#parts of it are semi-autobiographical
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So I was reading Van Loon's Lives (a rather interesting book from the 1940s in which a fictionalized version of the author invites various long-dead historical figures to dinner), and somehow this line from the Theodora & Queen Elizabeth I dinner party got me. I like the idea of someone inventing a potato. Like, I just imagine some chemist in a lab somewhere playing with beakers and test tubes, and then some Erlenmeyer flask explodes in a cloud of sparkles to reveal a single potato.
#it's an interesting book (it was written in the early 40s and set in the early 30s#so there are a lot of allusions to then-contemporary events like the rise of fascism in Europe#parts of it are semi-autobiographical#and the dinner parties themselves are pretty short; most of the book consists of historical essays#presented as information Van Loon gives to his friend to prepare him for dinner)#as far as Byzantium goes it's a fairly cute (and thankfully normal and balanced) portrayal of Theodora#although I will complain that the female historical figures are not as well-written as the men (but it's the 40s#so)#anyway it's free on archive.org if you want to check it out
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"i strolled into the kitchen, dropped a raw egg into a teacup of raw hamburger, mixed it up and ate it." HUH?!!!!
#GIRL WHAT#esther greenwood is like i hate suburban white america [that i'm part of] and then does shit like this#i literally fucking hate white women so fucking much it's unreal#this book epitomizes the horrible pseudo feminist but in reality anti feminist ultra gender roles of ''girl dinner'' memes and the like#i'm guessing it's supposed to be a critique by placing u into that mindset so u can be horrified (or relate to it?? i suppose???)#but the fact that it's semi autobiographical... i'm just like bro. r u for real rn. sylvia u rly lived like this?#tbj
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For anyone who’s already seen Boy and the Heron i found this really interesting article where Ghibli Boss/Producer Suzuki was interviewed recently by indie wire and explains the background of the characters from the new Ghibli film, I’ve copied the full article below or you can click the link to go to the interview but once again it contains so many spoilers
‘The Boy and the Heron’ Is So Personal, Hayao Miyazaki Needed a Year to Grieve Before Pivoting in a New Direction
Miyazaki came out of retirement for his first film in a decade, about his friendships at Ghibli with the late co-founder/director Takahata and co-founder/producer Suzuki.
When Hayao Miyazaki pitched “The Boy and the Heron” (GKids, now in select L.A. and NYC theaters) to Studio Ghibli co-founder/producer Toshio Suzuki in 2016, he asked permission to make the story about himself. This took Suzuki — his friend of nearly 40 years at the time — by surprise; the legendary anime director isn’t known for getting so personal. And yet this aligned perfectly with the notion that Ghibli films are devoted to reliving memories.
“I agree that it is Miyazaki’s most personal film because he actually told me,” Suzuki told IndieWire over Zoom through an interpreter. Not only is “The Boy and the Heron” inspired by Miyazaki’s childhood (he endured the firebombing of Japan during World War II and his father was director of the family’s aircraft manufacturing factory), but also his career at Ghibli with his two closest friends: the late studio co-founder/director Isao Takahata (“Grave of the Fireflies”) and Suzuki.
“Miyazaki is Mahito [the 12-year-old protagonist voiced by Luca Padovan in the English-language version], Takahata is the great uncle [voiced by Mark Hamill], and the gray heron [voiced by Robert Pattinson] is me,” Suzuki added. “So I asked him why. He said [Takahata] discovered his talent and added him to the staff. I think Takahata san was the one who helped him develop his ability. On the other hand, the relationship between the boy and the [heron] is a relationship where they don’t give in to each other, push and pull.”
Collectively, it’s a lot to unpack: Miyazaki came out of retirement for the second time after “The Wind Rises” (2013) to make his 12th feature — the semi-autobiographical, hand-drawn fantasy for his grandchildren. It’s about destruction, loss, and rebuilding a better future through imagination, inspired by the novel he adored as a child (“How Do You Live?”).
Mahito loses his mother in the firebombing of Japan and relocates to the countryside, where his father (voiced by Christian Bale), who runs an air munitions factory, marries his sister-in-law, Natsuko (voiced by Gemma Chan). Traumatized, angry, and confused, the boy encounters a talking heron (part bird, part man), who tells him that his mother is still alive and guides him to an alternate world in a magical tower shared by the living and the dead. There he encounters his great uncle, the architect of the tower, and reunites with both his mother (voiced by Karen Fukuhara) and Natsuko.
At first, Suzuki resisted green-lighting “The Boy and the Heron” because of Miyazaki’s age (he’s 82) and the great expense (it is arguably Japan’s most expensive film but has made the equivalent of nearly $80 million at the country’s box office). Yet Miyazaki wore down his resistance with his enthusiasm and impressive storyboarding. The film took seven years to complete, and Suzuki needed to hire some of Japan’s most talented animators outside of Ghibli to handle the task (including supervising animator Takeshi Honda of “Neon Genesis Evangelion” fame). With diminished stamina and failing eyesight, Miyazaki was unable to oversee the production in the same manner as when he was at the height of his creative powers and relied on Honda to draw, redraw, and review under close advisement.
But with the death of Takahata in 20018, a grief-stricken Miyazaki was forced to scale back the role of the great uncle in the story, who had previously been more central to the boy’s life. “After Takahata passed away, he wasn’t able to continue with that story, so he changed the narrative and it became the relationship between the boy and the Heron,” Suzuki continued. “And in his mind, initially, the Heron was something that symbolizes the eeriness of the mansion and that tower, even ominous, that he goes to during war time. But he changed it to this sort of budding friendship between the boy and the Heron.”
Miyazaki first toyed with the idea of exploring the theme of friendship in “The Wind Rises” (inspired by real-life fighter design engineer Jiro Horikoshi during World War II) before abandoning it. “So this time around, when the Heron became the centerpiece of the story, and he came with the storyboards, I was careful for him to not portray me in a bad way,” Suzuki said. “Having said that, I’ve known Miyazaki for 45 years. I remember everything about him. There are things that only I know. There are things that only the two of us know. And he remembers all these small details, which I was very impressed with.”
For example, when Mahito and the Heron sit and chat at the house of Kiriko (voiced by Florence Pugh), a younger, seafaring version of one of the old maids, it is a recreation of the way Miyazaki and Suzuki would meet. “The place that we do our meetings, where we have our conversation is at his studio, his atelier,” he added. “And he has this like large table, but we don’t sit facing each other, we sit next to each other, and we never look at each other when we talk. And what we discussed was very similar.”
During production, Suzuki became impatient to see the new storyboards with the great uncle. It seemed Miyazaki was intentionally stalling while grieving about Takahata. “My question was: ‘So when is the great uncle going to appear?'” said Suzuki. “He built this great character, but he never appears in the storyboards that he would bring me. But it took him actually about a year after the passing of Takahata that he was able to draw that character into the storyboards in the second half of the story.
“And the most surprising thing for me was when I saw the storyboard where Mahito was asked by his great uncle to carry on with this work, this legacy, and he says no — he declines the offer. Miyazaki was someone who followed the path of Takahata for so many years, and I thought it was a huge thing for him [to follow a different path].”
Meanwhile, Suzuki confirmed that Miyazaki has not retired. The film has given the director renewed confidence to keep working on other stories. However, Miyazaki can’t focus on new ideas while “The Boy and the Heron” remains in theaters. “He needs to empty his mind again,” Suzuki said, “and then when he’s emptied his mind with a blank canvas, he usually comes up with new ideas. So we have to wait a little more.”
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Happy birthday, Leslie Feinberg! (September 1, 1949)
A prominent butch lesbian author and activist, Leslie Feinberg grew up in Buffalo, New York in a working class Jewish family. Ze discovered hir sexuality sometime in hir teens, and ze began frequenting Buffalo's gay bars. Ze became involved in radical politics in hir twenties, joining the Workers World Party and becoming a contributor and later editor of its newspaper. Ze would take part in many radical actions and demonstrations both in Buffalo and after moving to New York City. Hir experiences as a butch lesbian in Buffalo and NYC informed the semi-autobiographical Stone Butch Blues, hir most famous work, which went on to have an extremely influential place in the lesbian community. Ze also wrote Transgender Warriors, an influential work of popular history on the subject of gender, as well as other books and writings related to sex, gender, and revolutionary politics. Feinberg died in 2014, hir final words being a plea to remember hir as a revolutionary communist. Ze was later honored as an inaugural inductee to the National LGBT Wall of Honor.
“Like racism and all forms of prejudice, bigotry against transgendered people is a deadly carcinogen. We are pitted against each other in order to keep us from seeing each other as allies. Genuine bonds of solidarity can be forged between people who respect each other's differences and are willing to fight their enemy together. We are the class that does the work of the world, and can revolutionize it. We can win true liberation.”
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BSD VS LITERATURE: NO LONGER HUMAN
The second entry in my long running series to analyze every single book referenced in Bungou Stray Dogs, to try piece together the author’s intended meaning in referencing the work.
Osamu Dazai’s ability name comes from the author’s final novel “No Longer Human”, you may have heard of it. The novel contains several events from the author’s real life, but is considered semi-autobiographical because it depicts the life of a fictional character “Yozo” who much like the real life author attempted suicide a total of five times in his life before utlimately succeeding. Many believe the book to be his will as Dazai killed himself shortly after the last part of the book was published. As for the connection to the fictional character, more under the cut.
1. Disqualified from Being Human
Dazai as a character borrows several traits from Yozo the protagonist of the novel. He has the same habit of clowning and engaging others in a false persona, while it happens mostly offscreen the audience and Dazai’s coworkers are aware of the fact he regularly indulges himself in vices like drinking, having illicit relationships with women (its often referenced he has a long line of exes and women he’s left upset over him) and that he’s also constantly in debt.
Deeper than those surface level traits though, Dazai shares the same motivation as Yozo for his antics. They are both people who feel utterly alienated from the people around them, unable to connect with their thoughts and feelings and because of that they resort to always engaging them in a false, and comedic facade. They are fundamentally uncomfortable with ever presenting their true selves around others.
As a child I had absolutely no notion of what others, even members of my own family, might be suffering from or what they were thinking. I was aware of my own unspeakable fears and embarrassments. Before anyone realized it, I had become an accomplished clown, a child who never spoke a single word. No Longer Human.
Dazai is described as a child in the same way by Oda, who is arguably the character who knows him best. Even with Oda though, and the rest of the Buraiha trio as a whole though they were friends it carries the tragedy that they never were truly honest with one another, Oda never overstepped the clear boundaries between him and Dazai, Ango never let either of them into the secret that he was a government spy all along. Even that friendship which Dazai found comfortable, and was so significant to him he changed his entire life’s past around Oda’s dying words, he still placed an uncilimbable wall between the two of them.
