#to be clear i dont think this is incestuous. i think its more about using romantic elements to emphasize the depth and importance-

[beansoup3000]

Thinking about how Fleabag says that Claire stays with Martin because he makes her laugh like no one else. And then the very next episode Fleabag makes Claire laugh so hard she disrupts the whole room. At a silent retreat. CLAIRE breaks the RULES to LAUGH at FLEABAG'S JOKE!!!

And in that episode Fleabag also says she and Claire would make a cute couple,,,, it's about setting fleabag and Martin up as oppositional forces in Claire's life who ultimately fulfill the same need, and Fleabag does it better! Fleabag makes Claire laugh. Fleabag supports Claire personally and professionally. She even provides Claire with sexual pleasure when she gives her the vibrator for her birthday (after confirmation that Claire and Martin are Not Fucking). And ultimately, Fleabag is the only person Claire would run through an airport for!! They aren't friends they're sisters!!!

[t4tails]

i know its an older post but irt that incest post sometimes i feel like ppl just dont and cannot get it until it happens to them. i couldnt even comprehend it as a possibility until i was 14 staying at my uncles house for a while and i still cant comprehend it as a thing that happened to me sometimes. i think its bc ppl feel security with their families in that sense— even if theyre abused in other ways, its like, “well, i know them and they’d still never do THAT.”

perhaps its bc we are still not educated about the dangers of incest as children. ever. we are taught stranger danger. we’re taught what inappropriate touch is. and when we’re a little older we’re taught to recognize grooming behaviors, but we’re never taught about what its like when it comes from family members— and what’s more we’re taught to assume the best from family members, to think of them as the exception to inappropriate touch or behaviors, when they DO make us uncomfortable instead of recognizing those behaviors as red flags. then one day it becomes too late, like it did with me. and maybe that contributes to the idea that its a non-possibility in some people, that it only happens in fiction.

the most i’ve ever seen presented to children as a red flag irt incest is the idea of a mother’s boyfriend or a stepparent acting inappropriately, but that still comes from the angle of “you havent known them for as long so this means they could also be a predator.”

we still don’t fully address what the commonly cited statistic “most sexual abuse comes from someone the survivor knows” MEANS. its not just friends. not just partners. its your family, too. its people you’ve known all your life.

but ultimately— i’m finally making my point i promise— the reason we dont address those things is because the idea that children should be able to turn to their community when their family fails them is too controversial, and not just among families that support incestuous abuse. “if my child knows they can confide in a teacher/neighbor about anything, they might become rebellious. god forbid somebody other than me contributes to my child’s development!”

people prefer the heightened possibility of their child being subjected to incestuous abuse over their child having any semblance of autonomy.

sorry for the long ask i’d usually post this to my blog but this is not something i’d be okay publicly speaking about.

hi sorry this took a bit to answer that post IS from a while ago and i wasnt sure how to respond, because i have fortunately never experienced that type of abuse myself and dont have much to add beyond agreement. i didnt want to just leave this in my inbox though since its clear you put a lot of thought into it.

i think a lot of the opportunities for incestuous abuse stem from the traditional family structure not actually prioritizing protection or comfort, but control that feels threatened every time somebody tries to bring it up. nobody wants to actually prevent it because that would mean acknowledging family as a potential threat, as well as breaking down the ways the controlling of sex and ownership by said family is already normalized in culture (ex. fathers vigorously defending their daughters virginity, etc). this is all why imo discussions on this should go hand in hand with childrens rights and body autonomy, but even in these discussions its rare to see it actually brought up

its really something that needs to be talked about more, but people struggle to see past "alabama" jokes and fauxcest porn

[oceanwithouthermoon]

Talking about Saiki and SA here a bit, btw, just a warning~

Thinking about how you said Saiki was a victim of SA and you’re literally so right. I feel like people sometimes just blow right past the fact that Kusuke is like that with his brother, but I think it can add a lot to interpretations of his character. But even if it only goes as far as what is shown in canon — which I almost doubt — it still remains the fact that Kusuke is doing all of that knowing fully well that his brother can hear him. It’s literally sexual harassment.

People point it out more often with Teruhashi and her brother (back to the reasons you said, people think it’s more serious if it happens to women). But the things he does, that’s all sexual harassment. And yet when Kusuke does similar things, it’s often brushed aside. Just,,, a bit crazy to me.

(And that’s not even mentioning when people completely disregard this part of Teruhashi’s story and act like she’s one-dimensional,,, but that’s another story)

But all this to say you’re literally so right. Anyways love you mwah =^•w•^=

THANK YOU SO MUCH. I NEEDD PEOPLE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THIS MORE.

(heed the sa warning + abuse and incest warning before opening, i talk a LOT here.. im mostly just reiterating what happens directly in the manga though.. ALSO EXTREMELY LONG POST WARNING..)

I always viewed kokomi and makoto + kusuo and kusuke as like.. paralleling each other ? not sure if thats the right word, but IMMEDIATELY when i saw both of these dynamics i made the connection.. i guess since it was so clear to me, i assumed that it was so obvious and on purpose that everyone else knew too, but so many people just.. ignore it..

i think most people that read/watch saiki k have recognized the fact that most main characters are meant to parallel or relate to saiki in at least some way, (if anyone who doesnt know what im talking about is reading this, im sure at least someone on here has done a better breakdown on that, i just.. dont know where to find that..) but this particular connection is one i dont see often and i genuinely believe that its almost entirely because of the whole "sexual assault/harassment isnt as serious when it happens to men as when it happens to women" thing.. most of the fandom acknowledge that what makoto does is awful and kokomi is a victim, so why is it different when its kusuke and kusuo ??

its EXACTLY the same.. what we see on screen with the saikis is WORSE, actually.. and what WE see from these two relationships isnt the full extent of what the two victims experience off screen, and i strongly believe that its heavily implied that both kokomi and kusuo have been through much worse with their brothers than whats shown..

we have no idea what kusuke couldve done BEFORE moving away and creating the telepathy canceler (and dont say that he couldnt have done anything cuz they were kids, cocsa [child on child sa] is still a thing and still valid, ESPECIALLY since they were both kid geniuses and kusuke definitely KNEW better.. but yea, kusuo implies that hes been like that for a long time, way before we ever saw them, sooo..) and its highly likely that whatever happened that we didnt see, before or after the move, was WORSE than what he does ON screen (i honestly dont want to think about what a guy with an incestual obsession with his brother does with cameras everywhere in his brothers home..) and what we see him do is already insane..

literally using his brother to get off, manipulating him and forcing him to play the games that give him sexual pleasure.. actually, speaking of, ive seen some people say that what kusuke does isnt really incest because the only reason he uses kusuo is because hes a masochist and kusuo is the only person that can overpower him.. this is a total misfire LOL, his upbringing alongside kusuo and his relationship with him is the REASON that hes a masochist, the ENTIRE REASON why thats what he gets off to.. its not just CONVENIENT that kusuo is there to get him off, he SPECIFICALLY seeks kusuo out and forces him to do things that give him sexual pleasure.. he believes that kusuo is the only person in the world that can ever give him sexual pleasure, what about that doesnt sound incestuous?

and one of the worst parts of it is, kusuo BARELY acknowledges how weird it is.. in fact, he's COMPLACENT in a lot of the games, obedient even, being bribed into them the same way he does with simple things like bringing kuniharu to work.. this is the biggest reason why i believe the off-screen stuff is probably worse, because kusuo is obviously conditioned to think that letting your brother get off to you is just.. fine.. we hardly see him try to get away from this situation beyond simply calling him gross.. theres one moment during the cat tank situation where kusuke tries to get him to grab the limiter off of his crotch specifically so that he can see him in that position and kusuo looks terrified and cant do it, BUT its unclear whether the expression of fear was entirely his concentration because he didnt wanna break the limiter or because he didnt want to let his brother get off to that, and i think its mostly the former ? idk, i dont remember this part that well but im preeeetty sure..

he does acknowledge that MAKOTOS behavior is bad when he sees it, but he never thinks its a big enough deal that he needs to help her or anything, (except for maybe the okinawa situation) which i know is probably just for the sake of not letting the gag manga get too serious, BUT it can also be explained pretty easily by this whole thing.. the way kokomi is treated is literally the same way kusuo lives his life, even down to their incestuous brother being possessive to the point of berating their potential love interests.. (which in this case happened to be each other, kusuo and kokomi..)

so yeah, kusuo just. doesnt really know how bad it actually is ? or maybe he does, but doesnt acknowledge it because he doesnt WANT to.. him barely acknowledging it and being complacent is part of why some people dont really get that its sa and incest, but his complacency obviously plays a big part in how its effected him too, like thats purposeful.. like i said, hes been CONDITIONED not to acknowledge it..

to me, it looks like a classic situation in which kusuo doesn't acknowledge his trauma because he knows that if he did, it would change his outlook on his life, his family, and his childhood FOREVER. he would never be willing to tell anyone or ask for help on his own accord, and accepting that there was anything wrong in the first place means, to him, dealing with that issue by himself for the rest of his life.

why would he ever admit that anything was wrong if nothing would change either way? the only thing that WOULD change is HIM, and why would he want that? isnt it better to be blissfully unaware than to knowingly suffer in silence?

plus, he genuinely does love his brother and knows in the back of his mind that kusukes feelings toward him comes from their unhealthy upbringing and relationship and its more complex than just "hes an evil guy blah blah.." because he isnt really evil and kusuo KNOWS that.. actually, he might be the only person in the world who COULD understand..

so yeahhhh.. kokomi and kusuo are both CANONICALLY victims of sexual harassment.. (and incestual abuse at that..) and, by my interpretation, implied victims of sa as well !! (im not really sure where the line can be when it comes to this sometimes, like when your brother sniffs your bedsheets and rubs himself on them or gets off to you right in front of your face or tries to get you to grab something positioned over his crotch so he can see you in.. THAT position.. but i already said that its pretty likely that both brothers have gone farther than that off-screen..)

anywayyyy.. this is so important to me and i wish people would talk and write about it more instead of pretending it never happened and mischaracterizing every one of these characters, especially for the sake of a ship like i was talking about in my other post.. it sucks that people so often just cast kusuos canon issues aside..

