy for the past few weeks. Maybe there’s simply nothing left to shatter. “You should go home now.”

“Lucas,” Eliott’s voice sounds shaky. Lucas can feel Champ’s tail sleepily wagging at the sight of him. “Why are you not inside?”

“I have to buy something.”

“What are you buying? Can’t it wait til tomorrow?”

Lucas shakes his head. “I need new locks for the door.”

“What happened to your lock?” Eliott’s stepping closer, slowly, like how one would approach a spooked animal. 

“Nothing, I just want more.” Lucas has his eyes trained on the ground, counting the cracks on the cobblestone as he grapples for something, anything to occupy his mind with. He can’t let it run empty or he’s afraid he’ll stop breathing. 

“Where’s Yann?” Eliott’s close enough to touch by now and he lifts a hand to pet over Champ’s little head. 

“At his parents’.” Lucas distantly notes that Eliott’s hand is trembling and he wants to hold them, keep them warm, but he’s not sure he’s allowed to. “You should go home, it’s only gonna get colder.” He thinks Eliott says something after that but Lucas misses it— everything around him seems so strange and muffled. He’s inside a glass container with only one eye peeking out. “What?”

“Lucas.” There’s a desperate note in the way Eliott says his name and Lucas isn’t sure what to make of it. He follows the way Eliott’s hands stutter midair, hovering close on either side of Lucas’ face but Eliott doesn’t touch him.  “Come back to me.” 

What does that mean? “I’m right here,” he responds, meaning for it to be a question but his tone falls as flat as everything else he’s been saying. 

Eliott shakes his head, distress loud in his eyes. There’s a voice inside Lucas’ head screaming for him to reach out and comfort Eliott, to erase that pained expression and to try his damnedest to make him smile. The glass around him shrinks protectively and Lucas doesn’t move a limb.

“Okay… okay, you’re sleeping over at mine tonight,” Eliott says, one of his hands flying up to run through his own hair while the other goes to his mouth, biting at his nails. 

“But Champagne…”

“She’s coming too.”

“Her stuff’s upstairs.”

“We’ll go get it.” 

Gathering everything Champ needs is a quick and quiet affair, with Lucas floating around grabbing anything that looks remotely like something a dog would own. Her food and water bowls are last to enter the bag. Lucas leaves feeling as if he’s forgotten something but the thought doesn’t stick, so he lets it go.

They walk to Eliott’s flat mostly in silence, partly due to Lucas missing half of what Eliott tries to tell him. He can see his lips moving but Eliott has to repeat twice, three times, before Lucas understands what’s being said. It’s a tiring exercise and Lucas doesn’t have anything to respond with anyway, much more content with burying his face into Champ’s soft fur, cuddling into her warmth despite of how small of a space she takes up. 

Once inside, he lets go of Champ to let her familiarize with the place while he stands immobile at the doorway, staring at the plant Eliott’s placed beside his bookshelf. It looks like it’s dying. Lucas would laugh but the notion dies before the thought even completes itself. 

“Hey.” Eliott’s close again and Lucas lets his eyes fall shut at the comfort of his presence. “Lucas? Lucas, are you with me?”

He’s exhausted. The walls around him are thickening, until he hears nothing but his own breathing.

Eliott sighs, and Lucas feels him brush the hair away from Lucas’ forehead before he shuffles off elsewhere. When Eliott comes back, it’s with a bundle of clothes in his arms and a gentle hand guiding Lucas to the bathroom.

Behind the closed bathroom door, Lucas is forced to face himself in front of the mirror. It’s a relief to find nothing outwardly amiss; his hair’s a little messy and his eyes a little red. But when he removes his clothes and sees the finger shaped bruises forming on his wrists, stark against the otherwise unblemished skin, the bubble around him breaks— sharp pieces of cracked glass lodge themselves under his skin, and he bleeds and bleeds from the inside. Everything around him is suddenly too loud, too bright, too much.

Come with me, I’ll make it better. 

“No,” he whispers, hands sliding up to cover his ears, albeit futile, against the phantom words. He stumbles backwards and falls to the floor with a thud but Lucas barely notices the pain that shoots up his tailbone.

Stop acting like a child and listen to me.

There are footsteps thundering from outside the room and a small part of him, the one that hasn’t completely lost its mind, recognizes it immediately. “Eli—” he begins to call out but a nagging thought stops him. No, he can’t ask for Eliott. He’s got enough to deal with without Lucas adding on his own pile of bullshit. 

Where’s his phone? He needs to call his mama— wait no, she’s having a rough time already. She has to get better first and worrying about Lucas won’t be of any help. 

Yann. He’s probably not asleep yet, Lucas can try calling him again and—

Except Yann doesn’t know the entire story. Lucas had swept it all under the rug after telling his best friend a heavily edited version of how much Raphael had fucked him up. 

Fuck, he’s alone. He’s alone. How does he manage to always end up alone?

I’m the only one you have.

“Lucas?” Eliott slams the door open and it startles Lucas enough that it silences the ugly memories running through his head. He looks up to the sight of Eliott frozen by the door, looking wholly unsure and slightly terrified and god, Lucas can’t help it. Just a little bit. He just needs a little bit of Eliott to survive the night. 

“Eliott,” he croaks out, but he doesn’t get to finish the thought when tears fill his eyes and spill out uncontrollably like a flooded dam. Eliott rushes to his side, gathering Lucas up in his embrace. In turn, Lucas latches onto him. He’s going to regret this tomorrow, he knows, but for now, he crawls into the space between Eliott’s arms and hides in the crook of his neck, searching for safety. “I don’t wanna go back,” he gasps out. “I don’t. Please don’t let me go back.” 

Eliott holds him that much tighter— the strength in his arms juxtaposes the waver in his voice as he says, “I’m here now. I got you. You’re never going back, I’m here. I’m here.” 

Are you? Lucas’ tears pour heavier, though he guesses that empty promises are better than no promises at all. 

[migleefulmoments]

CrissColfer Strategy #2

This piece was posted on 2/19/20 but it is originally from 2018 prior to LM/DC. It’s always amusing to read their theories about big upcoming changes in Darren’s love life in light of the fact that Mia has been a steady force in Darren’s life for 10 years.

Here they are debating whether Lea will be Darren’s new beard- a theory that required them to ignore both Mia and Zandy. In this post we see justcantgetenoughcc using the “trust me I know more than you do but I can’t share it” strategy. Honestly, this is the one that baffles me the most. While I can see the slow-motion gifs for what they are- pure manipulation, I know that TLOS isn’t the Klaine bible they want it to be and I can understand how other’s can be conned with that evidence. What I can’t understand is why anyone would trust someone who continues to say “I know more than you do but I can’t share it with you...just trust me”.  Those very words are literally the exact words that should raise one’s caution flag. Mommas, the one thing you should teach your children is to never trust someone who claims to know the truth but can’t share any evidence. Especially if that story goes on for 5 or 10 years.

***********************************

ilikesomedistance There was a discussion many years ago, that they (PR and F/ox) wanted to bring Lea and Darren together. But it never worked out for many reasons.

Guess it’s happening now.

stopandimaginelove  But whyyyyyyyyyyyyy 🤐

justcantgetenoughcc Interesting question.

The primary reason was always to break Chris and Darren up.

RM/Ricky all playing together. AB imo not that invested but to a degree (at least initially). Even beard (she realized what she can have by getting rid of Chris and why she too is very much part of the game now). Each had their own reason for being invested, as Chris and Darren in love and united as a team, made it difficult to manipulate Darren. In a way, that - Darren and Chris in love - was also their Achilles heel. Each put the other ones’ interest first - and got manipulated in giving up their autonomy. Chris had nothing to hide as he was already out. Why would he even need a beard? They were so young and so naïve to Hollywood’s manipulation tactics. I don’t think they had anyone with industry experience, with their interests at heart, to advise them or look out for them. It was too late and they were in too deep, by the time they realized what they had agreed to. They still tried to back out of some of their worst mistakes. Some day… they will tell those stories or it will turn up in Chris’s books.

Initially people assumed that all that proximity and playing boyfriends onscreen - and no doubt their amazing chemistry - must be why they were together. I am sure they thought it will never last or they will get over it or get tired of it and move on to others once the itch was scratched. Like most young guys (as young gay guys - not my opinion at all - but a lot of people believe that).

But it didn’t happen that way. They didn’t break up. Instead they went and got engaged over Dec 2012/NYE 2013 (that was from when we have the pic of Chris looking at his ring standing next to his suitcase at an airport). They were serious from the get-go. They were ‘IT’ for each other.  They were even living together (even before Glee Live 2011 - in Chris’s first rented apartment in LA). I think it was Joey who once commented that he saw Darren only when he needed more clothes (Don’t quote me on it though. Ha). When Chris bought his first home in Laurel Canyon, guess who moved in there with him? It wasn’t W as most of the fandom was led to believe. There’s enough proof in their own words and since this is going to be a long post, I am going to leave some of those details out of this. And some I can’t reveal.

Why do you think LU Tour happened? It was another attempt to break them up and also to get Darren to declare his longtime gf of a hundred years. There was no way Darren would agree to it when Chris and Darren are together. And so his team came up with the clever “DIVIDE and CONQUER” tactic. Get Darren away from Chris and break him down.

Nothing ELSE came out of LU tour and so I am right in my assumption here.

A Darren who missed Chris on the road, who was mentally and physically exhausted from his days on the tour… gave in… WITH TEARS… a heartbroken Darren was FORCED to declare a gf - reading from a script, answering questions from a script, at the Toronto Radio Interview - WHILE he was already ENGAGED to CHRIS.  There are many ways I can cement the claims I am making. But they are NOT mine to share.

If you doubt me, that the intent ALWAYS was to break them up (come on guys! connect the dots!), so much has been exposed in the last two years, especially in the last six months.

Why were they forced to have beards? It wasn’t FOX (in fact there's a story not known to many that FOX was going to let Chris and Darren come out (heck they even knew of their engagement - again stories that I cannot reveal) but others disagreed/disapproved of that move and stopped it). Some of the old fandom crowd know of this. Why were their beards ALONE always allowed access to the glee set? Why were M and W paraded so much on the sets? Why was the beard woman given a job at FSO (where she did nothing really but was given free credit for work others did). Chris was already OUT. He was a grown up guy who always took care of himself even when he was much younger.

During 5.14 filming in NYC, it was clear that the film crew took care of Chris and Darren. All their needs on the set was met along with the rest of the cast present (Amber, Chord, Kevin, Lea and Darren). Even holding up their winter coats for them to slip their arms through. W didn’t do anything other than obstruct the filming (and there were a lot of complaints about W and he had to be told many times to move out of the crews way). Do you think Chris paid for W to accompany him to NYC where he wasn’t needed at all? Who had the most to gain from that decision to have W there?

The beards were ALWAYS meant to WEAR THE GUYS DOWN. To create discord between them. To grate on their nerves. To be a thorn in their side. You get the drift.  It still didn’t work. Those two guys still stayed strong.  

Yes, there was an attempt to END KLAINE early in S6 and use Darren/Blaine as Lea/Rachel’s LI and have them be the prime couple who got married to each other (instead of a Finchel wedding that RM always talked about) at the SERIES Finale. That didn’t work either. That story is known to many in the fandom. But is not mine to tell.

Look at all the attempts made to prevent Darren and Chris coming out. Since 2015.

I have repeated this so many times since 2015 and am going to repeat it ONE LAST TIME for the people who have joined the fandom since 2015.

Glee was filming the last season. Beards were barely on the set even with all the heavy make-out scenes (heavier Kliss scenes, emotional scenes, the elevator scene, the wedding, future Klaine etc). Guess everyone felt bearding was ending too as Glee only had a few more months left. We got the NOW FAMOUS BTS interview from the ranch - the day the Klaine wedding was being filmed - where Chris and Darren were interviewed by Leanne Aguilera (and not M). Where they admitted so much and looked radiant and vibrant. Best of all they admitted to being good friends in real life.

Then we got the Ellen Show where Darren and Chris interacted and wrote each others names (not to mention the incident where Chord slipped up and mentioned meeting Chris and Darren. Nothing dramatic happened by way of reaction or retaliation from PR).  Then came the Paleyfest and the Mario Lopez radio Interview - where Chris was present with Darren and Mario in the recording room. We counted Chris’s laughter interspersed  - at least five times. It wasn’t edited out. We rioted over all of those events repeatedly. It was like the CC drought was finally over. They were allowed to breathe free. And acknowledge each other. Say they were good friends with each other.

[We have proof on several claims I make here and are known to a lot of people but we can’t share them yet].

We knew they went on a European vacation that ended in Paris where Darren had to attend the CON with a few other Glee cast. Darren alone didn’t stay at the hotel where the CON was held, where the rest of the cast stayed. Ask yourself why. Darren returns to NYC and starts rehearsing for Hedwig Broadway that starts mid-April. Everyone was happy and there were several SM follows of both Darren and Chris back to back by Hedwig Crew and BTS crowd. Lot of happy tweets and fun stuff.

It felt like Darren had a few more months left to freedom. Chris plans his TLOS4 book tour around Darren’s closing show at Belasco - so that he can sit in the audience and not watch from the shadows as he did during the first 119 days of the run. Alla Plotkin, Chris’s publicist, allowed it and supported it (if there were any known contracts or clauses that prohibited Chris’s presence at the closing show, Alla wouldn’t have /couldn’t have allowed it) and planned the whole tour accordingly with Chris.  

