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lyledebeast · 1 year

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Why Ohio? Queerness and Privacy in The Patriot

Since I learned last week that Roland Emmerich is gay, I’ve been revisiting a lot of my thoughts on queerness in The Patriot. It is a deeply bigoted text; as Emmerich’s 2015 racist, transphobic account of the Stonewall riots goes to show, queer people are not immune to making bigoted art. But some things that I questioned the intentionality of seem a bit more intentional now. My going assumption before I learned this was that Colonel Tavington’s queerness is part of what makes him a villain. Since the entirety of the film’s claim that Benjamin Martin is a good man and not just another brutal thug like Tavington rests on his family, it made sense that Tavington existing outside the scope of heteronormative domesticity went hand in hand with his brutal behavior. Now, I wonder if maybe Tavington’s sexuality can be seen to inform his ruthlessness in a more thoughtful way.

Obviously, this is not a main focal point of the film. On the surface, Tavington commits these fearsome acts because he believes they are necessary to subjugate the civilian population and assure a British victory in the war. Victory is important to him personally because it carries with it the promise of land, to which wealth and power--”esteem,” as Cornwallis and Tavingon have it--were very much tied in the 18th Century. However, another privilege such esteem carried with it was privacy, and for a queer man in a culture where consensual sex acts between men were punishable by death, privacy was key. Tavington has lost his access to all of these through his father’s irresponsibility. In his present life, he has little privacy. He is surrounded by men in the prime of their lives, but also by the constant threat of violence, and not only from enemy combatants. The British Army was notoriously liberal with punishments, administering public floggings for infractions deemed far more minor than sodomy. Considering the complete lack of support Tavington appears to have from his fellow officers, one has to question how much security being a colonel actually affords him. Tavington lives within this matrix of desire, fear, and punitive violence in addition to his financial insecurity. Perhaps he is the most ruthless officer under Cornwallis’s command because he is the officer who faces the direst threats.

None of this, apart from Tavington’s motivation of regaining his status, is addressed in the script, but that does not mean it is irrelevant. to the film. The director and actors’ choices are just as important to the final product as the writers.’ There are visual cues that both clue the audience in to Tavington’s sexuality and offer insights about how it impacts his behavior. Not only is the film’s director gay, but Jason Isaacs had already played a couple of gay characters at this point in his career, most notably Louis Ironson in the 1993-1994 run of Angels in America at the National Theatre, and in Sweet November, released shortly after The Patriot, he plays a drag queen. There are noticeable similarities between Tavington and Michael Ryan, the young gangster Isaacs plays in the 1995 television series Dangerous Lady. Michael is violent and ruthless, but at the same time vulnerable on the topic of his sexuality. That for most of the time in which the series is set, the 1950s to the 1980s, homosexual acts between consenting adults over 21 were legal makes little difference in his Irish Catholic community. While Tavington’s sexuality is less narratively important than these other characters,’ it adds nuance to the rare shows of vulnerability in Isaacs’ performance.

Two brief scenes in particular allude to Tavington’s queerness and the necessity for privacy it creates. One opens on him thoughtfully examining a blossom. “This is beautiful country,” he observes quietly. “Everything grows.” This is the most relaxed we ever see him. The camera shifts to his subordinate, Captain Wilkins, who is anything but relaxed, looking around worriedly as though he fears someone may be watching when a piercing scream comes from a militia prisoner being tortured in the house nearby. When Tavington walks in the direction of the sound, Wilkins behind him, he camera shifts to a wide angle, revealing that they have been standing in a large cornfield, some stalks even higher than the men’s heads. The realization that they have been hiding from the rest of the regiment together gives us insights into both Tavington’s relaxation and Wilkins’ anxiety. Between the two of them, Tavington seems to have had more experience with such encounters.

Wilkins’ presence is a significate departure from Robert Rodat’s original 1999 script, which includes a scene of Tavington lounging on a hillside inspecting a flower as his dragoons bring him a militia prisoner to torture, but he is alone. The filmed scene reveals a discrepancy between Tavington’s words and his actions. When they first meet, he contemptuously refers to Wilkins as “another Colonial” and asks him, “How can I trust a man who would betray his neighbors?” Enough to commit “crimes against nature” in nature with him, apparently. Not only does Tavington trust Wilkins, but he trusts his surroundings more than he probably should. This scene follows the burning of Charlotte Selton’s plantation, and the militia appeared seemingly from nowhere to rescue her and the children. The cornfield by this house, which probably also belongs to a Patriot family, is large enough to hide more than just two horny dragoon officers.

Tavington’s comfort in this scene becomes even more ironic when we consider how deeply uncomfortable he appears as he gets his wound treated. The tent is completely empty apart from Tavington and the orderly, which is odd in itself. Even if there has not been a recent battle, there would be other soldiers being treated for illnesses and injuries in the infirmary. Receiving treatment in private is not enough to calm Tavington’s worries. He is watching the tent’s other entrance when General Cornwallis comes in and turns quickly, startled, when he hears him speak. That he is still wearing his shirt, awkwardly holding it up as the orderly ties his bandages, speaks to his wariness as well. The wound is on Tavington’s side. When a slash on Gabriel’s chest is treated earlier in the film, taking his shirt off is the first step. The only reason for Tavington to still be wearing his is that he wants to expose as little skin as possible. Anyone walking by either entrance can look in and, possibly, get the wrong idea. Tavington is not only hiding to avoid seeming weak but also to avoid seeming guilty. In what should be the safest place in the colony for a British officer, he is as anxious as we ever see him.

That he is more relaxed with a Colonials in a cornfield than in a British tent secure enough for Cornwallis himself to visit tells us more than just how dangerous Army life was for a man like him. It exposes the need for privacy at the core of his motivations. When Cornwallis gives him the opportunity to choose land for himself, he asks not for the “beautiful country” on the banks of the Santee but for Ohio. On the surface, the intent here seems to be showing Tavington’s greed, but size is likely not the only attraction it holds for him. Ohio was not a colony at this point in history; it was still mostly populated by indigenous people. The absence of civilization by British standards could be a deterrent for many gentlemen, but for Tavington it represents an exciting possibility. Ohio exists on the margins of British society, just like him, and where there is little British cultural infiltration, the British legal system has little enforcement. In Ohio, Tavington could not only have land and power, but he could also enjoy a level of freedom hitherto unknown: the ultimate privacy.

This underlying vulenrability does not make Tavington less of a villain, but it certainly makes him something more than an American straight WASP dad’s boogeyman. Although the scenes I discuss here are absent from the film’s theatrical release, they did not simply wind up on the cutting room floor. The extended cut adds them back to the film, and they are included as deleted scenes on the original DVD release. They are important to the film because Tavington is an important character, and these scenes capture Emmerich and Isaacs’ efforts to present a nuanced 18th century man who, like the protagonist, has motives and anxieties beyond his stated ones. Isaacs says of Tavington in this interview “he was a scenery-chewing, awful person, but I believed him.” Played by a different actor, Tavington might have been nothing more than a cruel, bitchy theatre queen, fun to watch, but entirely lacking in substance. Rodat wrote a Disney villain, but Emmerich and Isaacs delivered a character whose behavior is supported by human and historically feasible reasons.

#william tavington #jason isaacs #roland emmerich #the patriot #queer representation

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air--so--sweet · 6 months

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How to Speedrun Bury Your Gays aka That Time Legion Killed All Its Queer Characters In 20 Minutes

Well, 20 minutes 30 seconds to be exact...

First up at the episode's beginning, we have Daniel, who doesn't actually die, but I'd argue having your memory erased with no possibility of regaining it is comparable to death.

But hey he was a two dimensional character who existed solely to have effects on his husband, Clark's, storylines, firstly to humanise him when Daniel was introduced in Chapter 8 and then to add weight to Clark and David's exchange in this episode, Chapter 24. Oh and he also appeared in chapter 20 to remind us he existed since he hadn't been seen or spoken about once since he first appeared. So, not a great loss, right? I didn't even know his name, I had to google it for this post. Not a big deal when he was practically created to die...wait...

So at the 3 minutes 48 seconds mark our first gay has been buried. Record time and we've barely broken a sweat.

Next up we have Lenny and this one is trickier. She's a more developed character with her own agency and who has purpose beyond being a glorified prop. That purpose has been a bit harder to nail down this season but she had some growth in the last episode, choosing to feel the loss of her daughter rather than let David take the pain away or suppressing it with drugs (which feels like it would have been her MO pre David). It also seems she's reached her limit and is no longer willing to blindly follow David and allow him to- oh no, never mind, she's stabbed herself in the neck. I guess it kind of fits with her motivations, since she states to David that he can't have her, prior to stabbing herself. Would it have been more interesting and satisfying narratively if she chose to work with Division 3 to take David down instead? Or decided to try get revenge on Farouk for what he did to her on her own terms, which would also have the benefit of at someone finally trying to hold Farouk accountable for the monstrous things he did? Or even just have Lenny decide she doesn't have a horse in this race since she was drafted against her will and she's going to ride of into the sunset to do her own thing? (this is one hell of a mixed metaphor, I impress myself) Sure...but here she gets to have her last words be a call back to a memory she shared with David...except actually that was a false memory altered by Farouk to hide his presence in David's mind and he and Lenny never had a 'Why is it blue?' exchange in real life nor did she witness said false memory. Love the writer's cared enough about her arc to remember this accurately. And so dies maybe the best role Aubrey Plaza has ever had.

We've now hit the 10:42 mark so slowing down but still keeping a decent pace (sidenote: I remembered Lenny's girlfriend Salmon when writing this, a character who was maybe even less developed than Daniel, and wondered what happened her. We saw her giving birth in the previous episode and then she wasn't present for the rest of her daughter's abridged life courtesy of the time eaters which...actually implies she died in childbirth which is incredibly grim...I don't think it was an intentional implication but it's there nonetheless).

And last, but certainly not least we have Mr Clark DeBussy. Did I know his surname without googling it? Absolutely not. Have the writers ever figured out how to use his character post season one? Absolutely not. Though I did enjoy his one girl talk scene over tea with Syd.

To be fair, I do quite enjoy the scene leading up to his death. While a manufactured scenario, the home movies he's watching of his husband and son do add a melancholy to this scene and I love the visual when he turns to face David that leads to those images being projected onto his face. Teamed with his resigned yet angry delivery of 'I should have killed you the first time we met', David's sad smile as he agrees and Jeff Russo's always beautiful score it is just perfect. And then Clark is grabbed by one of David's cult members and thrown out the air lock and, as we hit 20 minutes and 30 seconds, our final gay is buried...well floating in the depths of space but same thing. There's excellent use of the family video projections again as they briefly overlay the scene of his expulsion from the airship and...it's just occurred to me since going to space in no way impeded David's attack, and Farouk could have gotten pissy with Division 3 for being cowards even if they hadn't started orbiting the earth....did we go to space just for this visual The style over substance of Legion is an ongoing issue but this time I might just accept it, it's a lovely shot.

And thus ends Legion's queer cast's run. There is a further 21 minutes and 40 seconds in this episode in which Syd loses her mind and Kerry looked like she was about to lose a fight and I thought 'Okay actually this is just an episode where characters are going to die, it's coincidence the first three were gay' but then Kerry actually survived and, after a brief second childhood in the astral plane with Melanie and Oliver, Syd gets her mind back...so actually the only people who stayed dead/memory wiped were queer.

I don't know how to to end this. Maybe with the advise to write decent queer representation and don't bury them or at least not all in one fell swoop only taking up half an episode? I wrote a joke about Clark's son not having a name but googled it to doublecheck and he does...it's Buster...Buster DeBussy...Clark was underdeveloped but I refuse to believe he would give his child a name thatvsounds like a side character in a video game. He was better than that

#legion fx #bury your gays #Daniel DeBussy #Clark DeBussy #Buster DeBussy #Lenny Busker #Whats with the bus theme actually?#I've just noticed...#Salmon just...disappeared...didn't even get an official death #For real though Lenny deserved better and I was so angry I had to turn the episode off and didn't finish it until the next day #Was gonna add images/gifs to this but I'm tired so maybe tomorrow....#also thats not how short and longterm memory work

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starlight-time-machine · 24 days

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Week in Review

03/31/2024 – 04/06/2024

Sunday

Week 8 of missing Cipher Academy

Girl Meets Rock continues to be cute, and I love that Rin continues to be weirder and weirder.

The Undead Unluck chapter made me emotional because it felt like I was reading a Cipher Academy chapter again… Shiritori with any language in the world would’ve been right up their alley…though perhaps it’d be a little too straightforward for them. But here it’s great to see Nico go toe to toe with a Master Rule while not being a Negator yet, and I’m looking forward to seeing the creative lengths that Tozuka will push this fight towards.

Dandadan fine.

Magilumiere pretty good…it’s nice to see Midorikawa and Makino interacting platonically, that’s not a duo I ever would’ve seen coming. Midorikawa getting a moment of vulnerability is soooo cute.

Chainsaw Man good! Always love getting some gay ass devils.

Monday

Hmm

Tuesday

Continued my Undead Unluck manga reread, though I didn’t get very far – I was basically crying the whole time I was reading, and then I went to wash and moisturize my face so I didn’t want to read more and mess up my skincare. But I did get to the loredump about Remember, which I’d completely forgotten… I don’t know how I feel about everyone in Loop 101 regaining their memories, if I’m being honest. I kind of liked the bittersweet tragedy of Loop 100’s deaths driving Fuuko forwards and giving her the determination to overcome anything in her path, and I wonder/worry about the current versions of everyone being erased/overtaken by their past memories (especially with characters like Julia). I suppose the 101 characters will only be recalling their past selves and the 100 characters have definitively, in their own perception, died, so there is a sense of finality there. But then with all this talk about souls, maybe not… Well, a super happy ending wouldn’t be so bad either.

I’m starting to work through my library backlog again, and the first was a super short book from Jacqueline Wilson, Worry Website. I thought I’d never read it before, but when I was going through I was struck with an intense familiarity with the illustrations and some of the story beats, so I must’ve read it at some point in my childhood. For what it is, it’s pretty cute – just a collection of stories about a few problems that kids could relate to and maybe get some catharsis from seeing them resolved. I liked getting a sense of the connections between the kids in this class with the tidbits of lore dropped here and there, as well as seeing Mr. Speed get his own little romantic arc in the background. I wonder if some of the problems were a little too easily resolved to be useful/satisfying to kids going through the same thing though? And then there’s that one really sad and realistic one that just doesn’t get much of a solution at all lol…but again, it’s for pretty young kids so I can understand Wilson wanting to keep things relatively light.

Wednesday

I played a little free game called Cureocity, and it was…okay… I feel like I can’t harp on it too much since it’s so short and free, but the puzzle aspect of it felt pretty clunky and unintuitive at times, and it didn’t expand on it much throughout the few puzzles it had. The story was also pretty whatever and bare bones, hampered by its lackluster translation (I can tell they’re trying, but it keeps getting tripped up). The best thing about it is the art, and not much else. 3/10.

Reread some more Undead Unluck…namely the rest of the Ragnarok Arc…and yeah, I cried the whole way through. Seeing characters like Feng join the fight…everyone united in their desire to protect Fuuko and send her off to the next loop…her having to witness all of their sacrifices…AKIRA SHOWING UP ONE LAST TIME TO BE THE NARRATOR… It does a really good job at being completely devastating and being the strongest motivator possible for both Fuuko and the reader to want God dead.

I read some more because I couldn’t bear to end things there. And I’m so glad that one of the first things Fuuko does this loop is saving Akira from his fate ahhhhhhh now I can imagine him drawing manga for his mom and growing up happily… Thank you Tozuka…

Thursday

DunMesh with a side of stir fried tofu and preserved duck egg today – YES WE GOT THE LAIOS CHILCHUCK SENSHI “I LOVE YOU GUYS” HUG!! It’s funny whenever we cut back to Kabru’s party and see just how absolutely dogshit they are at adventuring. But then getting the insight into Kabru and his perspective on the world is really interesting for how much of a foil he is to Laios. Where Laios understands monsters and their patterns, Kabru understands humans and their personalities and motivations. It’s fascinating to watch him explain his process, and then see him connect the dots in his mind in order to manipulate Shuro to let them tag along.

One thing I was thinking about while watching the episode was, I guess, a slight disappointment with the anime adaptation. It’s objectively excellent, and Trigger is probably one of the only studios who could even hope to bring the manga to its full animated potential, but I think it just speaks to the strength of the manga’s art and flow that leave it the platonic version of the story for me.

Friday

I needed something to watch while eating dinner, and I remembered that I was still watching through Nisemonogatari, so I booted it up and was met with the infamous toothbrush episode lol I truly don’t really know what’s happening here (as someone who’s already confessed to not understanding most of Monogatari as a whole), so I’m just going to move on.

Yayyyy Nymphia made it to the top three of Drag Race! I had a feeling they’d give her a win this episode to make her seem like better contender in the face of the other two “four win” havers, and I’m glad it’s because she’s finally opened up and let us see a little bit of who she is. Watching Ru direct the girls in the photoshoot was surprisingly really fun – I wish they would do more modelling/photoshoot challenges because I feel like that’s an important part of a drag queen’s skillset in today’s media age, but I guess it’d be too short in terms of content so they relegate it to mini-challenges most of the time. I’m looking forward to the lip sync tournament next week – my prediction is that Mirage will win the whole thing.