[hazamacore]

i have been mulling over this addition for the last few days because i want to make sure im wording it all correctly and articulating myself well but while the majority response to this has been rightful anger at ao3 and a vigour to share these resources (good!!! thank u all!!!) there IS a mentality ive seen a few times that i want to nip in the bud

and this is not intended to distract from the original point of this post at all, because it’s all connected rather neatly

[id 1: tumblr dark mode tags that read, “#I'm usually never one to reblog anti ao3 donation content #but please just this year consider donating to gazan family please” /end id]

[id 2: tumblr dark mode tags that read, “#unfamiliar with “other issues” and personally would take with a grain of salt as theres been a lot of buzz about censoring “bad” kinks on ao3 #but yeah fuck zionists and fuck censoring your VOLUNTEER STAFF” /end id]

it's the mindset that this is One Singular Issue. that this has come out of nowhere and is the Only big issue with ao3. that This One Time You Shouldn't Donate To Them. it is not!!! i alluded to that in the op, and went on at the end to try and direct people to a blog about awareness and action against the racism that runs deep in ao3/otw for starters

the racism on ao3 and from the otw is something especially black people have been talking about as they have been talking about fandom racism for years and years and years. it is a repeated pattern of protecting racist content (think: the horrific fanfics made of the black lives matter movement in 2020 following the murder of george floyd, porn that uses blatantly racist tropes incl “raceplay”, to name just TWO examples) under this blanket of “no censorship”and dismissing entirely the victims (people of colour) affected by it. considering this, that ao3 would go on to harbour and protect zionist ideology is unsurprising

because ao3 has repeatedly demonstrated that it will prioritise the unconditional protection of racist content, pedophilic content and incestuous content with people who take issue with it being labelled “puritans” or “pro censorship” or in the case of racism that theyre “overreacting”. ao3 has made clear that this is an environment they prioritise over one where victims are cared for, that their “anything goes” mentality is one where bigots and abusers are protected and victims dismissed. in such an environment its easy for ideologies like zionism to rest unchallenged and protected, which they do. with the volunteer who did challenge it and was Actually censored deemed “disruptive” “rude” “inflammatory”. and i must emphasise that volunteer has written the exact explicit incestuous content that ao3 otherwise protects, and this is where the line was drawn (cw for that if u are going to look deeper at their account. their experience here is very important to document, but that context is too, and i had completely forgotten about it initially)

like with many other places these issues are institutional. there is no “just dont donate THIS time” as if ao3's zionist bias will disappear when israel stops murdering palestinians and you can stop thinking about it, as if ao3 is not regardless racist, as if ao3 is not regardless a breeding ground for predators

^ i would like to direct you to this call to divest from the otw and sign in support of palestine. for more information and a breakdown on both the racism and the zionist bias

and furthermore you should stop donating to ao3 because they have tons of money already that they dont need (ty again for the very thorough breakdown @fiercynn!!). even if you strip it of all context, they should not be drinking in a surplus of 200,000 USD (quadruple their goal) in a climate where millions of people are struggling everyday to live

thank you, i hope i articulated this well. donate to any of the above causes if you have the means please and to any fundraiser you see on your dash of a marginalised person who needs help with groceries or rent or healthcare or is homeless instead of chucking your money at a site that neither needs nor deserves it

instead of continuously over-donating to ao3 when those running the site are racist zionist sympathisers who shut down support of palestine from its volunteers 1 / 2 (among myriad other issues that u should NOT be funding) please direct your attention to these incomplete fundraisers for people in gaza and various tangible operations doing work. this is a call that if u have donated even a cent to ao3 to a) match that in your donations to palestinians/causes and b) stop donating so uncritically and unconditionally to ao3, pressure them. id like to direct u to @end-otw-racism

fundraiser masterpost by @el-shab-hussein

mona

care for gaza

help gaza's children

operation olive branch

the palestinian children's relief fund

unrwa

the palestinian red crescent society

buy an e-sim / donate for mass buying

[abra-ka-dammit]

in the most publicly familiar story of Lot, the men of sodom sought to rape the "male" angels (in appearance only, as angels do not have sexes. oh but let's not mention THAT or we might get too woke about gender,) who visited Lot and Abram, and somehow christians interpreted that as Gay Is Bad, and not Rape Is Bad. As a woman, this should trouble me--and it very much does.

because i guess never mind the fact that he offered them his virgin (many translations of the original word insinuate they were CHILD) daughters to rape instead, ~because the wickedness of that city had overtaken his mind~. Apparently that's acceptable sinfulness, being under the influence of a wicked city and all, bc he was not punished for that. despite the fact that his was not a gay offer, it was still the influence of sodom's very bad gayness tho. funnily, none of the other men of sodom, who may have been fine before they were also impacted by the wickedness and became (gay) rapists, did not get this opportunity for redemption.

later Lot fled the city and his wife got turned into salt for looking back instead of just fleeing as commanded. then later, wifeless, he himself raped his daughters--or, per the bible, they were like oh no theres no men to marry now :( we better fuck daddy so we can have babies and continue the family line :(( guess we better get him drunk and fuck him because it is way more important to us to bear offspring than it is the fact that having sex with ur own dad is bad and wrong and really gross. oh also we DEFINITELY came up with this idea ourselves and it wasnt just Lot's later victim-blaming excuse for how his daughters both got pregnant living with only him. Clearly they got him drunk on purpose and then seduced and forced themselves him, and he didnt just get really drunk and horny and the only vaginas around happened to had sprung from his late wife's womb so he said fuck it and jizzed in his own kids. because he was a holy man, he would NEVER!!

I doubt anyone ever heard the girls' side of the story. Or cared to, because pfft, they're just females.

so the man who offered his daughters for rape, and slept with them himself, creating incestuous children, was The Good Guy of the story and Gays Were The Villains. tho suppose it tracks, given the christian-catholic complex has made it clear they see no problem with sexually assaulting children. you only need to look at the numbers; it's sickening what these Holy People we're meant to trust are doing. but the fact they wanted to rape a MAN is the sin, guys, just remember. THATS the point of the story. god hates fags, he burned them for wanting to stick dicks in male assholes and not the rampant, violent rape apologist mindset. also fuck women who dont listen to commands amirite guys lululul

i'm just saying. if you are a christian woman. and you hear these stories. youre told Lot did these things to his daughters, that the wife was killed for something that wasnt even a sin or harmful in ANY way but only for "disobeying", then youre told Lot is the good and righteous person. how can you stomach that? how can you nod along and go like oh yes the fact that gays and women are the problems in these stories and not the reprehensible actions of the male protagonists makes total sense and i believe it entirely. yes, women are so bad and naughty and need their daddies and hubbies to keep them in line, and make sure they get married and have babies like good girls, i totally agree. kick my ass bc i disobeyed you, husband, the bible says its fine bc im lesser than you :) I'm fine with that :) i dont want rights, dont worry, hubby. YOU decide if i have babies, not me, tee hee. i better not voice any opinions because my girl brain is too stupid and prone to sin. i definitely shouldnt speak up in church against the extreme and obvious sexism, god forbid i be a FEMINIST, a word that has been purposefully misdefined and vilified by my church so i don't realize it isn't what I think it is. we suffer not for the sins of our fathers, but i'm still physically suffering for original sin for a week or so every month bc i'm a woman and we deserve it :) ah damn i was raped i guess im impure and unworthy of my husband now bc i didnt fight hard enough or scream loud enough to prevent it :) can't wait to go to heaven to serve my husband eternally while worshipping the lord for blessing me with the chance to be a lesser being on earth for X years

like fucking face it! christianity is nothing but a man's guide to bullshit to justify shitty behavior towards anyone besides another straight cis man. see, i can get away with this, my god says its righteous. but if you do it with your uterus and tits it's bad, so sit down. see, god killed a buncha gay rapists. thats what they get for being gay. i can go rape a woman tho, and hell, i can even say she used demonic seduction and forced me into it and she's the bad guy, too. and you gotta agree, bc im a christian so im a good person so im definitely not lying or anything.

anyways the point is if youre a christian woman, willingly, youre fucking blind. frankly, but in the most gentle and loving way possible, youre a fucking moron.

open your goddamned eyes and get the fuck out of there. why are you allowing people to justify hurting you?? these values didnt end in genesis. they are maintained today. christian men to this day blame the woman for coaxing them into extramarital affairs they willingly and hornily enter. christian men to this day believe women are lesser and should be subservient to them, the Given leader of the household by merit of wiener. christian men to this day blame women for their own rapes and hold them accountable for pregnancies they never wanted bc they're MEANT to be baby bakeries and refusing is against your Purpose. christian men to this day believe you're weaker, less skilled, less powerful, less capable, just Lesser, because of the body you were born in--one that does amazing things theirs could never do, like bring fucking LIFE INTO THE WORLD. christian men to this day justify breaking modern laws and moral codes because women nod along agreeing that this ancient book written in a long dead language based on word of mouth stories in places today considered third-world that nobody you know has ever been to, most or all of which happened before the advent of written language, and was all 100% written by men and only contains a number of female characters you can count on your fingers despite covering supposedly thousands of years of stories, is a valid reason for it all.

I'm begging you to open your eyes and see. I'm begging you to value and love yourself. even if you think none of these things have ever applied to you; because i bet they have and you're just too used to it to realize. It's not even progressive to appreciate your right to equality as a human being!! you dont need to change all your values! the things you really love about church--community, kindness, love, service, gratitude and celebration of the life you have been given--can all be maintained without religion. all you need to do is wake up and see that you're being systemically abused. if there is a God, which I welcome you to continue to believe, he wouldnt want this for you. If he loves his children, ALL his children equally, anyone who says man is superior is outright speaking against that very idea! In God's eyes, we are all the same, so why do men get to say "but we're a little more special"? If you need to shut your mouth and keep shit to yourself, that's not love and peace and harmony and salvation. That's being oppressed. Please. PLEASE wake up.

Sincerely,

A much happier now ex-Christian Woman, who never doubted her faith to be real for a moment until one day something spurred her to actually start REALLY looking at what she was raised to believe

[victeazer-archive]

Alright. Lets put this kitten to bed shall we?

I am alerted to uppastthejelliclemoon's precense after she posts some shit about that racist misogynistic homophobe we all know and love for writing alpha male munkustrap fanfiction and how shit has been taken too far over some shitpost blah blah blah idk. I scroll thru her blog being like what kind of person posts this? Seriously? And i stumble upon this au she had been indulging in which is terrible and you can look it up for yourselves. Apparently this was the second time this kind of thing has happened as well (being that she writes disgusting shit and gets called out for it) so let's keep that in mind.

Anyway im discussing this with my friend as we are both disgusted by this and he messages uppastthejelliclemoon directly asking for clarification. She doesnt respond. I get impatient and point out the fact that this shit exists on my own blog and tag her so she can have an oppurtunity to explain herself. She doesnt respond.

My friend replies to my post with his own commentary and additional screenshots.

People see it and respond appropriately in disgust as it is disgusting.

Uppastthejellicle moon decides to do a non apology in which shes basically like well I didnt INTEND to and im only being positive and also guys why did you tell everyone about this thing they could find on their own and not talk to me. Directly.

Except then she only got anonymous messages?

But then, when she is in dms with my friend, no one spoke to her? But then only anons did. BUT THEN SHE DID RECEIVE A MESSAGE FROM HIM EXACTLY. Funny that.

Weird how the story changes like that and ours doesnt. Hm.

Weird thing you'll notice is her claiming that well this shit she posted was a while ago and why didnt we address it then and im like. Hm. Weird you think we know every post you have ever made and know exactly when and where. Sounds a little like you think everyone MUST know everything about you at all times because youre so important. So important that you decide that the homophobic racist misogynist gets the clear over a shitpost and we are bullies as your friends call us despite everything showing clearly otherwise?

Anyway.

To the people reading this im sure youve realized im not a pleasant speaker when i know im right and am speaking to people who will die on a hill of nasty shit of their own making.

My friend, however, as you can tell from just the excerpt of their conversation is very respectable. He's gentle and factual and calm as he explains himself. He would ask me and his other friends if what he wrote was too harsh or innacurate before sending them for you see, he has a stress condition. Its very clearly stated on his blog that im sure uppastthejelliclemoon and friends have seen as they are able to message him.

See, I think my friend here did a great job handling this situation considering his stress condition, and i do not think that him having a stress condition exempts him from speaking his mind and defending himself. (Which jelliclemoon's friend ruvyr will later say the opposite of in the screenshots that follow, which is ableist, by the way, but lets keep going).

However, when you are discussing an issue with someone you know has a stress condition and you start to dogpile onto him with your other friend who has nothing but insults and a way of twisting their words to suit your narrative?

Maybe dont do that. Because now my friend had to vomit due to this outright gaslighting.

See, i have received zero messages from these people directly because they know that I wont be nice. They pick on someone weaker, my aforementiond friend, who did exactly as uppastthejelliclemoon had asked in the first place.

So.

Uppastthejelliclemoon gets a callout post for their horrible shit.

Uppastthejelliclemoon, whitmerule, ruvyru and probably more then decide to knowingly dogpile on the weaker of the two that made the callout post to the point of him physically vomiting.

* i wont be specifying who gave me this screenshot, but i believe it is a reliable source, heres the full one unedited:

Here it all is. The whole picture for you.