So close to freedom and to coming out… and then out of the blue, Darren’s perfectly written Broadway BIO was edited to a mess of a BIO and  ‘xos to mia’ was included. Overnight Darren’s personal life got hijacked by a scheming woman and Darren’s manager. Eleni who was a longtime good friend of Jeff Jernigan, was appointed as Darren’s assistant (watchdog) at Belasco. Darren who hadn’t even seen or heard from the beard for many months, and Darren who had never displayed any real closeness to the woman - posts a dressing room kiss (long story about that too. (Read mleigh69’s post on how the Belasco kiss was staged).

From there on, everything went to hell in a hand basket. All their hopes and plans were dashed.

From that time to the present, how closely Darren is monitored and watched and babysat…is ridiculous. Darren has more people on his secret service detail,  sometimes more than even the President himself (it feels like). He sang 4 songs in Utah recently and he had Ricky, AB, Jeff Jernigan, Eleni, beard and Ken Sunshine (the boss of Sunshine Sachs) with him in Utah.

All their attempts to coming out was thwarted. Chris wasn’t allowed to attend the Hedwig closing show even though he had timed it to end the day before, giving him time enough to fly to NYC from LA. Chris who had never made a career misstep, chose to put his reputation as a children’s book author on the line by acting drunk - just so he could get on a plane to NYC. He had to watch the closing show from the shadows but am sure that was preferable to being beaten or giving in to two conniving people.

Even the ENCAGE was partially to stop CrissColfer from coming out. See what the encage did. All of Darren’s commitments and obligations were OVER AND DONE with by then… except for the NOOSE called the encage now. That was pretty timely, wasn’t it?

Why is Darren going on a tour with Lea Michele when Lea’s album was poorly received and didn’t do well at all? All her shows failed. She really has nothing much going on.  Hmmmm…

If am guessing, let me be wrong for one last time… WHAT IF IT IS TO KEEP CHRIS AND DARREN APART? As all their attempts and excuses to prevent Chris and Darren FROM COMING OUT ARE EXHAUSTED?

So now there are tours and MORE TOURS… where Darren's TEAM THINKS he has to remain NO HOMO for the tours to sell. They quickly got him committed to a LONDON concert while ACS was still airing.

Now ACS is over.

And sure enough, just as the ENCAGE IS COMING APART AT THE SEAMS… we have THE LM/DC TOUR!!!!

tahtah678

[you-get-to-exhale-now-cyrus]

here’s a pretty open-ended prompt: trick or treating 🦇👻🎃

((I’ve had this in my inbox for forever [haha musicals] and I’m finally getting around to writing it! School’s been crazy, but here we go!))

Of all the days that Cyrus had to be sick, Halloween sure didn’t need to be one of them. Besides it being his favorite holiday, this was the first year that he was going with TJ, as well as the GHC.

But of course, Cyrus being the lucky guy that he is, turned up with a terrible cold the day before Halloween. And it only got worse from there.

“I’m sorry, Cy,” Andi frowned from the other side of the screen. He could make out a few flashes of her Mulan costume.

“I’ll bring you candy, I promise! Twix, right?” Buffy offered, adjusting her basketball jersey. Although she wasn’t really one for dressing up, who was she to pass up free candy and a long walk? It was like a mini workout with a sweet treat at the end.

“Mhm,” he croaked from his couch, blowing his nose for what felt like the millionth time that evening.

“It’s not going to be the same without you, Cy-Guy. What are we going to do without your map of which houses to hit when to get the best possible amount of candy?” Jonah complained, his plastic fangs slipping a little as he talked. ( “They look docious vampirocious!” Jonah had said earlier).

“Start with Elms Road, they usually stop giving out candy pretty early,” he croaked, breaking into a coughing fit before continuing, “Just…yeah. Is TJ with you guys?”

“Haven’t seen him. Probably bailed because you’re not coming,” Buffy joked, much to the displeasure of Cyrus.

“What did I say about making flirty jokes about us? We’re just…friends,” he sighed.  As much as it pained him to say that, it was true. They were just friends.

“I’m just saying, after we told him you were sick and couldn’t come, he-”

“What?” He cut Buffy off with a garbled squeal, “you-you told him I was sick?”

“Well…yeah. He asked why you weren’t coming so,” she shrugged, “why are so concerned?”

“Because,” he drawled, coughing through his words, “he always panics when I’m sick or I get hurt and makes a big deal out of it. Which, don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely adorable, but still,” he huffed, pushing his greasy hair up with his hands.

“That sounds like boyfriend material,” Jonah joked from off screen, “Guys it’s almost seven, should we get going?”

“Probably. I don’t want it to get too dark, or else Bex and Cece are gonna worry,” Andi agreed, picking up her bag for candy (which she had made herself, by the way).

“We’ll bring you candy tomorrow, Cyrus, promise!” Buffy told him, the screen lagging for a moment as pixels darted around.

“Have fun you guys!” he cheered as joyfully as he could. As soon as they hung up, he relaxed his face muscles and he leaned his head back on the couch.

“Mom?” he called, before groaning again. Of course his parents were out at some Halloween party tonight. Granted, it was just a bunch of therapists in costumes talking about nightmares, but still.

The doorbell rang, and Cyrus pulled the blanket over his head. “I you’re a murderer, kindly leave because I’m sick!” he croaked from underneath.

“You think a murderer wouldn’t kill you because you’re sick, Underdog?”

At that, Cyrus yanked the covers from over his head. TJ? TJ was at his door on Halloween night?

“Just a second,” he mumbled, dragging himself to the door, his head feeling like it was made of lead. He took a look at himself in the mirror by the door and sighed; he did look like a mess. A hot mess.

“Trick or treat,” TJ grinned when Cyrus opened the door. The fact that this heartthrob of a boy was standing on Cyrus’ porch on Halloween night wasn’t even the best part, no. Of course, TJ was also in costume. A knight in shining armor.

Apparently Cyrus’ poker face was a little lacking as TJ chuckled, letting himself in.

“Let me explain,” he started, “I was going to go with you guys, but I found out that you were sick, so…I figured I could just hang out here with you? We can watch movies and,” he moved his hands from behind his back to reveal a bag, “eat candy all night long?”

Cyrus was grinning from ear to ear, his red nose crinkling up from his joy. “Might I advise you to stay away from me because I’m sick?”

“I’ll take my chances,” the taller boy chuckled, taking off his helmet and shoes, “do you mind if I take off the armor? It’s heavy, and I’m wearing sweats underneath,”

“Do go ahead, o mighty knight,” Cyrus joked, tossing his blanket up like the cape of a king. As TJ changed, Cyrus grabbed some more blankets from the corner of the couch, and fixed the furniture so that both boys could extend their legs.

“Much better,” he sighed, taking a blanket and wrapping it around himself. “What should we watch?”

“I know it’s not Halloween-y, per se, but…Love Simon?” he offered sheepishly, fumbling with the remote and selecting the movie.

“What if I had said no? And what about the trick or treaters?” TJ pestered knowingly, smirking.

“Then I would have kicked you out,” he joked, “and my parents left a bowl out for the kids.”

The movie began, and although Cyrus had several coughing fits throughout, it was still lovely. As the film progressed, TJ found himself ending up closer and closer to Cyrus. Nothing jarring, just little by little every few minutes. So by the time that Simon’s coming out scene was playing, their shoulders were nearly touching.

“You get to exhale now, Simon,” Cyrus repeated weakly, a few tears slipping down his face. He looked down at his hand; it was only a few inches away from TJ’s. If only he just reached his pinky out a little, he could be touching it.

With extreme caution, Cyrus outstretched his pinky finger and swallowed thickly when he felt it touch the other boy’s. He waited for TJ to tear his hand away, but, to his surprise, TJ linked his pinky with Cyrus’. They were almost holding hands. Almost.

The movie went on, and Cyrus found himself getting a little sleepy. Maybe it was his cold medicine or maybe it was Halloween magic, but he allowed himself to rest his head on TJ’s shoulder. It felt like home; everything felt perfectly in place.

TJ prayed that Cyrus couldn’t hear his heart screaming with joy. “Hey Cyrus?”

“Mhm?” he hummed, half-awake.

“Do you ever feel weird?”

Groaning, Cyrus turned so he could see TJ’s face. Damn, with the milky glow from the screen, and lips slightly parted, he looked like an angel. “I mean, I’m a nerd so weird goes along with that,”

“No, like…not weird like ‘nerd weird’, but like…weird weird.” His words were failing him at the moment.

“Oh…yeah,” he mumbled, “I-yeah,”

“Can I tell you something?”

“You can tell me anything, Teej,”

TJ took a deep breath, taking in the scent of the blankets. They smelled like…well they smelled like Cyrus. There wasn’t a particular note of vanilla or lemon, but just…Cyrus.

“I-I’m gay,” he sputtered, holding his breath. He couldn’t even look at Cyrus when he said it, he was so worried, “and-and it makes me feel weird…different,”

“TJ,” he whispered, taking the boy’s hands in his, “you’ve always been weird. But you’re no different,” he assured him, pulling his hands back to cough into his elbow.

“I’m gay too,” he said with a shrug. TJ’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, and Cyrus couldn’t help but giggle. “Wow, am I that good of an actor that you thought I was straight?”

The boy felt himself blush, chewing on his bottom lip. “Guess I’m just a little clueless. Since we’re on this topic, I, uh, I need to tell you something else,”

“Anything,” Cyrus smiled, turning down the volume of the movie.

“I-Underdog, I-I like you,” he stammered, “and I know that sounds really cheesy and lame but…I really like you,”

Cyrus blinked once. Twice. Was his cold medicine really making him hallucinate that badly? “You-you like me too?”

“I-too? Does that mean that-”

“I am completely, one hundred percent gay for you,” he affirmed with a smile, lacing TJ’s hands for him.

Cyrus had never seen TJ smile so genuinely. The taller boy started to lean in when Cyrus stopped him.

“I’m sick remember?” he sighed, pouting.

TJ shrugged. “Worth it,” he whispered, leaning in and connecting their lips. And in that moment, it didn’t matter that Cyrus wasn’t walking around with his friends from door to door. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t dressed as Flynn Rider. All that mattered was that he was here with TJ, safe and happy.

Cyrus was the first to pull away for a breath of air and a few sneezes. “You’re going to regret doing that,” he warned.

TJ smirked, slinking his arm around Cyrus waist and pulling him closer. “Never,”

The next Saturday, Cyrus got a FaceTime request from TJ. Putting his homework down, he picked up the request.

“Hi, Teej!”

“I’m sick,” he groaned from the other side of the phone.

Cyrus smirked knowingly. “I told you you were going to regret that kiss,”

“I don’t regret it one bit, Underdog,”

tag list: @shortstackofpeaches || @seanna313 || @geekingbeautytx || @heavenlybyers || @ghostswasp || @wlwandimack || @giocondasstuff || @lemonboytyrus || @adorejrizzle || @swingsetboys || @ifellintotyrushell || @idk-dude-17 || @rbf-lesbian ||​ @marianara-sauce || @kaptainjinxz || @alex-poster-pizz

[pass-the-bechdel]

Teen Wolf full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

82% (eighty-two of one hundred).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

35.07%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Twenty-eight.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Seven.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Two.

Positive Content Status:

Impressive and uplifting: it’s a show aimed at teens and young adults, and it recognises and takes full responsibility for representing a positive and progressive outlook to its audience. It’s a show full of complex, powerful, smart, skilled, wonderful, diverse female characters, and male characters who are emotional and vulnerable and honest and supportive with one another without judgment, and queer people living openly and happily without fear. I have had relatively minor quibbles, and I wouldn’t call it perfect representation, but it is easily the strongest example I currently have of the kind of positive representation I value (average rating of 3.18).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

Tough call, but season six part one edges out the competition by virtue of the highest percentage of female characters for the series (42.52%), which helps it to also score six episodes with 40%+ and three with their casts balanced or female-led at 50%+. It also turned in a 90% pass on the Bechdel.

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

Season two, which featured both of the series’ under-20% female cast episodes, and turned in a total percentage of 26.5%, with only 58.3% on the Bechdel. It’s saving grace: the second-highest positive representation score of the series (3.41).

Overall Series Quality:

An absolute delight, end to end. It’s outrageous, it’s bombastic, it is, at times, ridiculous. But it embraces this about itself, it owns it and loves it and revels in it, and it maintains itself with remarkable consistency and never shows any sign of being embarrassed to be just exactly what it is. In a way, that’s another point in favour of the positive message it sends to its audience; there’s no reason to consider Teen Wolf a guilty pleasure, something to hesitate or equivocate before admitting your enjoyment, for it never hesitates or equivocates about itself. It’s an honest and uncomplicated kind of pleasure, and I, unabashedly, love it.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

“You’re not a monster,” Scott declares, at the triumphant conclusion of the Teen Wolf series finale, “you’re a werewolf. Like me.” It’s a reiteration of the same line he uttered to his new beta, Liam, back in season four, and it’s a thoroughly earned mission statement for the show, a declaration that being different is ok, even if others have made you feel like an outcast for it, even if it’s difficult, even if it hurts. The way you are is ok, you have value as you are, and you are not alone. It’s easy to be cynical about that if it isn’t a message you personally need to hear, but for the youths in Teen Wolf’s target audience - especially the large queer contingent - it’s a crystal-clear affirmation that could not be more important, and not one made lightly. After all, it’s easy to make statements that sound glossy and progressive, but if you want people to really take it to heart, you have to earn it. Don’t just say it; demonstrate it. Whatever else you might think of this silly schlocky show, it didn’t just walk the walk with its representation: it strode out with pride. 