Saturday

After five whole years, I finally got around to watching the Aqours movie, Love Live! Over the Rainbow (this should give you a good idea of how long I can let things set on my watchlist without touching them lol). And it was…extremely mid. Just a room of writers finding any flimsy excuse to introduce conflict but not Really, and have everything be solved by an idol concert at the end. Tsuki’s character was completely pointless and perfunctory – just someone to clickbait the audience in the trailer, to guide the girls around Italy because she conveniently happened to live there, and to hold the camera for them while they perform. Mari’s marriage was also so obviously trailer clickbait – after running around Italy and doing Anime Slapstick Hijinks for like twenty minutes, the whole thing gets resolved by, you guessed it, an idol performance. I don’t know, I used to really like Love Live, and Aqours is my favourite group, but recent managerial decisions have made me so disillusioned with the franchise, and this just reeks of a movie written with corporate holding a gun to the writers’ heads. 3/10 because at least Believe again is a banger.

#week in review #2024

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thatmessyacademic · 3 years

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heyaaa! i'm alzz :)) not so new as i've been lurking around the corners of the studyblr community for quite some time now. but is new to blogging so here's my introoo!

> smthn abt me

she/her

asian; fil

closeted gay (no one i know knows tumblr sooo)

a weird mix of introvert and extrovert (ambiv)

just finished grade 12 (animation) and is waiting to be admitted to sum college (business/hospitality mgmt program)

will be using this brief time before back-to-school szn to learn about the track i should've chosen during my senior high (abm for business) its a long story frenz, i will be sharing a diff post about that soon c;

interests: reading. harry potter. mcu. the 1975. indie opms. sports. women. some men. tchaikovsky. dead poets society. hermione granger.

> what's with the studyblr (and my goals)

to regain the motivation to study

to make studying a lifestyle because there's so much to learn and so little time and its amazing how our minds are capable of grasping all these infos.

to meet people who share the same goals and struggles in academics as i dooo! becoz we're in this togetherr (and the pandemic made me forget how to socialize with people so send help pls)

have been wanting to study french since i was 12, and for a while i kind of did? (if watching french series and memorizing french songs is called studying, then yes, i did) but now i wanna be serious about this thing

aside from learning business, i am also a student of poetry (this is a hobby/interest of mine that i long to integrate into my daily tasks as i believe that writing is a muscle. it must be exercised regularly so that it may tone up and develop<33).

> what's in the blog

prolly my dark academia obsession (several topics in this culture)

daily tasks

my journey in poetry! i'm making this poetry account in IG (and Tumblr, soon). i'll be sharing the link and username in my future posts :)))

greek myths and their aesthetic

my journey in becoming a business student:))

> studyblrs that inspired me to do thisss

@caffeinatedstudies @studywithvi @studyfrance @amourstudies @lovelybluepanda @amystudying @luminous-studiess @stuhde @telesun @kei-i @studyblr @essayisms @studylustre

i think that's about it? sorry for the long intro, i'm a bit excited to meet y'allz:)) i'll be tracking the tag #gostudyalzz c: have a superb day, academics

#studyblr #studyspo #student #poets on tumblr #new study blog #french langblr #dark acadamia aesthetic #dark academia #slytherin #sapphic #study aesthetic #academia #studyblr intro post #studyblr introduction #gostudyalzz

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freddiekluger · 3 years

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I am all ears for your season 3 cap's big gay awakening ideas 👀👀

alright, you asked so sit down and strap in

before we get started- a few details are recycled/repurposed from earlier headcanons/ask answers (characterisation is like that), and i came up with all this a couple weeks back, so any overlap with other peoples suggestions is totally unintentional! i’ve just been finding the energy to properly write them up as originally i riffed them with a friend late at night lmao

the captain: homo evolution

introduction (scroll down if you’re not bothered for the hardcore analysis/logic)

this isn’t necessarily what i think WILL happen as much as how i would do it. over the past two seasons of Ghosts, we’ve seen the captain’s main character arc being centred around him loosening up, from learning to value mike, alison, and the other ghosts more as equals than soldiers/means to an end to the season 2 finale, where cap is not only expressing an interest in flowers and fashion (distinctly un-soldierly pursuits) but joining the party and other men (the direct opposite of About Last Night, in which cap bah humbugs partying/’gay abandon’ and is left speechless by the mere presence of a mostly naked man). that being said, the captain is still the captain: his character is still centred around this need for rules and structure and he still finds his identity in the archetypal WW2 military man- all of his incremental moves towards a more ‘modern’ perspective have ultimately been made possible because, like Ben said on twitter, the captain isn’t CONSCIOUSLY aware that he’s gay. he has the underlying feeling that he’s different, he knows of his tendency to attach himself to specific men and form incredibly close bonds (and, as demonstrated by his attempts to hide them, is at least somewhat aware that that’s not the norm), but in his mind he’s written that off as merely “not being a ladies man”.

the captain is from the 1940s- it’s one thing for him to see and be supportive of a same-gender wedding in present day England where gay=legal unions, marketed doritos, and homophobia being still present but generally frowned upon, and another thing entirely for him to have to apply it to himself. we’ve already seen that the captain appears to be stuck in the past more than any of the other ghosts (”the war is over!” “is it, alison? is it?”- he also references the past more frequently than most of the others), and in his past sodomite gay=punishable by imprisonment and chemical castration, back alley hookups, and the constant threat of blackmail and violence. obviously, despite all this, there was a vibrant underground queer history taking place in England during this time & not all of the above is accurate, but it’s what cap would have seen, and the England of the early 20th century is denoted as being a particularly brutal period for lgbtq+ folks (the destruction of the first world war exacerbated rage and frustration, and lgbtq+ people weren’t the only gorup to end up on the receiving end of that, but i digress). this is basiclly just a really long way of me saying that the captain compartmentalising to that degree was, and to some extent is, a survival mechanism. confronting his homoseuxality means confronting what it means for a 1940s man to be a dreaded homosexual, and all of that directly conflicts with the image of ‘the Captain’ he’s built in his mind.

we’ve seen this in Redding Weddy, where the captain is aware that Havers means/meant more to him than was normal for a captain/2ic relationship (he does attempts to hide his affection- “i shall miss you, Havers. by which of course i mean we shall miss you “he left me, i mean he left for the front”), but is never able to fully verbalise WHY, and it only takes a series of increasingly dramatic prompts before he will even mention the idea of Havers, let alone begin to articulate their relationship.

all this just goes to prove that for the captain to properly ‘come out’, there needs to be an external inciting incident- he could easily have gone on shadowing attractive men whenever they visit and avoiding interrogating those feelings for another seventy years if Button house remained without alison and mike.

while at least julian, pat, and robin have noticed that the cap is not the most heteroseual of men (they’re the only ghosts who have visibly reacted when cap says gay shit), they all appear to have decided to just not mention it, which makes alison and mike our wildcards. not only has alison’s ability to see and communicate with the ghosts already connected them more to the modern world than they ever have been, alison, and mike by extension, has a personal stake in the wellbeing/general growth of the ghosts. happy ghosts=happy house, and like it or not some of them are even beginning to become friends. [i probably didn’t need to write all this like explaining my decisions, but i think figuring out the motivations behind everyon just develops the flavour and lets us have a sexy and accurate headcanon]

so,

the episode

while the captain might not consciously know he’s a fruit (derogatory), he is well and truly terrible at concealing the thirst (it’s not his fault things just keep slipping out!)- i love the idea of just having a supercut near the beginning of the episode that just shows that the captain has gotten even GAYER since last season, with slip ups becoming almost a daily occurence, but it’s getting to the point where it’s actually becoming a serious hazard. last week, he was supposed to be looking out for alison while attempted to put up blinds, but one of mike’s friends (who was over ‘helping out’, which mostly meant eating chips and covering himself in paint) walked through the room with his shirt off and paint handprints on the seat of his shorts, distracting the captain from realising that alison’s stepladder was about to give way.

with the increased presence of non elderly men in the house (the previous owner wasn’t exactly the life of the party) the captain is getting gayer and gayer, but he’s also becoming more and more defensive, while his brisk demeanour and need for control regresses to much more of a season 1 state (a subconscious attempt to regain control as things get close to spilling over). it’s not the first time his repression has almost slipped, he spent much of his life surrounded by soldiers after all, but with no war and no corporeal body he’s got almost nothing to distract himself from it. needless to say, between the safety hazards and the almost agressive defensiveness which derails any interaction, something needs to be done about the captain.

throughout the week, alison tries to find the opportune time to talk to the captain about what’s going on with him for everyone’s sake, but cap keeps masterfully evading any ‘deep’ talk with willful misunderstanding or just straight up dismissal (which at times gets a bit rude), and alison really doesn’t have the time- her and mike are caught up with managing the first official room redecoration and butting heads with a passive agressive delivery driver. insert general shenangigans, but at some point the captain’s whole “accidentally sabotage something by being distracted and then attack anyone who dares even look at him the wrong way afterwards” act causes alison to exasperatedly blurt out “we all know you’re gay! we get it! you like men! you can drop the act!”. there’s no malice or anything but, as we know, when alison gets run ragged things don’t tend to come out quite right.

everything falls silent (and mike is vaguely confused), and the captain just looks like a deer in headlights. as alison catches her breath, pat pipes up with a “it’s alright, cap, we don’t mind- now we can focus on the task at hand”. the captain sort of regains his composure and once again attempts to brush them all off with a scoff and a “i haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. if any of us is distracted, i-it’s... kitty!” but it’s easy to tell he looks rattled. most of his words don’t come out right, and after trying to blame kitty for their failures (she just had the unfortunate luck of being in his line of sight), he ends up doing an awkward little walk away which quickly turns into a full on sprint. mike, having finished processing alison yelling about gay shit to the air and kind of pieced together what must have happened awkwardly chimes in with “it’s okay to be gay!”- alison just pats him on the back (”yeah no he’s gone, mike.” “gone?” “sprinted away.” “huh”)

the episode continues with the captain flat out avoiding alison and the other ghosts to an almost funny extent as the other plots continue. it takes a bit for alison to realise why the captain reacted so badly (in fact, it’s actually mike who remembers that he’s 1940s ghost- “he’s probably just scared and taking it out on everyone else”). while thomas and julian vote for leaving the captain be so they can have some peace and quiet, fanny/pat/alison/robin decide someone needs to talk to him (fanny surprised everyone but after all, she got murdered because her husband had to live in secrecy- if talking to the captain will avert any further crises, she’s happy to make sure someone else does it for her). kitty’s still upset about being singled out, but she knows better than anyone that sometimes all you need is a friend- cue realisation no. 2.

with the captain avoiding everyone, sending in a regular emissary isn’t going to work. they need to find the least threatening person possible, with no agenda or history other than being there to help (a friend, if you will)- cue everyone looking at mike.

a quick offscreen briefing later, we see mike wandering out to the field where the captain has exiled himself- remember that up until this point, the captain was still in conscious denial about his sexuality, so being forced to confront it head on (and finding out that apparently everyone ‘knew’, which for cap would feel like an intimate invasion of privacy/forced vulnerability) would rattle him to the point of self-exile- he might not be able to run from his sexuality, but he can run from people. the thing is, mike can’t see or hear the ghosts, which means the captain can’t be frightened off by any expectations (mike actually talks to/at cap while facing completely the wrong direction, but consdiering the above point, this works rather well).

the captain was alternating between pacing, fiddling with his swagger stick, and sitting, but he unconsciously stands to attention as mike wanders over. he’s used to mike not being able to see them, so mike asking to sit down takes him by surprise, disrupting his instinct to flee again.

mike begins a little awkwardly (”mind if i sit?” *silence* “...i’m just gonna assume that’s a no. or is it a yes? yeah anyways i’m just gonna sit. so... heard you’ve been going through a rough patch”), and the captain almost scoffs and wanders off, but something about the clumsy earnestness in mike’s voice, the captain’s vulnerable state, and the fact that it’s been so long since cap has had anyone actually check in on him, that he stays put. he keeps standing and staring away from button house, and mike keeps speaking to the empty air to his left, and alison and the ghosts stay hidden behind their bush a few metres away, but at least the captain is listening. for the first time in weeks, he’s not on the offensive.

“i can’t actually see or hear you, so i’m just gonna talk and assume you’re listening. alison mentioned you have a habit of running away but, um, maybe don’t do that please?”

“my mate daniel's gay. uh, homosexual, you’d probably say- did you have gay when you were alive? did it just mean happy? anyway, he didn’t come out- that means tell people- until he left high school. we all kind of guessed it, the other kids at school gave him a real tough time for it, but he just squashed it down. couldn’t imagine that all the things people were shouting at him were true, so he ignored it. he’s doing good now though. got married to his husband last year, currently runs a bookshop. so that’s nice.”

it goes quiet for a bit. the captain hasn’t moved, and we’re still only seeing shots of him from the back, but there’s a little less tension in his stance than there was before. mike clears his throat before continuing.

“i’m guessing you’re probably pretty scared right now. i would be- i mean not that you should be, you shouldn’t, but coming from your... situation, i’m guessing it’d be hard. no one’s saying you have to be anything you’re not ready to be, but lots of things that are scary are actually not bad. airplanes, skydiving, clowns- well, not the clown from that movie, but he gives clowns a bad rep- i’m sure there are plenty of lovely clowns out in the world. still give me the creeps though.” the captain makes a captain-y noise of assent about the clown comment- he never liked them either.

mike glances over to the bush where alison and the ghosts were attempting to listen in (they could only catch every few words- mary got particularly concerned about why mike had referenced clowns), and the captain still hasn’t run away, so alison motions for mike to keep going. he starts telling the captain a story from his uni days. it’s got nothing to do with the captain, or being gay, or self-acceptance, or anything like that- it’s just a standard tale of comedic but inventive problem solving. the captain sits himself down next to mike (to his right, avoiding mike’s gaze, and still staring away from button house), muttering that his legs are getting a bit tired. he sits there for a while, and mike just talks. sometimes he circles back to the gay thing, sometimes he just asks the captain questions, before remembering that he can’t actually hear any answer, but then he keeps asking anyway, thinking that cap might need to talk. he doesn’t at first, but slowly he offers up a word or two. and then a sentence, and then maybe more- mike will accidentally cut the captain off, or leave the silence to long, but the captain doesn’t mind (it’s a nice reminder that nothing he says will actually go on to have consequence). at one point, mike gets out his phone to show the captain photos of his mate daniel and daniel's husband, not just their wedding day but casual photos- couples drinks with him and alison, dinners at each other's places, the bookshop.

alison and the other ghosts have long gone, and the sun is just about to sink below the horizon by the time the captain stands himself back up with the traditional knee crack and grunt. he looks at mike and nods, giving him a simple thank you before turning to walk (not run) back to button house, head held slightly higher and looking more relaxed than he’s been all episode. the captain has still got a lot to figure out, but at least it’s a start.

[i love the dramatic ending but the implication is that alison has to go and fetch mike bc he has no ideas cap has left and is prepared to keep going lol- also by no means is cap suddenly going to ditch his characterisation and become a yas kween gay right away, i didn’t go into the aftermath bc this is alreayd fucking LONG but let me know if you want follow up????}

EDIT: i've rbed this with the follow up/part 2 attached!

EDIT 2, much later: switched out mike's reference to his 'younger brother' to a school friend, since the christmas special confirmed mike only has sisters and we're all about accuracy here

#bbc ghosts #ghosts bbc #the captain #ben willbond #bbc ghosts captain #bbc ghosts headcanon #ghosts headcanon #lgbt #lgbtq #gay #mlm

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fruitquake · 4 years

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kiss me at midnight

this is definitely not seasonally appropiate but pls accept it anyways, i finally had the motivation to write something.

“Sirius, why are you looking so gloomy? It’s New Years Eve!”

Sirius sighed, staring at his half-empty glass. “My life is a loveless, meaningless existence.”

James sighed, sitting down next to him. “Is this about not having anyone to kiss at midnight?” he asked. Sirius nodded. “Mate, you don’t have to kiss anyone! It’s just a silly tradition.”

“But everyone else is kissing someone,” Sirius argued. “You and Lily, Frank and Alice, even Peter is paired up with some girl. I’ll look bloody ridiculous standing alone amongst all you couples.”

James had that look in the eyes, the one that warned Sirius that his friend was about to suggest something stupid. And he did: “Remus doesn’t have anyone to kiss either,” he said, face splitting into a grin.

“Remus?” Sirius laughed. “I can’t kiss Remus, he’s my best friend.”

“That’s exactly why you guys should kiss!” James said. “You can’t just walk up to a random stranger and kiss them, but you and Remus have known each other for so long-”

“Yeah, so it’d be weird if I kissed him,” Sirius cut him off. “I’ll go ask Marlene. At least with her it’s not weird, since we’re both gay. There’s no attraction whatsoever.”

James’ grin grew wider. “Marlene is kissing Dorcas,” he said. “And are you saying there’s attraction between you and Remus?”

Sirius’ cheeks grew hot. “Of course not!” he said. “I just meant, like, potential for attraction!”

He knew how it sounded, and so did James. “Ugh, stop twisting my words, James. You’re the fucking worst.”

“Tell you what,” James said, leaning closer to Sirius. “If you don’t have feelings for Remus, surely you wouldn’t mind kissing him? You know, just in a friend way. Just to have someone to kiss at midnight.”

Sirius huffed. “I don’t have anything to prove to you,” he said. “But you know what? I’ll do it. Not for you, but for my own sake. And Remus’. Would be a shame if neither of us got to kiss someone on this special day.”

The snack supply at this party was atrocious, if you asked Remus. What on earth was he supposed to do here if he couldn’t stand by a table and eat disgusting amounts of snacks?

Instead of a snack table, a few bowls of chips had been set out on tables, and those were practically empty by now. What was he supposed to do now? Socialise? No, Remus had no choice but to resort to the bar.

He’d just poured a glass of champagne when Sirius came and sat next to him.

“Enjoying the party?” his friend asked.

