#she acknowledged the fact that I exist which means I have to change my entire identity and go deep into hiding

[phagodyke]

ykw actually I am angry + disappointed w them. I've been pushing how I feel aside and trying to make it my own fault so it's all contained but I think theyve just been mean. and they really should know me better ik I try to pretend I don't expect more from them so I feel less hurt when they do things that upset me but we've been friends for years by this point. like come on.

[atoriv-art]

what are your thoughts on the hyuga siblings and their relationship

OOF now thats one of my favorite naruto dynamics lmao. i think neji and hinata have a very interesting relationship and i say that as someone who really didn't (and tbh still doesn't) love how that relationship developed in canon

i really like the hyuga fight in the chunin exams because the way it's perceived is sooo interesting to me.. neji comes off as an outright bully and i don't even blame the kids for calling him an asshole after all of that, but from reader's perspective it's really obvious that his animosity only exists because of a larger issue...

neji shouldn't treat hinata the way he does, but he does so because of her unique position as a scorned heir. she still benefits from everything that makes his life awful - her life is still valued more than his - but hiashi hates her enough that he won't care if neji dishes out verbal abuse on her. it's an awful dynamic and definitely contributes to hinata's terrible self-worth, but it's a symptom of the life they have been forced into by the man who the manga is intent on letting escape all of the blame for this situation lmao

(hiashi himself can be a really fascinating case honestly. i think he fully means everything he says, which is what makes him so grating but fun to me LOL. his apology to neji is entirely sincere AND it completely misses the point of all of the issues, but neji is young and deprived of acknowledgement enough that he accepts it wholeheartedly. hiashi thinks he's the best uncle of all time.)

hinata herself has so little belief in her own worth that she just sits there and takes whatever abuse people throw at her... i don't actually think neji's anger towards her was a constant - i think some people interpret it that way - rather i feel like it was something that came up whenever he was pushed too far. in more normal circumstances where he's not being made to fight her directly, he was likely more detached than anything. he wanted nothing to do with her.

in one of the filler mini arcs ive mentioned before (i think. the one that focuses on hanabi and hinata) there's a scene that rang very true to me (and im gonna recount this without rewatching it atm so sorry if i get details wrong,): neji was being made to train with hinata, asked to be allowed to leave because he felt his time was being wasted and correctly noted that it doesn't have to be him here, was told no by hiashi and then he started getting vicious and violent. towards hinata, of course, not hiashi. he then got horribly punished for it LOL i think that's the general dynamic they were living in, neji reaches a limit of disrespect that he can take and explodes on the nearest most acceptable target (we loove a boy with no emotional regulation <3), goes too far and suffers the consequence of it while nothing else changes. to him interacting with hinata at all is just asking for pain, either emotional or straight up physical

But, for hinata, she saw herself and neji as similar (the black sheep of the family i suppose), and would have liked to bond over that fact; theyve known each other since they were very little and she outright refers to him as a brother. it's clear to me she's always cared a lot about neji and imo feels responsible for what happened to his father (something that hiashi doesn't help with. Dad of the year), so she saw their match in the exams as a chance to close the distance between them and get neji to see her as a person, an equal instead of a symbol to lash out on.

but, you know, she was 12 LMAO so she ended up pressing all of his buttons instead and it led to his famous outburst, which led to the famous moment of Every Single Jonin (other than asuma.) coming to stop him and further cementing his belief that her life is seen as special. i think (and this is a mix of Shit I Made up, and Me trying to make sense of the manga's insane mishandling of their plotline) that despite her trying her hardest to reach neji she didn't really grasp the horror of his situation. that's the tragedy of neji's life really LMAO, no one really tries to grapple with the severity of what having that curse mark does to a person. she thought of his fatalism as more of a psychological, metaphorical way of dealing with hurt and not like... "my life literally does not belong to me no matter how much i try to fight it"

this is loooooong take this readmore.

i think hiashi-hizashi were hoping that the cousins could have had a better relationship than they did... letting them hang out often and stuff, introducing them early, hizashi not discouraging neji from being friendly with her, to me it all reads as very "ok well this didn't work for Us, but what if it works out for them... even though literally nothing has changed". they were proper family once and hizashi wanted to die for his brother, not his leader, so that just makes sense to me.

i do nautttt like the naruto vs neji fight so to keep the post positive i will gloss over it <3 but hinata and neji's relationship post-chunin exams to me is peak like. God i wish this was done better because it could have been soooo good

neji realizes that his anger is consuming him and adjusts his behavior accordingly, getting a lot of his kindness back, and he becomes intent on fixing his relationship with hinata... i don't hate that premise at all, it's just the way it's executed that bothers me!

the impression i got (and i could be mistaken im in the process of rewatching the anime + rereading the manga) is that their relationship getting better is done exclusively through like. neji repenting for being mean to her. which, don't get me wrong, he SHOULD apologize (AND THAT WOULDVE BEEN A COOL THING TO SEE ONSCREEN, BTW) but you CANNOT divorce his behavior from the hyuga system in general. from the way they act after the exams you would think their issues were born solely from neji being a bully for no reason, and not, like... him lashing out on her because his uncle is literally the devil.

i don't think hinata has the power to change a lot in her clan on short notice (she did get disowned. did that un-happen offscreen? we will never know. Hiashi gets to be a grandfather to her children btw.) but i certainly would have liked to see her standing up for branch members and in the stuff i draw that's the story i have in mind LMAO. like, her gaining a deeper understanding of neji's situation and trying to work against her father trying to make her cousin's life better? i think that would have been really sweet and even show her gaining more confidence in herself and her beliefs. you can still have neji fussing over her and being protective because he feels bad for how they used to be, i actually really like that because neji IS a very sweet person, i just reject the idea that it's his sole Moral Obligation to put everything aside and make things better by the power of I Will Die For You Now, But This Time, For The Right Reasons

as for hanabi i wish she had more screentime soooo bad because i'm obsessed with how she gives off Haunted Child vibes lmfao. talking abt her requires me to expose myself a little bit and have to admit hiashi is kind of a blorbo to me because of how much he sucks ass, but like. Essentially his insane resentment of hinata was born when hizashi died, it doesnt matter it wasn't really her fault, he needed someone to blame and he would never blame himself, at least not outwardly lol. hiashi did genuinely love his brother, it just didn't stop him from being a monster to him, and he is certainly not gonna grapple with that now that he's dead!

(and, you know, the whole "sorry we sent a guy to kidnap an heir. you do need to die for killing him though" thing is really dumb but if we stop at every single stupid thing in naruto we will be here all day.)

with all that being said i think hiashi tries his best to make hanabi everything hinata isn't, and he has very little interest in having her and hinata have any bond at all. he just left neji and hinata to fester in that god-awful dynamic with no supervising, and took hanabi as the best direction for the clan to head towards. but, you know, father of the year is very demanding and doesn't seem to be very fatherly to her at all from the little we see of them. she's just like. a good soldier, and that's what he needs.

i think hanabi growing to resent her sister for the situation she's been put into (if hinata weren't 'weak' she wouldn't have so much responsibility) is very interesting! by the time we meet her i think she's learned that the best thing to do wrt her sister is to just ignore that she exists. as for neji he barely registers as a presence to her; neji has no reason to interact with her and hiashi has no reason to incentivize it. it's very fun to me!

in general i really like all of their dynamics can be used to explore how hurt and trauma drive people apart, i could talk about them for hourssss LMAO i love the suna family for the same reason!

[madara-fate]

The whole discourse of how sasuke and Sakura be after their spouses die is very simple. These people are married and all but you can't really expect a total erratic change in behavior after the death of their spouse. These people have spent maybe 4-5 years together in their entire existence, they've spent more time being away from each than together.

Sakura would be sad and all (sasuke was the love of her life), however, her life would go on, she's supposed to model a real life girl, she has parents, probably has cousins, uncles, aunts etc. Her best friend and her two sensei's are still very much alive and accessible. Her daughter is still alive, and she took care of her without sasuke, so she'll be fine doing so again. Her life would go on, she'll probably not get remarried but still.

For sasuke, his would very much go on too, he's lost his family before and he's still a well functioning human being, he's not going lose himself over Sakura dying let's be real. He'll be sad, but he'll go on. Maybe sarada is a problem he'll have to deal with, but sasuke would still go on his missions. He's a missions first kind of guy, ig.

I think sasuke might only lose himself a bit if Naruto died. Best friend or not, Sasuke understands what Naruto is to the world and what he represents. To sasuke, Naruto is the light that unifies the world, similar but not really to the darkness and hatred sasuke wanted to be. Sasuke knows that his loved ones are safe and secure as long as Naruto lives.

Long story short, they'll be fine. Little rant, my bad.

So you think that Sasuke would be more distraught if Naruto were to die, rather than his own wife and the mother of his child? And your reasoning is that Sasuke apparently views Naruto as the light which unifies the world, and that as long as he's alive, Sasuke's loved once are safe? Yeah I think several things during the new generation have proven that statement to be wrong. Naruto being alive, clearly hasn't meant that Sasuke's loved ones were safe and secure, and Sasuke knows this. Not to mention that Sasuke has also described Sakura as the light in his world, which is a lot more personal.

All I'll say is this - It doesn't need to be a competition, but some people really need to acknowledge the fact that just because Naruto and Sasuke were each other's closest bond during the main story, that doesn't mean that this must still be the case now over 15 years later, especially when they have families and children of their own. These things come with different priorities and responsibilities.