I suggest you block

@uppastthejelliclemoon

As they clearly do not take criticism well and as I have said, repeated the same actions that have been called out for previously.

@whitmerule

Who has a history of writing incestuous fics and frowns down upon "antis" (aka normal people) that speak up against this nasty shit weve mentioned today, and also participates in this blatant attack on my friend who did nothing wrong.

@ruvyru

For associating with them in the first place and just being a straight up bully as you can see in the dms they requested be posted publically

@statisticalcats

Who is literally into incest and uses terms like "purity culture" unironically to describe me saying hey, maybe racist, sexist, ableist, and just nasty shit like that, being bad!

@fiercejellicle

Well you know why. If not, look up purplezprout on my blog.

And just avoid these people in future.

Me and my friend @zitface are done with this drama, specifically. I applaud them for handling this situation well, but like i have said before, I will point out shit I find gross in the future. I dont give a shit.

Feel free to reblog, and reply with your favorite love song! Im working on a not disgusting fanfiction and need inspiration. Hope you all have a good day.

[21ate]

i just finished trial 3 and god damn i have no idea how to feel about korekiyo.......

huge trigger warning: incest, sexual abuse, grooming. everything will be under the cut as this is a long post about disturbing subjects

lemme say right off the bat that the sister thing is, well, fucked up - and regardless of what im about to say here, its not meant to defend or excuse kiyo’s actions

but...theres a couple of things about his character and behavior that makes me feel like its not as straightforward as the “forbidden yet pure love” he makes his relationship out to be after the verdict, and i think in order for me to settle my own feelings on him i should discuss it at length

(i dont think im the first to talk about this though of course, but since im goin thru the effort to sort of live blog my experience with this game, i might as well make my own contribution to this particular topic too.)

so first is the fact that kiyo is the younger of the two siblings, not older. i guess it doesnt necessarily matter that much if it were the case of simply a pure, though incestuous, relationship...however, an age gap like that could lend to the idea of grooming - in this case, the older sister grooming the younger brother, kiyo

this can be especially seen when considering how kiyo talks about his sister and the explicit sexual nature of it (which ill explain how so later). he is full of adoration for her. so adoring he is, in fact, that he is willing to kill for her. of course, the killing didnt come until after she had passed away...but why was he so attached to her to such an extreme in the first place? to the point where he became deluded into believing her soul was within him after her death and believing he must provide her with friends in the afterlife?

grooming is accomplished through exploiting the victims vulnerabilities to form an emotional bond, with the objective being to ensure the relationship is concealed and to entrap the victim into being co-dependent, cooperating participant (again to reduce the likelihood of the abuse being found out, as well as to manipulate the victim into coming back to their abuser again and again)

while its unclear to me whether kiyo’s parents were ever in the picture, it certainly would be a contributing factor in making kiyo more vulnerable to abuse if they were not around (be it dead or just neglectful). however, even without knowing the parental situation, the state of his sisters physical health would also suffice as a contributing factor to kiyo’s vulnerability. being in and out of hospitals often would easily worry anyone’s loved ones, and its that worry that can also be exploited just as easily

the way in which kiyo portrays his sister when acting as her spirit is also telling of grooming i think. when he first begins to panic, his “sister” comes forth and rattles off instructions (starting with telling him to calm down, to which he obeys, and several other instructions). i believe this to be revealing of the fact that his sister was the controller in this relationship with kiyo...which is exactly how perpetrators of grooming behave. and as i said, the goal is to keep the victim close and to conceal the abuse. kiyo obeys her commands without question - his loyalty to her is undeniable

grooming is also pretty much tied to sexual abuse too. and what demonstrates this clearly? simple: the sequence depicting kiyo and his sister holding each other while naked. why else would they be shown in such a way if not to make it clear that their relationship was sexual in nature? you could argue that being naked isnt inherently a sexual thing...but in this case, it doesnt make sense to me to see it as anything besides such. from kiyos words about wanting to be enveloped in his sisters warmth, to the fact that kiyo is the younger sibling...and not only that, but hes also still underage...the choice to have the two naked would certainly be confusing if it was meant to be seen as innocent and nothing else. theres simply too many other things wrong about the situation to believe their love was “healthy” and “pure” (in quotes cause obvs there would still be the incest thing)

finally, the end of kiyo’s execution again alludes to the sister having sinister intentions when pursuing her brother. when kiyo dies and his soul ascends to the skies, kiyo’s sister and monokuma throw salt on him to destroy his spirit entirely (as salt is used to ward off ghosts). even if its not exactly the most direct or trustworthy evidence, the fact that it was written this way can still serve as providing further depth to kiyo’s characterization and showing us, the audience, that his sister may not be as kind as kiyo thinks she is

with all this in mind, heres what i think happened:

kiyo was groomed and sexually abused by his older sister. the sister exploited kiyo’s vulnerabilities: he was the younger sibling which gave him a reason to look up to her, the sister was also very sickly, and their parents/other adults may not have been around enough (if at all) to notice the abuse. as a result, she was able to keep kiyo close to her and abuse him under the guise of forbidden love. she convinced him that their relationship was pure and that the opinions of others did not matter. kiyo became attached to the point of obsession, obeying his sisters every command. 

when his sister passed away due to her illness, it broke kiyo down - he had just lost the only person he loved and only one who loved him, so he wouldve been led to believe anyways. after her death, kiyo became deluded into thinking his sisters soul returned to him during a seance he was a part of (perhaps done in an effort to contact her - given how distraught he was after her death, this seems likely). he wanted his older sister and abuser back - because without her, he had no one else to guide him (i.e. groom) and no idea what to do with himself

it eventually escalates into him believing his sister’s soul to be lonely, which may have been him projecting his own loneliness onto her. and thus, his solution was obvious: to provide the soul of his sister with friends to cure her loneliness, he must kill people so that their souls may join her in the afterlife as well. and kill he did...

korekiyo has done terrible things, undeniably - but its also quite tragic how he came to be in such a position. i dont hate him, but i cant like him either. its just not quite that simple. i guess in the end, thats how i really feel about him

[wellward-a]

anyway i dont know hwo coherent this will be but i don’t want to lose these thoughts, so.

imo s1 of the show unquestionably portrays lilith as predatory/grooming toward sabrina, it’s not even subtle. i’m thinking of incidents like:

- lilith trailing her hand along sabrina’s shoulders and sabrina looking visibly disturbed - lilith licking her finger and wiping a nonexistent speck from sabrina’s cheek, causing sabrina to run away from her - lilith hiding in bathrooms to spy on sabrina or wait for the right moment to prey on her - lilith being in sabrina’s bedroom, gasping with delight, caressing her pillow, and enchanting the mirror to let her spy on sabrina as a female cover of “black magic woman” plays - more tangentially, lilith using stolas to spy on teenage girls in the shower at the academy (ostensibly trying to spy on sabrina)

all of this is evidently part of her plan to guide sabrina toward her dark baptism and her ownership by satan; in essence, she is a sexual predator by proxy for the dark lord, whose incestuous and pedophilic intentions toward sabrina become explicit in s2.

all that being said... none of this is necessary for lilith to accomplish her goal. indeed, emulating the real mary wardwell more closely by acting as a benign mentor, rather than threatening and sexually suggestive corruptor, would probably have gotten sabrina where she wanted her faster. there’s imo no inherent story logic to lilith appearing to groom sabrina sexually.

what’s the goal of sexualizing her this way? why portray her as flirtatious with other women, sexually predatory toward sabrina, and overtly loathing toward men? it’s all a part of her aura as a sinister villain—it’s how the show chose to accomplish its goal of making her seem threatening and dangerous to sabrina. certainly she’s campy while she does it, but she is an active threat to sabrina’s well-being. and the show makes that clear by depicting her, subtextually, as a pedophile and lesbian sexual predator.

thus, in season 2, when it wants to initiate her redemption arc, caos pivots. lilith isn’t interested in sabrina at all, it insists—she complains during the christmas special and at the beginning of this season about being stuck, frustrated, and tired of dealing with sabrina. and her emotional arc centers around the abrupt introduction of a male love interest—the fiance of mary wardwell (who shows up quite conviently, given that mary is explicitly described as being ‘alone’ at the beginning of the show).

centering lilith’s story this season around her experiences with adam—who has no personality, and is more or less a pull-string doll whose only spoken phrase is “i love you, mary!”—massively shifts focus from her relationship w sabrina; indeed, while i haven’t quantified this, it seems to me they’ve shared much less screen time this season than last season. her sexual interest is redirected onto an appropriate object in time for it to teach her a lesson about her abusive relationship with the dark lord and decide to overthrow him, leading, ultimately, to her redemption upon helping to save sabrina and crowning herself queen of hell.

don’t get me wrong, i’m not complaining about the fact that she stops preying on sabrina. what i’m pointing out here is that, while she was a villain, lilith was arbitrarily portrayed as a homophobic stereotype—the predatory teacher who grooms her vulnerable female students. when the writers decided they wanted her to be a hero, they backpedaled from that choice, rehabilitating her by centering her emotional focus and drive around her experiences with a randomly introduced male character, who otherwise contributed nothing to the story.

what does it mean that lilith is portrayed this way? im tired and open tomorrow, so i might have to get back to you on a firm conclusion. but for me, it suggests a few things: DEFINITE buried homophobia/lesbophobia on the part of the writers—given the depiction of ambrose and luke in the show? ya. doesn’t shock me that the writers would also lean on sexual stereotypes about lesbians here. perhaps a continuation of the tradition of portraying lesbian killers in media? or perpetuating the “bisexual sociopath” stereotype most recently invoked by a simple favor, using sapphic sexuality to imply a character’s “cr*ziness” while finally emphasizing that their ultimate desire will always be for men?

i think it certainly expresses the writers’ carelessness about the way they portray their characters and the falseness of their apparent feminist intent. anyway idk. that’s about it

[missjackil]

SPN Did Something Pretty Amazing

One thing I have always liked about Supenatural, is that theyre willing to try things no other shows have done. Most of the time it works, sometimes it doesnt, but theyre not affraid to think outside the box. Things like having a cross-over with Scooby Doo, or episodes like The French Mistake, or Fan Fiction, are great, though theyre doable only because of the premise of the show. In the supernatural world, nothing is impossible. The heros die and come back a lot, old characters come back in various ways, in dreams, time travel, or even as the same character, and this is ok because again, in the supernatural world nothing is impossible. However, this newest amazing thing, at its core, didnt come to pass because of supenatural influence, but because of human actions, and viewer acceptance.  Two brothers and their Angel buddy, adopt an adult orphan son.  Think about that. What show has ever done such a thing? None. In similar cases, like 3 Men and a Baby, Full House, Two and a half Men, there is one defined Father, and then the other men are uncles or support for the one father. But not on SPN, all 3 have been defined as this kid’s father, even though none of them are biologically his father. Even before Luficer died, we saw this beginning. And even stranger still, there were always strong efforts to keep Jack away from his biological father, which is also not a common practice. When dealing with an older child, theres always a “let them chose” clause. But thats never really been the case on SPN, it was always “Keep Lucifer away from this kid” and justifiably so, I might add, but its still strange for TV isnt it? Yet, somehow this all worked. Now, this isnt a debate on who deserves to be Jacks main father, which would obviously be Sam but to just talk about how the show managed to make this happen and be completely accepted by the viewers. 

