#there's a whole rayv element to this but. tis long now. will get back to him on another post

[variousqueerthings]

argh @pigtailedgirl im thinking again!!!! (many such thoughts)

BEEN THINKING ABOUT fraser bending reality and the show as a fairytale and what each part of the story is doing for fraser, with a dash of "and where will it end"

also because i was writing about rayv and using the word crutch in this one post, and it's not wholly the right or wrong word, because i think ray vecchio was (is, my man ait'ent dead) a life-altering meeting and partnership for the both of them [insert here all my meta about what they mean to one another and the ways they change things for each other] and that technically they probably could've just trundled along until they got old and retired to a cabin in canada or smth, see "we bonded" (unless ray got married, but that's another thought for another day)

but also that this relying on ray to be there became such a single strong pillar for fraser (with the less strong pillars of his apartment and wider community, one of which does still exist -- sort of like sherlock holmes' familiars) that it no longer being there opened up some doors into rooms that fraser had merely closed, rather than properly dealt with the contents of. he only admitted (badly, but still) that he had imagined murdering gerrard ("his father's killers") in season four. and there's something going on about the whole ongoing joke of "i first came to chicago on the trail of my fathers killers..." introduction, it's alllll about that in a way, this story, always was. waiting to see if it comes full circle somehow in the finale

anyway. he's Affected. the lack of support structure (singular) makes other things fall apart. i think, crucially, belief in a sense (belief that things can get better? belief that he can fix things? belief that he can heal, properly?) and that belief affects the magic

and then i think about that in terms of fraser and reality. fraser can lend a man 100 dollars and the money will return to him. he can find al capone's lost treasure. he can save a kid from getting lost in the system by giving him some money to walk diefenbaker on the promise he keeps going to school. he can ensure the return of two tsienshien heritage items after theve been kept apart for over 100 years due to colonialism. etcetc.

in s2 there were ongoing questions (that had first been raised way back in the pilot, and especially in s1 the wild bunch) about whether the city -- with all its corrupt institutions, environmental destruction, and cruelty -- is actually good for fraser. that it might "eat him alive" as it were (thanks gerrard)

and in s3-4 (im still figuring out whether to say 3pt1/pt2 or s3/4) things get... bleaker (there has been bleakness in s1-2 but the only truly helpless episode is juliet, which... i'll save the rayv part for another post, but it does belong to the thinking): the murder of a young woman is solved but she's still dead and the episode is really about her father's grief. another young woman is saved from execution, but she still spent eight years on deathrow and is severely traumatised. that ultimately quite depressing boxing episode. bruce spender discovering the betrayal of his brother. janet. and of course, the flooding of a village that fraser spent his childhood in, something he doesn't even attempt really to stop

and the thing is, i still read fraser as bending reality around him, it's just that he's been weighed down by things now, they are Affecting him more, and as consequence he simply can't be there for the world in the same way. reality is bending to fit his own pain, and so the world is sadder too

but. he's not given up. he's still doing the job and things sometimes absolutely do get fixed (mojo rising as an example). and most of all, the person who's on the receiving end of fraser trying to fix things... is ray kowalski. whose life when we meet him is not at its best. he's lost himself and doesn't really know where to go looking to do anything about that, but i do think he's proactive from the start in trying even though his first two thoughts (killing the man who embarrassed him as a kid, wooing back his ex-wife) aren't the best ones and he first has to face that in order to move forward

ray kowalski has fixed quite a lot of things for himself at this point. his confidence, his relationship with his father, his identity (literally, he has become kowalski after a good long time of having to pretend to be vecchio), past mistakes, he seems to be healed from his divorce, it's goin pretty well for him

i like the idea that fraser is offsetting his own dreams by giving ray his -- lean hard into caretaking-as-service and pretend that's the same thing as being okay. and meanwhile, ironically, ray is modelling what fraser needs to be brave enough to do (face his past head-on). i think ray kowalski will also be good for fraser, and it's a different trajectory (not immediate, they needed a good half season/13 episodes to really start), a different Structure (ray kowalski having something of a "fixed my own lifejacket, now we should get to yours" feeling happening as of earlyish s4) a different Outcome (more somber than previously, but important)

but ultimately, still a fairytale, in that fraser is still a fairytale and the very structure of the show bends around how he feels

as for where it ends (this story, not necessarily the story if one can imagine a "and what next")... well yeah. we shall see. ultimately the two halves of the arc will come together (ray'n'ray) and that will make something change again. the belief comes back?