[petridishh416]

alright. it's been a few hours. i've had time to reflect and gather my thoughts. the 7th comic happened and i have mixed feelings.

spoilers under cut

i think the first important thing to acknowledge is the fact that the wait for this comic was 7 years. valve absolutely DID NOT have to bring it back at all, let alone fulfill my specific expectations as a fan. i think we're all rather shocked as a community that the final issue came out at all. in all honesty, it still feels unreal.

i generally do not like time skips. i find them jarring, and unless the point is that a significant amount of time passed and nothing changed, they can leave me disoriented. this comic is no exception. the characters have changed; merasmus is laughably ripped, soldier has two children, scout has FOUR children and a funny haircut, and we don't really see the others. we've missed major points in each character's life, and we don't even get to see them now for longer than a couple panels that do little for them as characters. the mercenaries for whom the comics exist at all are now an ensemble that fades into the background.

i could list every retcon, cop-out, plothole, and narrative fumble at length, but i'd say the most glaring issue is the cover art–not in the art itself, but in hinting towards a major story beat that is completely absent. we first come to the final comic after years of nothing from the writers and get immediately get hit in the face with three entire iterations of the same scene:

all of which are beautiful. but the problem here is WHY they chose to make this the cover. each version hints towards a different story, but with the same idea: a little girl in purple, presumably the administrator, crying over what look to be her parents' bodies. we're not sure which version is the "true" version, perhaps meaning that she cannot remember the exact circumstances–only the emotion.

but that's speculation and can only ever be speculation, because throughout the entire rest of the comic, this is never brought up or even hinted towards again. what is the green liquid in the third picture? who were these people? why are they dead? what happened? these are questions that i expected a finale to explain when an image is emphasized so strongly, it's shown three times. and yet we are shown nothing.

this is reflected similarly in the recent tease, when the following panel was released to announce the production of the seventh comic:

in which the script itself, at the time, noted that these are supposed to be implied to be the mercenaries and miss pauling. an idea with which there is exactly nothing done, and instead this is a high-security prison that has nothing to do with the characters in question, all of whom are alive and well elsewhere in that exact moment. there was clearly a pivot here that was not originally planned.

which raises the obvious question: why?

what happened here? were the writers' hands forced in another direction? did they have to change the script last-minute to fulfill a time crunch?

no matter the answer, it's disappointing for fans like me that saw that hint towards something big, and instead got a cop-out and a really muscular merasmus.

and yet, somehow, among all of this chaos, the storyline with the administrator emerges, a gracefully poetic portrayal of madness and obsession, covering by far the heaviest topics seen in canon team fortress 2 lore. it's wonderfully paced, incredibly beautifully illustrated, and answers (if slightly incompletely) most lingering questions left by previous issues.

i cannot sing nearly enough praises of this part of the comics to do it justice. it exceeded my expectations by miles, and just goes to show that this comic has the capability of being unbelievably great–something was just holding it back.

lately, i've been rather fascinated with the term "nothing burger", and that's approximately how i feel about this finale that was seven years in the making. the main course was a bland piece of meat on a stale bun, devoid of the metaphorical "toppings" in the form of characters, and yet it was served right next to a five-star gourmet plate of fries, fresh from the oil complete with parmesan and rosemary. and looking between the two components of the same meal, it becomes obvious that given (ironically) more time (and resources!) to prepare more than just the bare minimum rubbery beef and bun, the chef could have easily made much, much more than just a nothing burger.

[rise-my-angel]

The RxL relationship/romance/plotpoint etc. whatever people want to call it has not only aged very poorly, and it has absolutely aged like milk, but it was bad from the get go in 1996 when GRRM thought up the story. And not to put my tinfoil hat on but RxL is one of the reasons I firmly believe Martin will never finish the books, because he has to do a lot of 'fixing' of that relationship which I don't think he has the effort or energy to do.

The thing is, there is no evidence of a relationship. Of any kind. Everything people point to is entierly speculated based off of superficial theory.

The facts as we know them are Rhaegar crowned a 14 year old Lyanna at the Tourney of Harranhal instead of his wife. Sometime after that Rhaegar and his Kingsguard disappeared after coming across an alone 15 year old Lyanna where her safety and whereabouts were entirely unknown to everyone but him. Rhaegar did not enter the war after that until a number of weeks to month in, and then Lyanna was found dying in a bed in her own blood still being guarded by Kingsguard after both Rhaegar and Aerys were dead.

There is nothing in text that suggests any romance or a relationship. The only place that comes from is the fandom. Nowhere in the books is there any actual suggestion this was genuinely anything but a kidnapping.

Now, I do think certain things didn't age well in similar regards. I think we see that with Jon's dynamic with Ygritte, and that being a result of the 90s. Which is why in today's standards we understand Ygrittes actions are that of abuse and rape, but in text, Jon never acknowledges this because it's a result of being a male written in the 90s. The result is Jon is stripped of his ability to be a rape victim because of the decade that subplot was conceived.

But remember how we know this story by the end of A Game of Thrones. Not a single thing suggested romance and it is clear Ned is extremely traumatized by Lyannas death by the end of it. Which to me does not suggest she died in a situation that was in any way willing.

R+L=J is not by nature meaning if a relationship. It is a short form path to simply explain who Jon's parents by blood were.

I do not think Lyanna was in any way interested in Rhaegar, I do not think she went with him willingly, I do not think she even wanted to be near him in the first place. I do not think any relationship existed and I do not think she was a willing participant any step of the way.

We have no actual proof that there was a shred of romance or a relationship. All that comes from the fandom and fandom interpretations of in text evidence.

R+L=J is not a love story and it never was. I have more faith in grrm then to assume he both wanted to paint that as a love story but also started that by introducing Rhaegar as a man many people believed raped a teenage girl.

It would be very easy to write twow without changing things to make it not a romance, because the actual in text words do not at all support a romance narrative beyond personal interpretation.

But Rhaegar stans NEED it to be a relationship because otherwise it was kidnapping and rape. And they know they cannot defend that, so they have perpetuated the false narrative that a relationship existed and has always been hinted at.

When the in text evidence does not support any claim. The only logical scenario that we have been told of, is that Rhaegar kidnapped and raped Lyanna all entierly against her will from minute one.

[peacesignsandlighters]

Everyday I mask my neurodivergency. That’s normal at this point.

But this has been masking on overload. On steroids!!

I am mentally, physically, and emotionally overwhelmed and exhausted.

I just need to take my hands off the wheel and my foot off the gas for just a moment. The tiniest moment.

This would be a lot for anyone. I know people go through this everyday. There are a million caregivers for a million different people for a thousand different reasons. I understand that. I know that there are hard days for everyone one of them. Unfortunately I just so happen to be one of them. I even acknowledge that it’s even harder for the people we care for.

But for me… for my neurodivergent, adhd having self.. I am drowning… I am fucking drowning. And yet I can’t… I won’t… take my hands off the wheel nor my foot off the gas.. because I know what it looks like when that happens. I know the destruction that follows. I know the pain and the guilt and the shame, all the blame that comes with it and that’s far more than I can handle. That’s way worst than this. I wouldn’t survive that. And I’m barely surviving this.

I’m not complaining for having to do it. In no way shape or form. I am simply acknowledging that I am human, I have feelings, I am overwhelmed, and I really really need help. I need physical support. I don’t have the mental or emotional capacity to go into details. All I can say is shouldering all of the day to day responsibilities of this, remembering every detail of every task that needs to be accomplished, hell just simply trying to accomplish 1/4th of it is exhausting. I am one person. My entire world has been flipped on it’s side.. hell flipped upside down in the last 3 months.. we’re just in month 4 of an undetermined timeline of an anomaly. I am this exhausted and it’s only been 3 months. I mean I’ve been exhausted for the majority of my existence but this… this is different. I just need someone to help me. I need another 3 to 10 other me’s. I need someone that doesn’t have the same mental challenges as me.

I need the mental help of processing the fact that my narcissistic mother, who has been my sole provider for my entire life, now needs me to be a caregiver to her. I have been trying to run and escape this hell for 14+ years and now I feel obligated because that’s my mom. That the single mother that stepped up when my father didn’t. That’s the woman who, whether she was physically or emotionally present or not.. more times not, she was the one semi present. I am her only child. It is my sole responsibility to take care of her. Outside of her mother, whose going to do it. And yet I have been the one on the front lines. I have been the one taking all the negativity and abuse these last few months. I get the ugly. I have to endure the painful times. I’m the one that gets blamed. I’m the one that gets verbally and emotionally abused. I am the one that has to take it and keep going.. and yet again.. this isn’t anything new.. I should be used to it but again it’s different now. I need the mental help of having to accept the fact that my last memories of my mother was not that we got it together, not that we mended our relationship, not that I felt her love and respect and proudness… no my last memories are more than likely that I wasn’t enough, that I didn’t do anything right, that I never made any good decisions, that I was lazy and careless and irresponsible. I will have to live whatever days I have left feeling this. I have zero clue of how to heal from that kind of hurt. I know for a fact that it is already changing me for the worst.

Which brings me to emotionally. I have literally shoulder all of this on my own. All the thoughts and emotions. I have both relied on and absolutely undone 5 years worth of healing in 3 months. I can’t remember the last time I was genuinely happy. I can remember the last time I smiled and it wasn’t out of momentary politeness. I can’t remember the last time my nervous system felt stable and at peace. Life has completely destructed my support system. I don’t even feel comfortable reaching out anymore and when I do it’s because I am literally at a breaking point and I’m just trying not to jump off the edge. The one person I want to be here can’t or won’t or whatever word fits the moment. There is resentment forming inside of me for so many people. I used to say I just need a hug but honestly, a hug is barely scratching the surface. It’s the feeling of scratching the surface without actually leaving a mark. I need real love and support and PRESENCE right now. And I know that nobody that God has put in my path thus far can give me that. I know that I have to give it to myself. And yet as hard as I’ve been working to give myself grace and love and support… it’s just not the same. Maybe I haven’t mastered it. Maybe I have no clue how to.. because I definitely don’t. But at the end of the day I know it’s a need that screaming to be met and I have zero way of meeting it right now.

This isn’t even a pouring from an empty cup situation anymore… the cup has been dry.. and so is the well that the cup was supposed to get water from. I’m pouring air and hopes and prayers at this point.. empty fucking wishes and desires.

That is all I have. And yet my foot is on the gas and I have a death grip on a wheel that I am not actually steering. I am truly extremely more afraid of who I will be after this that of who I am right now. Or even who I was. I am terrified of what this situation is going to turn me into. I am terrified of what that level of hurt and grief and exhaustion is going to do.. I’m already terrified of who I’ve become thus far.. imagine then.

I genuinely wish someone understood that.

[blacksheep28]

Sabine's Decorations

Lovely evil Sabine, Dark Rider of the horse Khaan, let loose pigs on the Equine Festival.

The Sunfield pigs are in fact lovely creatures, and not great beasts, which means they are in fact terrified of being lost, and are creating a racket, instead of being methodical beasts of destruction set on eating their way through everything.

I round them up, and Sabine has the gall to ask if I would meet with her.

I am not without sin, I am too curious for my own good. I have to admit I am intrigued by how confidently she comes up to me to ask for a talk right after the little mess she caused. No sign of guilt on her at all!

She tells me that she's angry because she's been banned from competing in any of the Equine Festival events. She honestly seems to have no clue why she would be banned from competing, claiming she's the best. As if she hasn't just proven that she can't resist causing possible harm to others at the festival. As if she actually thinks people believe she wouldn't sabotage someone if she saw them as a threat.