I work with several SPN fans, though Im the only one who wouldnt really be considered a casual viewer, meaning Im the only obssessed one LOL but the others arent involved in SPN SM on tumblr or twitter, they dont go to conventions and none of them are into shipping. (thats right, it seems most casual viewers dont ship the characters) yet all of them think its cool that Sam, Dean and Cas are Jack’s fathers, none of them think its creepy, incestuous, or gay. One did joke that it sounded like the synopsis of a very bad porno, (2 brothers, and their buddy take in a young adult orphan as their own) but then said that its a very cool concept.  What I think made it work, is everything thats gone down in the last 13 years. I dont care if youre a wincest shipper or not, but theres no closer relationship on the show than Sam and Dean. We know now they are “stuck” with each other, they wont be finding a significant other and building their own family, and even in the end, they’ll be together. Be it on Earth, in Heaven, Hell or the Empty. Also, they have no closer companion than Cas. Whether or not you like the character, canonically, Cas is their best friend that they love as a brother.  Since the show revolves around family dynamics, good ones and bad ones, we’ve seen Sam and Dean in every position. As brothers, sons, cousins, friends, and even as husbands breifly to Lisa and Amelia. we never really got to see them as fathers. The show could have remedied this by having one of their ex girlfriends show up with a kid “Surprize!!” but Im glad they didnt. This would automatically put one brother in the position of Dad, and the other as Uncle and Cas is just that buddy in the trench coat. The way it was done, put all 3 men in a fatherly position that developed over different time lines and circumstances.  Im going to try to break this down in an unbias manner. We can all feel free to disagree with the outcome, but its how the show itself unfolded this little highly unorthodox family. Cas was the one appointed to be Jack’s father. Kelly gave this duty to him when she decided to allow herself to die to let her son be born, and Cas accepted. So it looked as though Cas would be this boy’s father, but as it was, Cas was dead when Jack was born.  Sam came to the plate next. His relationship developed organically with Jack. Some may not have seen it coming, but Sam was determined long before Jack was born, to NOT kill him, but to try to let him be born without the worry that he would be evil. When it was apparent they couldnt take his grace and make him human, Sam knew it didnt mean Jack HAD to be evil. Sam took the role as mentor right away. Caring for Jack and having genuine compassion for him. We were given the hint Sam felt fatherly when they showed him reading a parenting book. (my god that was the cutest thing) So the writers flipped the script and gave Sam a head start in the father field. Also, with Sam being first, it added this layer of beauty, because Sam fell in paternal love with the son of his torturer. He wasnt enlisted, or pushed, it just happened, and thats beautiful. Dean came last, and as a story teller, I can see why they chose this route. It had been established since S1 that Dean is good with kids and naturally paternal. To have him be the first “father” would leave Cas and Sam on unlevel ground through lack of experience. For Dean to follow up second from Cas, would make it too shippy, and Sam would probably never make it out from under the  “uncle” title. and wouldnt we always wonder if Sam held a little resentment inside? Jack being the son of Lucifer for starters, and Dean taking him in as a son? Over the seasons, Sam has made it very clear, he never wants to be #2 in Dean’s eyes, and this could bring around some bad brother drama.  Dean starts off hating Jack. Indeed he was way too nasty to him in the beginning. Not even gonna debate that, but for Sam, Dean gives the kid a shot. He discovers that yes, Jack is a good kid and now Deans natural paternal side clicks on. And keep in mind he didnt try to step onSam and take over. Yes they showed Dean and Jack bonding more than they did Sam, but he didnt take over. He made sure taking Jack out was ok with Sam, so did Cas. They both respected that Sam has been Jacks primary care giver since day 1, and Sam isnt selfish or possessive (over anyone/anything else besides Dean) so Sam is happy to share Jack so he can have as much positive influence as he can.  So I give TPTB credit for coming up with this formula, my only complaint being that they didnt need to make Dean as hateful as he was, they could have just made him hessitant and standoffish at first and that would have been enough but it is what it is, and that part is over thank Chuck. Now, most of us knew the “3 dads” thing was coming because the cast talked about it a lot, but those of us who dont follow the cons and interviews, still were pleasently surprised that this came about. I havent heard anyone complain that its creepy, even though if you tell someone whos never seen the show “On my show, the 2 brothers and their friend adopted an 18 yr old kid” they’d look at you funny.  We complain about the writers all the time because they do screw up a lot, but I like to give them credit when I can. This is one of those situations. They made something that seems creepy on the outside, not only acceptable, but wonderful, simply by how it was written. I feel the same way about how they handled the return of Mary. It didnt pan out as well as it could have, and thats really a whole other meta, but Im glad they didnt take an easy route with her making her a zombie, or Super Mom and put her in a really human position of a mother meeting her adult sons for the first time, but Ill save that for another post :)

[artificialqueens]

for all the honest world to feel (trixya) (5/8) - dare

Brian stared down at his screen, trying to understand what he was seeing – the mild frown on Katya’s face, and the other queen, hands raised, standing just out of frame beyond the gap in the bus bunk curtain.

(AN: so this is… long and sad. finally-throwing-in-an-angst-tag-at-the-bottom levels of sad. warnings for unsafe alcohol use and overdrinking; as usual, “she/her” for adore and “he/him” for trixie (brian) and katya. also, this might read a little weird, but i made the executive decision not to name the weho queen who’s been giving trixie shit because (contrary to, uh, all other signs, i guess) i don’t actually want to speculate on who’s a douche and who isn’t in the ru girl community. so that’s also a thing. 

(OH, and, there’s more lyrics in this one, please don’t judge me, it’s very hard to try to measure up to trixie’s irl songwriting chops lmao)

this week on honest world: shit’s sad. shit’s real sad.)

| ch. 1 | ch. 2 | ch. 3 | ch. 4 |

FROM: SHEA - 9:57 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

[Attachment: IMG_3782.MOV]

Girl.

If you dont wife her up I will.

FROM: KIM - 10:03 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

holy shit

i don’t think i’ve ever seen her mad. like for real

FROM: SHEA - 10:04 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

This was some WWF shit girl. That bitch will be feeling it for a while.

FROM: KIM - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

katya’s from boston. she’s 90% salt, 5% feelings, 5% inner saboteur and 100% ready to fight

FROM: SHEA - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

Thats a lot of math, Kimberley

FROM: KIM - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

are you being racist? don’t be racist shea. omg.

someone had to count trixie’s tips for her when she was passed out drunk in my bed

FROM: SHEA - 10:07 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

*Steal trixie’s tips from her.

FROM: SHEA - 10:15 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

Trisha baby if you’re out there we love you girl okay? call us any time xxxx

*

Brian stared down at his screen, trying to understand what he was seeing – the mild frown on Katya’s face, and the other queen, hands raised, standing just out of frame beyond the gap in the bus bunk curtain.

“You know,” Katya was saying, perfectly conversational, “I found it kind of cute at first? Like a puppy trying to fight itself in the mirror – or one that can’t, you know. Stop pissing itself. You know what I mean? Funny but sad. But I don’t think I find it funny anymore.”

The other queen laughed nervously. “Come on, Katya –”

“I’m not laughing. Why are you laughing?” said Katya, raising his eyebrows. “I’m not laughing.”

The laughter stuttered into silence. Over the mic, Brian heard Shea expel a slow, cautious breath.

Katya tilted his head, and the expression on his face darkened like a spring storm. “I want to make it really clear to you how far you’ve managed to over-reach yourself, that you’ve actually crossed my limits. ‘Cause I don’t care how you run things in your club, how you treat your friends, whatever – that’s none of my business, since I don’t work in your club and I’m not your friend. Oh, in case you hadn’t noticed – I’m not your friend. FYI. Because you’ve been acting like I am, and I think it’s time for that to stop.”

The raised hands dropped out of sight. “Jesus. Why don’t you tell me how you really feel.”

And that – Brian winced despite himself. That was a mistake.

Katya grinned, showing too many teeth. “Can I? I’d like that, thanks.” He tapped his fingers rapidly against the side of his thigh. “I feel like you’ve gotten a little too comfortable as top dog in your scene, and when Trixie showed up and didn’t line up to eat you out like everyone else does, your ego plummeted out of your ass. And what we’ve been seeing for the past half a year – can I repeat that? It’s been half a year, which is beyond pathetic – what we’ve been seeing is some kind of hemorrhoidal psychosis, as you take obsessive potshots at someone who couldn’t give less of a fuck about you. It’s not just pathetic – it’s harassment. You’re showing your whole ass right now but guess what, girl? We’ve seen it.”

“You said yourself you’re not in my scene, so don’t talk like you know shit,” the queen snapped back. Her voice tightened like a screw being ground into drywall. “The bitch could have tried to be friendly, for fuck’s sake –”

“You aren’t being very smart right now,” Katya interrupted, with all the force of a tire iron punching through a sheet of glass. “This might be a good time to consider your word choice, if there ever was one. That would be the smart thing here.” Teeth again, manic. “You want friendly? I can do friendly. We have another week on tour – you want me to do friendly. Because the alternative is that I freeze you out, publicly and professionally, and I make your life and your career outside of that fucked up, incestuous bubble of a scene you’ve pissed all over very difficult. Am I – am I being clear? I want to be very clear. You’ve messed up enough shit in my life, and I want this over with.”

There was a pause and a shift in the shadows beyond the curtain – nodding.

“Good. So here’s how this is going to go.” A wooden sound, rap, Katya’s knuckles against the bunk frame. Brian could make out the rise and fall of Katya’s chest, shallow and too fast, in the gap between the curtains. “You don’t post about Trixie. You don’t talk about her. If, God forbid, the opportunity arises, you don’t talk to her. That last one is for you – I’m a lover, not a fighter, but it is my strong suspicion that if you pull this to her face one more time, she will beat the ever-loving shit out of you. Just a – a pro-tip, let’s call it. An insight.”

There was a weak laugh. “She can try it. Jesus, Katya, come the fuck on –”

Slam – an open-handed palm against the wood. “Do you think I’m fucking around here? I’m not. Don’t fucking push me on this.”

Brian had heard Katya angry a handful of times in his life. He’d never heard him like this. This wasn’t Katya out of control; this was Katya very near the end of his rope, and aware of every inch he had left, making them count.

The sick feeling in Brian’s stomach crept higher. He pressed his knuckles against his mouth.

“You stop coming for Trixie,” Katya was saying. “No more posts on facebook, no more whispers at shows. No more shit-talking to promoters – yeah, I asked around, I heard about that. Not that it did you much good. It has to hurt, I think – does it? Knowing that Trixie’s booking is worth more than your word? That’s gotta sting. But I’m not sure how much of a hold your word even has anymore, you bitter fucking cunt.”

Shea, behind the camera, drew in a shocked breath at the pure vitriol in Katya’s voice.

There was a stillness to the air for a long moment, like the silence after a hurricane has swept the earth bare and ragged. Then the other queen laughed again; louder this time, acidic, but with a definite note of finality – of defeat.

“If everyone could see you now,” she said.

Katya barked a laugh of his own. “Girl, they wouldn’t care. I’m America’s fucking sweetheart.” He stepped back and waved a hand in the space visible between the curtains; it was shaking finely, Brian could see it. “Get the fuck out of here. I’m not dealing with you today. Call back tomorrow – I’ll be friendly again.”

The curtains fluttered as hurried footsteps passed by and receded out of the room, the door to the common lounge sliding open and then shut.

Katya’s shadow shifted. Back and forth, like he was caught up on a decision; then he said, quiet, muffled: “fuck.” Footsteps rang in the opposite direction – towards, Brian assumed, his own bunk, as there was the fumbling sound of feet on rungs and then the rattle of metal rings as the curtains were pulled shut.

The camera reversed. Shea stared up at it, her eyes filling most of the screen, hilariously wide and scandalized. Then the video went black – and flicked back to that first still, frozen, the anger on Katya’s face deepening the hollows of his cheeks, his eyes throwing sparks through the screen.

Brian stared down at the rictus of his face, then pressed the phone down screen-first beside him into his mattress. The hard lines of its body bit into the insides of his fingers.

Fuck. What the fuck.

