#( call me by your name

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❝ On late afternoons, when there was nothing to do in the house, Mafalda would ask him to climb a ladder with a basket and pick those fruits that were almost blushing with shame, she said. He would joke in Italian, pick one out, and ask, Is this one blushing with shame? No, she would say, this one is too young still, youth has no shame, shame comes with age. ❞ - call me by your name, andré aciman

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if you think Oliver wears the pants in this relationship, you're wrong, my friend. he absolutely lets this overemotional, horny wisp of a boy seven years his junior push him around and he loves it.

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What do your muses love about Elio?

oh gosh, i’ll just go individually.

dalton - elio is another of the male witches in the covey, so there was already that connecting them before they’d even met. and then when they DID meet, they had this immediate, electric connection. elio grew up with magic, whereas dalton only just discovered he was a witch & a dreamwalker a few months before meeting elio. somehow, though, dalton’s never felt judged by elio for his lack of knowledge, nor does elio come off as pretentious or a know-it-all ( despite the fact that he very much can come off that way – it’s goddamn CANON, y’all. )

they had an immediate physical chemistry as well, which kinda ended up in some lights busting bcuz dalton has urban magic fueled by electricity in particular and when he gets a little overexcited, he tends to send out surges of energy that overload bulb filaments and breakers and wires and shit. they bonded leading up to the battle against thanos in our infinity war/endgame plot in the server, with elio helping dalton learn a few spells, along with don, and then his brother, ash. but basically they just have this deep, instinctual connection.

dalton loves elio’s kindness, that he loves to cuddle just as much as he does, that elio helps him grow in his magic without pushing him or making him feel lesser than just because he didn’t grow up knowing magic. he loves his insatiable sexual appetite, and the fact that elio doesn’t mind topping him but also isn’t afraid to ask dalton to top, too, because dalt is usually very bottom & subby, but can switch, too. it’s never been an issue for them. dalton loves that he can take care of elio, too, reminding him to eat when he gets too involved in something or is having a depressive episode.

when elio’s familiar, oliver, was dusted following that first battle, dalton was there for him to try to comfort him, and when they defeated thanos & the fallen ones returned, dalton also forged a bond with oliver, as well. it’s a poly household, so that aspect doesn’t surprise him so much, but that elio and oliver both want to invite him into their bond means so much to dalton.

oliver - god, do we even need to go over this?? i think first of all, oliver liked elio’s interest in him, which was pretty clear from the beginning even if elio thinks he was slicker than that. actual interest in elio himself came later, as it was revealed in snippets of conversation and moments in the sun just how intelligent elio was. oliver’s a philosophy student, he loves someone who can hold a deep conversation with him, someone who is well-read, but he’s also a twenty-four year old American kid, so he needs someone who can have fun and go dancing, and running through the streets of rome singing at the top of their lungs. elio is all of these things, but he’s also good. for all his moodiness, his rapid changes in mood, his retaliatory, passive aggressive antics, elio is a good, kind person who feels things in ways that oliver never could, and he says things with such eloquence and emotion that it reaches right into his chest and strums his heartstrings.

oliver could listen to elio play guitar or piano for hours, especially when he starts showing off a little and going into all of his variations on the same tune. he’s not musically inclined himself so it’s just dizzying to think about, yet elio does it so easily and naturally. he loves elio’s passion for music, his passion for life, his courage to go after what he wants and be an imperfect human. there’s so much structure in oliver’s worldview, so many things he has to be, and yet elio is so unapologetically himself.

there’s also just an unnamed part of this, something that tugs at his very soul. and maybe they’re soulmates, or it’s fate, or whatever else you want to call it, but oliver found something in elio that he could never replace, to the point where he would hold his own private ritual every year on elio’s birthday to remember what they had and imagine what they might be doing this year if they had somehow chosen each other. if he hadn’t married his wife, micol. it took him twenty years, and a night where someone else caught his eye and then played that very bach piece that elio had played around with one summer day, to realize he would only be happy with elio and to go back to italy where it all began. bonds like that aren’t a dime a dozen. it’s super special what they have to be able to last that amount of time, and through other relationships on both sides.

