#“Oh wow telling my parents the truth I’ve been hiding about everything and getting validation on it even from my stoic Scottish father

[zombiejette]

Cis men will still literally do anything but go to therapy. Even perform therapy on stage to themselves while a captive audience watches their one-man mental breakdown. But real therapy? Never heard of her.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

The shifting narrative of God’s interventism and how it reflects on the narrative on John

This post will ignore the issue authorial intent entirely because I can, but it’s also about authorial intent in a way, but I also don’t like to talk about things as happening “accidentally” because a) a serialized story like Supernatural, especially one that got renewed for much longer than anyone could possibly expect or hope in their wildest ambitions, structurally relies on serendipity, because that’s how stories work when they’re work in progress, b) a television show is an extremely multi-authored text and the chance that something happens out of the intent of any of the multiple layers of creators is kind of... statistically negligible. So, yeah, that’s my stance on the topic. Anyway.

The shifting narrative about God is simultaneously something that hangs on fortunate storytelling clicks on an essentially programmed narrative. At first, we don’t know where the fuck God is. Cas starts looking for him with little success. Raphael says he’s dead, Cas doesn’t believe it. Dean relates to his struggle because he knows the feeling of not knowing where the fuck your father is and going looking for him with little success, not knowing if he’s even alive. Then the theory that gets assumed as the truth is that God has left. He fucked off who knows where, who knows why, leaving his creation to struggle alone. Also essentially how Dean had felt after John had died; in that case there was guilt for his demon deal and everything, but the most cruel weight on Dean’s shoulder was that John left him alone to struggle with his devastatingly horrific instructions he doesn’t understand. The angels are also left with horrific instructions they don’t understand. No wonder Cas does his own ‘demon deal’ in season 6, as he desperately tries to do what he assumes his father wants from him, but he doesn’t actually know what that is.

“God has left” is maddening, and everyone is angry about it, but it has its own dignity. God has left us without clear instructions, we are confused and in pain and evil runs amock but at least, we suppose, the evil of it is our own doing. We are alone and we do our best, our best is simply not enough. We wish he gave us guidance, but he won’t. He wants us to figure it out ourselves, possibly. We don’t actually know what he wants. But maybe that’s the point. It’s possible he doesn’t even know what’s happening, he just has left the building entirely.

But then Chuck reveals himself. We find out that he never actually left. He was there. “I like front row seats. You know, I figured I’d hide out in plain sight”. He simply chooses not to intervene. He chooses not to answer. He chooses to be hands-off. He presents himself as a laissez-faire parent, because, he says, it’s better for his children to have the responsibility they need to grow up. He’s absent, but in a different way than we thought! It’s not that he doesn’t know what’s happening or isn’t interested in knowing what’s happening. He’s here, he knows what’s happening, he just stays there and watches as you stumble and struggle and scream. It’s worse, and it pains Dean so much he isn’t even afraid to yell at God. You know we’re suffering and you just don’t give us any support, any comfort.

You’re frustrated. I get it. Believe me, I was hands-on, real hands-on, for, wow, ages. I was so sure if I kept stepping in, teaching, punishing, that these beautiful creatures that I created... would grow up. But it only stayed the same. And I saw that I needed to step away and let my baby find its way. Being overinvolved is no longer parenting. It’s enabling.

But it didn’t get better.

Well, I’ve been mulling it over. And from where I sit, I think it has.

Well, from where I sit, it feels like you left us and you’re trying to justify it.

I know you had a complicated upbringing, Dean, but don’t confuse me with your dad.

At that point of the show, the writing team almost certainly didn’t have the s14-15 twist in mind. So this was probably intended to be Chuck’s truth. Later it gets twisted (retconned?) into a lie, but about that later.

Here, Chuck is really good at manipulating the conversation. Dean has a perfectly valid point, because there IS a middle ground between being overinvolved and not being involved at all. There is a middle ground between enabling your children and abandoning them completely. But Chuck hits Dean where it hurts, plays the emotional card, basically tells him that he’s too emotional to understand, too emotional to think rationally about it, because he mixes his feelings about his father to the issue and thus cannot see it clearly. He basically tells him he’s too close to it to get it. You don’t understand parenting, Dean, because you’re too blinded by your emotions about your own little life and cannot see the big picture.

It doesn’t really matter here if he’s telling the truth or lying, it already says a lot about Chuck that he’s emotionally manipulating Dean, silencing him by hitting the painful spot.

But the thing is, 11.20 immediately presents Chuck as a liar. He makes Metatron read his autobiography and the very first line is a lie (“In the beginning, there was me. Boom – detail. And what a grabber. I mean, I’m hooked, and I was there.” “I’m hooked too, and yet... details. You weren’t alone in the beginning. Your sister was with you.”) and the stuff he talks about his experience as Chuck is not exactly truthful about anything (“That, you know, makes you seem like a really grounded, likable person.” “Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” “You are neither grounded nor a person!”). Metatron calls him out (“Okay. There are two types of memoir. One is honest... the other, not so much. Truth and fairy tale. Now, do you want to write Life by Keith Richards? Or do you want to write Wouldn’t It Be Nice by Brian Wilson?”). Chuck SAYS he chooses truth and gives Metatron a different manuscript, supposedly containing the truth, to which Metatron reacts positively. Metatron believes it, and we believe it with him.

