#the others treat her as just another member of the cadre and a bit of a lucky charm but clover still feels a little out of place

[flambo19]

Felt like doodling some Clover

[jayoctodot]

The Silent Patient vs The Maidens

I will start by saying that I understand the appeal of these novels as page-turners. They are easy to read and if you want a twisty reveal at the end, you will probably be entertained and satisfied. That being said, I am SO CONFUSED by the near-universal adoration of The Silent Patient and the reasonably positive reception of The Maidens. The weaknesses of the two are strikingly similar, as well, which doesn’t give me much hope of seeing improvement from this guy, though I am intrigued to see whether he keeps repeating the same (apparently successful!!) patterns. These books were at least super fun to hate.

(For context, I read The Maidens for a bookclub I'm in, because several of the members had read and loved The Silent Patient, and one of them gave me a copy of the latter to read on my own time. I loathed The Maidens and then read The SP for comparative purposes. And because I'm a masochist, apparently.)

SPOILER WARNING! Do not read on unless you've finished both books (or unless you care not for spoilers). Sorry if it gets a bit shouty.

Here are the similar weaknesses I noticed in both:

PSEUDO-PSYCHOLOGY

-> Weirdly similar “group therapy” scenes early on where a cartoonishly unstable patient arrives late, disrupts the meeting by throwing something into the middle of the circle, and is asked to join the group after the therapist(s) speechify on the importance of boundaries (HA! None of these therapists would know an appropriate boundary if it kicked them in the ass) and debate whether to “allow” the patient to join. Both scenes are so transparent in their design to establish the credibility/legitimacy of the narrators as therapists, but instead both Theo and Mariana come off as super patronizing. The protagonists are less and less believable as therapists at the stories progress (though at least Theo’s incompetence is explained away by the “twist” at the end; Mariana, on the other hand, is confronted in the opening pages of the novel by a patient who has self-harmed PRETTY extensively, and rather than ensure he get proper medical attention, she essentially throws him a first aid kit and tosses him out the door so she can pour herself a glass of wine and call her niece... and it devolves from there).

-> Ongoing insistence throughout the narrative that one’s childhood trauma entirely explains the warped/dysfunctional way a character behaves or views the world, which is why the books go out of their way to give EVERY potentially violent character a traumatic childhood; when Theo insists that no one ever became an abuser who hadn’t been abused themselves, I wanted to throw the book across the room. (That is a MYTH, SIR. GET OUT OF HERE WITH YOUR ARMCHAIR PSYCHOLOGY.)

-> Female murderers whose pathology boils down to “history of depression” and “traumatized by a male loved one/family member.” Because, as we all know, depression + abuse = murderer!

-> The “therapy” depicted in both books is laughable and so so unrealistic, mostly because neither narrators function as therapists so much as incompetent detectives, obsessively pursuing a case they have no place pursuing (or skill to pursue - both just happen across every clue mostly by way of clunky conversation with all the people who can provide precisely the snippet of info to send them along to the next person, and the next… until all is revealed in a tired, cliched “twist”). Their constant Psych 101 asides were so tiresome and weirdly dated (also, the constant harping on countertransference got so ridiculous that at one point during "therapy" Theo literally attributes his headache and a particular emotion he feels to Alicia, as though the contents of her head are being broadcast directly into his mind... and I'm PRETTY SURE that's not how it works???)

CHARACTERS

-> Psychotherapist narrators with abusive fathers and pretensions of being Sherlock Holmes, which results in both characters crossing ALL KINDS of ethical lines as they invade the personal lives of everyone even tangentially connected to their cases (and, in Theo's case, violate all kinds of patient confidentiality. Yeah, yeah, by the end, that's the least of his offenses, but before you get there, it's baffling that NO ONE is calling him out on this).

-> All female characters are either elderly with hilariously bad advice, monstrous hulking brutes, or beautiful bitches (except for ~MARIANA~, who is Bella Swan-esque in her unawareness of her own attractiveness, despite multiple men trying to get with her almost immediately after meeting her. I'm so tired of beautiful female characters being oblivious to their own hotness. Are we meant to believe all mirrors and male attention have escaped their notice? If it’s to make them “relatable,” this tactic really fails with me).

-> All characters of color are shallow, cartoonish side characters, and most of them are depicted as unsympathetic minor antagonists (the Sikh Chief Inspector in The Maidens continuously drinks tea from an ever-present thermos, and his only other notable characteristic is his instant dislike of Mariana, whom he VERY RIGHTLY warns to stay out of the investigation that she is VERY MUCH compromising… the Caribbean manager of the Grove is universally disliked by her staff for enforcing stricter safety regulations at the bafflingly poorly run mental institution, because HOW DARE SHE. There's a very clear vibe that we're supposed to dislike these characters and share the protagonists' indignation, but honestly Sangha/Stephanie were completely in the right for trying to shut down their wildly inappropriate investigations).

-> "Working class" characters (or basically anyone excluded from the comfortably upper-crust, educated main cadre of characters) are few and far between in both stories, but when they show up, he depicts them as such caricatures. We got Elsie the pathologically lying housekeeper in the Maidens, who is enticed to share her bullshit with cake, and then a TOOTHLESS LEPRECHAUN DEALING DRUGS UNDER A BRIDGE in the SP. I kid you not, a man described as having the body of a child, the face of Father Time, and no front teeth, emerges from beneath a bridge and offers to sell Theo some "grass." I was dyinggg.

-> There are no characters to root for. Anywhere. Partly because they’re all so thinly drawn — and because we’re clearly supposed to view almost ALL of them as potential suspects, so they’re ALL weird, creepy, or incompetent in some way.

-> The flimsiest of flimsy motives, both for the narrators and the murderers. Theo fully would have gotten away with his involvement in the murder if he hadn't gone out of his way to work at the Grove and "treat" Alicia and his justification for doing so is pretty weak; his rapid descent into stalking and murder fantasy and his random ass decision to "expose" Alicia's husband as a cheater with a spur-of-the-moment home invasion and staged attempted homicide is ONLY justified if the reader hand waves it away as WELP, HE'S CRAZY, I GUESS (after all, he DID have an abusive father and a history of mental illness, and in Michaelides novels, that's ALL YOU NEED to become a violent psycho). I guess we're lucky Mariana didn't also start dropping bodies (because the logic of his fictional universe says she should definitely be a murderer by now... maybe that'll be his Maidens sequel?). But she especially had NO reason to randomly turn detective - and she kept trying to justify it by saying she needed to re-enter the world or that Sebastian would want her to (??), even though she had no background in criminal psychology... or even a particular fondness for mysteries (really, I would've accepted ANYTHING to explain her dogged obsession with the case. WHY were Sebastian and Zoe so certain she would insert herself into the investigation just because one of Zoe's friends was the first victim? WHY?). As for Zoe and Alicia, their motives are mere suggestions: they were both abused and manipulated, and voila! Slippery slope to murder.

WRITING STYLE

-> Incessant allusions to Greek tragedy and myth, apparently to provide a sophisticated gloss over the bare-bones writing style, which opts more for telling than showing and frequently indulges in hilariously bizarre analogies. Credit where credit is due — the references to Greek myth are less clunky in the SP, and I liked learning about the Alcestis play/myth, which I hadn’t heard of before - but OMG the entire characterization of Fosca, who we are meant to believe is a professor of Greek tragedy at one of the most respected universities on the planet, is just absurd. His "lecture" on the liminal in Greek tragedy is essentially the Wikipedia page on the Eleusinian Mysteries capped off with some Hallmark-card carpe diem crap. The lecture hall responds with raucous applause, clearly never having heard such vague genius bullshit before.