Remus shrugged. “This champagne tastes expensive,” he said. “Which explains the unimpressive snacks. They must’ve poured all fundings into alcohol and… this.” He gestured around them at the party decorations.

Sirius chuckled, poured himself a glass of champagne as well. “It’s getting pretty close to midnight, huh?” he remarked. “Have you noticed how literally all our friends are paired off? We’ll be the only ones not kissing anyone at midnight.”

“Who cares?” Remus said. “It’s a pretty dumb tradition. We can sit here and laugh at them.”

“Hmm,” Sirius hummed, a dramatically thoughtful look on his face. “Or…”

“Or what?” Remus asked.

“Or we could kiss each other at midnight.”

Remus froze and his heart skipped a beat. Kissing Sirius would definitely be a recipe for disaster.

Normally, in his day-to-day life, it was easy for Remus to ignore his crush on Sirius and pretend he was happy just being his friend. Really, he was. He had no interest in ruining the best friendship he had over these feelings. Feelings he’d spent years trying to bury, but if he kissed Sirius, all of that would fall apart. Perhaps he would never be able to stop kissing him. He would without a doubt fail to conceal his feelings.

“Absolutely not,” he replied, quickly regaining his composure.

Sirius sighed. “Just hear me out,” he said. “We’re all drunk anyway, no one will remember and even if they do, they won’t care. And, like, it’s just a kiss. No big deal. Right?”

Remus rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to kiss you,” he said. “Honestly, I’d rather kiss a dead fish. Probably would be more enjoyable.”

“Oh, so you don’t think kissing me will be enjoyable?” Sirius asked, leaning in closer. He was definitely more than a little drunk. “I guarantee you’ll change your mind,” he whispered, in what was most likely an attempt to be seductive.

Well, it worked. Remus’ heart did a bloody somersault. This was exactly why he couldn’t do it. To Sirius, it would be “just a kiss”. He probably wouldn’t even remember it, but to Remus… How many times had he been staring at Sirius’ lips (or Sirius in general), trying to stop himself from doing the exact thing Sirius now wanted him to do?

“Look,” Sirius said impatiently. “It’s almost midnight. Kiss or no kiss?”

“No kiss,” Remus said, looking away from Sirius.

His friend sighed, putting down his glass of champagne. “Well, I guess I’ll have to find someone else to kiss, then. Any suggestions?”

“I don’t care who you kiss,” Remus said. He’d gotten good at not caring when it came to Sirius. It would hurt too much if he did.

Suddenly, he heard someone yell, “one minute til midnight!”

“Well,” Sirius said. “Guess I better find someone quickly, huh?” He took a while to empty his glass of champagne, before standing up.

The countdown to midnight had begun.

“Ten,”

“Nine,”

“Eight,”

Remus watched Sirius stand up and look around the room. He’d never looked more beautiful, the colourful LED lights caressing his skin, a strand of dark hair falling into his eyes.

“Six,”

“Five,”

As Sirius was about to walk away, Remus reached out, grabbed his arm. Sirius turned around.

“Three,”

“Two,”

Remus stood up, pulling Sirius closer to him and,

“One!”

Their lips met. Remus had never felt anything like it. Sure, he’d kissed people before but this was… different. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

The whole world disappeared: their friends, the neon lights, the firework, leaving only him and Sirius and a feeling like no other. It was like the fireworks were inside of Remus, erupting in his chest as he and Sirius melted together as one. Sirius’ warm breath tasted like champagne and cigarette smoke and Remus never wanted to feel anything but this, ever.

That’s when he remembered they weren’t alone. Panic rising in his chest, he broke the kiss, taking a few stumbling steps away from Sirius. His heart was screaming at him to pull Sirius closer again, to kiss him again and to never stop, but he pushed those thoughts away, looking around the room. Had anyone seen them?

Their friends were laughing and toasting, clearly caught up in the joyful celebration. None of them seemed to have noticed him and Sirius. A wave of relief washed over Remus, before he realized… he would have to face Sirius.

He turned to his friend, not knowing what to expect. “Uhm…”

Remus trailed off. Sirius had been staring at him, but seemed to quickly gather himself as soon as he saw Remus look back at him. He put on one of his usual charming smiles - the one that made Remus’ heart skip a beat - and said, in a cheerful voice: “Thanks, mate! I owe you one.” Then he just walked away.

Remus stood, completely flabbergasted, and watched Sirius walk away from him, seemingly unaffected by what had just happened.

‘Mate’? Really? Had Sirius not felt what Remus had felt?

His heart sank. Of course he hadn’t. Remus had, for a moment, convinced himself that the kiss had been something more, something special, because that’s what he wanted it to be but to Sirius… to Sirius it really had been just a kiss.

Remus sighed and cursed at himself. How could he had been so stupid? He sat back down by the bar and poured himself another glass of champagne. He was going to need it.

“Something wrong?”

It was James, who sat down beside him where Sirius had sat just minutes ago.

Remus shook his head. He couldn’t possibly tell James about his feelings for Sirius. “I’m just tired,” he mumbled.

James laughed, nudging him in the side. “How are you already tired? It’s only midnight!” he teased.

“I dunno,” Remus muttered, looking down at his champagne. He didn’t even want it. Champagne was such a cheerful drink, meant to be enjoyed at parties and other cheerful events but Remus was far from enjoying himself.

“So uh…” James began. “Have you and Sirius spoken or… done anything else this evening?”

Remus’ heart stopped and his head shot up to look at James. Did he know? Remus had thought no one had seen them, but… “Yeah, we spoke a bit earlier,” he said, hoping James didn’t know the truth.

“Did you do anything other than… talk?” James asked.

What the hell did he know? Remus sighed. Maybe he should just tell him. This was James after all, his best friend since forever.

“We kissed, okay?” he blurted out. Then, the rest came, before he could even stop himself: “I kissed Sirius and I really, really liked it and he didn’t. He will never return my feelings and I was stupid to even think for a second that he would ever see my as anything more than a friend.” He heaved a deep sigh, burying his face in his hands.

“Are you sure?”

The voice came from behind him. Sirius.

Remus turned around faster than he ever had before.

“‘Cause actually I heard,” Sirius said. “That he really, really likes you too.”

#i am actually rly proud of myself for writing something #sorry i dont post much lately #but yeah uh enjoy #wolfstar #wolfstar fanfiction #wolfstar fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #marauders #marauders era #sirius black #james potter #remus lupin

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rachelbethhines · 4 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - Rapunzel Day One

This is decent episode, and one of the few that isn’t filler in season two, but because there are problems with the over all character acs, there’s problems here with episode too.

Summary: Rapunzel and Cassandra come across an abandoned magic stall while searching for parts of their destroyed caravan. The stall contains a wand of forgetting. Cassandra impulsively wishes that Rapunzel would "just forget about everything" when she was tired of her trying to patch things up between them, which results in Rapunzel regressing to when she was still in her tower with Gothel.

The Episode Order is Confusing

So this and The Brothers Hook aired on the same day. Now in the production order listing, Rapunzel Day One is suppose to come before The Brothers Hook and that’s how it’s ordered on Disney Plus. Which is where I’m watching this marathon and getting all my screen caps.

However The Brothers Hook did air before this episode according to Wikipedia. Also Hook Foot is nowhere to be seen with nary a word. So placing The Brothers Hook before would indeed make more sense in that regard.

Yet Raps and Cass aren’t fighting in The Brothers Hook, so I don’t understand how this was supposed to originally work. What’s the correct viewing order here? Is Hook Foot just off screen with Fidella this episode, or is Cass and Raps ignoring their big fight in The Brother’s Hook?

For Someone With a Disability Now, It Doesn’t Seem To Affect Things

Ok, to be fair, they do show Cassandra practicing here and later in Mirror, Mirror trying to relearn how to use her hand, and indeed physical therapy for injuries is a thing. Yet, two scenes isn’t enough to establish that. She regains usage of her hand really quickly and far too easily, given the type of injury it was.

Disabilities, even unseen ones, still impact your everyday life. Yes, they don't ruin your life; you can still do things. But they don't just go away and you have to deal with it.

Finding that balance between not making a character useless, while still recognizing that there are things that they struggle with when writing disabilities is a line that writers have trouble with. But if you’re not going to put in that effort needed to pull it off tastefully then don't introduce the concept.

One Step Forward; Two Steps Back

Rapunzel recognizing that there is a problem, and wanting to fix it before it gets worse, can be viewed as progress. After all, avoiding the issue is why things got so bad between her and Varian. But, she’s still failing to see why Cassandra is upset and so goes about things the wrong way.

And keep in mind, Rapunzel does have every right to be mad at Cassandra, just the same that Cass has a right to be mad at Rapunzel. Both girls screwed up.

Yet, it’s only Rapunzel’s side of things that Rapunzel cares about, and therefore nothing actually gets resolved.

This could have been a decent conflict for season three, but that’s not where the writers take things so we’re just spinning our wheels here.

It’s also kind of shitty that Cass is the only person that Rapunzel is willing to put effort into righting things with. She still doesn’t give a crap about Varian, nor any other villain in the show.

Well I Guess This Has to Come Before The Brothers Hook

They have the caravan in Brothers Hook, don’t they? I mean how else did they meet up with Hook Hand? But if that is the case then where is Hook Foot now? I don’t know.

Cassandra’s Hurt Hand Only Matters When It Concerns Her Relationship With Rapunzel and Not How It Affects Her Character as a Whole

An extension of what I was saying before, but it shows the fundamental problem with the writing for Cassandra. The writers only think of her as a conflict for Rapunzel and not as a person with like her own life and shit.

Long Time, No See Owl

As soon as Hook Foot goes unceremoniously missing, then Owl shows up. I don’t think he’s been seen since season one, yet they act like he’s always been here with the group.

Why is continuity and consistency so hard for this show?

The Saporians Are Indeed Homeless, But Don't Expect That to Ever Be Brought Up

So things to note.

This isn’t a village. It’s an encampment. What we see here are destroyed tents and caravans. The only permanent structure is a short stone wall.

Secondly, the magic book they find has the Saporian symbol on it, and indeed the Saporians use the wand of oblivium to take over Corona in S3.

What we can gather from this is that the Saporians were driven out of Corona after the first war. They’ve been living as nomads for centuries without their homeland.Yet their most recent settlement was destroyed by the black rocks sometime before season one started, along with most of their possessions and means of living.

All of this would explain their motivations, goals, and why they picked now to try and take over and not just any other time.

But don't expect any of that to be brought up or remembered by anyone come season three. We can’t have any po the bad guys, save for Cass, being sympathetic now can we.

Also, just a side note. It’s funny how apothecary is treated as magic and alchemy as a science in this world, when in reality it should be the opposite way around.

This is Not an Apology

If you gotta throw a ‘but’ in there, then you haven’t really apologized.

Rapunzel’s not sorry for Cass getting hurt. She doesn’t recognize nor understands why Cassandra feels the way she does, and she’s even attempting to try to. All Rapunzel cares about is how Cass being upset makes herself feel. She’s putting in this effort to ‘talk about it’ because Cass being outwardly angry at her is inconvenient to herself and nothing more.

Rapunzel Still Hasn't Learned Boundaries

Didn’t we already have this conversation back in season one?

And like, yes, it’s not good for Cassandra to ignore her feelings, but what Rapunzel does here by pushing isn’t a good thing either.

What's most frustrating though is that neither learn anything from this. Just like they didn’t learn anything in Under Raps or Goodbye and Goodwill.

It’s aggravating to see the writers give us an actual conflict that’s worth having the mains fight over, only to be undermined by previous episodes and then thrown away altogether.

So How Come the Wand Only Erases Part of Rapunzel’s Memory and Not All?

Like, this is suppose to be set for season three with Frederic and Arianna losing their memories. Yet despite Clementine using a similar wand, it doesn’t have the same effect on them as it does on Rapunzel here. They lose all their memories and sense of identity, while Raps just forgets a few years.

Speaking Forgetting How Things Work

Where did this handy dandy book with the cure go when Frederic and Arinna lost their memories? Why didn’t Raps go looking for it then, or force the Saparoians to give her the cure while they were in her custody?

So This Plot Point Kind of Back Fires, and Winds Up Undermining Everyone’s Relationship with Rapunzel

First off, just repeating New Dream scenes from the movie, but with Cass in Eugene’s place is ill advised given the direction that the show went in. Whether you ship Casspunzel or not, it’s important to recognize that ‘sisters’ is what they are intended to be in canon. That’s the direction that Chris went with them, whether we like it or not. So either no one on the show knows how to write platonic female relationships, or this is gay baiting. Take your pick.

It’s also lazy.

But most damaging is that this only shows that Cassandra only liked Rapunzel when she was naive and stupid, and not the Rapunzel we have now. Tie in how her friendship with Rapunzel is based off of validation to begin with and we got a very unhealthy relationship, and not one that should be rooted for, despite the show wanting you to do just that.

They even go so far to repeat the lines from the flashback in the last episode, as if this was a positive thing in their dynamic, instead of recognizing it for the really mess up thing that it.

Then there’s the Eugene side of things that this calls into question.

We know Eugene loves Rapunzel through thick and thin, but how much of their relationship is based off their first adventure together and not about how they work together in the here in now?

Did Rapunzel just simply latch on to Eugene because he’s the first person that she met who wasn’t her mother and wound up being nice to her? If anyone else found her, would she be in a relationship with them instead? Is it healthy for her to never look for anything else? How much does Rapunzel actually like Eugene, for himself?

Then throw in Eugene’s over idealization of Rapunzel in season three, they’re lack of communication issues, and Rapunzel’s crippling need to always be right, and I can’t say if New Dream should be what we’re rooting for either.

This isn’t a Casspunzel vs New Dream thing, nor is it a personal dislike of Rapunzel herself. Rather, it’s a very serious question about the nature of Rapunzel’s interpersonal relationships vs her character development, and how that has to change things on some level, and if it’s still worth having those relationships now that she herself has changed so drastically.

Is everyone being fulfilled? Is everyone getting what they need still? No? Then, why are any of these people still together?

That needs to be addressed by the narrative now, and it never is.

So Why Would You Say That Cass?

Rapunzel doesn’t know where she is and therefore has no idea what direction the tower lies in. If you’re heading south back to the camp then just say the tower is south. In fact it actually is south because you’ve been traveling northeast to the Dark Kingdom for months now, according to the map in Rapunzel’s Return. So what was the point in lying about that?

In in effort make Rapunzel look smart, they had to make Cass look dumb and that’s not good writing. If you needed Rapunzel to suddenly not trust Cass then there were other better ways. The drawing she placed in her pocket should be enough on its own to tip her off, and all she has to do is reach into her pocket to put like a rock she found in there and then find it that way.

So When Did Rapunzel Have Time to Build This Elaborate Mousetrap?

This would have taken hours, it’s not even been minutes.

There’s making Raps competent and then there’s turning her into an overpowered invincible heroine.

Now Pascal Is Missing

Oh is he with fucking Hook Foot now?

He was right on your shoulder Eugene.

If you’re going to have characters conveniently missing then establish that first, preferably in a visual way and not with exposition.

So Rapunzel is Treat As In the Right Even When She’s Not

So Cassandra opening up about her feelings is treated as the solution to the problem, but it’s really not, or it shouldn’t be anyways. She can recognize she lied about the wand without having to doing something she finds uncomfortable, and it’s not like Rapunzel right now has any frame of reference for what Cass is talking about.

All this amounts to is giving Rapunzel a free pass on her earlier bullshit.

Also if Cass repeating a phrase Rapunzel said earlier was all that was needed to jog her memory enough to trust her, then why couldn’t Eugene done the same? He was right there.

This Doesn’t Resolve Anything

Ok first off that’s not what friends do. Friends actually work through shit. Friends make sincere apologies. Friends forgive each when they do.

If you’re not doing that then you’re not friends and you should just leave.

No one, not Raps, not Cass, ever apologizes for what happened in the Great Tree. They never try to understand what either of them did wrong, nor do they put effort into fixing themselves or addressing their issues and flaws.

And you know what? That would be a valid reason for their falling out in season three. But it’s not used as such, so any resolution to their conflict there winds up feeling hollow.

Conclusion

This episode, like with the Great Tree, gave me hope that this was all leading somewhere. Now it’s just a bitter reminder of how screwed up the writers’ morals are in this show, and how poorly planned everything was.

#tangled #anti-tangled #anti-rapunzel #anti-cassandra #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure

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tintentrinkerin · 3 years

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Harness & Spears

Chapter 5: Father’s Eyes

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Researching for a case a year after they quit first feels weird to Sam, he has to get used to all the programs, his usual agenda. Today it’s so much easier with some computer skills. No more libraries, no more grainy scans of articles in local papers. Today, you just have to open a search engine app on your phone or a computer and you will be able to find dozens of cases in an hour or two. Of course, there’s still the work of sorting the wheat from the chaff, but Jack is a big help. They sit in the library together and go search for cases. Cas is really sweet to them, just like a butler he offers hot beverages and sandwiches, even though Sam must really hold him back to go full on “Yes, sir”. They want a case, and there are hundreds of them, but also, after Jack became God he brought all the hunters back that Chuck had banished. Donna and Jody, a couple now, as they announced just months after Jack’s ascend, and her girls, all in the hunter business. They heard from Eileen sporadically, but after all that happened and how uneasy Sam felt about the whole manipulation (and he was absolutely certain Chuck pulled the strings there, even though, when they originally met, Sam was drawn to her - but nothing more), she kept her distance and operated in Ireland and also all over Europe. The hunters from the other universe also just hunted in small groups. Charlie and her girlfriend retired for good. And Sam was still bitter about his own behaviour - projecting ‘his’ Charlie on this woman, who was so much different. He knew she hacked some computers every now and then to prank some potential Dicks. Sam was connected to the hunters, most of them. He has been clear about him and Dean, Cas (and later Jack) not going hunting anymore. But now things changed and Sam needed to check if any other hunters were on the cases him and Jack might find interesting. Running in another couple of hunting buddies is not a problem on a personal level, but the mutual sabotage will happen. It’s Murphy’s Law. That’s why Sam has a plan. They will take cases other hunters wouldn’t like to do. There are several reasons for hunting in the first place and reasons which cases to pursue and which not. Let noble monster hunting and cleansing the world be some hunter’s motivation, revenge, the thrill (some people really were that sick and hunted monsters for the kicks) and of course. The money. Oh yes, the money. But the Winchester conglomerate doesn’t worry about money, that’s why Sam won’t look for cases that have to do with wealthy people or towns announcing rewards. Also, when he knew the kind of monster and that a lot of hunters were after these creatures for killing their kin or loved ones, he better didn’t interfere. You could hunt monsters for their venom or psychic abilities, their blessings or whatever. Something a friend of Dean did not so long ago and got himself killed for it.