Oh! Oh, this! This is what I was talking about. Chapter Ten “Why I Never Answer Prayers, and You Should Be Glad I Don’t”, and Chapter Eleven “The Truth About Divine Intervention and Why I Avoid It At All Costs”.

Nature? Divine. Human nature – toxic.

They do like blowing stuff up.

Yeah. And the worst part – they do it in my name. And then they come crying to me, asking me to forgive, to fix things. Never taking any responsibility.

What about your responsibility?

I took responsibility... by leaving. At a certain point, training wheels got to come off. No one likes a helicopter parent.

This is sort of what he later says to Dean, except that to Dean he talks about “beautiful creatures” “my baby”, talks about helping, none of the harsh tone he’s using here. When Metatron accuses him of hiding from Amara, he retorts “I am not hiding. I am just done watching my experiments’ failures”. What a different language, uh? Then Metatron asks him why he abandoned them, and Chuck answers “Because you disappointed me. You all disappointed me”. Then, he admits he lied about “learning” to play the guitar and so on, because he just gave himself the ability, and then appears to Dean and Sam, after Metatron’s passionate speech about humanity.

So, no matter the authorial intent at the time - the truthiness of Chuck’s words was already ambiguous. He kept lying and being called out, or silencing the conversation with some good ol’ gaslighting.

The season 14 finale introduces the big twist: it was, indeed, all a lie. The whole of it. Chuck didn’t abandon shit. It was all him, minutely controlling the narrative of the universe, putting the characters through all the pain and struggles for his own amusement.

The “absent father” narrative was a lie.

What does this tell us about John? Nothing, according to the authorial intent that shines through Dabb’s Lebanon. But we don’t give a crap about Dabb’s authorial intent about John! He’s just one dude and plenty of other authors have painted a different picture. So I’m going to read the narrative the way I want, because I can, and the narrative allows me to. It’s all there.

I’m suggesting that the fact that Chuck lied when he talked about being a hands-off/absentee father parallels how Dean and Sam prefer to think of their father as an “absent father” when that’s not exactly a reflection of the truth.

You left us. Alone. ‘Cause Dad was just a shell. [...] And I-I had to be more than just a brother. I had to be a father and I had to be a mother, to keep him safe.

Setting aside how “I had to be a father and I had to be a mother” sort of retcons and cleans up the Winchester family picture painted by ealier seasons, the fact that John didn’t really count as a functional father figure and Dean and Sam were essentually alone is not incorrect or anything. It is true that John would leave them to their own devices a lot, thus the long stays in motels, the hunger, the food-stealing, and all. But John wasn’t always absent, at all. He trained them as soldiers, he disciplined them, he was around enough for them to be intimately familiar with what happened when he drank. He drove them around.

It’s almost like it’s preferable to Dean and Sam to spin their own “absent father” narrative, putting the accent on the time they spent alone, painting their childhood as a time they had to grow up on their own, rather than acknowledge they grew up under the thumb of a controlling, looming figure they would regularly live in fear of, even when he was not physically present.

The “absent father” narrative is what Dean and Sam need to use to avoid confronting the reality of the father figure whose moods and whims they had to dance around. “I know things got dicey... you know, with Dad... the way he was. And I just... I didn’t always look out for you the way that I should have. I mean, I had my own stuff, you know. In order to keep the peace, probably looked like I took his side quite a bit.”

John shaped their lives. He shaped their identities. Even in the episodes where he abandons Dean or both children somewhere, he’s portrayed as the figure who drives the car. He symbolically drives the car, you know? John shaped Dean and Sam’s relationship with each other, both on a surface level (the conflicts) and on a deeper level (the parental dynamic).

Heck. The entire first season of the show plays on John’s disappearance as the “elephant in the room”. John is there by not being there, you know? And after he dies, his death - his absence - is again the elephant in the room for Dean, the weight on his psyche that he shatters under.

It is not wrong that Dean and Sam had to spend long periods of time without John. But John structured their lives in quite minute detail. Where they needed to be, what they needed to do, what they must not do, everything had to follow John’s instructions. A drill sergeant, the narrative called him, ordering how his sons needed to live their lives. That’s no absence, except on a level where Chuck not showing himself and pretending he’s not there can be considered absent. That’s a presence, not necessarily always physical, but semiotical and psychological.

John is an absent father as much as Chuck is a hands-off god. He even writes himself into the story around the time Cas has the “season 1” phase (let’s go look for dad/let’s go look for god), which is when John actually was alive and appeared. Then he was no longer physically there, but he was still shaping his characters’ lives, just like he’d always done.

The “absent father” narrative on John is that - a narrative. Spun by the characters themselves because it’s easier and actually kinder on John. Or, better, it allows them not to be crushed by the psychological implications of having to accept that their father was such a looming, minutely formative figure in their lives. They know, but they can wave the “absent father” idea around to avoid thinking about it.