“I thought you were similiar to Dazai at first, rushing into battle and wishing for death without even considering the value of your own life. But he’s different. He’s sharp witted, with a mind like a steel trap. And he’s just a child - a sobbing child abandoned in the darkness of a world far emptier than the one we’re seeing.”
He was too smart for his own good. That was why he was always alone. The reason why Ango and I were unable to be by his side was that we understood the solitude that surrounded him, and we never stepped inside no matter how close we stood.
But in that moment I kind of regretted not stepping in and invading that solitude. Bungo Stray Dogs, Volume 2.
There’s a supposed difference in Yozo, who is a drunken layabout constantly in debt who fails out of college and Dazai the super genius who is apparently one of the smartest members of the cast, but honestly if you peel back the layers of Dazai’s “Superhuman / Godlike Genius” status his and Yozo’s behaviors and treatment of other people is actually pretty similar.
Here is the secret of No Longer Human that a lot of readers miss in their interpretation. While Yozo can be a sympathetic character, because he’s genuinely miserable in his life, and the way he tells his story is highly relatable to the unhappiness of many readers, Yozo sucks.
If you look at his actions outside of his self-pitying narration, Yozo is a serial manipulator of people, especially those with a status weaker than him in society (women, and even chidlren) he strings them along often taking money from them until he abandons them. Yozo is considered to be so pretty and likable, people often relate to his misery and give him what he wants without him giving anything in return.
There’s four major women he interacts with in the novel. A married women he gets to pay for his drinks a couple of times, doesn’t see for months, and then commits suicide with her. His reaction to her death is very minimal and he doesn’t even seem to mourn her. Then, he becomes a kept man for a woman with a child for awhile gets her to pay for his drinking habit, has multiple affairs on her while living at their house (or at least it’s implied).He also comes to view the child as an enemy of his.
“I would like my real Daddy back.”
I felt dizzy with shock. An enemy. Was I Shigeko’s enemy, or was she mine?
No Longer Human.
He abandons them. (Surprise, surprise). Then moves on to marry a seventeen year old girl, specifically because she is a virgin. I probably don’t have to mention the predatory subtext there.
Yoshiko’s pale face was smiling as she sat there inside the dimly lit shop. What a holy thing uncorrupted virginity is, I thought. I had never slept with a virgin, a girl younger than myself. I’d marry her. [...] I made up my mind on the spot: it was a then-and-there decision, and I did not hesitate to steal the flower. No Longer Human.
That wife then gets raped and not only does Yozo feel little to no sympathy for her whatsoever, he then proceeds to just leave and abandon her because his image of her as a perfect image is ruined. He even refers to her as a possession he lost far earlier on in the novel.
Once in a while, it is true I have experienced a vague sense of regret at losing something, but never strongly enough to affirm positively, or to contest with others my rights of possession. This was so true of me that some years later, I even watched in silence when my own wife was violated. No Longer Human.
The last woman he gets involved with only because he has a morphine addiction and he wants to string her along so she can keep supplying him with morphine. If you strip away the thin veneer of Dazai as a master manipulator and superhuman genius, you are just left with his actions which include his constant manipulation of other people (children younger and more vulnerable than him) and even his own allies. He is a user, much in the same way Yozo is. This is just named characters, it’s implied offscreen that Dazai has Yozo’s same habit of burning through relationships and women like jet fuel.
Of course, there is a tragic reason for Yozo’s behavior it is implied he was violated by a female servant as a child, but that further adds onto the underlying point of the novel that Yozo’s genuinely miserable but he’s also the architect of his own misery. He is a victim who basically continues the cycle of abuse. His two primary methods of interacting with people is either manipulating them / stringing them along, or abandoning them. Even the Dazai who works at the agency keeps Akutagawa his biggest victim wearing the coat that Mori Gave him that represents the cycle of abuse just... wrapped around his little finger because it’s more convenient to use and dispose of him that way.
Akutagawa’s so insanely devoted to Dazai that he believes being abandoned was just a secret little test and if he performs well than he’ll finally get the carrot that Dazai has been dangling in front of his head for a long time. Dazai’s treatment of Akutagawa as someone to just conveniently use and then dispose of is something that leads to Akutagawa getting himself killed trying to earn that praise.
Dazai and Yozo have a similiar problem where they are pitiable in the fact they are victims themselves, they have been used in the past and it’s left them feeling alienated and unable to connect with others, but then they jump right into treating others as less than human too. Dazai has this strange paradox where he scolds Dostoevsky for believing in god and seeing himself as an agent of god or some kind of omniscient manipulator and that the real people who make a difference in the world are the people living in the world and struggling in it but Dazai... still doesn’t see himself as one of those people. Dazai’s like “You shouldn’t manipulate people like pieces on a gameboard...” but Dazai still views himself as one of the players sitting and watching things from on high rather than one of the pieces.
Dazai and Yozo are incapable of seeing themselves as human beings and eternally feel like outsiders when they try to be around others. However, at the same time they give no respect to the humanity or the feelings of other people. They don’t treat others like humans. Which is why they are essentially the architects of their own misery, they are alone because they choose continually over and over to either only engage in other people with lives, or treat relationships as transactional. These flaws of Dazai’s have been toned down since the dark age, but even Detective Agency Dazai still has this habit of looking down on other people. He has good intentions he tries to live by, but also in crisis situations tends to fall back on old habits.
2. Lover’s Suicide
Finally, there’s two relationships in the book that parallels Dazai’s two most significant relationships in the story. The tragedy of Oda in the dark era, actually mirrors what was Yozo’s most significant suicide attempt in the book. Yozo runs out of money and on a whim attempts to commit suicide with a married woman who had been more or less a longtime but distant acquiantance.
We threw ourselves into the sea at Kamakura that night. She untied her sash saying she had borrowed it from a friend at the cafe, and left it folded neatly on a rock. I removed my coat and put it in the same spot. We entered the water together.
She died. I was saved. No Longer Human.
This event mirrors the defining tragedy of Dazai’s backstory as depicted in the second light novel, and his reason for leaving the mafia. Essentially, Dazai finally becomes close to someone his longtime acquaintance Oda, who unlike him has a reason to live in raising children and dreaming of one day becoming an author. However, by the end of the novel it’s Oda who commits suicide and Dazai who lives.
“You’re such an idiot, Odasaku. The biggest idiot I know.”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to die.”
“I know.”
Bungo Stray Dogs, Vol. 2
If you want to sprinkle in an additional homosexual subtext what Oda basically does is commit a lover’s suicide with someone else, by choosing to die with Gide. Which means that not only does Dazai survive while Oda dies, but Oda chose to commit a lover’s suicide with someone other than him.
Then there is Yozo’s acquiantance to longtime friend Horiki. HOriki is his only real significant friend in the novel, but Yozo absolutely despises him. Nothing healthy ever comes from their relationship, he gets Yozo addicted on cigarettes and alcohol, he drags him to secret communist meetings, however Yozo who frequently just abandons people never really gets rid of him.
Horiki and myself. Despising each other as we did, we were constantly together, thereby degrading ourselves. If that is what the world calls friendship, the relationships between Horiki and myself were undoutably those of friendship. No Longer Human.
The reason being that Yozo despite loathing Horiki senses that the two of them are alike in nature. There’s also something to be said about Yozo getting along more naturally with someone he hates, rather than the people in his life who constantly attempt to love him.
Horiki and myself. Though outwardly he appeared to be a human being like the rest, I sometimes felt he was exactly like myself. No Longer Human.
His relationship with Horiki reflects both the partnership of the double black duo, two individuals who loathe each other but had near perfect cooperation in their teamwork but also the foiling between Chuuya and Dazai. They are both people who do not view themselves as human, Chuuya because of the mystery of his origins as the host of Arahabaki and Dazai because his intelligence leaves him feelings isolated from the world.
He looked up in the direction of the sudden voice. It was a familiar voice, one that belonged to the person he hated most in this world.
Your birth itself was a mistake. We’re the same. Is there a really a point to suffering through all that pain for a life that isn’t real?”
The voice was taunting him.
[...]
“Screw you Dazi.”
Chuuya wanted nothing more than to slice off the ear the voice was whispering right into. He could see Dazai’s wavering shadow by his side, and he wanted to gauge out his eyes.
“That’s just proof that you at least somewhat believe what I’m saying. Because deep down inside you’re the same as me.”
Like, they hate each other, but they hate each other for the real person they are deep down on the inside. Which results in him and Chuuya having an entirely antagonistic relationship and yet at the same time Chuuya is the one person that Dazai can’t really bullshit or lie to, because sharing so much in common gives Chuuya some insight into Dazai’s darker tendencies.
Which results in a relationship where neither of them like each other, and yet both of them are just a little bit obsessed with each other. Despising each other and constantly together.
So in summary, No Longer Human is a work about a character’s difficulty to form relationships with others because not only do they not see themselves as human they also treat the others around them as lesser than humans. Yozo is a character clearly stuck in that cycle of abuse, whereas Dazai Osamu himself is someone struggling in the story to break that cycle and curb his own manipulative tendencies inside of himself, ironically because of the close relatonship he had formed with the one person he was ever even a little bit honest with Odasaku.
#dazai osamu#bsd meta#bungou stray dogs#no longer human#bungou stray dogs meta#bsd dazai#chuuya nakahara#Oda Sakunosuke#japanese literature#dazai meta
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Get to know you game! Answer the questions and tag 9 people you want to know better.
tagged by @livepoultryfreshkilled hiiiii<3 i've never been tagged in one of these! or i have but then i forgor to do it. alas
Last song listened to: not counting background music and soundtracks from watching tv or youtube i believe i was listening to The Communists Have the Music by They Might Be Giants a few days ago? just because the sick ass music video popped up on my youtube tab and i was wasting time. yes i can go days without willingly listening to music sorry to the musicheads everywhere
Currently reading: still Las Malas by Camila Sosa Villada. yes it's been months and i am still trying to get through this really short and easy read. it's an unbelievably good book though if you speak spanish you should read it. rough and raw semi-autobiographical travesti magical realism
Currently watching: actively i've been binging GLOW i have like two episodes left i got really hooked! it's such a good show i'm already so fucking pissed it got cancelled and i haven't even gotten to the cliffhanger yet. but the more i learn about this cancellation the more pissed i get. also very funny that whenever i watch a tv show about women doing sports i'm like "omg i should do that" my friend said it's like sports anime to me and she's so right. other than that i'm still getting through Laverne & Shirley (S5), The X-Files (S4), Columbo (S8), and i've been watching a bit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (S1) with my little sister!