He could stop the video, but he couldn’t make his brain put away the tired lines that had cut into Katya’s face, or the ragged edge of his voice, or how the sound of his palm hitting solid wood had rung through Shea’s bunk, bouncing thickly off the walls.

The room was too small. Brian dragged himself up and went out into the living room, phone in his fist tucked into his pocket, but out there it was too big, and his skin felt all wrong, and he wanted to call Katya but he couldn’t make himself do it.

Katya hadn’t called or texted since the night of the pageant, when Brian had waited and waited all night but the internet – and that fan in the bar who’d clocked him – had stayed miraculously silent. Katya hadn’t called, or texted, or tweeted, or even updated his fucking instagram.

God.

Brian’s phone buzzed suddenly in his pocket and he almost threw it at the balcony doors in his haste to get it out. He fumbled it awake – and then he saw the name on the screen, and his shoulders slumped again.

FROM: ADORE - 10:28 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

I forgot to ask but can u water my plants??? this is the longest ive gone without killing any of them :(

LA sucks.

it’s like *jaws theme* all the time. and i forgot my sunglasses

He swiped his phone unlocked and read through the texts, mouth twitching feebly towards an almost-smile. It buzzed in his palm again and a picture appeared – Adore, nose scrunched, squinting into the sky.

Brian typed back, i promise, you can definitely afford another pair of sunglasses. and yes, your plants are safe in my hands.

The answer came quickly, every letter infused with the kind of wry snark that Adore was so good at: dont make promises my lawyers can’t keep

Brian huffed a quiet laugh. The sound was swallowed up in the space of the apartment, a small rock dropped in a large lake, not even reaching far enough to touch the walls.

*

Adore had come out the morning after that night to find him on the couch, his guitar abandoned on the coffee table, staring out into the thin morning light. It wasn’t even 7 AM. He’d gotten four or so hours of restless sleep before giving up on it; the room was lit such a soft grey that he might as well have wrapped in a dream anyway. He’d been staring out at the clouds and the inkstain crows flecked along the telephone wires for so long that they’d blurred, like an impressionistic painting – barely real.

Adore had gone and sat beside him. Then she’d leaned over, carefully, and rested her head on his shoulder. He’d shuddered – one long wave through his whole body. She was warm. When she breathed her chest expanded against his arm, slow and steady like waves coming into the shore. He’d only been able to bear it for a few minutes before he’d had to get up, fingers twitching at his side; he’d given her an apologetic smile, and she’d watched him walk back to his room with her chin on her wrist, her forearm braced against the back of the couch.

He’d checked twitter one more time, and then fallen into deep, exhausting sleep.

*

“That’ll be thirty-two dollars and forty cents, please,” said the bored young woman behind the till, eyeing his – genuinely embarrassing – collection of groceries: ramen noodles, tomato sauce from a jar, the kind of shitty white wine he’d drunk in senior year of college, and stuff to make a salad, out of the idealistic hope that he might actually make a salad.

“I’ll just put that on my credit card,” Brian said. He watched her surreptitiously as she entered the amount onto the card reader. Adore had brought him here a few times, but he didn’t recognize her.

“This your first day?” he said, then winced.

“Huh?”

“I mean. Are you new?”

Now she was eyeing him, even less impressed than she’d been by his groceries. “No…”

“Oh.” He ran a hand over his head awkwardly. He’d forgotten his cap at home. “I just, I haven’t seen you here before. I thought…”

Her mouth twitched, and she popped her gum, a sharp snap in the air. The sound was somehow scornful. “Listen, mister – I’m working, you know, and even if I weren’t, I don’t go out with the kind of guy that bothers –”

“Oh my god, no,” Brian said, flushing, “Oh my god, no, I’m gay. What? No.”

“Oh,” she said. She started turning red too. “Oh. Shit – uh, I mean –”

He laughed awkwardly. “Don’t worry about it. Sorry for being, uh, super weird and stuff.”

The lights overhead were the sickly fluorescent yellow of small-time grocery stores everywhere. He could have been anywhere – east coast or west, north or south, any timezone, any city, any tour. His shoes squeaked on the floor when he shifted from heel to heel.

How was it less than a week ago that he’d felt so at home in this city he didn’t know at all?

“Your receipt,” the cashier said. She held it out towards him, then hesitated visibly. “Listen, uh… are you okay, man?”

He shrugged, stilted, and took the receipt, then grabbed the bags by their handles. “Oh, you know. More of the same,” he said.

It was awful to realize he meant it.

*

Touring was a little bit like being a ghost in your own body. You were breathing and eating and sleeping, but you might as well have been walking through walls, the way you drifted from place to place, squinting at google maps on your phone, talking to people whose names you’d either forget within five minutes or never knew in the first place. You could be anywhere at all; you might as well be nowhere.

Brian drank shitty wine and played into the night, the notes echoing hollowly across the big empty space of Adore’s living room. Music usually anchored him into his body on the road. Every chord brought him a little closer, the muscles, tendons, bones of his hands all tuned in to the melody with the ease of years. He could close his eyes and wherever he was, he was home.

But each time he opened his eyes again he was someplace new.

Seattle wasn’t a tour stop, but its grey skies, the neighbours he ran into on the staircase, the people he saw in the grocery store – none of them were home. But, fuck it, neither was LA, where he spent a few days every month or two and sometimes found himself waking up wondering whose walls he was looking at. And where the fuck did that leave him?

He played a sour note, paused, and corrected himself. Breathed. Tried to bring Emmylou’s lilting refrain back under his fingers.

Without Adore’s voice in the next room livestreaming her way out of boredom, the apartment grew stale and shadowed; without Katya’s calls every night, the days seemed endless, a pale stretch of hours where he did nothing and saw no one. And as each hour ticked past on the clock it became more and more obvious that the veneer of sunshine he’d pasted over Seattle with Adore’s friendly warmth and the sound of Katya’s smile was just that – a veneer.

Another sour note. He stopped and lay his guitar flat in his lap, then picked up his glass on the coffee table and drained it.

His phone lay still and silent beside the wet ring his glass had left on the wood.

He flicked a bit of lint from the couch off his boxers and took up his guitar again, tracing out the melody that he’d been chasing these past weeks on automatic. The sky outside was ripening, edging into evening. It was almost fall. He’d been in Seattle for three weeks, and it seemed he really hadn’t moved an inch.

He could call Katya. He could suck it the fuck up and call Katya, because maybe Katya was waiting for him to call. Maybe this whole ‘respecting Katya’s space’ thing he was doing was totally misguided, and Katya was waiting beside the phone every minute that he wasn’t out there defending Brian’s honour or whatever that was.

I fucked you up, he could say. I was so busy pretending that everything was fine now and my problems were gone because they weren’t yelling in my face every two seconds that I didn’t realize I was setting us both up to get hurt. I was so fucking stupid, Katya, and I’m so – I’m so sorry.

And Katya would say…

What?

I just want you to be okay, if he was feeling self-sacrificial; it’s your irrepressible Virgo energy, if he was feeling avoidant. Maybe, maybe, I thought you said you didn’t lie to me, and you weren’t going to start, if he was feeling particularly honest.

Katya was always honest, more or less. It was just that the truth was flexible, more conversation than monologue, and irony always had to have the last word. Brian, meanwhile, was just a bit of a liar.

Not with Katya, though. Not before. And he hadn’t meant to – he really hadn’t meant to, not even for a second; it was just –

Fuck.

It’s worse than I was letting myself feel, Brian could say. There’s things I don’t know how to tell you. Because it is about you.

His throat tightened; he let go of the frets. He grabbed for his drink blindly and for his notebook with his other hand. Resting it against the body of his guitar, he opened to a blank page and scrawled,

You fought yourself to bring all your feelings down to heel,

and if you stopped yourself from looking, was it ever really real

but everyone’s been looking

and you –

Something inside of him was drifting dangerously, thin tethers tied to his ribs all that held it in place, like a threadbare sail on fraying ropes. The words on the page blurred in front of his eyes. He raised his glass to his mouth but the rim bumped against his teeth and nothing came out. Empty.

He frowned down at his cup. Like, fuck that nonsense. He’d put good money down on those teeth.

The wine sloshing into the glass when he poured himself another sounded like the ocean creeping onto the shore on a windless day. Like Provincetown – another place he’d gone to hide; another town full of strangers. He set the bottle back on the table, cap off, and picked up his guitar again.

*

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday he went running in the morning like nothing had changed. Before, Adore would be waking up when he got back; one of them would make breakfast, then they’d jam for a while, and then Adore would smoke up and Brian would text Katya, if he hadn’t already done so.

Now Brian just jogged. Further and further each day, until Thursday found him running along the seaside, pounding the pavement with salt stinging the inside of his mouth on every inhale. The sky was a soft feather blue, the ocean a deep silk bedsheet wavering in his peripheral vision – and then the mass of Pike Place rose up in front of him. Before he could think about it, his feet were carrying him inside; past the florists, past the bursting orange and red arrays of fresh fruit, and down the stairs to the magic shop’s door.

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the collar of his tank top, grimaced, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

It was just-opened quiet on the floor. No customers, no music; just a vague shuffling from behind the counter. “Just a minute,” the shuffler called. “If this accursed speaker breaks on me one more time…”

There was a crackling sound from the speakers set high in the walls, like a cheap firework skidding along cement, and then a whole storm of swearing below the counter.

“Uh,” Brian said. He approached cautiously. “Can I take a look? I might be able to help.”

“No, it’s really fine –” A frazzled head popped up from behind the register. “Oh! It’s you! I know you. You think you can fix it? The damn thing goes off all the time, the wiring’s too old –”

Brian shrugged. “I work in clubs and theatres and stuff, so I’ve picked up a thing or two. Let me see.”

Steph – that was her name, he remembered – was as curly-haired and strangely-dressed as when they’d met, with a sprig of rosemary tucked behind the large crow-shaped brooch pinned to her blouse and dust all over her knees. He crouched down beside her and squinted at the mess of wires and cords, poking a hesitant finger around and hoping he wouldn’t get fried. That sound had not been good.

“I think,” he said after a minute, “I think it’s this. Hang on. I’m gonna – if I die, tell my momma I loved her, and tell my dad –” he ducked further under the desk. “Well, whatever you like, if you can find him.”

She barked a laugh behind him.

He didn’t die, although he did burn his fingers a little bit, and when the music started playing (some kind of witchy Swedish wailing, possibly Bjork, Katya – Katya would know –) he let out a “Hah!” of triumph. Eat that, three years on the road and four years of theatre school and thousands of dollars funnelled directly into the University of Wisconsin’s incredibly deep pockets. Eat the shit out of that.

Steph helped him out with two hands around his forearm, shaking him delightedly once he was more or less standing. “You’re a miracle worker,” she said with a bright smile. “I should hire you on the spot, because clearly you’re the real magic here.”

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his free arm and grinned down at her. Clear bright light was streaming through the high windows in the walls, glinting off her brooch, her earrings, the silver in her hair. Her smile and easy warmth was the same as it had been before, and, god, that was nice. “I’ve got greasepaint coming out of ears,” he said, shrugging modestly. “You can’t really call yourself a theatre kid until you’ve nearly died a dozen different ways trying to string up the speakers on the janitor’s old ladder. ”

“Different ways?”

He waved a hand. “You know, falling, electrocution – so boring. A good old-fashioned garrotte is where it’s at.”

Her eyes scrunched at the corners when she laughed. “I like you,” she said, grinning, “you’re strange,” and he grinned back, feeling lighter than he had all week.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. Then: “Oh, hey, the book you sold me is great. Who knew reading about the end of the world could make you feel better about life?”

“That’s right, the apocalypse poems, you…” Steph said, then paused. “God, I’m so sorry, I don’t remember your name. But you’re Danny’s friend, right?”

Brian blinked. Swallowed.

