#and more clearly and succinctly

[queenbeekb13]

Re the post I just reblogged (linking it isn’t working for me for some reason):

It’s the way Bobby says I got him. Once so everyone knows and then again quietly for himself. Because that’s his kid and he can’t lose another kid

It’s the way Chim was about to use the lifepak and then stars compressions manually and has to ordered off so they can get in the ambulance. Him begging Buck to hold on and come on come back to us. Because that’s his brother and he can’t lose another brother

It’s the way Eddie looks DEVESTATED. Tries to pull Buck up to him and then rush down to see him and then has to be pulled away because “you’re driving” because neither of them should be in the back when Buck is like that. Because that’s Eddie’s partner in everything and he can’t lose that again.

[devoutjunk]

“There have been real instances of antisemitism on campuses since the protests began; here and there we’ve seen real instances of malevolence and idiocy. But to believe, on the basis of anecdata, that hatred and ignorance have motivated the vast majority of students who’ve set up encampments and other pro-Palestinian protests over the last month ⁠– in their many thousands at well over 100 colleges and universities in all but four states ⁠– is to believe what can only be described as an extraordinary propaganda campaign, one pushed by critics in the press and in office who can’t seem to agree on what the protesters are like. These students, we’ve been told, are both popular and unpopular among their peers. They are both ugly and chic. They are fragile and cold-blooded, pathetically soft and remarkably violent. They hate Jews. They are Jews who hate themselves. They’ve exercised both too little message discipline and too much caution with the press at demonstrations that are both laughably chaotic and suspiciously organized. And whoever they are and whatever’s spurred them into action, the students are, clearly, in need of either a good sock to the mouth or a good lay ⁠– the better to focus their attention away from politics and on their studies, on political matters close to home rather than halfway across the world, or political matters halfway across the world more deserving of their attention, like the plight of the suffering in China, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Iran or Azerbaijan.

No one with their eyes on Gaza denies that there are many bad things happening in the world at any given time. None of those who’ve troubled law- and opinion-makers so with their insistence that the Palestinians are people would argue that the Palestinians are the only suffering people on the globe. But they are suffering largely as a consequence of American foreign policy.”

—“US students, once again, have led the way. Now we must all stand up for Palestinians,” by Osita Nwanevu (The Guardian)

[spinner-of-yarns]

Being mostly used to writing, where I can simply let pronouns and gendered words do the heavy lifting for me when it comes to conveying this person is nonbinary and this is a queer relationship without dealing with appearance and body shape and presentation, doing the same in visual art is not very straight forward.

[paper-mario-wiki]

Hey I know your clown days are behind you and everything, but I'm still curious if you've got any opinions on The Amazing Digital Circus?

same thing everyone else does i suppose, that its fun and well made.

to be additive to the discussion instead of just saying positive stuff you've already heard, i'll levy a little critique against it, bearing in mind that i do so with positive, constructive intent.

i feel as though in recent times we've been oversaturated with stories and media with too grand a focus on the characters instead of interesting concepts. i think that the character design in the amazing digital circus is colorful and neat, but in the past 3 years how many "it's cutesy looking, but it's actually about existential terror and the cute characters go through trauma, oh no!" gimmicks have you seen in stories? personally ive seen quite a few.

i feel as though creatives are pushed too much to make a marketable face first and foremost, because lingering eyes are in high demand for artwork online these days. if someone is going to move on quick, which is going to be the case with the majority of people, it's much more likely that someone will find it easier to remember a cool design for a character instead of an entire unique sequence of events. that means story-driven things are either made to be more shallow to give more space for character moments, or have a much smaller chance for having their work succeed.

i do not think this is indicative of some mass decline in creative originality, or even the fault of the creatives who make the work. like i said, i thought it was a lot of fun and gave it a small positive review on twitter a few days ago. Gooseworx, as well as the rest of the team who made it, clearly cared for this project. what im talking about is a symptom of the larger issue that is the black-box algorithms that have desolated social networks, and create bad media consumption habits in people. though i wont lie to you and say i havent grown to resent the symptom too.

so to answer your question more succinctly, i dont really think of it that much at all. ive seen this one already.

[catastrophicalcat]

Reasons Valmont Sucks (Catwoman 2018)

Valmont was a terrible character. And I really want to dissect why and how he is terrible - not just to get it off my chest and onto the collective Internet, but also because I think that Howard made some questionable writing choices that doomed him.

A quick intro - Valmont is Selina's love interest from the 1st two arcs of Tini Howard's Catwoman (2018) run. Inspired by some version of the Dangerous Liaisons character, he is a quasi French assassin who appears in Selina's life when she is trying to take on the Five Gotham Crime families, stalks her a bit, gifts her a stolen cat, fucks her, and eventually get murdered by her while he's trying to kill Batman. BatCat are on a poorly defined break during these events (with Bruce clearly thinking that they're somewhat committed to each other). Valmont is a dork. He looks like this:

More stuff under the break since I don't know how to write succinctly...

Valmont is a possessive stalker. It's obvious that Howard wanted to create a character who is different from Batman. Just look at him - Batman wears black, Valmont wears white. Batman strives to be a good person, while Valmont is an unrepentant murder. Bruce tries to be a gentlemen, while Valmont.... Almost immediately, Howard is in a pickle - how can she recreate a 17th century romance about assholes when, at the moment her run begin, Selina has no reason to be into this guy? And, this phony goth poser, by definition, cannot be upfront and just ask Selina out. Bruce would have done that. He's not Bruce. Solution? She gets rescued by him. A lot. Some examples:

While getting rescued frequently may be a way to fall in love, it makes Selina just so incompetent. Like I think that almost every single issue where Valmont appears, she needs to gets saved by him in some fashion. I don't think that Bruce rescued her that often, at least not in her own run! I went from reading about a savvy cat-burglar to an eternal damsel-in-distress.

Maybe I missed it, but I literally just read through all of his issues to find these screencaps, and I can't find any reason for him to be there other than to stalk her....

2. Making sexy French man is hard, OK! Prior to this run, I did not realize just how hard it is to write a sexy man instead of a creepy man. But seriously, this guy is GROSS, and Selina being into him makes her come off as dumb floozy. Who in the world would get turned on by lines like:

Maybe I'm fascinating, Catwoman. (Spoiler - he isn't)

I consider myself a citizen of the world. (Is he "my parents live in Ohio, I live in the moment" Ted Mosby?)

I wanted to help. But I did not want to chase you, or do what those boys had done. So I simply waited, where I knew you could find me. ("Those boys" - Tim & Dick, who tried to offer reasonable assistance and advice).

Fascinating? Interesting? Dangerous? (Describing himself.)

But I won't assume that just because a cat has sat in my lap once, it will do so whenever I call. (He then proceeds to bang her on the roof).

Have you ever had anyone encourage you to chase your desires? Just for your own pleasure? (Yeah, this is like a famous trait of hers...)

The sharp pleasure of waiting until I see you again is enough. (See, normal Selina - or a normal woman - would just never see him again).

Related to the above - their sexy times? Not sexy. First, they try and fail to hijack a cannibal's plane and parachute jump. Maybe adrenaline got their heart rate up, but still - poor planning! Second, and more egregiously: multiple characters comment on how Selina is deliriously tired. Valmont is one of those characters! He then bangs her on the roof. I don't want to kink-shame, but sleeping with someone when they're falling off their feet from exhaustion is like, not great?