“I had to be a father and I had to be a mother” is something easier to tell yourself. I was the one who did it all. But he wasn’t, and that’s the problem. The fact that John was their father - Dean’s and Sam’s - is the problem. But ironically, blaming himself for every failure is a better option for Dean than fully acknowledging John’s abuse. As long as he blames himself, he has control over it. The moment he acknowledges the extent of John’s influence, he loses control over the entire narrative of his own identity and the family identity, the family dynamics. That’s scarier, just like realizing that God manipulated everything is much scarier than the alternative. “God abandoned us” was indeed a better option, and “John left us alone” was a better option. But neither was true, and the characters faced the implications of the cosmic level, but never got to face the implication of the familial level, because the narrative always danced around it and then Dabb’s apologist version “won”.

But what’s been put in the show is still there. The narrative of John’s abuse is still there. Nothing can take it out of the story.

[psychemeanscure]

PART 29 {Finally!! and it’s been a week of stress indeed. 😞 But thankfully things slowly gets better and better for our Mum YJ 🤗 And for the record? I just wanna say, I’MAPUPPY!😂🤣 I maybe expert on reading smuts but I do am puppy in writing. hahaha. So for you  who was left hanging from the prev. part... Better live it to your imagination guys. keke}

Gentle breeze of summer hay, daylight hues of morning skies, a serene waves of crystal seas. And of course, what’s much more perfect for Jang Taeyoung other than his living Aphrodite’s side profile. Sitting on her daybed balcony, wearing an ash gray robe, drinking her set of bottled water. ‘Fresh from a bath.’ He can tell.

“F*cking hell.” Scolding his own innuendo while she ain’t even doing anything but sit!

A resting elbow, a root of knuckles assisting a tight jaw suppressing a taste of his volatile prey once again. Shifting gazes with a rising pet under the sheets of hot mess they’re in throughout the night. “I can’t blame you Bud. It’s been a while indeed.” Like a consoling friend to his long sleeping member. Yet, she’s beautifully tempting to ignore for so he decided.

Sung Eunyoung on the other side, cannot contain her smiling from coming. Feeling absurd by a single thought in mind. She, being intimate with the man she used to brush off her senses surprises her. Not in her whole life did she expect that but now? “Unbelievable. You are so unbelievable, Sung Eunyoung.”

“Unbelievable. Yes, it is.”

A breathy voice speaks after her. That the same person who exactly did a great chaos of her sanity. Jang Taeyoung’s snaking hand on the fabrics of her robe is enough for her to feel the tingling sensation she starts to familiar with. Slanting to get a glimpse of him from behind for there she is being drooled by those dark orbs which only sees is her and only her. She saw it all. The way her own reflection radiates the apples of his sight. And for the first time in a long time…

She felt proud. He’s solely hers. “Jang” She have to say it, like a validation she wanted to seal. And so she did. A peck to her shoulder, a rubbing thumb circling her belly as well as a seeming smile he gives in, and the sight that never left hers. She confirmed.

“Morning, sunshine.”

Before she knew it? She’s already responding, giving the same curve as he did. “Same as you, Mr. Jang.” Her smile that he cannot take, he eventually stole a kiss on her glossy lips. Thus she hissed a glare, frowning by the sudden chaste she least expected. “I knew it. Tss. Seriously, Jang Taeyoung. Hold it, will you?”

Just to garner his famous snigger. “I can’t promise though. You already awaken him, Eunyoung. You tell me.”

True to his words, she did felt its pet inside his sweatpants bulging behind her. Rolling her eyes, she retorted. “Por favor, Loco. You tire me so shut it.”

Much to her dismay, there ain’t much worse than a stubborn Jang Taeyoung it is. What’s new. A traitor hand sensually sneaking inside her, yet after a slicking smirk on his face. “Is that so? But it seems like I’m much tired Mi amor, considering you even went up first than I am. Isn’t it?”

A jolt from her own, and she’s sure she’ll going to deal another of his expertise. While a sudden image he almost forgot to open up pops his mind. “And oh! Speaking of first…” he begins his contractions.  “You’re a damn seducer woman. Sex education, eh? And here I thought you merely took up the common ones. Damn, if I only knew about it early I should have ravished you even back then. You and your wise mind it is, Ms. Sung.”

‘So he saw it. Mierda!’ she can only think of scolding herself. If not her being too occupied that time, she would have known what his contemplating stare mean the moment he stands in front her piled achievements. “So I was wondering…” thus he started his interrogating response.

“Since the educator has already enlightened the writer. Then isn’t it best for the writer to do his part too?”

Right after the impeccable swirl work of his tongue through her neck, he follows his judgement. “Here, in your daybed. You, my tempting empress and I, your welcoming slave. Writing a better version of Kamasutra. What do you think? Hm?”

And she lost it.

As to a delirious awe of her parting lips subsided, slumping back leaning by the nakedness of his chest, carves of its toned tattoos filling the heat of her whole soul. She accepted her defeat again, for rumor whom she cursed to avoid through a lifetime has it. Him, being the infamous Jang Taeyoung in bed that every bold ones looks forward to. Is indeed one fat truth! Which now she shamelessly admits includes her. A one big slap to her denials. A screw momentum for her living pride. She’s hopeless for she starts to become unsure herself between the reason of her own desire.

Was it because of the fact that he’s simply a natural taming scavenger? Or rather it was his effortless sweet talk calling of giving her names of his liking? Either, or. It’s just seems her writer has finally taught her of what a word insatiable means. A kind of pleasure that had slowly become her favorite thing. Before she realized? They eventually did it again. In her daybed. Feeling the sweats of their aftermath solitude. Hearing each other’s heaving breaths.