Currently obsessed with: i am in such a slump lately i'm not gonna lie to you. am i obsessed with anything rn? up until one or two weeks ago it was Starsky & Hutch occupying my every waking thought but i've calmed down about them i think rn. uhh. of course Quantum Leap and MASH always on the mind. well i've been trying to grow some plants (Hutch core) but they all keep dying except for my loyal pothus (Starsky core).
augh tagging 9 people this part is always the worst i feel like i'm annoying and also inevitably leaving out people. FEEL FREE TO IGNORE noooo pressure but beloved friends and mutuals @alukardtheabysswalker (birthday guy!!!) @kittymoding @archerism @theboost @just-a-fucked-up-kid @argentinosaurus @pomegranate @opqrstuv04 @dykebeckett @simpmasterv2 + bonus @aheathenconceivably what are you guys up to lately! ily
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hi hello it's both itch creator day AND my birthday so this is a perfect excuse for me to do a master post of my games and zines!!!
Collabs:
Agami Village: Created with Weiwei Xu as part of last year's HES SUPERFestival, supported by Hand Eye Society and Canadian Council for the Arts. It's a short visual novel about fishing and time loops!
ghost story: A short prototype of a first person murder mystery where you're a ghost trying to solve your own murder. Done as a final project for Code Coven's Intro to Game Making course back in the winter.
(neither of these are purchasable but if you try them and like them you can always send a kofi!!)
Bitsy:
on nights we dream of stars: a semi-autobiographical story about stars. mostly just me figuring out how bitsy works.
on the nature of ghosts: small vignette about ghosts made for the february 2022 bitsy jam.
the end is near: a soliloquy about the end of the world, done for both the july 2022 bitsy jam and crabjam 2022. inspired by s24 for of blaseball but wholly independent to it.
lungs to burn: a short poem game about wildfires, grief, and queer connection done for the may 2023 bitsy jam. featured in indiepocalypse #43
no postage required: a somewhat-sequel to the end is near; or a letter to a lost love. done for the 2023 trans game dev server jam.
Twines:
cards fall where they may: anthology of interactive blaseball stories told through a tarot reading. some of the most impressive css i've done to this day, and i honestly think it's worth checking out just for that.
ablaze with the people you've been: another interactive story, this one a story about edric tosser told in four acts. still worth checking out even if you know jack shit about blaseball imo and still one of my favourite things i've ever made.
run from me or rip me open: the thing that started it all, the first game i ever made. yet another blaseball story; it's a little rough around the edges but it's got heart.
Zines:
Kriah: A personal zine about my experiences with antisemitism over the years. a heavy read but one i would implore gentiles to take a look at regardless.
square roots: made with @tigerquoii for the 2022 blaseball zine jam. a series of conversations.
and that's it!!! all of them (besides the collabs) are pay what you can, forever and always. if you've ever enjoyed something i've made, consider supporting me and my projects! and if you can't, rating and comments are always equally appreciated mwah
#s.txt#stara makes stuff#indie games#indiedev#gamedev#zines#zine#jumblr#interactive fiction#long post#sorry this thing is massive but hey!! that just means i've done a bunch of stuff
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This is Me Trying (byler): 1
word count: 6,469
warnings for this chapter: lots of sexual content!! underage drinking, mentions of drug use, roofie mention bc college, internalized homophobia, maaaajooorrrr depression. this is semi-autobiographical so pls be kind <3
in short: if you are emotionally or mentally vulnerable, please dni.
If someone were to ask Mike Wheeler what time it was, he wouldn’t be able to tell them. First off, he would look down at his watch and realize that said watch was not on his wrist. He would then ask himself why his watch was not on his wrist, then he would remember, oh yeah, Will has a matching one, and he was dead to Will, so he didn’t wear the watch anymore. Time was just a construct, anyway. In the end, he’d probably mess around with the person asking and say some shit like, “It’s 420:69.” He was drunk, though, so he was allowed.
Mike was at some frat party, spending what was his last official night as a student at the University of Indianapolis with the brotherhood of Alpha Lambda Dickhole. He was seated on some musty couch, stained with whatever the fuck that was, with an empty glass resting between his legs and a bottle of whiskey in his hand. He’d given up some time ago on trying to pace himself. Some kind of synth-infused rock music vibrated across the floor, and Mike could feel the bass reverberating in his bones, which would normally make him want to get up and dance, but he wasn’t particularly in a celebratory mood; he was only halfway through his sophomore year, and had just dropped out.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen this coming. Mike had been spiraling for a long time. It all started over summer break between his senior year of high school and his freshman year of college. Mike never even wanted to go to college in the first place. What was the point of spending tens of thousands of dollars on a creative writing degree when he could just freelance and eventually get published? But Ted insisted on Mike at least attending a state school with cheaper tuition, claiming, “You can’t run on ink and espresso, son. You have to put in the work and have the credentials to show for it.” On the bright side, it was a miracle that Ted had enough confidence in his son to allow Mike to pursue writing at all. But he was on thin ice with his father, had been for years, so he agreed to at least think about college.
Mike’s friends chose their respective schools fairly quickly; Dustin had gotten in with a full ride scholarship to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Max and Lucas went to UCLA as sports science and physical therapy double majors, El went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville to pursue a degree in therapy, and Will… Will went to Chicago. Which school he went to, or if he went to college at all, Mike didn’t know. To study what, he had no clue. Where he lived within the city, he hadn’t the slightest idea. That’s what happens when your ex-best friend up and leaves without so much as a “goodbye.” Mike considered the day Will left to be the day his world stopped turning and time froze. So he took off his watch and hid it in a shoebox under his bed with the rest of his mini-shrine.
Dr. Owens and his team had arranged government-mandated counseling for all of those involved in the Vecnapocalypse. A year in, though, Mike didn’t see a point in going anymore. He was healed. He was fine. He was ready to move on with his life. Well, everyone else in the Party was ready to move on. Why wouldn’t he be? It probably hadn’t been the best decision on Mike’s part to stop going to therapy, but without Will in his life, Mike didn’t have much of a reason to stay in Hawkins at all, and he really didn’t feel like dredging up his past once a week to pick apart as if he were in an anatomy lab practical. Besides, he didn’t feel like arguing anymore with his dad. So, he begrudgingly packed his bags and headed to Indianapolis, killing two birds with one stone.
When he got to campus, he was assigned to dorm with this guy named Elvis (yes, as in Presley). Aside from his stupid ass name, Elvis Kuiken was a good roommate. He was a senior who kept to himself most days, when he wasn’t working. He was clean, by Mike’s standards (which were on the floor, literally and figuratively speaking), and he was also part of a fraternity. He’d always bring Mike along to parties, all in the name of the formative freshman experience. What this “experience” primarily entailed, Mike came to find out, was alcohol. Weed, too, no doubt… but extra emphasis on alcohol.
Mike didn’t want to admit it, at least not to others, but he became a lot more withdrawn since his falling out with Will. He wasn’t as outgoing, as daring, or as extroverted as he used to be. He was used to being an outcast of sorts, so not much changed there. Except now, where he used to have the confidence to at least approach people and introduce himself– “Hi, I’m Michael! Do you want to be my friend?” “Yes.”– he couldn’t do that anymore. It was like his communicational skills had completely disappeared. But during his first party, he took a shot of tequila and must’ve made at least ten acquaintances within the three hours he was there. If only Troy could see how popular he was now. He’d piss his pants… again. It was like a light flickered on in his head; the more he drank, the more sociable he’d become. Mike took this epiphany and ran with it.
One time back in— September?— or something, Mike had been at a party for a few hours, and came up with the idea to try every single type of liquor to ever exist. He picked up a shot glass and stood at the counter for a good fifteen minutes, downing shot after shot. He woke up the next morning with a throbbing headache, unsure of how he even got back to his dorm room. But then he looked to his right and saw Elvis’s head resting on his very shirtless, hickey-covered chest. Oh. That’s how he got home. Mike wasn’t able to wear any shirts with collars below his clavicle for days. He didn’t hate it, though. In fact, that wasn’t the last time Mike and his roommate hooked up. Stumbling through the door, making out in the dark, and whispering each other’s names into otherwise complete silence until the sun came up became a regular occurrence.
Christmas break arrived, and most of Mike’s time back in Hawkins was spent trying to avoid Will. And from the way Mike saw it, Will was everywhere. He was the art on his bedroom wall. He was the yellow sweater that hung in Mike’s closet, probably the only colorful item in his entire wardrobe that Mike hadn’t thrown out, because it was Will’s sweater. He was the shea butter soap on the bathroom counter. He was the hot cocoa mix in the kitchen cabinet. He was the D&D box buried underneath his bed that Mike neglected since Eddie’s death in 1986. He was the Party. So Mike didn’t leave his basement for the entirety of mid-December to the beginning of January, with the exceptions of family dinners and sleep. He wouldn’t lie, he was a little bit ashamed of how he’d handled things with the Party. He definitely shouldn’t have iced everyone out. His friends made various attempts to get the Party back together, and always invited Mike, but he’d always have some kind of excuse as to why he couldn’t hang out with them. They eventually stopped calling.
One Saturday afternoon, he was sprawled out on the couch watching Star Wars: Episode VI– Return of the Jedi, and Nancy and Jonathan came barrelling in through the basement entrance, practically swallowing each other whole. Mike missed the feeling of being in love. He’d cleared his throat when it started to get a bit too steamy, causing the couple to jump apart in shock. Nancy smoothed her skirt while Jonathan lifted a hand into the air to greet Mike. He nodded back in acknowledgement. This silent interaction had Mike wanting to crawl out of his skin. All he wanted to do was ask Jonathan about Will; how Will was, what Will was doing, if Will had met anyone, if Will remembered him. It was like Jonathan could read his mind, because he said, completely unprompted, “He still thinks about you, Mike. He hasn’t forgotten you.” Mike actively committed those words to memory.
Mike ran into Joyce during a last minute school supplies shopping trip to Melvald’s on his way out of town. It was bound to happen at some point, what with Joyce owning Melvald’s now. He’d expected it to be awkward, but was proven wrong when Joyce practically jumped the counter to engulf her honorary third son in a hug. She’d pulled him all the way down to her level, so he was bent at almost a 90 degree angle, but he didn’t care.
“How’ve you been, sweetheart? How’s Indy treating you?” she asked. That was a loaded question. It would be spectacular if your son hadn’t left, but whatever.
“It’s treating me well, I’m mostly taking my gen eds right now, but I’m always writing my own material when I’m not in class,” he grinned, trying his best to not let it look fake or forced. Joyce seemed to buy it.