3. He's a freaking murderer! This guy kills people and drops their bodies in the harbor. He's friends with Flamingo, a cannibal who tried to eat Robin (Damian, but still!). And yet, this is how Selina feels about him:

What happened? Really, what happened? Selina used to be smart and not boy crazy. Sure, she has a wide variety of unfortunate love interests despite these traits (post forthcoming!). But never has she fallen so fast, so quick, so off the deep end for someone who deserves it so very little.

I have other substantive issues with this run, but wanted to start by dissecting Valmont. A non-Bruce love interest is already an uphill battle in a Catwoman comic. Burdening him with all of these negative traits did not lead to a good story. Instead, Selina came off as stupid and immature for ever liking this guy in the first place.

I know that this post was super negative - these are just my thoughts, and I'm open to critique. If folks feel positive about Valmont, or other things I touched on here, I would be really interested to hear it.

[lackadaisycats]

I tried to answer this succinctly, but it turned into an essay. (Sorry.)

The Princess and the Frog was not accurate, strictly speaking, but dinging it for that would be like criticizing the Lion King for not being a realistic wildlife documentary. Accuracy wasn't really the point. Given the fantastical elements and fictional nations like “Maldonia”, I suppose we're meant to understand this as a bit removed from the real New Orleans. It's more a a jazz-flavored fairy tale than a historical fiction.

But for discussion's sake....

Is it fashion-accurate to its 1926 timeframe? Ehhh, sort of. It pays homage to 20s fashion trends with cloche hats, furs and feathery headpieces, but without fully committing to it. The waistline on almost all of Tiana's clothing is too high for the 20s, and the the shapes of her fancier costumes take a lot of liberties, or deviate wildly from the style of the period.

In the 20s, dresses (including workaday stuff) tended to have a straight up-and-down shape to it - kind of a low-waisted rectangle that de-emphasized curves instead of highlighting them. There are valid reasons to play fast and loose with that, though (something I’m definitely guilty of as well). One of those reasons is communication. 

For instance, speculatively, the filmmakers wrote Tiana as a hard-working waitress and wanted her to look the part, so they made the choice to clothe her in something familiar - that gingham dress of mid-century shape that we broadly associate with diner waitresses. Actual waitress uniforms of the 20s had a fair bit of overlap with maid uniforms at the time too, and I can see why they wouldn't want to risk the confusion. It's more important to communicate clearly with the larger audience than to appease a small faction of fashion nerds who'd notice or care about the precision.

I don't think it's a case of the designers failing to do their research - I'm sure they had piles of references, and maybe even consultants - but they also had to have priorities.

With her hat and coat on, she looks a lot more 1920s-shaped.

Pretty consistently, the indication of the characteristic 1920s drop waist is there, but the approach otherwise ignores the 20s silhouette. The clothes hug the body too much. This may be about appealing to a 2000s audience, visually speaking, but also could be an animation thing. Maybe both. For practical reasons, clothes in 2d animation are usually more a sort of second skin than something that wears or behaves like realistic fabric.

These are not in the 1920s ballpark at all. Tiana's blue gown looks like your basic Disney brand invention. Strapless things would have been extremely unusual and the overall shape is far out of step. Excusable, I guess, because it's a costume in context. Charlotte looks like she’s heading for a mimosa brunch in a modern maxi dress.

Charlotte's princess dress did seem to be calling back to the ultra-wide pannier side hoops of the 18th century - something that made a reappearance for part of the 20s, albeit in much milder form called robe de style. I'm not sure if the filmmakers were alluding to that at all, really, but either way, her dress is hilarious.

They only went about halfway with the cloche hats. The 1920s cloche really encapsulated the cranium, almost entirely covered bobbed hair, and obscured much of the face from certain angles, so it's easy to see why they've been somewhat reined in for the film. Still, it ends up looking more 1930s, where the hats started to recede away from the face, evolving in the direction of the pillbox.

Similarly, Tiana's hair is not very reminiscent of the bobbed, close-to-the-cranium style of the period, but I think that could legitimately be written off as characterization. She's not at all the type of person who'd fuss about going à la mode. Not everyone bobbed and finger-waved their hair.

The clothes Prince Naveen is introduced in are very 1920s collegiate in spirit - the wide-leg oxford bags, the sleeveless pullover sweater, the flat cap, and high, stiff collar. The ukulele and banjolele were pretty trendy instruments at the time too.

Definitely some Josephine Baker vibes here. Also, the look of this whole fantasy sequence was reportedly inspired by the works of Aaron Douglas, a luminary painter of the Harlem Renaissance known for his depictions of the lives of African-Americans. (The mural is in Topeka, Kansas.)

They pretty much nailed the Art Deco. It's gorgeous. Looks somewhat inspired by the interiors of some of the Ralph Walker-designed NYC architecture, plus some French Quarter balcony flair for the final manifestation of Tiana's Place. Her dress here does resemble some gauzy mid-1920s looks, too.

------------------------------------------------

Culturally speaking...

New Orleans is an unusual place. Because some of the colonial Spanish and French laws and conventions that New Orleans evolved under persisted even after its inception into the United States; because it was such a heterogeneous hub of indigenous and immigrant peoples; and because it had a considerable population of free people of color (mostly Creole), it did not function quite like the rest of the South leading up to the Civil War, nor for a while after. Its particular coalescence of cultures made it its own unique sort of culture within the country, within the region, within the state of Louisiana even. By the early 20th century, though, regardless of the not-very-binary nature of New Orleans, Jim Crow laws were enforcing a literal black-and-white distinction, and not an evenhanded one, by far. In that aspect, the city had begun to resemble the rest of the South.

The film nods at the wealth disparity, but goes on to paint a pretty rosy picture of race and class relations at the time. Still it's not unbelievable that some people were exceptions to the rules. You could probably find a few compartments of old New Orleans society that resisted segregation or certain prejudicial norms, preferring to do things their own way. That aside, the film wasn't trying to confront these topics. Not every piece of media should have to. Sometimes breaking away from miserable period piece stereotypes is refreshing. I'm not sure it could have handled that meaningfully given the running time, narrow story focus, and intended audience, anyhow. (But you could perhaps also make a case that family films habitually underestimate younger audiences in this way.)

------------------------------------------------

Raymond the firefly I guess is the film's Cajun representation. There's not much to say about it, except perhaps to note that Evangeline is a reference to the heroine of a Longfellow poem of the same name. The poem is an epic romance set during the expulsion of the Acadians from the eastern provinces of Canada and the northernmost reaches of the American colonies (now Maine) by the British in the mid-1700s. Many exiled Acadians gradually migrated south to francophone-friendly Louisiana, settling into the prairies and bayous, where 'Acadian' truncated into the pronunciation 'Cajun'. Evangeline - who is only finally reunited with her love when he’s on his deathbed - has become an emblem of the heartbreak, separation and faithful hope of that cultural history, and there are parishes, statues and other landmarks named after the her throughout Louisiana.

------------------------------------------------

Voodoo does have a very historical presence in New Orleans, having arrived both directly from West Africa and by way of the Haitian diaspora (where it would more properly be called Vodou). While I don't think Disney's treatment of it was especially sensitive or serious, it also wasn't the grotesquely off-base sort of thing that media of the past has been known to do. It was largely whittled down to a magical plot component, but it wasn't so fully repurposed that it didn't resemble Voodoo at all either - and that's mostly owing to the characters, because it does appear the writers pulled from history there.