It shouldn’t be anything exotic, the New Age brought new monsters, at least that’s what Jack says.

“I was God, yes, and I knew everything that Chuck knew, but believe it or not, not even Chuck knew all of his creatures. His mind is packed with the stuff he wanted to do or not to do - if you ask me he was a little like George R. R. Martin. Got lost in his own massive universe and all the detail. I tried to give all of it structure, that’s why some things on Earth changed, but after some time I thought my head would explode and I uh, outsourced some good stuff in new universes. Amara is way better in doing all of that, she created way more universes and new forms of life as I did. She and her brother - don’t get me started.”

Jack looks exhausted. “Does it sound weird, Sam? That I wanted to be down here with you, all of you, but especially you, and give Amara all that power?”

Sam smiles about Jack’s outbreak and that he obviously read Game of Thrones. “No, it’s not weird. You were with Amara and I bet she’s very pleasant company but she wasn’t what you longed for. You didn’t want to be God who’s in every drop of rain, and all that. It was noble and pure hearted and generous of you to try, but you were allowed to fail. But, speaking of Game of Thrones, I have a few questions regarding--”

Sam is rudely interrupted in his chatter with Jack when Dean comes into the library and sits down two chairs away from Jack. Jack immediately gets up.

“Uh, Sam, I will -errm, go pack my bags. I think you will find a good case.”

Sam sighs.

“I’ll be with you soon, baby. Just gimme a minute.”

Jack is quick as a flash and out of sight within seconds.

Dean scoffs while thudding his mug on the table. Coffee pours out and stains the wood.

“Easy on the furniture Dean, it’s not your enemy”, Sam says without looking up. He can’t show Dean his face right now or he will just erupt. He feels the heat in his cheeks and a hot tickle up his neck. Since Dean threw a mug after Sam yesterday they haven’t seen each other and to be frank, Sam could totally renounce any other encounter with Dean for a while. Plus, Sam has a hickey, because Jack went a little passionate, clingy and possessive last night, for whatever reason.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt you and… baby. ” The last word is like venom. As always. Dean wants to start another fight.

“I remember that I heard you calling Cas ‘daddy’ multiple times. You think that was really soothing for my wild imagination?”

“You call Jack what he is. A baby.”

“Another word, Dean, and you know I’ll knock you out. I have enough of your bullshit. You act like a jealous housewife. No, wait, more like a cuck!”

Dean scoffs and leaves.

“Do whatever you want, but don’t do it when I’m around or I’ll tear him apart.”

Sam sits here in shock. He has heard a lot from Dean about Jack, he has always been nasty to him and yes, even threatened to kill him twice, even was willing to execute him as part of Chuck’s evil plan. Yes, he was bitter about Mary and hell, how bitter Dean has been as Jack brought so many people back. All the ‘others’: Bobby and Charlie with her girlfriend. All these people. He brought Eileen back, and Dean thought it was to make Sam happy (and yes, that has been Jack’s intention, but ultimately it didn’t) and he was resistant to the arguments, that Mary was happy with John, she didn’t want to go back in this world she never felt like she fit in. He couldn’t be comforted by the messages Jack as a medium brought to Dean, that Mary loved him no matter what and that she will be happy when they meet again. Nothing could’ve soothed Dean’s aching. Sam understands that he’s hurt, but now, it just feels like Dean is angry at Jack for simply existing and then being so bold to love Sam.

Jack brought Cas back for Dean. He had risked a feud with the Empty that could only be avoided by Amara and Jack forcefully put the Regent of the Empty asleep. The Empty wasn’t sealed though, Rowena still reigned in hell, and still demons went to the Empty. But there are no angels on Earth anymore, Jack has naphil powers and even Cas regained some faint strength back, but Jack didn’t make new angels.

Jack really built a world in which it was possible for Dean and Cas to be together, he risked being invaded and maybe killed, since no one knows how really powerful the Empty was.

Why is nothing Jack does, no matter how universe shattering, unbelievably cosmic and holy and insane it is, not finally letting Dean the old grudge go?

It seems like everything he does just makes it worse.

Sam hides his face and in the safety of his own palms he allows to cry in fear for his own spiteful brother and soulmate. This will end badly if they don’t find a way to reconcile.

“You have to stop that, Dean” Cas says when Dean is back in the Deancave.

Cas is in his robe, nothing beneath. He looks pale and a little skinny. The last weeks have been hard on him and Dean knows it’s his fault. He makes his angel boyfriend sick. And yet he’s sick himself, and he’s kicking and fighting, with talons and teeth, words and throwing things after his brother. Also, he erupts the second Cas dares to mention it.

“Stop with what?”, he asks.

He picks the remote and wants to turn on the TV, loud metal music blasting but with a snap of a finger, the TV silent and it won’t turn back on.

“Castiel. Don’t fuck with me, I swear, I’m not in the mood.”

“You’re ‘not in the mood’ for weeks, maybe months. Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong? Why won’t you let me help?”

Dean’s eyes narrow dangerously as he faces the seraph.

“Help? How could you help? My brother fucks a toddler.”

Cas sighs and it sounds so endlessly sad. Defeated. Dean doesn’t want to see it, acknowledge it, that he is indeed very wrong. Jack is no toddler, Jack is no brat, Jack is so mighty he could really smite the whole bunker with a hiccup still, even though he’s not God anymore. Dean should be so damn careful. Dean should see how much Jack begs for his forgiveness and his approval.

But Dean can’t. And Dean won’t.

“Dean.”

Dean is so full of sorrow and fear, it hurts to hear his own name so gentle, so loving yet somehow fatherly. Cas loves him and Dean should be happy. He has been happy. The Empty had taken him away and Jack had fought to get him back. So they could be a family.

But this isn’t family to Dean. He’s around the person he loves the most, the person he loves with a burning, blinding insanity. He will never be happy like this.

Cas dares to come closer, around two steps away, offers Dean a hand. Dean can’t even look at him but he takes Cas’s hand and then pulls him in a desperate embrace.

“Shit, ‘m sorry, Cas. I don’t want to fight with you.”

It’s been a while, actually the last time Dean slept with Cas was the night when Jack asked him if Sam gay. This question is carved under his skin and if you look closely, you can see them shine through like thin red scars.

The streak won’t break today either.

“Will he ever stop hating me?”, Jack asks.

He has his suitcase packed, same as a backpack with snacks, water, headphones, his teddy Marvelous Marvin, a powerbank and, something he’s very proud of - his own angel blade. The only angels on earth are Jack and Castiel but the blade kills monsters just as well. He kneads the bundle of the purple blanket in his lap when he looks up to Sam.

Sam’s still tense from before, his eyes red and narrow, Sam must look like he didn’t sleep much or has been on a bender.

“I don’t know… I wish I knew what’s wrong with him.”

With a deep sigh Sam sinks beside Jack on the mattress. The bed creaks and a spring nudges in Sam’s butt cheek. Either they need a new mattress or they move in a room together, but Sam doesn’t dare to talk about these things yet. So far, he’s happy about the privacy. But he’s also constantly longing for Jack - a stalemate.

Jack leans against Sam’s shoulder and shyly feels for Sam’s hand. Sam is too glad to take it, intertwine their fingers and kiss Jack’s knuckles.

“It makes me sick, Sam. I’m afraid all the time he’s around. I’m afraid he might want to…”

“Hurt you?”

Jack nods, his lips a thin line.

“I won’t let him. And most of all, you won’t let him. Right?”

Another silent nod.

“Don’t worry about it now, our bags are packed and I found a case. I told you about the parameters I used to find a case no one else would investigate, and this one here is especially weird, but not weird enough for us to follow, and a bit boring, but not boring enough for us to NOT follow it. We’ve been to haunted houses before, right?”

“Yes, it’s mostly vengeful spirits or poltergeists, right?”

Sam nods. “Yes, exactly. Sometimes triggered by the plans of tearing the house down, the same can happen with big bodies of water, when they are threatened to be dried out, spirits of people who drowned will start going on a rampage. Haunted houses are like level 1 of every hunter. Rocksalt, shotgun, holy water, fire. Boom, ghost gone.”

Jack frowns a little. “Really, we’re going on a case that any newbie hunter could solve?”

Sam chuckles.

“Yep.”

It’s absolutely a thinly veiled reason to go on a hunt, but it’s the same that Dean and Cas did weeks ago when Jack sneaked out. In the end they also ‘just’ took on a vampire nest with five vamps and their Creator and the rest of the time they had a blast in Vegas, why should Sam not do the same? He wants to be alone with Jack, because Dean definitely ruined the pleasant experience of the tantra massage. Sam had been so happy back then and oh, crap, he was close to do more to Jack than just the massage. He wouldn’t have slept with him on this massage table, that was utterly uncomfortable, but he had been turned on so bad, that didn’t happen very often.

Sam really falls for Jack deeply and seriously. It’s a wonderful and frightening feeling at the same time.

Jack slides on Sam’s lap and straddles him, arms tight around his neck. Jack squints a little when he’s so close, his big blue eyes will never cease to amaze Sam.

“How can you not be Castiel’s son?”, Sam blurts, his hands cupping the naphil’s face and brushing away some strands of hair.

Jack’s mouth opens slightly, his tongue sneaks out to lick his upper lip.

“I am Castiel’s son.”

“I know, I just mean, genetically. You have his eyes. Does that sound stupid, baby?”

Jack shakes his head with a grin, his neck and face turn tenderly pink.

How did the biggest monster of all create this perfect boy?

“No, not stupid. I like the way you look at me”, Jack silently admits and the blush turns berry red.

“How do I look at you?”

Sam kisses Jack’s parted lips, feels the hitched breath and how Jack tightens up his back.

“First you looked at me with fear, when I was born. Then you looked at me in sympathy, in worry… Then gentle, loving. Just now, longing… You see a man, not a child, right? That’s the look in your face how you look at someone beautiful you want to be with…?”

Sam’s big hands creep under Jack’s pullover and Jack sighs, a light shudder down his spine and this tiny, quiet noise of content.

“You are beautiful, and yes, I want to be with you. All the time”, Sam whispers, he sounds rough, feels like he needs to clear his throat.

Jack lays his hands on Sam’s and guides him down his sweatpants. Sam squeezes. A slight gasp.

“We will have a lot of time for fun stuff once we’re out of here.”

That makes Jack jerk up, jump and drag Sam on his feet.

“Come, Sam! I can’t wait to be out of here.”

#harness&spears #rating: teen #sin is sinning #winkline #samjack

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jeannereames · 3 years

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Hi! I have some questions following the ask you answered about Pausanias (I apologize in advance for the length of the question, they're just too many)

What was considered "too old" for a lover in ancient Macedonia? What was the normal age for the King's lovers to be?

And, like anon asked, do you think Pausanias was in love with Phillip or was it all about the status?

Was it common for kings to be in love, or better said, to have a close relationship with his lovers (outside the bedroom, I mean)? Or how did those types of relationships worked? Do we know how Phillip and Pausanias' relationship was like, before he changed him for the other Pausanias and after the party incident?

And a side question, something that was never clear for me, did Phillip also rape Pausanias at the party?

First, general Greek ideals (note ideals, not necessarily reality) tended to paint the eromenos as ranging from pre-teen to late teens. Supposedly, the ability to grow a beard marked the end of one’s attraction as a boy (eromenos) and the transition to being the erastes (lover). There’s a brief window where one could (in theory) be the eromenos to an older lover, but erastes to a younger beloved. There’s no hard-and-fast age, as people mature at different rates. So, for instance, in the novels, Hephaistion isn’t even 16 but can grow his beard. Alexander, at almost 19, is shaving because his beard is so patchy. Again, the younger age is similar; some matured sooner into pre-teen/early teen, although on pottery, we see some eromenoi who look (disturbingly) like older children. Most are clearly younger teens. The Romans, btw, were squicked by Greek pederasty, although it was the “free born boy” part that bothered them. The sexual use of slave children was shrugged off. It was more about status than age.

Yet there is a reason it was called Greek pederasty in the ancient sources, although that’s not a term we use much now except in very specific circumstances, as it tends to bring to mind modern child sexual abuse. There were two big differences. First, the very public nature of the courting—unlike the concealed coercion of abuse victims—made it difficult to conceal inappropriate behavior. Second, the eromenos had the power in the relationship to turn down the courting altogether, or to say “yes” or “no” to sexual activity. (Note below the young man grabbing the wrist of the older man, to stop him. Although it’s been pointed out he stops the hand to his chin [a courting gesture], but not the one reaching for his dick!)

Making parallels to women dating in the middle 20th century aren’t entirely off-base. It was the boy who asked out the girl, who could turn him down. And the girl was tasked with saying “no” to male advances because “he couldn’t control his passions.” Yet there was a problem of “no” being ignored (e.g., rape), or more powerful suitors coercing compliance. We’re back to the difference between the ideal and the real.

This is why I get really BOTHERED by the whole romanticizing of Antinoös and Hadran as gay icons. Antinoös was about 12 when Hadrian picked him up and took him to Italy, and Hadrian was already emperor. You don’t tell the emperor no, especially not one known for his short temper. Maybe Antinoös was a social climber and adored his position as the Hellenizing Hadrian’s eromenos, or he at least made the best of a bad situation. But we have nothing at all to tell us his thoughts, and some really disturbing/murky gossip surrounded his death in the Nile. Guys, it’s NOT a love story, and Antinoös was a victim.

That said, and however predatory Hadrian’s behavior may have been, most erasteis were no more plotting to seduce the cute 11-year-old in the palaistra than the average young man intended to lure his date into the backseat of his 1956 Chevy and rape her. But those people existed, both in the recent past and the distant past, and we shouldn’t forget it.

Now, I use the Hadrian parallel as the same issue would apply to the Macedonian king. In Becoming, Hephaistion thinks to himself that, if Philippos were to make a move on him, he’d have to consider carefully his reaction, as one didn’t just turn down the king.

But we have very little (e.g., virtually NO) evidence for what Philip’s relations with his lovers was like. No doubt, it varied. We have a hint that coercion may have been the case with kings, or at least a sense of opportunism. Philip wasn’t the first Macedonian royal killed by an eromenos. Archelaos was too. We’re told that, while out hunting, he was speared by a Page (or former Page) who was a Thessalian “prince” (e.g., a member of one of the four leading families). The reason? The boy had been promised that Archelaos would help him/his family regain their political position in return for his sexual favors. But that didn’t happen, and so the boy felt used by Archelaos, his timē besmirched, so he killed Archelaos. This prior example is often cited when we talk about what happened to Philip, to understand what may have been going through Pausanias’s head as motivation.

We also know that Pausanias didn’t want to step down at Philip’s lover, although why isn’t at all clear. Did he love Philip, or think he did? Or was he loathe to give up the status such a position gave him? Or both? Or maybe there was some other reason we aren’t told. Pausanias appears to have been a member of the ruling family in Orestis; did he (like the Thessalian earlier) want something for his family, and was angry at being replaced because he didn’t have it (yet). Any of those is possible. We just lack any data whatsoever. We can say that, if Philip and Alexander of Epiros were lovers as Justin suggested, Philip did help Alexander to his throne. Justin implies he meant to do it all along, but that’s Justin’s love of scandal.

One of the jobs of an erastes is to shepherd his eromenos into adult male culture, such as the symposion and gymnasion. But also to further his general future, including into politics if of the higher classes. That’s part of what lies behind the Page’s resentment of Archelaos. By contrast, it looks as if Philip did perform that job, at least with regard to Alexander, and perhaps for his other eromenoi.

Philip had nothing to do with the party where Pausanias was raped. He was later targeted by Pausanias because he didn’t punish Attalos as Pausanias wanted. He only promoted Pausanias into the Pezhetairoi (the unit later called Hypaspists by Alexander). It’s called “bodyguard” (somatophylax), but shouldn’t be confused with the 7-man unit. The Pezhetairoi were the “bodyguard,” small /b/, for the king in combat. Philip then sent Attalos overseas with Parmenion. This might look like a promotion as the uncle-in-law of the king, but it smells (to me) like being kicked upstairs and got out of Pella. Nonetheless, it seems to have been that “promotion” of Attalos that set off Pausanias, who then targeted Philip as the un-just judge.

#erastes #eromenos #Greek homoeroticism #Greek male-male courting #Philip of Macedon #Pausanias of Orestis #Pausanias #Alexander of Epiros #Hadrian #Antinoos #Hadrian and Antinoos #asks

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saphicfreshman · 4 years

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Spoilers tlou 2!!!