She tells me her "great scheme" to get them to change their mind: put up some decorations so people see her participating and take it as enough of a change of mind to allow her in.

This seems harmless enough, so I'm willing to go along with it. I am definitely curious what Sabine thinks would be suitable decorations, considering how very clear she's made her disdain for the very festival she's so desperate to compete in clear.

Of course it's not that simple. Sabine got fireworks. Drakonium fueled fireworks.

Now I love fireworks as much as the next person. I would love to set them off.

But drakonium is notoriously unstable and highly reactive. Sabine isn't exactly an expert on fireworks either. She could very easily kill someone, or burn down the entire festival with theseSabine of course doesn't see a problem with this, claiming that it's just a matter of training to keep horses under control.

Everyone knows that horses are spook beasts, they spook at their own shadows. Horses brought to the Equine Festival are a lot better trained than most, but that doesn't mean that having a stray firework go off in the middle of the festival would result in calm. I wouldn't trust people to be calm if an explosion went off beside them, let alone a horse!

And she honestly seems to believe the fact that Khaan only responds to her commands is a result of her training, and not because the horse has been blinded and deafened to the world outside of her existence. I don't know who's more blind, horse or rider, for Sabine to believe such a thing.

Either way I'm off with the fireworks. I'm not letting her get horses possibly killed because she's being petty about people acknowledging her as a danger to the festival.

Sabine of course has a whole speech up her sleeve, about how I'm "dancing on the edge of the dark" and "keeping what I do secret from my friends". How I'm being a hypocrite.

She doesn't seem to recognize that part of being good is giving others, even ones you suspect of being bad, a chance. I mean, admittedly this had more to do with my curiosity than honestly trusting Sabine to not be stupid about the decorations, but it certainly wasn't "dancing with the dark" or "keeping shameful secrets".

Does she think that I cannot enjoy a race beside her and also dislike the danger she brings? Does she think she is the only one allowed complexities?

We are caught in a stalemate where neither side can gain over the other, and it is better to have peace between our sides than to continually push until we find something more effective. I don't want to be the one to cause the card castle to fall because I pushed too much.

And perhaps if Sabine has moments of fun where she isn't being an active threat to everything around her, Sabine will be less willing to cause damage.

A pipe dream, I know, but one can hope.

I would love to see Khaan when he has clear eyes one day.

[sterlingarcher23]

We need to talk about... Blue and Yellow and Hopper.

"People have been telling me that my entire life. And it's almost never true. It's never true." - What is the actual meaning behind this because Henry says the same.

Why did no one ever make this connection - probably the most important and definitely the most consistent wardrobe choice in Stranger Things is the blue hair tie of Hopper's daughter Sara, which Hopper had since day 1 kept it in S2 until he gave it to El, and the yellow watch that Max wears since she arrived.

Blue & Yellow...love. Mostly used as a sign of romantic love but in this case it ties two characters that had very little interaction together through El.

They even carry the same bag with the respective accessory hand side...

... or holding hands with these hands. Or how their heart hands high fiving helps Max and later touching again in the hospital after El's heart figuratively restarted Max's heart.

Obviously linking them (literally) in the reproduced Back to the Future time jump scene by the end of the shopping sequence with their heart hands/arms.

You get the gist. Show...don't tell. Yet no one draws the connections. (No one notices the mirrors. 🙄)

Blue and Yellow. Reins = yellow. Saddle = blue.

And Max was always part of Hopper's and El's relationship coded through the red table cloth with the two white napkins and Max's jacket with the two white lines (= II = 11)

Ot how these moments from S3 and S4 are connected.

Max,El and Hopper. What's their connection? Who is Max? Who is El?

Like being the good Ones.

Is it just to foreshadow that Max through El and what will happen is going to be Hopper's daughter (that's for sure)? Or is it more?

Was Hopper left with the memory of Sara, forgetting about the other daughter he has or was he ever aware of her? After all, Hopper does have affairs/one night stands. Is it possible that he fathered a child and when it came out, the other "father" left both his daughter and the mother? 🤔

Or is it possible that they changed their memories about this? I don't know. I have a few ideas but that's it.

So what is the secret behind the blue hair tie and yellow watch?

Max has parallels and mirrors especially with Will (both possessed/abducted already, Will's S2 was Max's S4), Henry and El. Her role, as an active part, is much more important and integral to the plot of S5 than most anticipate or acknowledge. She is the silver cat, the other one, with her silver headphones and hissing at others that is obvious ( bc she will absorb El) . And the connection to Hopper, as subtextual as it is, does exist.

There's a lot about Max we don't know actually.

For the record: I am totally against erasing Sara because A) it's an important element of Hopper's arc (taking choice from Sara and giving choice to El) and B) more importantly, erasing Sara means to erase the social-political criticism in the show of the Vietnam War and the use of Agent Orange that even poisoned their own soldiers and their children.

Sara must not be erased. It sends the wrong message.

So, every theory talking about this: Please keep in mind what it means, what kind of message is send, by just say that Sara isn't real within the shows universe.

[witch-apologist]

Absolutely what is stopping Taylor Swift from coming out at this point? She's explicitly said she's straight and it's weird that people keep insisting she's not. I just don't understand holding onto things from over a decade ago as evidence. It seems very much grasping at straws, which is what that post is trying to tell people like you.

She has quite literally never once labeled herself or "said she's straight" y'all decided that for her and read everything she says to match that assumption. Meanwhile what y'all throw at me time and time again is either completely out of context or literally something I have known many queer ppl to say. If you can find me any instance of Taylor Swift actually saying the words "I'm straight" I will change my icon to a picture of a clown. And if you find me anything with those words , and it has to be that not something that can mean something else too. Post lover era I'll make my banner a circus.

Aside from that do you know how many NOW OUT QUEER PEOPLE called themselves straight at one point? I'm an entire lesbian and I once called myself straight, we learn things about ourselves as we grow. Like when Taylor said Untamed by Glennon Doyle (book about overcoming comphet) was really helpful to her.

Until then fuck off with "what is stopping her" first of all, there's the fact that many many artists like her exist as openly queer without an "explicit coming out" Ariana Grande for example who has literally said "I like women and men" and said she didn't want to label herself. Yet she still has ppl like you who will call her straight instead of acknowledging that she is blatantly attracted to women.

Your desire for an explicit coming out is heteronormative. I don't have to say the words "I'm a lesbian" for you to understand what I mean when I say "I only like girls." No one owes you a coming out but when someone makes it very clear they like the same gender you owe it to them to believe them without them having to tell you exactly what box to put them in.

You know what's not over a decade ago?

"Bet I could still melt your world

Argumentative antithetical dream girl"

Directed at the muse of a song from an autobiographical album. A song about how this love with the dream girl and it's subsequent breakup "hits different" than the kens she used to switch out.

The use of blatant queer symbols (flag colors, remember all those subtle pride flags stuff they used to sell on here? That's what a shit ton of her merch and visuals look like. Hairpin drop, it's nice to have a friend of Dorothea, mirroring Elton johns goodbye yellow brick road and other oz references, giant version of her dressed like Allison Bechdel from fun house screaming at the audience to look at her while the glittery popstar version sings about how she's the problem. I could literally go on forever it is that extensive and that obvious to anyone with prior knowledge of queer culture and history)

The use of queer fashion to an exhausting degree when she's literally said clothes are one of her favorite ways to communicate things to her fans.

Several sapphic love duets (Gasoline, Snow on the beach, the secret of us)

Made a HUGE POINT about how much she listens to girl in red when that was the most popular way to ask if a girl is gay at the time, to the point of posting about it on social media more than once and sending her PAINTINGS MADE BY HER OWN HAND dedicated to the music.

Lesbian salute (the Kate McKinnon one we were all celebrating being in Barbie?) many, many times

Mimics touching herself onstage every single night of her current tour while singing about how pretty a guys ex wife is (who she's, "thick as thieves" with in the song btw, also from the explicitly autographical album)

Also "what is stopping her" well idk her so I can't pretend to know what motivation she might have behind not saying the thing in exact words for YOUR benefit but just this year there was not only a FEMICIDE STABBING where LITTLE GIRLS GOT STABBED FOR THE CRIME OF LISTENING TO TAYLOR SWIFT. There was also A TERRORIST THREAT TO ONE OF HER SHOWS AND SHE YAD TO CANCEL IT. People DRIVE THEIR CARS DIRECTLY INTO PLACES SHES LIVED. She has dealt with insane levels of stalking to the point that HORDES OF STALKING FANS SHOWED UP TO HER FRIENDS WEDDING TO HARASS HER. Donald Trump just won the presidency AGAIN. What fucking rock are you living under that explicitly coming out would not at the very least be cause for increased security concern?

[cjbolan]

Sorry you’re feeling sick! What do you rank all the Emily Windsnap characters (major and recurring ones) favorite to least favorite and why? Hope this makes you feel better!

Awww thanks!! Favorite major/recurring characters from most to least (sorry if I forgot any characters, there's so many of them)...

Emily. She's the main character, has a good balance of strengths and flaws, has several tremendous character arcs, and is an overall relatable character. Emily's especially relatable to me. It helps that I discovered the series when I was her age. And just like Emily I have mixed heritage, moved a lot which made making friends difficult, have a lifelong childhood friend who's like my Shona, had a bigoted teacher publicly humiliate me in front of the entire class which infuriated my mom (unlike Emily's mom she actually confronted my teacher), had a bully from middle school later apologize and make amends with me, had to split time between different schools, I even later learned to swim with a (FinFun) mermaid tail. Plus I share the same birthday as Emily (September 4)!

Mary Penelope. Likewise she has a good balance of strengths and flaws that show for the entirety of the series, has several tremendous character arcs, almost always took accountability for her mistakes, and has an intriguing backstory on how Emily came into the world. And she is a much better mom than most fictional moms! She shows patience and kindness when her daughter makes big mistakes, sets flexible boundaries, takes time to answer all her daughter's questions as best as she can, is 100% honest to her daughter, immediately notices and checks in on her daughter's emotional needs, and willingly throws herself into risky situations to protect her daughter. Over time she grows smarter and more aware of Emily's schemes. Also Emily’s mom realizes and admits her parenting mistakes VERY early on in her story, then spends the remainder of her story changing her ways to be a better parent. ABSOLUTE W MOM THERE.