nic - this is still a new relationship we’re just starting to explore, but nic has a lot of self-esteem issues and some problems with co-dependency, too. a lot of his relationships in the past have been very toxic for him, largely because they fueled his drug use, but also because his reliance on having those relationships for his self-worth led to some abusive behavior. but basically elio doesn’t make him feel like he’s a bad person because he’s an addict. yes, he’s in recovery now, but it’s not a smooth road by any means. elio’s extremely patient with him when he has to cancel plans suddenly, or when he’s agitated and moody. he wants to celebrate nic’s successes, but he doesn’t expect him to be expounding positivity and perfection. also tallulah, his dog, took to elio pretty much instantly, and considering she was a stray who showed a pretty big distrust of men ( kinda like himself when he’d been homeless & turning tricks for drug money ) if she trusted elio, it meant he was a good person.

njála - it’s not quite to LOVE yet, but she does thoroughly adore him. she’s a musical person herself, so his musical talent and magical abilities immediately resonated with her and drew her in. well, really, it’s because she’s never heard her friend, sim ( my loki muse, ) talk so much or so fondly about anyone who wasn’t his mother. so she went into meeting him already having some prior knowledge. his sexual appetite is also very attractive, because hers is pretty damn healthy, and he’s not just take, take, take, pound, pound, pound. he actually shows an interest in her pleasure. he’s also a total goofball, and so adorably enthralled with her that she can’t help but be endeared.

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here i am emotionally compromised again. i’ve been reading tweak for more insight on nic and just. wow. literally started reading it yesterday afternoon and i’m already over halfway through it. it’s a little scary how much i can relate to his ways of thinking. i’m trying NOT to overthink about that.

and then i went to go change my discord status as i do every morning and i was sifting through cmbyn quotes and god, every time i get to quotes from when elio visits oliver at his university fifteen years later and they end up having a drink at elio’s hotel...i’m just struck dumb with the ACHE of that meeting. of course, we don’t see oliver’s side of things and he seems cool and collected, congenial, offering to introduce elio to his family. but can he really be that callous to everything going through elio’s mind? no -- because he hesitates before accepting elio’s invite to the hotel. “i said a drink, not a fuck.” oliver knows. he knows himself, remember? he knows elio. he knows he still feels something for elio, knows he wants to fall in bed with him, even if he ultimately decides to be good to his wife, he WANTS to.

and then when oliver visits elio at the villa again after the professor dies. the whole ‘you’re the only person i want to say goodbye to in this world.’ makes me cry every time. i’m crying right now. they’ve barely spoken for twenty years, seen each other once, and yet elio is still full of this feeling that oliver is one of the most important parts of his life. even though he talks about how his life isn’t segmented so much by oliver’s summer, but by other lovers that came after him.( 'Many helped me part life into Before X and After X segments, many brought joy and sorrow, many threw my life off course, while others made no difference whatsoever, so that Oliver, who for so long had loomed like a fulcrum on the scale of life, eventually acquired successors who either eclipsed him or reduced him to an early milepost, a minor fork in the road, a small, fiery Mercury on a voyage out to Pluto and beyond.’ ) it’s still super clear that oliver is important to him. he can’t feel nothing. he both wants to feel nothing and to be thrown right back into every feeling of that summer when ‘he became me and i became him in bed so many years ago.’

i can’t even describe the feeling that overcomes me about this. it’s beautiful that those feelings are still there, even after all these years, even after oliver has married and made a family, even after elio has moved on with his life too & is a successful concert pianist. it’s also INCREDIBLY sad and tragic that circumstances kept these two deeply in love people apart. they could have shared so. many. things. together. it rips me apart inside. i can’t breathe. i want the connection that oliver and elio have, but the thought of losing something so goddamn precious is TERRIFYING.

inevitably i start thinking about find me, too, and i have to wonder about the final section of the book where oliver & elio are traveling together, and then there’s miranda and little oliver at the villa. when i read more carefully, i could see how it was written that oliver leaving his wife is just a fantasy he has, and maybe it doesn’t actually happen. maybe it just plays out in his head. which would mean his return to italy, to ELIO, never happens. which means he never gets to meet little oliver. and the last chapter is just another fantasy, except how could he imagine someone he hasn’t met or heard about? i have to hope that the last section of the book isn’t just a dream sequence. i have to hope that these two deeply-emotional human beings don’t have to spend the rest of their lives apart from one another, maybe speaking infrequently, maybe visiting each other here & there, but never getting to be together the way they should be. because thinking otherwise feels like it will break me.

it shouldn’t matter -- they’re just fictional characters, but i think what hurts the most is how REAL it feels. because this happens to people all the time -- falling in love with someone only to lose them, for whatever reason. i’m just super fucked up about it.