Sometime later. Reviving from a huffing state she opts to turn her head to face the weariless man next to her, spooning her and ready for a possible round he’s wishing. Yet, not on her watch as she quickly grabs his sultry hands off her. “Loco, please. I have other things to put at work. Spare me, will you?”    

Even when she ends up slapping him afterwards. Him and his slyness, what’s new. “Cabrón.” A set of warning before a groaning contrary by him happened. “Tss. You and your threats.”  

“And when did a simple warning become a threat,” Sitting up to fix her disheveled robe. Frowning to face the culprit himself. “Huh?” followed by a glancing inquiry she demands for answer. “Whatever smart Sung. As if you let me slip anyway.” A frustrated man came to visit for defiance.

She almost forgot to suppress herself to snigger. For heaven’s sake! She supposed to remain compose even, yet damn this sulking loco of her ruining everything that the only choice she had is to hold her breath to stop a bursting demeanor. Good thing she had her back on him that he’s clueless of what she’s up to, trying to make herself calm as much as possible.

Biting her lips for the last time, “You’re mad at me?” she managed to reciprocate an indecent follow-up, facing him. “FYI Mr. Sly fox, whose fault is it anyway that I have been bombarded with numerous calls from my superiors and so my presence is a must this instant? Good thing my phone is still working even after being thrown. I’ll definitely kill you if it isn’t. Tss.”

“Dare if you can.” Raising up while avoiding her sight, he sprints back inside her bedroom picking up his tussled summer shirt to as well cover his shirtless figure before mockingly staring at her. “As if I was the one who rejected the call even, when in fact the only thing I did was to tease you. That is.” Upset by how suddenly hard to button his shirt, a cussing Jang finally came by. “F*cking shirt!” a forcing hand frustratingly put on-hold.

And she can’t hold any longer. “Hmpp--- pfft! Hahahahah.”

“Now your laughing. Wow.” Indeed. She had freely put herself from laughing out loud, so enough to flex her low vibrato. “Really, woman?” Another of his rebuke for she still doing it. “Sung Eunyoung! I tell you woman, if you don’t stop I might just---“

“Okay! Okay. I’ll--- hahah--- sorry. Okay, uhum. I’ll stop. There. Are we good?”

“Whatever. Tsk.”

Sensing his mug menace, she eventually stopped for real, approaching the man who felt victimize. “Hey, cutie.”

“Did you just call me---“

Something sealed onto his lips before he could actually finish his sentence. It was hers to begin with. The savoring taste he cannot attain to sweep away for so in just a snap of it, his frustration fade away. As fast as that, she swiftly turns the table while he has to curse himself for being a muted cub with this volatile woman in front of him silkily volunteering to button his shirt herself before giving a scrutinizing stare that drown him to dive in the depths of his sensible soul.  

“Is this the real you, Jang Taeyoung? An ever persistent man with the woman he like? Hm?”

He remained speechless. Not long before he clamor to decide beneath himself. Proclaiming to dive along the eye-banging they begun to get used to. “Yes. And you have never been the woman I like, Sung Eunyoung. Let me just correct you in that part because you’ve always been a lover for me. That is.”

He confessed, and she was taken aback. Silently gulping on her own, she can only hide her fluster. She won’t let herself get defeated that easy. Not yet. Sliding away her hold from his nape as she crossed her arms provoking him instead. “You, sly. You pretty sure it isn’t just the lust talking?”

Levelling her pace, he countered back. A brow, twisting to bicker. “Given. You can’t blame me. I’ve been caged enough with celibacy, woman. Just so you know.”

“Is that so? Well sad, Loco. Seems that woman of yours can’t spend a whole day for you.”

“F*cking sh*---“

“La mierda. Halt that vulgar mouth of yours, will you?”

“Like who’s talking as well. Now woman, if you keep making excuses just not to spend time with me, it’s not working.”

She surrendered. A sweeping hand thru the air and a clicking tongue of mockery. She debated. “Aish. Fine. For the peace of your mind then let me just tell you Mr. Jang Taeyoung that aside for the urgent school agenda, I will actually go straight to meet my parents for dinner. There? Does it answer all your question?”

Crossing her arms once again before the unexpected bafflement she never imagined to see from him happened. Looking by his reaction, she was left confused as if he suddenly reminded of something he had forgotten in a while. Nevertheless, she crossed the idea anyway. Choosing her assuming one instead.

With a dreary sigh, she banters. “Right. How come I expect that my parents-pass will actually work for you. I’m foolishly hoping for nothi---“

“Oh…”

“Oh?” surprised by his reply, somehow she unconsciously responded the same before shrugging the thought off and obliged to fill her discontinued one different from the original she opts to be.

“--- Miraculously. Thank you then, Loco. Congratulation eh, that’s new.”  

She even dared to add some teasing at the end of her sentence, just to be unheard by still zoning man in front of her. “Cabrón?” Wanting to get his attention, she retaliates not knowing it was actually a start of a counter. An eyeing man bound to release an unexpected reply. “Can I tag along?”

“Of course, you sha--- what?!”

An embellish retort came after her indeed. “Come again, Jang Taeyoung?” A sassy man tacking its hands in his pockets responded instead. “I said can I tag along. So, can I?”

“And why would I?”