With a show that performed so admirably, it’s hard to know what to discuss in summary: the female characters really are so varied and wondrous, so complex and realistically flawed and none of them ever shamed for being different to the rest (because different is ok). The male characters really are so refreshingly low on toxic masculinity, or alternately, they have the limitations and the damage of toxic masculinity so thoroughly exposed through their narrative arcs that there’s no question about the show promoting emotionally healthy openness as a masculine ideal. The queer characters really are so numerous and loved and never made to suffer for their identities (though, if one is quibbling, there was certainly a preponderance of queer males compared to a pretty limited supply of queer females, and don’t think I forgot how they teased us with the idea of queer Stiles early on but never canonically delivered). At the end of the day though, I have discussed the above all over the individual episode/season posts, and what I really want to talk about now is how well they packaged their lesson of diverse acceptance for a young audience, because that target intention is where the show’s progressive ethos really shone.

Not all teen-targeted shows take it upon themselves to teach good morals, and to suggest that they should can come off as infantalising; as if young adults are still children, needing to be taught fundamental behaviours. Setting aside the fact that in some cases they really, really do need that (otherwise they become maladjusted adults who still really, really need those lessons on fundamental behaviours such as accepting other people for being different, et al.), the result of either option is often a bit of a disaster: you get teen shows that ignore their moral responsibility and consequently teach/reinforce incredibly damaging and even dangerous ways of thinking, or you get teen shows that treat their audience like morons while preaching in an embarrassingly out-of-touch fashion. For this reason, I have rarely enjoyed shows targeted at young adult audiences (even when I was part of that demographic) and I normally avoid such programming. As such, I am not a connoisseur of teen shows, but of the ones I have indulged Teen Wolf is absolutely the standout, not only for just getting me on pretty much every socio-political and entertainment level available, but for the attitude it takes toward that aforementioned target audience: specifically, how very in-tune it is with the way the demographic thinks and acts.

Whether a bad teen-targeted show is of the morally-irresponsible kind or the morally-preachy kind, the core problem is the same: they promote shame. It might be shame in the form of peer pressure, encouraging wild, foolish, and inconsiderate behaviour because ‘that’s what teens are like’ and making their young impressionable audience feel like weird losers if they don’t mirror the actions and attitudes depicted on their favourite shows, or it might be shame in the form of heavy-handed judgment, the idea that any experimentation or pushing at the borders of authority are absolutely BAD AWFUL things that only BAD AWFUL people do. For Teen Wolf, being in-tune with the audience means understanding that there are certain things that teenagers are extremely likely to do regardless of whether they have permission, and approaching those things as part of the audience’s reality within that spirit of understanding, focusing not on shame but rather on promoting positive and responsible behaviour. It’s really not rocket science, but somehow it’s still a wonderful anomaly. Instead of depicting teen sex as a taboo or a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t world full of dirty sluts and naive virgins, Teen Wolf is sex positive, even-handed across the spectrum of sexual activity and promoting enthusiastic consent and open discussion of boundaries. Instead of depicting teen drinking as either the worst of crimes or a guaranteed gateway to regrettable actions or something you just gotta do in order to have fun and fit in, Teen Wolf encourages making your own decisions for your own reasons, and watching out for your friends to make sure everyone gets home safe. It certainly doesn’t depict a conflict-free world where no one ever makes a bad choice or does anything stupid or selfish; it just doesn’t approach normal human behaviour with an air of judgment. There’s just no shame.

What makes this really significant is that it’s part and parcel of the whole acceptance ethos: it’s not just werewolf metaphors or telling kids that gay is ok. In order to really craft a message about not feeling ashamed to be who you are and how you are, you need to let the message touch all parts of the story, and all parts of the character’s lives, not just the big obvious points of contention. It’s a great way to be morally responsible with your impressionable audience without getting preachy and trying to tell them how to live: just encourage them to be considerate and wise about their choices by showing them how it’s beneficial for everyone, demonstrate, don’t just tell. Not rocket science at all. The other thing is that it really doesn’t need to be thought of as a ‘lesson’ at all; it’s just people being depicted in a non-judgmental fashion as they try their best to do the right thing in whatever situations they encounter. Sometimes they mess up, and sometimes they repeat mistakes, and sometimes they get overwhelmed, but they’re trying and they’re growing as people, and that’s the best you can ask of anyone, whether they’re supernatural teenagers on a tv show or not. Really, it’d be nice if more entertainment media spared a thought to reinforcing fundamental moral principles in their everyday content, because the world sure as Hell is full of maladjusted adults who are still absorbing and entrenching bad attitudes normalised in their television consumption. There’s no reason we should only expect this level of attentiveness from stories aimed at young people. That said, if this show were not targeted at young adults, it probably also wouldn’t be as good, because the reality is that the majority of ‘grown-up’ programming makes little to no effort to challenge the perceived social status quo. We’re probably lucky they kept the teen part of Teen Wolf when they adapted this story for television (the original 1985 film of the same name is NOT progressive or accepting, and I can’t recommend it - the show kept mercifully little beyond the basic idea of a teenage werewolf).

What Teen Wolf has done - and certainly not by accident - is create an entertaining safe space. For all that Beacon Hills is full of supernatural horror and grisly murders and nightmare fuel and sometimes, straight-up Nazi ideology, on an individual personal level it is a place without shame, a place where even when the characters feel backed into a corner with no good options, we can see that they have support, they have friends and family and slightly-nutty lacrosse coaches who have got their backs in a crisis, they have intelligence and skills and the hard-won knowledge of experience that will help them find a way; there is always an element of virtue shining within every moment. They still feel desperate sometimes, and hopeless, and alone. There are still a lot of bad things in their world, and sometimes that stuff is too big and too terrifying to bear, and the real world is like that too. You don’t have to be a teenager - or a werewolf - for that struggle to resonate, and you certainly don’t have to be either of those things in order to value a fiction in which being judged, marginalised, or mistreated for being the way you are is not a concern you have to add to your roster of ills. There are plenty enough terrible things in the world still, and sometimes what we really need is a little space to believe that there’s some inherent good left, too. Even if no problem is ever completely fixed, even if there will always be hate and evil and horror out there, waiting. You are valuable as you are, and someone’s gonna have your back. 

This is exactly the context in which Scott utters that final triumphant line “You’re not a monster, you’re a werewolf. Like me”, echoing that same thing he told Liam when he was miserable and afraid of what he had become and what it would mean for his life. It’s a sentiment that Scott earned from his own misery, his own fear, his own battle with having his life upended irreparably against his will. Scott is being for the new generation what no one was for him; he’s taking his hardships and forging them into a lifeline for those who come after, so that they don’t have to struggle as hard as he did. He’s doing better, one step, one person at a time. The parallel there isn’t hard to draw; the affirmation can’t get any clearer. You can’t have real representation - on any level - if you don’t have unconditional acceptance, and you can’t have unconditional acceptance if you don’t let the demonstration of it permeate your narrative. You can’t just say it. You have to be the change you want to see in the world. Unlikely as it might seem, schlocky and silly as this show was with its Steampunk doctors and Demon wolves and mountain aaaaassshhh, it was also a show dedicated to demonstrating - in varied and delightful detail - the kind of young people it hoped to be reflecting as they stepped out into adulthood. It’s easy to be cynical about that, but it isn’t useful, and there’s a kind of shame wrapped up in cynicism. Teen Wolf, to its utmost credit, was always far too busy embracing its own quirks to ever let cynicism in. I miss it already.

[nouies-moved]

BEST FICS OF 2017 picked by notchopsuey manips | other recs | rec page

#1. Runaway Land. 103k. Louis is sure he’s stumbled upon a secret, underground nightclub, though that is far from the truth. He’s also pretty sure he’s stumbled upon Apollo, which… isn’t very far from the truth, actually. Modern Greek mythology AU. #2. You Might Want to Marry My Husband. 24k. When Harry’s husband dies, he asks one thing of him; to find love and happiness again without him. It’s a request that Harry is happy to disregard, until he meets the one person who is impossible to ignore. #3. Love's Truest Language. 48k. The first part was meant as a joke. He didn't really expect Harry to buy anything. It was just Louis’ way of softening the ‘get the fuck out’ blow. “Where's your order forms, then?” “I don't want your flowers.” Louis chided before directing all of his attention to the arrangement in front of him. Harry laughed under his breath as he stood to his full height, “Who said anything about them being for you, love?”

#4. got the sunshine on my shoulders. 124k. five years ago, harry styles left his tiny home town to make it big as a recording artist. he didn't have much regard for what he left behind - a life, a family, and a husband, who woke up one morning to find him gone. now, harry has everything he could possibly want: he's rich, famous, and adored by everyone he meets, including his boyfriend. but when said boyfriend proposes to him, he's forced to face the uncomfortable facts of his past - and louis, who's spent the last five years returning every set of divorce papers harry sent him. (or, an au based on the movie sweet home alabama.)

#5. Be with me so happily. 42k. Harry Styles may have had his doubts at first, but by the time the gates to the elephant sanctuary came into view he was one hundred percent positive. Louis Tomlinson hated his guts. Like hated, hated. Like loathed-him-on-sight hated. From what Harry could tell, he hadn’t even done anything close to insulting enough to warrant the disdain that was Louis Tomlinson’s default expression whenever he looked at Harry. It really wasn’t fair. Especially since he’d been lusting after the man from the second he’d laid eyes on that pretty, pretty face with those pretty, pretty eyes. Or ... the one where Harry Styles has a bad reputation and a heart of gold, and Louis Tomlinson wishes he wasn't so enchanted by boys who looked like Disney characters and wore shirts with bumble bees on them. [aka Louis is the director of the Styles Elephant Sanctuary and really doesn't want to babysit his funder's spoiled lay-about son for two months] #6. rivers 'til i reach you. 29k. Louis can’t begin to understand how he’s always this close and still can’t manage to make Harry his. He stands up and gets another beer. AU. Louis studies astronomy; Harry studies Louis. They spend their summers on the water and it shouldn't be complicated (spoiler: it is). #7. Fall At My Door. 29k. A-list actor Harry Styles and award-winning musician Louis Tomlinson have an acquaintances-with-benefits relationship, so whenever their busy professional lives happen to land them in the same city, they meet up. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. And that’s all it is. Until it isn’t. #8. When We Were Younger. 76k. About a week after Harry started visiting this particular chat room, he was watching some kid argue with the whole room about football, personally disinterested as he tipped a bag of crisps into his mouth. He happily chomped on the crumbs, taking a swig from a glass of Ribena to wash them down, glancing at the screen and very nearly spat the squash back out again. His heart was pounding wildly. The display icon of the argumentative newcomer had caught his eye, and not in a good way. He gulped as he clicked the picture, and when it popped up in full resolution, his heart nearly fell right out of his arse. - Sixteen year old Harry Styles’ world turns upside down when he logs on to gay teen chat to discover somebody has stolen his photos and used them as their own. #9. the wonderlands. 150k. "Somewhere between chaos and control — these are the wonderlands." Harry's daughter, Andy, is signed to Louis' girl band. Her path to success is marked by competition, chaos, and for Harry, a love affair. #10. Paint Me In A Million Dreams. 110k. Harry's one of Hollywood's biggest actors, has made a name for himself in prestigious films and lives the life of a superstar. There's just one thing missing to make it picture-perfect, but the one Harry's in love with is completely out of reach for him. Enter Louis, one of Hollywood's biggest actors himself, who just came out of the closet and taps new genres in the industry. When Louis sacks the role Harry auditioned for in Scorsese's next big film, their irrational feud starts. Who could have guessed it would get even worse when for promo season, their teams decide to present them as a couple for publicity? In short, Harry's in love with someone and doesn't care about dating anyone else, Louis never felt home in L.A., Liam writes love songs for someone he shouldn't write love songs to, and Niall makes everything better with good food. #11. Divide (series). 45k. Four AUs inspired by Ed Sheeran’s album “Divide”. #12. Brooklyn Saw Me. 28k. In the cold and unforgiving city of New York, Louis doesn't have a home and Harry wants to give him one. But as their heartstrings become increasingly intertwined, and the snow continues to fall, home is getting harder and harder to find. #13. Walk That Mile. 141k. Harry stares at him, the line of his jaw standing out scarily. “I wanted to get the most out of this trip so I planned it carefully.” His voice is low and steady and somehow that’s worse than when he was yelling. “So far, you’ve put your sticky fingers on everything I’ve tried to do.” “Sticky fingers?” Louis repeats, offended. “Are you saying it’s my fault you got stung by a bee? Had you been alone you would have gotten halfway to the Dotty Diner and ran the car off the road because of an allergic reaction, so don’t go blaming me.” “Polk-A-Dot Drive In,” Harry spits before getting out of the car. He slams the door shut with a deafening reverb and Louis rolls his eyes. - A Route 66 AU where falling in love was never part of the plan. #14. Never Let Me Go. 55k. “Harry! I’ll tell you what,” Louis exclaims, clapping his hands together. There’s a big grin on his face. “If both of us are still single by your thirtieth birthday, we’ll marry each other.” Harry’s head snaps up, eyes widening. “What?” Harry and Louis have been friends forever, but they couldn't be more different. One night, with a little too much alcohol, they make a pact to marry in ten years if they're both still single. Now, one month before the deadline, Louis is willing to do whatever it takes to avoid ending up with his best friend. But is he, really? | Loosely inspired by The 10 Year Plan #15. Do Not Go Gentle. 70k. “This is all a game to you, isn’t it? Well, it’s not for me. This is a real life or death situation,” Louis says, spitting the words at him. “And I just don’t think you’re cut out for it.” For a moment, they stare at each other in complete silence. Harry can feel his blood thrumming between his ears, can see Louis glaring at him, feels red-hot anger. And then all he feels, oppressively and desperately, is lust. Suddenly Louis is surging up to him to press his lips against Harry’s. Harry walks the two of them backwards, pressing Louis back against the door. Louis oomphs in surprise and brings his hands under Harry’s scrub top, scratching at his lower back. “Lock — oh — lock the… fucking door,” Louis mutters. When Harry Styles starts his first day as a surgical intern, he expects a lot of things: to treat patients, to observe a surgery, to feel a bit overwhelmed. What he definitely doesn't expect, however, is that the handsome guy he kicked out of his bed this morning is also an intern. A Grey’s Anatomy AU where tensions are high, Harry and Louis are hooking up in secret, and no one has time for love. Or do they? #16. Staring Across the Room. 26k. Harry Styles has a great life. He’s a children’s librarian at the New York Public Library, he’s got wonderful friends, and he loves cooking, green tea, yoga, and his collection of bow ties. He doesn’t mind that his life seems a little structured, maybe even a little boring. But when Louis Tomlinson joins the library staff as the new Installation Coordinator, things become a lot less predictable. Louis gets under his skin right from the start, bossing Harry around, making noise during story time, and eating the last cupcake in the staff lounge. Louis may be almost offensively attractive, but Harry will not be succumbing to Louis Tomlinson’s charms, even if the rest of the library staff have. #17. Take Me Back to Where We Started. 27k. Harry and Louis haven't spoken since they broke up four years ago. As boarding school sweethearts they once spent every waking moment together, but now they can hardly stand to be in the same room. When their five year class reunion comes around, both boys decide against their better judgement to return and (hopefully) have a good time. The only problem is, they're both still hopelessly in love. Starring Harry as the petty ex, Louis as the new James Bond, Niall as a boy genius and fake boyfriend extraordinaire, and Liam and Zayn as two friends just trying to make it out of this weekend alive. #18. Safe and Sound (You'll Always Be). 58k. When a failed case and a guilty conscience leaves Harry more than a little lost, his boss presents him with a new, less taxing assignment to help him cope. An escape from all the madness is just what Harry needs to get his life back on track. It's just too bad his new client has a grin like the devil, a pair of electric eyes that Harry simply can't get over, and no intention whatsoever of letting him catch a break. #19. never mind the odds (i'm gonna try my luck). 59k. Louis Tomlinson is going to be the journalistic voice of his generation. He’s just waiting for his editor to realize it. For now, he’s stuck writing fluff pieces for the Life and Style section of London Now Newspaper. His latest assignment is more of the same rubbish: a profile of Harry Styles, plastic surgeon and one of London’s most eligible bachelors. Louis is intent on writing something smart and biting and unexpected; if it makes Harry look like an idiot, that’s just the price of good journalism. That is, until Louis gets to know Harry and realizes he might be kind of perfect. Featuring Louis as a writer/workaholic, Harry as a plastic surgeon with a heart of gold, Zayn and Niall as Louis’ colleagues and long-suffering best mates, and Liam as everyone’s favorite pediatric surgeon and Harry’s right-hand man. #20. Then We Talk Slow. 20k. The picture showed Harry smiling widely (with a fucking dimple) at the camera, his glossy brown curls situated artfully around his shoulders. Louis couldn’t see his whole outfit, but it seemed to consist of a pink, floral button-up with most of the buttons undone. Louis could also detect the dark outlines of tattoos on his chest, although he couldn’t quite make out what they were underneath the shirt. What he could make out was that his own heartrate seemed to have picked up significantly. Shit. This was so not good. Not only had Louis drunkenly sent messages in a deliberate attempt to interact with this man, he was now insanely attracted to him without ever having met him in person. Maybe Liam was right – drunk tweeting really was a horrible, rotten idea. A famous/non-famous AU in which Louis banters back and forth with his new record company on Twitter, only to find out that Harry is the man behind the tweets.