It’s apparently widely held that Dr. Facilier is a Baron Samedi caricature - and likely that's true, in part - but I have the impression he's also influenced by Doctor John. Not the 20th century funk musician, but the antebellum “Voodoo King” of New Orleans. Doctor John (also called Bayou John, Jean La Ficelle, and other aliases) claimed to be a Senegalese prince. He became well known as a potion man and romance-focused prognosticator to people from all corners of society. Though highly celebrated and financially successful at his peak, he seems ultimately remembered as an exploitative villain.

To my recollection, the film sort of gingerly avoids referring to Facilier as a Voodoo practitioner directly (I think he's more generically called a witch doctor in the script?) but it does seem to imply his 'friends on the other side' are a consortium of loa. It's mostly abbreviated into nebulously evil-seeming special FX, glazing over any specificity or dimensionality, but it does also loop back around as a vehicle of moral justice. Loa are all very individualistic and multi-faceted, but they do have reciprocal rules for asking favors of them.

There's also the benevolent counterpart in Mama Odie's character. Her wearing ritual whites has a definite basis in Voodoo/Vodou practice, and her depiction as a fairy godmother-like figure isn't entirely out of step with how a mambo may have been perceived...in a very general sense. They were/are ceremonial leaders and community bastions who people would seek out for help, advice and spiritual guidance. More than just emanating matronly good vibes, though, some have wielded considerable political and economic power.

(Just my opinions here. I've done a lot of reading on the subject for research but I'm no authority with any special insider understanding of Voodoo, and I really shouldn't be relied upon as an arbiter of who has or hasn't done it justice in fiction.)

------------------------------------------------

In summary--

Culturally, I think the film is respectably informed but paints a superficially genteel picture. The set pieces are gorgeous, but the story mostly delivers a sort of veneer of New Orleanishness. And as for fashion, well, it’s the 1920s run through a Disney filter. It’s very pretty, but it’s only as proximally accurate as seemed practical.

I don’t know that any of that really matters so much as whether or not it achieved what it intended, though. As a charming yarn and as a tribute to New Orleans and the Jazz age, I think it’s mostly successful. It’s also really beautifully animated!

[luveline]

i’ve been needing some more Spence in my life can I request something w him very fluffy and soft and lovely and wonderful I have no plot I’m so so sorry but you’re a genius please pick up my slack<333

thank u for ur request angel! fem!reader

Spencer is surprising, occasionally. He must have really missed you while you were apart, all five days and seven hours, because he pulls you so tightly into his arms upon seeing you that your heels lift up from the floor. Your laugh is a squeal and you scramble to keep purchase, clinging to him rather than have your full weight topple him over. 

"Hey, Spence!" you say brightly. "You didn't text me to say you were back! What's up with that?" 

"I knew you'd be here. Didn't wanna waste time texting," he says, sounding just as happy as you, his face crushed to the side of your head, the bridge of his nose against your ear. 

"Ah, because texting slows down the speed of the car you're in," you tease, moving back onto proper footing. It creates a gap between your faces, enough to see how tired he looks. 

Spencer hums and smiles despite his dark circles. It's a very vulnerable expression, almost hopeful. Sometimes you think he's worried that, in your time apart, your affection has lessened for him, like a few days is enough to realise he's not worth it. But that would never happen, because he's more than worth it. He deserves to know that. 

You stroke hair out of his face softly with your pinky finger, tucking it behind his ear, your hand pausing against his neck. "I'm glad you're home safe. I can stop worrying about you." 

"For a few days," he says with a wince. 

"Lucky me," you say sincerely. 

He dives in for another hug. You think you might love that most about him, how when he's missed you, all that he wants is to be close to you, choosing a hug over a kiss nine times out of ten. He's a little taller than you and you feel it in moments like this, his arm behind your neck to lock you in, his lips pressed to the highest point of your cheek. 

"It's concerning to me that you didn't hear me come in," Spencer says. "And that you didn't lock your door. You know forty percent of home invasions happen during the day?" 

"I wish I didn't know that now," you say. "You'd protect me, though." 

"With what?" he asks incredulously. 

You giggle and lean away from his embrace. He sounds genuinely confused as to what you're expecting from him, which is funny —he's a special agent for the FBI. "Just because you don't bring a gun home doesn't mean you can't look after us, Spence. I've heard all the stories, remember." 

"Exaggerated by Rossi after a glass of Chambertin." 

He's laughing by the time he finishes his sentence, infected by your giddy smile, his arms settling now behind your back. He hasn't quite mastered the art of casual intimacy; every touch from him is loaded with meaning and sincerity alike. 

You look up into his face. "I trust you, but I'll lock the door next time. Is it really forty percent? That seems high." 

Spencer loads up a spiel of statistics for you, listing them succinctly but interweaving correlations he clearly thinks you'll find interesting. He doesn't gloss over the scary stuff or the convoluted math. You're reeling by the time he's done. But happy, completely, in the circle of his arms. 

"I missed you," you say. 

Spencer looks surprised. "I missed you more," he says, matter-of-fact. 

You shake your head gently. "No. You didn't." 

Spencer dips his head down for a soft kiss. Your eyes shutter closed, your hand leaping for his cheek. He kisses you so sweetly that you think, Maybe he did miss me more. 

His thumb presses into your hip, his kiss ramping in urgency, and you fail to think about anything after that. 

[flanaganfilm]

As someone who has lost a parent to addiction, I have found that the most frustrating part of the structure of help for addicts is that is has long been a system set up for failure by placing God at the center of recovery. It removes not only personal accountability but also, and honestly, more importantly, personal victory over sobriety.

Something that I deeply appreciate about your representation of recovery is taking God out of the equation - even during the AA meeting with Father Paul - Riley clearly lays out a different structure even when confronted with the traditional religious answer. Was that on purpose and if so, why has it been important to you to show this in your work?

Yep, it's something very important to me as an atheist who is five years sober. Riley voices my opinion pretty succinctly. Very sorry for your loss

[eriexplosion]

Yesterday everyone was posting their feelings on TBB. I'm glad I waited, because there's a lot swirling around. Cut for negativity again.

I was introduced to The Bad Batch in August 2022 and fell instantly in love. The characters, the story, the complex family dynamics, they all spoke to me. I wasn't even a Star Wars fan but I went through and devoured The Clone Wars, Rebels, The Mandalorian, all of it. I threw myself into this world and adored every second of it. I must have rewatched season one over five times before season two even came out.

When season two premiered I loved it. Every Tuesday night I stayed up until the episode drop and devoured it immediately. I looked ahead at the schedule and took days off work for the double episodes, for the big Crosshair episodes - he was my favorite early on and season two only made that grow. But season two also really brought Tech into my radar even more. I had always liked him, but here he was shining. The Crossing really solidified it, as an autistic person. I'd never heard someone describe the difference in processing so succinctly before, so clearly, and it spoke to me like very little had. Here was a character that was like me. Here was a character that I needed when I was an undiagnosed child, someone that would have made me feel like I had at least some way of describing my differences.