“You never know…” Shrugging off, a knowing smirk faces her.

“No.”

Thus the stern word she decides to give in. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Mister. I have to get change already.” Forcefully pushing the stubborn man behind her closed doors, a piercing shut has been heard.

~

But screw her for underestimating everything for it was still her in the end being clowned by what was happening around her all along. “What the.”

“--- hell?”        

[gra-sonas]

Currently airing its second season and already renewed for its third, The CW’s Roswell, New Mexico continues to push the story of alien siblings attempting to live peacefully in the town of Roswell to new places even perhaps for fans of the original Roswell. MICHAEL VLAMIS discusses working on the show, the complexities of his character, Michael Guerin, the many (MANY) other projects on his plate and more!

watchtivist: To start off, congratulations on the success of the show! How cool that you’re heading into season three now!

MICHAEL VLAMIS: It’s crazy, I remember when I got the call that I was going to be on the show in the first place. It’s the role that changed my life and it really set me up for all the other things going on in my life. I remember getting that call, crying in a public place. So jacked up! And now all of a sudden, it’s like no big deal. I watched the episode last night (episode 207) on the TV and I get reminded it’s a big deal when I talk to my parents after every episode and hear their thoughts. Just the fact that they get to see their son miles away on television once a week. I appreciate you saying that because sometimes it feels like this is something we’re doing now, but definitely taking those moments to be grateful and the fact that we have season three is amazing.

W: It’s really great, especially in this landscape where shows don’t really get to dig into things. It’s gotta be exciting!

MV: Definitely.

W: One of the questions we received from Twitter was about if this role, that of Michael Guerin, has led you to acquire any particular skill set (or sets) for it.

MV: Oh wow, that’s interesting. Season one made me pull out my guitar again. Which was actually really cool because I got like not good at guitar, but decent where I could play a few songs. In college, I borrowed someone’s guitar and later got my own and played a bunch. Then for years, I got so focused on trying to make it as an actor, writing and auditions, that I stopped playing it. The show forced me to really go out of my comfort zone and even though it was easy things like songs with four chords or strumming patterns, sometimes depending on shooting schedules and if they got switched around, I’d learn something three hours before going to set. We’d wrap super late sometimes and I’d come home and dig in with my guitar. It’s definitely helped me brush up on that. I haven’t played the guitar on season two, so I’m probably back to where I was. [Laughs]

W: With the violent circumstances making up Michael’s background, he kind of starts out with that “looking out for number one” approach to things and season two we’re seeing Michael’s growth and him realizing when it’s perfectly ok for him to let people in and reprioritize based on that. What has that been like for you in terms of tackling the role? What would you say is the next phase of the growth for him?

MV: I think number one in tackling it was that I had no idea that the character was this complex in the beginning. I knew he was hiding his sexuality and who he really is, which is an alien. I knew that something had happened to him in the foster system growing up and he didn’t have the best upbringing. As the seasons have developed, everything has made a lot of sense. I’m sure Carina (Adly MacKenzie) knew from the moment she got the opportunity to do the new Roswell , so the way that it was written in the beginning, I was never surprised where it led me. And even with not being surprised, it’s been really cool to just see what they’ve given me to jump into. It’s kind of helped me deal with some of my trauma as a kid, and my trauma is not near what Michael Guerin’s was. I definitely had my moments, just as we all do with our families. Not feeling good enough or just hiding certain things about you because you’re afraid of who you are and people wouldn’t understand you. The complexities of the character have really helped me also look into who I am. Because I need to figure out a way into every script, every scene and the character. It helps me strip things away and boil down to “Ok, who was thirteen-year-old, chubby, Michael Vlamis and now I’m this way. What was that growth like?” Figuring out my own personal growth helps me elevate that character, Michael Guerin.

With where we’re going next, I can’t say too much because he already has some changes coming towards the end of the season. It’s very interesting to see everyone’s theories online, some are correct and some are way off.

I saw in last night’s episode they finally revealed the junkyard owner, Walt, was the little boy from the flashbacks and people were speculating that really early on! That was really cool to see people getting validation in their theories because I love seeing those online. When it comes down to it, I want the dude to be happy with one of these lovers. I don’t know who that’s going to be. Everyone always asks who I’d rather be with and I can’t really even say that, even if I had one, because they’re both so different. I think Maria (Heather Hemmens) and Alex (Tyler Blackburn) are both good for Michael at different times in his life. I know Tyler is going around telling people that that’s what he wants in season three and I let him run his mouth and hope that his new love interest in the show crashes and burns. [Laughs] I would like him to be in a good relationship, a happy relationship, but at the same time, I’m so excited to do the work on the days where my mother is dying, my brother is in a coma or I’m getting my heart ripped out. I love those scenes so much, as happy as I want and think Guerin deserves to be, I love the drama on the show. So, a little bit of heartbreak won’t hurt me.

W: Right, that makes sense. The question was going to be what would you want to see for Guerin in season three and beyond but you basically answered that! You want him happy. [Laughs]

MV: I’d love to see that. I would like to further expand his journey of putting that spaceship back together. I would love to see where that goes. I don’t even know if The CW has the budget to do that and take us to outer space or something but I think that’d be so cool. To find out about that and their home planet.

W: I mean, The CW has The 100 and DC Comics shows! Space isn’t a new place for The CW.