[gabaldon]

An American Kingdom

A new and rapidly growing Christian movement is openly political, wants a nation under God’s authority, and is central to Donald Trump’s GOP

Mercy Culture Church in Fort Worth. (Dylan Hollingsworth for The Washington Post)

By Stephanie McCrummen

July 11, 2021|Updated July 12, 2021 at 3:05 a.m. EDT

FORT WORTH — The pastor was already pacing when he gave the first signal. Then he gave another, and another, until a giant video screen behind him was lit up with an enormous colored map of Fort Worth divided into four quadrants.

Greed, the map read over the west side. Competition, it said over the east side. Rebellion, it said over the north part of the city. Lust, it said over the south.

It was an hour and a half into the 11 a.m. service of a church that represents a rapidly growing kind of Christianity in the United States, one whose goal includes bringing under the authority of a biblical God every facet of life, from schools to city halls to Washington, where the pastor had traveled a month after the Jan. 6 insurrection and filmed himself in front of the U.S. Capitol saying quietly, “Father, we declare America is yours.”

Now he stood in front of the glowing map, a 38-year-old White man in skinny jeans telling a congregation of some 1,500 people what he said the Lord had told him: that Fort Worth was in thrall to four “high-ranking demonic forces.” That all of America was in the grip of “an anti-Christ spirit.” That the Lord had told him that 2021 was going to be the “Year of the Supernatural,” a time when believers would rise up and wage “spiritual warfare” to advance God’s Kingdom, which was one reason for the bright-red T-shirt he was wearing. It bore the name of a church elder who was running for mayor of Fort Worth. And when the pastor cued the band, the candidate, a Guatemalan American businessman, stood along with the rest of the congregation as spotlights flashed on faces that were young and old, rich and poor, White and various shades of Brown — a church that had grown so large since its founding in 2019 that there were now three services every Sunday totaling some 4,500 people, a growing Saturday service in Spanish and plans for expansion to other parts of the country.

“Say, ‘Cleanse me,’ ” the pastor continued as drums began pounding and the people repeated his words. “Say, ‘Speak, Lord, your servants are listening.’ ”

***

The church is called Mercy Culture, and it is part of a growing Christian movement that is nondenominational, openly political and has become an engine of former president Donald Trump’s Republican Party. It includes some of the largest congregations in the nation, housed in the husks of old Baptist churches, former big-box stores and sprawling multimillion-dollar buildings with private security to direct traffic on Sundays. Its most successful leaders are considered apostles and prophets, including some with followings in the hundreds of thousands, publishing empires, TV shows, vast prayer networks, podcasts, spiritual academies, and branding in the form of T-shirts, bumper stickers and even flags. It is a world in which demons are real, miracles are real, and the ultimate mission is not just transforming individual lives but also turning civilization itself into their version of God’s Kingdom: one with two genders, no abortion, a free-market economy, Bible-based education, church-based social programs and laws such as the ones curtailing LGBTQ rights now moving through statehouses around the country.

This is the world of Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White and many more lesser-known but influential religious leaders who prophesied that Trump would win the election and helped organize nationwide prayer rallies in the days before the Jan. 6 insurrection, speaking of an imminent “heavenly strike” and “a Christian populist uprising,” leading many who stormed the Capitol to believe they were taking back the country for God.

Even as mainline Protestant and evangelical denominations continue an overall decline in numbers in a changing America, nondenominational congregations have surged from being virtually nonexistent in the 1980s to accounting for roughly 1 in 10 Americans in 2020, according to long-term academic surveys of religious affiliation. Church leaders tend to attribute the growth to the power of an uncompromised Christianity. Experts seeking a more historical understanding point to a relatively recent development called the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR.

A California-based theologian coined the phrase in the 1990s to describe what he said he had seen as a missionary in Latin America — vast church growth, miracles, and modern-day prophets and apostles endowed with special powers to fight demonic forces. He and others promoted new church models using sociological principles to attract members. They also began advancing a set of beliefs called dominionism, which holds that God commands Christians to assert authority over the “seven mountains” of life — family, religion, education, economy, arts, media and government — after which time Jesus Christ will return and God will reign for eternity.

None of which is new, exactly. Strains of this thinking formed the basis of the Christian right in the 1970s and have fueled the GOP for decades.

What is new is the degree to which Trump elevated a fresh network of NAR-style leaders who in turn elevated him as God’s chosen president, a fusion that has secured the movement as a grass-roots force within the GOP just as the old Christian right is waning. Increasingly, this is the world that the term “evangelical voter” refers to — not white-haired Southern Baptists in wooden pews but the comparatively younger, more diverse, more extreme world of millions drawn to leaders who believe they are igniting a new Great Awakening in America, one whose epicenter is Texas.

That is where the pastor wearing the bright-red T-shirt, Landon Schott, had been on the third day of a 40-day fast when he said the Lord told him something he found especially interesting.

It was 2017, and he was walking the streets of downtown Fort Worth asking God to make him a “spiritual father” of the city when he heard God say no. What he needed was “spiritual authority,” he remembered God telling him, and the way to get that was to seek the blessing of a pastor named Robert Morris, an evangelical adviser to Trump, and the founder of one of the largest church networks in the nation, called Gateway, with nine branches and weekly attendance in the tens of thousands, including some of the wealthiest businessmen in Texas.

Morris blessed him. Not long after that, a bank blessed him with the funds to purchase an aging church called Calvary Cathedral International, a polygonal structure with a tall white steeple visible from Interstate 35. Soon, the old red carpet was being ripped up. The old wooden pews were being hauled out. The cross on the stage was removed, and in came a huge screen, black and white paint, speakers, lights and modern chandeliers as the new church called Mercy Culture was born.

“Mercy” for undeserved grace.

“Culture” for the world they wanted to create.

***

Mercy Culture

A video introduces the theme of the pastor’s sermon at Mercy Culture Church. (Stephanie McCrummen/The Washington Post)

That world is most visible on Sundays, beginning at sunrise, when the worship team arrives to set up for services.

In the lobby, they place straw baskets filled with earplugs.

In the sanctuary, they put boxes of tissues at the end of each row of chairs.

On the stage one recent Sunday, the band was doing its usual run-through — two guitar players, a bass player, a keyboardist and two singers, one of whom was saying through her mic to the earpiece of the drummer: “When we start, I want you to wait to build it — then I want you to do those drum rolls as we’re building it.” He nodded, and as they went over song transitions, the rest of the worship team filtered in for the pre-service prayer.

The sound technician prayed over the board controlling stacks of D&B Audiotechnik professional speakers. The lighting technician asked the Lord to guide the 24 professional-grade spotlights with colors named “good green” and “good red.” Pacing up and down the aisles were the ushers, the parking attendants, the security guards, the greeters, the camera operators, the dancers, the intercessors, all of them praying, whispering, speaking in tongues, inviting into the room what they believed to be the Holy Spirit — not in any metaphorical sense, and not in some vague sense of oneness with an incomprehensible universe. Theirs was the spirit of a knowable Christian God, a tangible force they believed could be drawn in through the brown roof, through the cement walls, along the gray-carpeted hallways and in through the double doors of the sanctuary where they could literally breathe it into their bodies. Some people spoke of tasting it. Others said they felt it — a sensation of warm hands pressing, or of knowing that someone has entered the room even when your eyes are closed. Others claimed to see it — golden auras or gold dust or feathers of angels drifting down.

That was the intent of all this, and now the first 1,500 people of the day seeking out those feelings began arriving, pulling in past fluttering white flags stamped with a small black cross over a black “MC,” in through an entrance where the words “Fear Go” were painted in huge block letters above doors that had remained open for much of the pandemic. Inside, the church smelled like fresh coffee.

“Welcome to Mercy,” the greeters said to people who could tell stories of how what happened to them here had delivered them from drug addiction, alcoholism, psychological traumas, PTSD, depression, infidelities, or what the pastor told them was the “sexual confusion” of being gay, queer or transgender. They lingered awhile in a communal area, sipping coffee on modern leather couches, taking selfies in front of a wall with a pink neon “Mercy” sign, or browsing a narrow selection of books about demonic spirits. On a wall, a large clock counted down the final five minutes as they headed into the windowless sanctuary.

Inside, the lights were dim, and the walls were bare. No paintings of parables. No stained glass, crosses, or images of Jesus. Nothing but the stage and the enormous, glowing screen where another clock was spinning down the last seconds as cymbals began playing, and people began standing and lifting their arms because they knew what was about to happen. Cameras 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were in position. The live stream was on standby. In the front row, the 85-year-old retired pastor of the church this used to be secured his earplugs.

What happened next was 40 nonstop minutes of swelling, blasting, drum-pounding music at times so loud that chairs and walls seemed to vibrate. The huge screen became a video of swirling clouds, then a black galaxy of spinning stars. The spotlights went from blue to amber to gold to white. A camera slid back and forth on a dolly. Fog spilled onto the stage. Modern dancers raced around waving shiny flags. One song melded into the next, rising and falling and rising again into extended, mantralike choruses about surrender while people in the congregation began kneeling and bowing.

A few rows back, the pastor stood with one hand raised and the other holding a coffee cup. And when the last song faded, a worship team member walked onstage to explain what was happening in case anyone was new.

“The Holy Spirit is in this room,” he said.