Then, well. He died. It was an affecting scene, but it felt out of nowhere, it felt unfinished. Tech didn't even get the climax of the episode. He just fell into the clouds, the Batch grieved for a few minutes, and then the plot steamrolled right along.

I didn't believe it, not after the mad scientist presented his goggles and claimed not to salvage anything else. It seemed like such an obvious fake out. The longer I sat with it the less satisfying it felt. It felt so brushed over, so pointless, all for a mission that they accomplished nothing on. Then came the social media circus. Again and again his fall was shoved in our faces on Twitter, demanding we stream it. TikToks were made that were so out of touch they felt like parodies, the wound ripped open again and again, and I thought surely there had to be a purpose to it.

So I waited for season 3 as interviews were done that seemed to almost intentionally avoid calling him dead. As tweets were made promising we'd be so fulfilled if we could only see who was onscreen in the mid-season! (A tweet that immediately garnered dozens of people hoping it referred to Tech, all without a single comment to try and quell the speculation.) It felt already like we were being toyed with, but I thought it had to be for a reason or a purpose. More weirdly vague discussions went up about his Sacrifice, his Fall, his Anything But Death, even as everyone insists that it was so meaningful, the way he died on a mission that accomplished nothing. Jokes were made around Valentines Day.

He Fell For You, get it?

The first official use of killed went up on the databank right after the trailer, on Hunter's page of all places. The first time the interviews used dead was the Friday before the premier. It all felt too late, theories had already grown for months by that point.

Season 3 finally came and I waited up for every episode drop just like I did for season 2, hoping for him to come back or at least for him to be properly grieved, since we had barely a couple of minutes in Plan 99 before it was swept away for the next plot point. Surely Tech's impact deserved an episode of focus, if he were really gone.

The previously on plays his last words twice. But then we skip months into the future. We don't see Crosshair find out the news - even though Tech died on a mission to retrieve him. We don't watch Omega grieve. She barely seems to notice she's missing a brother. We got a brief allusion in episode two. It took three episodes to even mention his name in passing. Five episodes in everyone got their chance to look sad about him, but only for a few seconds and only when his skills were relevant. Compared to the gorgeous callback to Mayday in the same episode, it felt shallow. He had to have been more important than this didn't he?

Episodes 6 & 7 felt like maybe there was a reason. We see a new masked assassin that gets extra focus, who got put through a series of Tech-adjacent situations, whose beef with Crosshair was just a little too personal, who survived longer than all the rest but stayed masked. Rex talks about losing brothers, but Hunter says nothing about the brother they lost. I hoped it all meant something, that this was the reason that he felt so much like he was thrown away, so that he could come back in.

More one off mentions that only really come up when it's about how useful Tech would have been. More poking at the wound that still felt open and raw because we'd never gotten any closure. The closest we get is a single scene in episode eleven, so late in the season and so brief that I thought that couldn't possibly be it.

CX-2 comes back, and he talks like Tech. He's still not unmasked. I really need him to be something because otherwise what was it all for?

The most emotion comes in Juggernaut, from Phee. Its a highlight because it actually feels like it was about him, like he mattered as a person. It's episode twelve and we finally talk about him like a person. We never saw her get the news either.

Episodes thirteen and fourteen pass without any mentions at all. We're running out of time. Episode 15 hits and we get one raw one from Crosshair that Clone Force 99 died with Tech. It's the first time they directly say he's dead in so many words. It's the season finale. CX-2 is a nobody it turns out, and he dies faceless. Everyone gets a happy ending and after over a year of wondering if we'd ever get closure, it turns out Tech's just dead. But look how happy everyone else is!

Everyone gets to grow old. Except the autistic one of course. He's just dead and it hardly feels like it mattered at all. Did you know Wrecker and Hunter don't use his name once in season three? Omega and Echo mention him once each. Crosshair twice, only once with any emotion behind it. Phee tops the charts at three mentions, two by name and one by nickname. We see his goggles four times. I kept count.

There was never a bigger plan, this was just all he was worth. We spent two seasons on Crosshair's absence. We spent a whole episode dealing with it when Echo decided to go with Rex. Tech dies though and all his life amounted to was a handful of mentions when his skills would have been useful, some shots of his broken goggles, and endless cooing out of the text over how meaningful his sacrifice was. Too meaningful to take back, of course, even as Ventress is brought back from her own sacrifice.

I had really, really thought that this time autistic life would be worth more than autistic death. That a character that felt so carefully handled couldn't have just been thrown away for shock value, barely to even be mentioned again, his memory used to string us along to keep us watching. If you added up every mention and shot through season 3 it might actually clock in at less time than was spent on Mayday's send off.

I'm an adult. I'll survive, though the sting of seeing yet another character like me used as a stepping stone for everyone else's happy ending will take a while to fade. But I think about the child I used to be who needed a character like Tech. And I think about how it would have felt to actually get that only to watch him die a handful of episodes later as a side note to his family's story, barely even mentioned again. How badly it would have hurt, how deep it would have scarred.

I'm not that child anymore. But there are a lot of autistic kids out there that are the same as I used to be, and they're learning for the first time that people like us don't get happy endings. Instead they die so that everyone around them can rise up, and they might even get mentioned a few times. But don't worry. Everyone will tell you how meaningful and special it is and how delusional you were to ever hope for anything else.

The Bad Batch still means a lot to me. I think it always will. I love the characters. I love the family, and all the potential they had. But the sting of not belonging in this happy ending is there, and it's deep. It's been a long time since I trusted a show. It'll be a long time before I risk trusting another. And I hope that the autistic kids trying to learn how to close their hearts off behind new walls are doing okay.

[herejusttosufferalong]

Attachment Style Anon Here

I appreciate everyone’s comments on my last post regarding L/A. There was a lot more I could have added but I was worried it was too long… 

A few things I wanted to mention before I dive into L/N:

everyone has an attachment style, usually there is a combo but only one is dominate

There is a direct correlation between your attachment style and your personality traits 

Your attachment style can change after an impactful relationship (good and bad) 

I am a woman in STEM who researches behavioral styles and has been focused this past year on attachment styles (sorry if I come across clinical sometimes in my messaging) 

I wanted to understand why the chemistry between L & N seemed so 🔥 and intense in a way that we haven’t seen before.

I already established my thoughts on L’s attachment style in the last post. I’ll move onto N - my analysis of her is based on her personality traits and what she projects out into the world because of how little she shares of her private life. 

Overall, N’s dominate attachment style is Secure.I think it’s easy to see her secure attachment through her actions: i.e. her stable family life and the close bond that they clearly share, her ability to be private showcases someone who doesn’t need validation, general confidence in the way she presents herself, but ultimately its the way that other speak of her that showcases her secure nature. She had stated  in past interviews that she didn’t necessarily believe in love, gave some vague answers regarding her views on relationships etc. Speculation: at some point she was hurt by some type of relationship that temporarily that made her cautious of attachment in general, but ultimately her foundation is secure. 

A Secure person will essentially be compatible with anyone. The ultimate life goal is for a secure person to find another secure person, however the second most compatible relationship is a secure + anxious relationship (i.e. N + L = dominate attachments)

Surface level, they do gravitate towards one another because they are able to match each other needs. This is where I feel we see a “different Luke” when he’s with Nicola. He is different because his needs are being met when he’s with her and vice versa. 

