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buildingrelationshipsinanarchy · 5 years ago

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A New Intimacy Model

So what spurred this project is a culmination of a few things. Namely, frustration with the imprecise and incomprehensible words, Platonic, Romantic, and Sexual. The English language hasn’t been great at adapting the words for personal relationships as our times and values change.

I fell into Anarchism only very recently, stumbling into the language of ‘relationship anarchy’ through the internet in discussion with forms of polyamory years ago when I started this blog. Over the last year, I’ve been getting into radical politics and finding how my un-politicized opinions were validated, and then stretched the more I learned and studied up. While I’m still learning more about Radical politics, Anarchism, Marxism, Queer and Feminist theory specifically, the more I wanted to link some of my perspectives on intimate relationships with these political and theoretical texts.

“The Personal is Political.” - Carol Hanisch, Feminist Author.

@mythr1der wrote a post detailing a bit of the frustration I also share in regards to how the Dichotomy between Platonic and Sexual (which almost all definitions of Romance boil back into), leave much to be desired when discussing attraction, desire, intimacy and relationships in general. I believe that this very simple dichotomy reflects, oddly enough, capitalism and the history of the role of state power in culture. I rant a little bit about it as a response to @mythr1der‘s post here.

It’s long, and incomplete, but I proposed an idea of just building entirely new words, so we can build an entirely new map for talking about love, desire, attraction, and relationships that actually discuss what its like to be next to someone you like to be next to!

What is intimacy? It’s closeness right? To be near some ‘intimate’ part of another person, or them near something meaningful about why you’re you. I wanted to start this series by talking about what it means to be close to someone. If you remember my birthday without Facebook, that might make me feel a bit special. But if you remember how badly I was abused by an old friend, its because I trusted you enough to share some of the sadness that I’m not as loud about.

Intimacy isn’t always trauma, sometimes its tears of joy hearing that your cousin is out of prison, or the laughter of your friends. Being close to each other in a hyper-digitized age is a bit tricky, but phone calls, facetime, snapchat are only some of the tools we use to keep each other updating on what we’re feeling. Whether its about our love life, sex life, work life, or home life, just sharing that information can be real special, and bonding.

When we say that we have friends or that we are [Queer] Platonic Partners, does that mean we’ve decided how often we’re gonna talk or what we’re gonna talk about? What if we just send each other memes or rant about politics? Am I supposed to devalue those interactions because they aren’t the person I’m crying on the phone with?

Intimacy can be as deep as childhood scars and as simple as surprising me with my favorite snack. It all just means you know who I am, what I like, and what I care about. I want to intentionally forge those connections. And this why I set these definitions first.

Other Words:

A Daekkon (n.) would be person/partner whom you’ve developed intentionally this kind of relationship with.

If you desired this kind of relationship with a certain person, you’d be feeling Daekeen (adj.) for/about that person.

People who are desiring or actively doing these activities together are Daekkoning (v.).

This would be understood as Daekkonic (adj.) behavior; as in, “My roomate isn’t super talkative with me, but is deakkonic (adj.) with Sandra from the Mosque.”

“Tom is going through it, he’s felt deakkonically (adv.) deprived since the move.”

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In our sex-negative, ironically repressed culture, we seem to think that if you’re touching your bodies together at all, it means *something*. I want to remove that idea. I want to reclaim physical affection. I want to be touch and be touched by others. I don’t want my afab friends who have experienced some sort of sexual violence in their lives, to ever feel weary about the fact that I’m physically affectionate. It’s been my #1 Love Language for the last 10 years.

Fighting r*pe culture is a full-time fight, but I think adding a word, and therefore an idea[l], can be useful in reclaiming safety, and boundaries regarding bodily autonomy, for all of us. Clear communication and respected boundaries and asking consent for everything are the bedrock we need to continually practice. And as trust builds, I believe this could be very useful theoretically tool for improving the quality of our relationships and help create clearer discussion about our individual boundaries, needs, and desires. I feel like this leads me to a relevant question. What activities are inherently platonic, romantic or sexual? Is holding hands inherently romantic when almost all of us have done it with a friend? What about those of us who are religious or spiritual and have held hands with members of church, mosque or synagogue; do you think we’re out here non-stop blushing at the Pastor? Or when we held hands with family members? Doesn’t sound like it holds up, huh?

What about snuggling a roommate? Holding a teammate while celebrating a victory? The kiss my bestfriend gave me on our shared birthday dinner? Are we left to through our Aro and Ace friends’ out of the discussion, just because our culture has bad takes on sex and romance as the only forms possible of significant physical touch? Physical touch is such an important way to communicate love and affection, as well as care, concern, and comfort. They don’t get to cast their shadow on this space anymore!

Other Words:

If you had this desire for someone, or wanted to approach cultivating these forms of affection in a relationship, you could say you’re feeling Phaddish (adj.) for that person.

.Participating or initiating acts of a non-sexual physical intimacy Phadronic (adj.) quality are said to be phade-ing/phading (v.).

A Phadrone (n.) could be the name of a person/partner you share this kind of relationship with.

Phadroning (v.) would the act of cultivating this kind of intimacy with another person.

Phadronically (adv.) could describe a certain level of intimacy implicit in a physical touch between to particular people.

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Now lets talk about Sex. That’s the thing the everyone’s mind always gravitates to when discuss words like, intimacy, attraction, desire. It’s the thing we want to stay away from when you use the Platonic or Friendly. But, lets be real. Haven’t many of us had sex with people didn’t even consider friends? Or people who became our “Strictly Platonic” friends after we may have had sex, once or several times, with them?

People who gravitate toward polyamory or non-monogamy tend have had a “hoe-phase.” The boundary between friend and lover, or partner and fuckbuddy have been blurred in a good chunk of people’s lives. Non-monogamous or not, I think it’s useful to talk directly about our sexual experiences, desires, fantasies, and how different it can be with different people, or in different stages of our lives. But what makes an experience sexual? Maybe that sounds redundant or obvious; I mean, it’s got the word SEX in it, maybe that’s got something to do with it? But maybe not...

Lets ask an odd question. Is sex inherently sexual? Who wouldn’t assume the answer is automatically yes? Well, my first thought is to talk to those in the Adult Entertainment industry or friends of ours who are sex-workers, in whatever capacity. Is every client sexy or shoot erotic? Those of us who have sex, have we never been doing it and been bored through most of at least one experience?

If sex is inherently sexual, why do we have so many Sexual Health Educators, Marriage Counselors, Pornstars, Yoga Teachers, Personal trainers and Writers telling us how to have sexy sex? Dating Coaches and Websites, telling us how we are getting something that’s supposed to sound so easy wrong.

I’ve come to the opinion that sex isn’t about body parts, genitalia, certain body motions, or even clothing [or lack thereof]. I believe that sex, or eroticism, is all about the context and the people involved. There’s nothing inherently sexy about fruit, or food in general, but if woman eats a banana in public, there are at least several men in area thinking of something than her healthy food choices.

This is why talking about sex directly is good. And understanding it as an energy that you imbue to any activity or circumstance, could help have better sex; and and on the flip-side, show us how we may need to more aware of how we may take up space with our body language. I do also feel, that in part, some of our Ace friends (those who aren’t sex repulsed), may be able to find some resonance with this model; sex doesn’t have to feel passionate or any particular way at all (other than good?), because sex isn’t about sexiness, but about human connection and pleasure.

Other Words:

Serotic (adj.) activities include any activity that is engaged due to, or is infused with, sexual desire and/or erotic intention. It also describes the type of desire you’re feeling for another person.

A Serato (n.) is any person you engage in serotic activities or feelings with.

An activity that was originally un-serotic (adj.), but became sexually or erotically charged, we could described as having become Serotically (adv.) charged.

When you are cultivating or charging an act with serotic energy, you are Seroticizing (v.) that activity

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Lately, especially since diving into Radical Politics, I find less and less desire in defining Who I Am as a part of a relationship unit. It’s an overlay from monogamy, The Couple being the only social unit that is recognized, as it’s necessary to the Nuclear Family; a super important thing for Capitalism to sustain itself. The relationships I cultivate with others, with whatever forms of intimacy or interactions therein, cant be understood by that model. I am more than my interactions with a handful of people; I am a human person, and my engagement with the world isn’t actually reducible to whether or not I’m having sex with someone or not.

We’ve talked about multiple forms of intimacy, and some of the desires or interests associated with them. Have you noticed that in the desire, or need, to discuss relationships on a basis of, ‘sex: yes or no?’, that we haven’t talked about the webs that form because we are all reliant on each other to survive? Not everyone in your community or workplace or online spaces, you’ll get to know or talk to. Do they, as people, matter less because they aren’t in your contacts list or your DM’s?

This is a space where not a lot of us to tend think or engage as much. An easy word to discuss this space is community. But is a community the people or the place you spend your time, whether online or off? Is the community the place you live and your neighbors? Is it the people who may share some of your identifiers or face similar forms of oppression, despite living in a different city, state, country?

We are multi-dimensional beings, and with the use of technology, there are so many ways to form relationships, and share resources. I think the ‘community’ is any space you find yourself in, which means that mutual aid is something you are always able to engage in. Whether it’s feeding the homeless guys who hang out by the intersection, or dropping a few bucks in a trans kid’s venmo, mutual aid is so much easier.

But what if that feels so inconsequential? It’s not! But it does, from time to time, feel like the problems of the world are so big, and that you and so many you know are suffering in ways you wish you could help. Well, community organizing is always happening somewhere, online and off. It becomes important to join up with others in order feel like we can actually make a positive impact on the lives of others. We don’t have to wait on a government who’s interest isn’t ours, don’t have to wait for some politician to fail on a promise to Make Things Better.

We have each other, and we are all we really have. At the end of the day, all of our concepts are man-made. COVID-19 showed us how drastically things could be different if the people in power made decisions that actually benefited us. A lot of us understand the need to do something. Capitalism says that competition is what drove human kind into evolution, the fight for survival in a meaningless, terrifying world. Anarchism, as I’m learning, throws the whole idea in the trash where it belongs.

Peter Kropotkin, whose been called both the Godfather and Santa Claus of Anarchism, penned in Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), “under any circumstances sociability is the greatest advantage in the struggle for life.”

We are better off together. Capitalism and the property relationships in our compulsively monogamous society try to tell us other wise. We don’t have to follow that model.

Other Words:

To Mudshop (v.) is to build a mudship with a particular person, organinzation, or community; Mud-shopping (v.).

A Mudshipper (n.) is an individual in a mudship of any scale.

I’ve said a lot. I hope this reads as accessible to as many people as it can be. I built this because I want to tell the people in my life why I love them as dearly as I do. And that I’d love to build relationships with as many awesome, lovely people as I can.

If you try to use the words Romantic and Platonic while you look at this post, and find it almost impossible, I’ve done my job.

I hope those words die along with oppressive ideas they uphold.

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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The Owl House: Enchanting Grom Fright: Happy Valentine’s Gays

Happy Valentine’s Day owl ladies, gentleman and non-binary folks! It’s time to finish off this holiday in proper style with a LONG overdue review of enchanting Grom Fright and even longer overdue coverage of the Owl House. The Owl House was one of the best debuts of last year if not THE best, only in contention because Close Enough also started last year and looks to surpass regular show in terms of quality. But with stunning animation, tons of representation, and colossal worldbuilding. And given how i’m on record for thinking Star Vs went so far down the tubes they bumped into where Cthulu is sleeping, it’s nice to have another magic based show that seems to be on the right track: carefully building i’ts world, supporting cast and for today’s topic main romance. It also rather than just obliquely hint one character was bi and the other pan, actually goes out of it’s way to have a bisexual protaginst with a gay love intrest. As my good friend @jess-the-vampire has brought up quite a bit, star had plnety of options. .but no willingness to actually campaign for any queer rep, the way Gravity Falls head Alex Hirsch tried to, he still gets credit for trying, and Owl House creator Dana Terrace gets full credit for.

Terrace got her start working on Gravity Falls in line production before working her way up to directing for ducktales, being instrumental in how Webby was animated and how she moves and acts, and being the director for several classic season one episodes including “Woo-Hoo!”, “The Spear of Selene” , “Day of the Only Child!” which was one of my faviorites from season 1 and “The Beagle Birthday Massacre!”. And while I can’t 100% confirm she’s the only part responsible for starting Weblena, given she was director on an episode where a lot of the romantic subtext was in the visuals, she certainly helped so thank you Dana. Thank you a lot. Their adorable. Point is she’s a talented lady and wasn’t satisfied with directing, so she pitched her own show, combining tons of ides and stuff including of all things, Pokemon Red. I checked the article wikipedia had sourced, it was one of her happy childhood memories as it was one of the last things her dad gave her. Awwwwwww. That’s as sweet as it is painful. She’s also currently dating Alex Hirsch, something I was entirely unaware of but find also adorable. Point is i’m glad I looked into her as she’s a very nice person, and very much my kind of weirdo and i’m happy for her sucess and her singuarly weird show that sprung from that sucess.

Now that part of it’s out of the way the episode itself was an uphill battle as you’d expect. As anyone familiar with this blog is aware, but just in case your new, you tend to hear me bitching about Disney’s handling of queer represntation a LOT

For the most part Disney’s pretty bad at it: There was the string of “FIRST GAY CHARACTER IN AN X” they had going for a while.. that consisted of a character I dind’t realize was gay, a kiss I didn’t see, and a talk with a character who I honestly wouldn’t of been looking for had disney not patted themselves on the back with some giant sized hands because htey saved some pym particles for that occasion. Ducktales was unable to have Penumbra come out as gay more clearly because I don’t know Ducks can’t be day.. but they can be IMPLIED to be gay or pansexual as hard as the crew possibly can so they win anyway. Pixar was able to have a gay lead character for one of it’s sparks shorts out and even focused on him coming out of the closet and it’s very good and something I WILL give Pixar credit for... but not Disney Plus who go out of their way to not mention the lead being gay.. despite the fact the short opens with a gay space cat riding a gay space dog out of a rainbow and then it being revaled our lead is in a relationship not long into the short. My point is the idiots who won’t watch this for having gay characters are just going to turn it off, who cares what they think, why are you like this Disney. They need to do better, and be better and i’m getting tired of this shit.

That being said... this episode is a step in the right directoin as despite having to get past one obstructive asshole, not her words but damn if it isn’t the truth, as the rest of hte execs were fine with having a gay character, Terrace fought hard for it and WON, having a clearly gay character, and a clear road to a gay romace as the lead one, all because she wanted some representation in her works. So to honor this, I present this review in honor of love, effort and saying screw you to not having represntation because money. Join me under the cut and allt hat.

We open in the owl house, in the owl house, duck dodge push and shove, it’s how we show our love in the.. you get the point. Luz is learning yet another Rune, this time plant runes.. and already something I love about the series pops up: the fact Luz’s rise in skill is gradual but noticable. Each spell noticably improves in potency with time, going from simple lights to shaping them into simple constructs, and learning to control or time her spells and glpyhs so they launch she she says so, with each one getting more powerful the more she learns. And on top of that osmething I just noticed on rewatch of this episode is her tecnique in finding them evolved, something I dind’t notice the first time because I hadn’t fully caught up and checked this one out to see if Disney would actually let them go through with it.. and they did. Point is her first spell is found by accident, her second by realizing how her magic works fundemntally, both require skilled deduction and on the fly thinking and casting, so she’s already pretty skilled.. but now sh’es ACTIVELY seeking out a new spell here for the first time. She knows how she gets them, she knows each school is tied to a form, and she likely got the plant from williow since that’s her thing and she’s a saint. A demon but also a saint. They can have those too. It’s what I assume relicor is.