“I’m so glad to hear that. You know, I always knew you were going to become a writer,” Joyce smiled, and Mike nodded, staying as neutral as possible. He knew where she was going with this. “I remember it as if it were yesterday,” bingo, “that in the mornings after your sleepovers, you and Will would sit at the dining room table with your eggs and maple syrup and work on your comics for hours. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah,” Mike replied wistfully, “I do.” He glanced down at his shoes, trying not to let any tears escape. The amount of crying over Will that he’d done just within the time he was back home was pathetic. But Joyce didn’t seem to mind in the least, because she reached up and ran her thumbs over his cheeks, where a few stray tears had traveled down against his will.
“Oh, honey,” Joyce held Mike’s face in her hands, eyes filled with compassion, and pulled him into another hug, holding him close. Mike had always loved Joyce, but this mutual understanding led Mike to reserve a special place in his heart for her.
They engaged in a little more small talk before she personally walked (dragged) him through the store with his shopping list to retrieve the items he needed. When she checked out his items at the counter, she grabbed a pen and post-it note, wrote something on it, and handed it to Mike. He held it up to eye level with a shaky hand.
“That’s Will’s phone number, he’s at the American Academy of Art,” she whispered. Mike’s eyes widened, and he breathed, “Thank you, Ms. Byers. So much,” before heading out the door to his car. He sat in the parking lot for a solid fifteen minutes, causing himself to fall behind schedule, but he had Will’s phone number. That was a good enough reason to be late, in his book.
After what felt like a fucking eternity, Mike was finally able to return to campus. He’d set his suitcase down next to his bed, and took a minute to collect his thoughts prior to unpacking. All of a sudden, Elvis clumsily tripped over his own feet through the door, sheepishly grinning at a startled Mike. Mike felt a blush rise to his cheeks, followed by a quiet, “hi.” Seconds later, they were all over each other.
It was around this time that Mike finally came to terms with the undeniable fact that he was exclusively attracted to men. He’d always believed his sexual preferences existed as a strict ratio of 70:30, with 70% being women and 30% being men. He’d always been aware of his attraction to guys (Will); he’d been sure of that for as long as he could remember. The confusing part about it all was when El came into the picture, and everyone and their mother expected them to start dating. Mike was, like, twelve at the time, so of course he went along with what everyone else wanted. That backfired majorly when El confronted Mike with tears in her eyes, asking, “But… you don’t love me anymore?” and his impulse response was, “I don’t even think I loved you romantically to begin with.” It took a long time for Mike and El to repair their friendship following that conversation, and to help him bullshit his parents into falling for some half-baked reason as to why he and his “sweetie pie” broke up so suddenly.
When he started his… situationship with Elvis, though, he began to question his 70:30 ratio. Elvis, to put it simply, was hot. He was taller than Mike, just by an inch, but it didn’t stop him from calling Mike “short.” Mike found that hilarious, as he himself stood at a staggering six foot three. Elvis had tanned skin, blonde hair which he kept in a preppy side part, and bright eyes that captured the essence of the bluest sky. He had full lips, a chiseled jawline, and a lean yet muscular build with the likeness of a Greek statue. Elvis had the most gorgeous hands. Mike particularly liked when those hands pinned his wrists above his head. He also liked when those blue eyes bore into his soul in the way that only one other pair of eyes had ever been able to do within his mere eighteen years of life. And he loved when that chiseled jawline, rough from lack of shaving, rubbed abrasively against his neck.
Elvis was adamant on there being no strings attached. He made sure to remind Mike every time they did anything remotely sexual, but over time, those words began to lose their potency, like watering down vodka to make it go down smoother. Mike’s wide eyes and “yes, of course, I understand”s were slowly replaced with absentminded “mmhmm”s. He figured that as long as Elvis never picked up on Mike’s social cues (or lack thereof), and as long as he never knew about Mike secretly developing more-than-fuck-buddies feelings for him, Mike would be in the clear. But eventually, something in Elvis had melted away, and he started calling Mike “my boy,” “love,” and “sweetheart,” amongst other gross (sweet) pet names. Mike assumed that Elvis had caved and given up on whatever rules he’d set for himself.
Regardless of the apparent stability in his situationship, Mike’s mind dwelled in a constant state of disarray. He knew he was not straight. He wasn’t even sure if he was bisexual. He became more conscious of who caught his eye in public, and what he wanted out of the people he interacted with. He discovered he didn’t feel the same way about curves, boobs, or soft lips as he felt when he saw a pair of broad shoulders, a sharp jawline, or a tapered waist. He felt different.
Part of Mike resented himself for being different. He hated the idea of being a target, whether it be for his family, the government, or society as a whole. He’d tried to change. He hooked up with a few girls over the course of a week, “just to see something,” but he’d spent the entire time wondering when it would be over so he could go home. All of those girls either got bored, weren’t satisfied, or got mad that Mike couldn’t get it up— if not a combination of all three— and left. Mike scared himself a little when he didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty.
When his encounter with the last girl fell through, he decided he didn’t want to live his life in sexuality limbo anymore. He ran all the way back to his dorm hall, hauled ass up the stairwell, and let himself into his room. Elvis spun around from where he sat at his desk, and could barely get out a “Hey, man,” before Mike was ripping Elvis from his chair and pulling him in, kissing him with all his might. It didn’t take long for Elvis to reciprocate Mike’s advances, kissing back with equal intensity and pushing Mike back until they hit the side of Elvis’s raised bed frame. Mike huffed a laugh against Elvis’s lips before hoisting himself up backwards and onto the mattress, watching as Elvis chased after him. He pushed his knee between Mike’s legs, and Mike took the hint, wrapping his ankles around Elvis’s hips. “I want to be with you, baby. With strings, all the strings,” Mike had told Elvis before pulling him down for another searing kiss, and… that was when his memory cut out for the evening.
Mike woke up the next morning, hangover hitting him like a truck, to see Elvis already awake and dressed, lifting boxes onto a trolley that was stationed in the middle of the room. Through squinted eyes, he noticed Elvis’s side of the room was essentially bare, save for the dorm furniture, which belonged to the school.
“What’s happening?” he croaked out, and Elvis dropped the box he was holding onto the pile with a loud thump. “Too loud. Headache,” he whispered sharply through gritted teeth.
“It always is too loud, isn’t it?” his roommate laughed wryly to himself, not making any effort to be any quieter. Mike sat up, rubbing his eyes and ignoring the fact that he was naked and in Elvis’s bed, the only thing that hadn’t been packed up yet.
“What the fuck, Elvis? What are you doing?”
“I’m moving out today, remember?” The two young men finally gained eye contact, and Mike felt his stomach drop like he was on a roller coaster. “I’m graduating in a few days and need my stuff out by this afternoon.”
Move out was today? Vecna must have been back with a vengeance, because how else would time move so quickly on its own? Sure, Elvis mentioned in passing, like, a few weeks ago, at most, that he was leaving soon. But it still didn’t make sense, because it was only… What, March? No, The Phone Call™ was a while ago. Was it April? Mike’s mom called him at least a few weeks prior to wish him a happy nineteenth birthday. Plus, weren’t commencement ceremonies scheduled for the weekend of– “What’s today’s date?”
Mike watched the blonde in front of him unsubtly scoff with impatience. “It’s May 1st, Mike.” He could only blink back at Elvis in response for a few seconds while he tried to process the fact that his brain was capable of skipping over whole months of his life. There was no way it was May 1st already.
“No,” was the only word Mike was capable of saying.
“Yet here we are, baby,” Elvis sneered as he whipped his comforter off of Mike, leaving him exposed and humiliated. “Time flies when you’re blackout drunk. I suggest you try and get your drinking under control, before you end up having to drop out.”
It was like Elvis was a completely different person, completely different from the man who had fucked him senseless the night before. What did Mike do to deserve this? He didn’t do or… say anything? Oh no. Now Mike knew what was going on. He drank too much, opened up, and blurted out loud that he wanted to be in a relationship with Elvis, who didn’t feel the same. Mike’s face was on fire with embarrassment.
Mike scrambled off the bed and ran to get dressed while Elvis pulled the last of his sheets off the cheap university mattress. He didn’t fold them, and instead balled them up and shoved them in the trash. Mike could barely breathe. He merely stood there and watched as his gorgeous Greek (actually Dutch) god of a roommate left their shared room for the last time. Well, Mike seemingly dodged a bullet. What an asshole.
Mike was sad that Elvis was gone, but it didn’t completely destroy him the way Will leaving did. What it most likely came down to, in Elvis’s instance, was a horrible case of internalized homophobia. Mike was very familiar with this mindset; he’d fought a gory, gruesome battle with his own mind for his entire adolescence, at war with himself to prevent acting upon his ever-growing romantic love for Will. But one day, his feelings finally retaliated, and his life immediately went to shit.
“What are you doing, Mike? Is this a joke?”
“No, Will, I’m in love with you.”
“Don’t say that. Please don’t say that. You don’t mean it.”
Comparing the two inevitably led to some old memories resurfacing to haunt him, but Mike felt strangely lucky. He’d been let off easily. Despite the way he stood completely stupefied in his dorm room, he knew this was temporary, and had full confidence that he’d be able to recover from this pretty quickly. Said confidence was probably the only thing that saved Mike from losing his mind. Well, that, and the pressure to pass his classes distracted him for a few days. Without having done much studying at all, Mike army crawled through his finals and barely made it out alive.
About a week later, Mike moved out of his dorm hall and into an apartment about two miles away from campus. It was a pretty nice place, considering the rent he (his father) paid for it. He got a job at the local coffee shop… which he lost before the month was up, because he never showed up to his shifts. He’d been shocked when Ted insisted upon co-signing the lease, because he didn’t think his dad would be willing to help Mike stay away from Hawkins. On the other hand, though, it made sense when Ted told him flat out that he wanted Mike out of the house. Mike didn’t blame him; he’d been referred to by his father as a “leech” on multiple occasions during his stay over Christmas break, which pretty much tracked. He felt a little guilty about that one.
Mike appreciated the independence, he truly did. It was a great feeling to have his own room again, to have a more comfortable desk chair to sit at while he drew up plans for a new fantasy novel starring a gay protagonist, to have a bathroom to himself, and most importantly, to have a full-sized refrigerator to fill with all the alcohol he could ever want. But sometimes, late at night, he would catch himself getting a bit too sad.