-> Super clunky and amateurish narrative device of interludes written by another character; Sebastian’s letter reads like a mashup of Dexter monologues and Clarice’s memory of the screaming sheep, but by FAR the worse offender is Alicia’s diary, where we’re supposed to believe she painstakingly recorded ENTIRE CONVERSATIONS, BEAT-BY-BEAT DIALOGUE, even when she’s just been DRUGGED TO THE GILLS with morphine and has mere moments of consciousness left… and even before that, she literally takes the time to write “He's trying the windows and doors! ...Someone’s inside! Someone’s inside the house! ETC ETC” when she thinks her stalker has broken in downstairs. WHO DOES THAT?)

-> Speaking of dialogue, the dialogue is so bad. Based on his bio, Michaelides got a degree in screenwriting, which makes his terrible dialogue even more baffling.

-> HILARIOUSLY rendered voyeur scenes where the narrators spy on couples having sex. Such unintentionally awkward descriptions. First we had Kathy’s climax sounds through the trees and then the bowler hat carefully placed on a tombstone before the gatekeeper plows a student. Again, I died.

PLOT/"TWIST"

-> The CONSTANT red herrings make for such an exhausting read. Michaelides drops anvils with almost every character that are so obviously meant to designate them as suspects in our minds. There is absolutely no subtlety in his misdirections.

-> The “crossover” scene between the SP and The Maidens makes no sense - when in the timeline does Mariana’s story overlap with Theo’s? They confer just before Theo starts working at the Grove, obviously (though Mariana appears to be the one who alerts Theo to the job opening there? Whereas in the SP, Theo has been obsessively tracking Alicia since the murder and had already planned to apply to work there?), but then are we supposed to believe that while Theo has been psychotically pursuing his warped quest to “help” Alicia, he’s also been diligently treating Zoe, so invested in her case that he repeatedly reaches out to Mariana to get her to visit Zoe and even writes Mariana a lengthy letter to convince her to do so??? And then a couple days after The Maidens ends, Theo is arrested???

-> But the thing I really did hate the most is how Michaelides treats his female murderers (who are both also victims themselves) as mere means to deploy a “twist”; there’s no moment spared to encourage our sympathy for Zoe, who was groomed and manipulated by the only trusted father figure in her life, and even after spending a decent amount of time getting to know Alicia via her ridiculous diary, where it’s so apparent that she’s been demeaned, objectified, manipulated, gaslit, and/or used by EVERY man in her life, she’s sent packing to spend the rest of her days in a coma… HOW much more satisfying would it have been for her to succeed in exposing Theo and reclaiming her voice? But no, she basically rolls over when he comes to finish her off (SPEAKING OF — ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE THERE ARE NO SECURITY CAMERAS IN THIS INSTITUTE FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE????), writes one last diary entry, and drifts off forever. And then a couple pages of nothing later, the story is over. GOODNIGHT, ALICIA!

Both books kept me rolling throughout (by which I mean eye-rolling but also rotfl). Maybe I will check out his next effort — I’m morbidly curious what he’ll turn out. It does leave me wondering whether I should give up on thriller novels entirely, though. Are many of the weaknesses of these novels just characteristic of the genre? Maybe I'm just holding these books to unfair standards? I'm mostly only familiar with thriller films — many of which I think are amazing — but maybe you can get away with more in a film than you can in a novel.

...I really only intended to write a handful of bullet points, but more and more kept coming to mind as I wrote, to the point where subheadings became necessary. Whoopsie.

[aswallowssong]

I’m Fine

In which Spencer is once again hiding the fact that he doesn’t feel well. The Big Kid Squad conspires to play a sneaky game from James’s “nerd-camp” to get their youngest to cooperate, but as most things do when you’re seventeen, it blows up in their faces. It’s okay though. James Blake is the dad no one expected him to be.

This drabble is based in @themetaphorgirl‘s Patron Saints AU (Patron Saint of Lost Causes), which is AMAZING and YOU SHOULD READ.

Read on AO3

------

In retrospect, they all should have seen it coming. It tended to start the same way. The eye rubbing always came first, as if the nine year old was trying to physically remove the discomfort sprouting there. Then there was the lack of chatter; the quiet that was so unlike their youngest member that even Emily and Dave started to get uneasy, instead of enjoying the fleeing silence.

By the time he hit the stage of general grumpiness and irritability, everyone knew exactly what was going on.

Spencer got sick all the time. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t surprising.

It was, however, really starting to bother the Big Kids that he would vehemently deny, deny, deny until he was melting down, and someone was physically scraping him off the floor.

And that was how they found themselves having a pre-movie night “Big Kids” meeting in the lounge while Derek, Penelope, and JJ kept Spencer distracted. Their youngest had almost thrown a fit when Hotch had said that no, he couldn’t stay with them, and no, they couldn’t just pretend he wasn’t there. He’d been assured that Penelope needed him for a very special craft, and while he’d pouted and grumbled, he hadn’t melted down. Not yet.

“I can’t do this,” Emily said, toying with the bracelets on her arms. “I can’t tiptoe like this all the time.”

“It’s not all the time,” Hotch said defensively from his spot on the floor, “It’s just when he’s being… you know.”  He gestured vaguely, making it very apparent he didn’t quite know himself.

“When he doesn’t feel well,” Alex said gently, shifting her position on the couch to press closer to James. She hated when Spencer struggled, and judging by the way he’d become more and more irritable over the last two days, the weekend would be a struggle in and of itself.

“He’s literally sick all the time!” Emily shot back. “I love him, you guys know I do, but really? He could say something before he’s a ticking time bomb of grumpy, crying illness.”

“I don't know,” Dave said from his place in the armchair, “He’s made it pretty clear he just wants to be left alone.”

“Yeah, and we see how well that goes,” she countered.

Hotch sighed loudly, running a hand down his face. Spencer had ended up in his bed the night before, sometime around three in the morning, and he’d been too tired to confront the issue then. He’d have done it once he woke up, but by that time the child was gone.

It was made very clear at breakfast when Spencer denied that it had even happened that they were really in for it.

There was quiet between the five of them for a minute before James said thoughtfully, “Well. We could have him play.”

“Absolutely not,” Alex said as Dave quickly shook his head and said, “Not a chance.”

Hotch and Emily exchanged a look before Hotch looked to James.

“I’m lost. Play what?”

“There’s this game the three of us play called I’m Fine-”

“Spencer is way too smart for I’m Fine, Jamie.” Alex said, shifting away from him to look him full in the face.

James raised an eyebrow.

“You and Dave and I play I’m Fine. We have for years. He might be a genius, but no one is too smart for I’m Fine.”

“What the fuck are you all going on about?” Emily asked, arms crossing over her chest.

Dave chuckled quietly. “I’m Fine is a game James made us start playing Sophomore year that he learned from some girl at his nerd summer camp.”

“Hey!” James said, though he didn’t look offended. He was grinning. “Going to HOSA camp was cool! Kit taught it to our whole camp crew, and you guys like I’m Fine, so don’t bash.”