I miss that goblin demon bat man. Point is it shows an evolution in Luz’s thinking: while it’s a subtle thing she took a more proactive approach this time even if it took a lot of practice.. and it pay soff as by the time of her next rune, while it’s once again sorta handed to her she has less time to learn it, almost none, and finds it singed onto a ball.. and learns it effortlessly to the point where by the next episode it’s a crucial plot point. IT’s subtle but clever character progression, and stuff I really enjoy, showing our hero going from a bit inept but not helpless or incomptient.. to a force to be reckconed with and far more clever and strategic than yo’ud expect given her sometimes reckless and almost always happy go lucky attitude.

Luz worries teaching King about the internet was a bad idea because he gets excited about a literal cat fight which .. yeah... it was a bad idea but not because of that.. but because next he finds someone saying the earth is flat and she wisely yanks it away. It’s.. very sad that the absolutley maddening and easily debunked flat earth theory is still RELATIVLEY more sane than the stuff we’ve had pop up during the trump era and the cornoavirus pandemic.

But one of the main conlficts of the episode pops up as Luz’s mom messages her and Luz can’t bring herself to tell her anything and just sends a thumbs up. I do think this episode helps even things from the pilot a bit as it was a bit lopsided: While I got that Camillia was genuinely struggling with how to deal with Luz, and was offered an out and had to take it... the fact she sees NO problem with the normalcy camp, which comes off intentioanlly or not a sa parallel to conversion camps or camps to make autistic kids “Normal”. And as someone whose both bisexual and autistic, I naturally relate to luz way more as someone whose intrests sometimes just don’t quite fit with everyone else, and who dosen’t get how bad some of their actions were. THat’s why this episode feels like a necessary course correction: Luz is shown to genuinely love her mama and feel guilty.. but we see camilia genuinlely loves and supports her daughter a bit more. While it was clear from the pilot this shows it more, with her genuinely just wanting to know her daughter’s okay and checking up on her, and giving me the feeling that possible consequences or no if something bad WAS happening or she didn’t hear from her for a long time, she would’ve drove up there to get her. It feels like the writers realized the implications they accidently created and wanted to fix it, though I can’t say for certain. But if so good on you for course correcting, not every show does that.

But King encourages her, telling her she’s doing the right thing by lying and to “trust the demon on your shoulder”. Keep this in mind for later, but that joke is great on it’s own. But soon i’ts time for school and Hooty.. barfs out Luz’s books for her.

I haven’t been this disturbed since.. (Looks at the clock) About 2 maybe three hours ago when I watched a man have, if apparently shorter than the oriiginal cut as I wanted to see everyone else’s reactions dammit, sex with hiis car which was possesed by the mad ghost of his dead wife. Because that’s the kind of stuff i’m into when i’m not reviewing stuff. And before that Tinky.. just everything about tinky.

I do not have enough time to get into TInky here or why he exestially horrifies me. Or why Jeff blim is a living god. I will save that for a proper review if I have the time tomorrow. Point is I saw a lot today and that still tops it. Willow and Gus are likewise grossed out and want to leave.

Cut to school where Luz wonders what’s with all the decorations.. that remind me of this honestly

And frankly given the whole state of the boiling isles it REALLY wouldn’t surprise me if the decorations were indeed well cooked faces. But i’ts Grom time, which means elaborate gromposals (Some Dude asks Skara out with a beating heart and an elaborate medical proposal.. which.. points for effort. And for using an actual heart. Couldn’t get one for mine. ), dancing and someone being chosen for Grom Queen. WHich Willow hints isn’t as nice as that sounds. Before we can get into that though Amity bumps into them and gets into a tizzy before meekly greeting “Luz.. and Co”. which.. not going to lie.. is my faviorite gag of the season. Just htw way she adds them and just the way Willow and Guz both smile widely at it as if to say “That’s us!”. Amity drops a note and snatches it back. This will be important later, you all know why, point is Amity becomes Grom Queen.. and is heavily depressed with Luz following her to find out why. At the gym.. she does indeed ifnd out why: Turns out Grom is not some mutation of an earthname but is based around a horrifying entity lurking beneath the isles, Gromethious the Fear Bringer, who emerges from his slumber once a year and must be fought back and brings out his target’s greatest fears. Just like groundhog day only with less time loops and rodent abuse. Amity is scared of hers, and i’ll obviously get into this more later, and Luz simply suggests asking bump to opt out and Amity appricates the support. Awwww.

Luz heads home and we find out Eda is chaperoning and King is mcing. Eda is also rocking a suit. Just damn girl, damn. But Luz considers taking her place.. and gets laughed at, with Eda assuming she’ll have to save her and King just being kind of a dick. I mean he’s a loveable thoroughly cuddly dick but he’s still a dick... just more like a stuffed plushie of one. So basically exactly like Tinky. Look I mention him more than once in this review he dosen’t put me in the bastard box. It’s a great system. Naturally this makes Luz more determined than ever to prove herself and she finds Amity in the night, with Amity having been unable to get out of it.. and Bumps a resonable guy, he just wants a substitute and no one wants the job.. except Luz who galdly volunteers and insists ntohing scares her before the giant spider on the back of her head proves otherwise. Because of course it does, spiders are fucking terrifying. Kill then all.. except the pokemon ones. Galvaltula are sweethearts. As are Ariadoses. Sweethearts who can elctorcute or poison you but still.

So the next way Luz begins preparing.. and by that I mean it’s time for training. Sadly we don’t get an episode of Luz and Amity getting trapped in an 80′s fashion montage... I mean yes Rise of the TMNT also did that plot the same year, but we had two diffrent plots about someone getting trapped in an eldtrich sitcom and a THIRD this year, all entertaingly unique. Though we do get Luz pulling out an otter suit that’s adorable and she sadly still hasn’t worn yet. “This one says i’m an otter, with a dark side”. She also got thrown out of a school dance for.. wearing an otter suit. Okay the other things we saw in the pilot were understandable but htis is just.. baffling. Who cares what you wear to a dance as long as it isn’t horribly racist of nothing at all.

Damn you flanders and your glorious ass. Point is Amity shows up and threatens hooty’s life because.. he’s hooty. The fact he isn’t dead already is a testiment to how badass he is and how much money he’d cost Eda to replace. Owl Tubes don’t come out of a stygian hole in the unvierse every day you know. That’s only every three years. It’s basic styigan owl tube science.

But Amity wants her to be ready and that she’ll have to face her greatest fear.. and cue hooty popping up, poking amity in the face and asking if she wants to know her greatest fear. Really he can clearly hear everything in the house given he heard that, so he heard the death threat he just chose to ignore it. That.. was a mistake. And by mistake I mean we get a hilarious cut to the outside of the house as Luz tries to stop her love intrest from murdering her second mom’s tube monster. The result is some bandages and an eyepatch. To be fair that last one was just flaring up from a previous beating.

For this solem task of training, Amity has brought in her local disaster bisexuals.. aka her twin siblgins Eldric and Elmyra, whose greatest fears are dying alone and being stuck with Eldric. Both understandable. They conjur luz’s greatest fears which are.. some of the funniest shit I heard all year.. and also very relatable. Human souls in cat bodies, which is genuinely terrifying good job Luz, Jerks on the internet who mansplain things, relatable, and soy milk.

But Amity knows this is just the openign act. it needs to be something deeper.. so while Luz dosen’t realize it’s probably her mom issues she brings up her issues with her other mom: that Eda dosen’t think she can do this. Hence we get a giant eda putting Luz in a babychair. Before we can unpack how wrong that sentence sounded, Eda comes out, and marvels at how hot giant her is. But she’s quickly distracted from sex with a giant version of herself, which is not an easy feat, by the relization “Wait Luz is going to fight grom isn’t she.. fuck i’m going to have to save her”, though Luz holds firm on doing it to prove she’s fine and dosen’t need to be saved constantly. it’s a good conflict. Eda IS right that Luz is not ready for this alone, that she’s overcompensating and that Eda would, in normal circumstances be the one to rescue her. As we’ll see it’s not her who does it but still, were this any other foe she probably would be. But Luz’s motivations are equally understandable: She wants to help her friend not have to do this and she wants to prove she can do it. She just wants her mentor, the only person in her life up to meeting her that GNEUINELY supported her in magic to respect her. To have faith in her and actually see how far she’s come. And given how her own mother writes off her dreams, if not unrealistically, and before this she had no friends or support system to speak of outside her mom, it’s easy to see why this is so improtant to Luz: she just wants to make the one person in her life whose ever support her actually think it was worth it when in truth Eda already thinks it does and just dosen’t want her to die.

She’s just not good with talking to her or not condescending to her as her own ego is stacked sky high, probably because the whole curse thing meant Eda was an outcast by default and the system wants to either chain her to one form of magic and one only or shackle her to them as a hired goon. Her ego, while justified, is also a defense mechanism: a way to shield herself from the fact almost no one cares about her and one of the few people who DOES, dosen’t care what she wants or needs. Once the curse happened she lost just about everything and had to rebuild and thus build up walls around herself and kept everyone else at arms length till Luz changed her for the better. It’s just a tragic clash of two wills both with similar problems but both unwilling to talk about them.

But with time up, our heroes need to get to the diggity dance. So they indeed do and we get some fun sight gags, Willow makes corsages, that one girl with the cresent head somehow ended up with Mathomule and is not happy, as anyone who ends up with him should. And it’s time for Luz to face her destiny.. in a tux with a tutu because of course, and Amity likes it because also of course.

IT’s time to rumble, with King getting nervous due to eda’s prodding about mcing since his co-mc gus is really good at it, and introducing our champion.

No wait sorry he’s still trapped in Mojoworld. no it’s still Luz who shows off a seasons worth of skill by easily dispatching the first few fears and saying to grom let’s finish it.. before grom puts a tentacle on her head.

It’s to downlaod her fear.. which is Camillia. Granted we could all see it coming but still Luz obviously can’t fight her own mother or her own overwhelming guilt.. her mom did hurt her.. but she gets why and just loves her and wants her to be proud but dosen’t know what to do: tell her the trutha nd possibly loose a happy and fufilling life or wait until it all blows up. It’s a painful choice. So luz and king end up running. King runs first because he can’t handle it and Gus talks him back into the groove while Luz runs away because she can’t fight her own mom, understandable, and Gus encourages king to lead the crowd which he does. Amity and Eda follow Luz.

So Luz is backed down, facing down a monster tha’ts going to go on to everyone else next if she fails... and Eda prepares to interfere.. but it’s AMITY who faces her fear and dives in. And we find out just what her fear was as grom turns into a humanoid shape and rips the letter in half.. it was a grom invitation. Though conviently the who it’s adressed to was ripped out.

And yeah not going to save this one: It’s Luz. You know it I know it I didn’t even hide it in the intro. Even before the reveal in a bit it was obvious. But it also makes perfect sense. I’ve avoided talking about her character arc up to this point because I was waiting for now. Amity’s growth is the third major arc of the season behind Luz’s slow learning of magic and eventually induction into hexside and eda’s curse, which I lump in with Lilith chasing her since both were mildly entertwined and then entirely are once the reveal hits in the finale. When we meet her she’s an outright bully.. but we slowly see there’s more there. That she’s not really HAPPY or content, is contstantly under pressure by her family name, is outright bullied by her own siblings who don’t understand her. So Luz coming in, seemingly only being intrested in magic because i’ts neat.. understandably bothers her. She’s not a great person, bullying her old best friend because tha’ts what’s expected and being close with outright bullies because of that.. but it’s through Luz she starts to grow, realizing Luz is genuinely nice and genuinely sorry for any trouble she caused Amity, and evne then both cases were causaed by Amity’s own dickishness and outside forces, so it’s easy to see why she defrosts faster. Her siblings realize they’ve genuinely hurt her, and actually try to be good siblings from then on and help her, and slowly Amity learns to truth luz, trust in her, and accept her... and thus accept her feelings for her. There are gradual hints she’s growing attracted to her.. but her walls had to come down first, and it wouldn’t of worked from the outset. The show cleverly has the two build a genuine friendship, two opposities who work well together, so when feelings do happen it feels natural. It’s not “I’m in love with this person because I have to because you can’t be friends with someone your attracted to” bullshit or anything like that, cough star vs cough, it’s just well built catching feelings. I’ts how this kind of thing SHOULD go: niether went in intending for this to happen.. it’s just happening.

And Amity’s reluctance is painfully understandable, as Luz is the ONLY friend and support she has. Sure she and willow are patching things up, but WIllow would understandably choose luz over her and she’s terrified of loosing the one good thing in her life. Of course Luz would either say yes, and probably will some day, or let her down gently, she’s nice.. but it’s also understandable to be afraid that someone won’t take the reveal well. I’ve been there trust me, it’s easier when you let it out even if you get rejected, but I get it being hard to let out because you don’t want to loose a friend. I did not, and niether would she, but I can see why she wouldn’t want ot take the plunge. At least not yet. We’ll see this summer hopefully.

But we do get a shiptastic, gorgeously aniamted scene of the two dancing an fightin gin perfect synch, combinging luz’s new use of plant magic with amity’s mastery of abominations resulting in the two utterly decimating grom, likely in part because with two fast moving targets he can’t get a lock on and likely nees more fear and mass to attack multiple targets at once. Or just more tendrils. it’s a quick, beautful sequence that’s utterly glorious, being framed as romantic as any hetero scene of the type and rightfully so. A triumph and well deserving of this praise.

Our heros have won, get crowns, and King gets praise. All is well.. except Luz drops the crown once she gets home because she feels like she failed and feels lost about her mom.. though at least king gets it “I’m king and queen, best of both things!”. You tell em sister.

So we end with Luz genuinely responding to her mom, with some montage stuff as we see Gus and Willow poke a fear blob, willow fears bugs, understandable and Gus fears clowns...

Also understandable. Though I didn’t put up a bug picture because

And Amity looks out folornly into the night. Camilla responds to Luz.. and mentions letters.. which while Luz brushes those off.. we see someone sent them. And by someone I probably mean king since we now know only eda and him had acess to the portal, and given he was actively encouraging her to lie.. yeah i’m supscious. But we’ll see next season. For now this episode is fan fucking tastic, showing off tons of character development, being representative and sweet as all hell.. and being really funny. Tons of great gags in this one including the turtle guy from an earlier episode being forced to be adisco ball. This is easily the series best so far and if you haven’t checked it out, please do it’s fantastic as is this show. Check both out. Until the next rainbow i’ts been a pleasure. Tommorow more disney shenanigans this time with pete. And also more of this possibly we’ll see what I get done.

Goodnight everybody!

#the owl house #lumity #luz noceda #amity blight #willow park #gus #eda clawthrone #king #principal bump #grometheious #enchanting grom fright #lbgtq+#disney #disney plus

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thanksjro · 5 years ago

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Dark Cybertron Chapter 1: Welcome to Comic Event Hell

You know what readers love? When the stories they’ve gotten invested in over the course of a couple years get interrupted for some pseudo-crossover bullshit.

And you know what writers love? When the story they’ve been crafting over the course of a couple years get interrupted for some pseudo-crossover bullshit.

Did I say love?

Because I didn’t mean it.

“Dark Cybertron” was penned by John Barber and James Roberts, with collaboration with comic writer and artist Phil Jimenez, and was published from early November, 2013 to late March, 2014. Atilio Rojo, James Raiz, and Livio Ramondelli did the art, each responsible for scenes in specific locations, with Robert Gill filling in as needed. Alex Milne, Andrew Griffith, and Brendan Cahill would also contribute pencils to the first issue and the back half of the series. It was a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the franchise, and the second birthday of Phase Two... which went on for over four months, but never mind that!

Both "Dark Cybertron” and its preliminary materials were made to go alongside the Transformers: Generations toy-line, each issue being included as a toy pack-in with whatever character was being featured… or, at least, that was the plan. Sometimes it didn’t work out. Regardless, this storyline was created to sell toys directly, as opposed to the MTMTE/RID series being made to sell toys more through the power of suggestion. It’s a small distinction, but important, because it will help explain any lack of soul one may perceive while they read “Dark Cybertron”.