Nicola’s verbal praise helps quell Luke’s fear of unworthiness. We have seen her time and time again, hype him up because she understands that he struggles with his anxiety. L’s strengths would be that anxious attachment people are very protective and are attuned to their partner’s needs. Nicola may be secure but she has emotional needs as well. Where we saw this was the interview where they watched the final scene and Nicola started to cry, they snuggled and he checked in with her. Also he checked in with on the Dublin red carpet. What he provides to her might be more subtle in terms of frequency but it’s impactful to her.  

The key to the success of this relationship is an establishment of a foundational communication level (i.e. verbal and non-verbal) - something that N + L have done probably subconsciously. We’ve seen a few BTS footage and interviews where they’ve said that they’ve been able to communicate with just looks. It think this along with their matching attachment style is where we see the actual magic - it’s that energy they put out of knowing each other so well that everyone around them feels their attuned energy. 

At the end of the day however, while the secure person has the ability to uplift an anxious person to a secure level, the opposite I also true. The secure individual tends to be the more dominate in the relationship and can hold more power within it. Luke will more than likely always be the best version of himself when he’s with Nicola, however unless he puts in the work to overcome his insecurities, the relationship won’t have any real legs. It would eventually becoming draining to Nicola. 

thank you anon for sharing

you were able to so succinctly express and give vision to my exact thoughts/feelings on their dynamic in a more academic way

💜

[rebouks]

She knew-.. Robin was sure of it.

Despite her warmth, he’d always been slightly unnerved by aunt Alma’s presence; there was something odd about her that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Some people were harder to read than others, like Alex, but it was still possible.

Alma’s mind was like an impenetrable vault in comparison. Any attempts to feel or hear anything she did were met with a metaphorical brick wall, leaving him reeling as though he’d collided with it head first-.. but not tonight. Tonight, Alma was like an open book, and Robin was convinced she was doing it on purpose.

She’d told him all about her struggles as a child; how she didn’t fit in, how people teased her for being too sensitive, how hard it was to figure out who she was amongst the clamour of everyone else’s inner most image of themselves-.. all the while allowing him unlimited access to those very memories, like a handpicked blooper reel, just for him. Of course, that wasn’t the case though.. was it?

Alma had stopped talking now, but Robin still wasn’t sure how to react. He sat in silence instead, staring at nothing in particular for far longer than what could be considered normal.

“Can you hear me?” he thought, deciding to try a little experiment.

Nothing. Okay, so she couldn’t read his mind-.. then what the heck was she getting at? How had she so succinctly summed up his entire existence in less than fifteen minutes?

“I would’ve liked somewhere as quiet as this when I was young, it’s a shame we didn’t have an attic…” Alma offered, clearly trying to relate to Robin’s situation in any way she could. He still wasn’t entirely sure why, but she clearly wanted to help, and Robin didn’t know anyone else who understood him as well as she did, so perhaps he ought to let her try. He finally abandoned his switch and cautiously joined her atop his favourite, motheaten couch.

“What’re you getting at?” he said bluntly, curiosity getting the better of his manners. Alma chuckled softly, “You’re just like your father.” “It’s genetics, apparently…” Robin let loose a brief grin, glad to be compared to Oscar.

“I don’t know how exactly, but you’re different, Robin-.. and I thought it high time you knew you weren’t alone, and that we can’t let these things get the best of us.” Alma smiled softly as she spoke, but Robin was still too wary to be completely transparent. “We?” he asked, dubiously. “We’re few and far between, but you’re certainly not the only one who’s a little.. special, shall we say? That’s better than different, maybe?” Alma suggested.

Robin hummed thoughtfully, shaking his head, “Special is just another word for different, or weird.” Alma scoffed playfully, “And what’s wrong with being weird? I’m weird-.. we’re all a bit weird!”

“How’re you weird?” Robin asked, squinting at Alma accusingly. “Well, I can sense things I certainly shouldn’t be able to.” Alma started, excited to be getting somewhere. “Emotions radiate from people like a space heater-.. they’re not always pleasant, of course, but I can soak them up if I want to.”

Robin blinked, “Only if you want to..?” “Uh-huh.” Alma nodded. “You can block it out?!” Robin spluttered, suddenly and completely forgetting to maintain his ignorance before swiftly correcting himself. “I mean-.. it sounds like you can pick and choose, right?”

Alma nodded once more, “It wasn’t easy, but I spent a lot of years practicing.” “Years?” Robin sounded crestfallen. “I didn’t have a mentor…” Alma winked.

Robin allowed himself to smirk, figuring he might as well drop at least part of the act at this point. He was still a little nervous about being approached about such things so brazenly, but at least he knew why Alma perturbed him so much now, she was blocking him out on purpose-.. and she couldn’t read his mind either, which was always a plus.

The last thing he wanted was for anyone to know that he possessed that particular ability. Who’d want to hang out with someone who could access their inner most thoughts, the one’s they’d never dream of saying out loud? He shuddered involuntarily, hoping he’d never meet anyone that could read his.

Clementine finally nudged Robin, dragging him back to the present with her ghostly touch. “She looked right at me just then-.. she smiled! Did you see?” Robin spun around, realising that Alma had almost begun her descent. He must’ve missed her goodbye. “Wait!”

Alma paused expectantly, causing Robin to second guess himself and retreat into silence. “I won’t be far, sweetheart-.. whenever you’re ready.” Robin shivered as Clementine poked him again, “She can definitely see me…” “Can you, uh-…”

“See the ghost poking you?” Alma giggled, sounding far younger than she was. The vault doors had snapped shut again by now, but Robin got the impression that aunt Alma was just as excited as he was to find someone else who was weird. “Can you hear her?”

“Maybe-.. though I’m quite sure she hasn’t said anything yet.” Alma peered at Clementine expectantly. “Hey!” Clementine exclaimed as Robin tried to shove her into action, his hand ending up halfway through her waist instead.

“What? It’s not like you can feel it.” Robin snorted. Alma laughed heartily, thoroughly amused. “Well, I heard that-.. you two are good friends, huh?”

Robin nodded slightly, releasing a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. “I thought I was the only one who could see her-.. that maybe I was going insane…” “Far from it, honey! You hit me up whenever you feel like it, okay?”

Previous // Next

[rwbyrg]

Hello again! I was wondering, in your own opinion, what moment(s) for both Oscar and Ruby, really implied that there was much more going on with the two character, in the sense that their relationship was starting to evolve? Also what do you like about those moments? To add, do you think we will see it much more in volume 10?

Hello!! I think, generally speaking, all of their focused scenes imply there's more going on or that their relationship is evolving in some way. RWBY doesn't have filler. So when characters - especially ones as central to the narrative as these two - get focused screen time together (and romance-y tropes), it's done with intention.

Ruby's arc is about many things, but especially about how she's pretty much the last silver eyed warrior that can face Salem. Meanwhile, Oscar's arc is about defining who he is while under a curse that robs him of his identity. And in their first meeting, Oscar comments on Ruby's eyes, and she asks him who he is. Even their first lines to each other are mirrored in how they're spoken!

This scene really shows that their character arcs linked from the very beginning.

We get all the stuff I mentioned in my last post and more and none of it is necessary to do if it's not building up to something. Which it very clearly is.