“Yeah,” he said; it came out forced, like he was overcompensating for something. “Yeah, sorry, it’s Brian. Yeah. I took some time off work and I’ve been staying with Danny.”

“Oh, do you work together?” she said, brightly and obliviously twisting the knife. “I know he does something or other with clubs and theatres and whatnot too. He’s very private about those things, but such a sweetheart. I haven’t seen him around in a while, though, how he is?”

“Away on business,” Brian said, “and, you know, we’ve been keeping busy otherwise. I’ll tell him you asked.” He wiped his palms against the sides of his shorts. “Listen, I actually – I should probably be going, actually. I’m supposed to be skyping him in about half an hour.”

An absolute lie, but Steph swallowed it without a flicker of suspicion. She smiled and pressed a hand to his arm. “Tell him I send my love. And thanks again for your help, Brian. I don’t know how many more shocks my old heart could take.”

“Oh stop,” he said, chuckling, and gave a little wave. “See you around, I guess?”

The polite small talk of strangers. Preferable to a slow death, but not by, like, a lot.

Brian took the stairs back up to the ground level slowly, although his heart rate was well back to normal by this point. He wandered out of the arcade, and turned, and walked, and turned, and then he was on a raised dock, leaning against a wooden rail next to a locked gate, which guarded the ramp down to the boats. The wood pressed into the front of his ribs. He curled his palms around the rail, ignoring the bite of splinters.

A light breeze ruffled his shirt and cooled his pink cheeks. The ocean stretched out before him, golden sunshine catching in the crests and troughs of the waves.

He closed his eyes.

*

At home, he typed, i hope you’re doing okay. i love you.

Deleted it.

Typed, today someone didnt recognize me and THAT made me sad. i think i need an intervention.

Deleted it.

Typed, went to the beach to sea what all the commocean was about but idk im still not shore

Deleted it.

Sighed, stared out the window, looked down at his feet.

Typed, i’m sorry. katya, i’m so sorry.

Deleted it.

*

“You’re so white from these shadowed winter months,” Katya crowed, shielding his eyes dramatically. “I don’t know if I can be seen with you.”

“You’re real white from being born, you know, caucasian and unfortunate, but I’ve suffered your company for years,” said Brian. He frowned and wiped at his nose where something wet was dripping – sweat or sunscreen, he didn’t know. “If you really can’t bear it, I’m sure I can find one of these tanned, strapping, oiled-up hunks of meat who’d be willing to walk with me –”

Katya grabbed his arm mid-gesture. “No no no, don’t you dare!”

“I’m just saying,” Brian continued, “you invited me, bitch –”

The shine of Katya’s grin, open-mouthed and laughing, was enough to blow his whole awful night out of the water.

They walked. The sun drew rippling air waves out of the too-hot cement; the ocean crashed beautifully green into the white shore. But it somehow wasn’t too crowded, for all that it was the dead of summer, the very peak of beach days. They moved in blissful anonymity. At one point, Katya bought him an ice cream. Brian ate it one-handed, making panicked noises and laughing as it dripped closer and closer to his hand. His other hand was – well. He’d taken Katya’s as they stood waiting for the cone, and he hadn’t let go yet. His stomach flipped giddily every time their steps fell out of sync – their palms would drag against each other, just for a moment, each time making him newly aware again of the calluses on Katya’s palm.

He traced his index finger along the big tendon on the back of Katya’s hand, and Katya glanced at him sideways, quick, lips parting on a short intake of breath. Brian licked at his ice cream and said nothing, warm and smug all over.

Sea breeze and the sting of salt. They leaned over the wooden rail, right into it, shoulders and hips pressed together. The blue stretched endless.

Katya started to turn red in the cheeks around four so they ducked for shade. Brian slouched back against the blush pink wall of some souvenir shop, under the awning, and Katya stood in front of him to block the sun from his eyes. One moment Brian was looking over Katya’s shoulder at the white gulls darting and dipping over the sea; the next, he was blinking up, and Katya was closer, leaning in, one hand on the wall beside his head, his gaze flickering over Brian’s face with the same combination of lazy ease and breathless flight as the birds in the air.

Brian blinked, processing, then licked his lips to wet them. “Feeling tall?” he said.

“Feeling lots of things,” said Katya, smiling faintly. “Tall may or may not be one of them. No one’s ever accused me of a Napoleon complex, Tracy – and my psychological rap sheet is longer than the Mariana Trench. You always take me to new and exciting places, did you know that? That’s why we’re friends.”

“I thought it was for the free therapy and life coaching.”

“Don’t undersell yourself, mama. What’s newer or more exciting than uncertified therapy and dubious life coaching?”

Brian laughed. “I don’t know that ‘new’ and ‘exciting’ are words that many people have applied to me – out of drag, at least.” His mouth twitched. “You might be du-biased.”

He expected Katya to throw back his head, lean away and laugh, but instead – Katya leaned closer, his eyes glinting with mirth. “I’m gonna kill you,” he said, “I’m gonna kill you right here and dump your body into the ocean in front of the tourists, God, and everybody, and no one will punish me when they hear about the years of pun-spewing bullshit you’ve put me through.”

He was so close. Brian’s stomach flipped again; he could feel Katya’s warmth all along him, make out the freckles on his nose. “Kill me?” he said, mouth dry.

Katya blinked. Something about the set of his jaw, the small lines around his eyes, seemed suddenly vulnerable, intense and somehow opened wide.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Or, I dunno. Maybe that other thing.”

Brian held his breath. All he could hear was the crashing of the waves, loud and close – or maybe that was the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. He reached up and brushed the tips of his fingers along the sharp line of Katya’s cheek.

Katya’s chest hitched.

The breeze chased the sunlight through the empty pier, stirring the sand across the wood, and Katya leaned in, slow enough that Brian could stop him if he wanted. Brian didn’t. He lifted his face, eyes slipping shut; and Katya’s mouth fell on the corner of his, once, soft, then warm against his right cheekbone, and again on his left. Brian exhaled shakily.

“What,” he said, unsteady. “Can’t kiss me when the cameras aren’t on?”

Katya huffed a laugh, the breath warm on Brian’s face. He curled a hand below Brian’s ribs; his fingers dipped into the hollow in his tank top to brush against bare skin. Brian shivered. Voice barely louder than the wind in the distance, Katya said, “My life would be so much simpler if that were true.”

Brian opened his eyes. He looked up and met Katya’s gaze, and his mouth twitched, almost a smile. Katya’s stubble scratched at his fingertips as he settled his palm more firmly along the curve of his jaw. “Well, you’re not really a simple woman,” Brian said, and Katya was laughing when he leaned down and kissed him properly.

When he opened his eyes, the sun’s lowest rays had dipped below the edge of the awning, lighting Katya up in gold, and he tipped his head back to rest against the wall, wrapped his free arm around Katya’s waist, and said, “Come home with me.”

Except that’s not what happened at all.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was shining, and Katya was lit with gold, and he tipped his head back against the wall and thought about saying it –

– then smiled crookedly, and said instead, “You kiss like you have heat stroke.” And Katya threw back his head and laughed, wheezed, “no, just heat rash,” while the sun caught in his hair and lashes.

It’s not what happened, but it could have been. He could have taken Katya home, and pressed him up against the hallway inside his door, all that sun-warm skin under his hands. He could have kissed him the way he wanted to. He could have blown him right there with his knees sore against the hardwood, or taken his hand again and drawn him back into the bedroom, kissing him all the way. And after – Brian could have asked him to stay.

That wasn’t how it happened, but, crashed out on the couch in Seattle after his run, Brian dreamed every moment of it. Every inch of hot skin and the rasp of sheets and falling asleep together and waking up together. And when he woke up – alone – he pressed his hands flat against his stomach, feeling like something had been taken out of him. Feeling ill, feeling exhausted, feeling like his head was buzzing and his mind was five feet outside of his body.

Eventually he dragged himself up and fumbled for his phone. He wiped at the inner corners of his eyes with his knuckle as he thumbed it awake; then he pressed his palm over his face, exhaling shakily.

No new messages. Of course.

His whole body hummed feverishly, the twinned effect of the sun on his morning run and the one in his dream. Maybe that was what fucked over his self-control, that sick feeling like he was out of his head, or maybe he was just giving in to the inevitable – but, whatever it was, he opened his messages and, despite all his better judgement, typed out: check in?

Hating himself a little, he hit send.

When there was no response thirty minutes later, despite the read receipt that had popped up almost immediately, he left to go find something to drink.

*

“Oh hey, it’s you,” said the girl behind the counter. She eyed his purchases. “Wow. I didn’t think it could get sadder than last time…”

Brian huffed a short laugh. “Still gay, don’t worry.”

“Uh huh,” she said. She ran the first wine bottle – yes, first, thanks so much – under the scanner and hit a few buttons. “So is the whole sad and gay deal an aesthetic thing? How much Lana have you listened to in the past three days? I’m trying to decide if I should be staging an intervention that I’m – full disclosure – not really qualified for.”

“Do sad gays get a discount at this establishment?”

“Nope,” she said, popping it like bubblegum. “Sorry.”

She finished ringing him, his three bottles of wine, his pack of sour key candies, and his thoroughly depleted dignity through the machine.

“Credit,” he said, offering it over.

He was threading his hands through the bag handles, waiting for his card back, when she said, “Hey. What’s your name, man?”

He blinked. “It says on the card.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she said, handing it over wrapped in his receipt with an eye-roll. “So what is it?”

“Brian,” he said, and looked at the sallow lights on her face, wondering where she was going with this.

“Brian,” she repeated. “Hi, Brian, I’m Mariam.”

Her tone was conversational but somehow serious, weighted, and Brian – Brian swallowed against the sudden and unexpected feeling of his throat going tight.

“Now who’s hitting on who?” he managed, and she chuckled, but didn’t lose that look in her eyes.

“Brian. Take care of yourself, hey?” she said.

The lights glared brightly across the empty floor, the rows upon rows of no-name brands and the scuff marks on the shitty linoleum. She was watching Brian like maybe he needed watching. He swallowed again, and nodded, and left without another word.

*

Dust motes floated in the slowly draining sunlight when he returned to the apartment. The whole space of it echoed with the closing of the door. He kicked off his shoes, cracked open the first bottle, and went to get his guitar, glass in hand.

Hours passed. He drank more. He scribbled in his notebook, crossed things out, scrawled corrections in the margins. There was too much in his head. Words tumbled out like a hole had been torn somewhere, all the loose change and lint of his brain escaping despite his best efforts to plug the gap. His writing got sloppier, slanted; he wiped wine from his mouth with the back of his hand and turned the page.

The beach, the dream, the night before. The months of build-up, the moment of release. Wanting, wanting, he wanted so much and he had told himself, when he was a kid, that someday he would be able to have all the things he wanted. If he was smart enough and good enough, quick enough on his feet, he could make anything happen. But here he was: trapped into stillness as the path under his feet cut off abruptly. Because how could he have all the things he wanted when they existed at such cross-purposes?

Or was it just him? Not the fame, not the fans, not the industry, and certainly not Katya – maybe it was Brian at cross-purposes with all of it, putting himself in his own way, selfish and stubborn and cowardly, refusing to accept with good grace what the universe was offering him.

The sun dipped below the blocky Seattle skyline, the buildings across the road cast in radiant red, as he stumbled into the kitchen to open the third bottle. His hands slipped on the cap; he blinked wearily down at it, then out the window at the purples and pinks of the sky, dappled and streaked like watercolours. The sun was just a winking and burnished glare over the lip of the buildings. He inhaled deeply and it almost seemed like he could still taste salt in the air.