Jake. Again he has an intriguing story that kicked off Emily's existence and a good balance of strengths vs. flaws. I'm ranking him slightly below Mary Penelope, only because after Book 3 he's just this kinda boring perfect parent who's never allowed to be wrong. Honestly everything I loved about Jake is in the first 3 books! Like his arc of learning how to be a better father to Emily (he and Mandy were the best parts of Book 2). Just because he's a kind and easygoing person, doesn't automatically mean he's a good parent. Which makes sense since he was gone for most of Emily's life. He had to learn how to stop babying Emily, how to set clear boundaries for Emily, how to also respect Emily's boundaries, how to acknowledge and validate Emily's feelings, how to help Emily face her fears, and ultimately do what's best for Emily in the long run (even against Emily's will). I also love Jake's slow rise to power from Neptune's prisoner to Neptune's loyal servant. He honestly earned it. His brief yet memorable appearances always raised lots of interesting questions for me, about himself and about the future of a possible human-merfolk coexistence.

Mr. Beeston. He has the biggest redemption arc of all, has an interesting backstory, and some of the biggest plot twists. He really emphasizes the fact that sometimes forgiveness has to be fucking earned.

Mystic Millie. Like Mr. Beeston she's also full of surprises and plot twists. Despite her mistakes, she was surprisingly competent and smarter than she let on. And she provides great comic relief!!

Shona. She's one of the most memorable characters!! Her trademark "Swishy!" phrase, her long blonde hair that she always takes great care of, was always kind to her friends even when they don't return that kindness, is the loyal friend we all wish we had, and she had her biggest arc in Book 7 with learning how to be a better friend.

Mandy. Her on-off friendship with Emily was interesting and always suspenseful. It's more than just a straight enemies-to-friends arc and I liked that. Honestly she and Jake are the best parts of Book 2. Throughout the series I never knew if Mandy would be Emily's friend or enemy. Book 9 especially emphasizes that. Glad it ultimately ended with these 2 keeping their friendship intact.

Aaron. He's a nice guy with a pretty cool backstory, and while helping Emily figure out where she belongs, he later figures out where he belongs.

Neptune. I like him for the same reasons as Mandy, for his enemies-to-friends arc and on-off relationship with Emily. Except he and Emily were never friends, maybe "allies" is a better term. Every time he appears, you never knew if he's be gonna with or against her. He's the best part of Book 5, where we learn much more of his backstory, and it's the first time he and Emily actually work together.

[jmflowers]

As an adult still living in my parents' house, I struggle a lot with the notion of feeling safe and respected.

I exist here still out of a necessity. My mom had a near-death scare when I was about 21 and a choice I made in the moment saved her, so I've always felt a sense of guilt about leaving. She's afraid to not have me here, even almost a decade later.

My presence has worked in our favour over the years - as both of my parents and myself have struggled with various health challenges. But this house doesn't feel like home and I don't feel like myself when I'm here. In fact, I escape elsewhere as often as I can.

Ultimately, I think, it starts to boil down to love languages. Which sounds crazy, I know, but my entire family has different love languages than my own. They all give and receive love in ways that are completely contradictory to my own methods.

I hate to be touched, but both of my parents receive love that way. They'll guilt me into hugs I don't want, or brush their hands against me on the way past, or tap me on the arm randomly without warning. It sets off alarm bells whenever I'm in familial space and the risk of it is imminent. I rush to get ready for work in the morning, hoping that I'll be able to slip out the door before either of them get up to say goodbye to me.

My father gives love in acts of service - my lowest ranked love language. Which is so frustrating for me, someone who is particular and a little Type A who prefers things a specific way, because he doesn't do things right. He'll fold my clothes in the wrong direction or not complete all the steps of a task and then I just have to re-do it anyways. And I know he means well, but he doesn't listen when I ask him to stop.

Which is how it all boils down to this lack of feeling safe or home or respected. My very basic needs for comfort are ignored in favour of what makes them happy. My autonomy is disregarded on a daily basis. And all of it just skyrockets my anxiety to a place that feels uncomfortable and challenging to navigate.

Living like this leads to me working long hours, to blowing money on travel and adventure I can't really afford, to literally wanting to flee the country if only to have the space to exist as my base self. And they're supportive of my desire, yeah, but they still instill the guilt. They've bestowed a responsibility upon me to take care of them without acknowledging what I need to be able to do that.

I know it's not literal harm. I know they are not abusing me or causing trauma or really doing anything but being themselves and doing the best they know how. But it is so suffocating. And fascinating, really, that it circles back to something so unbelievably basic.

I wish I knew a concrete way to change any of it.

[roobylavender]

i was going thru old posts & found where you said you only like zootara in the specific context of like... zuko dissolving the monarchy + devoting himself to reparations & it's an unrequited love think and lost my mind bc it was exactly what i felt but had never seen anyone say! i HATE any kind of firelady katara content but still find zootara’s dynamic fascinating. anyways from this i was wondering on if you had wider thoughts on katara, on both how she exists in canon and anything you'd change

i think re-watching avatar when they dropped it on netflix a few years ago was eye-opening for me in a lot of ways like sooo many of my opinions radically changed and not even necessarily in a way where it was an outright polarized switch but more like.. added depth to how i felt. which makes sense bc i mean i was seven years old when i watched the show and i'm twenty five now lmao. but with katara i kind of found myself on the fence between the two camps that were so vehement about justifying why katara worked better with either boy that i think they more or less forgot about her. like i don't entirely disagree with zootara shippers that katara's role being so diminished in post-canon was irritating but at the same time that's not something it makes sense to blame kataang being canon on. kataang is probably one of the most obv ships ever in retrospect like the buildup was so palpably there and katara was never going to choose anyone else but aang. but i also think it can be admitted that her post-canon storylines were just.. super boring? and that it had to do a lot with bryke being resistant to radicalism in their material in general. keeping the gaang together or taking them on group adventures for marketability purposes was obv impt but i feel like katara was one of the members who like really needed to do her own thing after the war was over. like there were so many times in the series where it seemed like she was having her moment to shine and there would always be some caveat or wedge to throw so she could move on with the gaang and for central narrative purposes i get that but why did that have to apply to whatever she did after (also this doesn't even get into the fact that bryke's liberal politics affected her individual storylines so much like the jet and hama stuff. very bad vibes). like i already said i think kataang was pretty much inevitable and the build up in seasons one and two and even the confusion of feelings between them at the start of season three were great but i also don't think they needed to be in a relationship by the end of the series personally like it felt so rushed and honestly very corny. like they're thirteen and fourteen years old they have so much time. i like the gaang a lot as a concept but the overwhelming feeling i was left with when the series was over was that the fallout of the war would be so significant it wouldn't realistically make sense to have them all in one place like there are so many things each of them would need or want to do. and ig bryke kinda acknowledged that like the gaang did have some individual gigs. but it all felt so tame. katara was potentially the most radical member of the gaang i really do not think she would have ended the war being in some honeymoon phase she would have been ready to get working on uprooting all of the bad and where they'd found it and aggressively reconstructing the society she worked so hard to try to save. but also on the most simplest note i could leave here i genuinely think every avatar character needed therapy / soul searching more than they did romance by the end of the series so ig this is my very roundabout way of saying that..

[colorfuldreamsmkg]

Duck, Duck, Swan | Swan Song | 1.1 | ATTN: Lau Fei, Crimson

How odd. His hands come up to scratch at his neck, frowning slightly at the bared skin.

His scarf. He missed the comfort of a noose around his neck. 

When he was embarrassed, or considering what to say, he had a habit of burying his face away into the fabric to get his bearings. His scarf, a gift from his step-father, or so he liked to tell people, because really, it wasn’t all that sentimental. Just a whimsical purchase he threw on his performing outfit, but he liked people to think it had more meaning that it did, that he had more meaning than he did, more sentimentality than his existence really had to offer.

And now that pure white cotton lie had been stained red with a life he failed to save. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to wear that scarf again. Not even if he bleached it to frays and strands would he ever don it again. He’d never wanted to bury his face away more than he did now, an unspoken apology caught between gritted teeth. He’s sorry he couldn’t save her. He’s sorry how little his efforts amounted to. He’s sorry she’s gone, and all he could do was watch.

But he’s a showman at the end of the day, and there’s a performance to put on. So those gritted teeth grin and bear it instead.

“Well then.” Allow him to cut in, why don’t you? He might not have much at all to say, but bend your ear for a second, if you please. He won’t say anything too controversial or upsetting - just the facts.

“I’d like to start out with clearing mine, Lau Fei, and Crimson’s names. Lau Fei and I were together the whole time, and we were also with Crimson in the orchestra room with Dahlia up until around…” He clicks his tongue, waving a hand vaguely. He hadn’t been paying attention to the time in the slightest. Maybe Lau Fei or Crimson could fill in some blanks for him. “Anyways. We were in the room together, all four of us, when Dahlia disappeared. Disappeared, not left. That means Dahlia had to have to gone into a fear zone or a SEKAI. And considering I didn’t see her with her phone out…Well. I won’t sully the topic with opinions just yet. But I’m willing to place my life savings on knowing exactly which of the two she went to. Don’t get too excited, though. It’s only three dollars and some change.”

Did he have to this now? Of all times? Believe him, he’s the one asking the questions right now.

His arms fold across his chest, fingers tapping against a forearm. Want to know a secret? He had been somewhere else entirely during the investigation. Physically, he moved with the others, but internally, he was somewhere so far away, he didn’t have a prayer of being reached. The performance took over. The show had already started. So a piece of him regulated itself to a member of an unseen audience, eyes screwing shut, hands clasped over their ears, refusing to acknowledge the reality.

And that piece of him was still tucked away on a shelf. Preserved so perfectly. While every other iteration of who he was, who he had been, and who he will be were trusted to carry things out from here, he would close his eyes and remember. Remember this was happening, because like hell he could forget, remember and feel such shame at his own cowardice.

When he spoke again, it was in a voice so unfamiliar to his own ears, the words clumsy and stale on his tongue. He wasn’t used to being the one speaking. Stars above, he was a performer for fuck’s sake. Pull it together.

“We also were in the orchestra room when she came back.” His voice sunk an octave. “All three of us. None of us left from the time she disappeared to the time she came back.” So none of them could have possibly been the one to do this. He hopes that’s enough to convince others of their lack of involvement. He hopes, and yet…His gaze drifts somewhere entirely too far away.

He hadn’t known Dahlia all that well, but she deserved better. Much better. He’s sorry this was all of him you would get.