MV: That’s true! So maybe right now we’re willing it into existence. We’re manifesting it.

W: Actually, bringing up spaceships. Given that we live in the craziest of times and the Pentagon officially released videos of UFOs - Has that been something you’ve talked about with any cast or crew members?

MV: I haven’t talked to any of the cast or crew members about it but I’m pretty sure we’re all feeling the same way about it, we’re all excited for any new information. I’ve been interested in aliens since I found out Tom Delonge from Blink 182 was a major conspiracy theorist and loves everything about UFOs and alien artifacts, that search for if there’s life outside of our own. I always thought that was so cool, going back to fourth grade listening to “Aliens Exist” by Blink 182. I want that to be the case, I want that to be real. I think life would be far more interesting and I’m always trying to believe in the most interesting things because it just furthers the imagination. I haven’t talked about it with them but now that you’ve mentioned it, I’ll shoot off a text.

W: The show hasn’t shied away from increasingly difficult topics like the foster system, immigration, citizen’s rights, abortion, etc. Is there an area you’re hoping the show either continues to explore or adds going forward?

MV: I would’ve answered this question so differently two years ago but now I would say something with the LGBTQ community really responding well to the show has really furthered me as a human being and opened up my mind to what people who are made to feel “outside of the norm” go through. I personally don’t think or feel that they are. I think it’s ridiculous the taboo that society has placed on sexualities over the years. The fact that we give marginalized voices a platform to come forward and see that what they’re going through, other people are going through. That it’s ok, it’s love and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day. It’s so special to me. The more that we can tackle that, it really comes down to my character and Tyler’s character having a great relationship. That might mean that Lily Cowles’ character, Isobel, is still going to Planet 7 and seeing what’s out there. I think it’s cool how we normalize that, it’s not a big deal. I live in LA right now, and people, they experiment, they’re fluid. They’re interested and the more you find out about yourself, the more you know, the more comfortable you are with yourself. I think that’s a really important topic that I want to further.

I think we’ve done a really good job with the idea of what an immigrant is and what an immigrant looks like. I think we tackled the abortion scenes, I would’ve never thought that was something on our show. It’s very hard because the writers find a way to interweave everything in. I haven’t had the time to sit back and think “what else?” because every week has been something new.

W: That’s a great answer, it’s true. The show has covered a lot of topics and it’s doing very well.

MV: The abortion episode was insane, Carina fought for those shots of Lily’s legs bloody and she didn’t want to shy away from the graphicness of the scene. And I think that was important, to be really truthful to that.

W: Incredibly. This season resurrected Rosa (Amber Midthunder) from a pod years later, which is similar in a way to Captain America or Han Solo being unfrozen. With time having gone on, she’s having to adjust and in her own way, catch up to 2020. Let’s say you were able to suggest 1-2 things that someone should undoubtedly know about in 2020, what would it be? Is it a book, movie, show, certain type of food? What’s something you’d for sure put on that “must haves/dos” list of things or experiences?

MV: Oh wow, you’re really making me think about this! I can’t help but think about it as if it was me in that scenario and I would say something that I was really fortunate enough to do ten years ago, which was scuba dive The Great Barrier Reef. I think it’s so sad that it’s deteriorating at such a rapid rate because of pollution. I’m sure some natural causes. A lot of people fighting climate change will say natural causes and I can understand and see both sides to that, but I know that we definitely contribute to that. That was one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen. And if someone wasn’t able to see it the way I saw it, I haven’t been down there since so I don’t actually know what it looks or feels like now. But that was one of the first moments in my life where what I was experiencing…the world felt so big. Not in a way it felt just traveling. In a way it felt magical, that something like this can just exist and has existed much longer than we’ve ever been around. I’ve had that with hiking the second largest glacier in the world. All these feelings with nature have really expanded my mind and my horizon of the potential and possibilities. Realizing we’re very small, we’re here for a short amount of time. Let’s cherish it.

Traveling to these places that have just been so affected, I think that’s very important because of what it did to my mindset.

W: I loved that answer, you made it ecofriendly and everything. That was wonderful!

MV: My sister studied environmental science at the University of Illinois, so I gotta keep her mind. But I really do believe that. Maybe that’s something I want to see in the show too! Go into some climate change.  I don’t think we’ve touched that really, have we? Each side has arguments.

W: Each episode of Roswell, NM is titled after a famous ‘90s song. What’s your favorite or what would you consider the most iconic ‘90s song or band/musician?

MV: For me, it was Blink 182! In the ‘90s that was me. I’m a big Conor Oberst fan, the lead singer of Bright Eyes. The fact I’m in a scene, now multiple scenes that play that song. They did it in season one and in season two, they play “First Day of My Life,” that has been so surreal to me because music has been so important to me as a kid. I haven’t told many people this. As a kid I’d make short films with my friends, a lot of people know that, but what they don’t know is that I would rip so much music from all these platforms. As a little 11 year old kid, I’d get as much music as I could to have thousands of songs on my iTunes and iPod. Not that I was going to listen to them, but that one day when I was making my own big movies, I’d have this database of music to select from. Back then there wasn’t Spotify and it wasn’t as readily available, and also I was a kid and that was my thinking! Music has such an influence on my life, but Blink 182 specially. All that angst I was feeling at the time as a kid, it’s really in Guerin and me, even though I handle it in different ways in real life. Feeling a little different or not understood, that was that music that would give me a release without being too intense or too Screamo. If a Blink 182 song is ever in a scene that I’m in, I can die a happy man.