Now everyone sat down and watched the glowing screen. Another video began playing — this one futuristic, techno music over flash-cut images of a nuclear blast, a spinning planet, advancing soldiers, and when it was over, the pastor was standing on the stage to deliver his sermon, the essence of which was repeated in these kinds of churches all over the nation:

America is in the midst of a great battle between the forces of God and Satan, and the forces of Satan roughly resemble the liberal, progressive agenda. Beware of the “seductive, political, demonic, power-hungry spirit that uses witchcraft to control God’s people.” Beware of “freedom that is actually just rebellion against God.” Beware of confusion. Beware of “rogue leaders.” Beware of a world that “preaches toleration of things God does not tolerate,” and on it went for a full hour, a man with a microphone in a spotlight, pacing, sweating, whispering about evil forces until he cued the band and gave instructions for eternal salvation.

“Just say, ‘Holy Spirit, would you teach me how to choose to obey you,’ ” he said, asking people to close their eyes, or kneel, or bow, and as the drums began pounding again, the reaction was the same as it was every Sunday.

People closed their eyes. They knelt. They bowed. They believed, and as they did, people with cameras roamed the congregation capturing peak moments for videos that would be posted to the church’s website and social media accounts: a man with tattooed arms crying; a whole row of people on their knees bowing; a blond woman in a flower-print dress lying all the way down on the floor, forehead to carpet.

When it was over, people streamed outside, squinting into the bright Fort Worth morning as the next 1,500 people pulled in past the fluttering white flags.

“Welcome to Mercy,” the greeters said again.

Music portion at Mercy Culture

Part of the music portion of worship services at Mercy Culture. (Stephanie McCrummen/The Washington Post)

***

By late afternoon Sunday, the parking lot was empty and the rest of the work of kingdom-building could begin.

One day, this meant a meeting of the Distinct Business Ministry, whose goal was “raising up an army of influential leaders” across Fort Worth.

Another day, it meant the church hosting a meeting of a group called the Freedom Shield Foundation, a dozen or so men huddled over laptops organizing what one participant described as clandestine “operations” around Fort Worth to rescue people they said were victims of sex trafficking. This was a core issue for the church. Members were raising money to build housing for alleged victims. There were always prayer nights for the cause, including one where church members laid hands on Fort Worth’s sheriff, who sat with a Bible in his lap and said that the problem was “the demonic battle of our lifetime” and told those gathered that “you are the warriors in that battle.”

Another day, it meant the steady stream of cars inching toward the church food bank, one team loading boxes into trunks and another fanning out along the idling line offering prayers.

A man in a dented green sedan requested one for his clogged arteries.

A man trying to feed a family of seven asked in Spanish, “Please, just bless my life.”

A stone-faced woman said her mother had died of covid, then her sister, and now a volunteer reached inside and touched her shoulder: “Jesus, wrap your arms around Jasmine,” she said, and when she moved on to others who tried to politely decline, the volunteer, a young woman, gave them personal messages she said she had received from the Lord.

“God wants to tell you that you’re so beautiful,” she said into one window.

“I feel God is saying that you’ve done a good job for your family,” she said into another.

“I feel God is saying, if anything, He is proud of you,” she said in Spanish to a woman gripping the steering wheel, her elderly mother in the passenger seat. “When God sees you, He is so pleased, He is so proud,” she continued as the woman stared straight ahead. “I feel you are carrying so much regret, maybe? And pain?” she persisted, and now the woman began nodding. “And I think God wants to release you from the past. Say, ‘Jesus, I give you my shame.’ Say, ‘Jesus, I give you my regret,’ ” the volunteer said, and the woman repeated the words. “ ‘You know I tried my best, Jesus. I receive your acceptance. I receive your love,’ ” the volunteer continued, and now the woman was crying, and the food was being loaded into the back seat, and a volunteer was taking her name, saying, “Welcome to the family.”

Another day, the Kingdom looked like rows of white tents where a woman in a white dress was playing a harp as more than a thousand mostly young women were arriving for something called Marked Women’s Night.

“I feel the Lord is going to be implanting something in us tonight,” a 27-year-old named Autumn said to her friend, their silver eye shadow glowing in the setting sun.

“Every time I come here the Lord always speaks to me,” her friend said.

“Yeah, that happens to me all the time, too,” said Autumn, who described how the Lord had told her to move from Ohio to Texas, and then to attend Gateway Church, and then to enroll in a Gateway-approved school called Lifestyle Christianity University, where she said the Lord sent a stranger to pay her tuition. Not long after that, the Lord sent her into an Aldi supermarket, where she met a woman who told her about Mercy Culture, which is how she ended up sitting here on the grass on a summer evening, believing that the Lord was preparing her to go to Montana to “prophesy over the land” in anticipation of a revival.

“I don’t understand it; I just know it’s God,” Autumn said.

“So many miracles,” said her friend, and soon the drums were pounding.

They joined the crowd heading inside for another thunderous concert followed by a sermon by the pastor’s wife, during which she referred to the women as “vessels” and described “the Kingdom of Heaven growing and taking authority over our nation.”

Another day — Election Day in Fort Worth — hundreds of church members gathered at a downtown event space to find out whether their very own church elder, Steve Penate, would become the next mayor, and the sense in the room was that of a miracle unfolding.

“Supernatural,” said Penate, a first-time candidate, looking at the crowd of volunteers who’d knocked on thousands of doors around the city.

A candidate for the 2022 governor’s race stopped by. A wealthy businessman who helped lead the Republican National Hispanic Assembly drove over from Dallas. The pastor came by to declare that “this is the beginning of a righteous movement.”

“We are not just going after the mayorship — we’re going after every seat,” he said as the first batch of votes came in showing Penate in sixth place out of 10 candidates, and then fifth place, and then fourth, which was where he stayed as the last votes came in and he huddled with his campaign team to pray.

“Jesus, you just put a dent in the kingdom of darkness,” his campaign adviser said. “We stand up to the darkness. We stand up to the establishment. God, this is only the beginning.”

Another day, 100 or so young people crowded into a church conference room singing, “God, I’ll go anywhere; God, I’ll do anything,” hands raised, eyes closed, kneeling, bowing, crying, hugging. At the front of the room, a man with blond hair and a beard was talking about love.

“Everyone says they have the definition for what love is, but the Bible says, ‘By this we know love,’ ” he said. “Jesus laid down his life for us, and we are to lay down our lives for others.”

He dimmed the lights and continued in this vein for another hour, the music playing, the young people rocking back and forth mouthing, “Jesus, Jesus,” trancelike, until the blond man said, “It’s about that time.”

He turned the lights back on and soon, he sent them out on missions into the four demonic quadrants of Fort Worth.

***

Avoca Coffee Roasters, on Magnolia Avenue, is in a Fort Worth neighborhood designated by Mercy Culture for its missionaries as Lust. (Dylan Hollingsworth for The Washington Post)

One group headed east into Competition, a swath of the city that included the mirrored skyscrapers of downtown and struggling neighborhoods such as one called Stop 6, where the young people had claimed two salvations in a park the day before.

Another team headed west toward the green lawns and sprawling mansions of Greed.

Another rolled south toward Lust, where it was normal these days to see rainbow flags on bungalow porches and cafe windows including the one where a barista named Ryan Winters was behind the counter, eyeing the door.

It wasn’t the evangelicals he was worried about but the young customers who came in and were sometimes vulnerable.

“Maybe someone is struggling with their identity,” Ryan said.

He was not struggling. He was 27, a lapsed Methodist who counted himself lucky that he had never heard the voice of a God that would deem him unholy for being who he was, the pansexual lead singer of a psychedelic punk band called Alice Void.

“I never had a time when I was uncomfortable or ashamed of myself,” he said. “We all take care of each other, right, Tom?”

“Oh, yeah,” said a man with long gray hair, Tom Brunen, a Baptist turned Buddhist artist who was 62 and had witnessed the transformation of the neighborhood from a dangerous, castoff district that was a refuge for people he called “misfits” into a place that represented what much of America was becoming: more accepting, more inclined to see churches in terms of the people they had forsaken.

“It’s all mythology and fear and guilt that keeps the plutocracy and the greed in line above everybody else,” Tom said. “That’s what the universe showed me. If you want to call it God, fine. The creative force, whatever. Jesus tried to teach people that it’s all one thing. He tried and got killed for it. Christianity killed Jesus. The end. That’s my testimony.”

That was what the kingdom-builders were up against, and in the late afternoon, Nick Davenport, 24, braced himself as he arrived at his demonic battlefield, Rebellion, a noisy, crowded tourist zone of bars, souvenir shops and cobblestone streets in the north part of the city. He began walking around, searching out faces.

“The sheep will know the shepherd’s voice,” he repeated to himself to calm his nerves.

“Hey, Jesus loves y’all,” he said tentatively to a blond woman walking by.

“He does, he does,” the woman said, and he pressed on.

“Is anything bothering you?” he said to a man holding a shopping bag.

“No, I’m good,” the man said, and Nick continued down the sidewalk.

It was hot, and he passed bars and restaurants and gusts of sour-smelling air. A cacophony of music drifted out of open doors. A jacked-up truck roared by.

He moved on through the crowds, scanning the faces of people sitting at some outdoor tables. He zeroed in on a man eating a burger, a red scar visible at the top of his chest.

“Do you talk to God?” Nick asked him.

“Every day — I died twice,” the man said, explaining he had survived a car accident.

“What happened when you died?” Nick asked.

“Didn’t see any white lights,” the man said. “Nothing.”

“Well, Jesus loves you,” Nick said, and kept walking until he felt God pulling him toward a young man in plaid shorts standing outside a bar. He seemed to be alone. He was drinking a beer, his eyes red.

“Hi, I’m Nick, and I wanted to know, how are you doing?”

“Kind of you to ask,” the man said. “My uncle killed himself yesterday.”

“Oh,” said Nick, pausing for a moment. “I’m sorry. You know, God is close to the brokenhearted. I know it doesn’t feel like it all the time.”

He began telling him his own story of a troubled home life and a childhood of bullying, and how he had been close to suicide himself when he was 18 years old, and how, on a whim, he went with a friend to a massive Christian youth conference in Nashville of the sort that is increasingly common these days. A worship band called Planet Shakers was playing, he said, and deep into one of their songs, he heard what he believed to be the voice of God for the first time.

“The singer said if you’re struggling, let it go, and I halfheartedly said, ‘Okay, God, I guess I give it to you,’ and all of the sudden I felt shaky. I fell to the ground. I felt like a hand on my chest. Like, ‘I have you.’ I heard God say, ‘I love you. I made you for a purpose.’ When I heard that, I bawled like a baby. That was when I knew what I was created for. For Jesus.”

The man with red eyes listened.

“Thanks for saying that,” he said, and Nick continued walking the sidewalks into the early evening, his confidence bolstered, feeling more certain than ever that he would soon be leaving his roofing job to do something else for the Lord, something big. He had been preparing, absorbing the lessons of a church that taught him his cause was righteous, and that in the great spiritual battle for America, the time was coming when he might be called upon to face the ultimate test.

“If I have any choice, I want to die like the disciples,” said Nick. “John the Baptist was beheaded. One or two were boiled alive. Peter, I believe he was crucified upside down. If it goes that way? I’m ready. If people want to stone me, shoot me, cut my fingers off — it doesn’t matter what you do to me. We will give anything for the gospel. We are open. We are ready.”

***

Mercy Culture took over a building once used by Calvary Cathedral International, a polygonal structure with a tall white steeple visible from Interstate 35. (Dylan Hollingsworth for The Washington Post)

Ready for what, though, is the lingering question.

Those inside the movement have heard all the criticisms. That their churches are cults that prey on human frailties. That what their churches are preaching about LGTBQ people is a lie that is costing lives in the form of suicides. That the language of spiritual warfare, demonic forces, good and evil is creating exactly the sort of radical worldview that could turn politics into holy war. That the U.S. Constitution does not allow laws privileging a religion. That America does not exist to advance some Christian Kingdom of God or to usher in the second coming of Jesus.

To which Penate, the former mayoral candidate, said, “There’s a big misconception when it comes to separation of church and state. It never meant that Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics. It’s just loving the city. Being engaged. Our children are in public schools. Our cars are on public streets. The reality is that people who don’t align with the church have hijacked everything. If I ever get elected, my only allegiance will be to the Lord.”

Or as a member of Mercy Culture who campaigned for Penate said: “Can you imagine if every church took a more active role in society? If teachers were preachers? If church took a more active role in health? In business? If every church took ownership over their communities? There would be no homeless. No widows. No orphans. It would look like a society that has a value system. A Christian value system.”

That was the American Kingdom they were working to advance, and as another Sunday arrived, thousands of believers streamed past the fluttering white flags and into the sanctuary to bathe in the Holy Spirit for the righteous battles and glories to come.

The drums began pounding. The screen began spinning. The band began blasting, and when it was time, the pastor stood on the stage to introduce a topic he knew was controversial, and to deliver a very specific word. He leaned in.

“Submission,” he said.

“We’ve been taught obedience to man instead of obedience to God,” he continued.

“God makes an army out of people who will learn to submit themselves,” he continued.

“When you submit, God fights for you,” he concluded.

He cued the band. The drums began to pound again, and he told people to “breathe in the presence of God,” and they breathed. He told them to close their eyes, and they closed their eyes. He gave them words to repeat, and the people repeated them.

“I declare beautiful, supernatural submission,” they said.