“Lau Fei, Crimson, and I watched her fall.” Such an unpleasant memory. The words like ash against his tongue, burning cinder. “So all three of us can attest to the fact that she was definitely injured prior to that. Likely after she went into a fear zone or SEKAI. She was completely fine before disappearing from the orchestra room.”

His own voice resonates with a weight that’s entirely unfamiliar. It burdens his tongue like lead. It’s hard to speak. The syllables gunk up his airways. He blinks, too quickly to be natural. He’s just sorry.

He’s a performer. He’s a performer. He snaps back to it with a light thumping to the side of his head with his fist, facing the rest of the trial-goers with a sheepish smile. “Apologies. Allow me to continue.” If he can just say this much, maybe he won’t have to speak on this anymore. Maybe he could sink somewhere within himself - after this, he doesn’t know how much faith he has in the water anymore.

“I was thinking, it might be good to get everybody’s alibis out on the table, no? Before we get too caught up in details.”

Let him duck his head away for a spell.

[jazstudios]

i think i might be just. actively- (whatever the present tense of derealization is) lol

starting to actually dawn on me that this is the only one life we'll (probably) have. the delusions ive been having are dying and im only left to quake at the sight of reality on the horizon and the fact i am so severely underprepared for everything lmao.

ive got the basic outlines out though, basically "work to give my family a good life" to make up for having to put up with me and my mistakes all throughout the years

basically- amount of shitty things they've had to put up with me because of me = the amount of good and joy they'll have in life which im gonna fight tooth and nail to give them. of course i aspire to give them even more yk, but this is the base minimum lmao. tho atp in time even that much is an uphill battle. lol

nothing feels real. right now. and aside from parents doing their normal fighting and one (mom lol) threatening to divorce/run away cuz she for some reason thinks dad cheated on her lmao?

dont worry, he didnt actually lol. this sounds like mad coping, but im being sincere when i say this lol

at first i thought it would actually kill me. ya know. this whole thing? not knowing if that day will the be the last straw for her? if that's the day when my family falls apart? then that thinking leads to "ohh but ur childhood is just a flowery experience that existed solely to you! the experience was entirely different for your family and they maybe dont even look back on those years as fondly as you do! your being delusional again, stop it" then it spirals from there lmao

ugh. idk how to phrase it lmao. this fight thing has been going for months, ya know. since like the start of this year. i hate it but what can ya do, when life gives u lemons? u shove the up ur eyeball🍋 yargg. yah

slight silver lining that came out of this though is that im getting a daily reminder that nothing in life is permanent, even your family! and that hey. sometimes love *isn't* enough. and that hey. vulnerability is scary. too scary. you can't ever trust someone with any of that, you'll never fully know someone. acknowledging your loved ones are their own people is acknowledging they can do as they please and that includes them leaving you. i say to myself this won't impact how i interact with love for the rest of my life, and it might not. it also, might. but eh whose to say

it's scary to think about. parents on the news always say they never could've guessed their kids are capable of let's say- murder, ya? they can never guess it. they don't know. no one does, i dont, you dont. you dont know if your tomorrow your mother will do something truly heinous that'll impact you negatively for the rest of your life. maybe, she doesn't mean for it to. maybe she had no choice. but, that doesn't really do much to change the effect it had on ur life yeah?

it's dumb. love will never be enough on it's own without action to back it up, but what if love is all you have? what if it's all you can give? what if holding out your heart to them, begging and pleading for them to not leave you, to please love you again, isn't enough? .

i dont know the answer. if you find out, hmu lmao.

but. idk even if i know this, i follow the same logic that damned me from the beginning. i do smth else that isn't what i know would be better for me in the long run.

long run plan: emotionally distance, i'll still be present, i'll still be hurt, but i wont die. at least. i think?

short term aka now: ive always been too emotional. too loose with my feelings, too easily attached. it sounds like im fucking flexing right now lmao but i swear im not trying to lmao. regard this whole bit with a "/derogatory" lol. i hate it. it's always lead me to make horrible horrible decisions, chase the wrong things, make nothing of myself.

it's hurt me so much but it's also the only comfort i have sometimes. comfort in fictional characters, they aren't real, but i love them. art, fantasy, anything else that isn't whats happening to me right now. ill probably like it.

it took me a while to realize how much of a stupid fucking cycle it is. how much of an addiction it is, essentially. but it's so hard to make the first fucking step forward. i easily imagine how i want to be and such, but again, delusions. lol

in my head. sometimes no time passes. sometimes stuff isn't real. sometimes technoblade didn't die (his always had a shit upload schedule lmao so it's easy, sometimes.). sometimes, i imagine, i can be myself but, better. what i imagine "a lover, artist" but someone you'd actually want to be around. ya know? not awkward. not distant. just, something that isn't me right now

sometimes i imagine i can stay how i picture it. happy, innocent, lovely and emotional. kind and friendly. i always liked pacifist route frisk who found a solution to everything, because of this lmao. even if it was impossible, instead of just accepting it gracefully and letting it remain memory of the past, sometimes i imagine getting ugly about it. barefist fighting against reality, fighting time. fighting the world. and sometimes, i imagine. it actually makes a difference. that it wasn't pointless

i don't know. im losing myself but i dont know if ive ever even knew who i was. was i ever anything more than failed expectations and concepts? i dont know. youd ask any of my old classmates who i am, and if they remember me, they might be able to tell you something. if you asked me, id have answer. a mistake, in all functionality of the word. not stretching, not dramatizing, quiet literally a bastard child and ive thought over it for months and i can safely say, if i was never conceived, that my family (tho they never would've been together) would be so, so happy in life

one half of me tears apart at this, they'd be so much happier right? but the other is the somber truth-ish that realizes the futility of it all. there'd be no point in killing myself tomorrow, ive already existed. ive already made marks and my death will have it's consequences. if i really want to repent for the sin of being born, then i should work myself to death for them. as an apology. (funny how they might not even stay together lmao, ah well i can just wire money to diff places ig if they move away lol) then after the last member of my direct family dies, i can just go find some random ditch and off myself lmao. i dont know. when I was like 12 i always planned to kill myself by 30 yk? death scared me, if god doesn't exist then where will my parents go? (i didn't really care about me lmao. im scared of the passage of time, but i welcome my eternal damnation with open arms lol) idk. aethiesm scared me. cause at that point (still do, mostly) i didnt believe in god per say. but then, there came the mortal issue, how to deal with death? at the time, i just thought that religion stemmed from the human fear of death. so people made up a god to comfort themself. i didn't blame them, how could you? reality hurts. it kills. i wish i could believe like they do. but i dont

eh whatever, i just dont think about it much. i cant picture a time where my parents will die. that they wont be there. i can see id probably spiral trying to cope, maybe die from alcoholism or smth else lol. but at point in time, it might sound a bit bad to say but once my first family member dies, i kind of hope the others follow soon. so i dont have to stick around either. typing this now, it makes me think, and thinking makes me want to claw my heart out of my chest but i dont have the capacity to feel much right now. it's like it's all blocked or heavily fogged up lol

it's hard. to remember other people. are real, ya know? is that weird to say? probably. time passes without you knowing it, i don't know. i have a lot i want to say but it's pretty much impossible to even pick out a string of words to start with

i don't know. ive loved people sure, but they're usually my friends lmao. im never sure if i really truly love them or if i just like the idea of them i have in my mind. ive loved in specific, for maybe like 2 years now lmao? not sure. there's the, do i actually like her enough to confess and risk our friendship? if i say no, is it because i dont actually like her or just cuz im 'shy' (lol)?

sometimes i imagine, idk that we lived close to each other or something, that i actually know who you are in real life, i imagine then id probably be able to distructure or solidify my, currently just random disconnected fluffy bits, of feelings lmao. idk. i love you, yeah i can say that with confidence

but is it romantic? what even is romantic love? isn't romantic love, just platonic love with extra steps? do i insist on it because i truly want to be actively in love with you or is it just the kind of love that will have to be satiated by knowing the subject of affection (in this case you lmao) is living a happy life? even if you did actually say yes, would i be able to meet the image of a 'healthy relationship' in my head? that takes communication, that takes work, i imagine i can do it but reality says otherwise lmao. idk. i love you enough to not want to do something that shitty to you. i want you to be happy, i want for you to be happy and secure and confident in your existence. i never want to see you where i am right now lmao, but i can't exactly stop it either way. it's a human experience i guess? and that's not even counting the "holy shit your being so parasocial and weird ew" i assure you the voice in my head abt this is plenty lmao.

but yeah. i love you. i'd send you flowers or even my heart if you wanted, i dont know if im joking but i dont know if i actually mean it, in the sense i dont know if im feeling the emotions i think i should be when saying something like that. i want my words to count for something, but how do i do that when i spend all my breathe trying to make up for my lack of action lmao.

but yeah, pretty much takeaway, i love you. now that i know you exist in the world, somewhere out there i dont know if i could go back to before i knew about you lol. i don't know if it's romantic or platonic, i don't know if i should pursue it or let it fade. but if you asked me take my last breathe then mail you my lungs, i probably would - let's half the shipping costs tho lmao. if you asked me to do something horrible and went against my entire sense of self, i also probably would. i dont know. the idea of it being for someone i love calms the possible thoughts of anxiety lmao. if you asked me to write you endless poetry, i probably would too, not saying it'd be good ofc but well, lol.

i'll be here, as long as you stick around. even if the day comes, you do move on with your life and this blog gets abandoned, ill still be here probably, just missing you a whole lot.

everything's confusing. everyday's its own battle and all it takes is one loss, lol.

ah well, i'll live my life loving you, i think ill be happy at least, having said this much

i love you a lot jaz, wholeheartedly i do

this entire ask is weird, feel free to leave out and not answer anything you want. dont even have to answer this if you want. answer and publish it, toss it into the void. anything's fine, im sorry i told you all this lol. idk, charades and distance and reality can only be stiffling for so long before i lost it and do something impulsive like send you this lmao. i'm not looking for your pity or sympathy, don't worry abt that part lol/genuine/lighthearted

i just. needed an outlet. i guess. haphazardly thrown together as this ask is. this is already more than i could've ever asked lmao, being able to speak all this out into the world, somewhere, to someone. thats all really

i love you so much jaz. take care, even if not that then please live to see tomorrow. i hope you have so, so many wonderful tomorrow's ahead of you. i love you

i settle with thinking about how our hypothetical relationship would probably all up burst in flames because of me LMAO. it's fun to think about. i love you, ill be here for you. im sorry im telling you all this

im severely aware of how unwarranted, weird, parasocial, delusional and arguably cruel this whole thing is. im pretty much objectifying you, i wish i knew you but that's another thing that's probably gotta have to stay in the "keep delusions inside till they die" room lol. im sorry. for all this.

i love you, im sorry i keep saying it lmao, it gets annoying and this whole thing is already bothersome enough as is. this whole thing isn't me trying to guilt trip you or anything btw, sincerely i apologize if it does come off that way.

i always said to myself "you can't claim to truly love someone, if your willing to let their wellbeing rely on risk." pretty much risking how negative this might impact your mind or mood, im sorry. im a hypocrite. i really do truly love you, i dont know why im telling you all this, im sorry jaz, i love you

please live a life you won't regret in the end, im sorry for asking you something like this.

thank you for existing in the same period as me, it's already a chance in a million. thanks also for having the anon option in your tumblr lmao, i probably would've never said any of this to you. im sorry i did, again, btw.

i love you sincerely, jaz. that much i can say, and i know ill have been honest with myself

i love you so so very much

Anon I'm not a very good comforter for things like these, I don't have a way with words even though my favourite subject is English. But let me just say this, anon.