The skyline blurred before his eyes, replaced by the memory of the things his dream had omitted. Walking the long way back down the pier, Katya with one arm hooked around his elbow and the other hand clutching at his bicep like an ingenue, twitching with laughter every minute or so because apparently this was the most heterosexual he’d ever felt. Which, Katya had definitely licked at least one pussy in his day, so. What he meant was probably that it was dumb, and romantic, and brought them so much closer together than held hands as they made their way between the shadows of the tall lights that lined the boardwalk. The sun set in brilliant gold in the distance. Brian remembered the warmth of Katya’s chest against his arm; he remembered looking at Katya’s lips, then away, and wash, rinse, repeat; he remembered the sign they passed, jutting up out of the middle of the boardwalk: END OF THE TRAIL.

He remembered going home alone, flushed and giddy with the heat of the day, and turning on his phone to see a new notification from his facebook messages. date night tracy?, it said, captioning a photo of him and Katya on the boardwalk, arm in arm, the soft look on his face all too bare in the deep amber light of the sun setting over the ocean.

Brian shook his head, and poured himself another drink.

The night after that was all in flashes. His fingers sliding along the strings of his guitar. Losing his pen under the couch; hunting through Adore’s drawers for another one. Sweet sad notes filling the room, lingering in the air like sea salt. Fumbling with his phone; his guitar; his own hands.

Love’s the kind of feeling that’s not easy to derail, that was good, that was fine, but I find that I’ve been tryin’ ‘cause, ‘cause what, ‘cause what –

He lost another pen. After that… he didn’t remember much after that.

*

Brian woke to a splitting headache and a buzzing phone.

The phone was on his stomach; his head was on the arm of the couch. He blinked into the bright morning light and groaned, covering his eyes.

His phone buzzed again.

Whatever it was, it could fucking wait. He let it fall to the side as he rolled over, taking in the mess of paper and pens – what the fuck, where did he get so many pens – on the coffee table, the empty wine bottles, his guitar abandoned carelessly on the floor. The glass doors to the balcony were open, though he didn’t remember opening them, and the harsh cawing of the crows outside made his eyes water.

Jesus fucking Christ.

He stood unsteadily and made his way to the kitchen, where a bag of sour key candies lay splayed open and empty on the counter and a plate with the mysterious remnants of what might be a drunken midnight snack lay beside the sink. He stared at one, then the other, then turned decisively to get a glass out of the cupboards and fill it from the tap. He downed it in one go and poured himself another.

Back by the couch, his phone was buzzing again.

Katya, he realized through the groggy fullness in his head. That could be Katya.

He returned to the couch and lowered himself gingerly, full glass clutched in one hand. He fumbled the phone trying to grab it, which probably said bad things about the balance of alcohol to water in his system at that moment; then he thumbed it awake and scanned it as quickly as he could through the low-burning nausea of his hangover.

There was, in fact, a notification from Katya. A missed call at 2:23 AM. Brian’s heart leapt and his mouth went dry; but then he looked past that, at the avalanche of notifications from twitter and instagram, and his whole body turned cold, shoved into full wakefulness and unholy sobriety.

What the fuck had happened last night?

He unlocked his phone and opened instagram to see notifications in the thousands. Thumbing over to his profile, he found a post he didn’t remember making, dated 1:57 AM. That was – he looked at the little clock at the top of his screen: 7:13 AM – barely five hours before. The little thumbnail showed his shoulders over his guitar; when he opened it, he saw it was a video.

Brian stared at the post in horror for a long moment. Then – because there was literally no other choice – he flexed his fingers, which had gone numb, and he hit play.

The screen cut to his face, frowning blearily and too close, as he tried to prop his phone up. He looked – exhausted. Shit. Dark circles under his eyes, a tight, stressed set to his mouth, which twisted down as he failed to make the phone stand steady a third time. Finally he – the Brian on screen – muttered a sharp fuck, and just leaned the phone back against something or other, putting his glass of wine in front of it to hold it upright, so the rim blurred out the bottom of the frame.

He stepped back, sat down, and pulled his guitar into his lap.

Brian, the Brian watching, took shallow breaths against a rising nausea. His pulse thrummed loudly under the thin skin of his neck.

The camera captured the body of his guitar, the slouch of his shoulders, and part of his mouth, which he wiped at with the back of his hand, pick balanced easily between his fingers. Then he sat up straighter, squaring his shoulders and sliding his other hand up the neck of the guitar into place – Brian remembered that, cool smooth wood under his palm, he remembered glancing at the camera and thinking fuck it, fuck this –

The Brian on screen played an open chord and then set into the melody that made up the verses, the tumbling notes, middle finger – pinky finger – ring finger, and, watching, his brain cut through the fog to focus on that, ring finger, ring finger, the song he’d been working on all this past month coming together despite the drunken way he slid between the metal frets.

And then he started to sing, and Brian went from feeling slightly nauseous to being absolutely certain he was about to throw up.

It wasn’t the verses, thank god. Not the harried scribbles that filled pages upon pages in his notebook, most of them awful, all of them never to be fucking revealed to the world at large because they were his, ugly and sincere and too personal. All the moments that made him want to try; all the things that made him afraid. But this –

“Love’s the kind of feeling that’s not easy to derail

But I find that I’ve been trying ‘cause

I can’t see the when and where –”

A chorus is a vague thesis; but, watching, he still felt stripped wholly bare.

“I hear waves in my dreams at night,

Feel the sunlight and your stare,

So maybe it’s to no avail –

And maybe ‘stay’ won’t turn out stale –”

Brian swallowed, fumbled for his glass of water, tried to hear anything but the roaring in his ears, see anything but his face dipping into frame as he bent lower over the guitar, eyes closed, face pained as he sang stay. And he was sliding through the notes like a drunk stumbling through a door, graceless but functional and – worst of all – far too honest.

“But I still don’t know if I can go

Off-road at the end of the trail.”

Fuck.

The video didn’t end abruptly – apparently, when drunk, he couldn’t make the crop function work for him – but with an agonizing slowness, the last, aching note from his guitar hanging hollowly in the air. His shoulders on-screen rose, then fell; then finally he reached forward for his phone. A flash of his mouth, his cheek, his eyes squinting – and then it went dark, and looped back to the beginning.

He jabbed at the screen to stop it, and stared down at his phone in mute horror, jaw slack and mouth dry.

First things first, he deleted the video. It wouldn’t shut people up, but he couldn’t just let it sit there, all of him laid out in the bare daylight. The raw sound of his voice, scratchy with exhaustion, on his shitty phone mic; that one glimpse of his face, like opening a door you’re not supposed to by accident, the kind of door you can’t close again or back away from. All a room’s quiet secrets, the small ones that cut deepest, framed starkly by the open doorframe.

He wasn’t going to load twitter, or look at the texts that had come in from his friends who’d seen, but then a new one appeared at the top of his screen as his phone buzzed in his hand. It was Shea – a youtube link. His phone buzzed again with a second message, a third, more, all from Shea. He thumbed messenger open, still numb all the way through, and scanned the group chat dispassionately. Then he stopped, and read it again.

FROM: SHEA - 7:17 AM - Friday August 29th, 2017

youtube.com/watch?v=Jf1L34kn0

Please watch this, get your collective shit together, and stop making me feel sad for both of you

Ive got better shit to do with my time

And PLEASE reach out to us, jesus, brian, we care so much and i know youre doing your own thing but we’re really, really worried.

Well. I cant speak for kim. Im worried; that bitch is probably just hungry

He huffed a laugh, but it didn’t feel like one. It felt like something was cracking open inside of him.

His phone buzzed again.

FROM: KIM - 7:18 AM - Friday August 29th, 2017

i can be hungry and worried at the same time cunt

but sheas not wrong, bri.

please.

Brian swallowed, then swallowed again, throat tight and eyes stinging. He took another gulp of his water, then, after a moment’s hesitation, typed, i’m here. i’ll watch it in a minute. i love you guys and im sorry

He wasn’t sure what he was sorry for. There was a whole laundry list of reasons he should be; he might as well cover his bases.

It wasn’t – it wasn’t that he’d been wrong to leave. It wasn’t that he’d been wrong to want out or to go silent. It was just that it could be right for him and wrong for them, and he could be sorry for that, even if he wasn’t sure yet that he regretted it.

He hit send all the same.

His phone buzzed almost instantly with their replies, but he didn’t look, pulling up the youtube link instead. Then: for the second time that morning, his heart stopped and his body went cold.

“help me i’m not dying fast enough”, said the title under the loading video. “Katya Zamolodchikova Periscope (August 29, 2017 @ 2:40 AM)”.

He didn’t want to click – he knew he didn’t want to, and also that he shouldn’t – but he did anyway, because sometimes he was a masochist like that. Lately, especially.

Katya, on-screen, stubbed out a cigarette and lit another one, inhaling deeply.

“I’m not going to tell you how many of these I’ve had tonight,” he said to the camera. “Because it’s none of your business what hell cycle of ideating and ovulating I may or may not be going through right now. That’s first of all.”

He looked… gaunt. Unkempt. Worse than in the video Shea had taken a week earlier.

“It’s a funny thing, to have – kind of – resolved myself to wanting something, and always having it sort-of in reach, and then to realise maybe I can’t have it at all. I could have, but maybe I missed my moment, maybe I didn’t lay out my thesis convincingly enough – maybe maybe maybe. Maybe what I wanted isn’t on the proverbial table anymore. That’s harder, I think, than knowing all along you can’t ever have it. It’s a different kind of wanting. I don’t know.”

He flicked his fingers in the air by his ear, ash falling grey and soft like snow from a rooftop.

“I’ve never been good at wanting things. That’s funny, right? From an addict, I mean. It’s funny. You can laugh – I’m laughing. Maybe you are, I don’t know, I can’t see you. I don’t care.

I’ve never been good at wanting things – I’ve had them, or not had them. It all seemed kind of –” he paused, then laughed, a hoarse bark. “You know, insignificant in the face of the rapid decay of the environment, our bodies, society as a whole, and ultimately the universe itself. The universe is dying, by the way, in case you hadn’t heard. I took a first year physics class, girl, so I know what I’m talking about.”

You read Neil Degrasse Tyson’s book once, you fucking idiot, Brian thought; it rung hollow, as if it came from someplace a good distance from his own body.

“So I’ve never been good at wanting stuff. Drugs isn’t want, drugs is need. And that’s not – I know I look like a mess right now, but a) not on drugs, and b) still not about need. I’m not in some kind of I’ll-die-without-you pseudo-love psycho-abusive Nicholas Sparks kinda bullshit. I’m just – I’m just sad. I’m just really fucking sad. And I’ll delete this tomorrow, and anyway –” Katya looked sharply into the camera, and for a moment, Brian felt seen – “I figure it’s only fair.”

“So anyway,” Katya continued. He turned away, towards the road; his eyes lit up with amber streetlight, glass-green and shadowed. “We’re all dying. I know, Brenda, I’m a broken record over here about it, but we’re all dying, and that’s kind of a big deal. And I love it! In some strange, existential way, it’s liberating, it’s electrifying, it brings you closer to your own body and soul and maybe even God, if, I don’t know, that’s your thing sometimes – ‘your’ being mine – but then –”

He stopped himself. Brian watched as his fingers tapped frenetically against the side of his cigarette for a moment, then he raised it, pursed his mouth, inhaled. Exhaled. He lifted his face to watch the smoke rise and disappear.

When he looked back down, he was smiling, crooked at the edges, like it hurt. “But then something comes into your life, and suddenly, it’s like, wait. Hang on. I want to see more of that – let’s stop the death train, maybe. Let’s put a hold on this dying shit. Because whatever it is I’m feeling, I want that, and – and – and why the fuck am I wasting time killing myself when this has been here, maybe all along. Self-indulgent fatalism suddenly starts to feel – selfish.”