“But Hannz!” you cry out, reaching to grab me by the throat and shake me like a rag doll, because to you I’m merely a faceless voice on the internet. “Surely by calling this specific storyline soulless, you’re completely ignoring the very nature of this franchise that you’re almost uncomfortably invested in!”

To which I’ll say this: look, I’m pretty realistic about where my giant space robots came from; Transformers as a franchise would not exist the way it does without Ronald Reagan introducing the Free Market to literal children and fucking up how we interact with media for the rest of time. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and that rings especially true when I’ve got a Spinister on my bookshelf staring me down as I write this, that was likely made out of plastics which either involved blood oil or unethical labor practices, if not both.

However!

The choices of a company to have their comic license holders to cook up an entire plot that derails what they’ve already got planned out for toy tie-in comics is a completely different animal than what IDW had had going on up to this point. Phase Two had been about exploring different ideas that hadn’t been able to be explored during the war, and seeing what happens when you take away a third of the logline for Transformers G1 as a whole. Being a part of a brand of toys was almost inconsequential to how the stories were being told; even the Spotlights, which were also toy tie-in comics, had plenty of charm to them, if only because there weren’t quite as many constraints placed on the writers, and they were stand-alone issues.

Of course, being tie-in comics isn’t the only reason that “Dark Cybertron” is a bit of a slog, considering everything IDW itself was trying to get done within this storyline, but we’ll cover the publishing company’s/Simon Furman’s/Transformers’ tumultuous relationship with the concept of gender identity and expression later on, when it becomes relevant to the story proper. This point also ties into the interesting origin of Windblade, who we’ll meet in a few issues, and what happens when you let your fanbase have a taste of power and forget that people might like to see themselves represented in the media they consume.

“Dark Cybertron” is what ended up making me stop reading MTMTE the first time I tried it in 2015. A big part of it was because it forced the reader to need so much information from RID and even events prior to Phase Two, it wasn’t very fun to try to parse what was going on, on top of the writing beginning to flag because of obvious constraints to what Barber and Roberts could actually do, both within their deadlines and the rules put in place by their higher ups for the event.

“Dark Cybertron” is the result of the sort of executive meddling that kills reader enjoyment by requiring writers to cram their two worlds together as quickly as possible, without the option to go for nuance because there simply isn’t time. The reason we have four separate artists for the front half of this story is because Milne and Griffith didn’t have time to draw both their current workload and “Dark Cybertron” at the same time... but sales probably went up due to the nature of how the story was published, so I’m sure they didn’t really see a problem with it.

That’s a general “they”, not a Milne and Griffith “they”.

In short, we’ve got license contract obligations, fan-poll obligations, and gender stuff fighting for space within the next 12 issues, which will be published in the span of roughly four months. Things are probably going to be a little bloated and sloppy.

Regardless of any of these points, this is what we’ve got. It’s not like it’s all bad- “Dark Cybertron” has the benefit of being written by two people who had been working closely before it had even been conceptualized. Barber was the senior editor for MTMTE, and IDW as a whole until he left in 2016. It also isn’t a proper crossover- y’know, where two completely separate titles get mashed together for a bit. MTMTE and RID exist in the same universe, just have their own things going on, so a decent amount of things still carry over without you needing to have read every single thing in both. The writing, while not quite up to par with pieces that had more creative freedom and breathing room between scenes, is still recognizable as being Barber and Roberts’. Their voices are still here, they’re just strained under the weight of everything that has to be said inside of 12 issues.

With all THAT out of the way, let’s dive in to Dark Dawn: Dark Cybertron Chapter 1.

We get a quick rundown of the most basic information you’ll need for this entire story to make sense, as we reintroduce the fact that Shockwave is an ecoterrorist with more agendas than a daily planner factory on meth, and also that he grows magic crystals. I don’t care what he says, the Ores are fucking space-magic. If you don’t want to read through all of RID for everything else, please see Robots in Disguise (2012), #1-22- A Recap, For Reference Purposes. We also get a quick rundown of the Lost Lighters’ deal, as Swerve potentially has a meta-episode.

Be careful what you fucking wish for, bucko.

Our story proper starts with a flashback to the shittiest road trip Cyclonus ever went on, as the Ark 1 finds itself at the edge of a mysterious portal. This is likely why he wasn’t super thrilled when the portal to Luna 1 showed up- portals are probably a touchy subject for him.

Jhiaxus doesn’t know what this portal is- surely this means that science has failed us, and it’s time to call in the religious crowd to try and suss out what’s going on here.

It’s moments like this that make me wonder what exactly happened in the Dead Universe that made Cyclonus’ cheek meat just pack up and leave.

Now, we know that Cyclonus is correct here, because we as readers have more knowledge than the characters at this point, but Jhiaxus tries to write off this theory as hogwash, because he is a man of rationality and science. This is a slight removal from his character in the present, whose most notable traits seem to be a lack of ethics and screaming.

Everyone here seems to be slightly different from their current iterations, actually; Galvatron doesn’t say a word as he steps between Jhiaxus and Cyclonus, only using his body to communicate that the scientist might want to back off. Cyclonus himself is certainly the wordiest we’ve ever seen him to be, droning on through his actual thought process before he comes to a conclusion on what exactly they’ve found. Compare this to the Cyclonus of today, who only deigns to grace everyone with his voice if they outright threaten him, have something he wants, or are Tailgate. If he were to ever pull this verbal meandering on board the Lost Light, people would probably assume he’s having a stroke.

Nova Prime- you remember him, don’t you?- gives not a fuck about the Dead Universe, only what it means for him personally. And what it means for him is more locations to subjugate, because he is cartoonishly evil. His character is the least removed from his present-day iteration out of everyone. He tells the crew they’ll be getting a little closer, only for the portal to do the work for them, by way of dark energy tentacles.

Wow, the pilot for the Ark 1 really is just straight-up named Butt, isn’t he? And what the fuck is that face you’re making, Cyclonus? Are you- oh my god, are you emoting? Oh my god, he’s emoting.

As the Ark 1 is pulled to its doom, Jhiaxus makes a quick phone call to Shockwave to tell him he’s his favorite, and to keep up the good work.

In the present, Shockwave reflects on just how friggin’ long this whole ordeal has taken. Fortunately, Waspinator and the Titan are almost here, and he can hardly wait.

Not, uh, that he’s got emotions or anything. It’s been established that he doesn’t have those anymore. Is impatience an emotion? Does that count?

Shockwave seems like he’d be really frustrating to write for.

Anyway, the Titan shows up, the Ore inside him and the Ore in the underground Crystal City combine, and the Titan starts screaming because everything hurts. Shockwave’s about as thrilled as he can be about the situation, given his lack of emotions.

Above Crystal City, we finally get back to that nonsense about the early sunrise, as someone- maybe Starscream, given the color of the narration box- waxes poetic on the planet of Cybertron, wartorn and wild in its rebirth, ruled by paranoia that has nothing to bounce off of, and so creates its own walls.

Then we get a detailed shot of Rattrap’s mug, and the moment is broken.

Rattrap’s character is a lot of fun in everything he gets tossed into, but you’re a goddamn liar if you think he’s pretty to look at. You are lying to yourself, and I won’t apologize for saying it.

Starscream walks out of his room in his hot new body, feeling fine and ready to take on the world. We’ll check in on him later in the day to see how that positive mentality is working out for him.

So, the sun hasn’t moved, and it’s way too early for the sun to even be up right now. That’s weird. Because I guess he didn’t know how the sun works, Starscream’s only just realized that this is perhaps a problem. He does some computer work and realizes that this is indeed a very bad thing, and asks that Rattrap call the Autobots. Not the ones who fucked off into the wilderness, the other ones. The gay, space ones.

Up in space, Orion Pax and his pals have found themselves in dire straits, the collapsing Gorlam Prime sucking their ship back down as the Death Ore consumes everything.

That’s not how engines work! And I think it really says something about the “Prelude” issues that I completely forgot why Wheelie was down an arm for a solid five seconds.

It turns out that Orion was the narrator the entire time, which I should have known- since when is the once and future Optimus Prime not the primary voice in any media he appears in?

It’s looking rough for the fellas, but luckily we’ve got to get the plot rolling, so the Lost Light VZZZZTs into existence and picks up the Skyroller to place it gently into its belly.

Orion isn’t exactly jazzed about the fact that Rodimus didn’t listen to what he told him, not even bothering to thank the guy for saving his life. I say y’all keep going on your Thunderclash Quest and leave this ungrateful loser behind. No space yachting for you, Orion.

The rest of the Pax Posse enter the Lost Light proper, and Hardhead reveals that he nearly joined the Quest, before he saw who all would be coming with, while Garnak has a tearful reunion with Rodimus. The fact that he’s calling him Sir- which I don’t recall him doing in Transformers (2009), at least not in a way that seems reminiscent of an unfortunate Antebellum Period Romance- feels rather weird, but I’m glad someone’s fucking happy to see Rodimus at least. Ultra Magnus asks Orion if he’ll be assuming command of the vessel, as Rodimus tries not to look horrified by the thought alone, but fortunately Orion’s not going to pull his “I’m Optimus Prime and I Can Do What I Want” Card just yet.

Smash cut to the bridge, as Rodimus tries to make himself sound competent, when Starscream calls. Orion doesn’t like that Starscream has their number, Perceptor almost reveals the fact that this ship technically doesn’t belong to a faction, likely due to being purchased after the war, and Cyclonus gets brought in for his professional opinion.

As it turns out, that early sunrise isn’t a sunrise at all, but a portal to the Dead Universe. This is a problem, because the Dead Universe really sucks, and you don’t want to go there, especially if you enjoy being alive. Orion seems more concerned about the fact that Starscream is ruling the planet, and Bumblebee is nowhere to be found.

Speaking of Bumblebee, he and all his camp buddies are psyching themselves up for a confrontation.

Swoop, please, this is hardly the time for crudeness.

The Dinobots, sick of Bumblebee’s dithering about, decide they’re going to fight the fucking sun and gear up. Prowl, though generally disliking their brand of problem-solving, does share his begrudging respect of their can-do attitude.

Their can-do attitude over fighting the fucking sun.

Then an earthquake happens and the ground rips open to reveal that Titan that Waspinator showed up with.

Shockwave takes over the narration at this point, and we get artsy, as we see events that haven’t transpired yet over musings on the nature of... time? Maybe? It would be in line with Roberts’ go-to topics, but honestly the whole thing’s kind of vague so I couldn’t give you a solid answer. Shockwave gets awfully introspective for a guy who shouldn’t care, I know that much. The point is, he is inevitable and is super good at logic and science.

Also, Nova Prime and Galvatron are back, which is cool, I guess. Not sure where Galvatron had gotten to exactly after the events of “Chaos”, but he’s back now, so it doesn’t matter too terribly much. Shockwave serves them, which we’ll probably get an explanation for at some point.

God, you can practically taste the desperation to pin all these plot points together before the entire thing implodes on itself.

#transformers #jro #dark cybertron #issue 1 #maccadam #Hannzreads #overthinking about robots #incoming analysis #text post #long post #comic script writing

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plusultra-anime · 4 years ago

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I’m actually an SPN blog: a few thoughts on 15x19

Hi I don’t make long posts like this often. But I wanted to gather a few thoughts from this latest episode, some that have been put forward by others and some of my own, just to make a bit more sense of where we’re at for myself and to gather/collate things into one place. I am writing this at 6am in a pre-coffee haze so forgive me if any details are wrong or make less sense.

There’s some positivity and some negativity (seems that way after pretty much every Bucklemming episode lol) so I’m trying to take a more positive angle – for my sanity. I may be clowning and I don’t want to get any hopes up to be disappointed but this is just where I’m at with it atm.

Bucklemming So this episode was written by Bucklemming, and as we expected it didn’t make a whole lot of sense in terms of narrative (to me anyway), apart from the overarching narrative of Being Free From God/The Writers. In true Bucklemming fashion we even had an appearance from Mark P (yuck). However, as many others have pointed out, the ~final~ final is written by Dabb, in whom I think we can have confidence that he knows what he’s doing. The big positive for me (and again, many others) is that Bucklemming got this episode and not 15x20!

Empty Space Again, this has already been pointed out by others, but there’s obvious empty space left at the end of this episode. We see Castiel’s name carved into the table, but no real effort made to bring him back into the home, with the two Winchesters “riding off into the sunset” as they started – pretty much alone. There’s also the empty space left by Eileen, and there’s clearly (imo) been an effort made this season to place her firmly next to Sam as endgame. And again, no real effort made by the Winchesters to find her.

We’ve long since moved on from the Two Brothers on the Road story and arrived at Found Family, and to me the empty space left by Cas, Eileen, Jack leaving to become God (?? Did I get that right? Because it sounds wrong lol) and leaving the homely, safe nest they’ve created for themselves, is glaring and screaming. This could just be bad writing (but we were promised no GoT ending, right?!) or it could be set up to make us want that empty space to be filled in the final episode.

I’ve not been digging too hard into the Internet this morning but I’ve already seen (who I assume to be) GA viewers left confused, saying “but what about Cas/Eileen/the contentment/the closure?” which I’ll get to in a moment. Of course, there are those who take the episode for what it is and are left happy with it, but I think that empty space is there for us to notice. I think.

Closure Speaking about the ending, I remember seeing J2 saying that it ended with a “content” feeling, and “closure”. To me, that’s not what we’ve seen at the end of 15x19. We’ve been shown time and again what a happy ending for Sam and Dean would look like. Dean running a bar, keeping his home nice, going out on the odd hunt but nothing world-shattering, peace. And for Sam we’ve been led towards him becoming a Leader for hunters, a scholar, and a partner to Eileen. We haven’t had any of this yet! And that’s not even considering the Castiel of it all!

(Closure, if we do consider the Castiel of it all, would involve a confession from Dean to match Cas’s, and for them to be endgame romantic to mirror Sam and Eileen. That’s all I want to say on that because I realise that with that kind of TV representation for queer couples what we already got could be all they managed to fight for from the network. Definitely tempering my hopes in this case. But I do have hopes! Because, as many wonderful meta writers have pointed out time and again, it makes narrative sense!)

At the end of a story, closure is important. Sometimes the absence of it can be satisfying in itself, projecting the narrative beyond the story we’ve been told for the audience to continue in our own minds. But I don’t think that’s quite what we’re getting here, because a good Lack of Closure ending still needs to be satisfying. Which, imo, this was not. We still have one episode left, and I’m wondering if that unsatisfied Lack of Closure feeling we all have right now is deliberate. (I think it probably is?)

Fake Out I saw someone (sorry I can’t remember who) describe this “season finale” episode as a fake out, made for the part of the fandom who ~want~ that Two Brothers on the Road ending. They can stop watching now. “Ok Destiel and perceptive GA fans, now the Bibros aren’t listening we can tell you the real ending”?

And to me it felt like a fake out, it felt fake, it felt like a projection on the wall. Like at the end of the rom-com when the two straight people kiss and that’s the end, but after that snapshot their lives carry on? We’re going to get that after-the-snapshot moment, which I think is rare in TV, as the series finale. Now that the loose plot ends are tied off, the projector can be powered down. We can see what happens to the characters when the writers stop writing, I guess.

I don’t know if I explained that well but basically, I agree with the feeling that This is Not the True Ending. EDIT: I just thought of this after I posted but it’s like it’s given closure to the Two Brothers on the Road narrative itself to make space for the Found Family ending. idk??? what do you think?

(I was going to make this another point itself but as I addressed this already mostly – it feels like a Performative Ending, like what you’re Supposed To Do for a series finale, which I feel can partly be attributed to Bucklemming being shit writers, and partly (I suspect … because I’m assuming Dabb still had a bit of a hand in things as showrunner) to generate the kind of “wtf was that ending?” buzz we’re seeing. To make people want to tune in to the ~final~ final, to see how the Empty Space will be dealt with, and to see what kind of Closure we’ll get after all.)