“Please,” Hotch said, just a bit loudly. “Will someone explain this game? And how you think it’s going to help with the Spencer issue?”

The three seniors looked at each other for a moment before Alex gestured, sighing quietly.

“Go ahead, Jamie, but I don’t think it’s going to work.”

James already had a grin on his face.

“Okay! When I was at HOSA camp between Freshman and Sophomore year - shut up, Dave! - I was on a crew with the girl named Kit from Vermont. She was in the healthcare pathways track at her high school, and none of that is really all that important, but she taught us this game they play in her cadre.”

“Which,” Dave said, one finger held in the air to cut off James mid-thought, “Is objectively not actually a game.”

“It is a game!” James defended. “There is a winner and there’s a loser. And there’s rules. How is it not a game?”

“I don’t care!” Emily said, hands gesturing wildly in the air as she grew more agitated. “Just keep going. We aren’t going to have them distracted very much longer.”

“Okay, okay,” James said, “so basically here’s what you do.”

It took a few minutes, but once James had laid out the rules, Alex shook her head gently.

“It only works for the three of us because we all agree to play. We’ve all agreed to play for years now. It’s more of a pleasantry anyway. Spencer’s too smart, he’ll see right through us.”

“I don’t know,” Hotch said, “Spencer is really competitive. And, he’s nine. He’ll probably miss the part where it’s only sort-of a game-”

“Hey!”

“And he’ll think he can trick us.”

“Or he’ll think he’s smarter than us,” Emily said, “He already does most of my homework. There’s no way he’ll be willing to admit we can outsmart him. And he’s been saying he’s fine for days, it’ll be easy to get him to say it again.”

They all looked to Alex, and after a moment she nodded, fiddling with the bow that had started to slip out of her hair.

“Okay. We can try, but if this doesn’t work, you all need to figure out another way to get him to admit he feels terrible. I don’t want this to end with a meltdown.”

James grinned, squeezing her upper arm gently, victory already in his eyes.

“Oh, this is going to work. You’ll see.”

-----

“I don’t wanna watch Toy Story,” Spencer whined. His voice was raspy, as if it physically pained him to grumble about the offending Disney movie.

They’d only gotten the Baby Squad back ten minutes before, and Spencer was in full-grump mode. He had pouted when Alex suggested he cuddle with her on the couch, insisting that he “wasn’t a baby” and “I want to sit on the floor!”

That’s exactly where he was, back pressed against Dave's armchair. His blanket had been retrieved by Alex and was on the couch, but when Hotch had offered it to him he’d nearly taken the older boy’s head off.

“It’s JJ’s turn to pick, and she wants to watch Toy Story,” Alex said patiently, frowning while looking at how pale he was under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the seventh floor lounge.

“But we watched Toy Story twenty three days ago!” He whined, louder than before. Dave noticeably winced at the sound.

A piece of popcorn flew across the room and hit Spencer just above his left eye. “Then when it’s your turn after JJ, don’t pick Toy Story,” Derek said, smirking just slightly at his own joke.

“But I don’t want to watch it at all!”

JJ rolled her eyes, but otherwise seemed unbothered by what was happening. She knew Spencer was sick. She knew the Big Kids would fix it. And she knew that Buzz and Woody didn’t really care about the grumbling nine year old behind her.

Hotch, however, raised an eyebrow, watching Spencer with new intensity.

He did genuinely look terrible. It wasn’t them being overprotective, or Emily being agitated. Spencer had been avoiding them all day, and now that they had a good look at him, it was easy to see why.

The baby of their group was as white as a sheet, save for the fever red flush across his cheeks. He was shaking too, though it was unsure if that was from the grumpy rage he was sending towards the TV, or because he was trembling as fever chills snaked up his spine.  How the shadows under his eyes were so dark, considering he was out like a light when Hotch had found them sharing the older boy’s mattress, could be anyone’s guess.

There were probably things the others didn’t notice that James would, what with him so desperately and intentionally trying to become a doctor someday. That’s why James was the cornerstone of their plan. They just had to get all the right conditions.

“Spencer,” Hotch warned gently as the younger boy whined about Toy Story for probably the seventeenth time, “You’re being rude. JJ is allowed to pick whatever she wants.”

“I’m not! Toy Story is a stupid pick! She picked it last time!”

Hotch sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. He turned to make eye contact with Alex, and when he nodded, she got up from her spot on the couch.

She quietly knelt next to Spencer, right at the foot of Dave’s chair, and spoke just a bit louder than she normally would when she was trying to calm him down.

“Baby, are you sure you don’t want to come sit on the couch?”

“I’m not a baby, Alex!” Spencer whined, like a baby. “I wanna sit here on the floor! Like everyone else! You aren’t bothering anyone else!”

She worried at her lip for a second before sighing, turning to face James, and finally nodding.

“Spencer…” She said even more gently, pressing further when James nodded back, and moving to push his bangs off of his forehead, “are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine!” He shrieked, trying to swat her hand away.

Bingo.

Alex backed off as James leaned forward from his position on the couch.

“Hey, Spence,” he said gently.

James had a totally different approach to Spencer than the rest of the Big Kids. Alex had agitated him, but when he turned to look at James, his body language softened. James was goofy and usually didn’t treat Spencer like a baby, so he was the perfect candidate for their pseudo-intervention.

“What?” Spencer asked, though his tone was still harsh. It wasn’t as aggressive as it had been with Alex, though, so James pressed on.

“Do you want to play a game?”

There was a moment in which Spencer was quiet before his nose scrunched, squinting up at James with suspicion.

“I… I don’t…” He started, resolve almost cracking before any plan needed to be enacted at all. Then, there was a loud yell from the offending movie. Spencer sighed angrily, rubbing at his eyes fervently. “Anything is better than Toy Story.”

“Great,” James said evenly, “so you’ll play?”

“What game?”

The Big Kids seemed to collectively hold their breath, waiting for James to explain and hoping it wouldn’t all blow up in their faces.

Penelope and Derek had lost interest in the television, much more interested in what was going to happen now between Spencer and the Big Kids. JJ didn't seem to mind that no one else was watching, shoving handfuls of popcorn in her face and minding her own business as Woody and Buzz bantered back and forth.

"It's called I'm Fine,” James said simply.

Spencer squinted further, as if the glasses were doing nothing for him.

"That sounds stupid,” came his raspy whine, and Hotch audibly sighed.

Emily's eyes widened a bit, glancing to where Dave was sitting, and then to Penelope, who was swatting at JJ’s arm in an attempt to pry her attention away from the movie and onto the battle that was clearly unfolding right in their very lounge.

Alex's arms were crossed, lips pursed. She wore an expression that showed exactly how happy she was about the whole situation, and she was only going to be satisfied once it was all over and Spencer was cuddled in her arms.

"You haven't heard the rules yet. It's... a brain game," James offered, not at all affected by Spencer's tone and demeanor. If anything, he seemed to soften more to it.

Spencer shifted on the floor, clearly uncomfortable but not willing to move from his defiant choice.

"It is?"

"Sure. I'll tell you the rules and you can decide if you want to play me."

Now Spencer sat forward on his haunches.

"I'm gonna play you? In a brain game?" He sounded unimpressed as he rasped his skepticism.