W: [Laughs] Amazing. Alongside acting, you’re also a talented writer, director and producer. A screenplay that you co-wrote earned a spot on the Black List which was one of the coolest things I’ve ever read. Congratulations! Are there other projects you’re currently working on or maybe topics you’re considering for future screenplays?

MV: Thank you! Yeah, definitely! The new Nicolas Cage/Tiger King series, the creator of that is actually the showrunner of a TV show my writing partner and I created as well. So, we’re all really stoked about that. Dan Lagana, showrunner of American Vandal is making such a splash with this Nicolas Cage project that it’s helping our TV show get put together too. We’ve got the Black List/Mac Miller script, we have a “Halloween comedy” feature film that’s set up at Seth MacFarlane’s company right now. Hopefully that gets made. We have an “old lady comedy” that’s being read, taking a lot of good meetings on that. We’re writing our next movie right now, we’re probably going to finish the beat sheet. We do a very detailed, intense outline of the movie, scene by scene as if we were actually writing the script. Exterior, interior, every single scene in order, everything we want out of characters in the scene, what we expect to happen, some dialogue that maybe came to mind as we’re banging out the outline. Once we get to writing, we could bang out eight pages in a day. We finish scripts very quickly, so we’re writing a “mob action comedy” right now. So yes, I became a writer out of desperation and found some success with writing. It’s been really good. As a kid making short films, it wasn’t actually in script form.

The last four years I’ve been writing a ton and now it’s starting to pop off a bit. I love it. I produce my own movies too and it looks like we’re about to lock down distribution for the first feature film I produced and starred in called Five Years Apart, it’s got a pretty cool cast in it and I’m really pumped for people to see it, we have a really cool distributor, I’m 99% sure that’ll be our distributor but I don’t want to jinx it. We’ll see if that’s going to be Hulu, Netflix, small theatrical release, I’m not sure yet. As a first time producer I’m learning all that. We’re gearing up on producing our next feature too, we were planning on filming in Wisconsin this summer but things have changed with the conditions of the world.

Acting, producing, writing, directing and releasing another merch line. I’ve been staying busy during the quarantine!

W: Seems so! I saw the line and love the pops of color!

MV: Thank you! It’s been really good, honestly the feedback, I was very surprised with how it’s done. Compared to last year and the multiple drops, this year, we’re nearing a certain point in orders and products that we’ll have to produce within three days of being out. It’s been really cool. Last year we gave 100% of profits to a charity called Random Acts started by Misha Collins of Supernatural. And this year, I unfortunately can’t do 100% again, I made the point but learned the lesson in that we had no money for this next launch. [Laughs] I had to dig into my own pockets, which was fun and it’s all good, it’s a big creative project. This year Carina created this thing called The Little Alien, a Roswell fund for the Roswell crew that’s out of work right now. She’s been raising money through t-shirts and I’m going to donate some of our proceeds to them as well. They’re the heartbeat of the show, they’re the reason we get to be there every day and things go smoothly. We’re trying to take care of them at this time.

W: Amazing, intentions matter so that’s really cool to hear. Lastly, anything you’d like to say to those reading and watching?

MV: To those reading and watching, thank you from the bottom of my heart that you’re tuning in and giving me a platform to do what I love the most. And what I set out to do felt like such a dream that from the age of 12 to 20, I wasn’t acting and making movies. Dreams are just dreams until you realize that they are very plausible, and most dreams, I think, can be achieved given the right circumstances, opportunities and work ethic. Thank you for allowing me follow my dreams and I hope that I’m able to inspire you to follow yours.

~ WatchTivist

[bpellerin]

Sociopathy properly understood

Currently ("currently" here is a word meaning "sometime near the middle of January 2019" so yeah I'm slow to post) reading yet another Brené Brown book, this one called Braving the Wilderness, and like her other books it's about belonging and vulnerability and how we don't need the first as much as we think but very much require the second and -- wait, I've got that wrong.

We do need belonging, but not the way you'd normally think of that word. Not in the usual sense of trying to fit in with a group, or being accepted into an existing society of fellows unless they're secretly a bunch of annoying but well-connected jerks.

Or, in her case, to be accepted into the cheerleading team back in high school.

Me, it was both being accepted by the cool kids but also making it and being accepted as a musician despite hailing from a different social-economic background than most mainstream pianists. I was an ordinary kid from the grubby suburbs. You know the place other people always made fun of? I lived there. We were the Newfoundland of suburbs. The kids who participated in the music contests weren’t necessarily richer than us, though they probably had a bit more discretionary spending at their disposal than I did. But they lived in Sillery or Ste-Foy, the nice areas we couldn't or wouldn't afford. Either way it wasn’t my fault where my parents had chosen to live. But I got punished because of it regardless by being sneered at and never accepted into the group. The other pianists were polished and sophisticated, something I’ve never felt. 

No, not even now.

I was always a bit raw. I do appreciate that my physical features allow me to clean up alright. I can walk in heels, and evening gowns don't look comical on my frame. I used to make a living in television, dammit. I can make myself look good and polished. But it’s not me.