You are an incredibly talented person, you are special to the people who love you, you are beautiful, you are kind, and most of all, you are a very loving person. You're probably one of the most romantic people I know, anon! I love your poetry, I love your use of words. I love the asks you send me every now and then and they make me extremely happy. You are worth it.

I love you anon. I love you in a way that my mom slices apples for me to eat, I love you in a way that my cousins play Roblox with me. I love you, even if it was platonic or romantic. I love you. Saying it won't mean that you're in love with them instantly, no! It's just- we love.

I wish I lived near you as well, wherever you may be. Or whoever you may be. It's okay if you won't reveal yourself, that's alright with me. As long as you are alive and well, as long as you take care of yourself, as long as you're safe- that's enough for me, anon. You love so much, and I consume all of the things you write to me, the things you say. Because I love them, because I love you.

Please be safe, take care, I love you, anon

[kavrillia]

Titles. Ugh.

I've always hated coming up with titles. The first story arc I wrote in the Kavrilliaverse was originally called "Legacy," and the second arc "Heritage." They definitely fit the themes but weren't exciting or original.

After I added a third arc that took place before the other two and kind of mushed it all together into a single novel, I started referring to the whole thing as "Heritage" and gave each part its own title. (Part "zero" became "Passing of the Peacemaker," Legacy became "Vincaran Vendetta," and the original second arc became "Abandonment and Betrayal," "The Battle is Joined," and "Borrowed Birthright." I'm not crazy about the "The Battle is Joined" and may change it someday.)

After awhile I figured I needed a more distinctive title, so I started calling it "Heritage in the Stars." It hinted at the forces of destiny at work (being "written in the stars",) but all it really meant was that the story was in a planet-hopping sci-fi-themed setting. (It's always had a more fantasy feel, but it was originally inspired by War of the Worlds, so space travel was baked into the setting.) Back when I had a personal website with a section for the Kavrilliaverse, I saw that most of the hits I got were from people searching for conspiracy theories about life on Earth being seeded by ancient aliens. Okay then! Not what I meant at all!

Since then I've revised the entire setting drastically, and now everything takes place on the planet Kavrillia. What used to be star systems are now islands and archipelagos. Although the technology level includes high speed rail and videoconferencing, flight has never been invented. Thus the "in the Stars" part is even less relevant than ever.

In my mind I alternate between calling it "Heritage" and "Kavrillia," but the latter term doesn't mean anything to anyone so it wouldn't make a good book title.

This summer I've been mulling over "Heritage of Empire." It abbreviates to H.O.E., which is unfortunate, but I kind of like it otherwise. (Maybe "The Heritage of Empire," for T.H.O.E.?) The existence and history of the Lanarian Empire drives a lot of the conflict in the story.

See, when I was fifteen and first brainstormed all this, I had only the vaguest idea of how problematic real life empires can be. I'm an American of northern European ancestry living in a predominantly white Midwestern community. Imperialism and colonialism were just words from history class. "Empire" and "Empress" sounded cooler and more mature to my ears than "Kingdom" and "Queen." When you're that age, the Rule of Cool is basically all that matters in your writing.

Even then I knew the Lanarian Empire having first contact with a different culture that was at a slight technological disadvantage and then subjugating them was Very Bad, of course, but I handled it clumsily and only on a surface level. (At the time I was more interested in the rift between the rich and poor, which is still a strong theme.)

In the years since I've realized the implications of all this, albeit still through an unavoidable lens of white privilege, and I've adjusted my writing accordingly. The Vincaran culture is a hundred times more fleshed out than it was to begin with, in some ways even more than the Lanarian culture (which, let's face it, is pretty Western with a veneer of fantasy over the top). I have Vincaran POV characters who (gasp!) aren't antagonists. I've also written Empress Vazali to be more self-aware of the fact that she's the figurehead of a political entity that has done some pretty horrible things in the past, and continues to benefit from it. Just as in real life, there are no easy answers, and I don't pretend to have anything profound to say about imperialism, but at least now I acknowledge the issues.

The fact that the Lanarian Empire is, well, an empire is a factor behind almost all the main plot threads:

The main character is the empress, and the power struggle with her brother is a major plot point. What makes a good, responsible ruler? (Hint: It's not strutting around in fancy outfits and ordering people to bring you snacks.) Vazali's arc is also about duty vs personal desires, and the difficulty of being an empathetic, compassionate person in a world that, well, isn't. Ruling an empire with a problematic past doesn't make that balance any easier to find.

Delzeena's early life of poverty isn't exactly due to the empire's existence, but the fact that a sizable chunk of the capital city's population is experiencing homelessness doesn't reflect well on the government.

Xorax's plot arc is a direct result of the empire's oppression. His people are scattered and downtrodden thanks for colonialism, and the fight for independence cost his grandfather his life, sparking the vendetta that controls Xorax's destiny. Sicara's arc, which is closely tied to his, is at least in part about preserving and celebrating their cultural and religious heritage.

Zadie and Abarok's story is tied to the empire's just because she's a military leader and he's a diplomat, but the conflict in their arc is over their relationship, his asexuality, and societal expectations vs. what works for them.

Zalani's is a more minor plot arc, but she's trying to navigate between the two cultures, as she sees good and bad in both. Should she try to bring the good (i.e. feminism) from Lanarian culture into her own, or abandon Vincaran culture to assimilate into the one who has oppressed her people but not her sex?

Still, the shadow of what the Lanarian Empire is and what it has done, for good or ill, looms over the entire story, so "Heritage of Empire" isn't a bad title. I'm not ready to make the switch officially, but it's something I've been mulling over.

[Edited 27 Aug 2023 to add: "Heritage and Empire" is another option. "HAE, how you doin'?"]

[qqueenofhades]

The Green Knight and Medieval Metatextuality: An Essay

Right, so. Finally watched it last night, and I’ve been thinking about it literally ever since, except for the part where I was asleep. As I said to fellow medievalist and admirer of Dev Patel @oldshrewsburyian, it’s possibly the most fascinating piece of medieval-inspired media that I’ve seen in ages, and how refreshing to have something in this genre that actually rewards critical thought and deep analysis, rather than me just fulminating fruitlessly about how popular media thinks that slapping blood, filth, and misogyny onto some swords and castles is “historically accurate.” I read a review of TGK somewhere that described it as the anti-Game of Thrones, and I’m inclined to think that’s accurate. I didn’t agree with all of the film’s tonal, thematic, or interpretative choices, but I found them consistently stylish, compelling, and subversive in ways both small and large, and I’m gonna have to write about it or I’ll go crazy. So. Brace yourselves.

(Note: My PhD is in medieval history, not medieval literature, and I haven’t worked on SGGK specifically, but I am familiar with it, its general cultural context, and the historical influences, images, and debates that both the poem and the film referenced and drew upon, so that’s where this meta is coming from.)

First, obviously, while the film is not a straight-up text-to-screen version of the poem (though it is by and large relatively faithful), it is a multi-layered meta-text that comments on the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the archetypes of chivalric literature as a whole, modern expectations for medieval films, the hero’s journey, the requirements of being an “honorable knight,” and the nature of death, fate, magic, and religion, just to name a few. Given that the Arthurian legendarium, otherwise known as the Matter of Britain, was written and rewritten over several centuries by countless authors, drawing on and changing and hybridizing interpretations that sometimes challenged or outright contradicted earlier versions, it makes sense for the film to chart its own path and make its own adaptational decisions as part of this multivalent, multivocal literary canon. Sir Gawain himself is a canonically and textually inconsistent figure; in the movie, the characters merrily pronounce his name in several different ways, most notably as Sean Harris/King Arthur’s somewhat inexplicable “Garr-win.” He might be a man without a consistent identity, but that’s pointed out within the film itself. What has he done to define himself, aside from being the king’s nephew? Is his quixotic quest for the Green Knight actually going to resolve the question of his identity and his honor – and if so, is it even going to matter, given that successful completion of the “game” seemingly equates with death?

Likewise, as the anti-Game of Thrones, the film is deliberately and sometimes maddeningly non-commercial. For an adaptation coming from a studio known primarily for horror, it almost completely eschews the cliché that gory bloodshed equals authentic medievalism; the only graphic scene is the Green Knight’s original beheading. The violence is only hinted at, subtextual, suspenseful; it is kept out of sight, around the corner, never entirely played out or resolved. In other words, if anyone came in thinking that they were going to watch Dev Patel luridly swashbuckle his way through some CGI monsters like bad Beowulf adaptations of yore, they were swiftly disappointed. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time being wet, sad, and failing to meet the moment at hand (with a few important exceptions).

The film unhurriedly evokes a medieval setting that is both surreal and defiantly non-historical. We travel (in roughly chronological order) from Anglo-Saxon huts to Romanesque halls to high-Gothic cathedrals to Tudor villages and half-timbered houses, culminating in the eerie neo-Renaissance splendor of the Lord and Lady’s hall, before returning to the ancient trees of the Green Chapel and its immortal occupant: everything that has come before has now returned to dust. We have been removed even from imagined time and place and into a moment where it ceases to function altogether. We move forward, backward, and sideways, as Gawain experiences past, present, and future in unison. He is dislocated from his own sense of himself, just as we, the viewers, are dislocated from our sense of what is the “true” reality or filmic narrative; what we think is real turns out not to be the case at all. If, of course, such a thing even exists at all.