Dave snorted from behind Spencer, not trying very hard to mask his amusement, but James still sat, unphased, and simply nodded at the grumpy nine year old in front of him.

"Yeah, you're gonna play me in a brain game."

"Okay, I like winning. Tell me the rules."

James sat back a little, biding his time. He knew the longer he waited Spencer out, the more tired he would get, and the easier the game would be.

"Well, the game usually starts when someone says "I'm fine," after someone else asks if they're feeling okay."

Spencer's eyes flashed with suspicion again.

"But I am fine."

"Right. That's what you said. So now, the game starts. Normally the person who asks if you're sick get's to play with you, and that's Alex, but I figured you'd maybe want to play with me instead. Is that what you want?"

Spencer looked up at Alex for a moment, seemingly weighing their intelligence against one another in his mushy, grumpy fever brain.

"I'd rather play you."

"You wanna play me?"

Spencer's eyebrows tugged together.

"I just said that."

"You have to say it officially. No take-backsies."

Spencer stared at him for a moment with the sort of incredible distaste that can only come from an ill child.

"That's stupid."

"Spencer. Rude," Hotch reprimanded gently, but James held a hand up.

"No, it's fine. Those are the rules, Spence, stupid or not."

Spencer rolled his eyes and sighed in a huff.

"Fine, yes, James , I want to play you and not Alex."

James grinned, nodding and humming quietly.

"Great. So here's how we play. I get to guess up to five symptoms you might be having, you know, because I think you're feeling pretty crummy."

"I'm-"

"I know, you're fine. That's what you said, anyway. So I get to guess, and if I get three right, you have to give in, and let mama over there in on how you're really feeling."

Spencer seemed to deflate, arms crossing around his midsection, paling further if possible.

"But I'm... fine." He frowned, seeming to not quite understand what was going on.

"Right. So that's the other part. If I get three or more wrong, we'll all leave you alone. You're fine. We'll let you be."

James sat back fully on the couch now, done with his part. Now it was up to Spencer to take the bait.

All eyes were on the nine year old, even JJ's, as he fidgeted and rubbed at his eyes roughly. He finally looked up at James and said, "You have to get three?"

"Yep. More than half."

"And if I win... you'll all leave me alone?"

The question was clearly more directed at Alex and Hotch, his eyes even darting up to the older girl nervously.

Alex nodded, head dipping towards James.

"If you win, we'll all leave you alone. But if Jamie wins, you have to let go, baby," she said gently, words feather light on the top of the thick, tense air that now blanketed the room.

Spencer now narrowed his eyes not at James, but Alex.

"I'm not a baby," he said with an air of finality that would have been intimidating if it wasn't obvious now that he was most certainly trembling.

"Great," James said, "ready to start?"

"Start?"

"Well, ready for me to guess, I guess."

James tilted his head in a way that was searching, but not confrontational. It took a minute, but Spencer gave the smallest nod.

Hotch, was quite frankly, amazed that Spencer was so competitive that he was about to let himself be called out. He also took a small moment to be thankful that Spencer was nine years old, and not fourteen, and that even though he was a genius, he really only had the processing power a nine year old's brain development could offer.

"Okay, so I'm going to guess that you have a fever, based on flush and shaking alone. If you don't, I’ll be more concerned, actually.”

When Spencer frowned and curled into himself slightly, eyes downcast, James offered a small smile. He shifted on the couch and patted the spot next to him. “You can come up here if you want.”

Spencer shook his head quickly, and then stopped with just as much force. Everything was too bright and the carpet was too scratchy on his fever-sensitive skin. He was cold, too, even though he was already wearing a sweater of Hotch's that absolutely dwarfed him. His stomach hurt and his head hurt and everything hurt and he just wanted to be held.

But he wasn't a baby. They always treated him like a baby and he could handle himself just fine. He was fine.

He shut his eyes tightly, taking a deep breath before he spoke in a weak voice.

“No. I want… I want to be on the floor. I’m not a baby.”

“I’m not a baby, and I’m not on the floor,” Emily offered, and Spencer didn’t even open his eyes to respond.

“Emily, you can’t solve basic trigonometric functions, you are a baby.”

Derek masked his laughter by clearing his throat, and Penelope by shoving a handful of popcorn in her mouth, but Dave laughed at Emily’s annoyed glare openly.

James didn't break stride for a second. "I'd also guess you've got a headache. You're rubbing at your eyes."

"I can't see well. I always rub at my eyes," Spencer whined defensively, though it was obvious some of his resolve was starting to crumble.

"Not like that, you don't," James said softly, "How am I doing?"

"I don't want to play anymore," the younger mumbled, tightening the arms he had wrapped around his midsection. It was an obvious attempt to self-soothe, and James shook his head gently.

"I'm going to say my first two guesses were right then."

There was quiet for a moment, everyone trying to decide what the next ten seconds would bring.

What happened was not what they expected.

James got off the couch, moving so that he could sit down cross legged on the floor across from Spencer. He kept his posture open, mouth tugging into a gentle smile.

"Can I have my next guess?" He asked, gently tipping his finger under Spencer’s chin to bring his head up.

Spencer took a shaky breath and looked up to meet James's eyes. Slowly he nodded, eyes already beginning to well with tears.

James gestured to Spencer's arms tightly clasped around his midsection, eyes kind and voice gentle, as if he was apologizing.

"Your stomach’s sick, isn’t it?"

That did it. The tears in Spencer's eyes absolutely poured down his cheeks, a loud wail bubbling up from his chest as he let all the walls he'd tried to keep up crumble around him.

He flung himself not at Alex or Hotch, who were both now standing, ready to move. Instead, he flung himself into James. His thin arms latched around James's neck, face burying in his shoulder as his body was wracked with sobs.

James heard Alex hum behind him, surely wanting to comfort Spencer herself, but holding back. Spencer’s wails were choppy and gasping, those of a much younger child than even he was, and there was nothing the group of teenagers could do as they watched him fall to pieces in James’s arms.

James appeared to be unphased. He simply gathered their youngest more securely against himself and stood up, careful to keep a defensive hold on the hysterical, and very warm child

"Shh, shh," he shushed quietly, falling to a slow rock-bounce he'd seen Alex perform before, one hand gently rubbing across Spencer's bony back. "It's okay, bud. I know.”

There was a moment in which no one moved or made a sound but James and Spencer. JJ had long since turned off her movie, and the fear of agitating Spencer’s meltdown was far too high for anyone to intervene. Alex, who was visibly upset as she watched her baby sob into someone else’s arms, moved to step in, but Hotch’s arm came up across her chest, his head shaking just slightly in order to dissuade her.

“You’re okay,” James was saying quietly, his voice barely audible under Spencer’s shuddering sobs.

He shifted his arms tighter around the child, glancing over to where Alex and Hotch were positioned. Hotch took a step closer.

“Do you want me to-” he started, but James shook his head, giving a weak smile.

“No, no it’s alright. We’re just going to go calm down.”

There was a beat in which he raised an eyebrow, clearly asking a kind of permission of Spencer’s surrogate parents. They both nodded quickly, watching with surprised expressions as James took even steps out of the lounge, Spencer wrapped around him tightly.

The silence continued for almost a minute before Derek said bluntly, “What the fuck was that?”

“I have no idea,” Penelope said, eyes still locked on the door.