By Stephanie McCrummen

Stephanie McCrummen is a national enterprise reporter covering an array of subjects for The Washington Post. Previously, she was the paper's East Africa bureau chief based in Nairobi. She has also reported from Egypt, Iraq and Mexico, among other places. She joined The Post as a Metro reporter in 2004.

[melchixr]

Tech Booth Blues (and Reds)

Anon said: So I have this headcanon for a modern Spring Awakening AU. So Moritz does lights and takes it seriously and Melchi does sound but only actually does it to hang with Moritz in the booth. 

so i sorta wrote this as an exercise in writing freeform without knowing what the next plot point is. And that’s fairly obvious. Also VERY Self indulgent. 

Words:2059

“Hey, can I have thirteen and seven up?” Moritz’s voice called from the other side of the auditorium. When he looked down and saw the stage still only lit in the golden upstage lights. “Gabor!” He yelled out, a bit louder. Still no change. “Melchior, if you don’t put up seven and thirteen on this very second I will climb down this ladder and shove these filters up your-”

The light beside his head suddenly turned on, casting a dark red light center stage. The heat immediately bombarded the side of Moritz’s face and made it feel like his mass of hair was being singed off. But hell, at least Melchior was listening for once.

“Thank you!” He called over his shoulder and began his descent back to the floor.  After the first few months of these treacherous climbs, he finally got a hang of the whole ‘controlling your limbs’ concept. This was, of course, after a handful of times his fall was broken by a handful of seats.  When he got to the ground, he slumped back to the tech booth, where he saw Melchior leaning  against the back wall with his head tilted back.

He was on the back two legs of his stool, eyes closed and his chest steadily moving up and down.

“For fucks sake, I’ve been gone for five minutes,” Moritz hissed, staring at the other boy with unmeasured malice. Without another wasted second, he approached Melchior and placed his hand between his shoulderblades. He didn’t wake up, which was  a step forward. He pushed Melchior forward, away from the wall and sent the stool back to it’s fully standing position.

This sudden jolt woke Melchior up almost instantly. The curly haired boy bolted upright to stop himself from stumbling over and looked up with wild eyes. “What the hell, Moritz. I was trying to nap.”

“This show opens in an hour and a half and only half of our house lights have the filters on. And you’re trying to nap?”

Melchior looked around the booth, as if he were actually surprised by Moritz’s anger. “Uh...Yeah. You said I can’t go home so I might as well try to catch some REM here.”

Moritz rolled his eyes and picked up the blue filters he had left on the soundboard. “You are fucking impossible, Melchior. We have a show to run.”

“Who’s bright idea was it to let all the gay kids have their show during finals week?”

Moritz, red with anger, stopped himself from leaving the booth. He instead turned on his heel to look Melchior dead in the eye. “There are so many things wrong with that statement I don’t know where to begin. But first off, it’s The Tempest, one of William Shakespeare’s best works so have some respect. Secondly, they’ve been practicing for months and you would have known if you came to tech rehearsals. And finally, if I find you sleeping one more time I will rip your eyelids off with a pair of pliers.”

“So you’re not gonna defend me calling them gay?” Melchior said snidely as Moritz went back down the steps to the ladder up to the lights on the left side of the house.  

As the older of the two climbed, he yelled back down, “I’m not going to pretend like the whole cast isn’t gayer than the fourth of July.”

He could hear Melchior snicker as he took back to climbing the rungs and making sure his sweaty palms didn’t betray him.

Moritz had prayed to all the gods of tech that tonight would go smoothly. He did everything in his power to be sure of it. He had already gotten enough shit from entitled actors and desperate directors so he wanted to be sure that nothing happened. Because if anything did happen, it would be immediately pinned on him.

So of course he wanted to curl into a hole and die when he was trying to discuss one simple lighting change with Ernst and he heard a familiar voice come in over the speakers.

“In a world… Where one man has total control of a production put on by a bunch of geeky college kids, his iron fist rules their sound and soon...their minds!” MElchior cackled dramatically, his voice being sent all over the theater.

Ernst looked at Moritz with a glare that could melt steel. “Please do not tell me he’s the one up there with you.” Moritz was unable to reply at first. That was until Hanschen, dressed in a pair of torn up tights and a baggy blouse, looked up at the ceiling between strokes of the makeup girl smearing dirt on his face and said, “Huh, so that’s what god sounds like.”

“Holy heck,” Ernst said hopelessly, casting his arms to the side in a ‘why me’ fashion. “The first play I’ve ever directed is opening in thirty minutes and this buffoon is in the tech booth.”

Moritz charged to the back of that theater faster than anyone had seen him move. And the first thing he saw was Melchior, beat boxing into the mic with childlike wonder in his eyes.

“What the fuck are you doing!” Moritz hissed, which the mic probably picked up. He then tore it from Melchior’s hand and turned it off before continuing. “Do you even want to be here?”

“No.”

The answer, plain and effective, took Moritz by surprise. He stared at Melchior amused eyes. It was as if he were an animal being watched in a zoo. Or a cat being filmed for a fucking Youtube video.

“Well then why are you here trying to ruin this production?” Moritz practically shouted. He knew this kid was trouble on the first day of school. He came into the Lights In Technical Theatre class Moritz TA-ed for twenty minutes late with a Jamba juice and asked if he had to take notes.

Of course you have to take notes, asshole.

“Cause you asked for assistance.”

At first, Moritz didn't know what to say. so Melchior continued plainly. “You seemed desperate for help and no one else wanted to do it. Plus, I didn't want to see you struggling. “

Finally, Moritz collected himself enough to say with a glare, “Well I'm going to keep struggling if you act up for the rest of the night. So don't fuck around please.” Melchior looked at him with soft, understanding eyes. “Alright,  doors open in ten. Bring the house lights up all the way.”

Melchior seemed to calm down considerably by the time the audience filed into the room. He sat in the booth, behind the glass, patiently flipping through the little “prompt book” Moritz had made. Moritz was impressed, watching his companion’s eyes look over the words.  His expression was gentle and understanding unlike every other time Moritz had seen him. But Moritz still looked at him every time he moved so much as an inch, watching to make sure he didn't fuck with a light or mic when Moritz least expected it.

But nothing. No acting up at all. Melchior had become a perfect angel. And Moritz had realized why about half way through the show.

With intermission behind them,  Moritz had assumed it would be smooth sailing. He watched Hanschen, panting as if the two pound fake log he had been carrying were actually a hundred pounds. “ No, noble mistress;'tis fresh morning with me When you are by at night. I do beseech you--” He said to Wendla, in her plain white sack of a dress that looked perfectly handmade. She just gazed back with an equal amount of awe and passion. And honestly, you don't really need to act enraptured when you're Ferdinand has a face like this. “ Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers-- What is your name?”

Noticing how the line sounded from the speakers, Moritz quickly nudged the gain a bit in hopes that would fix the already minor issue. But as he moved his hand back down, he felt a piece of paper hit him.

It was a piece ripped from his prompt book that Melchior was still pretending to study attentively. And it had been crushed into a ball.

“Miranda.--O my father, I have broke your hest to say so!” Wendla responded with a heavy sigh as Moritz read from the wrinkled paper.

On it was, written in scratchy, cursive handwriting that set Moritz’s dyslexia into a headspin, ‘Do you wanna make out?’.

Moritz looked up at the culprit, the only other person in the booth, Melchior. He was watching the actors, but the little impish smirk on his face told Moritz that he knew exactly what he was doing.

‘Scene transition coming up, pay attention.’ Moritz responded and slid the paper back across the table. Melchior’s hand jetted out immediately to seize it from Moritz’s hands. He wasn’t even trying to keep up his calm and collected facade. Now he was smiling down at the little piece of lined paper.

He looked up for a moment to see Wendla basically ranting about how much of a virgin she is while staring Hanschen down with ‘fuck me eyes’. He then tossed the paper right back to his booth buddy.

‘We have like 50 more lines. That’s roughly 3 more minutes.’

‘I’m not going to make out with you now, Melchior.’

‘Then after the show?’

‘Why do you suddenly wanna make out?’

‘We’re filling up this paper, Moritz. Do you wanna make out of not?’

“TELL ME NOT!” Georg repeated for the third time, shouting because neither his mic was on nor the lights on his side of the stage were on. The shout suddenly grabbed Moritz’s attention and he began to switch the sound board off on and on like a laptop keyboard. Melchior did the same, quickly transitioning the golden center stage lights to the dark blue stage right ones.

“Holy fuck….” Moritz whispered to himself as Georg began to take his line to Thea, glaring at the booth the whole time. “That was almost a trainwreck. Stop distracting us!”

Melchior sighed and leaned back in his seat, pausing for a second before stating plainly. “So… This scene is really long… You sure you don’t wanna make out?”

“Why do you suddenly want to make out!” Moritz hissed an inch louder than he should have. This only caused Melchior to shush him and lean closer to Moritz. His eyes remained locked on the stage though.  “This is so out of the fucking blue?!”

“Are you telling me that the sexual tension I’ve been feeling all week is just...nothing?”

Moritz stared at the other in shock, his pupils taking up most of his eyes. “No! I haven’t been feeling that at all!”

Melchior chuckled to himself and went back to focussing on the stage. “Sure...Tell yourself that.”

No one spoke for the rest of the scene.  No one even spoke for the rest of the show. It wasn’t until Ilse, in her long flowing robes and big, driftwood staff, did her final bow and all the house lights came up that Melchior looked back to Moritz.

“So uh… I’m assuming you’ve been thinkin it over but…”

Moritz span around in his chair and without a second of hesitation, tossed Melchior the car keys he had been keeping in his lap just for this moment. “Here,” He stated with the shyest smile Melchior had ever seen. “My car is the yellow Subaru in the back parking lot.  It’s old and beat up and ignore the Taco Bell wrappers in the back. I didn’t think I would be having visitors today. Either way, let me close up and I’ll drive you to the Denny’s after party.”

Melchior jumped to his feet and practically lunged to gather his things. “Will we be making a pit stop on the way there or….?”

“Well, if I recall correctly, you said you have lots of finals coming up so…” He looked up to Melchior looking at him with wide, hopeful eyes. He looked like a puppy being picked up from the shelter. “But we can take the scenic route.”

[chasandres]

Creating a Better Magic Community

Like many of you, I was shocked and horrified on Saturday when I learned that Christine Sprankle decided to step away from the community due to repeated and targeted harassment from Jeremy of MTG Headquarters/Unsleeved Media as well as continued harassment from other toxic members of the community.

I was shocked, but I wasn’t surprised. Talk to enough women in the Magic community and stories about harassment inevitably crop up. It’s not so much an open secret as a low-grade headache that can turn malignant.

Regardless, I was thrilled to see the community almost entirely united in its support for Christine. On Tuesday, a large group of pros responded to the situation by writing an open letter condemning MTG Headquarters’ actions and pledging to act as allies and advocates for victims of harassment at future events. I’m proud to be part of a community where so many high profile people are taking active steps to ameliorate this situation.

There isn’t much I can add to this specific situation at this point. I’m not here to write more about why Jeremy needs to be banned from YouTube and WotC sanctioned events—other people are doing that already, and they know more about this situation than me. I suspect that this particular dragon will eventually be slain, most people will consider the matter resolved, and we’ll seek to move beyond this dark chapter in our game’s long history.

But MTG Headquarters has more than THIRTEEN THOUSAND followers on Twitter. Unsleeved Media has A HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR THOUSAND SUBSCRIBERS. Not all of them supported his overt harassment campaign, but overt harassment is only one part of a larger, systemic problem in the Magic community. Taking down an obvious villain is commendable, but if that’s all we do, than we’ve failed to properly learn from this situation. If we truly want to create a more inclusive community, we all have some work to do.

Before getting into the meat of this thing, I want to be very clear about who I am and why I’m writing this. I’m not here to tell stories of harassment or otherwise step on the voices of the community members who fight those battles on a daily basis. Those aren’t my stories to tell. I’ve already heard similar stories to Christine’s pop up on social media over the past few days, and it’s important that we magnify those voices and believe them.

As a heterosexual white man in a position of relative power, (at least in terms of being someone that the greater Magic community has more or less heard of) I’d like to use some of my power for good. We can’t place the burden of action entirely on the victims of harassment—we all have to step up and take some of it on ourselves. This is my best effort to help in any way that I can.

While the open letter pros are doing a commendable job of keeping the watch at large events, this is an issue that starts at the roots—at FNM, in our living room, on Magic Online. We can’t just leave things up to Brad Nelson and Sam Black—we all need to step up.

To that end, I’ve written a lot of this post in second person, using a lot of “you” and “we.” I feel like it’s important to say straight off that the “you” I have in mind are people who look more or less like me. I’m not trying to lecture marginalized members of the Magic community about an issue that they already understand all too well. This is a message for geeky white guys like me.

If you scroll down any Reddit thread about this issue, or you check the mentions on the right Twitter account, or you read the right Facebook page, you’re going to see more than just solidarity. You’re going to see a lot of confusion, and bitterness, and outright hostility over this situation. Some guys are a little bit ambivalent about what the heck our role is in all of this and how we can help. Others feel attacked and feel like “both sides” should be considered. Still others are unconvinced that there’s a problem at all.

I’ve been around the internet long enough to know that my message is going to fall on a whole lot of deaf ears, but I want to do my best to try and reach everybody I can. At the very least, I want to write this post to remind myself what I can do to help. When I say that we’re all somewhat complicit, I’m including myself. We all have to do better. All of us.