The entire summer was an endless cycle. Mike would wake up and make a pot of coffee. He’d sit down and write a chapter or two of his book, and stick to doing that for a few hours. He would check the time (on his wall clock, of course) and take a lunch break, which was usually a box of Annie’s shells and white cheddar. After he’d haphazardly tossed his singular bowl and fork into the sink to be washed later, he’d go back to writing. This wouldn’t last long, because he’d get distracted after smoking a joint, and probably end up staring at that one photo of himself and Will from senior year (Jonathan captured the moment: Mike had, by some miracle, perched himself up on Will’s handlebars, and Will struggled to hold his bike steady because he was laughing too hard) that sat framed on his desk. He’d snap out of his trance ten minutes later and mentally kick himself for staring for so long, which led to grabbing some form of alcohol and getting wasted, like all his potential. He would make one last attempt at writing and fail miserably. He’d stumble into the shower, and drag himself through his apartment until he found his bed. Most nights, he would end up crying himself to sleep, staring at The Painting™, which he’d tacked up on his bedroom ceiling as a form of self-punishment. It was a sad way to live, really. So Mike vowed that when the school year started up again, things would be different.
That was how Mike ended up at the library in late July, browsing the mythology section, squinting at titles printed on spines while his lips formed a straight, thin line. He knew he was officially a hermit when even the library gave him social anxiety. He’d just pulled a rather old looking book off the shelf when a tenor voice behind him caught him off guard.
“Never thought I’d see the day that book would leave the shelf. You must’ve had to brush off, like, a hundred years’ worth of dust just to get to the cover.” Mike twisted around to put a face to a voice, and was pleasantly surprised when he met eyes with a short guy (well, to Mike he was short; he was probably, like, 5’9”) with dyed, firetruck red hair that fell over his forehead in a sweeping motion. Mike liked how he wasn’t afraid to be bold.
“You’re definitely right about that,” Mike smirked, setting the book down and watching as the growing pile teetered from side to side on the table’s surface. He couldn’t decide where he wanted his story to go next, let alone if he wanted to continue with his current plot at all, so he’d planned on taking a bit of inspiration from… well, everything.
“So you’re into mythology?” the guy asked, and Mike shoved his hands in his pockets, leaning against the bookshelf as he focused his gaze down. He had pretty eyes. They were hazel, but not too green, not like–
“Yeah, I’m a creative writing major, and I’m trying to expand my horizons a little,” Mike replied, sitting down at the table. “Like, not to discount the genius of Tolkein, because he literally founded my childhood, but sometimes it’s good to go back to the basics and draw inspiration from there.”
The guy shrugged, and sat across the table from Mike. “Nothing wrong with that. I think it’s really smart, actually. Or else stories end up getting repetitive and dull.”
“Exactly!” Mike pointed both index fingers in the guy’s direction, as if to say, “Finally, someone who understands!” Mike struggled with this concept lately; the uniqueness factor. It turned out that having a male protagonist who just so happened to be romantically attracted to other males wasn’t enough reason to get a book to sell. He needed something else, something of substance, and something that wouldn’t remind readers of other books they’d previously read. “Are you into writing as well?”
“No,” the guy shyly smiled, “I’m just into guys who write about mythology.” Pardon? Was this masculine male-dude-man hitting on him? In public? Mike wasn’t complaining, but he hadn’t necessarily picked up on any hints. Although, the dyed hair should’ve been a dead giveaway.
“Oh. Um, I– wow, okay,” Mike stuttered, diverting his eyes to his books for a few seconds to process what was being said before returning to an expectant pair of hazel eyes still looking right at him. “I’m Mike, Mike Wheeler.”
“Wyatt Bowman.”
Mike cleared his throat. “Are you free in an hour, Wyatt?”
“Yeah, why?” Wyatt raised an eyebrow, causing Mike to huff a nervous laugh, tapping his Ticonderoga pencil against his spiral-bound notebook at the same speed his knee bounced up and down underneath the table.
“I just gotta take some notes from here, then I was thinking we could… hang out, or something?” Mike glanced up hopefully at Wyatt.
The corners of Wyatt’s mouth curved upwards as he repeated, “Or something?”
Mike nodded, confirming their silent sub-conversation.
“Cool. That sounds like a good plan,” Wyatt said, tapping his fingers on the edge of the table as he rose out of the seat and headed for the exit.
“Cool,” Mike whispered back, reminiscent of a certain afternoon in a certain town in California in a certain room with a certain boy that made him feel a certain way. But that was the past, and Mike believed he was ready for the future.
When Mike started seeing Wyatt Bowman, they established that their relationship would not be serious. They were, in a small amount of words, friends with benefits. And they were actually friends. They could hang out without getting all hot and heavy. And Mike didn’t have any objections; he actually preferred the idea of friends who sometimes had sex over the label-less, no strings arrangement that he and Elvis had. It left less room for loopholes of chronic insecurity and self sabotage. It also, in turn, left more room for exploration.
Mike met Wes Butler in August at his first ever visit to an actual bar. He’d been sitting at the counter with a few of his female friends (Ruby, Alexis, and Julia), and had just received one of the fruitiest cocktails he’d ever tasted when a piece of eye candy, who might as well have been dressed in nothing, lightly tapped his shoulder and asked him to dance. Of course the girls encouraged him, not really giving him an option in the matter, but hey, good dick was good dick. It didn’t really turn into much else; once they’d had a few rounds of unnecessarily loud sex in a supply closet (ironic, but typical), Mike bid goodbye to his friends, tossing his condom wrappers in the trash on the way out.
He met another guy, Walker Brooks, in September at an off-campus nerd rave. He looked a lot like Eddie Munson, which may or may not have been coincidental. They left the party not even an hour after it began to go to Walker’s dorm. They fucked in between Lord of the Rings themed bedsheets, and Mike had to endure an excruciating hour and a half of Walker speaking Elvish rather than English. Afterwards, he invited Mike to join the University of Indy D&D Club, of which he was, of course, the Dungeon Master. Mike politely declined.
On a particularly difficult October night following being roofied followed by some unwanted advances, Mike slapped himself awake with one hand as he unsteadily held his handlebars with the other, biking back to his apartment. His grip slipped, and the front wheel hit the curb, which sent the bike to come to a screeching halt and throw Mike over the handlebars, tumbling onto the concrete. Warren Blakely, one of his classmates in English 101, watched Mike fall, stopped him from biking again before he hurt himself even more, and asked him what exactly had happened. Once he told Warren what had gone down, he wouldn’t let Mike out of his sight. Over the next two months or so, Warren kept Mike safe and let him take control back over his own life. Mike and Warren had a special bond. If Mike didn’t still love Will, and if he didn’t have such extreme trust issues, he would have absolutely dated Warren if provided the chance. But he couldn’t, not until he got over Will, so he ended things with Warren. This specific relationship put things into perspective for him. In the end, none of these men he slept with would ever be Will Byers. So he’d either have to get over Will, or find someone better.
On the nights he wasn’t at parties, he was at his desk, writing letters to Will. It was kind of cathartic, honestly. He’d rip a piece of college ruled paper out of his notebook, just like old times, and write letter after letter saying things along the lines of:
Dear Will,
I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry that I love you. I’m sorry I did what I did to you. And I’m sorry I can’t take it back. I wish we could be best friends again. I wish we could have late night walkie conversations like we used to. I want nothing more than to play D&D in the basement with you for the rest of our lives.
Love, Mike
These occasional letters became a part of his nightly routine… whenever he wasn’t too fucked up to focus his eyes on his own handwriting. And recently, it was more often than not that he couldn’t actually fall asleep without drinking. Mike wasn’t even of legal age yet, and wouldn’t be for another two years.
Mike stopped attending his classes halfway through the semester, so it wasn’t a surprise when his grades plummeted. His mailbox became inundated with letters from the registrar’s office, advising him to withdraw from the classes he was failing before the pass/fail deadline, but Mike couldn’t care less; so, not only did he fail out of his classes, but he couldn’t even retake the classes even if he wanted to, because his record forced him into the red zone. And the entire time, he couldn’t feel a thing.
If someone were to ask Mike Wheeler what time it was, he wouldn’t be able to tell them. First off, he would look down at his watch and realize that said watch was not on his wrist. He would then ask himself why his watch was not on his wrist, then he would remember, oh yeah, Will has a matching one, and he was dead to Will, so he didn’t wear the watch anymore. Time was just a construct, anyway. In the end, he’d probably mess around with the person asking and say some shit like, “It’s 420:69.” He was drunk, though, so he was allowed.
Mike was at some frat party, spending what was his last official night as a student at the University of Indianapolis with the brotherhood of Alpha Lambda Dickhole. He was seated on some musty couch, stained with whatever the fuck that was, with an empty glass resting between his legs and a bottle of whiskey in his hand. He’d given up some time ago on trying to pace himself. Some kind of synth-infused rock music vibrated across the floor, and Mike could feel the bass reverberating in his bones, which would normally make him want to get up and dance, but he wasn’t particularly in a celebratory mood; he was only halfway through his sophomore year, and had just dropped out.
“Hey, by any chance do you know the time?” a deep voice asked, and Mike lifted his gaze up from his lap to a muscular brunette. He blinked a few times in an attempt to form a coherent sentence.
“I, uh– I don’t—” Mike stuttered, lifting his bare, watch-less wrist up to show to the guy, who merely lifted an unserious eyebrow and chuckled. He took Mike’s hand in his and let it down gently before sitting next to him on the couch.
“It’s all good, man. I was just using that as a reason to talk to you.”
Mike was surprised someone clocked him that quickly. But then again, he was wearing insanely tight jeans that he’d cut right above the knee paired with a floral print shirt. He wasn’t exactly being subtle. “Really?”
“Yeah, really,” the guy laughed, extending a rough, calloused hand. Did he lift weights? Or play guitar? Or both? “I’m Carter, by the way.” At least his name didn’t begin with a W. Or maybe it did, but the W was silent. Wcarter. Ouah-carter. Wah-carter. Double-you-carter. Dub-yuh-Carter. Cart… Chart… Astrological chart. Mike made a mental note to check his horoscope. What was he thinking about originally? He couldn’t remember.
Jesus. Mike was hammered.
“I’m Mike,” he replied, taking the guy’s— Carter’s— hand, but Carter didn’t shake it. He instead let their fingers intertwine, anticipatorily slow. Okay. Mike could be good with this.
“Do you maybe want to get out of here, Mike?” Carter asked, and Mike felt a blush rising to his face.
“Sure, yeah,” he breathed, and let Carter pull him up out of his sunken spot on the couch, down some hallway, and into an empty bedroom. Mike scoped out the place and noticed a photo of Carter with a dog framed on the desk; this was his room. Mike exhaled in relief. He didn’t want to have sex in someone else’s bed. Never again.
Carter pulled the door closed and locked it, turning around to face Mike before looking him up and down. Mike gulped. He hadn’t realized before, because it was so dark, but in the lamplight, Carter’s resemblance to Will was uncanny. He was a few inches shorter than Mike, and had a muscular build– that much he knew already. Thank god he didn’t have a bowl cut. He had a strong jawline but a subtle softness to his features. His lips were a light pink, the upper one a bit thinner than the lower one. The most similar feature they shared, though, was their bright green eyes, full of life, and something else Mike couldn’t name… intention? Vulnerability? Yearning?