I have no doubts we'll get to see more of their shared story in V10 onward. The V9 epilogue - what was supposed to be the final episode of the season - works as both a closing point for the Atlas arc, and a kick off for the Vacuo one. It's setting the stage for what is to come. A non-extensive list of what we know we're getting so far:

Nora's and Winter's character arcs; both of them struggling with responsibility, grief, and guilt.

Weiss will almost certainly be getting some focus by extension of that as well. Especially because her arc has always been about her family.

Ren being more open and trying harder to support those around him.

Qrow, more hopeful than he's ever been before and how much it's propelling him forward.

And then we have Oscar.

Oscar and the merge. Oscar Pine, Little Prince, pining at Ruby's grave in the desert. I talk about this set up a lot, and it's difficult to explain succinctly because it's got a lot of complex pieces at play (and has been going on since their meeting, as mentioned above). But if I were to try and break it down as simply as possible:

Ruby's fatal flaw is her grief. Her silver eyes are powered by, and the embodiment of, the preservation of life. She doesn't want to lose anyone else that she cares about and cannot bear the weight of responsibility that comes with it alone. So much so that she almost abandons her own identity via ascension because she is offered the choice to do so. She stays true to herself in the end as someone that fights, not for those she's lost, but for those she hasn't lost yet. And the narrative, through all their interactions, but especially the Tea Party, has placed Oscar front and centre in the position of who Ruby hasn't lost yet. Oscar, who wants nothing more than to be a part of the team that he keeps pushing away. Oscar, who just wants to be who he is, to preserve himself, but is being robbed of that choice via the merge. Something Ruby, can't protect him from.

RWBY loves to make its pairings thematically complimentary and it loves pushing characters to their limits. There is no way that the scenes and setup between Oscar and Ruby haven't been intentionally building to something big with how much their respective and shared conflicts are directly playing off of each other. There is no way CRWBY - with their limited budget and resource constraints - dedicated all that screen time to these two for it to not pay off at some point. And given this arc is the last one... now's a good a time as any for it to happen.

[amuseoffyre]

This may be wishful thinking...but earlier in The Episode, we get Crowley explicitly comparing Heaven to a beehive, with himself as the hornet, safely escorted inside its well-guarded borders. Aziraphale refuses Metatron's offer several times, outright...until the Metatron bring Crowley into it, and only then does he agree. Crowley's existence on the line is clearly a game-changer. During the end credits, as the lift is going up, we see Aziraphale's carefully neutral expression shift into a smile. I wonder if he knew Crowley would refuse, which is why he doesn't seem as devastated as we'd expect, and his goal was just to get into Heaven, in an accepted, established position.

Is it too much to hope that Aziraphale may have something more on the mind, once he gets to Heaven, than being a god little worker bee?

My thought when it came to Crowley's comment there was that Aziraphale knows Heaven is like that too and part of his logic about getting Crowley into Heaven with him is that "once you're in there", they don't see you as an invader.

If we extend the bee metaphor further, Aziraphale has been convinced he's going into heaven as the person in charge. He believes he'll be able to make a difference in there. But you can't have two queen bees in a hive. One of them will always kill the other. They will not take a rival. This is between Aziraphale and the Metatron now.

My brain went to Pratchett's Lord and Ladies book as soon as the bee analogy came up as well because it's a good summation of Heaven. They're an entity working towards a single goal. They all work together, unquestioning, but the second there are two forces at loggerheads (two queens) it doesn't work. As Terry put it so succinctly "slash! Stab!" - you can't have two people trying to control/run it. One will destroy/get rid of the other and only the strongest will prevail.

And I think S3 is when Aziraphale realises exactly how strong he is. A lot of the time he's let the other angels squash him down, confine and constrain him with their rules and codes, but now, he has gone all-or-nothing to protect Crowley and humanity. Now, he won't hold back.

The Metatron believes he is predictable and I think that'll come back and bite him hard, because yes Aziraphale is predictable in that he will defend. But he was a soldier once, a fighter, and he will fight if needs be. As Crowley said to Nina, "he's unpredictable". This is the angel who told Heaven to stuff it and backflipped out of there to go and stop Armageddon 1.0. More recently, he was willing to put Heaven and Hell on a war footing to protect two humans. He didn't need to. He could have just removed himself from the situation, but he stayed to protect them as they stayed to help him.

Slash. Stab. The Metatron has no idea who he has invited back into his hive.

[bairdthereader]

Intentional Touch, Respected Space: A By-Episode Study, Part 2

This is the space where their love grows in safety.

S1E2: Crush

[Note: My longest and giffy-est post yet, but episode 2 is nothing short of monumental in the Narlie relationship. Grab a cuppa, a few biscuits, settle in, and enjoy!]

When we pick up with episode two, Nick and Charlie are in their private spaces, both trying to process the events of the day. Charlie does this by playing the drums and likely engaging in some very negative and circular thought patterns. Nick, meanwhile, is busy integrating this new knowledge of Charlie’s life experience with Nick’s previous, less nuanced perception of him. He’s trying to get a more complete picture of Charlie, to understand more deeply how this part of Charlie’s life affects the rest of it and makes him who he is. Of course he turns to the internet first, because Nick. We get the sense that maybe Nick has never really looked at Charlie’s Insta, based on how charmed he is by the first few lighthearted posts he sees. Then he comes across Charlie’s post succinctly expressing his hatred for school and his horrible experiences there.

This triggers a flood of memories of comments Nick had heard made about Charlie around the time he was outed the year before. While it’s highly unlikely that Nick hasn’t thought about this at all in the time he’s gotten to know Charlie, perhaps it’s been mostly background noise, or at least somewhat removed from his own experiences with Charlie. After witnessing Ben’s psychological and physical assault on Charlie, these memories have new profundity, clarity, and a terrible nearness. And they bring with them some delayed and misplaced guilt; now that Nick knows Charlie personally, he knows he would have done something about the past bullying if he’d had the chance. This is the wholeness of understanding Nick wants, even if it is uncomfortable and distressing, and with it comes a pressing concern for Charlie’s well-being. Nick feels an intense need to check in, so he does.

Of course it must be noted that Charlie made the virtual check-in leap first, after a bout of classic Charlie Spring overthinking. Justified overthinking in this case, since Charlie is highly aware that, immediately after he and Nick were pushed across boundaries in their friendship by the confrontation with Ben, he’s stepping over another line by adding texting to the mix. At the risk of getting a bit too meta, I’ll say this counts as an intentional, if virtual, touch. It’s a point of contact, reaching across the space between them, and though there’s an asynchrony to this form of touch, it’s still a new type of closeness for Nick and Charlie. It’s clear that they have not exchanged messages before, so by establishing this connection Charlie moves their communication from school-based and public to online and private. It doesn’t seem like a big deal on the face of it, but it is; it’s a pebble dropped in a pond that starts a flood.

Especially when Nick decides to reciprocate. Another thing we have to note here is that, in direct contrast to Ben’s rapid-fire, aggressive texts with Charlie, Nick gives Charlie time to respond. He respects that space between them, the room Charlie needs to emotionally maneuver and figure out how much he wants to tell Nick about Ben. Only when his uneasiness over Charlie's silence grows too great does he follow up on his original question, and even then, he continues to respect the space. He acknowledges Charlie’s right to keep things to himself, and simply offers a confirmation of his friendship, reiterating to Charlie that he is safe and trustworthy, and then leaving Charlie to decide on his own.