Me is feeling comfortable in an ugly old fleece because it’s minus stupid outside and jeez, you know. It’s having my hair in a ponytail because I’m training twice today and why bother doing anything else with it? It's a mess of frizzes when I try too hard, and the blow dryer makes me sweat. Makeup is just stupid. Why not spend the time and money eating well and exercising instead? Oh sure, when you need to make a super duper impression under very bright lights like that time they asked you to be on the cover of Time magazine, go ahead. The point is not to look natural when natural means "slightly dead-looking". The point is to be natural and to let others see you that way. IRL, like the kids say. A little touch of blush here and there, if you insist, alright. But come now. Blue on the eyelids? On what creature is this normal? 

Your face tells the story of your life, and it's the one you should be wearing instead of hiding behind three layers of concealer and whatever they call that powder that sits on top and makes your face feel like a slightly overgreased pancake. Let yourself be seen, even if the story of your life includes episodes you'd rather not think about just now thanks very much. That's what gives your expression depth and meaning. Wear it with pride, and to hell what Cosmo says. 

So anyway, to make a long story short(er), I don't spend too much time polishing my exterior shell. It's clean and tidy, and I wear clothes that don't make me uncomfortable by their cut or poor tailoring, but that's about it. 

Back to Brené Brown. She starts the book with a quotation from Maya Angelou (I really need to read everything this woman wrote, too) about the freedom that comes from belonging only to oneself. Brown used to disagree with that quote pretty strongly, but now she gets it.

Funny, because I got it right away.

"You are only free when you realize you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great." That's how Angelou said it in a TV interview back in the early 1970s. 

I say I got the point of the quote right away, but that's only if you start counting from a few months back. If you start counting from when I came out of the womb or, if we're going to be generous, from when I came of age, er. I took a bit longer. 

I have spent a lifetime and a half struggling to belong. In a family that didn't feel like one. In a school where I either got ignored or bullied. At jobs I cared about so much I alienated everyone else by trying to win everything and beat every record. In relationships I killed with way too much attention and subservience. I would bend over backwards so many times I had no idea what time zone I was in anymore. That's how far I'd go to fit in and be accepted. Because that's what I thought one needed to be happy; to fit in with the cool kids and be accepted as one of their own. 

It was only recently, in the last year or so, that I discovered that sometimes the best way to be the best you can be is to stop giving a fuck what people think or feel. I'm 48 now. It's been a long trek going the wrong way trying to achieve goals that wouldn't make me happy if I succeeded not that I had any chance of doing so. 

Shit. 

So now I'm learning to be a bit of a sociopath. Not the kind the police need to worry about, obviously. But the kind that motors through life not paying too much attention to what other people think or say. 

By the nature of my work I often wind up pissing people off. I have strong opinions about topics people care about. Like Donald Trump and his terminally ugly band of supporters. Or institutional daycare for babies under the age of two. (Not sure which one I despise more.) I'm also not keen at all on the segregation of humans; I don't understand why we park kids in their own buildings while older folks get dumped in retirement homes full of other old people. Why not mix them up, like they do in some European places where they give highly reduced rent to college students in old folks homes in exchange for them mingling with regular residents and performing odd jobs for them, like helping them write letters or just spend time chatting over tea. When I talk about this I often get a wallop on Twitter to the effect that in this busy day and age nobody has time for this sort of stuff anymore and come on, be realistic and stop dreaming in technicolour. 

But I like technicolour. 

I'm happy to have others who like technicolour as much as I do to hop on my merry wagon and travel along with me. I'm also OK with people reading my stuff just to argue with me - though I would be eternally grateful if they actually did try to understand what I was saying before they started shouting. That'd be real nice. But I don't need it, and I certainly don’t need them. 

Any of them. I don't write for an audience. I write for me. I'm delighted to have an audience. But it comes after the work, not before. 

That's the hardest part of trying to belong by not trying to belong, to be perfectly honest about it. Most of us who enjoy the work we do also enjoy feedback about same, especially if it's positive. But sometimes negative feedback is enjoyable too, if it makes you better at the work you already enjoy doing. (Pain to the ego is usually temporary. Right?) 

Not having feedback on the work I do because it's not out there yet, wow, that's hard. Years of daily blogging have made me very dependent on visitor statistics and other social-media metrics for validation. Love or hate my stuff, whatever I don’t care, but at least engage with it. That way I'll know I've done something alright. 

But all this stuff I've been writing these past few months that's sitting quietly in my files waiting to be edited and submitted somewhere? I have no feedback on that. And frankly at the moment it's kind of OK, because the truth is I'm scared shitless of what the feedback would be if there was any. I mean, what if my fiction is no good? What if it sucks? Worse, what if it doesn't suck enough to be interesting in its suckiness? What if it's just, gasp, boring? 

To say this feeling makes me anxious would be a fine understatement. But somehow I have to put that anxiety aside and keep plugging away and not - repeat, NOT - sneak out to the megaplex and watch something explode on screen while I stuff popcorn into my maw. (Mymaw, a popcorn mymaw, popcorn mama, can't stop thinking of possibilities. I have issues.) 

No. I have to keep plugging away, doing the work I was put on this planet to do. And do it for me, like a proper sociopath should.