Flashforward My final point, directed towards the pessimistic bit of my brain in the hope that it’ll chill out, is that there’s still an hour of story left to go. What are they going to give us, @ me? An hour of flashforward with no Cas, no Eileen, and no Peace/Content/Settling Down? Imo, as a long-time fan of the concept of narrative, that would be lazy and dull. They might do it (can’t put anything past them at this point lol it’s been a long road), but I’m playing my Doubt card (that’s how Doubt works, right?) just to tide me over for the next week. What else is left to do? God is dead (shout-out to Rob Benedict for killing it, no pun intended). Lucifer is dead. There’s no big bad left. What monster of the week could they be chasing? Could they really just spend an hour long episode reminiscing? Doubt. Maybe we can have a little flashforward as a treat.

So that’s it! Again I feel a bit cautious to get my hopes up for 15x20, particularly as a Destiel fan, but I kind of am getting my hopes up because I feel like it makes sense for me to be hopeful. At the end of the day, we still have time before we’ll know for sure, and once that happens, good ending or bad, I’ve had a fantastic 11 years in this fandom and that won’t change!

#spn spoilers #supernatural spoilers #spn 15x19 #15x19 #destiel #saileen #spec i guess?#am i making sense did any of this make sense?

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route22ny · 4 years ago

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We’re Never Going Back to the 1950s

The year 2020 shattered America’s shared reality.

by DEREK THOMPSON

DECEMBER 16, 2020

***

Twenty years ago, the sociologist Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone used the decline of bowling leagues since the middle of the 20th century to symbolize America’s declining social engagement. This year, he published a sequel of sorts, The Upswing, in which he identified more stray threads of our social unraveling: in lower marriage rates, church attendance, and trust in government; in falling membership in all chapter-based associations; collapsing social trust among young adults; and even a decrease in mentions of community versus identity in novels and nonfiction books.

But no measure of communitarian pessimism could have prepared Putnam for the circumstances of the past nine months. America’s bowling alleys haven’t just depopulated; they’ve gone dark, along with thousands of churches, restaurants, bars, cafés, gyms, theaters, and almost every other physical space that could preserve or nurture a physical community.

Mirroring this civic fragmentation, America’s media and entertainment industry has spun apart, and the spinning is accelerating. On December 3, the film studio Warner Bros. announced that subscribers of the company’s digital streaming service HBO Max will be able to watch all of its 2021 film releases at home, on the same day that they’re released in theaters. The movies affected by this decision aren’t humble indies. We’re talking Dune and The Matrix 4—the sort of films that, if they were released exclusively in theaters next year, might earn a domestic box office roughly equal to the GDP of Micronesia.

Like Putnam’s beloved bowling alleys, cinemas are an example of the decline of semiweekly gatherings in the United States—even if they’re less chatty establishments. In the 1940s, the average American bought more than 30 movie tickets a year, regularly packing into theaters with scores of strangers. In the past few years, that figure fell below four. In 2020, movie tickets sold per-person will fall below one—possibly for the first time since the late 1800s. The decision by Warner Bros. will likely encourage other entertainment companies, such as Disney, to funnel more of their marquee content to streaming services in the next few years. And the result could be a death spiral for movie theaters as we know them, as the film industry continues its shift from a public, ticketed affair to a private, living-room experience.

Home entertainment is fracturing as well, and along with it the communal-while-alone possibility of a shared popular culture. Since 2010, 33 million households have either cut the cord or never signed up for cable TV in the first place. The traditional cable bundle is slowly dying, and its death is fertilizing new subscription-only streaming services, such as HBO Max, Disney+, Peacock from NBCUniversal, and Quibi (RIP), which join a landscape crowded with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu, not to mention user-generated video platforms including YouTube and TikTok.

It would be hackish to accuse Netflix or Warner Bros. of being the main accelerants of American loneliness. But the fact is that cinematic entertainment, which was born as the ultimate communal ritual, an experience whose technology required simultaneity and togetherness, has become the ultimate personal activity, an incomprehensibly long spectrum of different stories mostly consumed in a state of solitude.

This media shift—from the scarce and communal to the abundant and privatized—also describes the evolution of the news industry. In the past 20 years, newspaper circulation, advertising revenue, and employment have cratered. But overall, news—that is, sources of new information, of varying truthiness—didn’t decline; it exploded. The web created a phalanx of news publishers, not just websites but also Facebook pages, Instagram personalities, newsletters, podcasts, and so on; at the same time, Google and Facebook duopolized digital advertising, creating a situation where publishers were multiplying as advertising declined.

In ecology, the term niche partitioning describes the way that competing species become hyper-specialized in an attempt to co-exist in an environment with scarce resources. I think that’s what’s happening in the news industry. As the number of competing publishers increases, it makes sense for each of them to carve out an ecological niche. This niches-get-riches race leads logically to a set of more outlets that embrace a more unabashedly partisan perspective—just as they did in the late 1800s.

One might assume that polarization is what happens to people cut off from information. But the truth is closer to the opposite: More information means more polarization. Research shows that access to broadband internet in the U.S. has in many cases increased various measures of polarization, as the web introduces voters to a bigger menu of partisan news from which voters select the sites that match their political tastes.

We’ve seen this phenomenon accelerate in 2020. Four years ago, most people would have said there were three major cable news networks: the center-left one (CNN), the liberal alternative (MSNBC), and the conservative juggernaut (Fox News). But in the past few months, the conservative-news monolith has shattered. Since the election, Newsmax TV and the One America News Network have stepped up to backfill President Donald Trump’s election-fraud lies with programming from an alternate reality. And behold, niche partitioning works: Last week, Newsmax rode the election-conspiracy story to its first-ever ratings win over Fox. Because Trump devotees are going to buy tickets to whatever media universe offers the best narrative, networks are competing to tell the Trumpiest tale.

With weekly religious attendance at low ebb and live TV in structural decline, national elections are arguably the only activity that Americans do together in shared time. But shared time is not shared reality. Led by the president, Republican lawmakers have petitioned to sabotage the results of the election, based on fantastic conspiracy theories. The GOP fever dream, which is credulously reproduced across Trump-friendly media, is clearly contagious: More than 80 percent of Trump voters believe that Biden’s win is illegitimate, a figure corresponding to about 60 million people. There is nothing unique about reality and fantasy blending together in politics. But the speed and severity with which Trump’s “Stop the Steal!” mind virus has infected the GOP is the sign of a compromised civic immune system. A far-right cohort has been effectively quarantined from reality in one corner of our honeycombed media landscape.

There is no going back to the 1950s. We will never again be enfolded by those bespoke mid-century circumstances, the scarce broadcasts and broadsheets. The dividing forces are too strong and too many. The film experience pushed out across millions of flatscreens; the live-television networks splintering into millions of digital entertainment queues; the news dissolving into innumerable political realities: One by one, these are not evil trends. But they add up. Or, more aptly, they divide. They individuate.

People ask me if I’m optimistic about 2021, and the answer is that, in a way, I’m ecstatically optimistic. The economy will reopen, and life will reopen. People will come out of their homes; they will send their kids to school; they will hug and kiss and live. But underneath the high tide of economic growth and social normalization, I think we’ll feel something else, an eerie undertow of isolation and anxiety.

“The definition of community is ‘where you keep showing up,’” said someone I met, whose name I’ve forgotten, back in the days when it was normal to meet new people whose names you could forget. I haven’t forgotten that line, though: Community is where you keep showing up. What a lovely idea. But where do people keep showing up, these days? Nowhere. Not the office, not the COVID-aerosolized bars and gyms. A lot of people have spent a year finding community via a glowing screen in a room they never leave.

The empty bowling alleys and movie theaters; the infinity buffet of entertainment and partisan media; the dissolution of a shared American reality—these are distinct yet connected phenomena. Digital technology has spawned a choose-your-own-adventure mediascape, which has flooded the electorate with alternate realities, at the same time that its community ties wither. America is coming apart, and these pieces will not be easily reassembled.

***

DEREK THOMPSON is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he writes about economics, technology, and the media. He is the author of Hit Makers and the host of the podcast Crazy/Genius.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/how-2020-shattered-shared-reality/617398/

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thatwasthenightthingschanged · 5 years ago

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"In retrospect, you could say I was beginning to question things.

But then it was 2018, and a couple of things happened. First, Love, Simon came out in March, which was one of the most electrifying, unforgettable, truly extraordinary experiences of my life. But having your book adapted to a film brings a lot of notoriety and attention, especially online, and it’s not always the fun kind. Unsurprisingly, there was quite a bit of discourse about my identity — how could there not be? Love, Simon was the first gay teen rom com to be released widely by a major film studio, and it was based on a book written by an allocishet woman. Yes, the film’s director was openly gay. No, not everyone cared (frankly, a lot of people still don’t know Love, Simon was based on a book). But in many online spaces, my straightness was a springboard for some — legitimately important — conversations about representation, authenticity, and ownership of stories. And for some people, my straightness was enough to boycott the film entirely.

Then Leah on the Offbeat came out about a month later, and the discourse exploded all over again. There were thinkpieces based on the premise that I, a straight woman, clearly knew nothing about being a bi girl. There were tweets and threads and blog posts, and just about every single one I came across mentioned my straightness. And when Leah debuted on the NYT list, authors I admired and respected tweeted their disappointment that this “first” had been taken by a straight woman. Of course, Leah wasn’t the first f/f YA book to hit the New York Times list. And maybe people were wrong about the other stuff too. But the attention and scrutiny were so overwhelming, and it all hurt so badly, I slammed the lid down on that box and forgot I’d ever cracked it open.

At least I didn’t remember I remembered.

I deleted the sexuality labels from my website. I declined to answer certain questions in interviews. I’d get quietly, passionately indignant when people made assumptions about other authors’ gender identities and sexualities. And I’d feel uncomfortable, anxious, almost sick with nerves every time they discussed mine.

And holy shit, did people discuss. To me, it felt like there was never a break in the discourse, and it was often searingly personal. I was frequently mentioned by name, held up again and again as the quintessential example of allocishet inauthenticity. I was a straight woman writing shitty queer books for the straights, profiting off of communities I had no connection to.

Because the thing is, I called myself straight in a bunch of early interviews.

But labels change sometimes. That’s what everyone always says, right? It’s okay if you’re not out. It’s okay if you’re not ready. It’s okay if you don’t fully understand your identity yet. There’s no time limit, no age limit, no one right way to be queer.

And yet a whole lot of these very same people seemed to know with absolute certainty that I was allocishet. And the less certain I was, the more emphatically strangers felt the need to declare it. Apparently it was obvious from my writing. Simon’s fine, but it was clearly written by a het. You can just tell. Her books aren’t really for queer people.

You know what’s a mindfuck? Questioning your sexual identity in your thirties when every self-appointed literary expert on Twitter has to share their hot take on the matter. Imagine hundreds of people claiming to know every nuance of your sexuality just from reading your novels. Imagine trying to make space for your own uncertainty. Imagine if you had a Greek chorus of internet strangers propping up your imposter syndrome at every stage of the process.

The thing is, I really do believe in the value of critically discussing books, particularly when it comes to issues of representation. And I believe in the vital importance of Ownvoices stories. Most of the identities represented in my books are Ownvoices. But I don’t think we, as a community, have ever given these discussions the care and nuance they deserve.

Consider the origin of the Ownvoices hashtag. It was created in 2015 by author Corinne Duyvis, with the purpose of highlighting stories written by authors who share the same marginalized identities as their characters. But Corinne has always emphasized caution when it comes to using Ownvoices to determine which authors can tell which stories. And she’s been incredibly clear and emphatic about not weaponizing the term to pressure authors to disclose private aspects of their identities.

So why do we keep doing this? Why do we, again and again, cross the line between critiquing books and making assumptions about author identities? How are we so aware of invisible marginalization as a hypothetical concept, but so utterly incapable of making space for it in our community?

Let me be perfectly clear: this isn’t how I wanted to come out. This doesn’t feel good or empowering, or even particularly safe. Honestly, I’m doing this because I’ve been scrutinized, subtweeted, mocked, lectured, and invalidated just about every single day for years, and I’m exhausted. And if you think I’m the only closeted or semi-closeted queer author feeling this pressure, you haven’t been paying attention.

And I’m one of the lucky ones! I’m a financially independent adult. I can’t be disowned. I come from a liberal family, I have an enormous network of queer friends and acquaintances, and my livelihood isn’t even remotely at risk. I’m hugely privileged in more ways than I can count. And this was still brutally hard for me. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for other closeted writers, and how unwelcome they must feel in this community.

Even as I write this, I’m bracing for the inevitable discourse — I could draft the twitter threads myself if I wanted to. But I’d rather just make a few things really clear. First, this isn’t an attempt to neutralize criticism of my books, and you’re certainly entitled to any reactions you might have had to their content. Second, I’m not asking you to validate my decision to write Simon (or What If It’s Us, or mlm books in general).

But if I can ask for something, it’s this: will you sit for a minute with the discomfort of knowing you may have been wrong about me? And if your immediate impulse is to scrutinize my personal life, my marriage, or my romantic history, can you try to check yourself?

Or how about this: can we all be a bit more careful when we engage in queer Ownvoices discourse? Can we remember that our carelessness in these discussions has caused real harm? And that the people we’re hurting rarely have my degree of privilege or industry power? Can we make space for those of us who are still discovering ourselves? Can we be a little more compassionate? Can we make this a little less awful for the next person?

Can you tell I’m angry? Because I’m angry.

But I’m grateful, too, for those of you who understood the hidden (and not-so-hidden) threads of my books before I did. I’m grateful for the writer whose vulnerability made all of this finally click into place for me. And the ones who put their hearts on the line to hold space for people like me. And the ones who made me feel like I was allowed to care about this. And, of course, I’m grateful for the books. Some of you have no idea how much your words have helped me find mine.

Anyway, all of this is to say: I’m bi. Sorry it took me so long to get here. But then again, at least the little red coming out book I needed was already on my shelf (in about thirty different languages).

I think I finally know why I wrote it."

author Becky Albertalli ("Love, Simon", "Leah On The Offbeat") on her coming out process and the harsh criticism she had to face for he books (whole article here)

I think this perfectly illustrates why we, as a community, should stop assuming other people's identity

#becky albertalli #love simon #leah on the offbeat #love victor #svsthsa #wlw #mlm #lgbt

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fall-from-typeface · 4 years ago

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The influence of Erik Spiekermann, Jack Stauffacher and Tré Seals on contemporary typographic design.

It could be argued that Berlin’s position as the focal point of the European type design scene is thanks largely to the work and influence of Erik Spiekermann.

Printer, designer, typographer, professor, writer, entrepreneur and even a short stint as a politician; Spiekermann’s typography career started whilst studying Art History. To pay his way through Berlin’s Free University he set himself up as a jobbing printer, working from his basement with just two typefaces in three sizes. He never finished his course; instead moving to England to teach at The London College of Printing during which time he gained freelance experience in corporate design offices then returning to Berlin in 1979 to co-found Meta Design.

The company built its reputation and status on information design with clients such as the Berlin Transport System and The German Post Office. Recognising the creative potential of digital technology in type design he proposed customising typefaces for individual brands rather than setting rules for existing typefaces which had been the standard approach up until this time. With Spiekermann at the helm for twenty years, Meta Design would go on to become Germany’s largest design company with expansion into the US and Asian markets, responsible for instantly recognisable brands such as Audi, Volkswagen and Bosch.

Yet it is worth considering that despite his global success with Meta, the influence of Spiekermann in contemporary typographic design is even greater through his next entrepreneurial endeavor. FontShop established in 1989 with his then-wife Joan Spiekermann and Neville Brody was the first mail-order producer and distributor for digital fonts. With the internet in its very infancy the concept of downloading a font from the digital cloud was still more than a decade away; instead fonts were digitised and sold on floppy discs then posted out from FontShop’s Berlin office. FontShop gave designers choice; with desk-top publishing replacing phototypesetting; the market exploded. For a decade FontShop expanded with branches across Europe and North America before going digital as FontShop International.