“I haven’t sent any harassing DMs or made any horrible comments on anybody’s videos or articles. Why are you putting me on blast?”

The harassment problem in the Magic community is systemic and multi-layered. I can count at least three different problems, and you don’t have to be actively harassing anyone to be involved with two of them:

1) Active, toxic harassers. These are the people doing the worst, most heinous stuff. These are people who troll women in comments sections, spout racist and anti-Semitic comments at tournaments, and worse. Most of recognize that we shouldn’t be these people.

2) Enablers, both active and passive. The problem is that most of us are guilty of enabling those harassers at one point or another.

Sometimes we downplay it. (“He’s harmless. He’s got a good heart. He’s just a little awkward.”)

Sometimes we justify it. (“We wouldn’t be able to get a draft going every week without him.”)

Sometimes we straight-up defend it. (“He shouldn’t have said that, but do you have to be so sensitive?”)

3) People saying or doing hurtful stuff that they didn’t think about very much. You could also call these microaggressions, but I know that some of you are put off by the language of social justice, so I want to spell out this problem as clearly as possible. The point is that there are lots of phrases, gestures, and actions that (either inadvertently or on purpose) create a barrier between the dominant voices in the community and those who feel like outsiders. You might not sense it, but they do.

These smaller offenses can be tough to pin down, but the only way to do it is by listening to the people who are affected by these actions, believing their stories, and changing our behavior accordingly.

For example, talk to almost any woman who has ever played a game of tournament Magic and she’ll tell you a dozen stories about being disrespected at Magic tournaments due to her gender. It’s usually not as simple as someone walking up to her and saying, “you’re a woman, stop playing Magic” – it’s hearing stuff like, “did your boyfriend teach you to play?” and “I thought you’d be easier to beat!” over, and over, and over again.

If you’re a white guy like me who has never experienced this, try to imagine how disheartening this must feel, especially on days when you’re running bad and your deck just isn’t behaving. A lot of us play Magic because we like to experiencing that feeling of mastery, especially when the rest of life isn’t going so hot. Now imagine a wry smirk of recognition on the face of your opponent when he beats you because of a lucky top deck. I knew I’d beat the girl. This match was never in doubt. Would Magic still feel like an escape for you? Are you sure?

“I’ve been a member of the Magic community for years, and I don’t see why I should have to hide who I am or censor myself! This is my home, and I should feel safe to communicate however I want.”

I can’t convince anyone that empathy is important. If you don’t believe that it’s worth making small sacrifices or accommodations in order to make another person feel safe or comfortable, that’s on you.

For the rest of us…well, these requests are so small, and they mean so much. Nobody’s asking you give away your Scarab Gods, stop attending FNM, or only talk on alternate Thursdays. It’s basic stuff like not using “gay” as a slur and leaving your half-naked Anime girl playmat at home. You’re not being asked to hide major parts of your identity, and you don’t have to “hide who you are.” You just have to stop acting like an abrasive jerk and maybe stop using a couple of problematic words.

In return, the payoff is massive. We’re always talking about how Magic’s player base isn’t growing like it used to. Well, I know at least a dozen women who stepped away from the community because they didn’t feel welcome. Imagine if we all tried a little bit harder to make our little corner of geekdom a little bit friendlier?

“But political correctness has run amok!”

Whenever I have a conversation about political correctness with someone who dislikes the concept, it usually devolves into some grand hypothetical conversation about freedom of speech in stand-up comedy or edgy TV shows or whatever.

I’m happy to have that discussion with any of you fine folks the next time we’re at an event together, but it’s not pertinent to our conversation today. I feel like we’re all mature enough to recognize that a Magic tournament is not the same as a comedy club or an R-rated film.

“We shouldn’t be nicer to people because of the slippery slope!” is a bad hill to die on.

“I’m sick of being called a sexist all the time. I’m not a sexist!”

Extreme binary thinking is one of the biggest obstacles to self-improvement, and it’s a paradigm that you’re going to have to break free from if you want to experience any sort of meaningful growth.

Think back to the last time someone accused you of saying something racist, sexist, or otherwise harmful. If you’re anything like me, chances are your initial reaction is to get super defensive. I’m not racist, you think, your mind instantly flashing to a hooded KKK member. I can’t be racist because of <insert justification here>, I didn’t really mean any harm by my comments, and I’m certainly no KKK member, so this person must be overreacting!

This is an understandable reaction, but it’s important to learn how to move beyond it. As a society, we are TERRIBLE with this sort of nuance. We assume that there are “good” people (non-racists), and “bad” people (racists), and nobody wants to be lumped in with all the Hitlers. Instead, we blame the people leveling the accusations at us for overreacting, or for being too politically correct, or for jumping to conclusions based on “one stupid joke.” Some of us even double down on our suspect behavior, believing that it’s important to stake out some sort of “middle ground.”

But the problem isn’t them, it’s us. There are no good guys and bad guys. We can ALL do better. It’s okay to feel that initial stab of shame and defensiveness, but then it’s important to really look inside you and realize that what you said was hurtful. In fact, it hurt them so much that they felt the need to speak up and say something to somebody THAT THEY KNEW WOULD REACT DEFENSIVELY. That’s not an easy task for most people, and it’s extra hard for a marginalized person in a community where they don’t feel safe.

Look—I’m no exception to this rule. When I go back and watch some of the videos I recorded back in high school and college, I can’t help but cringe at some of the language I used and the jokes I made. In ten years, I’ll probably feel the same way about some of what I say now. It’s not like I was a horrible sexist back in 2007 and a totally enlightened person now—it’s that I’ve made (and continue to make) an effort to learn, grow, and improve. Being a good person is about constantly seeking to improve, same as being a good Magic player.

“All of this harassment talk makes me sick to my stomach. What can I do to help?”

First, listen to the people telling their stories of harassment. Internalize them, validate them, believe them.

This is pretty easy when the harasser is someone like Jeremy, who is well-known to be a toxic member of the community. It’s harder when it’s someone beloved. It’s even harder when it’s someone who you know personally. Your initial reaction may be defensiveness—it often is for me—but there’s a time and a place for that, and it’s not now.

Remember: we are mature enough to handle these situations with poise and nuance. Some people just need to be sat down and told to stop behaving badly, while others need to be banned and ostracized. We won’t be able to call out either type of harasser without creating an environment where people feel safe coming forward.

Second, you need to get more comfortable calling out the harassers in your own life. It’s MUCH harder for victims of harassment to call it out than it is for us bystanders, which is why it’s important that we not let any of this toxicity stand even when it doesn’t directly affect us.

Don’t just say something at FNM—speak up during your kitchen table drafts, too. “We don’t say stuff like that here,” is a good turn of phrase to keep in your back pocket. It’s important to sweep away that “boy’s club” atmosphere for good, because it can permeate out from late-night hotel room games into the community at large.

A lot of these people aren’t evil, they’re just prickly, misguided, and socially awkward. Some of them will double-down on their bad behavior and are unreachable, but I have to believe that at least some of them really do mean well. The only way to find out is by changing the climate and calling out the unacceptable stuff whenever we can, wherever we can. Otherwise, they’ll keep driving people away.

Of course, there are some actions that require a harsher response. Jeremy has an entire platoon of followers who will be harder to pin down. And these guys aren’t outsiders, they’re members of the community. They’re guys that you and I both know.

If you know about someone who likes to troll marginalized members of the Magic community on social media, you need to do everything you can to get them to stop. “It’s just a joke” should not be an acceptable defense at this point. These people need to understand that their actions have consequences.

To this end, try to get more comfortable appealing to authority figures like LGS owners and judges about stuff like this. It’s easier for people like us to speak up about harassing language when we hear it, and most of it is a disqualifying offense in sanctioned play. In smaller or casual events, remember that store owners are too busy running the shop to know what’s going on in the back room. Feel free to enlighten them.

This is especially important when dealing with constant, repeatable offenders. These are the people who lower the attendance at local events because large swaths of the player base don’t feel comfortable gaming with them. We need to do a better job of weeding them out and letting them know that they need to choose between being a productive member of the community or no longer being a part of the group.

Lastly, never assume that you are above it all. I’m certainly not. Remember that making mistakes in the social arena are like misplays in Magic: each one is a chance to improve, to become more precise, to grow as an empathetic person. The important thing is to acknowledge it, apologize, and do your best not to make that mistake again.

I’m sick of hearing “Magic is awesome, but the community kind of sucks.” The community is all of us—you, me, and everyone else who has ever picked up a Magic card and felt that instant, powerful connection. We all have a right to thrive within it, to feel comfortable slinging spells in shops and tournaments around the world. I’m willing to fight for that right. Are you?

[parrafo451]

The Best Films of 2017

By Zeke Trautenberg

During this tumultuous year, the movie theater was a site of refuge, introspection, and conflict. The year began with Donald Trump’s travel ban, an executive order which represented a challenge to openness and freedom of exchange. In response, the filmmakers nominated for the Best Foreign-language Film at the Academy Awards released a defiant statement, in which they extolled film as a cosmopolitan remedy to the politics of nativism: “So we’ve asked ourselves: What can cinema do? Although we don’t want to overestimate the power of movies, we do believe that no other medium can offer such deep insight into other people’s circumstances and transform feelings of unfamiliarity into curiosity, empathy and compassion – even for those we have been told are our enemies.”

The second half of 2017 was no less tumultuous. The revelations of dozens of allegations against Harvey Weinstein, first revealed in The New York Times and The New Yorker, ushered in the most significant reshaping of the power dynamics of Hollywood in the industry’s history. Rose McGowan, Ashley Judd, Annabella Sciorra, Salma Hayek, and the hundreds of other brave women and men who have come forward with their stories of abuse at the hands of Weinstein and other men in Hollywood have brought about a sea change in the culture at large. Ultimately, reforming the film industry’s toxic workplace cultures and practices, will require fixing the longstanding discrimination against and lack of opportunities for women and minorities in Hollywood.

Amid the charged partisan atmosphere of the country and the fallout from the Weinstein scandal, the film industry continues to adapt to an increasingly digital world. The proposed merger of Disney and Fox is a response to the growing clout, budget, and subscriber base of Netflix. This mega merger may well as a sign of things to come as studios consolidate to stave off competition from Amazon, Apple, and Netflix.

The list that follows is the product of my year at the cinema (and in front of my TV). I did not have the chance to see every one of the acclaimed or terrible films (here’s looking at you Geostorm) released in American cinemas this year, but all the movies listed here are worthy of your time.

10. Endless Poetry

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Throughout his peripatetic career, Jodorowsky has returned time and again to his favorite subject: himself. Endless Poetry is a filmic memoir, which unfolds in nineteen-fifties Santiago, as a young Jodorowsky (played by the filmmaker’s son, Adán) comes of age as a poet. As occurs in The Dance of Reality (2013)—which is based on Jodorowsky’s youth in a small town in northern Chile—, Endless Poetry features repeat, direct interventions by Jodorowsky himself. In Endless Poetry Jodorowsky conjures imaginative sequences, production design, and characters amid his oppressive home life. One memorable sequence depicts the bedroom walls of fellow poet Enrique Lihn’s bedroom covered from floor to ceiling in scribbling. This three-dimensional page serves as a mirror to the film itself, in which present, past, and future intersect.

9. Ladybird

Director: Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig’s first film is a coming-of-age story about a young woman in Sacramento in the early 2000s. The film follows Lady Bird (Saroise Ronan) during her senior year at Catholic school as she takes up theater, loses her virginity, and goes to prom. The film is laugh-out-loud funny and features a stellar cast, which includes Laurie Metcalf, Beanie Feldstein, and Tracy Letts. In addition to portraying the pratfalls of young adulthood, the film depicts the frustrated pursuit of respectability and economic insecurity among middle-class Americans in the years leading up to the Great Recession.

8. I Am Not Your Negro

Director: Raoul Peck

Raoul Peck’s documentary is based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House about the civil rights leaders Medgar Evars, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Like Now (1965), another film about race in America by a director from the Caribbean, Peck’s film is a confrontational call to action. Peck juxtaposes the Black Lives Matter movement and police violence against African Americans with Baldwin’s searing analysis of race in twentieth-century America. The film underscores the connections these two periods by bookending the film with images of recent protests against police brutality, but leaves viewers to draw their own conclusions about where the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter intersect. In his voice-over narration, Samuel L. Jackson channels the author’s stoicism and resolve and delivers one of the most potent performances of his career.

7. Icarus

Director: Bryan Fogel

There is always a certain lack of control in documentary filmmaking. The limited control filmmakers have over the ways their narrative unfolds is part of what distinguishes documentaries from fiction films. Bryan Fogel’s Icarus is a wonderful example of the ways in which documentary filmmaking is an adaptive art form. What begins as a story about an amateur cyclist who subjects himself to a rigorous doping regimen, transforms mid-way into a geopolitical thriller about a Russian sports scientist at the heart of one of the biggest scandal of modern sports: the systematic, state-sponsored doping of Russian athletes across decades. The scientist in question, Grigory Rodchenkov, is the kind of colorful character— his wardrobe includes bright orange shorts—that documentary filmmakers dream of. As the danger for Rodchenkov increases, Fogel grapples with how to intervene and tell a story that is no longer his own.