A lot of people seem to think that the entire message of the game is that violence is bad but I actually think that there is soo much more to it... (I'm gonna ramble about a lot of things and it's gonna be quite long, so sorry in advance. Also this is just my personal take on it. Please, don't feel offended if you see it differently)

1. As a player we feel incredible hatred towards Abby as a character after she kills Joel and we simply want to hurt her in the same way. We despise her, which is a natural human reaction. However, the point in this game is that it forces us to see the other perspective. It forces us to admit that maybe we weren't playing the heroes because in this game nobody is. This game revolves around humans and what they have to do to survive.

2. A lot of people complain that the game judges your actions or makes you feel guilty. It never explicitly judges anything. It simply shows you the different perspectives and that you feel guilty is on you, not on the game because through the game, we as the player realize that our actions had consequences and that we didn't just kill NPCs but humans who had friends and families and had their own personality. This makes the game so much more realistic.

3. If you don't play this game narrow-minded, you will see that Ellie and Abby have exactly the same motives. They both seek revenge for the same reason and even though Abby killed our beloved character Joel, we have to admit that Ellie and Tommy killing most of her friends and Joel killing her father the surgeon were pretty good reasons to justify her actions. We aren't supposed to love Abby after all she killed Joel but we are supposed to sympathize with her and at least I can say that it truly worked for me. At the beginning I only wanted revenge for Joel but on that beach scene I truly didn't want to see her die and I didn't want to fight against her.

4. I've heard many people say that the game forces you to dislike Ellie or to see Joel as the villain. I don't agree with this statement at all. The flashbacks we see of Joel and Ellie make Joel seem like such an amazing guy and make him even more loveable. We see that his relationship with Ellie grew even stronger until she found out that he had lied about the fireflies and we saw that Joel got softer in the years after the first game. He seemed to open up a bit more and I think that is due to his peaceful life in Jackson. I loved that development and I think that is also the reason why he told Abby's group his real name. He didn't see them as a threat since Jackson welcomed outsiders and constantly took new people in.

Concerning Ellie's storyline: Yes, she makes a lot of bad choices and I didn't want her to go down this path but I also understood why she did it. I don't hate her, if anything I feel sorry for her and want to protect her even more because of everything she's been through. Yes, she did threaten Lev but I can understand why... I played through this game in a bit more than two days and when it came to the beach scene I just felt exhausted and I wanted it to stop. When we as the player already feel like that think about the character. Ellie was wounded, has left her family and has done horrible things to get to Abby and now Abby refuses to fight her. Everything she had done would have been for nothing if she didn't fight Abby. So, I personally think that Ellie was desperate and that's the reason she threatened Lev but I also think that she wouldn't have killed him if it came down to it.

5. Now that I'm already talking about the ending, I want to add that I think that assumption that Ellie has lost everything at the end of the game is wrong. Yes, she has lost a lot but at the same time she found herself again. She stopped the cycle of hatred. If the game would have ended with Dina, JJ and her it would have been incredibly sweet but it wouldn't have been a character development. Because she was forced to let Abby go after Abby defeated Ellie and Dina. Ellie didn't have another choice in this moment but in order to let go of the hatred, she had to spare Abby out of her own volition. At the end she regained some sense of humanity and there's still hope for her. At least that is what I got from that ending. In my opinion the reasons why she spared Abby are these two things:

1) Through the flashback she saw Joel and realized that no matter what she did he was gone and nothing could bring him back. At the same time she probably remembered Joel for who he had been in the last few years and what he would have wanted her to do.

2) She thought about Lev who had nobody except for Abby which is such a strong parallel to Ellie and Joel. She didn't want to cause Lev the same pain and suffering by taking Abby away from him.

6. I saw many messages about how important these characters (Ellie and Joel) are to people and how they deserved better/were completely different characters in this game.

I started playing the first game when I was 14 (just like Ellie) but I was honestly a bit to scared to play through the game so I played different games until I came back to tlou a few years later and I found myself incredibly impressed with the story. I loved how despite the cruel and harsh world Ellie and Joel live in the game still made me feel happy and calm in many sections. It was such a joy to watch the relationship between Ellie and Joel develop throughout the game. Playing the dlc and finding out that Ellie is a gay woman, just as me, obviously made me love the character even more.

Nowadays, I'm 19 (again just as old as Ellie) and I have become more mature, I have to face bigger and different problems than with 14 and I see the world in a different way. (I know that was a lot of information about me, I'm sorry but I promise I try to get to a point)

In the second game Ellie isn't the innocent, sweet little girl anymore that we got to know in the first game. She has been through a lot, she has different problems now and simply life in general is a lot more complicated than with 14. A huge part of the first game was about Ellie's innocence and how she grew up in front of our eyes during the game. "It can't all be for nothing" is in my opinion such a powerful line that explains her character development in tlou 1 perfectly. In the second game she is an adult with complex and complicated relationships and a different world view. She stopped being the innocent child a long time ago and is now a grown woman who isn't dependent on Joel anymore. So, that their dynamics would change is obvious. I am sad at the tragic turn of events for Joel and Ellie in tlou part 2 but I believe that the characters are incredibly well written and just a good continuation of the first game.

7. I see many people being toxic and attacking the story saying that it is "shit", "horrible", and that a child could write a better one. And I have to say that the people who say this probably would be more content with a fanfic like story from a child that includes a nice, action adventure and a happy ending. A light-hearted story that's maybe a bit dark sometimes but overall pretty nice. But that's not what Neil had in mind, because it truly would be easy to write a story that would appease the masses and that would be a slightly different game than the first one but overall with the same atmosphere to it. I think that's what a lot of fans wanted and that's not what we got.

Instead we got an amazing story that was incredibly emotional, took turns and forced us out of our comfort zone. I know that I will never forget this gaming experience. Especially the moment where I had to attack Ellie as Abby and I truly thought I was going to kill her. I smashed the square button while at the same time repeatedly saying: "please don't die Ellie, please don't die". I've never had such a weird, conflicting experience and I have never felt so many different emotions while playing a game. If naughty dog and Neil Druckmann had given us the game we wanted, it would have been a good gameplay, amazing visuals and great music and sound choices but it would have been a story that would have tried to recreate the first one and therefore it would have been easily forgettable and not impactful.

This game just keeps on making me think about the characters, reflecting on their actions and makes me feel so many different emotions that I'm not even sure what to think. And this, at least for me, is a masterpiece.

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jimmythejiver · 3 years

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For the first time in a long time I went to the movies in forever and then to Target. At Target I see some Godiva bars on discount yellow tags and I was ecstatic until I read 70% Cacao, Dark, Salted Caramel and was deflated.

Anyway that's how I felt about seeing The Green Knight. What you thought this was about chocolate?

No see since the pandemic I've been back on my perennial King Arthur kick. I've for a long time since I was a young preteen thought, someday I too will write my own King Arthur epic and it'll be gay, magical, gangster and culty too, but for now I'll make up my own stories for practice and then with every story I got attached too, it got too involved and convoluted to the point that when it came down to actually writing a novel, I threw it all away and made a space opera I only planned in two weeks and wrote in a month. Anyway...so now I've been writing this very gay, magical, gangster and culty take on Final Fantasy XV with my boyfriend and just fell in love with Somnus Lucis Caelum who nobody has any insight about him than to make him the Mordred to Ardyn's Arthur, which is a strange flex, but okay, I thought about what if I wrote a Dark Age prequel about Ardyn and Somnus, but Ardyn becomes king and Somnus his shogun and they play games of seduction and power because I'm twisted like that. Anyway...I was like I'm never going to write this and I have to keep making up characters based on FFXV characters and King Arthur tropes because there's not a lot of stories that take place during the Dark Ages, it's always some Roman Empire story, or High Middle Ages and FFXV gave no room for either society to happen after the fall of Solheim and the rise of King Somnus...so we left with Dark Ages, y'all, the King Arthur comparisons are obvious, but Ardyn is no Arthur and Somnus is no Mordred, Aera is only Guenevere if you make up an affair with Somnus, Gilgamesh is no Bedwyr/Bedivere, but uh...they both amputees and the oldest companions to their respective kings so...I guess. Anyway making an ancestor of Cor Leonis and deciding well he's Owain/Yvain, or am Ignis type as idk Sir Cai/Kay I guess, they both cook, but Cai's more like Seifer Almasy than any FF character... Anyway I'm losing people.

My plan was to just scrap the FFXV prequel, leave my Somnus ideas into Overtime (a gangster and gods story) and just plan an actual King Arthur adaptation. I'd have King Arthur the treasure hunter, leader of a warband turned founder of Camelot who fights giants, giant cats and dogheads, but also fights King Claudas of the Franks and King Aelle of the Saxons and Cerdic a Briton who puts in his lot with the Saxons, etc. It'd been a a glorified turf war, meanwhile Arthur's gotta make alliances with King Pelles, The Fisher King and his strange cult he's founded because, why yes I find the ends justifies the means prophecy of the Holy Grail Quest very culty because Christianity then does not resemble it now. Meanwhile you got the secondary plots of Mordred, Gawain, Lancelot, Percival, Tristam and other's going on because they matter and too many modern King Arthur stories sideline the knights.

So many have always sidelined Mordred as a final boss eldritch abomination in mortal flesh conceived of sin and give him no personality, or complex motives, or even just a relationship with Arthur. I also have noticed the general sidelining of Lancelot, or give him a chad villain upgrade if you must include him at all, and the villainizing of Gawain to the point that you don't even have to have Mordred, or Agravain as a catalyst shit stirrer in court, just slap Gawain's name on Liam Neeson in a top knot and you're good. Mordred can just be a child offscreen until last act...fuck that, while Morgan Le Fay can either be a villainess plotting her cabal through men, or a well-intentioned, ineffectual idiot. Fuck that.

Now Hollywood just be doing King Arthur first acts that suck ass, only for said director to get rewarded failing upwards by giving this same jerk the Aladdin remake. The tonally shitty, crammed in blockbuster mess of a cliche heroe's journey that sucks.

With that background I was excited for The Green Knight. I read an illustrative version as a kid, I read Tolkien's translation as a teenager, I read Simon Armitage's superior, but with liberties taken translation. I was prepped to go knowing that indie, or not they were going to make changes to weave the disjointed poem together. I'm excited that because this movie exists Project Guternberg's finally thrown Jessie Weston's prose rendition up on their website. I'll be reading that at some point when this blows over.

The movie adaptation makes a lot of...choices, many I wouldn't love, but would forgive had their been a payoff. There was none.

The journey was fine, the cinematography was a breath of fresh air after crappy slo mo, glossy action scenes ruined another. Guys, I don't think I want to see a Zack Snyder Excalibur, it'll marginally be better than Guy Ritchie, but that ain't saying anything. Leave Excalibur to the post-Star Wars 80s where it is impeccable for it's time. I liked Green Knight's breathable pacing, it's color palette's in the forests and mountains made up for the muddy grey of every Ridley Scott send up in the castles and villages in every other Dark Ages/Medieval story in the last I don’t know since the shitty 00′s. For all the dark tones when there was blues, greens, yellows or reds, they were vibrant in this movie to contrast the gloom of Britain. The soundtrack was good. This isn't all what makes a movie, but it enhances it so let's get to the story and what I did and didn't like.

Things I Liked: Gawain is still a novice in his career The Costume Dressing Everyone pronounces Gawain's name different. I pronounce it like Gwayne, or Guh Wayne, but here you got Gowen (like Owen), Gowan (like Rowan), or even Garlon who I'm pretty sure is the Fisher King's heir in some versions of that Arthurian story, so uh... The reference to Arthur slaying 960 men with his bare hands (Nennius for the win!) The Waste Land that is implied to be a site of a battle (an important aspect of the Arthurian landscape) The Fox companion No long grisly, drawn out hunting scenes. The Fox lives! No misogynist speeches

Things I'm Mixed: This being a dream, is the magic real? Are the giants? Is the Green Knight a figment of Gawain's imagination from a spell Morgan casted in him to hallucinate? Is Lord and Lady also figments? It's...a way to interpret the poem, but lazy and I don't see why it's got to all fantasy, or all dream...this movie makes it too vague you're stuck picking one camp than to accept it's a fantasy with dream and hallucinatory sequences.

Things I'm Meh: Morgan Le Fay as Gawain's mom. Look I fucking hate Morgause as a character and these two get merged and steal each other's aspects so much at this point the difference is who did they marry, King Urien or King Lot? Both are attributed to being Mordred's mom, Mordred is Gawain's brother...both practice magic depending on certain incarnations, both love and hate Arthur their brother and are in conflict with him. Saint Winifred. I actually liked this sequence, but I don't appreciate her as the tacked on wife in the later dream sequence as like...a contrast between the wife you should marry than the whore next door you don't respect anyway? I don't even know what lesson I'm supposed to get out of the damn dream sequence, or any of it? That Gawain should've married his girlfriend and then he'd be a just ruler? That he shouldn't be king? That he'd never have to make the same heartless, impartial choices? I don't know, he seemed like a king doing king shit because guess what? It never gets easier. Wars will be waged. The world didn't become better because he married the right woman, respected her and lived in obscurity. The world didn't become better because he made her his queen. We certainly don't know the world would be better Gawain had his head chopped off and dead XP They never reveal the Lord and the Green Knight as one and the same because of this shit.

Things I Hated: Arthur withdraws from the challenge because he's old. In poem he takes it on and Gawain takes it so he don't have to and he finds himself more disposable than the king. Gawain only takes the challenge because of arrogance. Arthur and Gawain had no prior personal relationship. I'd not have hated this so much if it wasn't compounded by it cancelling out the first two things. Gawain is portrayed as having no respect for his woman, or any woman, maybe his mother? He has to be pushed by Winifred to regain her head. Gawain is portrayed as arrogant, covetous and ready to pass the buck, or the bare minimum than have any honor or decency. It didn't matter the kid in the wasteland was shithead bandit, the way Gawain acted towards him, when he gets robbed, it almost feels like he deserved it and Gawain doesn't learn a damn lesson. I'll admit him taking the sword to cut his ropes and cutting his hands was a neat sequence, it shows him go from stupid, to almost clever and having will to survive...you know traits he had in the poem, but he stops showing these traits or growing. Basically Gawain has to be dragged kicking and screaming to help people and shows no fortitude when facing temptation, or when showing respect towards others, it's exhausting. You don't make this kind of journey story without character growth. Why are you skipping this? Also is it just me, or is this like when you take Frank Miller Batman and transport him onto a Bill Finger story? This is at best Thomas Malory Gawain (and this is charitable) transported on the earlier Pearl Poet's story. Stop it. It's not tonally correct and goes at odds with the story and the set up characterization you'd need to tell it. Speaking of which, you know how I get through the oof... of Liam Neeson Gawain in Excalibur? By pretending he Agravain instead. Here...I don't even think Gawain could pass as Mordred in spite of his covetous nature, lust and entitlement. Why? because I don't think even Mordred is this dumb to warrant this hubris. Essel being invented as a tacked on love interest just to be shit on utterly and for what? I don't think I have much commentary here as there is no Essel I'm aware of to compare, or stack up. I just notice this trope of like...usually if you include a sex worker in Hollywood she often has a heart of gold, she often has her own sense of values that goes at odds with society, but is more true and less hypocritical than a privileged lady’s. I thought that's what they would've done with the added trope of back at home sweetheart to contrast and pit her against the despicable femme fatale of Lady Bertilak and her adultery and her ladyship...and I'm glad they didn't...but you did nothing with Essel than to shit on her for existing when you made her exist, you know. Lady Bertilak being portrayed as the seductress devil incarnate. Look I know adultery is a touchy taboo, but uh her and Gawain hit it off in the poem, dammit! Her values and his values come to clash, but here it's played off as Gawain is stupid and covetous and Lady Bertilak wants to prove something because...? If my brother's theory that she's a figment of Morgan Le Fay's magic, then I'll take this as a lesson of Gawain is impulsive and covetous and his mom knows it, but he don't want to fuck his mom, but he wants her power, and Morgan wants to teach him a lesson... I guess. Hey we don't have misogynist speeches in this movie, but we'll make sure to have the movie drip with it with no point, or commentary. Pass. Lord guilting, extracting and initiating the same sex kiss and only once. Poem automatically better that Gawain don't have to keep being reminded to keep his part of the bargain and he does it willingly more than once. What he doesn't do is give up his belt...gods how did we get more homophobic as a society that the homoeroticism here is worse? Catholics of the middle ages officially had no issue doing same sex, passionate kissing until it lead to sex. The Ending: The gods damn ending. In the movie as is, Gawain waits to uphold his end of the bargain and get his head chopped off. He imagines, even though we don't get any fuzzy or distortion to indicate this is a dream, but I already knew this was coming, he runs away and comes home, is regarded a hero, he sees his lady, takes her from behind and if you saw Brokeback Mountain (I didn't, but DJ has) you know this is a sign of disrespect to women. He gets her knocked up, pays her off for the kid she wants to keep, he is crowned king, marries the ghostly saint lady he helped retrieve her head earlier from a lake in the movie (this right here is the damn tip off). There's no more dialogue by this point and everything is montaging, so you know by now it's a dream, though nothing is out of focus. He rules as a heartless king, his whore son dies from war he waged, he has a daughter, his wife dies. Gawain then takes off the belt that would've saved his life and his head falls off. This would've been the one good twist, except... In this sequence of events he never had his head cut off so uh... now we back in present day. He decides not to bitch out, Green Knight in a sexy way is like "now off with your head," movie cuts to credits with no resolve...uh what the fuck? What the fuck? This is not good. You wasted the one twist in your dream when idk, you could've...