Continuing to hold great influence over the type industry in 1996 Spiekermann launched a three-day design conference with presentations, seminars and workshops for designers, academics, journalists, students and anybody with an interest in visual communication. TYPO Berlin has continued for more than twenty years, during which time Spiekermann has carved out an almost secondary career as speaker at design conferences across the world influencing not only type design but also peoples ideas, perceptions and knowledge of the subject.

In more recent years Spiekermann has focussed his time and efforts at his experimental letterpress workshop P98a. On the publishing of the book ‘Only On Saturday’ a tribute to the experimental wood type prints of US based letterpress printer Jack Stauffacher he said;

“As typographers, designers, and printers, we translate words into written communication. Jack had done that all his life, making words visible. Then, after he had designed pretty much everything worth designing for a purpose, he started doing the opposite: he picked random wood letters from a case he had stumbled upon and made images with them. We aren’t supposed to read those letters as words but to go back to where they came from: pictures of those things. A large red B can be a sail, a blue A on its side is the sea, and the little black letters are birds or stones or ripples. . . . When I asked Jack about the prints, he said that those letters had become such intimate friends over time that he could behold them just as beautiful objects; they didn’t have to work for a living anymore.”

(Spiekermann, E 2019)

Celebrated as one of the finest printers of the twentieth century Stauffacher dedicated his eight decade long career to print. At just fourteen he established Greenwood Press in a garage behind his parents house, initially it gave him the space and opportunity to learn and later, once he had refined his skills, Greenwood Press gave him the freedom to pursue various passion projects and personal development beyond that of his everyday paying work. As a professor of typographic design at Carnegie Mellon University and San Francisco Art Institute his genuine passion and ability to lead by example made him an influential teacher.

It would be easy to assume that as a master of the analogue printing process for most of the twentieth century Stauffacher wouldn’t hold much influence in digital typography. However the opposite is true. Despite his initial reluctance he took to digital typography quickly and was soon producing elegant sample pages alongside his analogue proofs. He was quickly approached by Adobe and became an adviser as they digitised classic typefaces in the 1980’s.

A contemporary typographer going through that same process today is the award winning designer Tré Seals. His type foundry Vocal Type design typefaces highlighting specific moments in history where underrepresented voices were amplified; often through protest posters. For his ‘Martin’ typeface Seals painstakingly researched photographs of the Memphis sanitation strike of 1968 and designed a digital typeface based on the letterpress printed picket signs carried by the striking workers. Of it’s design Seals has said

“...since releasing Martin, it’s just been amazing to see how people have put Martin to use, like since the Black Lives Matter movement throughout 2020 people have used it on protest signs from California to New York to London to Denmark to Australia. Street murals and wall murals all around the world and just seeing the impact that this font has had it just amazes me.”

(www.youtube.com, 2021)

All eight typefaces published by Vocal Type highlight voices which are underrepresented in different forms; be it race, ethnicity, orientation or gender picking specific moments in history as the starting point of their design. Through his purposeful work, Seals aims to not only highlight the lack of diversity in the design world but also increase representation in a white male dominated field ‘starting with the basis of any good design - typography’ (Seals)

References

Creative Boom. (2019). Only on Saturday: A new book celebrates the wood type prints of type legend, Jack Stauffacher. [online] Available at: https://www.creativeboom.com/features/only-on-saturday-a-new-book-celebrates-the-wood-type-prints-of-jack-stauffacher/ [Accessed 6 Apr. 2021].

Design Observer. (n.d.). Jack Stauffacher: Typographer, Scholar, Teacher, and Polymath. [online] Available at: https://designobserver.com/feature/jack-stauffacher-typographer-scholar-teacher-and-polymath/39708 [Accessed 6 Apr. 2021].

Designers & Books. (n.d.). Erik Spiekermann. [online] Available at: http://www.designersandbooks.com/designer/bio/erik-spiekermann [Accessed 30 Mar. 2021].

FontShop. (n.d.). FontShop. [online] Available at: https://www.fontshop.com/content/30-years-of-fontshop [Accessed 30 Mar. 2021].

gestalten (2020). A legacy in letters with Erik Spiekermann. [online] Medium. Available at: https://uxdesign.cc/a-legacy-in-letters-with-erik-spiekermann-f745e6498289 [Accessed 30 Mar. 2021].

Shop, gestalten U. (n.d.). A Legacy in Letters with Erik Spiekermann. [online] gestalten UK Shop. Available at: https://uk.gestalten.com/blogs/journal/a-legacy-in-letters-with-erik-spiekermann [Accessed 6 Apr. 2021].

VOCAL. (n.d.). Story of. [online] Available at: https://www.vocaltype.co/story-of.

www.eyemagazine.com. (n.d.). Eye Magazine | Feature | Meta’s tectonic man. [online] Available at: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/metas-tectonic-man.

www.youtube.com. (2021). Protest, typography, and the fight for justice - Tré Seals in conversation with Naresh Ramchandani. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX-P8LHD_DQ [Accessed 6 Apr. 2021].

#gms hncgd1 #hncgraphicdesign #cogc #cityofglasgowcollege #typography

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ohemgeeitscoley · 5 years ago

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The one I have been waiting for (Part Two of Two)

Ben Solo is the recently assigned editor for Rey Johnson’s book about star-crossed lovers in space when the world is turned upside down and stay home orders are issued. Ben and Rey begin working together over Zoom and their relationship grows.

Or, an and they were zoomates fic.

Based on this Tumblr post.

Fandom: Star Wars

Pairing: Rey/Ben Solo (Reylo)

Chapter One

Note: And here’s the rest! I hope you guys enjoy this. I had a ton of fun writing it and playing with these characters and this situation.

@andyouweremine is 100% to blame for the last Zoom scene, which was not a part of the plan and she talked me into it after I told her the story was done. You know. Like the best kind of friend.

Read below or on AO3.

Rey Johnson: Hi Ben, I was wondering if you are busy?

Rey Johnson: This has nothing to do with the book or my writing. I've actually written a ton. Talking to you really helped yesterday.

Rey Johnson: I was going to try to come up with some excuse to start talking to you. But honestly I'm just lonely. All of my friends have someone else that they are quarantined with so I feel like I might be bothering them at this point. And I really hate to be that person, but I just was hoping we could talk about something?

Rey Johnson: oh god okay you haven't said anything and I'm really sorry if this was inappropriate please let's pretend this conversation never happened.

Ben: I'd love to just talk.

Ben: You waited less than a minute before trying to revoke that offer, by the way.

Ben: I think it takes my brain longer than that to even think of a response let alone type one.

Rey Johnson: You seem to be doing just fine now 😜

Rey Johnson: And thank you. I didn't realize how much I needed human contact before all of this.

Ben: I understand.

Rey Johnson: So, I'm ordering groceries to be delivered and they have a limit on cup of noodles now? And does it make me a bad person if I order the maximum quantity at different stores?

Rey Johnson: That sounds bad. I'm not a bad person I swear. I just, I really never learned to cook growing up and it hasn't been a priority in my adult life.

Rey Johnson: Don't hate me. I swear I'm not the kind of person who would buy more than I need in a pandemic.

Ben: I don't think that makes you a bad person. I am, however, very concerned that ramen is the primary component to your daily nutrition.

Rey Johnson: I'm not a total animal. I mix in veggies and occasionally I'll even add in real meat.

Ben: I could send you recipes? Easy ones. My mom is demanding my family attend these weekly virtual dinner parties.

Ben: And one of her requirements is that we all make the same meal. So, she's been bombarding my uncles and me with easy recipes.

Ben: Plus this way if you need help, I can help you.

Rey Johnson: I would love that. Send them over.

Rey Johnson: Thanks Ben.

----

Ben hadn’t expected Rey’s accent. If he was being entirely honest with himself, Ben hadn’t expected Rey to be anything like she was.

Her laugh was light and had to be earned, which he appreciated. Her hazel eyes seemed to brighten when she was arguing with him about Kira and Kylo’s connection and, especially, when she bit down on her lip to stop herself from interrupting him. He wondered how much of her personality was lost to a screen and what it would be like to see her in person.

She was beautiful.

Not that he should necessarily be having these kinds of thoughts about her. He had read through the entire HR policy handbook the night after their first video call and it wasn’t explicitly forbidden for writers and editors to see each other. The policy just required full disclosure at the start of a relationship.

He also recognized that two video calls and a few messages was hardly enough to warrant such research. There was a more than very real chance that Rey would want absolutely nothing to do with him socially. She wouldn’t be the first.

He glanced down at his phone, and the messages from Rey, and smiled.

But he hoped that maybe she would.

Ben went to his computer, pulling up his work email and searching for the messages between Leia, Luke and Chewie. He was only able to find the first thread, which only had one recipe that was decidedly not an easy one to follow. What had followed Leia’s first message was around thirty replies between the three of them about how Leia couldn’t expect either Luke or Chewie to know how to cook beef wellington on a few days’ notice.

To be fair, Ben was a fairly decent cook, and he wasn’t entirely sure he could pull off beef wellington.

He had been so sure though that his mom had said she was going to send other recipes for them to choose from. He can almost clearly see something about how she’d send over a recipe for mac and cheese if they’d just calm down about it.

But looking through his email now, he can’t actually find any of those recipes.

---

Ben: Hey mom. I was planning on making my grocery delivery order soon and I can’t find any of the recipes you sent over?

Mom: Your uncles haven’t picked a final recipe yet. I believe they are currently still lobbying that we all just buy the same Hamburger Helper meal kit and call it a day. I have sent dozens of recipes to choose from and this is what they are stuck on.

Mom: I think even Luke can manage to make tacos.

Ben: What recipes? I can only find the beef wellington recipe.

Ben: Which, really?

Mom: What else are they doing while staying at home? They both have plenty of time to learn to cook one recipe.

Ben: Luke works from home outside of the stay home order. So, I would imagine he has just as much time as before.

Mom: Are you really defending your uncle to me right now Benjamin?

Ben: So, where are those other recipes? I can’t find them.

Mom: I removed you from the email chain. I know you get sick of hearing us all bicker. I figured I’d just send you the final recipe once we get a consensus.

Ben: Oh. Could you send them to me anyways?

Mom: They are basic recipes Ben. For things like tacos and spaghetti. You could write better recipes than what I am sending out.

Ben: Still. I should have them.

Mom: Why?

Ben: Why can’t you just send them to me?

Mom: If you are looking for easy recipes Ben, you know how to perform an internet search. I’ve seen you do it.

Ben: You are being impossible.

Mom: I’ll send them.

Ben: Thank you.

Mom: If you tell me why you want them.

Ben: This is ridiculous. I’ll just “perform an internet search.” Thanks Mom.

Mom: Oh come on Ben. Something is up. You wouldn’t be acting so weird if there wasn’t a reason you want these recipes.

Ben: Fine.

Ben: I’ve been talking to Rey Johnson.

Mom: Oh really? How is her book coming along?

Ben: Great. Really great actually.

Mom: Does she need recipe ideas for her book?

Ben: What? No.

Ben: We’ve been talking about non work related things and she mentioned not knowing how to cook.

Ben: So, I figured I’d send over some of the easier recipes I assumed you’d been sending Luke and Chewie.

Mom: You’ve been talking about non work related things?

Ben: Yes. Is that okay?

Mom: That’s more than okay.

Mom: I could just send the recipes directly to her if you’d like.

Ben: I can send them to her.

Mom: It’s just as easy for me to do it Ben.

Ben: Mom.

Mom: Should I reach out to Amilyn for HR purposes?

Ben: You are impossible.

----

Ben: Dad. Can you please have mom forward me the recipes she’s been sending to Luke and Chewie.

Ben: Without asking any questions.

Ben: I really would appreciate it.

Dad: Sure thing, kid.

----

“Hey, what’s up?” Ben asked as he answered the incoming video call on his cell phone from Rey.

He took in his messy hair, and the plain black t-shirt he was wearing, and realized that maybe he shouldn’t have been so quick to answer.

She looked amazing.

Her hair was up in three separate buns. The tank top that she was wearing was thin and he could see the outline of her black bra underneath the thin fabric.

The image on his phone quickly shifted as she changed the camera view so that he was staring at a box of groceries on her doorstep.

Oh.

“Ben. What is all of this?” Rey asked and he isn’t sure if she is amused or annoyed and he really wished that he could see her.

“The ingredients to the recipes I’m about to send you.” Ben responded with a small shrug. “I wasn’t able to get them to you before you placed your grocery order. And I really couldn’t stomach you only eating ramen for the next week.”

“Ben,” Rey sighed, and suddenly she was back on his screen shaking her head. “You could have just sent the recipes and I could have made another order.”

“Sure,” Ben grinned. “Or I could have done just what I did.”

“At least let me pay you back.”

“No need,” Ben waved his hand in front of the screen. “Honestly, Rey.”

“I don’t even know what to do with half of these,” Rey admitted, holding up a bell pepper. “Am I going to blind myself if I accidently rub my eyes while cutting one of these?”

Ben laughed, running his hand through his hair while he shook his head. “Maybe let’s just start by putting everything away and deciding what we are making tonight.”

“We?” Rey asked, a small smile spreading on her face.

“If you want?” Ben offered, tapping a finger against his counter. “I figured we could make dinner together. I’m pretty sure I can walk you through all of these recipes.”

“Yeah. That sounds nice.”

----

Ben: Is it okay if I text you about book things? Or would you prefer an email or a scheduled video call?

Rey Johnson: A scheduled video call? Ben. We literally stopped talking an hour ago.

Ben: I just want to make sure you are okay with it.

Rey Johnson: It’s fine.

Rey Johnson: What’s up?

Ben: I read through what you sent this morning. And I wanted to point out that I noticed.

Rey Johnson: Noticed what?

Ben: That you haven’t finished the scene about whether or not Kira takes Kylo’s hand and are writing ambiguous future scenes that could work either way.

Rey Johnson: No idea what you are talking about. 😇

Ben: Sure you don’t.

Rey Johnson: New number. Who is this?

----

Rey stretched her legs down toward the end of her bed, switching the arm that is holding her phone up so she can stretch her arm out as well. She rolled to her side, setting her phone down on her nightstand, leaned up against the lamp.

“We already watched three episodes of Witcher today Ben,” Rey pointed out, stifling a yawn. “It’s my turn for show choices.”

“You don’t look like you’re going to be up much longer,” Ben pointed out.

“I’m fine,” Rey mumbled, fighting against the heaviness of her eyes. “You’re just saying that so you can get out of watching the next episode of Legacies.”

It had been the same conversation between the two of them, more or less, for the last few weeks. Rey mostly wrote in the mornings and she and Ben had a few early afternoon meetings a week on what she was working on and the progress she had made.

They argue about whether or not Kira is going to take Kylo's hand.

Outside of those meetings though, most of their conversations never returned to work. Which was something since they spent most of their days talking to one another.

In the evenings they made dinner together and talked about what they were going to do once the world finally opened back up. Ben was keeping a list of their ideas. Rey liked imagining that they would go through the list together.

Neither of them ever brought it up, but Rey hoped that Ben imagined it too.

Ben caved on the binge watching two weeks after the stay home order was in place. Initially Rey had joked that he should try Tiger King or Too Hot to Handle. They downloaded the programs to sync their computers and watched the first episode of Too Hot to Handle together. Watching Ben’s face through the first ten minutes was worth all of her own feelings of embarrassment.

Ben’s ears did turn pink when he blushed. Something that Rey really wanted to see in person.

She was thankful for Ben. Without him she knew that her quarantine quality of life would have been severely diminished, but she wanted to actually see him.

“Hey Ben,” Rey started, squirming around in her bed until she was under her blanket. “When the stay home order finally gets lifted, I would… I really want to see you.”

“Of course,” Ben answered, and Rey grinned at how quickly he responded. “We have a list of things we are going to do.”

“Together.” Rey confirmed, closing her eyes. “A list of things to go do together.”

Ben telling her good night is the last thing Rey hears before falling asleep.