“I mean,” he interrupted himself, suddenly and obviously changing tacks as a thought struck him, “please still come to my show. It’ll be so good. All these questions and more will be addressed – not answered, because who cares about answers, but asked? Yes. More questions than you ever wanted. Please come.”

He flashed a smile, plastic-white, but it melted away too quickly into the same tired pallor.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if anything I’m saying is true. I want all sorts of things all the time, but it’s always a little bit – intellectual. Like, wow, I wonder what having that would be like? Feel like? I’ve never experienced this kind of wanting that doesn’t have an endpoint – it won’t just stop once I get it. It goes forward. It has a future. What the fuck is up with that, you know?

But it’s not – you don’t just get to have things.”

His voice cracked.

“No. Okay. One second,” he said, and then he disappeared around the camera. Brian could still hear him breathing, though, quiet in the night air, an eerie echo of so many phone calls over the past month.

When Katya returned, he lit himself another cigarette, and this one didn’t shake between his fingers. “I’m going to delete this the minute it ends, for the record. I don’t know why I’m even doing it. I guess I’m just lonely. I know, I’ve been on tour, and that’s great, but – I dunno. It’s lonely. Work is lonely. Dying is lonely. And there’s one thing I want and I thought I could have it but – turns out – I probably can’t, and that’s – that’s lonely too.”

His mouth twisted, an almost-smile.

“I always thought that was such a cliché: to feel alone in the middle of a crowded room. And I love a cliché when it’s not played straight, but. Maybe, sometimes, the crowd doesn’t matter when one person’s not in it.

Anyway. I’m doing a lot of whining for someone with not a lot of problems, comparatively. And this problem isn’t even really mine. Not at its core. Selfish, right? But hey – no one’s making you tune in, Elizabeth.”

He took a final, decisive drag on his cigarette.

“Okay. I’m gonna go listen to some ambient noise and try to sleep.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Ocean sounds, track four: a classic. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Bye.”

The streetlight blanketing his face in fragile white, he looked into the screen again, directly, as if he could see Brian there looking back at him, heart sore in his throat. Then the video went dark.

Brian sat and stared down at the phone in his hands. Between the low buzzing nausea of his hangover and the Seattle morning greyness, the world around him felt – distant. Not quite real. Not as real or as close as that twitch of Katya’s mouth, or the wry, exhausted humour in his voice. The frustration and sadness and longing in every line of his body. 

They were both so stupid. And so fucked.

He tapped out of Safari and into his messages, where he typed again, check in?

Knees tucked into his chest, he waited, and a minute later the reply came in – the little OK emoji, thumb pinched to index finger.

He exhaled loudly and pressed his hand over his eyes.

The phone buzzed against his thigh a moment later and he looked down again. It wasn’t from Shea or Kim like he thought it might be – it was, unexpectedly, another text from Katya. All it said was: you?

He bit his lip, thinking about it. He wasn’t going to let himself lie, to himself, to Katya, not again. He wasn’t going to do that to them. But the honest answer was – yes. He wasn’t good. He wasn’t better. But he was okay, for all the values of okay that the check-in had meant since the first time Katya had needed it: I’m alive, I’m safe, I’m here.

Yeah, he typed and sent, that’s about right.

He looked up from his phone at a sudden noise beyond the front door – a thump, like something heavy had been dropped.

It could have been one of Adore’s neighbours, so he dragged himself up and started to walk over, ready to offer assistance if needed. The woman upstairs was older, and generally bought more groceries than she could carry. But as he was approaching the door he heard the scrape of a key in the lock, and then the handle began to turn.

Adore wasn’t supposed to be back until that evening.

“Hello?” he started to ask, but then the door swung open, and he was staring into a pair of very tired, very startled eyes that definitely weren’t Adore’s.

“What the fuck,” said Bianca del Rio.

To his own surprise, a burst of laughter punched out of Brian’s stomach. “Yeah,” he said, staring back at Bianca, at the douchey sneakers on his feet, the Shangela shirt he was wearing, and the small duffel he’d dropped behind him. Brian found himself smiling, just a little. “Same.”

[alexfridayfesten]

Precise notes given to me whilst playing the character of Helena.

After our first full run through, our Director Scot Williams gave us notes on how we can improve our characters performance, below I have included the original notes given to me whilst I am playing the role of Helena, and how I have digested them, along with how I  will adapting them to my performance in our second full run through of Festen.

ACT 1, SCENE 1:Scot gave me the note of working on a particular line I say in the opening scene of the play,” you haven't been drinking again have you.” Within this scene you see the two siblings christian and Helena meeting for the first time after the death of their sister, Helena is in high spirits, completely over excited by seeing christian and is complimenting him etc, Scot advised me to say this line out of context to the praising I am giving christian, so whilst I am delivering this line, its important to make it known the emphasis of what happens when my brother drinks, to emphasise Helena’s  worry behind her brother drinking. I will do this by changing my tone of voice whilst delivering the line, whilst thinking of a substitution of someone in my own personal life whom i haven't wanted to see drunk as it has a bad effect, this will allow me to show the real worry of Christians drinking, whilst enticing the audience in to thinking what the reason is he drinks and why the character of Helena is so worried.

ACT 1 , SCENE 1 : Another line I was given by my director is were Michael enters the scene, unknown to Helena. This is the first time she sees her brother in a long time, after him not attending his sisters funeral, Helena is very upset by this, so begins to argue with him. The line I have been told to alter the way I say is were Helena says to her brother “ I dont mind what you do, but what i mind is what you dont do.” Here helena begins to reel of a list of things her brother docent do such as “ you dont call me on my birthday, you dont bother to give me the money you owe me”. Here Scot suggested that when delivering this line I make more emphasis of the list of reasons why i am unhappy with Michael, by delivering them slower as if I have only just thought of them. I will do this by showing my initial thoughts of the reasons Michael doesn't bother with Helena, almost like showing the mechanisms behind a clock. Scot discussed the importance of showing the audience your thoughts. This makes Helena’s list of reasons more interesting as they are coming from a deeper,more thoughtful place.

ACT 1,SCENE 3: BEDROOM.

After deciding to split these 3 scenes into individual scenes, this has allowed us to concentrate on our own scenes in more detail. In this scene Helena enters her sisters room for the first time after her death, with butler Lars. She desperately wants company in the room as she is so scared to be alone, one of the Illness Helena shows this is by saying to Lars “christian and Linda were twins” she says this in order to make Lars stay with her, almost a way for him to feel sorry for the absence of her sister dying, this is a note I was given by Scot. Helena’s character in the play is very manic and is overly excited majority of the time whilst being flirtatious, Scot directed me to show Helena’s manic side, when she begs Lars to stay by repeatedly pleading him. This is the same when Helena says to Lars she thinks her sister is “in the bathroom” were Helena is showing the audience the true effect of drugs and alcohol and hallucinations she has, and her mental stability, it is important for me to completely believe myself when delivering this line as if I believe in myself the audience will too. This is similar when Helena finds arrows left behind by her sister on the walls, this needs to be internal when i begin to find clues (arrows drawn on the ceiling) it needs to be clear I am only just realising my sister has left me clues for a reason, which i mentioned similarly in Act one  scene one, the audience need to see the mechanisms behind the clock working.

It is crucial i show a painful side to Helena, the fact she is still grieving for her sisters loss, and that is magnified when she finds a suicide note left behind by her, especially now that her late sisters deepest secrets have been revealed. A note I was given Is to protect Helena's privacy, and her ability to cover up her families incestuous behaviour from being exposed. This is seen by the way she talks to Lars to try and dismiss any possible chance of the truth being exploited by not worrying him. Helena shows an example of this by attempting to laugh off any uneasy feelings Lars may have of the supernatural feeling in Linda's bedroom “There have always been ghosts in this house.” This line is projected by laughing, and attempting to convince Lars there is nothing to worry about, however whilst I say this line Scot advised me the importance of showing the secrets and the pain behind what exactly those secrets are.

Scot has also encouraged me to make more of a point of getting Lars to leave Linda's bedroom, and covering up any evidence of what has just been discovered. I will be working on this by concentrating on my beats and actions within the scene, and re-visiting the section that covers this in “Power of the Actor.”

ACT 2,SCENE 1:

This scene is the first encounter we have of all characters on stage for the first of many dinner party courses. Helena has very quick and sharp lines within the first scene of act two, so it is important to show how quick and on the ball Helena is, after pushing her discovery of her letter to the back of her mind in order to protect her family's secrets. In this scene we see the first of Christians speeches were he reveals how his father sexually abused his children, this is the first time after the finding of the letter we see Helena become extremely nervous and distressed by her brothers words, so much so she knocks over her glass of wine as she is so distressed.

Within all scenes of the production it is imperative to show Helena and Michael’s cognitive dissonance, as they are two siblings who are both in complete denial,and will stretch to any extremities to protect there family.

In act two you see Helena run after her brother Christian’s first speech, as she wants to protect him. It is then were she makes eye contact with her father whom gives a clear instruction for her to follow christian by making a speech of her own, Scot advised me that I should wait for the initial glare of Helge before attempting to cover up Christians reveal with a speech. It is important i show the disgust on my face of what my father is asking of me, yet showing my fear of my father and what may happen to me if i dont protect the family's name and initially lying for him. Its important to show the narcissistic power Helge over his children, just like he did when they were infants, and how he will take advantage of their fear. Helena making a speech is still supportive of her overall objective which is to be free,as her scene objective is to protect her family, as she wants to do the easiest thing in order to leave the party so she can finally be free.

FREEMASONRY SONG: 

This song should be sung as if it is being song within a cult, very serious just like the Klu Klux Klan may off. Regardless of Helena being such a free spirit a “revolutionist” and  “socialist” she joins in singing these insulting songs alongside her family, despite her disagreeing with the values her masonic family may stand for, she does this only to maintain civil and peaceful with her family, as this is something her upbringing consisted off, as it was within her wealthy culture, Helena goes along with it all for the benefit of her family, which again is promoting her overall objective of being free, as the easier she gets on with her family, the easier it will be for her to leave once the dinner party is over without any complications.

ACT 2,SCENE 2: 

Before Poul attempts to distract the dinner party with attempting to sing a song to break the tension, Helena enters the stage anxious and stressed worried about Christian’s next move, here we can see how scared Helena still is of her father before saying to christian “are you completely fucking insane” which in other words is her way of saying “ do you know what he will do to you” this is showing the impact of fear Helge places on his children. She is telling christian here how it is not the time and place to be revealing their families secrets, she is aware of what her father is capable off and is so scared for her brother, it is vital i show this when delivering these lines to my fellow actor josh, as i have to be taken on an emotional journey before reaching this point. At this point we can clearly see the start of Helena's breakdown.

SUBSTITUTIONS & INNER OBJECTIVES:

When working on becoming close to our fellow actors it is important that we work closely on our beats and actions and our inner objects. Scot told us the importance of getting close with our peers whom we are close with on stage. To make sure i achieve this i will working closely with my classmates Josh who plays christian, Liam who plays Michael alongside my relationship with Chloe who plays my partner in the show.

When discussing inner objectives it is important to make the writers words ( my lines) my own, in order to make more sense of it. I will be recapping my knowledge of inner objectives by reading “Power of the actor” again. Throughout the play we want the audience to be left with a mixture of emotions, sad, happy conflicted and outraged.

ACT 3, KAI & HELENA SCENES: 

Crucial things to remember whilst working on a transgender topic being displayed by me and my class mate Chloe whom are both female, with Chloe acting as a male.

We need to look like lovers, importance to embrace for longer on our first meeting, we will achieve this by holding a kiss for longer than a few seconds.

 Discussing what music Helena may listen to, talking about what gets her in the mood through sound. I feel like Helena would listen to the Beatles as they are a band that not only stood for the same values as someone like Helena, but a band I can personally relate too as I share a love for them also this way I can put an element of myself in the character.