This visual evocation of the entire medieval era also creates a setting that, unlike GOT, takes pride in rejecting absolutely all political context or Machiavellian maneuvering. The film acknowledges its own cultural ubiquity and the question of whether we really need yet another King Arthur adaptation: none of the characters aside from Gawain himself are credited by name. We all know it’s Arthur, but he’s listed only as “king.” We know the spooky druid-like old man with the white beard is Merlin, but it’s never required to spell it out. The film gestures at our pre-existing understanding; it relies on us to fill in the gaps, cuing us to collaboratively produce the story with it, positioning us as listeners as if we were gathered to hear the original poem. Just like fanfiction, it knows that it doesn’t need to waste time introducing every single character or filling in ultimately unnecessary background knowledge, when the audience can be relied upon to bring their own.

As for that, the film explicitly frames itself as a “filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance” in its opening credits, and continues to play with textual referents and cues throughout: telling us where we are, what’s happening, or what’s coming next, rather like the rubrics or headings within a medieval manuscript. As noted, its historical/architectural references span the entire medieval European world, as does its costume design. I was particularly struck by the fact that Arthur and Guinevere’s crowns resemble those from illuminated monastic manuscripts or Eastern Orthodox iconography: they are both crown and halo, they confer an air of both secular kingship and religious sanctity. The question in the film’s imagined epilogue thus becomes one familiar to Shakespeare’s Henry V: heavy is the head that wears the crown. Does Gawain want to earn his uncle’s crown, take over his place as king, bear the fate of Camelot, become a great ruler, a husband and father in ways that even Arthur never did, only to see it all brought to dust by his cowardice, his reliance on unscrupulous sorcery, and his unfulfilled promise to the Green Knight? Is it better to have that entire life and then lose it, or to make the right choice now, even if it means death?

Likewise, Arthur’s kingly mantle is Byzantine in inspiration, as is the icon of the Virgin Mary-as-Theotokos painted on Gawain’s shield (which we see broken apart during the attack by the scavengers). The film only glances at its religious themes rather than harping on them explicitly; we do have the cliché scene of the male churchmen praying for Gawain’s safety, opposite Gawain’s mother and her female attendants working witchcraft to protect him. (When oh when will I get my film that treats medieval magic and medieval religion as the complementary and co-existing epistemological systems that they were, rather than portraying them as diametrically binary and disparagingly gendered opposites?) But despite the interim setbacks borne from the failure of Christian icons, the overall resolution of the film could serve as the culmination of a medieval Christian morality tale: Gawain can buy himself a great future in the short term if he relies on the protection of the enchanted green belt to avoid the Green Knight’s killing stroke, but then he will have to watch it all crumble until he is sitting alone in his own hall, his children dead and his kingdom destroyed, as a headless corpse who only now has been brave enough to accept his proper fate. By removing the belt from his person in the film’s Inception-like final scene, he relinquishes the taint of black magic and regains his religious honor, even at the likely cost of death. That, the medieval Christian morality tale would agree, is the correct course of action.

Gawain’s encounter with St. Winifred likewise presents a more subtle vision of medieval Christianity. Winifred was an eighth-century Welsh saint known for being beheaded, after which (by the power of another saint) her head was miraculously restored to her body and she went on to live a long and holy life. It doesn’t quite work that way in TGK. (St Winifred’s Well is mentioned in the original SGGK, but as far as I recall, Gawain doesn’t meet the saint in person.) In the film, Gawain encounters Winifred’s lifelike apparition, who begs him to dive into the mere and retrieve her head (despite appearances, she warns him, it is not attached to her body). This fits into the pattern of medieval ghost stories, where the dead often return to entreat the living to help them finish their business; they must be heeded, but when they are encountered in places they shouldn’t be, they must be put back into their proper physical space and reminded of their real fate. Gawain doesn’t follow William of Newburgh’s practical recommendation to just fetch some brawny young men with shovels to beat the wandering corpse back into its grave. Instead, in one of his few moments of unqualified heroism, he dives into the dark water and retrieves Winifred’s skull from the bottom of the lake. Then when he returns to the house, he finds the rest of her skeleton lying in the bed where he was earlier sleeping, and carefully reunites the skull with its body, finally allowing it to rest in peace.

However, Gawain’s involvement with Winifred doesn’t end there. The fox that he sees on the bank after emerging with her skull, who then accompanies him for the rest of the film, is strongly implied to be her spirit, or at least a companion that she has sent for him. Gawain has handled a saint’s holy bones; her relics, which were well known to grant protection in the medieval world. He has done the saint a service, and in return, she extends her favor to him. At the end of the film, the fox finally speaks in a human voice, warning him not to proceed to the fateful final encounter with the Green Knight; it will mean his death. The symbolism of having a beheaded saint serve as Gawain’s guide and protector is obvious, since it is the fate that may or may not lie in store for him. As I said, the ending is Inception-like in that it steadfastly refuses to tell you if the hero is alive (or will live) or dead (or will die). In the original SGGK, of course, the Green Knight and the Lord turn out to be the same person, Gawain survives, it was all just a test of chivalric will and honor, and a trap put together by Morgan Le Fay in an attempt to frighten Guinevere. It’s essentially able to be laughed off: a game, an adventure, not real. TGK takes this paradigm and flips it (to speak…) on its head.

Gawain’s rescue of Winifred’s head also rewards him in more immediate terms: his/the Green Knight’s axe, stolen by the scavengers, is miraculously restored to him in her cottage, immediately and concretely demonstrating the virtue of his actions. This is one of the points where the film most stubbornly resists modern storytelling conventions: it simply refuses to add in any kind of “rational” or “empirical” explanation of how else it got there, aside from the grace and intercession of the saint. This is indeed how it works in medieval hagiography: things simply reappear, are returned, reattached, repaired, made whole again, and Gawain’s lost weapon is thus restored, symbolizing that he has passed the test and is worthy to continue with the quest. The film’s narrative is not modernizing its underlying medieval logic here, and it doesn’t particularly care if a modern audience finds it “convincing” or not. As noted, the film never makes any attempt to temporalize or localize itself; it exists in a determinedly surrealist and ahistorical landscape, where naked female giants who look suspiciously like Tilda Swinton roam across the wild with no necessary explanation. While this might be frustrating for some people, I actually found it a huge relief that a clearly fantastic and fictional literary adaptation was not acting like it was qualified to teach “real history” to its audience. Nobody would come out of TGK thinking that they had seen the “actual” medieval world, and since we have enough of a problem with that sort of thing thanks to GOT, I for one welcome the creation of a medieval imaginative space that embraces its eccentric and unrealistic elements, rather than trying to fit them into the Real Life box.

This plays into the fact that the film, like a reused medieval manuscript containing more than one text, is a palimpsest: for one, it audaciously rewrites the entire Arthurian canon in the wordless vision of Gawain’s life after escaping the Green Knight (I could write another meta on that dream-epilogue alone). It moves fluidly through time and creates alternate universes in at least two major points: one, the scene where Gawain is tied up and abandoned by the scavengers and that long circling shot reveals his skeletal corpse rotting on the sward, only to return to our original universe as Gawain decides that he doesn’t want that fate, and two, Gawain as King. In this alternate ending, Arthur doesn’t die in battle with Mordred, but peaceably in bed, having anointed his worthy nephew as his heir. Gawain becomes king, has children, gets married, governs Camelot, becomes a ruler surpassing even Arthur, but then watches his son get killed in battle, his subjects turn on him, and his family vanish into the dust of his broken hall before he himself, in despair, pulls the enchanted scarf out of his clothing and succumbs to his fate.

In this version, Gawain takes on the responsibility for the fall of Camelot, not Arthur. This is the hero’s burden, but he’s obtained it dishonorably, by cheating. It is a vivid but mimetic future which Gawain (to all appearances) ultimately rejects, returning the film to the realm of traditional Arthurian canon – but not quite. After all, if Gawain does get beheaded after that final fade to black, it would represent a significant alteration from the poem and the character’s usual arc. Are we back in traditional canon or aren’t we? Did Gawain reject that future or didn’t he? Do all these alterities still exist within the visual medium of the meta-text, and have any of them been definitely foreclosed?

Furthermore, the film interrogates itself and its own tropes in explicit and overt ways. In Gawain’s conversation with the Lord, the Lord poses the question that many members of the audience might have: is Gawain going to carry out this potentially pointless and suicidal quest and then be an honorable hero, just like that? What is he actually getting by staggering through assorted Irish bogs and seeming to reject, rather than embrace, the paradigms of a proper quest and that of an honorable knight? He lies about being a knight to the scavengers, clearly out of fear, and ends up cravenly bound and robbed rather than fighting back. He denies knowing anything about love to the Lady (played by Alicia Vikander, who also plays his lover at the start of the film with a decidedly ropey Yorkshire accent, sorry to say). He seems to shrink from the responsibility thrust on him, rather than rise to meet it (his only honorable act, retrieving Winifred’s head, is discussed above) and yet here he still is, plugging away. Why is he doing this? What does he really stand to gain, other than accepting a choice and its consequences (somewhat?) The film raises these questions, but it has no plans to answer them. It’s going to leave you to think about them for yourself, and it isn’t going to spoon-feed you any ultimate moral or neat resolution. In this interchange, it’s easy to see both the echoes of a formal dialogue between two speakers (a favored medieval didactic tactic) and the broader purpose of chivalric literature: to interrogate what it actually means to be a knight, how personal honor is generated, acquired, and increased, and whether engaging in these pointless and bloody “war games” is actually any kind of real path to lasting glory.

The film’s treatment of race, gender, and queerness obviously also merits comment. By casting Dev Patel, an Indian-born actor, as an Arthurian hero, the film is… actually being quite accurate to the original legends, doubtless much to the disappointment of assorted internet racists. The thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Parzival (Percival) by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach notably features the character of Percival’s mixed-race half-brother, Feirefiz, son of their father by his first marriage to a Muslim princess. Feirefiz is just as heroic as Percival (Gawaine, for the record, also plays a major role in the story) and assists in the quest for the Holy Grail, though it takes his conversion to Christianity for him to properly behold it.