----

Dad: Your mom wants you to invite Rey to virtual dinner on Saturday.

Dad: I get the idea that she isn’t going to take no as an answer.

Ben: Can you distract her long enough for me to change my phone number?

Dad: Just invite her, Ben.

Ben: Okay. Fine.

----

Mom: I’d love for you to invite Rey to dinner on Saturday. Your uncles would like to meet her.

Ben: Why would they want to meet her Mom? I haven’t talked about her with them.

Mom: I’ve talked to them.

Ben: Mom.

Mom: Your uncles decided on lasagna. I’ll send you the recipe.

Ben: I’ll ask her, but I’m not sure that she’ll want to attend.

Mom: I’m sure you can convince her. 😉

Ben: I’m never talking to you again.

----

"You got big plans this weekend?" Rey asked, teasing him. "Should I be jealous you have other people to hang out with. I thought you loved watching Legacies with me."

"I love spending time with you," Ben corrected, a slight blush coating his cheeks. "I could give or take Legacies."

Rey laughed, her face wrinkling and her mouth open wide.

Ben smiled in return without thought. It was strange to him, how easy it was to smile when he talked with her.

"Actually," Ben started, reaching a hand up to scratch at his neck. "My mom invited you to Saturday dinner."

"Oh," Rey said, looking away from the screen. "Really?"

"Yes," Ben confirmed. "I would say no pressure, but my mom doesn't really take no for an answer."

Rey gave him a small, tight smile. "I would be honored to attend."

Ben sighed in relief. "We are making lasagna. I'll send you the recipe."

"I can't wait," Rey said. "Hopefully I won't do anything to embarrass you."

"Nothing," Ben promised, "Nothing you could do would be embarrassing."

"My family," he continued, shaking his head. "I apologize now. I would understand if you never talked to me again."

"Never," Rey responded immediately. "You're the only thing keeping me sane."

“I feel the same way.”

“You do?" Rey asked, her eyes slightly widening. “Here I was thinking you are just being nice.”

“I’m not nice,” Ben offered, shrugging his shoulders. “You can ask just about anyone that knows me. It’s not what I am known for.”

“I find that hard to believe. You’ve been nothing but nice to me.”

Ben doesn’t know what to say in response, glancing away from his phone. “So I’ll call you at two on Saturday? The dinner starts at six.”

“It’s a date,” Rey blushed, but smiled at him. “I can’t wait.”

----

New Group Chat Created

Ben: I talked with Rey and she will be there this Saturday.

Ben: Please, please, please, do not do or say anything that would embarrass me.

Ben: This means no baby pictures, mom.

Chewie: I’m hurt that you would think so little of me.

Uncle Luke: Honestly Ben. How little do you think of us?

Ben: Do you really want me to answer that?

Dad: No.

Mom: But Benjamin, you were such a cute baby with those ears and your hair.

Ben: Mom.

Dad: Leia.

Dad: Let the kid be.

Uncle Luke: There is that cute picture of him naked and playing in the sprinkler that I always thought was going to be a future hit.

Ben: I’m univitating her.

----

Rey threw another shirt onto the growing pile on her bed. She huffed, closing her eyes as she tried to imagine the perfect outfit to wear when attending a video dinner with her crushes entire family.

Her crush.

God, she felt like she was fifteen.

Crush wasn’t even the right word to describe what she felt toward Ben. She wasn’t sure what the right word would be.

She wished she knew where they stood. Logically, she knew that it was a conversation that they should have, one that was needed at this point. But she didn’t want to ruin whatever they had by trying to figure out what was going on with them.

He was there for her. Every day. Without fail. He called her. He texted her. He sent her stupid quarantine memes and videos to make her laugh.

He kept a list of post quarantine activities for them.

She was almost positive that he was on the same page as her. That they were heading toward… something.

She hoped there were at least.

She pulled up Poe’s contact information, hitting the video call button.

“Hey Rey,” Poe responded, a bright grin on his face. “Also, wow, you are naked.”

“I’m not naked,” Rey rolled her eyes. “I’m in my bra.”

“Practically naked,” Poe amended. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t laugh,” Rey began, “But Ben? My editor? I’m going to be attending a… virtual dinner with his parents and uncles.”

“Ben, your editor?” Poe mocked, laughing. “Rey, you can just say your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“You guys make dinner and are binge watching two different shows,” Poe pointed out. “You are in a relationship.”

“We aren’t… we haven’t, we haven’t talked about anything like that.”

“Okay,” Poe conceded, holding his hands up in mock defeat. “I’ll leave it for now. What’s the problem?”

“I have no idea what to wear,” Rey admitted, switching the camera mode to show him the pile of clothes tossed on her bed.

“Oh, wow.” Poe shook his head. “Babe. You just need to stop overthinking this.”

“I just want to make a good impression.” Rey bit down on her bottom lip. “I want to look nice, but not too nice for a virtual dinner.”

“I truly think sweatpants and a t-shirt would be appropriate for a virtual dinner.”

“You once told me that sweatpants were the first sign of a girl giving in to being alone forever.”

“Yeah, well, that was before quarantine.”

“Poe,” Rey exaggerated his name, holding onto the vowels for seconds. “Please just help me.”

“Jeans. And what about that yellow top you wore last time you went out with me and Finn?”

Rey nodded, walking over to her closet to pull out the yellow, flowy tank top she wore that night. “This one?”

“That one,” Poe confirmed. “It’s perfect. I think it captures your personality.”

“That’s ridiculous, but okay. Thank you.”

“I expect to be your maid of honor in your future wedding for this.”

“Poe!” Rey shook her head in amusement.

“Love you! Bye!”

----

“Hi,” Ben said. “You changed.”

“So did you,” Rey noted, nodding at the screen.

Ben looked down at the button down shirt he had changed into. “You look nice.”

Rey smiled shyly. “Thank you.”

“My family can be,” Ben paused, trying to think of the right words. “A bit much.”

“Ben,” Rey shook her head. “It’s going to be fine.”

“Just promise me if my mom actually starts trying to show you baby pictures of me that you’ll look away.”

“I can make no such promise,” Rey laughed. “I’m sure you were a cute baby though.”

“I really wasn’t,” Ben sighed. “I am still waiting to grow into my ears.”

“I like your ears.”

Ben glanced down, happy that his hair was currently covering his ears. “I was just thinking that if you wanted a code word, you know, to end the call, now is the time to come up with one.”

“Ben,” Rey laughed his name. “It’s going to be fine. I’m going to love everyone. I’m more worried that they are going to hate me.”

“That’s just… that’s not possible.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “I think you might be a little biased at this point.”

“Maybe,” Ben admitted. “But I also know my family. Trust me. It isn’t possible.”

-----

Ben watched as Rey started laughing again, her smile wide and open as she tilted her head back. He could hear Luke and Han chuckling in the background, but he had pinned Rey’s frame as soon as they had merged into the dinner video call.

He had been right, of course, his family loved Rey. It probably should scare Ben at how easily Rey fit in with them. Easily picking up on their different personalities and slightly shifting and overplaying aspects of her personality to win them over.

He wished that she believed that she didn't need to change anything for them to love her. But it made him happy watching her try so hard to impress them. A part of him was still in denial and was convinced that Rey was putting in that kind of effort for reasons that didn't involve him at all.

But a bigger part of him knew that Rey wanted to fit in with them because she wanted to be with him. They hadn't talked about it, but Ben hoped that she knew that he wanted to be with her.

He needed the stay home order lifted so that he could take her to one of the many locations on their post-quarantine adventure list. Once he was allowed to leave his apartment for non-emergent reasons nothing was going to keep him away from her.

He had already found himself halfway out the door ready to go over to her apartment numerous times over the last few weeks. If the order wasn't lifted soon, he wasn't sure how much longer he could wait.

He wanted to actually hold her while they watched Legacies. He wanted to be able to reach out and take her hand and show her the correct way to cut bell peppers.

He wanted to discover and know all of the little things that she did that were lost over a computer screen.

"Ben?" Leia asked, snapping her fingers in front of the screen. "Maybe you can stop thinking about Rey long enough to join the conversation again?"

"What?" Ben sputtered, hoping that his face wasn't as red as it felt. But judging from the way his mom was laughing and Chewie was grinning at him, he was positive that it was. "Did you say something? I had a… work email that distracted me."

“A work email?” Leia asked, fake innocence dripping from her voice, “Is it important? Should I hop on and read it as well?”

“I was just saying,” Han started, placing his hand on Leia’s shoulder. “That this has been nice and that we hope Rey can make it to one of our weekly dinners once we are allowed to meet in person again.”

“Maybe even two,” Chewie added.

“Or three,” Luke finished.

“The lasagna was great, Leia,” Rey said, pulling Ben’s attention back to the screen. “And honestly so easy to make. I think I could have pulled this one off without Ben’s help.”

“Oh really?” Ben asked, raising his eyebrows. “Those are brave words coming from the girl who once asked if she was going to go blind while cutting bell peppers.”

Rey stuck her tongue out at him. “That was weeks ago. How many meals have we made since then? I’m practically a chef at this point. Maybe I’ll quit writing and open up a restaurant once quarantine ends.”

Ben snorted. “Literally anything to avoid writing a certain scene.”

“That’s not--”

“How is the book coming?” Leia interrupted, an amused grin on her face.

Actually, Ben noted, every single one of his family members had an amused smile on their face.

“Really well,’ Rey responded. “Ben has been a great editor. Even if we disagree on a pivotal scene.”

“She just doesn’t like to admit that I am right.”

“I have no problem admitting that you are right, when you are actually right,” Rey teased, taking a sip from her wine glass. “You still haven’t convinced me.”

"Maybe we should go over the list of reasons that I've given you already again tonight," Ben suggested. "I know you had your heart set on finishing up Legacies tonight, but this might be more important."

"Nothing is more important than finishing Legacies," Rey argued. "Besides you promised we would finish Legacies since we finished Witcher first. You going back on your promises now Ben?"

"Oh, Ben never breaks his promises," Leia said, and Ben glanced down at the bottom of his screen. He had forgotten for a minute that he was blatantly flirting with Rey in front of his parents and uncles. The knowing look on Leia and Han's face was insufferable, and somehow worse than the amused expressions on Luke and Chewie's face.

Ben really wasn't looking forward to reading whatever messages were waiting for him in the group chat he created between all of them. He had pushed his phone as far away from him as possible when Luke and Chewie wouldn't stop going on about how nice it was to finally meet Ben's girlfriend and how pretty she really was.

At this point, Ben might only ever willingly talk to his dad ever again. He at least tried to get everyone to leave him alone.

He had never regretted creating a group more.

"Where are you at in Legacies?" Luke asked. "I haven't started it yet, but if I have to stay home much longer, I might start. A lot of my students have been talking about it."

Ben smiled as he watched the animated way Rey responded to his uncle while they discussed the show.

He wanted to see her. Stay home order be damned, he was going to see her.

----

Chewie: Rey is absolutely wonderful Ben.

Uncle Luke: You should ask her out soon, a girl like that won't be single for long.

Dad: Luke.

Uncle Luke: What? 🤷🏼‍♂️ Someone needs to be honest with him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ben look that awestruck at a person before.

Dad: Did Leia ask you to take over harping at him so Ben would stop ignoring her calls?

Uncle Luke: I’m certain I have no idea what you are talking about.

Mom: I would never do anything like that.

Dad: Leia.

Mom: But I would appreciate it if my son would pick up the phone every now and then.

Ben: I’m blocking everyone but Dad.

---

Ben: I have a crazy idea. And you can absolutely, definitely say no if it makes you uncomfortable in any way.

Ben: Also, I am now realizing how sexual that sounded and I am regretting this already.

Ben: I should have thought my words through more there.

Ben: We can just ignore this entirely.

Rey Johnson: Ben. Stop.

Rey Johnson: Maybe I wouldn’t turn down a crazy sexual idea.

Rey Johnson: You’ll have no idea if you keep shooting yourself down before I can even respond.

Ben: Okay.

Rey Johnson: So, what’s this crazy idea? And just how sexual is it?

Ben: It’s not.

Ben: Sexual.

Ben: It might be crazy.

Ben: I really wish I could take back this conversation.

Rey Johnson: I really wish we could be having this conversation face to face.

Ben: … that’s my idea.

Ben: I haven’t left my house in well over fourteen days. I don’t think you have either?

Ben: And I have a car. So if I wear a mask, and go straight to my car, and straight to your apartment. I mean. The risk is low, right?

Ben: I could also bring clothes, and I could just take a shower when I get there, to lower the risk even more?

Rey Johnson: I thought you said this wasn’t sexual?

Ben: I didn’t mean it like that.

Ben: I meant a very perfunctory decontamination shower.

Rey Johnson: I’m teasing you Ben.

Rey Johnson: Come over.

Rey Johnson: We’ll talk about the perfunctoriness of your future shower in person.

Rey Johnson: [address sent]

---

Kneeling down on the floor, Rey placed another book on her bookshelf, adjusting the snow globe on the edge of the shelf again. She had been keeping herself busy with cleaning since she had sent Ben her address, just waiting for him to arrive. The fact that Ben had proposed it as an idea made her heart swell. She had almost asked him a dozen times over the last few weeks, but each time she managed to talk herself out of it at the last minute.

She was nervous. Rey blamed the wine for how bold she had been in the messages she had sent to him. Now that she was waiting though, with nothing but her own thoughts, Rey was worried that it was too much, too soon. While Rey was fairly confident that Ben asking to come over was a good sign, a sign that she wasn't alone in her attraction, it was hard for her to focus on that and not on the constant intruding thoughts that she was going to be left alone again.

Ben had been the best part of her days and nights for weeks, and she was scared that he might be disappointed when he saw her. Or that he might decide that her appeal wasn't the same in person. Rey didn't want to lose him.

Not for the first time since the stay home order had been in place, Rey wished she could schedule a therapy appointment with her counselor. A childhood of being left behind and unwanted had left many scars and shadows in her brain.

Ben had been nothing but kind to her. He flirted with her, he laughed with her, he spent hours on video calls with her walking her through how to make meals that Rey was pretty convinced idiots could handle making without any help. He was patient and good.

A part of her knew that meeting him in person wasn't going to change anything for the worse, she just needed to remind herself that she deserved good things and good people.

And Ben Solo was a good person. Even if he argued with her over that fact with stories and worries about who he was at his last job, some awful publishing company that took advantage of writers with shady contracts.

Mistakes didn't define a person's entire character though. And Rey knew all the work he had done to try to make the situation right. He was the reason for the multimillion dollar lawsuit against the company and he was still meeting with lawyers remotely to help bolster the plaintiffs' cases.

A knock on the door pulled her attention from her thoughts. Standing up, Rey brushed her hands down the colorful leggings and pulled down on the large, baggy black tank top she had changed into after dinner. Briefly, Rey considered running back into her bedroom and finding something more appealing to throw on, but then Ben knocked on the door again and Rey remembered that this is the same guy who told her she looked beautiful after she fell asleep during a call and woke up with drool dried to the side of her mouth.

"Hi," Rey greeted him, as she pulled open her front door.

He was tall and broad, which Rey already knew, but seeing him in person put it in a different perspective. Rey fought against her first instinct to step into the hallway to hug him, her fingers tightening on the door knob still in her hand.

"Hi," Ben responded and his voice was so much deeper in person. Rey couldn't see his smile because of the black mask that covered half of his face, but she knew that he was smiling with the way his eyes crinkled in the corners. "Can I come in?"

Without a word Rey stepped back to let him in. "You're really here," she said after Ben shut the door. She couldn't stop smiling at him. He held up the duffel bag in his hand as a question.

Rey laughed, taking the bag from him and setting it down behind the couch. "I thought you were kidding about the decontamination shower."

"The perfunctory decontamination shower," Ben corrected, reaching up to take off his mask. He was smiling as he sat the mask down on the table.

And oh, Rey had thought he was gorgeous on her computer screen, but seeing him smile in person, nothing was going to beat that. Her computer screen would never be enough again.