Charlie chooses to trust and share.

This new thread of connection snaps taut between them, and it never loosens again.

There now exists an increased ease between Nick and Charlie. When Nick invites Charlie to his house (ostensibly to meet Nellie), Charlie's posture is clearly relaxed and just slightly curled toward Nick, while Nick’s invitation is delivered easily and with no hesitation. Now, not only do they have private online conversation, they also have time together away from the social confines of school, time that belongs only to them. Another boundary is removed, that space between them narrowed just a bit more.

After requisite “hi”s have been exchanged and Nellie has been given the attention she rightfully deserves, Nick practically flings himself across the intentional touch divide. Charlie’s had a haircut (has he though? I’m with Tori on this one), and Nick reaches out, across the open doorway, to gently tug at Charlie’s curls. Charlie is obviously surprised, pleased, and a little confused. But this is a clear indicator from Nick, and a fairly clear acceptance from Charlie, that this kind of playful touch now falls within the bounds of their friendship. While there's a lot going on here for Nick as he realizes he does, in fact, notice aspects of Charlie's physical appearance and have strong enough reactions to them to both have and offer an opinion, he is not intentionally flirting with this gesture any more than Charlie is by asking nervously if the haircut is bad. Any flirting here is accidental or subconscious; they're still maintaining that caring respect for each other.

After Nick lists (just a few, it must be said) of Charlie’s positive qualities, Charlie mirrors Nick’s earlier playfulness with some of his own, covering Nick’s mouth with his hand and pushing him down on the bed. This could easily have become a more heated moment for Charlie, but it doesn’t, in part because Charlie is still incredibly conscious of the space required by their differing vantage points on the relationship. He uses only one hand, the other still grasping the video game controller and held down by his side; he looks at Nick's face only for a brief second before diverting his gaze; and he lets Nick push him off easily. Still, this is a freer Charlie than we’ve seen thus far, a Charlie who understands that, crush and romantic feelings aside, he’s found someone he can be himself with, and with whom he can safely express some affection, even if he has to keep the larger part of it concealed. Nick is surprised but responds in kind, equally playful with a huge smile and laughing “get off me!” (though notably slow to actually physically push Charlie away). His face clearly shows delight in witnessing a side of Charlie he hasn’t seen before, and these moments of casual but respectful touch have played a part in that.

Then comes the snow, and possibly the sweetest montage of the whole season. Here is a place where they can bring joy and easy openness into that safe, respected space between them. We get a glimpse of Nick brushing snow out of Charlie’s hair, shoving snow into the neck of Charlie’s coat, and flopping down to make a snow angel close enough to Charlie to brush his arm. Charlie’s delighted surprise is a little more nuanced, because the beginnings of hope are making themselves known, and there's a little bit of speculation in the way he views Nick's actions.

Despite Nick’s clear comfort with Charlie’s nearness (only Nellie separates them in this final scene, and Nick’s upper arm is crossed over Charlie’s while they talk in the snow), Charlie is still a bit more restrained—he doesn’t initiate much of this contact. He’s conscious of the fact that touch still means something slightly different, slightly more, to him than it does to Nick, so he generally allows Nick to choose when to use intentional touch.

While Nick’s conversation with his mom later isn’t about touch, I do think it’s there in the subtext. Sarah tells Nick he seems more himself around Charlie, so we have to conclude that she’s at least partly referencing the relaxed playfulness Nick experiences with Charlie (which is absent or at least different from his interactions with the rugby lads, with whom Nick is always aware, on some level, of the persona he is expected to present in that environment). Nick’s default setting is physical affection, but he’s been holding back all this time. With Charlie, Nick can let down his guard, trusting that the safe space they're nurturing between them, where they can see each other clearly and authentically, will allow Charlie to appreciate this essential part of Nick's nature.

The result—according to Nick, one of his favorite days, ever.

---

Much confusion and speculation about Nick's sexuality and romantic availability ensue among Charlie's friend group, causing Charlie to have extreme doubts about those stirrings of hope he felt while spending time with Nick. Nick immediately understands that something is wrong, and Charlie's highly uncharacteristic reticence toward him lets Nick know that whatever is wrong clearly has something to do with himself. He very deliberately puts a little extra space between them, trying to give Charlie room if that's what he needs, while also turning to face him a little more completely, opening himself up and communicating a willingness to listen. When Charlie still declines to talk, Nick, with his characteristic emotional intelligence, leans back in, removing that extra space, helping Charlie see that whatever's going on, Nick wants to understand it and, if he can, help fix it. Charlie, after an internal battle, briefly but decisively sets aside his doubts to ask Nick to come round his house. After all the drama and rumors, it comes down to just the two of them, as it always should have been, offering each other the space and support and patience they need to understand each other.

When Nick struggles in his attempts to play the drums, Charlie’s deeply buried but powerful self-confidence comes briefly to the fore and he tells Nick to budge up. He’s testing the waters here a little; by saying “let me help,” he’s still giving Nick the option to decline, but Charlie definitely isn't his usual deferential self in this moment. Nick does not decline; in fact, there is nervous excitement all over his face. Both of them are fully aware that they’re erasing that physical space between them—they’re pressed together from shoulder to knee—and they both agreed to be there.

Charlie takes Nick’s hands and guides him through a drum sequence, clearly focused and happy, in his wheelhouse for once, while Nick finally, fully realizes and admits to himself on some level that the kind of touch he wants to share with Charlie has changed. He can barely mask the confusion and exhilaration and little bit of fear that he’s feeling when Charlie stops playing and looks back up at him.

Then we have a very intentional removal of touch as Charlie recognizes that, maybe, this interaction affected Nick more intensely than Charlie, or even Nick, first thought it would. Charlie releases Nick’s hands and steps away, reinstating that safe space between them, giving Nick (and himself, really) a chance to assess how they’re both feeling. Nerves and uncertainty play a part in this, and Charlie is clearly a little concerned about appearing too flirty toward Nick, but by taking a step back he's also respecting that bit of fear and confusion he sees in Nick, trying to lessen it if he can.

And now we get to the most casually yet profoundly intimate scene thus far, as Charlie falls asleep on the couch while Nick watches a movie, both of them bathed in golden evening light and swathed in separate blankets, Nick much closer to Charlie's side of the couch than his own. Nick looks at Charlie with intensely confused longing—the first time he’s looking at Charlie when no one else, not even Charlie himself, can witness it—and wonders, what would it be like if this space between them was gone? What if he could be that close to Charlie?

And here he tests himself—does he have the nerve, or even the self-understanding required to take Charlie’s hand? Is that actually what he wants? Nick bravely pushes himself to cross the divide and confront his new reality. When he hovers his hand over Charlie’s, the intent to actually touch is there, but it’s not quite enough to overcome the fear and follow through. Nick pulls away, once again retreating into the safe space between them to process the fact that he very, very much wanted to hold Charlie’s hand. This happens not once, but twice, as Nick essentially double-checks his own impulses to make sure he understands them, to make sure he does feel this way about Charlie. Nick's gaze takes in Charlie's whole face--obviously there's a thought about kissing somewhere in there, but Nick is considering the entirety of his relationship with Charlie, the intensity of his emotions toward and about Charlie as a whole person. The potential for a different kind of intentional touch is just the final piece of that puzzle.