How I'd fix it: No dream sequence at all. No Incident At Owl Creek twist. Gawain comes home a hero and survivor of this game and ordeal. He wears this belt of shame. He becomes a well-renowned knight, but he bears a shame. One day he goes to take off his belt and his head falls off because he cheated to get this belt and to survive this encounter. There. Done. Improved your high concept movie that couldn't play any of the lessons straight from the damn poem without making everyone an asshole for no reason! Ugh! But nope you had to end it on we don’t know if Gawain lives or dies...because...it's dream magic made from his momma's witchcraft...?

Last Thoughts So then post-credits scene because Marvel because Pirates Of The Caribbean existed. A white girl who looks nothing like Gawain's daughter we see who didn’t pay off, or any child I can remember through this whole movie picks up King Arthur's crown that dream Gawain inherited and puts it on her head. Who is this girl? Are we gonna have an indie equivalent of of the Marvel Movie Universe/Universal Horror Monsters thing with ancient British legends? We gonna get a Life Of Saint Patrick next that crosses over? I don't know. What is this?

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purplebyul · 4 years

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Sunshine and clouds.

teacher AU. Prompt: “the nice one who everybody loves with the grumpy one. and their student are just like???? how??? what the fuck???”

Or : “Mr.Demaury teaches a class of very noisy third years.” (ao3)

September, a new school year begins. Lea and her friends are in their last year of high school and, like every start of the year, they’re all motivated. For now. This year is the last, I’m gonna make it the best one, with a perfect score on all my exams and tests, be nice to everyone, etc. Every student says that, but, like their new year’s resolutions, they won’t keep it.

The first hour on the first day, they’re all seated in a classroom looking at their schedule while the teacher goes on about god knows what. Because the most important thing is between their hands right now: their schedule. Suddenly, she’s hit by her friend Amalie, whisper-shouting her name.

«Lea! Looks who’s our literature teacher !»

« Oh my god yes! I can’t wait to have classes again with him !»

« And we all know why, hmm girl?» Adds Jérôme, one of her friends too.

« Shut it Jéjé, as if you’re not drooling all over the guy too, you useless gay.» And that’s Anthony for you.

They’re still bickering when Emma, a nice girl who joined their little group recently, takes a grave voice «Oh no…»

« What is it, Emma?»

« Look at our bio teacher…»

And if it isn’t the most terrifying sentence they’ve ever heard. Because, in this beautiful Parisian school, there is only one teacher that can make your skin crawl just by seeing their name on your timetable.

« We’re fucked.»

Today is supposed to be a good day. No bio class, only literature, math, and English. All the teachers in this course are nice, so it’s good. And it’s sunny, which is very rare for Paris in September - thanks to climate change - so really, what could go wrong?

When Lea gets inside her literature classroom, she is so not ready to see her most hated teacher here, talking to her favourite teacher of all time. Mr. Demaury, known as Sunshine, is sitting on his desk, smiling brightly - real-life sunshine, they’re not joking - while looking at Mr. Lallemant, or the worst teacher ever.

Well, he’s not the worst teacher, quite the contrary actually. His classes are never boring, he teaches them well and gives good explanations, taking the time to explain when they don’t understand. But it always comes with a snarky remark. And he’s always grumpy, smiles rarely and he is not very patient. Yes, he explains when you don’t understand, but not before sighing for two minutes straight. Ok maybe not two minutes, but he never tries to hide how judging he is of his class.

They both turn their heads towards Lea when she enters and Mr. Demaury’s smile dim a little. Mr. Lallemant clears his throat, throwing a «See you later.» to the other teacher before going out. Mr. Demaury looks after him, always smiling, before turning his head toward Lea when she sits down. He sits back at his desk, opening a little notebook while every other student comes in, one by one. Emma sits next to her and soon enough, the whole room is full but it’s not like in Mr. Lallemant’s class, oh no. Here, everybody is waiting for Mr. Demaury to say something because, well. He has a nice voice. And he is nice. And pretty. And smiley. And pretty.

« Good morning everyone !»

A chorus of good mornings answers him and if it’s possible, Mr. Demaury’s smile gets bigger. Not quite as big as the one he had when Mr. Lallemant was here though. Which makes Lea wonders a little: what could her bio teacher have said to make the other one smile so bright? She doesn’t have time to dwell on it because soon enough, Mr. Demaury’s voice rings clear as a bell in the classroom.

« First of all, I hope you all had a good summer vacation. And-»

« We hope your vacation was nice too, sir!»

«Oh, thank you. It was nice, I had a lot of fun.»

« What did you do for your vacation, Mr. Demaury?»

« Yes, what did you do ?»

A nice blush colours their teacher’s cheeks at this moment and he rubs his fingertips on his lips. It's a nervous habit he has that makes everybody fall more in love with him.

« Hm, well. I went to my partner’s family in the south of France, so we had a nice beach vacation. And then we went to visit some friends in Oslo.»

If you listen close enough, half of the students in this room had their hearts broken by a single word in this sentence.

« Wait, you’re in a relationship ?!»

Lea is too shocked to say something, while Emma is shaking her like she’s trying to get gold coins out of her. Soon, they’re whispering.

« Did you know he had someone?»

«I’m making the same fish out of its tank face as you! Of course, I didn’t know!»

«Of course he’s not single, have you seen his face?»

« Shut up Anthony, a girl can dream!»

« Ugh, gross. He’s ten whole years older than you.»

«Perfect opportunity to call him daddy.»

«Jérôme!!» Anthony says before hitting him upside the head.

Their bickering stops when they hear Mr. Demaury clearing his throat. He’s still as red as he was a minute ago when Jérôme asked if he was in a relationship.

« It’s none of your business but yes, I am in a relationship. Have been since I was your age, actually.»

At that, the whole class gasps and some aww-ed out loud.

« But that’s not what this class is about!» Mr. Demaury says, trying to regain composure. But everybody in the room can see that a smile is making his lips twitch and the blush on his face. «Anyway, back to what I first wanted to say!»

And even though they try to get back to the subject of their favourite teacher’s relationship, Mr. Demaury doesn’t let them do it. After twenty minutes, they stop trying. Mostly because he threatened to give them a paper to do for next week if they didn’t stop.

The first week of their new high school year has gone by smoothly, until now. It’s 7.40 a.m and their first class is with Mr. Lallemant. To say that everyone is scared of what will happen is an understatement.

When they arrived, Mr. Lallemant was already here, going over a huge pile of papers while drinking his morning coffee. Nobody greeted him when they entered, but neither did he, keeping his eyes focused on his lesson.

But once the clock hit exactly 8a.m, Mr. Lallemant stands up and everyone sucks in a breath.

« Good morning everyone.» Nobody answers. « I know you don’t like bio, even though you enrolled in the scientific course for your last year, too bad for you. But please, do take part in class, get your homework done and study for the tests, because many are coming your way. If you do that, everything will go smoothly and you’ll hopefully go to college or do whatever it is you wanna do. I don’t care as long as you’re out of this class. Science is something you have to know by heart, so that's not as complicated as literature, where you have to invent some bullshit to have a passing grade. Is it clear?» Nobody answers, a couple of them mumbling a little «yes» but not looking up from their desks. Mr. Lallemant sighs and seems tired of his students' silence. « Great. Let’s get to it then.»

« Oh my god, how is it that you can forget something so easy in only two months? Come on man, it’s not that hard. Think.»

« Ok, since you can’t answer, does anybody here can help her? Anybody that isn’t me, I’m the teacher here I shouldn’t have to answer.»

« When you can’t fucking throw something from your chair into the bin, you pick your ass up and go to the bin to throw it in, Anthony. It’s not a hard concept for god’s sake.»

« You know what? You all seem so eager to leave so please do, I’m tired of seeing your faces for today.»

To say their first class of three hours with Mr. Lallemant was hell is, as usual, an understatement.

After learning that their favourite teacher is in a happy relationship, and has been for a long time, they all decided to make a deal. Every time they’ll have a class with Mr. Demaury. They’ll ask him a question about his relationship before the class starts. And so, when the second class of the trimester arrived, they all are a nervous mess.

Mr. Demaury arrives in class and everybody is already seated. He greets them with a beautiful smile and a cheerful «Hello you all!» before losing his jacket - making a few girls giggle behind Lea, which in turn makes Emma roll her eyes at them.

Nobody dares to be the first one to ask the question. So, once Mr. Demaury is about to speak again and start their lesson, Lea doesn’t think twice before raising her hand. Mr. Demaury stops in his tracks and looks at her, raising an eyebrow in question.

« Yes, Lea ?»

« Sir, I was wondering,» she takes in a big breath while Jérôme whispers encouraging words to her, « where did you meet your lover ?»

It says on Mr. Demaury's face that he wasn’t ready for this kind of question. An adorable blush is making its way on his face, up to his ears. He clears his throat, before grabbing his book and turning towards the board.

« That’s not class-related Lea, I’m sorry I can’t answer.»

They all groans but before they can say anything, Mr. Demaury raises his voice and starts the lesson of the day.

They’ll get more info one day.

The next time they try it, it was with an innocent question. A simple « Where was your first date ?». It earned them a « That’s not in the theme of our lesson here, Anthony.».

« But sir we’re talking about Romeo & Juliet here, we’re talking about love!»

« Anyway, back to Romeo & Juliet and the meaning behind their first time as lovers.»

And after that, every time they tried asking something, Mr. Demaury would straight up ignore them or answer with something else: « So this summer you met their parents? » « The beach was nice, if you have to visit the south of France, I recommend Nice. »

« Are they romantic with you? Do they treat you right? » « Yes, my lunch was good, thank you for asking. »

« Is it a he or a she ? » which earned Jérôme another slap to the back of his head from Anthony. And earned them a « My sexuality is none of your business. », said with the most beautiful smile, which threw them out of a loop.

Then the questions got a bit more personal, they were trying hard to guess the identity of this person. But again, Mr. Demaury never answered any of them. « Do we know them, is that why you don’t want to tell us?»; « Are they taller or smaller than you? »; « What’s the first letter of their name, please!»; « Or at least their last name? »

They would have stopped if Mr. Demaury seemed bothered by it. But every time they asked something, a smile etched itself on his face. Probably because he was thinking about his lover. But damn, he would never give them even a hint and they were frustrated. And thus was born the plan: stalk Mr. Demaury between classes.

« I don’t get why we have to follow him during his lunch break! He’s just going to eat!»

« Shut up Jérôme!»

« But it’s not gonna give us any clue on who his lover is!»

«You don’t know that! Maybe he’ll talk about his lover with someone!»

« Shhh !! He’s right here !»

They all quiet down at that. Hiding behind a wall next to the teacher’s lounge, they have a full view inside it. And here he is, Mr. Demaury, sitting in front of Mr. Lallemant. It startles them at first. Because how can a ray of sunshine like Mr. Demaury talk to a person like Mr. Lallemant? They’re the total opposite of each other!

Mr. Demaury is talking animatedly while Mr. Lallemant stuffs pasta in his mouth when his eyes make direct contact with Lea’s one.

« Shit!! We made eye contact!»

All of a sudden, Mr. Demaury isn’t speaking anymore. He puts his forks down and turns his face toward where the little group is. His face hardens and he gives them the most murderous stare they’ve ever seen on someone. A second later, they’re all running the opposite way.

« I told you it was no use! We didn’t learn anything!

« And now he hates us !»

« Shut up! I didn’t know that's how boring his lunch break was! »

Let’s say that their afternoon class with Mr. Demaury was the worst one they had. Every time he looked at them, his stare would be cold. Fortunately, it lasted only for a day. Next week, he was back in his sunshine mode.

It’s now the beginning of December and in two weeks, their winter holidays start. Since the start of the year, they kept asking Mr. Demaury questions about his lover, but to no avail. Still, they try. With no luck.

They were hyped, their heads full of new ideas to get Mr. Demaury to confess at least the first letter of his lover’s name. But that was before their class with Mr. Lallemant. He was in a particularly foul mood today, has been for the whole year really, but today was worse than anything they’ve ever experienced. Usually, he makes snarky remarks, says something rude and in general, he’s just mean to them. But nothing they can’t handle. But today, when they entered the room, Mr. Lallemant was staring out of the window, as if…empty.

Once everyone was at their desks, he stood up and spoke with the deadliest voice they’ve ever heard.

« So, I graded your test and I don’t get how you can fail so much on something we’ve spent two months on.»

They all winced, but Mr. Lallemant was not finished.

« No, really. I’m impressed by your stupidity. You chose the S course, but you make no effort to work for it. I know bio isn’t the most interesting for you, maybe you’re more into math or geometry or whatever, but do you think you’re gonna get your Bac with grades like the one I have here? Guess what, you won’t. The higher-grade? Twelve. Freaking twelve. I’ve never had third years like you before. You’re all gonna fail, but I did my job. I really don’t get how you can fail like that.»

After that whole speech, let’s say that their spirits were crushed. Lea was the highest score of the class, but she didn’t feel proud. She was mostly angry about what Mr. Lallemant said as if they were stupid. Like a typical student feel when a teacher tells them to work more, really.

So, when Mr. Lallemant dismissed the class and they headed towards Mr. Demaury’s one, nobody was in a happy mood. But at least, they were about to see his sunshine smile and maybe, that would make their day a little bit brighter.

When they entered the room, Mr. Demaury was already writing something on the board. He turned to greet them but quickly stopped when he saw their faces. He waited until everyone was at their desk, sitting on top of his, before speaking.

« What’s happening, guys? Looks like everybody’s pet just died.»

« No, we just got out of one of Mr. Lallemant’s class.»

« … And ?»

« We don’t like him. He’s always so mean to us. It was worse today.» A chorus of «yes», «that’s true» echoes in the room and Mr. Demaury looks pained. Perhaps even shocked.

« Why was it worse ?»

« He basically told us we were stupid because of our new grades.»

«Yes! He said we were gonna fail and that he’s never seen third years as stupid as us.»

Mr. Demaury crosses his arms and sighs, rubbing his face quickly.

« Ok guys. I’m going to talk to you about something personal, so listen up.»

They were all complaining about Mr. Lallemant, some of them calling him names, but they stopped after what their teacher said, now giving him their full attention.

« First of all, we’re humans, like you. Us too, we get our bad day. And sometimes we don’t want to get out of bed to teach a bunch of children who couldn’t care less about what we say.»

« But your class is always good sir! We always listen to you!»

« Yes, but not to Mr. Lallemant.» they’re now all silent, some of them even looking down at their feet. « You know, Mr. Lallemant and I have been friends for a very long time. He tells me stuff. About how you act in his class. About how you stay quiet and never participate. You never answer his questions and not even to his good mornings. Imagine, working somewhere for many years and none of your students greeting you? Would you like that if I came in and never answered your hellos ?»

Nobody dares to look at Mr. Demaury now. Mostly because of what he’s saying and that they’re ashamed of themselves. But also because it sounds like Mr. Demaury is disgusted by their attitude.

« Why are you all ignoring him when he’s the one to get you to pass your bac?»

« Well, he’s mean with us. And scary. It feels like he’s always judging us. Like he doesn’t like us.»

Mr. Demaury lets out a little laugh, before sighting. « I know Mr. Lallemant can be a little shit, and he has no tact, I know. But do you know why he’s like that ?»

They all shake their heads «no».

« Because being a teacher as always been his dream job. When I met him, he was always telling me about how he was gonna be the best bio teacher in Paris. And how every student will pile up in front of his class to listen to him. How big professors were going to ask him to do lectures in their college. How he was gonna publish a book about his biologic discoveries. », he smiles a little while retelling this story, before sighing again. That’s the first time they’ve heard Mr. Demaury sighs so much.

« He put a lot of pressure on himself to be the best because everyone was encouraging him to be it, I included. And then, his first day came around and he was so stressed and anxious, he started talking to his student like he talks with his friends. He’s rude, he doesn’t have a filter but it’s only because of his anxiety and this desire to be loved. And here you are, telling me you hate him.»

It would have hurt less if Mr. Demaury went and slapped them one by one.

« Try to be nice to him. Answers, when he says hello, tries to participate. He’s not mean on purpose, he’s just stressed. He’s a huge nerd about biology, he only wants to find students that will be as hyped to talk about freaking cells as him. Do this for me, please guys.»

« Can you tell Mr. Lallemant we’re sorry, sir? We didn’t know we made him feel so bad.»

«You don’t know what someone goes through daily, so always try to be nice to them. And no, if you want to apologize, you’ll do it yourself. Now, let’s get back to our lesson.»

The atmosphere in the room stays cold after that little discussion. And even Mr. Demaury’s energy seems to have left the room. He’s as empty as Mr. Lallemant was this morning and it makes them feel even more bad about themselves.

Emma leans over to whispers into Lea’s ear. « We should do something for Mr. Lallemant.»

« Yes, we’ll come up with something.»

They never came up with something. Or at least, not directly. Mr. Lallemant was colder than ever after their last class. He seemed tired, with big bags under his eyes and no will to even make snarky comments. Plus, Mr. Demaury was sick the whole week so they didn’t attend any of his classes. And to be honest, he was the only one to give them the courage to go to Mr. Lallemant’s class.

So now, it was like this: nobody dared try to say something to Mr. Lallemant. But they at least now answered when he greeted them at the beginning of their class. The first time they did, he looked shocked and everybody was happy to see him looking at them with wide eyes. But he said nothing of it and just started his lecture like it was another normal day. So it didn’t encourage them, and some of the students stopped trying to be nice to him and kept their bad attitude.

But this time, it looked like Mr. Lallemant wanted to be anywhere but here. His voice was small, and he looked kind of lifeless. So, Lea decided that it was time they came up with something.

« Who can tell me what is inside a DNA structure? I suppose no one will try to answer, I don’t even know why I ask anymore. So, a DNA-

« Hm, sir ?»