"I figured I'd bring clothes just in case," Ben continued, removing his leather gloves. "Whatever it takes for you to be comfortable with me being here. If you want to me to shower, I can do that. Change my clothes? I can definitely do that. If you've got a bottle of Lysol and you'd like to spray me--"

"Ben," Rey interrupted, taking a step closer to him. "I think I'd really like it if you'd just kiss me already."

Ben stopped talking and looked at her. Rey shifted her weight under his stare, waiting for him to say or do anything. The longer he was silent the more embarrassed she grew.

She was about to apologize when Ben finally moved toward her and kissed her. The kiss was chaste and slow at first, Ben still closing the distance between their bodies. He placed his hands on her waist, which were warm and large as they slid down her sides.

Rey opened her mouth, deepening the kiss as she pressed herself up to wrap her arms around his neck. She ran her hands through his dark, wavy hair, enjoying the softness of the strands as they fell through her fingers. Ben hummed his appreciation against her lips.

Ben pulled away first, breathing heavily as he rested his forehead against hers. "Hi," he breathed, a wide smile on his face.

"Hi," Rey grinned back at him. "I'm really glad you came."

"Me too," Ben agreed, placing a kiss on her nose and then her forehead before he stood up straight and pulled her into his chest. "I can't believe you're really here."

"Me either," Rey said, taking a deep breath in an attempt to commit the smell of Ben to her memory. Placing a kiss against his chest, Rey lowered her arms from Ben's neck and wrapped them around his waist. "You smell nice. No shower needed."

"I'm glad," Ben laughed, his chest rumbling under her ear. Rey loved the way it sounded. "I guess I didn't need the extra set of clothes."

Ben moved his hands off of Rey to pull off his glove. He tossed it on to the table, before running his hands down her back.

"I suppose that depends on what the plan is." Rey said, her voice light and airy. "I could think of a few options where having extra clothes might be beneficial."

"Oh?" Ben questioned. "Want to share these plans?"

"Well, obviously we have some episodes of Legacies to watch."

"Obviously," Ben snorted, shaking his head. "I do have this theory that I'll enjoy the show much more when I'm holding you and can pay more attention to you than the show."

Rey blushed. "Maybe if you paid more attention to the show instead of thinking up these theories you'd be enjoying it more."

"I don't know. I quite enjoy thinking up those theories," Ben pressed a kiss into her hair. "And after Legacies?"

"Dessert. Maybe a game."

"And then?"

"And then in the morning," Rey said, pulling back from Ben slightly until she could glance up at him, tapping her fingers against his spine to try to dispel some of the nerves building up in her stomach. "In the morning, I was thinking maybe you could teach me how to make waffles."

"Waffles? What about pancakes?" Ben teased, brushing a piece of hair behind Rey's ear.

"Sure," Rey shrugged. "Or pancakes. If you stay, I won't be picky. I just, I want you to stay."

"I'll stay."

-----

“Ben,” Rey giggled as Ben moved his lips down her neck. “Ben. It’s 6:00.”

“I know.”

“It’s time for dinner with your family.”

“I know,” Ben repeated, placing a kiss on her shoulder.

“You are distracting me,” Rey complained. “Nothing is ready.”

“The food is ready,” Ben mummered, pointing at the enchiladas that were cooling on her counter. “I’m dressed. You’re dressed. What more needs to be done?”

Rey spun around, pressing her back against the counter. “Ben. It’s 6:00. And you’re still here.”

Ben’s eyes widened slightly as he realized the problem. “I have my laptop. We can just set me up in a different room.”

“You don’t think they are going to notice that the apartment you are in isn’t your apartment?”

Ben was silent, thinking through their problem. “I’ll use one of those zoom backgrounds.”

“You hate them.”

“Yes.” Ben nodded. “Yes, I do.”

“We can just tell them.”

“We could,” Ben conceded. “But then the entire dinner is going to be us listening to my family ask extremely embarrassing and personal questions and I just… I don’t--”

Rey interrupted him with a kiss, smiling against his lips when she pulled away.

“Go get set up in my room. I’ll bring the food in,” Rey walked over to the deep fryer, blowing on a still-too-hot tortilla chip before popping it in her mouth.

Ben had insisted on making homemade tortilla chips. Which really didn’t surprise her.

“We could also skip dinner,” Ben offered, following behind her. He lowered his head down to place a kiss just below her ear, before whispering, “We could have sex instead.”

“Ben,” Rey whined, setting her hands on top of his.

“Really, really good sex.”

“Go pick a background babe,” Rey said, shaking her head in amusement. She opened the cabinet above her, pulling down two plates. “We’re all ready.”

“Fine,” Ben grumbled. Rey turned her head to give him one last kiss before he walked away to her room.

Dinner was going fine. Better than fine really. Luke and Chewie had spent the first half an hour making fun of Ben’s background, an image of the city at night. Ben had taken the teasing with a smile, saying that he had wanted to try something new.

The enchiladas were great and the tortilla chips Ben had made were amazing. The wine Ben had picked out for the dinner went well. Han and Rey were talking about cars and Rey was enjoying watching Ben pretend to be annoyed at the focus of the conversation being on Han’s other child.

No one seemed to be aware that Rey and Ben were in the same apartment, and Rey felt a rush of satisfaction come over her for getting away with it.

Then Rey dropped her wine glass, spilling the liquid down the front of her shirt. The glass broke on the edge of the table and when Rey went to pick it up, she felt the burn of the cut along her thumb.

“Fuck,” Rey shouted, sticking her thumb in her mouth without thought.

“Are you okay?” Leia asked, a look of concern on her face.

“I’m fine,” Rey responded, blushing. “I’m just a bit of a klutz.”

Rey didn’t even notice that Ben was no longer on her screen until he was in front of her, setting down the first aid kid from her bathroom on the table next to her computer.

“Are you okay?” He asked, pulling at her hand to look at the cut. He inspected the cut with precision that the small cut didn’t warrant.

“Ben, I’m fine,” Rey lifted her non-injured hand up to cup his chin and force him to look at her. “It’s no worse than a papercut. It’s not even really bleeding.”

“Still,” Ben glanced over at the first aid kit, opening it up and pulling out the small bottle of hydrogen peroxide. “You’ll let me clean it. And put a band-aid on it.”

“Sure babe,” Rey laughed. “As long as you admit that you’re doing this for you, and not for me.”

Ben didn’t say anything, he poured a small amount of the hydrogen peroxide on her finger, blowing on it as the chemical bubbled slightly along the cut.

“Um,” Luke’s voice pulled Rey’s attention back to her computer. Han, Leia, Luke and Chewie were all staring at her and Ben. Rey had never seen such a big smile as the one on Leia’s face. Han smirked, as if he had known the entire time.

“Anything you two want to share with the class?” Luke asked.

Ben didn’t look away from Rey’s finger as he carefully wrapped the band-aid around the cut. “I’m at Rey’s apartment. Obviously.”

“And that’s why you had that ridiculous background?” Leia asked. “You didn’t want to just tell us that you were at Rey’s?”

“I was hoping to avoid this entire conversation,” Ben admitted, lifting Rey’s finger up to inspect the bandage. He placed a gentle kiss over the band-aid before gently placing her hand back in her lap.

“I didn’t think you were supposed to be going around to be other people’s houses during stay home orders,” Chewie teased.

“Violating the Governor’s directives to get a girlfriend? I guess he is your son after all, Han,” Luke said with a laugh.

Ben blushed and Rey leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “I need to go change my shirt,” Rey said, smiling at the camera. “I think I’ll need Ben’s help. You know, since I’m injured. So we’ll see you guys next week!”

“The ‘barely a papercut’ injury?” Leia teased.

"Better safe than sorry!” Rey exclaimed. She gave them all a tiny wave goodbye before exiting the meeting.

The screen had barely closed out before Ben’s phone started lighting up with text messages.

“Maybe you should mute the group chat,” Rey said, laughing at some of the messages as the preview popped up on his screen.

“Probably a good idea.”

“Thanks for coming to my rescue,” Rey said, sliding her hands around his neck to pull him in for a kiss.

“Always,” he whispered against her lips.

“Now, you were saying something earlier about really, really good sex?”

-----

Rey grinned as Ben squeezed her hand, pulling her into the ice cream shop with them. The stay home order was finally lifted and restaurants were opening, and even if new, additional social distancing requirements came along, the ability to be standing in an actual ice cream shop with Ben was worth all of it.

Even if they had to make reservations to go get ice cream. It was a new normal, and one she was more than willing to make adjustments for.

Ben’s smile was infectious as he looked down at the ice cream flavors in the bins at the back of the room.

“I think,” Ben said, glancing up to the man behind the counter, “I would love a waffle cone with strawberry ice cream.”

“How many scoops?”

“Three.”

Rey snorted, shaking her head. “Three? Ben, that’s more sugar than I’ve ever seen you eat combined. You’re going to go into a sugar coma.”

“I imagine you’re eating at least half of it.”

Rey bit down on her bottom lip, leaning up to kiss Ben’s cheek. “You think you know me?”

“I know that I know you.”

“Oh yeah?” Rey raised an eyebrow. “Order for me then. Since you know me so well.”

“She’ll take a waffle cone with three scoops of…” Ben paused, taking one more look at all of the flavors. “Candy lovers delight.”

Rey pouted. He would pick the one she had been ready to order.

“That’s not fair,” Rey argued as Ben paid for the ice cream. “You weren’t supposed to guess right.”

“I didn’t guess,” Ben told her, pulling out a chair at one of the small circle tables for Rey. “I just know you.”

Rey sat down, reaching into her bag, while Ben sat down across from her. She ran a finger across the journal that she had shoved in just before leaving her apartment. She had been debating when would be the best time to give it to him.

She pulled the journal out, sliding it across the table.

"What's that?" Ben asked, picking the journal up with his free hand.

Rey squeezed his other hand. "You'll see."

Ben opened the journal, quickly reading through the pages. He smiled at Rey when he sat the journal back down, his mouth open wide as he chuckled.

She had finished the scene weeks ago, but had been keeping it to herself. Arguing with Ben over the scene had been the highlight of many of her days stuck in her apartment. She didn't want to admit to him that he had convinced her relatively early into their talks.

The scene where Kira finally took Kylo’s hand.

"It's perfect," Ben said, leaning forward to kiss her. "Absolutely perfect."

#reylo #reylo fanfic #reylo fanfiction #reylo fic #reylo au #my fic

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drsilverfish · 5 years ago

Text

Nine Minutes to Midnight

5x21 Two Minutes to Midnight

Nine episodes to beat God, and fifteen years since Kripke pitched his original On The Road fan-fiction meets folk horror.

I’ve had a lot of fun in this little corner of Tumblr SPN fandom, over the eight years I’ve been here. I arrived as a newbie in 2012, and people already here were kind to me. I’ve seen people come and go, get disillusioned with SPN and move onto new fandoms, or arrive latterly into this one, brimming with excitement.

This is a weird social media platform, and I doubt it will be around forever, as one of its joys is how singularly bad it has been at integrating advertising.

Some of my favourite things here have been;

Comments in the tags, often funny, thinky, joyful - love this element of Tumblr.

Coda fic - this short-form story-style, which leaps into the fan-fiction gaps, loud silences and lacunae of the text - what a joy.

All the different roles people take on in fandom, as labours of love - gif makers, fic and meta writers, artists, vidders, archivists, signal-boosters, enthusiastic readers and beta-readers, art-lovers, networkers, collaborators, question-askers and answerers, and participants of all kinds (introvert and extrovert).

Completely unrelated to SPN, posts which are full of puns and hilarity, from “lik the bred” to Brits vs Americans on the subject of drinking tea. I still love Tumblr’s collective sense of humour; it’s witty and charming.

The language of gifs; those delightful comtemporary hieroglyphics of emotive expression.

The diversity - English is the shared language, but gradually it’s apparent that despite US dominance of the site, there are people from all over the world here, whose native tongues range from Russian to Italian to Brazilian Portuguese.

The collective meta experience - sharing “live” textual analysis has been huge fun. Viewing a text in a hive mind this way always shows you something you’d have missed on your own. It’s like holding up a crystal to a thousand lights and watching all the different refractions happening at once.

Again, not SPN specific, but experts in various subjects, from Egyptology to Medieval History suddenly emerging from the depths to provide a passionate and erudite exposition on their topic. Often prefaced with, “My time has come...”

Fandom has a dark side. It can be a coping mechansim, for many, in a healthy or less healthy way. There are unfortunately, always the formation of various “in-groups” and “out-groups”, ship wars, harrassment (of other fans, cast and crew), entitlement, and wild unpleasantness. And, that scourge of the internet in general; performative outrage (otherwise known as the outrage economy) which turns up the dial on provocative statements and negative emotion because that acts as catnip for engagement. A lot of people act out their shadow-selves online, projecting their own internal stuff onto others, from behind the screen.

Almost no media texts get to run as long as SPN (fifteen years) but my first fandom was (and is) Doctor Who and that has been going for over 50. It has some absolutely horrendously toxic spaces and places online, and many of pure joy. My advice is - find the joy.

Stories, by inviting us into the shoes of others, teach us at their (and our) best, the invaluable gift of empathy.

Take care of yourselves. Endings are hard, no doubt.

Special shout-out to fellow LGBTQ+ fans - hold onto your hearts.

It can be complicated loving a story telling its queer (romantic/ erotic) love story implicitly (i.e. in subtext).

Don’t forget (as I always say in my tags) subtext is part of narrative - meaning, the totality of a text contains its explicit and implicit elements; its text and its subtext, just like Metatron (aka Robbie T) told us in 9x18 Metafiction.

I wasn’t in the fandom myself, here on Tumblr, but I saw some of the fall-out from BBC Sherlock S4, and it was particularly distressing to see so many young LGBTQ+ fans feeling deeply hurt and even suicidal, because they’d read all the (extensively crafted) queer subtext in that show as a promise which would, inevitably, lead to an unequivocal queer “coming out” for John and Sherlock.

Those queer fans weren’t “self-queerbaiting” - they were just reading the totality of the text. And after all, why not read the subtext that way, as a promise? Being of a generation who’d already gotten to see many explicitly out queer characters on-screen; why not dare to imagine the subtext was a slow-burn romance with an inevitable “out” climax? Especially because Mark Gatiss (one of the writers) is out and queer himself, young queer fans were even more certain that his Sherlock would be the first “out” queer Sherlock on-screen (The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, 1970, which Gatiss is on record as being a fan of, had previously queer-coded Holmes, as indeed does Downey’s version, in Sherlock, 2009, and Sherlock 2: A Game of Shadows, 2011.)

Of course, the corporate and production politics were no doubt complex behind the scenes at the BBC, and Gatiss himself (apparently) saw things differently saying (in an interview in Oct 2010):

“No, I don’t think I’d make a kind of gay programme. It’s much more interesting when it’s not about a single issue. And equally, I find flirting with the homoeroticism in Sherlock much more interesting.” (Buzz Magazine Oct 2010: p10).

All of which, is why I’ve been adding a disclaimer to my readings of SPN’s queer subtext for a while now - namely, that reading the subtext doesn’t promise a rainbow of obviousness at the end.

As I said, take care of your hearts, lovelies.

Perhaps we shouldn’t need the narrative closet any longer.

But, we are walking between worlds, an old one and a new, both of them currently existing simultaneously, especially in a globalised world.

Queer audience fractions are, generally, more attuned to queer subtext, because it often uses codes derived from queer culture (although reading cinematic/ television subtext of all kinds is a learned skill, and no one is born with text-reading gaydar). So, whilst queer subtext may appear “loud” to some audience fractions, it remains invisible to others. That is, historically, by design, because, whilst “out” queer characters have gradually emerged on-screen since the 1950s [and the end of the Hays Code in Hollywood] queerness was, and still is (depending on where one is in the world) subject to legal penalty, state censorship or corporate production censorship.