By introducing Patel (and Sarita Chowdhury as Morgause) to the visual representation of Arthuriana, the film quietly does away with the “white Middle Ages” cliché that I have complained about ad nauseam; we see background Asian and black members of Camelot, who just exist there without having to conjure up some complicated rationale to explain their presence. The Lady also uses a camera obscura to make Gawain’s portrait. Contrary to those who might howl about anachronism, this technique was known in China as early as the fourth century BCE and the tenth/eleventh century Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham was probably the best-known medieval authority to write on it extensively; Latin translations of his work inspired European scientists from Roger Bacon to Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from the symbolism of an upside-down Gawain (and when he sees the portrait again during the ‘fall of Camelot’, it is right-side-up, representing that Gawain himself is in an upside-down world), this presents a subtle challenge to the prevailing Eurocentric imagination of the medieval world, and draws on other global influences.

As for gender, we have briefly touched on it above; in the original SGGK, Gawain’s entire journey is revealed to be just a cruel trick of Morgan Le Fay, simply trying to destabilize Arthur’s court and upset his queen. (Morgan is the old blindfolded woman who appears in the Lord and Lady’s castle and briefly approaches Gawain, but her identity is never explicitly spelled out.) This is, obviously, an implicitly misogynistic setup: an evil woman plays a trick on honorable men for the purpose of upsetting another woman, the honorable men overcome it, the hero survives, and everyone presumably lives happily ever after (at least until Mordred arrives).

Instead, by plunging the outcome into doubt and the hero into a much darker and more fallible moral universe, TGK shifts the blame for Gawain’s adventure and ultimate fate from Morgan to Gawain himself. Likewise, Guinevere is not the passive recipient of an evil deception but in a way, the catalyst for the whole thing. She breaks the seal on the Green Knight’s message with a weighty snap; she becomes the oracle who reads it out, she is alarming rather than alarmed, she disrupts the complacency of the court and silently shows up all the other knights who refuse to step forward and answer the Green Knight’s challenge. Gawain is not given the ontological reassurance that it’s just a practical joke and he’s going to be fine (and thanks to the unresolved ending, neither are we). The film instead takes the concept at face value in order to push the envelope and ask the simple question: if a man was going to be actually-for-real beheaded in a year, why would he set out on a suicidal quest? Would you, in Gawain’s place, make the same decision to cast aside the enchanted belt and accept your fate? Has he made his name, will he be remembered well? What is his legacy?

Indeed, if there is any hint of feminine connivance and manipulation, it arrives in the form of the implication that Gawain’s mother has deliberately summoned the Green Knight to test her son, prove his worth, and position him as his childless uncle’s heir; she gives him the protective belt to make sure he won’t actually die, and her intention all along was for the future shown in the epilogue to truly play out (minus the collapse of Camelot). Only Gawain loses the belt thanks to his cowardice in the encounter with the scavengers, regains it in a somewhat underhanded and morally questionable way when the Lady is attempting to seduce him, and by ultimately rejecting it altogether and submitting to his uncertain fate, totally mucks up his mother’s painstaking dynastic plans for his future. In this reading, Gawain could be king, and his mother’s efforts are meant to achieve that goal, rather than thwart it. He is thus required to shoulder his own responsibility for this outcome, rather than conveniently pawning it off on an “evil woman,” and by extension, the film asks the question: What would the world be like if men, especially those who make war on others as a way of life, were actually forced to face the consequences of their reckless and violent actions? Is it actually a “game” in any sense of the word, especially when chivalric literature is constantly preoccupied with the question of how much glorious violence is too much glorious violence? If you structure social prestige for the king and the noble male elite entirely around winning battles and existing in a state of perpetual war, when does that begin to backfire and devour the knightly class – and the rest of society – instead?

This leads into the central theme of Gawain’s relationships with the Lord and Lady, and how they’re treated in the film. The poem has been repeatedly studied in terms of its latent (and sometimes… less than latent) queer subtext: when the Lord asks Gawain to pay back to him whatever he should receive from his wife, does he already know what this involves; i.e. a physical and romantic encounter? When the Lady gives kisses to Gawain, which he is then obliged to return to the Lord as a condition of the agreement, is this all part of a dastardly plot to seduce him into a kinky green-themed threesome with a probably-not-human married couple looking to spice up their sex life? Why do we read the Lady’s kisses to Gawain as romantic but Gawain’s kisses to the Lord as filial, fraternal, or the standard “kiss of peace” exchanged between a liege lord and his vassal? Is Gawain simply being a dutiful guest by honoring the bargain with his host, actually just kissing the Lady again via the proxy of her husband, or somewhat more into this whole thing with the Lord than he (or the poet) would like to admit? Is the homosocial turning homoerotic, and how is Gawain going to navigate this tension and temptation?

If the question is never resolved: well, welcome to one of the central medieval anxieties about chivalry, knighthood, and male bonds! As I have written about before, medieval society needed to simultaneously exalt this as the most honored and noble form of love, and make sure it didn’t accidentally turn sexual (once again: how much male love is too much male love?). Does the poem raise the possibility of serious disruption to the dominant heteronormative paradigm, only to solve the problem by interpreting the Gawain/Lady male/female kisses as romantic and sexual and the Gawain/Lord male/male kisses as chaste and formal? In other words, acknowledging the underlying anxiety of possible homoeroticism but ultimately reasserting the heterosexual norm? The answer: Probably?!?! Maybe?!?! Hell if we know??! To say the least, this has been argued over to no end, and if you locked a lot of medieval history/literature scholars into a room and told them that they couldn’t come out until they decided on one clear answer, they would be in there for a very long time. The poem seemingly invokes the possibility of a queer reading only to reject it – but once again, as in the question of which canon we end up in at the film’s end, does it?

In some lights, the film’s treatment of this potential queer reading comes off like a cop-out: there is only one kiss between Gawain and the Lord, and it is something that the Lord has to initiate after Gawain has already fled the hall. Gawain himself appears to reject it; he tells the Lord to let go of him and runs off into the wilderness, rather than deal with or accept whatever has been suggested to him. However, this fits with film!Gawain’s pattern of rejecting that which fundamentally makes him who he is; like Peter in the Bible, he has now denied the truth three times. With the scavengers he denies being a knight; with the Lady he denies knowing about courtly love; with the Lord he denies the central bond of brotherhood with his fellows, whether homosocial or homoerotic in nature. I would go so far as to argue that if Gawain does die at the end of the film, it is this rejected kiss which truly seals his fate. In the poem, the Lord and the Green Knight are revealed to be the same person; in the film, it’s not clear if that’s the case, or they are separate characters, even if thematically interrelated. If we assume, however, that the Lord is in fact still the human form of the Green Knight, then Gawain has rejected both his kiss of peace (the standard gesture of protection offered from lord to vassal) and any deeper emotional bond that it can be read to signify. The Green Knight could decide to spare Gawain in recognition of the courage he has shown in relinquishing the enchanted belt – or he could just as easily decide to kill him, which he is legally free to do since Gawain has symbolically rejected the offer of brotherhood, vassalage, or knight-bonding by his unwise denial of the Lord’s freely given kiss. Once again, the film raises the overall thematic and moral question and then doesn’t give one straight (ahem) answer. As with the medieval anxieties and chivalric texts that it is based on, it invokes the specter of queerness and then doesn’t neatly resolve it. As a modern audience, we find this unsatisfying, but once again, the film is refusing to conform to our expectations.

As has been said before, there is so much kissing between men in medieval contexts, both ceremonial and otherwise, that we’re left to wonder: “is it gay or is it feudalism?” Is there an overtly erotic element in Gawain and the Green Knight’s mutual “beheading” of each other (especially since in the original version, this frees the Lord from his curse, functioning like a true love’s kiss in a fairytale). While it is certainly possible to argue that the film has “straightwashed” its subject material by removing the entire sequence of kisses between Gawain and the Lord and the unresolved motives for their existence, it is a fairly accurate, if condensed, representation of the anxieties around medieval knightly bonds and whether, as Carolyn Dinshaw put it, a (male/male) “kiss is just a kiss.” After all, the kiss between Gawain and the Lady is uncomplicatedly read as sexual/romantic, and that context doesn’t go away when Gawain is kissing the Lord instead. Just as with its multiple futurities, the film leaves the question open-ended. Is it that third and final denial that seals Gawain’s fate, and if so, is it asking us to reflect on why, specifically, he does so?

The film could play with both this question and its overall tone quite a bit more: it sometimes comes off as a grim, wooden, over-directed Shakespearean tragedy, rather than incorporating the lively and irreverent tone that the poem often takes. It’s almost totally devoid of humor, which is unfortunate, and the Grim Middle Ages aesthetic is in definite evidence. Nonetheless, because of the comprehensive de-historicizing and the obvious lack of effort to claim the film as any sort of authentic representation of the medieval past, it works. We are not meant to understand this as a historical document, and so we have to treat it on its terms, by its own logic, and by its own frames of reference. In some ways, its consistent opacity and its refusal to abide by modern rules and common narrative conventions is deliberately meant to challenge us: as before, when we recognize Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, and the other stock characters because we know them already and not because the film tells us so, we have to fill in the gaps ourselves. We are watching the film not because it tells us a simple adventure story – there is, as noted, shockingly little action overall – but because we have to piece together the metatext independently and ponder the philosophical questions that it leaves us with. What conclusion do we reach? What canon do we settle in? What future or resolution is ultimately made real? That, the film says, it can’t decide for us. As ever, it is up to future generations to carry on the story, and decide how, if at all, it is going to survive.

(And to close, I desperately want them to make my much-coveted Bisclavret adaptation now in more or less the same style, albeit with some tweaks. Please.)

Further Reading

Ailes, Marianne J. ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. by Dawn M. Hadley (Harlow: Longman, 1999), pp. 214–37.

Ashton, Gail. ‘The Perverse Dynamics of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 15 (2005), 51–74.

Boyd, David L. ‘Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 8 (1998), 77–113.

Busse, Peter. ‘The Poet as Spouse of his Patron: Homoerotic Love in Medieval Welsh and Irish Poetry?’, Studi Celtici 2 (2003), 175–92.

Dinshaw, Carolyn. ‘A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Diacritics 24 (1994), 205–226.

Kocher, Suzanne. ‘Gay Knights in Medieval French Fiction: Constructs of Queerness and Non-Transgression’, Mediaevalia 29 (2008), 51–66.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 273–86.

Kuefler, Matthew. ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179–214.

McVitty, E. Amanda, ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. ‘The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 21–51.

Moss, Rachel E. ‘ “And much more I am soryat for my good knyghts’ ”: Fainting, Homosociality, and Elite Male Culture in Middle English Romance’, Historical Reflections / Réflexions historiques 42 (2016), 101–13.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. ‘Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes’, College English 65 (2002), 67–80.