“I do,” Emily said, flopping back on the couch and reaching for the popcorn bowl. “Spencer got his meltdown, and I’m Fine just became my favorite game. Give it, Jayje.”

-----

James walked Spencer up and down the hallway for a while, letting him cry and wail himself hoarse while James held him close to his chest. He’d known Spencer hadn’t felt well for a few days, but Emily was right in saying that Spencer was sick all the time. He easily had the worst immune system of anyone James knew. If he’d known the meltdown coming was going to be this catastrophic, he might have made an attempt to intervene sooner.

A few doors in the hallway opened, confused or annoyed faces glancing at James as Spencer cried on. They shut as soon as James set a laser-like glare on them, daring them to say something to either him, or his tiny charge.

“Okay, Spence, okay,” he said gently as soon as the crying lost its angry quality, only left sounding sick and sad and desperate. “Shh, okay kiddo. You’re okay.”

It took a moment for the cries to quiet, not dying entirely, but no longer rupturing his eardrums.

“There you go,” James cooed softly, hand still rubbing along Spencer’s back. He felt the shuttering turn back into trembling as his breathing evened back out. “Good, good job. Good job, Spence. Let’s get you in bed, okay?”

Spencer sluggishly nodded against James’s collarbone, the death grip around his neck slackening. James walked them down to Hotch’s room, knowing that the RA had his own bathroom. Spencer ended up in there a lot of nights anyway, he figured, so Hotch wouldn’t be mad. Hotch couldn’t be mad at Spencer if he tried.

James only let go of Spencer once he set him down on Hotch’s bathroom counter, flicking on the light and taking a small step back to take in the boy in front of him.

There were tear tracks still running down Spencer’s face, which was a color between stark white and pale gray, save for the deepening flush across his cheeks, ears, and crawling down his neck. His eyes were swollen and red from the tears that still fell, even though they had slowed. He was shaking as chills overwhelmed his tiny frame, causing him to gasp quietly every so often.

James frowned with empathy. He hadn’t been that sick since the flu season before, but it was a hard feeling to forget. Plus, he didn’t know if he’d seen Spencer look that awful in a while, either, and the shaking child in front of him was breaking his heart.

“Okay,” he said gently, “what do you say we get you out of your uniform and into… I can go get your pajamas, or, uh,” he thought for a moment, glancing out the door of the small bathroom and into the bedroom, still dark as he hadn’t thought to turn on the light. “I can find you one of Hotch’s shirts?”

Spencer’s hands palmed his eyes and he shook his head slowly.

“D’n le’ve,” he mumbled, his voice barely a whisper, eyes half-lidded.

“Okay, then we’ll do that. Here, stop rubbing at your eyes. Let’s…”

He trailed off, never having been in Hotch’s bathroom, and not knowing what he was going to have to work with. He didn’t think about if Hotch would be upset with him rifling through the tiny medicine cabinet, or taking the washcloth on the counter to wet under the tap.

“Come here, kiddo,” he said gently, pulling Spencer towards him a bit as he gently wiped off the boy’s face, cleaning the tear tracks and hoping to do something immediate for the fever he felt climbing steadily just by being in close proximity again.

In time he got Spencer out of his uniform, into one of Hotch’s large cotton tee shirts, and nestled under the covers of the RA’s dark bedroom. James sat down on the edge of the bed, pressing a palm against Spencer’s forehead.

“So, can we talk about it?” He finally asked. Spencer curled into himself, pressed against James’s side.

“Do we ‘ave to?” he rasped, looking up with glassy eyes.

James nodded a bit, giving Spencer a gentle look. “Yeah, we do. I won, remember?”

Spencer cast his eyes down at the blankets, one hand twisting weakly at the fabric. He sighed before he said weakly, “I d’n feel good.”

James let out one small chuckle. “Yeah, I can see that. Can you be more specific for me?”

He squirmed. “D’n feel good at all .” Little hands twisted in fabric, big tears creating dark spots on the already dark pillowcase. “Since We’sday, I guess.”

James opened his mouth to prod again, but Spencer kept going, voice going in and out and squeaks and rasps in a way that would have been comical if it didn’t sound painful.

“M’ head ‘urts. ‘N my throat ‘n my stomach.”

“Sinuses?” James offered. Spencer was perpetually sniffling.

“No. S’a habit.”

“I know, just checking.”

“I…” he sighed, a sharp tremor shooting through his body and cutting him off in a whimper. “I feel… wrong. ”

James nodded, running his hand gently through Spencer’s short curls. It was the moments that Spencer let himself be vulnerable that James remembered just how young he was. Just how little, and fragile. How much help he really needed.

“I know, kiddo. I know.” He adjusted the washcloth that he’d laid on Spencer’s forehead, not missing the way Spencer leaned into the touch. He took the moment of vulnerability while he had it. “Can we make a deal?”

Spencer’s eyes had flitted closed, but he nodded gently.

“Mhm.”

“I don’t really care if you tell Alex and Hotch when you don’t feel good. Really. I know how they can be, I get it. But I want you to tell me, okay? Maybe if it comes from me, it’ll soften the blow from them, huh?”

For a second, James thought Spencer had fallen asleep. He thought about getting out his phone and calling Alex. She was no doubt pacing the floor until she could gather Spencer in her arms. He reached for his pocket, but found his wrist being grabbed by weak, spindly fingers.

“‘Kay.” Spencer mumbled quietly, shifting so that he was closer to James, nearly in his lap. “Can… not yet.”

James read between the lines, moving his hand from his pocket and shifting back so that Spencer could lay between his legs, his tiny body curled in on itself, head resting just below James’s heart.

It was at least an hour later when the door cracked open, two figures stood in the doorway: one tall and lanky, the other small and dainty.

Hotch and Alex.

Spencer was sleeping, body twitching and shivering ever so slightly as the fever worked its way through his system. James had been counting breaths, wondering when he should find a thermometer or call someone or shift from under the kid. He just hadn’t been able to bring himself to move him at all, even when one of his legs had been asleep at least twenty minutes.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

Alex moved quickly, perched on the edge of the bed in a moment.

“Hey.” She matched his level, eyes wide and worried as she looked at her sleeping boy. “I, um. Can I… I have Blankie.” She held up the blanket that was normally life or death. “I’m surprised he’s sleeping without it.”

“So was I, but you should have heard him in the hallway. Basically screamed himself to exhaustion.”

She shifted, looking down at her lap.

“Trust me,” she said, “I did.”

“Cry?” He asked, knowing her far too well.

“Course I did. Can I have him?”

James nodded quickly, the two of them moving in perfect sync to get Spencer off of James and into the arms of Alex. Spencer seemed to relax further in the arms of his assumed mother, then further still when James draped Blankie over the top of him.

With Alex wrapped in her own world, a hand gently trailing through Spencer’s hair, eyes locked on his small frame, James found himself taking a step away. Letting them have their space.

He turned to look at Hotch, who looked stressed in his own right.

“Sorry I invaded your space,” James said quietly to the other boy, “I just thought, well, this is where he comes at night when something isn’t right.”

“No,” Hotch said, “I’m glad you did. I’ll keep him here tonight so I can watch him. He looks rough.”

“Yeah. I um, I found that washcloth in your bathroom, but I had no idea where anything else might be.”

Hotch shrugged.