A contemporary kind of state censorship is e.g. in China, where overt LGBTQ+ themes and characters cannot be depicted on-screen (hence, the queer subtext in The Untamed). A contemporary commodity kind of censorship might be e.g. notes from the Network, or TPTB at Marvel Studios with an eye on box-office. Queer subtext has the ability to slip past the censors, or be tolerated by them; because, now you see it/ now you don’t. A character with a straight “surface” reading and a queer subtextual one may (depending on the film/ TV product and its market etc,) be seen to pose less risk as a commercial product, whilst being able to appeal to different audience fractions simultaneously. For example, Captain Marvel (2019) and, as above, BBC Sherlock (2010-2017).

And yes, it’s complicated, because in the midst of that still extant censorship, which queer writers and other creatives on set may indeed be trying to work around by using queer subtext, we can see another world is possible. More out queer stories are being told. And, although we may love to see implicit queerness rather than no queerness at all, and indeed although implicit queerness may (arguably) have the freedom (still) to tell less boundaried or stereotyped stories than explicit queerness (with powerful effects on the audience fractions, both queer and straight, who do “see” it) we can’t deny that it does suit corporate entities, in some cases, to be able to appeal to a dual audience without the perceived “risk” of “outness”. A form of “queer-sploitation” which leads to the charge of “queer-baiting”.

The issue is, perhaps, particularly one surrounding male hero characters in Hollywood (and here in the UK) a) because “queer stories” are (still) often, not seen as likely to have universal appeal for broader audiences, whereas “straight stories” are not framed as “straight stories” but as universal ones, and b) because of the persistence of the prejudiced belief in particular that “queerness” undermines masculinity, especially “heroic” masculinity (here we have diverged markedly from the ancient Greeks). It’s somewhat different for female characters, but that’s another post. Fantasy, in the on-screen medium (if less so in fiction or comics) appears to be a more regressive genre than, say, comedy, in terms of the depiction of “out” queer central (rather than side) characters, with the exception of the Wachowskis’ Sense8 (2015-18) in which pretty much everyone is queer. I know there’s Ruby’ Rose’s Batwoman (2019- ) which I haven’t had a chance to check out yet, and we’ve got some queer Marvel (side) heroes upcoming, apparently; Valkyrie in Thor: Love and Thunder and Phastos in The Eternals - let’s see how that goes.

Moreover, queer subtext doesn’t have an exact analogy i.e. a “straight subtext” equivalent. Yes, many films and TV shows imply romantic/ sexual tension and interest between M/ F (pre)couples before it is “confirmed” they’re into each other in the text. However, because straight is the default assumption, audiences may muse and disagree about the potential for a M/ F romance at the implicit stage (as they have done in SPN fandom re Sam/ Rowena) but they don’t ask - “Does this mean they might be straight ????” It is assumed. Queerness, on the other hand, in order to be widely recognised (rather than solely by the subtext-reading audience fraction) must “come out” in some manner, explicitly, in the text (I don’t mean graphically, but “beyond reasonable doubt”). In other words, as painful as it is, we are not starting on a level playing field. It’s not fair, but it is the deal.

That doesn’t mean we can’t love contemporary queer subtextual stories, just that it’s important to acknowledge it can be painful, for some, to do so, and just as it’s important to acknowlege it’s OK to find them too painful to love, also (historical texts obviously operated under different circumstances).

Queer audiences are not homogenous. We can, and do, see things differently from one another, perhaps particularly across generations.

It is the case however, I think, that the structuring of a story by the narrative closet, as SPN has been structured by the narrative closet (up to this point, mid S15) (by which I mean its queerness is transparent to some, invisible to others, by design) cannot help but remind many queer audience members of our own struggles with the real world closet. Indeed that may make the story attractive, or unattractive, to different folk.

Incidentally, which is why I avoid it, I think the “it’s canon”/ “it’s subtext” debate is a false dichotomy and a bit confusing, as there are two, perfectly legitimate (within their own terms) definitions of “canon”. In the fandom sense, where “canon” means a romantic/ erotic pairing explicitly confirmed in the text, Destiel (meaning romantic/ erotic orientation between Dean and Cas) is not “canon” (as at 15x11). It is implied. Of course, it is explicit text that they care deeply for one another - “You’re my family. I love you, I love all of you” (12x12 Stuck in the Middle with You), “You’re my best friend” (15x09 The Trap). The exact nature of that relationship remains, however, deliberately, ambiguous.

In the literary sense, in which “canon” means “the official body of work”, SPN’s official body of work contains a metric tonne of implicit romantic/ erotic Dean/ Cas, so, it is part of the SPN “canon” in that sense - “subtextual canon” if you like. Although, of course, because implied, therefore open to interpretation.... deliberately transparent to some and invisible to others.

Despite all this complexity, and, indeed despite other elements of the SPN narrative which I have struggled with personally (the early seasons’ misogyny is off the charts sometimes, the brutally insensitive manner of Charlie’s death) I have loved this story, Supernatural, truly, madly, deeply, in large part because of its (implicit) queerness. And for may other reasons additionally, from its folkloric beginnings and dark initial cinematographic palette, to its melodrama, to its, eventual, Ourboros structure, and its Jungian alchemical journey marrying the cosmic to the earthly.

Reading the show without the queer subtext remains possible, but oh boy is that analogous to only considering the above sea-level portion of an iceberg.

I would prefer a rainbow of obviousness at The EndTM, but I don’t expect one. What I expect is continued, deliberate, ambiguity. Something I am sure we will be debating the ethics of, long after.

I could be wrong :-). But I am taking my own advice, and taking care of my heart.

For now, it’s nine minutes to midnight; let’s see how the story ends.

And afterwards, however the chips may fall, the characters will (as this most meta-narrative of seasons has been busy telling us) be set free of “Chuck’s” control. They will belong to us, in a thousand thousand fan-works, for as long as we care to keep on loving them.

#Supernatural #SPN meta #Meta #5x21 #Two Minutes to Midnight #Endings are hard #Who am I kidding #Fandom is going to go wild #Whatever happens #The great queerbaiting debate #Reading Subtext #Dean is bisexual #Destiel #Still subtext #But subtext is part of narrative

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ordinaryschmuck · 5 years ago

Text

What I thought about Adventure Time: Distant Lands-”BMO”

Salutations random people of the internet who probably won't read this. I am an Ordinary Shmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons. And today, I'm going to do one-fourth of what I do best by reviewing "BMO": The first hour-long special of Adventure Time: Distant Lands. Seeing how it's been a week since the special premiered, and that most fans saw it by now, I thought I'd share my thoughts on BMO. Keep in mind, if you haven't seen the special yet, you're final warning against spoilers stops here. Because I'll be spoiling the heck out of this special, by listings everything I like, and don't like. Things like characters, plot elements, and little touches that I thought were worth mentioning. Without further ado, let's start this review off by listing-

WHAT I LIKED

The Animation Quality: You know how Steven Universe: The Movie had animation quality that was ten percent better than the original series? That's basically what the animation in “BMO” is like. It's not the smoothest I've ever seen, and probably not the best Adventure Time has ever looked, but it's still pretty good. There's definitely more attention to detail, shading, and lighting to help make “BMO” look more cinematic than the series. There is one issue I have with the animation, though. But I'll get into that with the dislikes. For now, it's safe to say that the animation is still pretty darn good.

BMO (The Character, not the special): What can I say about this little rascal that hasn't been said already? BMO is still his adorable little self, and more so. There are times when his naivety can be kind of annoying, at least to me, but I'm sure BMO fans will love how he's presented in the special. Especially given the fact that this is the most active BMO has been in the entire series. Throughout most of Adventure Time, BMO has primarily been a source for comedy as well as a tool for characters to use. Even in episodes when BMO does save the day, it's either by accident or by him not understanding the situation. In "BMO," the little robot purposefully solves many problems, and fully understands the situation. The special still manages to keep his naivety by having BMO just not completely understanding how serious the problem is. Weirdly the writers found a perfect way to make BMO a more active role while not giving him a different personality. And personally speaking, the writers executed that idea well.

Y-5: This special may be about BMO, but Y-5 is the real star here. Y-5's personality, design, and overall arc as a character was so much fun and downright adorable to see. It was so surprising because I did not expect to like any new character introduced in Distant Lands. I just assumed that any newcomer would divert attention from the main character that the special would focus on. And while Y-5 does do that, I'm ok with it for three reasons. First, BMO is not a good character to work on his own. He actually needs characters that fully know what's going on for the plot to progress. Second, while Y-5 can hijack the story, sometimes, there are still segments that make it clear that "BMO" is about BMO. Third, Y-5 is already an incredible character, so I'm not going to waste time complaining about her inclusion. She plays the perfect straight man to BMO's antics, and it was so endearing to see her grow as a more confident character. So much so, that I actually consider Y-5 as one of my personal favorite characters. Not just in the special, but in the series overall. Also, I’m sure that there’s some symbolism behind her wanting to be called Y-5, but I’m not touching it. Mostly because I have no idea what I’m talking about in that regard.

The Comedy: There's not much to say here. The jokes are all worth a good chuckle but were never funnier than anything in the series as a whole. Except for that hard-cut to the elf looking angry as he drifts off into space. That was pretty hilarious.

The Drift: I love everything about the Drift. From its design to the background characters, and even the backgrounds themselves. Everything about the Drift just screams hard work and dedication from the cast and crew. It's almost as if everyone involved knew this would be the last time they would work on Adventure Time, so they just poured their hearts and souls into it. And given the fact that they worked so hard on the first special, makes me even more excited for the other three.

Martin returns...sort of: Let's be clear: It is understood by everyone that Mr. M is Martin Mertens. He has the same voice actor, the same mannerisms, and even the same body type. However, what I like isn't the fact that Martin returns. What I love is the fact that "BMO" never reveals that it's Martin. I'm sure some fans might be upset about not getting an official reveal, but I personally don't think it matters. Mostly because it doesn't matter to BMO. BMO doesn't know who Martin is, and has very little connection to the scumbag. So making a big reveal that Mr. M is Martin would just be unnecessary. Overall, I'm ok with the fact that the writers had Martin return to be nothing more than a glorified easter egg. Because honestly, it's what he deserved.

Hugo’s backstory: Again, there's nothing much to say here. It's yet another twist reveal about how a character who seems nice turns out to be quite the twat. There are two things worth mention, though. One, Hugo's personality stays the same. Look back at all Disney twist villains who become vastly different characters before and after the big twist. Compared to Hugo, he seems like a twist villain done right. Once you figured out that Mr. M is Martin, it should be pretty clear that Hugo's not a saint to be partnered up with the guy. Plus, when it's revealed Hugo really is, he still keeps up this charming persona that he uses around people...up until he ditches them like a twit. Another thing worth mentioning is the animation used for the flashback. Dedicated fans might remember that it was the same style used for "Water Park Prank," which might be the worst episode of the series. So it's nice to see the art style used for something good rather than something...not as good.

The solution to “save” the Drift: Most people use the special as an allegory for climate change. Which is why I put "save" in air-quotes because the citizens didn't really save anything. Similar to how we all play our part to save our planet. What the citizens do, though, is come up with solutions that might work as long as they have hope. And I. Freaking. LOVE that! The lesson that "BMO" is trying to teach is incredibly important, both to children and especially to adults. It's so easy to assume that the best solution is to abandon once it gets too hard and take the easy way out. Same as how some people believe it's better to just abandon this planet we call home, rather than put in the work to save it. And to those people: Let me ask you a question. Do you really think that you'll shoot off into space with the people planning to colonize another planet? Or do you think that those people are going to be like Hugo, who will only take along close friends and the rich? Personally, I think it's more likely going to be the latter. Which is why I adore the lesson being taught in "BMO." It might be hard to save the planet at this point, but it's still worth doing. And I can hope everyone else will come to agree with that conclusion.

WHAT I DISLIKED

Olive: I feel bad for saying I don't like Olive because the truth is that I'm more indifferent to them. To me, Olive feels less like a character and more like a plot device. This is because Olive has little to no personality, and all they do nothing but be something that furthers the plot. Although, I do like how Olive can stretch, as well as how they are overprotective over BMO. Other than that, there's not much to work off of.

Inconsistency with Character Designs: This was the problem I had with the animation. At times, characters are pretty inconsistent with how they're drawn. Some scenes, Y-5's eyes are large and cute, and other times they're normal-sized. There also times when BMO's height and width can be pretty inconsistent with what scene he's in. Now to be fair, this is nothing new to Adventure Time. It's a problem that the show has had for quite some time, and fans have come to accept it. However, just because you accept a problem doesn't make it any less of a problem. If anything, it makes it worse because the showrunners still refuse to fix it.

KS-2: Is it weird that the best character in "BMO" is the daughter of the worst character? Because to me, I don't understand how someone as amazing as Y-5 came from someone so rotten as KS-2. To be fair, I get what the writers were going for. They wanted to make a mother who was just another adult that "just doesn't understand." I can see that, but the problem is that the writers went too far with the idea. The way that KS-2 just constantly berates Y-5, as well as refusing to listen, comes off as too cruel. And the fact that the father pointed out how KS-2 never said the words "Y-5 was right," does nothing more than add fuel to the fire. But what's tricky is for all I know, this could have been the intention. And if it's true that the writers wanted to make KS-2 so unlikeable, then they more than succeeded. Although, I will give the crew credit for subverting gender norms by making KS-2 buff and the dad scrawny. I just wish that good intention was put into a good character.

The first chase scene in the Jungle Pod: This is mostly a nitpick, but it's still something that bothers me. Because having BMO getting chased away from his radio, to then have him end back where he originally was, felt like padding to me. Because why else would you have BMO go through all of that danger, only to have him end up at square one. Maybe the writers included the scene to build tension, but even if that's true, there could have been a better way to do it. Like while BMO's being chased, he somehow gets closer to his goal, rather than end up in a loop. And if the scene really was just for padding, then pad that time with literally anything else. Like maybe use the time to show KS-2's gentle side, or doing more to tease Hugo's true self. I know it would only be a few minutes, but actually make those minutes count for something.

It’s a Prequel?: After my initial viewing, my reaction to the ending was, "Oh, BMO found Finn and Jake's descendants." Then when actual smart people pointed out that "BMO" was a prequel, my reaction became "Oh, that makes way more sense." But then I started thinking about the fact that the special was a prequel, and the more I thought about it, the more holes I found. Or, at least, two holes that I found. First off, why does BMO have a heroic nature in this special? At first, I thought that maybe the years living with Finn and Jake taught BMO how to be a hero, but BMO hasn't met Finn yet. So I guess BMO felt like a heroic personality the entire time? Even though he never acted like this before in the series, unless he thought he was playing a game? Another thing I noticed is Martin's line about kids calling out their deadbeat parents. Why would he say that? Martin hasn't met Finn yet, either. Therefore Martin doesn't have the experience of being called a deadbeat parent. So does this mean that Martin has other children in the universe who calls him out on his crap? Or is it most likely that the writers wanted to give another clue that Mr. M was Martin, but briefly forgot the series timeline? I think it's most likely the latter, even though the former sounds way more interesting. And before people want to kill me because they actually love the story being a prequel, I want to point out, this is another nitpick. The fact that "BMO" is a prequel doesn't bother me too much, but I still can't help but feel confused when thinking about it.

As a whole, I give “BMO” an A-. BMO is as adorable as ever, Y-5 is an astounding character, I love the moral that the special is trying to teach, and the entire thing just screams effort. Is it perfect? No. Does it have problems? Yes, but not anything that makes me think the special was unwatchable. I enjoyed it, and something tells me that if you're an Adventure Time fan, you enjoy it too. "BMO" was a great introduction to Distant Lands, and here's hoping the other specials will be even better.

(And here’s also hoping that “Obsidian” will deliver that sweet, sweet Bubbline goodness that fans have been demanding for years.)

#adventure time distant lands #bmo #y-5 #adventure time distant lands spoilers #what i thought about

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