6. After the Storm

Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda

After the Storm tells the story of Ryota (Hiroshi Abe), a divorced father and novelist as he grapples with how to be a father after his recent divorce. Ryota works as a private detective, while struggling to write a second novel. However, instead of paying his alimony, the gumshoe spends his salary on his gambling habit. Abe communicates the protagonist’s sense of perpetual exhaustion and weariness with his slouched shoulders and hangdog expression. Ryota loves his son, but struggles to be a good father. The distance between father and son is exemplified by a memorable scene in which the author and detective watches his child play baseball with binoculars while sitting in his car. The film climaxes during a nocturnal summer storm which traps Ryota, his ex-wife, and son in the same apartment. As the rain falls, the fractured family renews the terms of their relationship and Ryota forges a closer bond with his son by sharing memories of his own childhood.

5. Call Me By Your Name

Director: Luca Guadagnino

Luca Gaudagnino is a master of the contemporary melodrama. His previous films I Am Love (2009) and A Bigger Splash (2015) unfold in settings heavy with symbolism—an old house, an island in the Mediterranean—and Call Me By Your Name is no exception. Guadagnino transforms a villa in Northern Italy into the site of first romance for Elio (Timothée Chalamet). The arrival of the handsome Oliver (Armie Hammer), who is there to assist Elio’s father with archaeological research, elicits a potent mixture of self-doubt, shame, and desire from the cosmopolitan teenager. Although the film depicts Elio’s emotional turmoil with an earnestness that may grate on some, its emphasis on naked feeling and passion is all part of its bittersweet fun. And if you need one reason to see Call Me By Your Name, stay for Michael Stuhlbarg’s monologue on life, love, and the loss, which is the single most memorable scene of the year.

4. Frantz

Director: François Ozon

François Ozon’s Frantz follows Adrien (Pierre Niney) and Anna (Paula Beer), two characters who are bound together by the same man, the recently deceased Frantz. Set in the aftermath of World War I, the film is an allegory of Franco-German relations, but also an exploration of guilt and the horrors of war. Shoot in gorgeous black and white, the film’s visuals are a departure for Ozon, who uses color to great effect in Potiche (2010) and The New Girlfriend (2014). Like these earlier films, Frantz features magnificent costumes (designed by Pascaline Chavanne), and a healthy dose of melodrama. And, as in In the House (2012), Frantz revels in the slippery nature of fiction. Ozon challenges viewers to discern the reason for Frantz’s visit to Germany and the meaning of the sentimental stories the interloper tells Anna’s grieving family.

3. The Shape of Water

Director: Guillermo Del Toro

The Shape of Water had been swimming around in Guillermo Del Toro’s head for years, before he got the idea that made it all click: the story had to pass “through the service entrance.” Set in the 1960s, the film follows the mute Elisa (Sally Hawkins) works as a janitor at a top-secret research facility—a recurring setting in Del Toro’s films—where scientists study a creature they captured from a river in the Amazon. Elisa falls in love with the creature, who like her cannot speak. Together with her gay artist neighbor (Richard Jenkins) and black co-worker (Octavia Spencer), Elisa sets out to free the creature from the lab and its vicious director of security (Michael Shannon). The film is an allegory of being different in a world built on the principles of order and knowing your place. Working with a budget of under twenty million dollars, Del Toro makes a film that looks many times more expensive. The production design incorporates art deco and modernism, with acute attention to detail. The special effects are also remarkable. For the underwater scenes, Del Toro used the dry-for-wet method, which involves suspending the actors and props on wires, pumping in smoke, using fans to create the illusion of movement, utilizing light caustics (projecting images of light in water), and shooting it all in slow motion.

2. Get Out

Director: Jordan Peele

A horror film and social satire, Get Out is an incisive depiction of race and racism in early-twenty-first century America. The film follows Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose (Allison Williams) as they embark on a weekend visit to Rose’s parents. As Chris and viewers see more of this WASPy household, which is seemingly haunted by a silent black maid and gardener, the manicured lawn and colonial style house transform into a nightmarish prison. The hypnosis sessions with Rose’s mother (Catherine Keener), in which Chris travels to the “sunken place,” is a frightening and vivid metaphor for black experience in America. The allegorical qualities of the film are enhanced by its pitch-perfect incorporation of the horror genre, from the eerie drive through the woods to the hidden laboratory in the basement.

1. Wormwood

Director: Errol Morris

The genre and medium-bending Wormwood is a film of the streaming age. This documentary-cum-series with a running-time of four hours was produced and released by Netflix in six parts and released in a limited run as a stand-alone film. Wormwood centers on the death of Frank Olson (played by Peter Sarsgaard in the fictional scenes), an Army doctor who died after falling to his death from his New York City hotel room in 1953. Errol Morris interviews Olson’s son, Eric who has dedicated much of his life to finding out what happened to his father. The Cold War, biological weapons, Hamlet, the Book of Revelation, and the misdeeds of the CIA intersect in this Russian Doll of a film. Morris offers a masterclass in the juxtaposition of sound and images, the use of split screen (the scenes with Eric Olson were shot with ten cameras), and, as A.O. Scott puts it, dogged cinematic sleuthing. The film’s use of fictional sequences alongside the talking head interviews and archival footage that are standards of the documentary genre, add depth to a film about the nature of truth and the pain of the search for truth. Towards the end of Wormwood, the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh tells Morris: “But don’t you know how wonderful it is not to have an ending?” In lieu of offering closure to the story of Frank Olson, Wormwood douses the viewer in a bitterness for which there is no salve.

Honorable Mentions

Dunkirk – Christopher Nolan

Graduation – Cristian Mungiu

It Comes at Night – Trey Edward Shults

Loveless – Andrey Zvyagintsev

Marjorie Prime – Michael Almereyda

Quest – Jonathan Olshefski

The Florida Project – Sean Baker

The Lost City of Z – James Gray

The Other Side of Hope – Aki Kaurismäki

The Unknown Girl - Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne

Photos: Warner Bros./ABCKO/A24/Magnolia/Netflix/Gaga/Sony Pictures Classics/Fox Searchlight/Universal/Netflix

[sathinfection]

alien: covenant sucked and here’s why

I saw Covenant five years ago (so I think closer to 4 weeks) and I hated it a whole bunch. But it was a very instructive hate, so I’m gonna break it down. Putting everything under a readmore bc this is gonna be long and also I don’t want people who liked it to have to see me shredding away. 

The first Alien film was the first horror movie that I liked enough not to care how scary it was. I think I was around 6 when I first saw it. It awakened three things in me: a crush on Sigourney Weaver, a lasting kink for xeno, and a deep love of women using construction equipment for non-conventional purposes. I’m not a hugely dedicated Alien fan, but I think that the films have two very defined qualities:

1) Equal opportunity psychosexual horror. Literally anyone in Alien can be forcefully facefucked and then carry a terrifying alien baby! This is something that’s been commented on to death, so it’s not like I think I’m brilliant for observing this. 

2) Woman-centered. Not just in terms of Sigourney Weaver or other Hollywood-unconventional white brunette terms, but the Alien films are also deeply concerned with reproduction. Ripley’s always off to kill the Queen because she’s gonna lay hundreds of eggs, etc. However, unlike a lot of horror films, women aren’t the subject of particular sexual menace. See above: everyone’s a potential victim of the xenomorphs I think this was why the Alien films weren’t as scary to me as other movies, because I didn’t have to see women singled out for rape or assault in ways that separated them from men. Also, women win. Yeah, the xenomorphs always come back, but there’s a little bit of a break at the end of each film. I also can’t even get that pissed off, because it’s female aliens vs female humans, so again I’m removed from awful gender dynamics. I’m not implying that the Alien films are feminist, but they’re not misogynist. 

Now that you know my two strongest feelings about Alien, let’s move forward to Covenant itself. First off, several people in the audience were laughing at a lot of the dramatic moments (not just me and my wife). If you’ve got people tittering during a moment of tension, your horror movie sucks. It’s failed. Covenant has three main flaws. 

1) Terrible, terrible script. Every single person in the film, other than the robots, is a blithering idiot. The movie starts with a bunch of supposedly professional people waltzing out into a planet that’s broadcasting John Denver without any helmets on, and they’re perfectly fine with having unpredictable communication and dangerous ion storms going on. What the fuck. All of them deserved to die. They go scampering around in the alien water? Christ, you can get all sorts of awful things from water on EARTH let alone on another planet. 

Then, when people start getting disgustingly sick, there’s no immediate panic. No, the person has to start vomiting black bile before they think, wow, this is a scary thing to happen on an unknown planet. Remember when that woman was attending to Victim #1 and decided to hug him as his skin looked ready to pop and he was leaking everywhere? What the fuck. 

Remember when David started talking about his weird experiments while showing Captain Vaguely Christian his cabinet of fetal xenomorphic horrors? Then he creepily tells the captain to go down to his murder basement and stick his face in a weird egg-casing, and the captain just goes ahead and does it? Probably one of the most rage-inducing parts of the film, but he totally deserved to go. That was actually my thought for everyone who died in the film, other than the gay couple, Walter, and Shaw. The gay men weren’t any more or less likable than the other people who were murdered, but they were a nice little bit of representation that probably 90% of the audience didn’t notice.

Every character in the film acts like a lamb going to slaughter. That isn’t suspenseful, it’s just annoying. 

2) Predictability. This could probably just go under the terrible script, but it deserves special attention. My single moment of surprise was seeing David 8 on the planet, and that’s only because I hadn’t looked at any previews. The crew is so tremendously stupid that I know the moment one of them wanders off alone, they will get horribly murdered. When Walter and David fight, I know that Walter will lose the second the camera cuts away from the Fassbender vs Fassbender. This is particularly annoying because the director had established that Walter was ‘improved’ over the David model not 5 minutes ago, and Walter is no fool. He is one of two non-fools in the movie, and since the other one is also played by Michael Fassbender, this is a source of much frustration. 

Covenant could have been made slightly better by playing off the audience expectation that David would win. Honestly: was anyone expecting Walter to have won that fight, particularly since “Walter” was acting so creepy after scampering back to the ship? The movie isn’t creating tension through uncertainty, it’s creating tension because the audience is waiting for the goddamn reveal that it’s not Walter, it’s David. Can you imagine if the reveal at the end was that it actually *was* Walter? That would be a legitimate twist! And it wouldn’t be hard to bring back the xenomorph threat in the next film in a way that didn’t involve Fassbender yartzing out fetuses into a drawer while Wagner plays. This leads me to the third, most vile part of Covenant:

3) Misogyny. Here’s where Covenant goes back and takes a shit on the legacy of the previous films, and I gotta repeat that I don’t even really care about the Alien series that much. Covenant completes what Prometheus started, and that’s shifting the focus from women to men. Now, you could say that this is because it’s a prequel to the Alien series, so you don’t have adult xenomorph queens going around to lay eggs, but uh... really? Do we really need to go through this convoluted process of giant white aliens who look vaguely like Clancy Brown? 

I dare you to unsee this. So we’ve got the aliens reproducing through coaldust and Clancy Browns, and it turns out that they needed a man all along to make them reproductively viable. Yeah, David 8 is an android, not a human, but we know what’s up, since the writers sure as shit aren’t taking a nuanced or current look at gender. He’s a guy with daddy issues who sexually assaults people, rather than, you know, acting like a genderless robot. Obviously a sentient robot commits sexual assault! That’s how you know he’s sentient, because a sex drive is part of humanity! Please picture me rolling my eyes with disgust. 

David explicitly sets himself up as a god in the image of his creator, Weyland. Of course, David thinks he’s doing better than his father, but who doesn’t? We’ve cut women out as free agents, both the humans and the aliens. Alien series? No, it’s the Michael Fassbender being menacing series now! 

First off, let’s look at what happens to Shaw. Noomi Rapace wisely tapped out of the series after the end of Prometheus, so she had to be killed off. Was she killed off in a normal way? Nah. She was killed in one of the most uniquely horrible ways in the series, and it was highly gendered. Shaw repairs David, then he repays her kindness by designing a horrible machine to keep her alive while he scoops everything out of her from the waist down and leaves her as this frightening wax-like figure. Prometheus already put Shaw through a pseudo self-abortion, then David goes for the entire womb. I’m sure that the writers (all male - I checked) knew exactly what they were doing with this, and it’s gender essentialism 101: David takes Shaw’s creative, maternal womb powers and takes it for himself so he can make his own alien babies. There’s no way this was unintentional or me reaching - David’s narrative arc is about male parthenogenesis because his daddy was a really shitty programmer. (He probably forgot to close the brackets on the ‘not evil’ line of David’s code)

Now for Daniels. The audience is ‘treated’ to David trying to force himself on her after she sees his figurative rape of Shaw. Then, instead of rescuing herself from this completely unnecessary, un-Alien, he’s-a-goddamn-robot situation, as Ripley would have done, Daniels is rescued by Walter, because this is a film about Michael Fassbender. Her last moment in the film is her screaming as she’s trapped and put to sleep by David. 

Remember that whole generation of young women who loved Ripley for being unafraid, resourceful, and great at killing xenomorphs? Women are starving for positive depictions of ourselves. Ripley was one of the few we had. Women are still crying in theaters at Wonder Woman because we have so goddamn little. 

Now we’ve got Shaw and Daniels: two women in distress who are sexually threatened and ultimately outwitted by a man. I can forgive Covenant for being a bad film, but the misogyny is disgusting. If the Alien series continues, and who knows since it’s failed to be a moneymaker outside of comics and videogames for a while, it better be a reboot rather than a continuation of Covenant’s storyline, because Alien isn’t about men, damn it. It’s about people dying in space, and women. 

And some of them will eat you.