“Thermometer’s in the bedside table. We use it enough, you know, so I keep it close…” He tilted his head slightly while peering over at Spencer, a confused look passing over his face. “Is that my shirt?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Please don’t apologize,” Hotch said quietly. His eyes didn’t move from Spencer. “I should be sorry. You didn’t have to do that. I… thank you for doing that. You were really good with him.”

James looked at Hotch a little closer, really seeing how tired the junior looked. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and in the dark of the bedroom, it showed.

“Hotch, really? Of course. We’re all trying to keep this kid alive. You don’t have to carry it all.”

Hotch hummed, rubbing lightly at his eyes and taking a deep breath.

“Yeah… yeah right.”

James clapped him on the shoulder gently, taking a deep breath of his own. His own eyes turned to watch the way Spencer seemed peaceful now. Sick, but peaceful. He would be alright. They’d take care of him.

“You okay?” Hotch asked.

James gave a humorless chuckle, nodding and glancing at Hotch with a very small smile on his face.

“Yeah,” he said, eyes looking less worried as they flicked back to Spencer. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

[schraubd]

Jewish Representation on Television: A Random Review

I've been thinking about Jewish representation on television series over the past few days. The trigger was actually an antisemite who was complaining that there are too many Jewish characters on television -- we apparently have taken over his TV. That struck me, because my naive view was that Jewishness actually doesn't get a lot of attention on TV series (even Seinfeld, if I recall correctly, rather famously did not actually say its characters were Jewish). But I decided to actually think about it more, and look into how Jews are portrayed on the shows I watch. This is therefore not remotely scientific -- though I do watch a fair bit of TV -- and some obvious choices (Broad City!) thus aren't included. I'm most interested in shows that are not primarily about Jews, but nonetheless have Jewish characters whose Jewishness is fleshed out in a substantive way. I include shows that have no Jewish characters. This is not necessarily a critique -- not every show has to include Jews -- but it is worth including to get a sense if there is any pattern to what sorts of shows have Jews and what don't. That said, I'm not necessarily a superfan of all these shows, so it's possible that I could miss something (though it hardly counts if deep in Season 6 a show briefly mentions so-and-so is Jewish, only to never bring it up again before or since). * * * 30 Rock: On a show about New York City comedy writers, only Josh -- Josh! -- might be Jewish. This entire show is a case of "just say Jewish, this is taking forever!" C- Big Bang Theory: Of the major characters, only Howard (and his mother) are Jewish. Neither are exactly positive representations -- Howard, in particular, manages to be the most perverted, awkward and creepy of a cadre of young male scientists whose whole shtick is that they're kind of perverted, awkward, and creepy around women. Interestingly, Bernadette is portrayed as super-goyish even though Melissa Rauch is actually Jewish (Mayim Bialik is more famously Jewish, but to my knowledge Amy Farrah-Fowler is not depicted as a tribe member). D- Billions: At first I thought this show had no Jewish characters, a decision I chalked up to maybe wanting to step lightly around the whole "ruthless billionaires manipulating the financial system" thing. But then I remembered: Spyros is Jewish! Spyros! By far the worst character on the show along pretty much any metric you might consider, including that he's portrayed as a serial sexual predator. Literally every character is at least written in shades of grey, and we get Spyros. Ugh. D Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Jake Peralta is Jewish. It pretty much only comes up when he has flashbacks to his Bar Mitzvah (curse you Jenny Gildenhorn!), but at least it is acknowledged as a part of his character with substance. That said, it almost never is visible in his adult life -- most strikingly, there's no portrayal of it being discussed with Amy in terms of how their family will or won't be Jewish. B- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and Angel): Willow is Jewish, but it gets almost no attention -- I think by the end of the series she's outright celebrating Christmas. C The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: No Jewish characters. Community: Annie is Jewish, but it is almost entirely downplayed. Indeed, it basically never comes up outside the first season. Missed opportunity. C+ Crashing: This is a tough one to judge, since so many of the characters are playing themselves. I know Sarah Silverman is Jewish. I think Artie Lange is? I don't know if Ali Reissen is supposed to be Jewish, but the actress who plays her definitely is. I do know Pete Holmes is not Jewish. I can't give a rating here. Dollhouse: No Jewish characters. Elementary: No Jewish characters. Firefly: No real Jewish characters, though they do briefly show a postmaster wearing a yarmulke. It's actually a really neat moment of casual Jewish inclusion that I really appreciate. Fresh off the Boat: I don't think any of the regulars (including Eddie's friends) are Jewish, but Evan's arch-rival Phillip Goldstein is definitely Jewish -- and definitely portrayed as a massive asshole. C Game of Thrones: No Jewish characters (outrageous!). The Good Place: No Jewish characters (actual sad face here -- though I can see how incorporating actual religious faith into this show might be hard). I Feel Bad: Probably not worth including -- it was canceled after one season, and I'm not sure it even fully aired the one -- except to give one last plug to my headcanon where it is Sarayu Blue's side of the family that is Jewish. Brian George -- who plays her father -- is Jewish! He should get to play a Jewish character some time. Alas, the show goes down the more predictable route of making Paul Adelstein's side of the family the Jewish one. It does a good job with that. I guess. Still salty. B Insecure: I don't think any characters are Jewish. Frieda might be Jewish, which would be okay. Joanne also might be Jewish, which would be a less attractive proposition. iZombie: No Jewish characters. Mad Men: Rachel Mencken is great. She also stands pretty much alone. B+ Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: This is the only show that is explicitly Jewish in focus, and as I said that's not my main concern here. In any event, not everyone likes the portrayal of Jewishness, but I actually find it quite warm on the whole. A. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: No Jewish characters. Mozart in the Jungle: No Jewish characters (really?). New Girl: Full disclosure: I did not watch this show all the way to the end. Anyway, Schmidt is one of the more famous Jewish portrayals of contemporary television. I'm not his greatest fan -- in particularly, that he's a proud Republican is, shall we say, statistically anomalous -- but once I started comparing him to the competition above he turns out pretty decent. Still, he, too -- especially in the early seasons -- doesn't exactly stand out on the "treats women with respect" metric. B Parks and Rec: The main Jewish characters are the Saperstein twins -- John-Ralphio and Mona Lisa. They are each, in their own way, "the worst person in the world." And with John-Ralphio, we get yet another creepy Jewish harasser. D The Orville: There are no Jews in space. The West Wing: This show actually comes out great. Toby and Josh are Jewish, visibly so, yet in very distinctive ways. It comes up, though it isn't obsessed over, in ways that feel authentic to their character. And the pilot includes one of my favorite "Jewish" scenes in all of television. A+ * * * In sum, I'd say that -- outside of shows where Judaism is a central focus (Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), there are a dearth of characters whose Jewishness is portrayed (a) positively and (b) as a substantive (not all-encompassing) presence in their lives. It seems that sci-fi and fantasy shows are the least likely to have Jewish characters, which is understandably, though it includes series set on Earth or otherwise "near-real world" conditions. This might reflect anxiety around how to portray Jews in juxtaposition with the occult and/or dystopian authoritarianism without reenacting antisemitic tropes. On the positive side, The West Wing, in my view, stands head-and-shoulders above the crowd; other solid performers include Brooklyn Nine Nine, New Girl, and (for what it's worth) I Feel Bad. But these are exceptional, for the most part, the Jewishness of characters either isn't established much beyond its mere mention. And the main exception is when Jewish male characters are portrayed as perverts, creeps, or sexual harassers -- indeed, this might be the most common way of "marking" a character as Jewish, which is worrisome. via The Debate Link http://bit.ly/2YP4sVe

[fabrickind]

Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 2 Liveblog

Welcome to episode 2 of my RGU liveblog! Join me under the cut for discussions of normality, haunted houses, fangirls, and astrology.