« Yes, Lea ?»

« DNA structure is made out of molecules, but I don’t remember the name of it.»

Mr. Lallemant seems surprised and he stays silent for a minute, before shaking himself out of it.

« Yes, you’re right. And the molecules are called nucleotides. Do you know what’s inside a nucleotides ?»

« Isn’t it phosphate? Or is it the four nitrogen bases ?» Asks Anthony.

« It’s phosphate. But there’s also something inside phosphate. DNA is like a Russian doll but with different types of molecules that each have a purpose.»

When Mr. Lallemant gets out of class after their lesson, he seems less tired, and almost like he’s fighting a small smile while looking at his phone. Outside the classroom, Lea high five Anthony. They made their teacher kind-of happy, and it feels good.

A week to go and then, their winter vacation starts. But before that, their school is throwing a little party. Well, ''party'' is a big word. It’s an after-school get together for the whole school, teachers included, from 5p.m to 10p.m. Kind of like prom, in fact. It’s a way to say «you’re almost done, good luck for your finals after you get back from your holidays!».

And so, when they heard teachers could bring a plus one thanks to Mrs. Lecomte, their bubbly french teacher, the whole class was excited. Of course, Mr. Demaury is going to bring his lover as a plus one! Finally, the mystery is gonna be lifted! They can’t wait and at 5p.m sharp, they’re already in the gymnasium, waiting for all their teachers to arrive. For the moment, only the Bakhellals, Mrs. Lecomte and Mr. Lallemant are here.

« Have you seen him somewhere inside the school ?»

« No, no sign of him. Maybe he’s late ?»

« He’s never been late, that’s unusual.»

« Maybe he was horny before coming so he’s banging.»

« For fuck’s sake Anthony you hang out too much with Jérôme !»

Almost everybody is here now, it’s 6p.m but still no sign of Mr. Demaury. Every other professor is here, joking around together. And the little gang is sitting at a table, looking at Mr. Lallemant. They sure as hell aren’t going to miss Mr. Demaury if they keep looking at Mr. Lallemant since they’re such best friends. They still can’t figure out why.

He’s rolling his eyes at what Mrs. Lecomte just said. He still hasn’t smiled since he arrived and they wonder how can he have so many friends when he barely smiles.

« How can he crave to be loved when he never smiles ?»

« Maybe he's self-conscious about his teeth ?»

«Ugh, shut up Emma, it isn’t because of his teeth. Mr. Demaury said he's a nervous person, he must not feel comfortable enough.»

« Speaking of Mr. Demaury, he just arrived !»

« Oh my god, look how good he looks !»

« Wait, why is he alone ?»

« Don’t tell me he didn’t bring his plus one or I’m gonna cry !»

They see him literally skips until he reaches Mrs. Bakhellal and Mr. Lallemant. As soon as Mr. Lallemant sees him, his face hardens and he crosses his arms.

« What the fuck, did they fight ?»

« No way !»

« Let’s move to a table closer to them, I can’t hear what they’re saying !»

As subtly as they can, they try to move closer to where the teachers are. They don’t see that Mr. Demaury spotted them, but he only smiles in answer of them trying to be spies - and failing miserably.

When they reach their target, which is a small table next to the big buffet, they can kind of hear what their teachers are talking about. The music isn’t too loud for the moment to cover their conversation.

« You’re late. Again. »

« What do you mean, again ?! »

« Please Eliott, don’t play dumb. You’re always late! »

« But I was cuddling Marie! »

They don’t have time to get excited about what they just heard, because Marie might be the mysterious lover they kept pestering Eliott about, that Mr. Lallemant ruins it.

« You have an unhealthy relationship with that cat, Eliott. »

« She’s the one who wouldn’t let me leave! That’s why I’m all covered in cat hair. »

« Don’t you dare put your shirt in the hamper only because of that. You’re going to break the washing man, dude. »

« You did not just call me dude! »

And the next sight they see is what make them pause for a moment. Because Eliott squished Mr. Lallemant into his side with his arm around his neck, while one of his hand is holding Mr. Lallemant’s cheeks, making him do a fish face. And their bio teacher is only looking fondly at Mr. Demaury. At that, they all look at each other, a bit perplexed. Well, except Jérôme, who « tsk » loudly at them.

« Friends can be close, you all are just used to toxic masculinity. »

« Yeah, that’s my man,» says Anthony, kissing Jérôme’s cheek right after.

« We’re probably reading too much into this since we’re desperate to see who he’s dating. »

« You’re right, Lea. »

« And I don’t really get any gay vibes from Mr. Demaury. »

« Stop with the stereotypes Jérôme. »

« No, but look at him, no gay vibes at all! »

But when they turn their attention back to where Mr. Demaury - who they finally learned his name - and Mr. Lallemant are supposed to be, there’s only Mrs. Bakhellal and Mrs. Lecomte standing there. They sigh.

« Ok, we need to investigate though. I don’t care if he doesn’t have any gay vibes, maybe he really is with Mr. Lallemant. »

« Why would he? It’s Mr. Lallemant! »

« Oh my god guys I just thought of something ! » Emma gasps while hitting all of them on their shoulders.

« What the fuck Emma ?! »

« Stop hitting us every time you have something to tell us! »

« I bruise like a peach girl, and you know it! »

« Shut up, you all! Remember when Mr. Demaury told us about why Mr. Lallemant is the way he is ? » when they all nod, she continues, « He said they’ve been friends for a very long time! And he also told us that he’s been with his lover since high school! »

They look at her blankly, because they don’t really get it.

« Ugh, you’re all so stupid. Mr. Demaury told us how Mr. Lallemant always wanted to be a teacher, right? So obviously, they knew each other before going to college so…Probably since high school! »

And now, they get it. They all gasp, Jérôme exclaiming « Emma, you are the only straight I’ll ever call a genius, I love you ! » while hugging her before Lea speaks a bit louder to be heard over their excited squeals.

« Ok, we need to investigate! We have to keep an eye on them the whole night, got it? »

« Got it, chef! »

The party is in full swing now, and the little spies are only moving from one table to another, in hope of keeping an eye on their teachers.

Right now, Lea and Emma are next to the buffet, each with a drink in their hand, making small talk while checking behind them to see what their teachers are doing. Anthony and Jérôme are a few tables away, not too close to be spotted but not too far away either. Every one of them has a clear view of their targets, who are sitting facing each other. They're close, whispering in each other’s ear to talk - but they don’t take that as evidence since they all have to do that to be able to hear anything, thanks to the pop music playing loudly in the background.

The first thing they noticed is: they always stay close to each other. The only time they were apart was to get some food or drinks…for the other one. The spies are growing more and more suspicious as time pass, never leaving for too long to be sure to not miss anything.

The second thing they noticed is: Mr. Lallemant does know how to smile. And fuck if he’s not beautiful when he does. In the span of an hour, they’ve seen him smile and laugh more than during their previous year. Sometime, Mr. Demaury will say something that makes him laugh so much he’ll rock back and forth on his chair, before leaning his head on the other’s shoulder. And Mr. Demaury will smile so bright he could illuminate the whole room. Sometime they’ll start a silly game of thumb war, which are often lost by Mr. Demaury, and it’ll end with Mr. Lallemant doing a silly victory dance. And then Mr. Demaury will grab him by his shirt and make him sit back down before ruffling his hair to mess with him. For the whole night, it’s been like that, but nothing to confirm if they’re in a relationship or not. Which is very frustrating.

Mr. Demaury is looking around him, as if he’s assessing the situation going on around them, before turning his attention back to Mr. Lallemant. And he says something that makes Mr. Lallemant bite his bottom lip and look at the floor. The little group all look at each other with their brows furrowed, because it seems like their teachers are having an important conversation. For the next five minutes, they speak and look around them and the atmosphere around them seems to have changed. It looks like Mr. Lallemant is thinking about something like he’s trying to decide on something.

After a short while, he shrugs and turns back to Mr. Demaury with a small smile on his face. Mr. Demaury is asking him something else and after Mr. Lallemant nods, a smile appears on his face and they’re both standing up.

A slow song has come on now, and a lot of couples are already on the dance floor. Except for Mr. Bakhellal, who’s dancing with his sister, the cutest sight right now. In the next minute, Emma, Lea, Anthony, and Jérôme open their mouths so wide their jaws are closed to hitting the floor. Mr. Demaury is guiding Mr. Lallemant under the lights and, once they’ve giggled like kids for a few seconds, he throws his arms around Mr. Lallemant's neck, slowly moving them to the rhythm of the music.

The next thing they see is Mr. Demaury leaning his forehead against Mr. Lallemant’s, gently rubbing their noses together and this time, their relationship can not be mistaken for something else now.

Emma and Lea are suddenly running to join Anthony and Jérôme on their little table, which gives them a nice view of their teachers.

« Omg guys, they’re making my teeth rot. How sweet can they get? »

« I wanna have a boyfriend like that. » Sighs Jérôme.

« We all do man,» answers Anthony, while looking dreamily onto the beautiful couple slow dancing and looking so in love, the little group truly don’t get how they didn’t see it earlier. Mr. Lallemant and Demaury are holding each other as if scared to let go. But at the same time, they seem so comfortable, like they’re in their own bubble, whispering closely and smiling every few seconds.

But soon this little bubble is burst when the song ends and, the DJ should be fired for cutting this moment short. A new song comes on and it’s freaking dubstep. The group groans at the choice of song...how can you dance to something like that?

« I hate dubstep. It’s so lame. »

« Do the DJ think we’re back in 2010 or what? »

« Guys please stop arguing about dubstep and look at Mr. Demaury, what the fuck is he doing ?! »

What a sight to see. Because very handsome, smiley and nice Mr. Demaury is now jumping around, throwing his arms in all directions, certainly trying to « dance » while Mr. Lallemant is hiding his face in his hand, crouching on the floor. Which do not seem to bother Mr. Demaury, who keeps on jumping around, jamming to the blasting music?

« … They’re so adorable. I want to be them. »

« They make me hope I’ll find my soulmate too. »

«Soulmates? »

« Please Anthony, you can’t tell me that they don’t look like they’re soulmate! »

« You’re right. They’ll spend their life together, you can feel it. »

Their first-class after winter break is with Mr. Demaury and there's this charged energy in the whole classroom. Because they can’t wait. They’re impatient. They’re all seated at their desks, their legs bouncing up and down while waiting for their teacher to come in. Which he does, a minute after the bell rang.

« Good morning everyone! »

« Good morning! »

« So, how was your winter break? I hope you all had fun. »

« Yes we did! »

« Ok, good! Then let’s start, shall we? »

And so, their class starts. They’re all very distracted during the whole period and it must shows, because, after only twenty minutes of trying to talk about literature, Mr. Demaury gives up, puts his book down on his desk before leaning against it.

« Ok guys, what’s going on? I know you just came back to school and it’s your last year so it’s stressful, but you’re a lot more dissipated today than usual. »

They all stay silent, nobody dares speak up. Until Jérôme raises his hand, making everyone groans.

« Yes, Jérôme? »

« So… we saw you and Mr. Lallemant at the school party before winter break. »

« Yes. » his voice immediately turned cold. « What about it? »

«Nothing! We’re really happy for you! »

« Oh… » he all a sudden seems shy about being so cold. « OK. But why are you all acting weird, if you don’t have a problem with it? »

« We’re teenagers, sir. We’re curious. I mean, two of our teachers are dating, we wanna know stuff! »

Mr. Demaury laughs at that, smacking lightly his thigh at the same time before rubbing his face and sighing loudly.

« Ok. Ask away. You’re allowed three questions. »

Everyone starts whispering before Jérôme tells them to «pick a fucking question guys we don’t have all day!» and then, Jérôme is turning back toward their teacher.

« Ok, first question: do you plan on getting married to Mr. Lallemant? »

« Yes, actually, I bought a ring. »

Everybody cheers and claps in the room, making Mr. Demaury blush even harder than he already was while answering the question.

« Ok, ok, shh! He doesn’t know guys so quiet down, his classroom is not that far. »

« Ok, second question: how did you get together ?»

« Wow, ok. So, eum..» he squares his shoulder a little, clear his throat before talking again, « You know how sometimes I don’t come for a whole week ? » they all nods, waiting, « Well, it’s because of eum.. some mental health problems, I have. » he exhales, shaking himself a little, « I’m bipolar. » he marks a pause, but nobody knows how to react. So Jérôme, being Jérôme, answers simply:

« Ok. We don’t know what to say but thank you for sharing this with us, I guess? »

Mr. Demaury laughs a little at that, before wiping his eyes slowly. « You’re welcome, I guess. Anyway, that wasn’t your question. » he takes a breath, crossing his arms in front of him, « So, we flirted for two, three weeks after we met and then we started dating. But we were young and I got scared because of something he said and then I fucked up. So, I tried to win him back and when it finally happened, I had an episode. When it passed, I tried to end thing with him, but he didn’t let me do it. He said that we’ll make it work, and we’ve been together since. So, yeah. Here’s your very personal answer. »

Jérôme doesn’t take another minute before asking his new questions, while everyone protests because he didn’t consult them.

« You said you met each other in high school, right? How did you two meet? »

A smile spread Mr. Demaury’s lips, while he looks fondly to his feet as if remembering how it went down years ago.

« I had just transferred school, I was walking in on my first day when I bumped into him. I saw him with his friends, laughing about something. Lucas didn’t see me. But I saw him. He was all I could see actually. »

#elu fic #eliottxlucas #eliott demaury #lucas lallemant #skamfr #skam france #skamfr fic #skam france fic #my first time writing something this long and posting it #i hope you'll like it

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chevasvandel · 4 years

Text

Blood & Bruises written by Chevas Vandel

Blood & Bruises

Written by

Chevas Vandel

(@chevasvandel)

Episode One: Baptism

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

-James Baldwin

I have always had this sneaking suspicion that the sun hated me. The only black child in my family to have ever gotten a sunburn while at the beach. “How in the hell is your skin doing this?” my mother asked in amazement. I played in the sun day after day and day after day it would eat my flesh. So much so that against her wishes my mother began to buy sunscreen.

No matter how much the sun disliked me I could never break away from the loving warmth of it. The way the sky looked during sunrise. The devastating mix of colors I would see as the sun made its way into our lives. My favorite days were the days at the beach. The sand in between my toes. My cousin's laughter. I remember the smell of cigars that our fathers would smoke. Our mothers laughing gayly, gossiping about the women they disliked either at work or at church or in our own family. I miss these days. I miss the simplicity. I miss the feeling of joy and unapologetic existence. When you are an adult there seems to be this expectation that everything you do has to be good. Like I am not allowed to fail. It’s debilitating. It’s exhausting. In fact, all I seem to ever be able to do is fail. Failure might in fact be a birthright of mine. My father failed to raise me. My mother failed to recognize my sexuality and in fact I think if I don’t bring it up she prefers to act as if my homosexuality doesn’t exist.

But the most important failure of mine is my failure to recognize my own right to respect myself. I have spent years and years letting people disrespect me so much to the point where I honestly felt like I wasn’t worthy of respect or love or desire or anything that makes life worth living. What is the purpose of life if we cannot love ourselves so deeply. What motivation do we have to live if we cannot do so confidently rooted in who we are?

I woke up that morning ready to meet the water. Ready for the sun to eat my flesh once again. I had spells to cast and energy to harness that only nature could bestow upon me. I woke up and did all the lame shit we have to do to maintain the health of our bodies: shower, brush teeth, pushups. I skip breakfast because I hate myself. I grab my purple mountain bike, my satchel and I am out of the door. The wooden cabin disappears behind me as I make my way through the trees. I breathe in the crisp spring air as I fly through the trees. I hear the sound of twigs snapping and leaves rustling beneath my tires. The sun hadn’t fully arisen yet. The sky was that mix of night and day that is such a gift to experience. In fact, dusk and dawn had always been my favorite times. There always seemed to be so much stillness in the twilight.

The closer I got to the water the more I began to focus on my mission. Spirituality. The preceding few years of my life had proven to be transformative to say the least. Dropping out of school. Trying a variety of recreational drugs. Lots of sex. I mean lots of it. Good sex, great sex, bad sex, risky sex, drunk sex, high sex. Losing friends, gaining friends, pretending that certain friends didn’t even exist anymore. I had lost myself only to regain myself only to lose myself yet again. I stand today envious of people who have never had their perception of themselves shaken and disrupted. Some people were the nerdy kid who became the nerdy adult. Or the pretty girl became the pretty woman. Or the jackass kid who became the jackass adult who never uses his blinker and drives like he’s the most important thing on the road. As time moved forward they became more realized evolutions of themselves, but for me it was different. I would get so far with my life and my relationship with myself and then something would inevitably happen that would bring me back to square one and I had to rebuild myself. Mixing and matching different personalities and identities trying to find the one that most held me together. Trying to find a version of myself that not only I could love and feel empowered by, but also could navigate social situations and be embraced by others. I find myself currently in my Invisible Man era: seeking seclusion and detachment from the social world and its politics. When you are black and gay it seems that everything you say and do is politicized for you. Even when you have the best intentions people seem to decide your intentions for you and then justify their assumptions later. Fuck that, I’d rather be alone. I am better alone. I can handle loneliness.

The sun had fully taken to the sky and now the whole forest was visible to me. My cabin was no longer in sight but I could hear the sounds of the river. My mountain bike was doing its best to pull my fat ass across the terrain. I loved nature. The smell of the trees. The sound of the twigs crunching underneath my bike. Bits of sunlight spilling through the trees and hitting my face as I finally reach the river.