In his inebriated state, Mike didn’t notice how close Carter had gotten until he felt two hands snaking their way up his shoulders and joining behind his neck, pulling him down until their lips met. He couldn’t move fast enough, lifting his shaking hands to rest on Carter’s waist, pulling him into his chest and deepening the kiss immediately. Carter was more languid in his movements, while Mike was more firm and calculated; this felt strangely antithetical. It probably had to do something with his increased tolerance. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this, but if there was one person who knew how to repress his feelings with a series of bad decisions, it was Mike Wheeler. His life was already on fire, what more could possibly happen to exacerbate the flame?
The two young men made their way over to Carter’s bed, where they quickly undressed. Carter kissed down Mike’s body, and Mike ran his hands through Carter’s hair. Then he went down on Mike without warning.
“Ah!” Mike yelped in surprise, his exclamation becoming a moan almost instantaneously. This was good. This felt nice. This is exactly what he’d imagine–
“Will…”
“Excuse me?”
And with that, the night was over. Carter stopped what he was doing, got up, muttered a “fuck you,” and left without another word. Mike felt the world zeroing in on him. He could just picture what he’d write in his next letter:
Dear Will,
I said your name while another guy had my dick in his mouth. Do you believe me now?
Love, Mike
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Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is such an amazing semi-autobiographical novel because it is beautifully written, undeniably witty, and deeply sad story about a girl coming to terms with queerness. and it was published in '85. but it's also got so much great stuff about neglectful parents and it makes me shred couch cushions.
the main symbol in the book, the titular orange, is used to represent the neglect Jeanette faces at home. any time Jeanette's Mother is unable or unwilling to meet the emotional needs of her young daughter, she hands her an orange. like, every time. and it's kind of bizarre when and where she'll dole them out. Jeanette gets oranges in the hospital, at church, while walking around town. oranges as a response are so ingrained in Jeanette that when she has gone deaf and can't get her mother's attention, she just takes an orange and tries to sleep it off. like any time she needs a parental figure or someone to help her, she either gets an orange, is given an orange, or goes to someone else because her mother is too engrossed in her evangelism.
and the most depressing thing about choosing oranges as the symbol for neglect is that they have such a hard peel. like of all the most common fruit in europe and america, oranges are arguably the hardest for kids to reasonably open by themselves. even bananas, which also have a peel, are easily opened by most kids Jeanette's age. but oranges require work. you have to spend time getting to the actual sustenance in there. which is an amazing parallel to the way Jeanette's mom takes care of her kid. she provides all of the material goods necessary for a decent life (the family is poor but not destitute by any means), and even some community in the form of church (as toxic as it may be), but she does not provide any labor for her child. she refuses to do emotional labor, which is mirrored by the fact that the oranges are given to Jeanette in the place of emotional intimacy, regulation, and care. Jeanette has to do that part herself. in all ways, she is given the orange, but it never comes pre-peeled. she will always have to peel those oranges herself. she will always need to be the adult in her own life, because she does not have a mother who is willing to do it for her.
#can you tell i just wrote my literature midterm on this book?#it is so so so amazing#like one of my fav books now AND it is about being a lesbian#it also includes a reference to goblin market#which is my all time favorite poem#could not recommend more#oranges are not the only fruit#jeanette winterson#goblin market#christina rossetti#literature#academia#english#college#literary fiction#literary analysis#literary criticism#lit#author#novel#midterms
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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY
based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … April 6
1483 – Raphael, Italian Renaissance painter and architect born (d. 1520); Almost every Renaissance painter has been thought to be homosexual by one writer or another over the years, and Raphael, “the divine painter” is no exception.
The clues, however, may be purely coincidental in Raphael’s case. As a young man he was exceedingly beautiful. As an adult he lived together with his two favorite students, Giulio Romano, reputed to be bisexual, and Gianfrancesco Penni. When he died at 37, he left the larger part of his estate to the two young men.
1618 – The Memorandum Of Valverde is a little- known but significant legal text, preserved in the National Historical Archive of Spain. It's been dated to April of 1618 and was sent by twelve residents of the village of Valverde de Alcalá to the governing Council of Castile .
It lists charges against the master of the palace, a Gonzalo Martel de los Rios, of noble origin and probably linked to the major houses of the Spanish aristocracy. He held the lordship of the town. The document lays out a rather detailed set of charges against the Lord, "offenses" committed both by the Lord and by his servants. He and his servants are charged with committing homosexual and "unnatural" acts and with "blasphemy" against God. The neighbors of the Lord called it heretical and insane what the Lord was up to with his servants in the palace.
No one knows what happened with these charges or what happened to the Lord of Valverde. The Lord's reported comment in response to the charges:
¿Qué se le da al fraile que yo sea puto, o moro, o judío?
¿Por qué no puedo yo vivir en la ley que quisiere?
¿Para qué se ha de meter conmigo?
"Why should the priest care that I'm a whore, a moor, or a jew?
Why can't I live by the law of my own choosing?
Why does he have to mess with me?"
1903 – Charles R. Jackson born (d.1968); relatively little seems to be known about Charles R. Jackson considering he is the author of a well-known novel which is still in print, upon which a multi Oscar-winning film was based - The Lost Weekend.
Born in Summit, New Jersey, as a young man he worked as an editor for local newspapers and in various bookstores in New Jersey, Chicago and New York prior to falling ill with tuberculosis. Jackson spent the years 1927-1931 in sanatoriums and eventually recovered in Switzerland. His successful battle cost him a lung and served as a catalyst for his alcoholism. He returned to New York at the height of the Great Depression and his difficulty in finding work spurred on his binge drinking. His battle to stop drinking started in late 1936 and was largely won by 1938, the year in which he married. During this time he was a free-lance writer and wrote radio scripts.
Jackson is best known for his 1944 novel The Lost Weekend. Made into a critically acclaimed film by Billy Wilder starring Ray Milland in 1945, The Lost Weekend is a semi-autobiographical novel detailing a struggling writer's five-day alcohol binge. He also straggled with a growing fear that he was homosexual. As a youth, he and his brother had both been sexually molested by a local male music teacher.
But it is Jackson's second novel that is interesting to us. In 1946, he published The Fall of Valor, a novel exploring a married man's growing awareness of his homosexuality and his love for a young Marine captain. Jackson was married and appears to have had two daughters, but this novel has the earmarks of first-hand experience. Long out of print, this is a significant 'lost' gay novel of the 20th century, although it appears to have been a critical and financial success at the time.
Jackson was a binge drinker who recovered sufficiently to speak to others in large groups, sharing his experience, strength and hope. He was the first speaker in AA to openly address drug dependence (barbiturates and paraldehyde) as part of his story.
Jackson appears to have spent much of his life battling the twin demons of alcohol dependency and a homosexual nature he struggled to accept, and his intense, compelling description of homoeroticism and sexual obsession in The Fall of Valor has the authenticity of a first person narrative.
After relapsing into alcoholism Jackson became estranged from his family and rented an apartment in New York City that was shared with his male lover in 1965. He died in New York in 1968 after committing suicide, never having managed to defeat his alcoholism.
1955 – The acclaimed non-fiction filmmaker, director, producer, writer and editor Rob Epstein, was born on this date in New Jersey. Epstein has won two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature for the films The Times of Harvey Milk and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. He has also won four national Emmy Awards, three Peabody Awards, two DuPont Columbia Journalism awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship and numerous other awards for his documentary films.
Epstein began his filmmaking career working on the 1978 film Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives, a documentary about the lives of gay and lesbian Americans. Epstein answered an ad that read: "We are looking for a non-sexist man to work on a documentary film on gay life. No experience necessary, just insane dedication and a cooperative spirit."
In 1984, Epstein won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature at age 29 for The Times of Harvey Milk which he conceived and directed. After its theatrical release in 1985, The Times of Harvey Milk won numerous major awards including the Academy Award, the New York Film Critics Circle Award, the Peabody Award, and three Emmys for Epstein (as director/producer, co-editor, and interviewer), and went on to receive worldwide acclaim and distribution, showing at major film festivals, theaters, and on television on almost every continent. This film was selected by the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the Sundance Institute as a preservation project and a 35mm digitially re- mastered version of the film was released in June 2000.
In 1987, Epstein teamed up with filmmaker Jeffrey Friedman to form Telling Pictures in San Francisco, California. Their first film together was Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, inspired by the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt on the Mall in Washington DC. Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, Common Threads tells the dramatic story of the first decade of AIDS in America through stories of five individuals featured in the Quilt. Epstein won his second Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Common Threads, which also won the Peabody Award and an Emmy for Bobby McFerrin's original all-vocal score.
Their next film, The Celluloid Closet, based on the book by film historian Vito Russo, depicts a 100-year history of homosexual characters in Hollywood movies. Narrated by Lily Tomlin, The Celluloid Closet had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, was featured at the Toronto, New York, and Sundance Film Festivals (at which it won the Freedom of Expression Award from the jury), and numerous international festivals, including Berlin, Tokyo, and Sydney. In addition to winning the Peabody Award and Columbia DuPont Journalism Award, Epstein and Friedman won Emmys for directing.
In 2000, Epstein and Friedman directed and produced Paragraph 175, a film that explores a hidden chapter in history: the experiences of homosexuals during the Nazi regime in Europe. Narrated by Rupert Everett, and filmed in Germany, France and Spain, Paragraph 175 had its US premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, 2000, where it was awarded the documentary Grand Jury Prize for Directing, followed by a European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, where it won the FIPRESCI (International Film Critics Association Award).
He and Friedman have followed these films up with "Howl", a biopic of Allen Ginsberg starring James Franco, Jon Hamm, and David Strathairn. Four short clips below.
youtube
1983 – Rick Cosnett is a Zimbabwean-Australian actor. He is known for playing the roles of Wes Maxfield in The Vampire Diaries, Elias Harper in Quantico and Eddie Thawne in The Flash.
Cosnett was born and raised on a farm in Chegutu, Zimbabwe. His family took part in community musical theater there, which made him interested in acting from an early age. When he was seventeen, his family decided to move to Queensland, Australia, in large part due to the land reforms in Zimbabwe.
Cosnett attended the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. He originally received a scholarship to study music but graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Acting.
Cosnett is a cousin of Hugh Grant. On 13 February 2020, Cosnett publicly came out as gay on his Instagram account.
1984 – A Louisiana appellate court overturns a man's conviction for exposing and fondling an undercover police officer. The court said that the state's law on indecent exposure requires that the defendant expose him or herself, not another person.