For our second episode, we open with shots of the school and all of the students walking to classes; cue the triumphant ‘school’ musical theme. One thing that this series is good at is establishing this sense of normality -- this is a normal morning, at a normal school, no weird duels took place the night before -- which early on provides a sharp contrast to the weirdness of the duels and this strange world that Utena is pulled into. Of course, as the series progresses, this sense of normality is severely warped, not because we’re pulled further and further into a dark, twisted world, but because we slowly realize that normality itself is what was twisted all along.

Here we further establish that Utena is popular with the girls. A cadre of giggling schoolgirls fangirl over her as she walks to class, and we are treated to another set of images of Utena walking framed with spinning rose frames.

This is probably the most shoujo thing I have ever seen. Where’s my fangirls to greet me on my way to class?

The use of the frame here is interesting to me for a few reasons. On a purely formal level, it’s creating a subjective focus on Utena here -- this is how the fangirls see her, and we are seeing what they see in this romanticized haze of shoujo tropes. The focus is squarely on Utena’s uniformed body and her nonchalant way of carrying her bag, and even the background is replaced by roses. She’s a fantasy version of what these girls want -- a fantasy prince, if you will. But the rose framing is also doing some other work. While at this point in the series it is easy to overlook as a stylized fitting into certain shoujo anime tropes, the framing calls attention to the ways in which visuals and narratives are framed, literally in this case. This speaks to Utena’s sense of identity here. She’s framed as the prince figure, the perfect gentlegirl who saves princesses and gets all of the ladies fawning over her, and this is supposed to be just as effortless as the way she is carrying that bag. But it’s clearly not. Her sense of princely identity and princely posturing is just as performative as the rose framing and background and soft lighting and gaggle of giggling girls and the myriad other tropes used here. The framing not only calls our attention, often to a subjective viewpoint or a fantasy structure, but it is part of the system of this narrative and is something overlaid on and part of the text, not in the way that there’s some sort of inherent Truth that’s being covered over here, but rather to call attention to the ways in which all narratives of self are, to some degree, fictions.

One thing that I almost never think about terribly deeply in this show is the episode titles, and maybe I should change that.

“For Whom the Rose Smiles.” The obvious guess as to the character this refers to would be Utena -- she’s our protagonist, she does well in the duels, the “rose” seems to be granting her some type of protection or has some sort of fondness for her. But the interesting thing to me here is the personification of the “rose” -- who or what does this refer to? Of course, there’s our Rose Bride. There’s also the association of roses with the dueling game. Is Anthy growing fond of Utena this early on? Is the system itself fond of her? Does Utena have some sort of rose-based destiny here (is she ‘born to the destiny of a rose, born to a brilliant and tempestuous life,’ as the great philosophers once said)? Or are roses a neutral party, associated with both being part of and escaping the dueling game? It’s unclear, and any thoughts would be welcome.

Can I take a moment to note that it’s amazing that these students are actually in class for once? Yes? Okay.

That is the cutest face, Utena.

Even though Utena is the most oblivious character ever, this scene shows that at least some of that is an act. She clearly remembers Wakaba being upset by the love letter situation the day before, and puts on this act as if nothing’s wrong, as if she’s trying to not upset her best friend. Unfortunately, she’s not a very good actress, but at least she’s trying. Utena is far from my favorite character in this series, but she does have two things going for her -- extreme loyalty and dedication, and total earnestness. Of course, these two traits can also very easily get her into trouble. Lots of trouble.

Obligatory mention of how Wakaba is reading a Chiho Saito manga.

Wakaba, how much of your “Utena you’re my true love!” is joking around, and how much of it is true? I wonder...

We get an exposition dump from everyone’s favorite overdramatic nerd squad.

Saionji isn’t there, which is interesting. Too upset after losing his duel the day before, perhaps?

Things we learn: - The Student Council gets their directions from letters from End of the World - These are one-way communications, with seemingly no way to contact back (I wonder if they’ve ever tried?) - The members seem content to follow the communications and not question them - Juri is as pragmatic as ever, but seems to be even more caught up in the rules than the others, since she vaguely threatens to quit because of the addition of a new Duelist, but doesn’t want to drop out because of the unstated ‘miracle’ of opening the gate and seeing the castle - The cards thrown down are a pair of sixes, a pair of nines, and a pair of queens, if that matters to anyone (and later a pair of jokers is shown on top) - Touga is as scummy as ever - Touga claims that they are “free to follow [the letters] as they see fit,” which strikes me as odd, considering that the SC tends to take these messages very seriously and at face value at almost all times. Is the ability to interpret the messages of the letters and implement the actions they see fit something that’s the ‘official’ rule but not something they are able to take up in practice, or are they actually content to follow the letters? (Touga then says that the letters are “quite specific,” so this is somewhat contradictory to his earlier statement) - I wonder if the SC were all told to go to the forest and open the gate to see the castle at once, or whether they were all sent individually? It sounds like this was some sort of initiation ritual for them, and what was used to convince them that everything happening is real.  - Ohtori has branded versions of everything conceivable, including playing cards

Miki seems to punctuate Touga saying that they must fight for the power to revolutionize the world with his stopwatch. Is he marking the end of the meeting? (The card game seems to have already ended.) In this case, he seems to be marking the end of the scene more than anything -- marking the narrative demarcation between one set of characters and location and another, especially since we immediately go to a major shift in tone with establishing shots of the school, happy music, and Utena and Wakaba’s antics.

No homo.

Wakaba calls Utena’s abandoned dorm a “haunted house,” and given this series and its ways of looking at ghosts, the past, and being caught between worlds, this seems to be a little more than just Wabaka being Wakaba. Of course, there’s the narrative answer for Utena’s dorm assignment -- she’s isolated from the rest of the school, and it gives her and Anthy an opportunity to live together, now that they’re engaged. But it seems as if Utena herself is being drawn into the world of the “haunted house.” There’s what I touched on earlier, which is that the series sets itself up so that we think she’s being drawn into a twisted world away from normality (but find out that normality itself is what is twisted), but it seems to go beyond even that, where Utena herself becomes part of the ‘haunting’ as such. Many things (and even people) are forgotten in this series, or left behind, or are probably already dead or kept in a state of preservation, and as the only (until Anthy and Chuchu arrive) resident of a ‘haunted’ house, Utena herself seems to be the one doing that ‘haunting.’ Once Anthy arrives...well, she is a witch, after all.

Though, I do wish I had magic powers that let me clean that quickly.

Also, how much money does this school have that their dorms are that nice? I’ve never seen a dorm in a mansion with antique gold filigree furniture.

No homo x2 combo

In this next scene, Anthy seems to be simultaneously straightforward and guarded. She tells information in a straightforward way, but only when it will perpetuate her mystique as the Rose Bride.