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Love is alive, and someone borne along by it is more alive than lions roaring or men in their fierce courage. Bandits ambush others on the road. They get wealth, but they stay in one place. Lovers keep moving, never the same, not for a second! What makes others grieve, they enjoy! When they look angry, don't believe their faces. It's spring lightning, a joke before the rain. They chew thorns thoughtfully along with pasture grass. Gazelle and lioness, having dinner. Love is invisible except here, in us. Sometimes I praise love; sometimes love praises me. Love, a little shell somewhere on the ocean floor, opens its mouth. You and I and we, those imaginary beings, enter that shell as a single sip of seawater.

Rumi, “Entering the Shell”

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What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.

                         ------- EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

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How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the Ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints -- I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

                 -------ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

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Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,   Which I gaze on so fondly today, Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,   Like fairy-gifts fading away, Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,   Let thy loveliness fade as it will, And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart   Would entwine itself verdantly still. It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,   And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,   To which time will but make thee more dear; No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,   But as truly loves on to the close, As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,   The same look which she turned when he rose.

Thomas Moore

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The mirror between us is breath mist when I speak. Your face in water: I reach, the work grows muddy. Even friend and beloved are wrong words for this. Even ahhhhh retreats back into my mouth, the same if the moon's behind cloud or being released. A pure silent look is better.

Rumi, “The Mirror Between Us”

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my roommates are out of town this weekend so i took advantage and watched CMBYN on the tv instead of just on my phone lol

and god i forgot just how much of a dick elio and oliver are to each other in the first part of the movie. elio’s just an asshole period, but so is oliver!! elio’s just that typical contrary teenager, acting cool, acting out and being douchey, while oliver is this cocky guy who argues etymology pretentiously with the prof and needles elio every chance he gets ( i mean, bcuz he already KNOWS elio likes him & is probably being such a douche bcuz he likes him, so he’s trying to get him to show his cards. ) but god they are just such jerks to each other, which i forget bcuz i usually just watch the second portion of the movie starting with their first time and they are so fucking sweet to each other afterwards.

also i laugh every single time i see gifs or watch where elio & oliver are making out against the wall in rome and oliver’s head just POPS up when he hears the music. he looks like a fucking meerkat.

i lasted until sammy’s speech this time before i broke down crying. and then i was okay for a little while until elio was staring into the fireplace and crying. i know i’ve felt crushed like that before, but i’ve also never had what he and oliver had, not that intensely, so i can imagine the sheer weight of grief. ofc, reading the book, there’s some things that are conveyed there that don’t quite make it to the screen, but then, things happen a lot differently too. i love both versions, honestly.

it’s going to be really interesting to see how they adapt find me to the screen. will they try to age up the actors to match the book’s timeline? or will they fiddle with the timeline instead. i feel like some of the impact will be lost if they change it too drastically. that’s part of the reason it hits me so hard is the time that elapses before elio can even bring himself to go see oliver again, but also how much chemistry there still is between them, to the point where they know if they’re alone in the wrong place ( right place??? ) they’ll fall right back into it again.

okay and also, one last thing: elio & marzia were really cute together and i could have handled them being a thing after. they both knew elio would never love her like he loved oliver, but...they still had something nice.

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These are the people who finish out their lives together and still cannot say what it is they want from one another. No one would think it is the intimacy of sex—that mere sex is the reason each lover takes so great and deep a joy in being with the other. It’s obvious that the soul of every lover longs for something else; his soul cannot say what it is, but like an oracle it has a sense of what it wants, and like an oracle it hides behind a riddle. Suppose two lovers are lying together and Hephaestus stands over them with his mending tools, asking, ‘What is it you human beings really want from each other?’ And suppose they’re perplexed, and he asks them again, ‘Is this your heart’s desire, then—for the two of you to become parts of the same whole, as near as can be, and never to separate, day or night? Because if that’s your desire, I’d like to weld you together and join you into something that is naturally whole, so that the two of you are made into one. Then the two of you would share one life, as long as you lived, because you would be one being, and by the same token, when you died, you would be one and not two in Hades, having died a single death. Look at your love, and see if this is what you desire: Wouldn’t this be all the good fortune you could want?' Surely you can see that no one who received such an offer would turn it down; no one would find anything else that he wanted. Instead, everyone would think he’d found out at last what he had always wanted: to come together and melt together with the one he loves, so that one person emerged from two. Why should this be so? It’s because, as I said, we used to be complete wholes in our original nature, and now ‘love’ is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.

Plato’s Other Half ( x )