Now it’s late, quiet, and for all Nick and Charlie know they are, for the moment, alone (Tori’s lurking notwithstanding). There’s a sense, unspoken and shaky but undeniably there, that the tenor of their friendship has shifted. Charlie admits that he wishes Nick didn’t have to leave, a statement that, in a less charged setting would mean little. Here, though, it's a subtle admission of deeper feeling. Nick admits he would like to stay as well, and follows it up with a very telling line: “You look so . . . cuddly like that.” Lots of things are going on here. First, Nick is not looking at Charlie’s face for much of this exchange—he's looking at the rest of Charlie’s body. And this is only the second time Nick has commented on Charlie’s appearance; unlike when he notices Charlie’s haircut, here there is nothing obvious prompting this comment other than Nick’s own desire to voice his thoughts. Nick’s word choice is interesting, too. He could have said “cozy,” “comfy,” or some such. Instead, he says "cuddly," a word with connotations of both appearance and action, specifically reciprocal action. To say Charlie looks cuddly implies that Nick has thought about Charlie’s cuddlable-ness (not a word, but stay with me here). Combine that with the progression of the conversation—from admitting he doesn’t want to leave to telling Charlie he looks cuddly—indicates that Charlie’s cuddleable-ness is at least partly the reason Nick doesn’t want to leave.

Charlie, with all of his suppressed hope, tentatively picks up what Nick is putting down. “Do I?” really means, “did you mean that like I hope you meant it?” Nick responds with an emphatic “Yeah.” Then there is a pause while Nick holds a quick internal debate. Charlie waits, seeing clearly that Nick is struggling with something. As Charlie often does for Nick, he’s maintaining the space between them and allowing Nick to make his own decision about whether a meaningful touch is what he wants. This is one of Charlie’s most profound and consistent means of caring for and protecting Nick, and proof of how highly attuned he is to Nick’s conflicted emotions.

Nick comes to a clear decision and embraces Charlie for the first time. Charlie, unable to quite believe it and unsure of the meaning behind it, waits several beats to return the hug, giving Nick a lot of room to change his mind. And while Nick is clearly a bit panicked about his actions and their ramifications for him, while he is confused and scared, he intentionally, courageously chose this hug, this meaningful touch, as an expression of his deep care for Charlie.

And this is when that actual physical space between them becomes intangible space. It is still there, still a vastly important part of their evolving relationship, but when Nick and Charlie are alone, that space is now held between their minds and hearts rather than in the tangible world.

[pennyserenade]

i have thought in great detail about coriolanus and sejanus, and whether or not coriolanus ever really liked sejanus. i think that the novel/movie are purposefully constructed to make this ambiguous, but i prefer to veer on the side of "yes, he did."

coriolanus' way of loving people was...lacking, to say the least. even with tigris, he thought awful, mean things about her, but it was evident he cared very much for her. the problem with coriolanus was not that he couldn't love -- it was that he could not love without first being assured that his investment would yield positive results for him. at least, he could not readily admit to himself that he was loving until he knew it was going to work out for him.

his character is very succinctly summed up by sejanus, when he tells him, "I remember that from school, watching you watch other people. Pretending you weren't. And choosing the moments you weighed in so carefully" (397). without fully knowing the totality of it, sejanus got it all too right: coriolanus took people in, measured them out, decided what they meant to him, and weighed in when he thought it'd benefit him. coriolanus was calculated in all things, most of all in love—a thing he knew made you vulnerable.

but that's not to say what coriolanus said to himself was the exact same thing as what he felt. if it was, i do not believe he would've done half the things he had done for sejanus--even given the prospect of reward in the end. this is part of what makes coriolanus descent into evil so heartbreaking: a part of him was good. he did want for connection and comfort, even if he had a real fucked up way of going about getting it. coriolanus was a dog that bit without fully knowing why; it was a protective instinct he used, because so much of his life had been filled with loss already.

in the book, after coriolanus snuck his father's handkerchief with lucy gray's scent into the tank of snakes, he went to sejanus' house. this is an incredible detail that so many people tend to overlook when they talk about coriolanus and sejanus' friendship. the beginning of the chapter reads:

"What had he done? What on earth had he done? His heart raced as he blindly turned down one street and then another, trying to make sense of his actions. He couldn't think clearly but had the dreadful feeling he'd crossed some line that could not be uncrossed" (287).

we start this chapter with a frenzied, rattled coriolanus, one terribly afraid of what he had just done and the consequences this action might have later. he was scared and isolated, and he didn't know what to do. a little further on, collins writes: "His feet had carried him far from home, but he realized the Plinth apartment was just a few minutes away. Why not pop in?" (288).i find this construction of words to be fascinating, especially in relation to coriolanus--a character we have come to known as calculated and precise, even in moments when he has to think on his feet. one could argue that during this part of the book, and in this state, it makes sense that coriolanus might wander that far from his home absent-mindedly. it shows how out of touch with himself he had become, and just how much the act he had just committed disorientated him. but i think it was more than that. i think coriolanus wanted to go to the plinth's house, that he was seeking comfort after he had done something incredibly dangerous (something, arguably, that sejanus might have done), and he could not admit it to himself. and his original intention had been to see sejanus, but sejanus was asleep.

the fact that collins wrote "his feet had carried him" and "he realized" is so brilliant. i’ve got lots of opinions about why she chose to write the book in a third person point of view. one of the reasons i think she did it has to do with the fact that coriolanus was distancing himself from himself--shedding culpability through phrases such as these, especially in moments like this. coriolanus did love sejanus, but he simply could not admit it to himself because sejanus was not a safe or wise investment to make. coriolanus refused to give credence to his need for him, and it ended up killing the boy in the long run.

[mswyrr]

I like the contrast of two women, Lucy Gray and Dr Gaul, with driving ideologies based on renown philosophers (Roussau and Hobbes) that they express through their fields of expertise (music and STEM) and then Coriolanus who is - basically without a personal ideology. He is a mega people person (and smart overall with good study skills; he is top of his class) who is most interested in how to keep him and his family safe and fed and have success in life.

It's not possible to write a long meta post on his philosophy because he doesn't have one. He is torn between theirs the entire story. He's a dumb blond in a pretty skirt who is all head empty, survival at all costs thoughts. And he represents a kind of "everyman" - the temptations most people succumb to in corrupt societies; they fall for comfort and security and then adopt the ideology that justifies their complicity, rather than starting from ideology.

To put it more succinctly - male villains written by men are often all about an ego trip of being a gd visionary who sees "the strings that control the system" and has more insight than anyone else etc I'm a mega fucking genius, I'm justified I'm secretly right or actually better than other people etc.

Coriolanus isn't trying to convince the reader/viewer of shit! He has no agenda besides survival for the Snows and his own success. He begins by saying he never wants to go hungry and have to choke down cabbage soup ever again and that is what he sells his soul for.

Adopting the Hobbesian view doesn't come from a sincere inner belief. It comes from seeing that is the way to justify getting what he actually wants. It's pretty clearly shown to be a lie and one he comes to late in the story. (And it conveniently helps him not have to focus on the horror of the things he's done)

This guy is very much NOT a male fantasy or a persuasive figure of any ideology. Which is discoverable when one - ah - looks at a text as a text rather than trying to grant a *figment of the imagination written by a woman* more agency than irl women...