There she was. So majestic and maternal. Quickly and with a childlike rush of joy, I put my bike up against the tree and pull off all of my clothes. All of them. I steady my breath and begin to descend into the water, being careful to center myself so as to not lose my balance and be swept away by the current. First the water rushes in between my toes and then past my ankles. I breathe in the day, inviting mother river to take me as she wishes. Slowly I descend more and more into the water breathing as steadily as I possibly could. She touches my knees. She touches my upper thigh, then my ass. My waist. My tummy. My chest. My neck. I still feel the rocks underneath my feet. The water rushes and cleans me. I feel like a baby tiger being licked clean by her mother. I dig my feet into the rocks and gently bring my head down and up out of the water. I feel energy. I feel alive. I feel less defined by trauma.

Snap!

I jolt my head around so quickly I could have broken my own neck. It was three white kids running as quickly as they could, one had my bike, the other my clothes.

“YOU LITTLE ASSHOLES!” I scream as I fight against the current to get my way back to shore.

The laughter dissipating with each second I could faintly make out the tone of one of their voices. It was Billy Putnam, son of Jon Putnam (the asshole who called me a faggot in second grade) Glad to see he was passing down the family trade of being a pain in my black ass.

I fought against the river and ran as hard as I could, but by the time I got on land they were gone. The forest was so large and dense with redwoods that it was too easy to hide. They could be anywhere at this point. I stood there “bucket naked” as my nephew would say. The crisp spring air kissing me in parts of my body only the river had known just a second ago. The anger I felt began to dissipate into acceptance and that acceptance back into purpose. The waste of sperms had taken my clothes and my bike, but at least the little shits had left my keys and my satchel. I breathe slowly and purposefully. As each second passed I calmed my nerves. I remembered my purpose and what I had come there to do.

“I don’t have much time.” I think to myself.

I grab my satchel and pull out three things: my leather-bound journal, a brand new expensive pen filled with blue ink, and a lighter. I make my way with all my tools towards the largest rock with the flattest bed I could find. Facing the river that just baptized me, I opened up my notebook to a fresh new page. I lick the end of my pen which somehow already has stained my fingers blue. I station the lighter on the spine of the notebook.

“Breathe, Kai…” I tell myself, “breathe and focus…”

I have always loved the written word. The pen hits the page like a bullet to flesh.

I am not this body, I write feverishly. I am the energy that lives within it. I am not this body.

The blue ink sings across the page as I transfer my spirit through my fingertips into these words. I repeat this phrase on the paper attaining more and more a sense of power with each repetition.

I am not this body. I am the energy that lives within it.

Once the page was completely filled, I ripped them out of the journal. I put the pen through my course, kinky hair knowing that it won’t move anywhere. I grab the white lighter and light the northeast corner of the page. My heart dances to see the flame eat the page I had just encrusted with my emotion. I repeat to myself over and over, I am not this body, I am the energy that lives within it.

This has always been my method of meditation. Writing down whatever it was that I needed validated within myself and then burning that bitch off. It’s like burning off a spiritual wart. Wanting and desiring and putting so much emotion into something and then destroying it right in front of yourself. This personal ritual satisfies something in me. Maybe I am a pyromaniac satisfying some small need to see things I love burned down?

I watched as the flames slowly built on the page. My heart felt light. My eyes enviously watched the fire spread itself over the blue ink and the yellow paper. The power of fire. The freedom to burn something. To overtake it and use it to fuel you. This is always what I hoped to emulate with the painful things in my own life. To burn it and as it disintegrates into ashes use it to fuel myself. I feel powerful with this burning page in my hand. I feel like a higher resolution of myself. Clearer.

I toss the burning paper on the ground and watch as the flame burns the rest of the paper. Soon the paper is gone. Then the flame is too. It’s quiet again in my mind. I sit in the stillness. My feet move and feel the texture of the smooth rock. Dirt and leaves and stuck in between my toes. I muster a laugh as I wonder how insane I must look. Some random negro, naked as the day I was born skinny dipping in the river and burning shit in the middle of the woods.

“It’s time to go” I feel all the parts of myself agree with me. Lighter, pen, notebook, keys. I grab all of my materials and stare into the forest. By now the current in the river picked up and I could hear her screaming at me as if to say goodbye. I take a deep breath and march forward back into the woods. Left foot. Right foot.

I am vigilant with each step I take making sure to do my best to protect my bare feet as I pass each tree. I think of all the things that could go wrong. I could be seen and charged as a public sex offender. I could be bitten by a snake or a spider or any other poisonous animal. There are bears in this forest. Do you see how quickly doubt can re enter your mind? Just a second ago I felt powerful and sure in my ability to manifest. Now at the mercy of the earth, I could feel the insecurity creep back into my heart. My breathing began to thin. My mind began to descend into doubt. Each step I took became increasingly more difficult. Beads of sweat began to trickle down my face. My mouth was dry. My palms were clammy. I was now forcibly breathing through my mouth.

One by one each item I had been carrying slipped through my fingertips. First my keys, then my notebook, then my pen. As my lighter hit the soil so did I. I laid there as helpless as a newborn baby. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. I couldn’t help but freak out. I couldn’t move a single part of my body. Was the sky was turning black or was it just my eyes rolling to the back of my head?

“Am I having a stroke?” I thought to myself.

I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel everything. The dirt beneath me felt magnetic, pulling me to the ground with no intention of ever setting me free. I felt my body turn into a cage trapping my desperate spirit. My breath was growing thinner and thinner. It felt like someone had put a plastic bag over my head and I was slowly suffocating to death. My lungs were burning. My body was almost lifeless. I was going to die. I was going to die.

“Well if I am going to die, I thought to myself, I can’t go like this. With insecurity.”

At this point I could have just been high from the lack of oxygen. But with the little focus I could muster… With the little stillness I had left… I focused… and I thought to myself… I am not this body… I am the energy that lives within it…

I am not this body… I am the energy that lives within it...

#bloodandbruises #chevasvandel #fiction #creativewriting

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laceyeb · 4 years

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Plz take this constructive observation in the positive way it's offered. Change doesn't occur unless we're honest w ourselves & our lifestyle choices. You often post pics of your food & most of the food groups are processed white carbs & sat fats. Your Thanksgiving dinner pic iirc had dk meat turkey, mac n' cheese, potatoes, & a white flour roll. Your most recent post shows cheese-stuffed shells & bread. All yummy. But where are the green & RAINBOW veggies? More colors = >nutrition &

I have no doubt that you think you’re being positively constructive. Unfortunately for you, you’re wrong. Let me tell you why.

I don’t know what makes you think you know anything about my eating habits and nutrition. In the past three months, I have posted pictures of 5 meals. Trust me. I went back and counted. That’s how much you pissed me off. Here’s some quick math: Let’s assume I eat three meals a day and did so for the last 3 months (let’s call it 90 days). That’s 270 meals. You saw five. That’s 1.9% of the meals I’ve eaten in the last three months. I’ll be generous and round it up to 2%. So based on the last 2% of the meals I’ve eaten, you have all the information you need to know about my nutrition and feel justified, knowing literally no other information about what/how I eat, to give me advice. Would you want to be judged about something you do when the person making the judgement has 2% of the information? No, you wouldn’t.

I obviously don’t show you everything I eat. Why would I? I post the things that I want to. Shockingly enough, it’s probably going to be “unhealthy” things because that’s what I feel like showing. I don’t post a picture of the fruit I have every day with my lunch. Doesn’t mean I don’t have it. I do. You just don’t know that.

For the record, I had a side of green beans with that cheese shells meal. It wasn’t in the picture because I don’t like my food touching and I put them in a separate bowl. They were still there. When I had some of the cheese shells for left overs, I had cucumber slices on the side. But I didn’t take a picture and post those, so I didn’t eat them, right?

I’ve got cucumbers, carrots, green peppers, oranges, bananas, apples, frozen fruit, etc. all in my kitchen right at this very moment. I eat them all the time. But I don’t post those things because I only post things when I feel like it and you’re using that 2% of information to make judgments about me.

And god forbid I post a picture of my Thanksgiving dinner. (Why you are so worked up about my Thanksgiving dinner two months later is beyond me. Are you the same person who sends me messages telling me I can’t be gay because I liked Enrique two years ago?) OF COURSE that’s what I was eating for Thanksgiving. That’s one day out of the entire year. Do you think that’s what I eat every fucking day?!

And you know what’s crazy? I’m not even mad about anything yet. The only reason I’m responding (and not just deleting/ignoring) is because you said, “Change doesn’t occur unless we’re honest with ourselves and our lifestyle choices.”

Let’s break that down, shall we?

1) I went back and skimmed that last post I made. Unless I’m much mistaken, I didn’t say I’m trying to change anything. I said that I’ve been going back to the gym and I’ve been really excited and I wanted to share the motivation behind that (which has absolutely nothing to do with nutrition or weight loss, almost deliberately so). I did say that last time I was going to the gym regularly I lost but then regained a lot of weight. I wanted to change why I was going to the gym because it didn’t work last time. That’s the only reference I made to change. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

2) Again referring to the last time I was going to the gym regularly and losing weight, I did adjust my lifestyle choices. I chose to work out for three and a half hours a day and eat at most 1000 calories per day. Since you’re the expert apparently, you tell me if that was a good “lifestyle choice.” I just went online and found that based on my current age, height, weight, and gender, and a “slightly active” lifestyle, I should be eating 1957 calories per day to lose weight. I put in the info for my approximate weight last time. 1846 calories per day to lose weight. So 1000 calories or less per day doesn’t sound like a great lifestyle choice to me. Eating three good meals a day (the vast majority of which I don’t share with you) seems like a better lifestyle choice if you ask me.

3) Lastly, and most importantly, don’t you dare tell me that I need to be more honest with myself. In any way, shape, or form. And while I know that you’re talking primarily about nutrition, I’m looking in all areas of life. I genuinely don’t think I could be more honest with myself if I tried. I have done more personal growth in the last 3 years of my life than in the whole other 25 put together. I have changed and learned more about myself than I ever thought possible because I am honest with myself. Because I sit down and write in my journal when I have a bad day. Because I’m trying to get better at asking for help, something that is really hard for me. Because I’ve learned as much as I can about depression and anxiety and OCD so I know what I can do to take care of myself. Because I fight with myself on an almost daily basis, telling myself that who I am is okay and not bad or wrong or unworthy of love. Because I’ve come to understand that what I once called nutrition is actually far from it. And now if I do actually want to see anything resembling change, it’s going to be much much slower. And that’s hard, but I’ve accepted that that’s okay and it took me a very long time to get here.

That’s me being honest with myself and it has absolutely nothing to do with how many fucking vegetables I eat.

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gascon-en-exil · 5 years

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FE16 Black Eagles (Edelgard) Liveblogging

Chapters 15-16. The plot, among other things, explodes.

I was wondering where all the Eagles character paralogues were, and all of sudden come Chapter 15 three of them get dumped on you. Edelgard’s is a fight on the border against Nader and the Almyran remnant. Wyvern riders are unusually overpowered in this game, even as enemies. They’re not a unit type one expects to be so fast. Hubert goes back to the Sealed Forest to save Those Who Slither from their own failed creations. Both of these paralogues play up Hubert’s own talent for slithering in the dark: the first because it’s heavily implied that he poisoned Hilda’s brother so he’d have to rely on the Empire to push back the Almyrans, and the second because he’s been investigating Those Who Slither on the side all the while your army is being strong-armed into doing their bidding.

Petra and Bernadetta’s paralogue meanwhile has been the first map on this route that I haven’t seen before, a heavily forested section of Brigid. Bernadetta’s role there is almost completely random, but it comes together in the end in a way that feels satisfying. The chapter itself on the other hand features a cheap fakeout win condition, thankfully avoidable via Divine Pulse, and another appearance by the OP Catherine.

Playable kills: Flayn and Seteth from the church, Felix and Ingrid from the Lions. Now that the Alliance portion of the story is done I notice that Raphael and Lorenz skipped out on showing up this time, along with Marianne who doesn’t appear in the Lions’ Part 2 either. Actually, I’ve read that she’s the only playable character who doesn’t appear in Part 2 at all unless she’s in your army, with the implication that her depression and/or the dark story surrounding her Crest killed her or drove her to suicide in the timeskip. That’s...something.

I’ve also read that if you don’t recruit Shamir and Alois they show up in Chapter 15 to be killed...and that Manuela and Hanneman only do so on the Lions route in Dimitri’s paralogue for some reason. Weird.

I can confirm that the dark merchant does not sell Dark Seals. He’s only available in the second to last exploration month of Edelgard’s route, so you can’t get much use out of him anyway. Sucks for Hubert, but if I’m understanding correctly how you can buy classes with Renown the next time I use him I can just certify him for dark mage that way and get one seal for dark bishop.

The brevity of this route sticks out more and more the closer I get to the end. Not so much for the story which is moving along at a brisk pace to match Edelgard’s resolve and concrete goal in contrast to Dimitri throwing everyone off with his unresolved personal issues, but for the gameplay. A bunch of my units aren’t going to make it master classes at this rate, and I’m tempted to not even touch Edelgard’s emperor class when it randomly becomes available after Chapter 15 (seriously, her armor just arrives from the capital? Are we timing lord promotions by the speed of parcel delivery now?) because there’s no timing and making her armored is kind of awful.

Story/Character observations

Chapter 15 opens with a bizarre interlude of Byleth coming upon Edelgard in her room at night, and an attempt at humanizing her by...telling us that she draws pictures of Byleth. That’s not even organic Avatar worship, come on. From what I remember her A support is more of the same, so I’m not holding out much hope for her big bi S rank.

Thankfully her two dorky subordinates salvage the character-based charm of this route. Ferdinand pokes a hole in the fourth wall and asks Byleth if they’ve thought about a world in which they chose another house or chose to side with the church, and while I can see the similarities with Conquest constantly dumping on Corrin’s choice this incident is isolated enough that I’m not feeling condescended to. Ferdinand’s A support with Byleth reveals that the first king of Faerghus - you know, the one with the very close *nudge nudge wink wink* friend akin to Felix - had a second very close friend who was just as indispensible but didn’t desire notoriety and so didn’t make it into many history books. Ferdinand compares this to what both he and Byleth are to Edelgard (I imagine this support is phrased very differently if gotten on any other route), but my mind went right to Kris, the shadow Avatar at Marth’s side who got left out of the original game historical accounts. While I believe that Byleth’s ending on Edelgard’s route actually is fairly out of the public eye, in other routes they’re either the archbishop or the ruler of the united continent. Byleth is very much not that type of Avatar who can just disappear at the end because how else could they sleep with the whole cast?

I can’t forget about Hubert either. Apparently he’s the one who gives Those Who Slither their infamously unwieldy name - thanks a lot, Hubie - during his investigations on how to out-evil them. When he’s not doing that he’s engaging in absurdly cute support conversations with Ferdinand where they’re both blushing and exchanging gifts with romantic music in the background. I also noted that they’re one of the couples who get special meal dialogue that evolves along with their supports. See, this is what I mean when I say that M/M and F/F subtext are on completely different playing fields. Dorothea will just come out and ask Manuela if they can live together and forget about finding men, or give Ingrid a ring and joke about owning her, etc. For the guys it’s watching them sputteringly make friendly gestures toward one another while blushing, or make promises to die together, or insist on the other using their given name (but in private!) to indicate that there’s going to be dick touching.

Nader dies during Edelgard’s paralogue. In combination with Judith’s death in Chapter 13 I think this is meant to indicate that this is the one non-Deer route that does not feature a large Almyran invasion after the credits roll. Even if you choose not to kill Claude as I did, without any of his close allies (who are also his parents, in the case of those two?) the implication is that he won’t have the strength to pursue his own dreams of continental conquest. Good on him to outright admit that he has them to Edelgard, though.

Speaking of the game admitting things that otherwise only go implied, let’s talk about those explosions. The Black Eagle Strike Force feints toward Fhirdiad but moves instead to conquer Arianrhod, with Edelgard and Hubert’s target being specifically Cornelia. Cornelia in this route hasn’t betrayed Faerghus to the Empire yet, but according to Arundel she was planning to as a member of Those Who Slither despite lacking their characteristic pallor. Arundel responds by using “pillars of light” - more likely those anachronistic ballistic missiles seen in a church route cutscene - to blast the fortress into oblivion and kill a bunch of people inside.I’m ignoring how petty it seems of Arundel/Thales to nuke a valuable military installation just to get revenge on Edelgard for killing a minion who was going to help Edelgard do what she’s about to do in the last two chapters anyway. No, what fascinates me about this situation is how Edelgard and Hubert immediately spin this for the rest of their army, saying it was Rhea’s doing and using it to motivate the Strike Force to conquer Fhirdiad as quickly as possible. Ever since I got her C support I’ve been curious as to why Edelgard harbors so much personal hatred for the church when Those Who Slither were the ones responsible for torturing her and her siblings for Crest research. Here she’s deliberately making that misdirection, which....doesn’t answer my question at all but does at least demonstrate that the writers are aware of it. How it will all play out, or if this is something that only makes sense when considering information learned from the church and/or Deer routes is yet to be determined.

Looking at this from the perspective of the Strike Force though I can see why they’d need some additional pushing to get invested in how evil Rhea is. She’s done very little so far to follow up on her creepy authoritarian vibes from Part 1, and the scene of her grieving Seteth and Flayn’s deaths only makes her regain some sympathy because of how personally she takes their loss. They have to be saving it all up for the finale. There will have to something to the antagonists we’re about to fight, because so far DImitri in this route has been even more of a non-entity. Of course I know that Chapter 17 brings not one but two flavors of gay tragedy, but in-universe I doubt anyone on the Strike force is squeeing over the Tempest King and his very devoted vassal.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Spoilers

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