Answering that the sword and castle are “mysteries” is not only the most Ikuhara answer possible, but I think Anthy is hitting on something with her purposeful obfuscation. (She’s so sassy in this scene and I love it.) It’s not that she doesn’t know how it works as much as that’s actually the literal answer to Utena’s question -- what’s up with the trick sword and the mirage castle? Mysteries. They are meant to be mysterious. They are of the realm of ritual. Like most things in this series, they don’t have a literal, concrete meaning, but instead are pure symbolism, without being tied to any particular or singular signified. They are, like Anthy’s answers to Utena’s questions, there to misdirect and create an empty ‘proof’ of the dueling game. Of course, they’re also emblematic of very real powers and power systems, but we’ll get there in time.

Turning Utena’s question back around onto her is also a bit of misdirection, I think. While it’s also a sassy clapback, Anthy is doing a couple of things here -- she’s gauging Utena’s personality and her responses, of course, but she’s also commenting, albeit very indirectly, on the limitations of ‘choice’ as a reasoning. She ‘likes’ being the Rose Bride, and yet it’s the only real option available to her, the only one that gives her some degree of power, within the system that she’s a part of, much like how Utena’s choice to dress as the prince is part of the limited options available to her, as well.

Utena immediately befriends Chuchu (who gets an adorable spinning banana frame), and Anthy comments that she’s never seen him take so well to someone before. I feel like this is one of the few truthful statements we get here -- whether we think that Chuchu represents Anthy’s inner feelings, or is the gauge of the true emotions of the scene, or is a veiled metaphor for the ‘good’ side of Dios, or whatever else we take Chuchu’s role to be -- most Duelists seem to treat Anthy like an object and abuse her rather than treat her like a person, and how Utena is treating Chuchu seems to be a metaphor for how she’ll treat Anthy. Or, at least, how we think she’s going to treat Anthy, since it’s far more complicated than that. I’m also going to make the case for some Totally Real and Serious Foreshadowing™ here: she doesn’t directly save Chuchu, but rather gives him the tools to save himself.

I love how ominous of a villain they set Saionji up to be. Sure, he’s not a good person, but this is some serious misdirection as well.

I’ve always liked to think that this line is just Saionji being extra, and that he doesn’t actually have any sort of power over this space. Everything about it is too perfect -- the passive aggression, the fact that he just has a sword at Touga’s throat, the obvious sexaul tension, the lighting that seems overly shadowy for no particular narrative reason, referring to the area where you practice as “my domain”...

Though, I have to wonder. Have the other Duelists just not been challenging Saionji because they know he’d get all butthurt about losing? Have they been losing to him on purpose? Or has the game ‘chosen’ him as the winner for that particular stretch of time in order to create motivations for other characters or some other reason? Certainly, he’s an entitled douchebag, so I can totally understand if the others are like “nah, man, you can keep Anthy for now, I don’t want to have to listen to you whining again.” (I have a feeling that at least half the source of his whining is that he not only lost to a girl [Juri doesn’t count], but that he lost to an outsider girl. He’s a good swordsman, but not as good as Touga, and it seems as if the duels ‘choose’ the winner based on factors other than simple swordsmanship, so it would make sense that there’s something else going on besides him just legitimately being the best and beating everyone.) 

Is the food provided for Utena? Or did she cook all that herself? Certainly, Anthy didn’t cook it.

I capped this not because I particularly care what Saionji is saying (though I have to say that the dissolve editing in this scene where half the screen changes at a time is pretty cool), but because I’m into astrology. I don’t think the light here would change at all, since it’s coming from the artificial light of the lamp in the lower left corner, but based on the placement of the obelisk’s shadow, it gives the sense of Libra moving into Scorpio, with the shadow now almost fully in Scorpio. For those who aren’t into astrology, Libra is a sign of balance and harmony, and is ruled by Venus, which governs interpersonal relationships, beauty, and aesthetics. Scorpio is the sign of death and rebirth, and is one of the most intense signs of the zodiac. Things are not just thrown out of their peace here (and Libra at its worst can be passive or overly diplomatic for the sake of not wanting to stir up any drama, regardless of whether things would actually be improved with change), but thrown off in a way that implies the start of a new cycle, in a way that kills off everything that came before and attempts to start fresh out of that destruction. 

(For the record, Utena is likely a Capricorn sun with a Scorpio moon, unless she was born within 30 minutes of midnight, in which case she’s a Libra moon. I’m also a Capricorn with a Scorpio moon, so I know how it feels, Utena, though I don’t see too much resemblance. Our other placements are quite different though. ;])

Anthy slap tally: 2 Should I make it into a drinking game?

In a different shot, once Utena comes outside, the shadow is pretty much halfway between Libra and Scorpio, so take that as you will.

This isn’t Anthy’s normal dead-eyed look. This is a challenge. She is waiting to see what Utena will do.

Cactus tally: 1 Though, we also get to see the hand of a Shadow Girl long before episode 34.

This shadow play is fairly straightforward: Wild West type duels as the setting, only the one gunslinger lost ‘on purpose’ so it’s okay to lose as long as you weren’t trying to win, but that might be harder than you think. Not much in the way of obscure symbolism here.

We get our first full-length Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku sequence, and our first magical girl transformation sequence. Though, a question: how come Utena gets a transformation sequence and cooler clothes, but when another Duelist is in possession of the Rose Bride, they don’t and are just in their normal uniform? Of course, the SC uniforms already have weird epaulets and a rope or chain at the neck. Is it because Utena is an outsider and needs the surface-level (clothing) transformation in order to fit in? Is she somehow special or different from the start? 

I also know that this is mostly just for narrative drama, but why is Utena always the last one to arrive to duels, no matter who has possession of the Bride? How do the other Duelists get up there? How does Anthy get up there pre-elevator? How is Utena not totally winded after climbing that many stairs?

Saionji says that “living or dying” does matter in the duels, that it’s the person who loses their rose who loses -- I wonder if there’s a precedent for this? I can imagine some sort of Juri-like situation, only where someone actually gets killed, but still wins the duel. I wonder what would happen to Anthy in that case?

Ah, and our first “Power of Dios” moment. aka “this is how we officially know who the protagonist is.” Even Anthy seems shocked -- is she shocked because this isn’t something that usually happens, or because of who is getting this power? (I’m a firm believer in the theory that there have been many cycles of duels over the years, though it’s unclear how much Anthy even remembers from these multiple cycles.)

At the end of this scene, we get The Sunlit Garden playing, which is an interesting music choice, since it carries into the next scene. It has connotations of being a nice, warm, romantic, slightly nostalgic song for the nice, warm, friendly scene we get. But it also has connotations of fantasy, of misremembering the past, of something uncanny in the Freudian sense (something that is both familiar and unfamiliar), of something that can never be returned to. 

We get an almost repeat of Utena’s playing it cool with Wakaba earlier, but this time it seems more genuine -- she doesn’t want Saionji to tease Chuchu, and at this, Anthy smiles. What feelings are behind that smile is unknown. Whether we are building off the theories of Chuchu representing something of greater significance or if we just take his presence at face value, this seems to speak to Utena’s style -- she’ll do grand gestures for people, but won’t admit it, but is still willing to protect those she sees as weak and unable to protect themselves. Well, good luck with that one, Utena.

And that concludes this week’s liveblog! Join me next week for episode 3: Mean Girls

If you have anything you want to comment on, please, feel free :]