2010 – Playwright Terrence McNally weds Tom Kirdahy, 46, in Washington D.C. ceremony. During a small ceremony under a tree blooming with white flowers, Kirdahy read from a scene in McNally's play "Corpus Christi," in which a gay, Christ-like figure named Joshua marries two apostles:"It is good when two men love as James and Bartholomew do and we recognize their union," Kirdahy read. "Love each other in sickness and in health."
Kirdahy, a lawyer and Broadway producer, choked up as he recalled seeing the play before meeting the playwright. Actress Tyne Daly, who was currently starring in McNally's "Master Class" at the Kennedy Center festival, served as a witness at the sunlit wedding and read Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. Actors John Glover and Malcolm Gets, both starring in "Traviata," also looked on. The Rev. George Walker of the People's Congregational United Church of Christ presented them as husbands and signed their marriage certificate. It will be recognized back home in New York City. McNally's most recent play, Mothers and Sons opened on Broadway in March, 2014.
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last book read + last stethoscope used, part 25
My MDF starry night procardial titanium scope is here with Zaina Arafat's novel You Exist Too Much. What a title. But about the MDF--he had the honor of accompanying me on a short road trip last week to be used by someone other than the same two people who use him all the time. Happy for him, even happier for me! Ecstatic, actually!
The book has mixed reviews on Goodreads but I really enjoyed it. It's a semi-autobiographical story of a Palestinian American woman who flits from relationship to relationship, desperately searching for the sense of belonging that eludes her and her family--especially her parents, who grew up under military occupation and were cruelly thrown out of their home. Her mother is emotionally-manipulative and despite multiple attempts at honest conversation on the matter, is unlikely to accept her daughter's bisexuality. This is the narrator's story of learning to be kinder to herself as she makes (many of the same) harmful mistakes, and to be forgiving of those around her. I think readers wanted a neat ending full of epiphanies and a resolution to the protagonist's struggles and self-defeating behavior, but that's a tall order. A timely read and an important perspective, considering what is happening to the Palestinians right now.
Free Palestine.
#cardiophilia#cardiophile#stethoscopes#zaina arafat#Free Palestine#auscultation#lgbtq+#lgbtqia#queer fiction#lgbtqia+#bisexual rep#last book last stethoscope#lbls#Palestine#Muslim women
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The True Genius of Bungo Stray Dogs (As Seen in the Portrayal of Osamu Dazai)
oh boy heres another formal-sounding one!! i wrote this to follow an essay formula and under the assumption that it would be shown to someone who is less well-versed in bsd (i kinda just explained what it was and what bungo meant in the introductory paragraphs) so just skim those parts if u already know those things :ppp
in this one i mostly cover some of the biggest similarities between yozo of nlh and dazai of bsd! i dont rlly cover bsd dazai versus irl dazai so keep that in mind. its not super in-depth and ive only read nlh once so far, so anybody who's got thoughts feel free to add!
without further ado, lets get into it :> (the whole thing will be under the cut)
TW: Su1c1de, add1ction (specifically alcoho1ism), s3xual abus3, emotional abus3
Bungo Stray Dogs is a manga, anime, and light novel series that takes place in a semi-fictional version of Yokohama, Japan.
The Japanese word “bungo” translates to “literary”; and almost every significant character is named after a classic author and has a supernatural ability named after one of their works. However, the influence of literature upon each of the characters runs deeper than just their name and ability.
Today, we will be covering the true ingenuity of Bungo Stray Dogs through its unique method of drawing parallels between real-life and fiction, and fiction and other fiction, using the character and author Osamu Dazai as an example. (All uses of the name Dazai will refer to his fictional version unless specified otherwise.)
Dazai is one of the most beloved characters of the series, and his popularity as a fictional character brought the book that his character and ability are in reference to, No Longer Human, to many more sales despite it being over 60 years since the book’s original publication.
Dazai’s character is commonly praised for his remarkable representation of those who experience mental illness, and this theme is a very prominent one in the book that his character is based upon.
No Longer Human is a semi-autobiographical work created by the real-life Osamu Dazai, following the life of a man named Oba Yozo in the formula of three notebooks. Among its themes are isolation, alienation, suicidality, addiction, and much more.
Yozo experiences immense alienation from society, carrying a far deeper melancholy than any others seem to. In order to combat the evident unpalatability of his true nature, he takes on the facade of a bumbling fool before others in order to avoid their wrath and perhaps also sate his desire to be loved (Pg. 26 of NLH [No Longer Human]).
(One of, if not the, biggest similarity between Bungo Stray Dogs’ Dazai and Yozo, is the alienation that came as a result of their unique nature and philosophy, which surrounded them in a profound despair simply through the act of living.)
Sexually abused as a young child (Pg. 35 of NLH), Yozo believes human beings to harbor an intrinsic cruelty, and wishes to avoid bearing witness to their intimidating true nature at all costs. Yozo feels immense fear of human beings due to his inability to understand them (Pg. 28 of NLH), unable to understand what they think about when they walk the streets, what they wish for, and why they engage in simple acts such as eating. (Pgs. 23 & 26 of NLH)
Dazai as a Bungo Stray Dogs character diverges from Yozo in many ways, but they have a similarity in the existence of a public facade created in order to hide from pain and hurt, and a deep alienation from society that leads them to dehumanize themselves.
Both Dazai and Yozo believe themselves incapable of integrating their true selves into society so profoundly that they give up on it entirely, Dazai through a lack of taking proper action to take himself out of a toxic environment to live as a normal human being, and Yozo in his complete withdrawal of who he truly is from society to the point that it’s nearly impossible for an outsider to graze his true self.
Bungo Stray Dogs’ Dazai is so hyper-intelligent that he sees the world in a far more nihilistic way than the common person (Pg. 159 of BSD:ODDE [Bungo Stray Dogs: Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era]). This isolates him completely from society because he believes nothing in life to hold any actual value due to the inevitability of death (Pg. 13 of BSD:DC15 [Bungo Stray Dogs: Dazai, Chuuya, Age Fifteen]). Throughout No Longer Human, it’s possible to infer that Yozo is also an exceptionally intelligent person due to the uniqueness of his philosophy and worldview, drawing yet another parallel between them.
Additionally, Dazai has thought this way since he was 14, which led him to a suicide attempt, and has possibly contemplated such action even before then (Pg. 8 of BSD:DC15). Although not fully confirmed, it’s likely that he was shunned by those around him for seeing things in a way that they could not come close to understanding, similar to how Yozo could not understand that which was commonly seen as an intrinsic human trait. Neither Dazai or Yozo view themselves as properly human, although they seek love in such a way that suggests that they wish that they were.
For example, Dazai is a romantic young man who views falling in love as an intrinsic part of the human experience, and yet believes himself to be unlovable, further separating himself from his own definition of humanity. And Yozo, only a child when he begins displaying his facade of air-headedness, wished to be liked by humans so as to not be harmed.
Dazai and Yozo also both have a likely/possible fear of being idolized, respected figures. Yozo views being respected by others as being the peak of successful deceit of others which eventually brought great consequence upon the respected (Pg. 33 of NLH), and Dazai intentionally lazes around and doesn’t do his best during his adult life in the Armed Detective Agency, which, although not confirmed, may hint towards the existence of a fear of being respected the way that he was in his previous profession as a mafioso, in which many expectations were placed upon him that left him drained.
Yozo and the Dazai of Bungo Stray Dogs share an idolization of that which they have forbidden themselves from becoming. For Yozo, this was human, and for Dazai, this was also human. However, their definitions are different. You may ask, “but didn’t Yozo fear human beings? Why would he want to be one?” and the answer to that question is, yes, Yozo fears human beings. However, it’s more complicated than that. Yozo also sought out love and affection from human beings, who seemed able to give it to each other, and he wished to understand human beings so that he could be with them and not fear them (Pg. 26 of NLH). You see, Yozo wished to have someone by his side to understand him, seeing as his fear left him when he felt understood and a sense of camaraderie (Pg. 80 of NLH), but at the same time feared a connection such as this and mostly thought it impossible, just as he feared human beings but also wished to integrate himself with them so that he could be loved and spared from suffering.
Yozo is a mess of self-contradictory ideals, as is Dazai, who wished to be human in the sense that he wished to understand what other human beings saw in being alive: what inherent value they saw in it that caused them to be so opposed to death that they would fight (Pg. 132 of BSD:ODDE). Dazai believed that if he were to understand what made humans happy and what made them want to live, he could become one, and henceforth become happy and cease to seek death. Dazai also wished to be lovable, as did Yozo. Dazai saw being capable of being loved and loving others as being an inherent part of the human experience (Pg. 103 of BSD:DC15), but felt himself incapable of such behaviour and treatment. Dazai also sought to be a good person, which he believed humans to lean towards inherently, but thought himself to be incapable of until he was pushed towards it by a person who understood him fully (Pg. 161 of BSD:ODDE).
There also exists a parallel between Yozo and Dazai in the form of the organizations that they were entangled with. Yozo was involved with a communist group by an acquaintance of his (Pg. 65 of NLH), where he was eventually trusted by the organization with jobs that caused him increasing hassle and tiredness, similar to how Dazai was saddled with the responsibilities and title of the youngest executive of the mafia when he was only a teenager (Pg. 3 of BSD:ODDE), although Yozo was already college-age when he was involved with the communists.
One of the most obvious, although surface-level similarities between Dazai and Yozo is that of their suicidal ideation. They both have contemplated suicide and attempted it multiple times (Pgs. 1, 4, & 49 of BSD:ODDE and Pgs. 86, 87, & 154 of NLH), out of a deep despair found in the reality that they find themselves unable to escape. Although Dazai doesn’t truly wish for death, and it’s possible that neither does Yozo, they both engage commonly in this behaviour.
Another minor similarity between them is their alcoholism. Yozo spends such a large majority of the book talking about drinking away his sorrows that it would prove quite the task to try to cite them all here (although he displays alcoholic behaviours from Pg. 63 and onward of NLH), and Dazai often experiences hangovers, goes to pubs and bars (even when he’s only 18) (Pg. 1 of BSD:ODDE), and his room as a 22-year old is seen to be riddled with bottles of alcohol.
Although primarily due to their public facades, many people who come and go in the lives of Dazai and Yozo seem to love them and believe that they are good people who, under different circumstances, could become very happy (Pg. 160 of BSD:ODDE and Pg. 177 of NLH).
It seems to only be Dazai and Yozo who demonize themselves so heavily that their sense of self becomes mangled beyond their own recognition; all others around them seem to feel that they have potential for good within them. Dazai and Yozo share in self-hatred, in certain ways.
