i literally have so much to say about q and toey and we are and im sitting here like AAAAA. i had to write it down.
i see people being upset about the jealousy thing and the way Q acted and how he started teasing Toey about the kiss: but it was very clear that no feelings were talked about or cemented at the amusement park. Q asked Toey if he understood Chain was hitting on him, unaware it was a ruse for him to admit feelings for Toey. he did admit those feelings, but not in a "claiming toey as his bf" way, in a "i need you to know im an option for you and my feelings are real" way. (He literally said "what if i hit on you too?" the unasked question beside that: "how would you feel about me if i did?") Q was actually giving Toey the choice to react however he wanted to when he kissed him.
Honestly it was a really good way for Q to approach the subject bc he didnt get mad at Toey OR Chain for their "potential" feelings. He was jealous but he tried to figure out how they both truly felt about each other before acting. (and Chain lied to Q and said he had feelings for Toey.) Toey didn't actually lie, I noticed. He just said Chain had been very nice to him. If Toey had given blatant confirmation that he had feelings for Chain, Q would have backed off, I'm certain of it. But instead of lying, (or admitting he actually liked Q,) Toey made it seem like he was considering Chain as a possible romantic interest, and Q heard that and chose to let Toey know that he could also be a possible romantic interest.
He gave Toey the choice to say no to the kiss. Toey kissed back. But that was not them becoming a couple! (Notice that later, Toey never said he and Q were together, only that he believed he had a chance with Q.)
I actually find it similar to what Phum and Peem are going through atm. They are not officially dating yet!!! they havent talked about that at all! theyve kissed twice, but they dont know what they are, and they are taking their time figuring it out, and there's nothing wrong with not labelling their relationship immediately.
So that's what I saw the teasing scene as. As Q being like "hey, remember that time we kissed. and you kissed back. im here as an option for you to date, are you gonna do anything about that? how does that make you feel? are we gonna talk about it? hope you figure it out soon <3"
and i dont find anything wrong with that! WHAT MADE THINGS MESSY WAS THE REVEAL OF THE RUSE.
Which was confusing because it wasn't revealed that the group had planned for chain to pretend-hit on toey. What WAS revealed was that the whole group knew that milk frappe boy was Toey, and Q didnt. That's what made Q explode so bad. Like, i think that scene was meant to be confusing, because Q kept saying "explain it to me" as well as "i dont want to hear it". I think all he really saw in the moment was his entire friend group in the know about something important to him that he'd never told them, while faced with learning Toey was the anonymous boy from his past, and had known, and had kept it from him.
Like yeah, I can imagine the kind of betrayal Q must have felt! He had just kissed Toey! And it slowly made more sense as to why Q reacted as strongly as he did bc more was revealed while Q was trying to come to terms with milk frappe boy and Toey being the same person.
Because it isnt until after the explosion that we learn Q had had it BAD for milk frappe boy. That he'd even talked to Toey about it and how bad he felt for disappearing on the mystery boy he'd liked so much. This scene was really complicated bc we were seeing it from Toey's perspective, as him learning that Q had had feelings for him and then advising Q to try and find milk frappe boy to find out the truth about his feelings, without Toey telling Q it was him all along.
But I think from Q's perspective, that scene was about trying to admit to himself that he'd made a mistake and should have done better by the anonymous boy. I think he was also trying to express that he was past it now, and trying to move on. Pairing that interpretation with the conversation between Q and Peem that was like "well this is how you felt about milk frappe boy, how do you feel about Toey?" and you get the impression Q considered his feelings for milk frappe boy a lost cause, but he was okay with that because he had found Toey, and started liking him instead.
So learning that they were the same person was really complicated for him! Q's got a lot to work through! a lot of conversations and interactions to reframe in his mind. And of course he's hurt that Toey never told him who he was, but what made that hurt more was learning Toey had told the rest of the group first.
I think that's also what's beating Toey up the most - that his real feelings for Q had turned into a real lie, by choosing to play along with the ruse their friends invented. He was someone who, before, was always content to give Q space and just be near him, so manipulating his feelings the way that they all did, and Q discovering his identity as milk frappe boy in the midst of that ruse is something I don't think Toey ever imagined or wanted to happen - that he was and would have been willing to let things unfold naturally - even admit to his identity later if there'd been a more honest chance for it.
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so. um. the good news is we found your boyfriend. the bad news is that, well, we sort of…dug him up…in the middle of a car park. in leicester (buckley et al. 2013). leicester, yeah. sorry. they demolished the friary he was hastily interred in when henry viii dissolved all the monasteries. you know how it is. and as it turns out, well, shakespeare was…sort of right about him. scoliosis, yeah, sorry (appleby et al. 2014). if it makes you feel any better we analysed his bones and it turns out he had a pretty high-protein diet before he died (lamb et al. 2014). and he drank so much wine that it changed their chemical composition, which we didn't know could actually happen before we analysed him (lamb et al. 2014), so he was having a good time, at least.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Appleby, J., Mitchell, P.D., Robinson, C., Brough, A., Rutty, G., and Morgan, B. (2014). The scoliosis of Richard III, last Plantagenet King of England: diagnosis and clinical significance. Lancet 383, 1944.
Buckley, R., Morris, M., Appleby, J., King, T., O’Sullivan, D., and Foxhall, L. (2013). ‘The king in the car park’: new light on the death and burial of Richard III in the Grey Friars church, Leicester, in 1485. Antiquity 87, pp. 519-538.
Lamb, A.L., Evans, J.E., Buckley, R., and Appleby, J. (2014). Multi-isotope analysis demonstrates significant lifestyle changes in King Richard III. Journal of Archaeological Science 50, pp. 559-565.
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Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
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Whenever I see people try to differentiate what is “Israel” and what is the “Palestinian state” I always have a very awkward feeling - which is why I think a lot of people need to reevaluate how they speak about Palestine and Israel, specifically what they define as occupied Palestine.
My father’s family is from a village in Jaffa (the district), which is now part of what most people define as “mainland Israel” or an “undisputed” part of Israel - like that land was acquired legally or ethically and an unequivocal part of what is Israel vs what is considered (at least to some) Palestine (the West Bank & Gaza).
My father’s family had the choice to flee or die and to this day cannot return home to Jaffa. It leaves me with a strange feeling when people discuss a hypothetical “two state solution” as if that land is inarguably Israel and the West Bank and Gaza is inarguably Palestine - my family is not from the West Bank or Gaza, they’re from Jaffa. Proudly Palestinians from Jaffa - they’re not Israeli and never be Israeli, they predate the modern colonial state of Israel.
When people talk about occupied Palestine, they’re usually referring to the 1967 borders and the increasing settlements in the West Bank, when Palestinians talk about occupied Palestine, we’re talking about all of it - every corner of what people define as “mainland Israel” there is a story of Palestinian dispossession - It includes my family and thousands of others.
Leaving this map here for people to get an idea of how much destruction of Palestinian life and communities happened in what people see as an “undisputed part of Israel” - there is a reason the Palestinian population here plummeted in 1948.
In short:
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i think we should just stop giving a shit about celebrities' private lives like ik the gossip and rumors are a part of the whole glamor of the industry but it's not only toxic but repetitive and boring at this point. artist made content -> content is good -> i don't know anything about the artist -> life's good
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