Overall, Dazai and Yozo have many similarities in how they think, the life they lived, and the coping mechanisms they use, and these many similarities exist too in the other characters of Bungo Stray Dogs, their real-life counterparts, and the fictional characters they are based upon.
It is this deep-running, subtle aspect of Bungo Stray Dogs which makes it an immensely respectable work of art and causes me to admire the cleverness and literacy of its writer, Kafka Asagiri. The story is more than enjoyable without understanding each reference that makes an appearance, but it adds a special and unique touch to an already-wonderful series. And that is exactly why I consider all of these literary tie-ins to be the true genius of Bungo Stray Dogs, which hides beneath the surface yet makes the experience feel much more special.
#tw sex abuse#tw sex assault#tw suicide#tw addiction#☆analysis☆#☆thoughts☆#bsd dazai#bsd analysis#bungou stray dogs#bsd#no longer human#oba yozo#osamu dazai#☆scheduled☆
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This is Goethe's first novel, published in 1774. Written in diary form, it tells the tale of an unhappy, passionate young man hopelessly in love with Charlotte, the wife of a friend - a man who he alternately admires and detests. 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' became an important part of the 'Sturm und Drang movement, and greatly influenced later 'Romanticism'. The work is semi-autobiographical - in 1772, two years before the novel was published, Goethe had passed through a similar tempestuous period, when he lost his heart to Charlotte Buff, who was at that time engaged to his friend Johann Christian Kestner.
#book: the sorrows of young werther#author: johann wolfgang von geothe#genre: classics#genre: german literature#genre: romance#year: 1700s
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How Kiawentiio went from a ‘little arty kid’ to the star of Avatar: The Last Airbender
You know that classic actor’s arc, painstakingly building from bit parts to bigger roles, withstanding rejection and despair? Yeah, that’s not Kiawentiio’s story. The Mohawk Canadian actor was cast in the first thing she auditioned for, the hit CBC/Netflix series Anne with an E. Her next role was the title character in Tracey Deer’s wrenching, semi-autobiographical film Beans, followed by a gig on Rutherford Falls. And now she’s the second lead in a gigantic Netflix series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, a live-action reimagining of the beloved animated series (2005-08), shot mostly in British Columbia, arriving Feb. 22. And she’s only 17.
We meet via video call, and even on that flattening medium, Kiawentiio sparkles. (Professionally, she goes by that mononym, pronounced Guy-a-wen-di-jou.) She’s poised and friendly, without any child-actor posing. Now and again she glances over her shoulder into a corner I can’t see; turns out her mother is there for backup.
Her Anne with an E audition was a lark – or as Kiawentiio puts it, “It came out of nowhere and happened randomly.” Growing up on the Akwesasne reserve on Kawehno:ke (also known as Cornwall Island), which straddles the Ontario/New York State border, she was “the little arty kid in the corner, who stayed inside at recess to paint and draw,” and dreamed of going to art school. Her dad chanced upon an open casting call on Facebook, and they thought, might as well try it. She was the last audition of the day.
Landing Avatar: The Last Airbender, by contrast, required more of a campaign. As a kid, Kiawentiio loved the animated series – its environmental and spiritual themes, its thoughtful depictions of Asian and Indigenous cultures, the battle scenes of Benders wielding the four elements, “the character arcs, the sheer craftsmanship. It would fill me.”
So when she heard rumours a few years ago about a live-action reboot, she had a feeling she’d be right for Katara, 14, a novice Waterbender, the last in her Southern Water Tribe, traumatized by the world war being waged by the Fire Nation, yet undaunted and hopeful. Teaming up with Aang, the title character (played in the series by Gordon Cormier), she begins to realize her potential. Kiawentiio asked her agents to keep an eye out, “just in case the universe is listening.”
The audition, when it came, was veiled in secrecy – fake project and character names, disguised scenes, all via Zoom. After a month-long series of “adrenalin-pumping” chemistry reads with other actors, showrunner Albert Kim delivered the news: Yes, it was Airbender; yes, they’d been searching the world for their Katara; and yes, it was her. She and her family burst into tears.
With her co-stars, Kiawentiio spent six weeks at “bending boot camp,” where each learned the martial art their movements are based on: wushu for Firebending, tai chi for Waterbending, Hung Ga for Earthbending and Bagua for Airbending. They shot on a cutting-edge mix of green screens, practical sets – Kyoshi Village was built in a working quarry in Coquitlam, B.C.; Jet’s hideout was filmed at WildPlay, a ziplining park in Maple Ridge, B.C. – and volume stages, including the world’s largest LED video wall studio, a near-circle lined with 2,500 LED wall panels and 760 LED ceiling panels, at Canadian Motion Picture Park in Burnaby, B.C.
“That stage was warm,” Kiawentiio says, laughing. “Wearing Katara’s big blue parka, pretending to be in the Arctic while being in a microwave.” Watching the animated series come to life was “surreal,” she continues. “When you see Appa in front of you” – a flying beast that combines bison, hippo and manatee – “or even small things like my necklace – I remember being almost in tears.”
Canada’s Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (Kim’s Convenience) plays Iroh, brother to Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim); the actors playing Katara’s parents, Rainbow Dickerson and Joel Montgrand, also played Kiawentiio’s parents in Beans. But she didn’t get to hang out much – “I was in high school at the time, just trying to get through 11th grade,” she says. “Fun fact, I’ve never been to a first day of high school with my classmates. Every year I was doing something, travelling somewhere.” Now graduated, with a five-year option for possible future seasons, “I’m saving my next few years for the show and whatever else may come from it. But I plan on going to school in the future.”
Each of the four Airbender nations has real-world roots, including Omashu, Himalayan, Indonesian and Indigenous Arctic cultures; cultural consultants advised on folklore, history and mythology, as well as costumes, calligraphy and artifacts; and the series’ four directors are of Asian descent. That mattered, Kiawentiio says: “It’s 100-per-cent important to me that I represent where I come from, my people and my language. That comes with me to every character I portray.”
Her opportunity to embody authentic Indigenous characters has never been higher, as a spate of recent series attest: Reservation Dogs, Little Bird, Echo, True Detective: Night Country, the Yellowstone franchise. Lily Gladstone could well become the first Indigenous woman to win a Best Actress Oscar, for Killers of the Flower Moon. And Deer, Kiawentiio’s Beans director was an excellent role model: “Being able to see her be the leader, be so strong, opened my eyes to other things I can explore – directing, producing.”
But she doesn’t want portraying Indigenous characters to become its own kind of limit. “Those roles will always be at my root; they are what I can see myself in and relate to. That doesn’t have to be the end of what we’re capable of, though. We don’t have to just play the Indian friend, the Native guy. We can be just that doctor or teacher or lawyer, those regular roles. The days of just getting a role, and not The Native role, are still ahead of us.”
Now that Kiawentiio’s accidental career is skyrocketing, “it’s funny how weirdly normal it gets,” she says. “I understand how people can lose their groundedness. You’re in the air so much, how do you stay grounded? It’s helpful to keep my real life separate, with my family and friends, and have my work self be almost a persona.”
She’s always had a readable face, she realizes. “I can’t hide anything; it’s all in my eyes. But to be able to be in control of that to portray someone else is so interesting. My dad told me he’s never seen me light up the way I do when I’m on a set. That’s when I knew I should stick with it.”
#natla#atla#netflix avatar#netflix atla#avatar the last airbender#atla netflix#avatar netflix#kiawentiio#article#the globe and mail
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Almost Everything...
(Just a bit of unofficial super rough draft of the Quinntana tale)
I never intended on publishing this story. I think in some ways, I had kept writing it for myself. Never planning on letting it be read by anyone other than myself. But, before I knew it, I had practically written a novel. I thought about sending it as is but, then decided against it. Not because of the memories or the pieces of my broken heart or the pain that I coud only see. But, because I wasn't sure I was ready.
I'm still not.
Before sending it out, what was formerly a work of non-fiction turned into fiction. My autobiographical account of our four years together turned into a semi autobiographical piece that I tailored into a story more suitable for the masses.
I changed our names, where we grew up and where we met again after high school. I kept myself a writer for story purposes and you a struggling musician trying to find yourself in the real world. I made Brittany a wanderer. A girl desperate to find her way in the world where ever the wind was to take her until she finally found you again. I guess that part stayed slightly true.
Against my editors best efforts, I didn't change you into a guy. I just couldn't. She was sure that this tale of 'sapphic love' between old friends coming together in a big city was not believable and would wind up on the $5.99 paperback table. But, I somehow got through to her that the story I had written was so much more than just girl-on-girl for the titliation of men and the curious, ignored housewife. That what I had was a journey of a young woman who had thought she had been lost, forgotten, unloved and unseen.
You saw me.
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(Also, I have been working on a soundtrack to go with the story)
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things i made in 2022
i asked my friends if i should do a roundup of things i made this year and they said yes so!!! without further ado!! (this is gonna be a mix of fan and personal stuff please join me for the ride)
GAMES
on nights we dream of stars - my first bitsy!! a semi-autobiographical game about the sky
on the nature of ghosts - another bitsy, this one about metaphorical ghosts and the nature of being haunted
the end is near - yet another bitsy!! probably my favourite one– a soliloquy at the end of the world
agami village - a visual novel made with weiwei xu as part of hand eye society’s SUFest, aka the coolest thing i’ve ever done probably. if you like fish and/or time loops check this one out.
ZINES
square roots - a collab zine i did with @tigerquoii as part of @blaseballzinejam!!
celestial cartography - my first solo zine, also part of the zine jam.
every other zine i was a part of for the blaseball zine jam lmao - what it says on the tin
untitled perzine about chronic illness and turning 25 - ditto
SELECTED (OTHER) FANWORKS
cards fall where they may - css heavy twine anthology of blaseball stories, if nothing else the formatting still holds up lmao
what might have been lost (don’t bother me) - twine about baby “ruthless” triumphant for the wonderful dasy~
and one day i’ll watch them burn with me - aka the bright zimmerman (and haruta byrd) saga. still technically unfinished but may still be some of the best+most fulfilling writing i’ve done all year.
the burn with me b-sides - series of 12x100s that expand on the characters of the burn with me series. short and snappy. may also be viewed in zine form
fall ball calls - another series of 12x100s that follows the fall ball and it’s drops
and there we go!! 2022 was a weirdly busy year and i can only hope for 2023 to be as fruitful in new and exciting ways 🥰
#s.txt#stara makes stuff#jfc christ what else do i tag this as lmao#uhhhh#interactive fiction#blaseball#zines#yeah okay yk what that's good#what a year!!! i made some pretty cool stuff!!!#and i'm not ashamed to say my best writing was in a fanfic i think it's true lmao
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