#anyway time flies when you have a new hyperfixation and glad to still have people along for the ride <3

[yrsonpurpose]

6 MONTHS OF RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE! I’m into making history.

[lambourngb]

So the sun rose again today (or it will, I didn’t sleep much after 3 am, forgive my incoherence).

I’m still trying to come to terms with the direction of the show. I’m still picking through my feelings, trying to come up with something other than feeling like the rug got pulled out from under me.

12 hours later I still feel a bit betrayed but I’m starting to blame myself now for not seeing it coming.

It started last June when Vlamis did that interview and labeled the Malex relationship as “toxic” and Maria as “fresh and new” basically. We all remember that firestorm right? I rejected that idea so hard. There’s no way that this relationship, which had lasted an intense decade after a homophobic attack, three tours, a lost leg, a government conspiracy and all the bullshit of Roswell was “toxic”. I thought, Vlamis needed to use more care in his words and I dismissed it.

Later on in October, Tyler said the same thing. He called the Malex relationship “toxic” and he said it during the filming of elements of 2x05 and 2x06. There was less outcry when Tyler said it, we were all focused on the fact he said Alex was still actively in love with Michael and the mention of a new love interest in the form “a guy with blue hair”. Again though, I rejected the idea. I was never all in on Forrest, especially because he was going to be a 3-4 episode flash in the pan, so what’s the point of getting invested? I hate jealousy subplots. I wanted Alex happy and openly dating, but I wanted it with Michael, damnit.

Through all of it, I never saw Malex as toxic, until yesterday and now it’s all I can see. 

I’m not going to get into the consent question- scrubbed audio and subtitles and all- other people have said it, and how you feel about it is valid. (Also Carina sharing a draft of a scene, not the actually shooting script was ... a choice). Anyway I watched the scene on repeat this morning close to 20 times. What I kept going back to was the scene outside the trailer.

Alex is in the light. He sees Michael in the light.

“Maria still asleep?”

Michael, with that awkward look back to the trailer, kinda half nods. [How did they all fit on that tiny bed? That awkward look back made me wonder if Michael spent the evening split between making Maria feel attended to and but trying not to telegraph that too clearly to Alex? Though bringing Alex coffee was a nice touch.]

Alex though is powering through the awkwardness. “I really never thought I’d check that off my bucket list.”

Michael is very sober and serious because he’s seen Alex do this power-thru-with-banter when he’s off-guard (”I’m fine, Guerin, thank you for asking/ Good thing I’m not here to play beer pong”) - “You think we crossed a line?”

“Well, I mean if you’d told me I was going to have a threesome with my best friend and my first love, I would say which circle of hell am I in?”

[Here I don’t understand Michael’s little disbelieving laugh, is he following Alex’s lead in trying to make this a joke? Release the tension?] “That’s hell?”

Alex gets pensive, dropping the banter, and he licks his lips in thought, “I don’t know, I felt um...” [does a tiny little head shake of negation] “I felt...”

Michael looks away because it seems like he’s a little sad that Alex can’t come up with the words for what happened. He finishes Alex’s thought with “Loved.”

NOW HERE IS WHERE I CAN’T UNSEE THE TOXIC LABEL.  Alex takes that word “loved”, and he compares it to what happened, and he’s both skeptical but also self-deprecating, when he says, “Yeah.”

That acknowledgment was not a good thing. It was not a happy thought. Because love made Alex do something he never thought he would do. How he feels about Michael is so overwhelming, so all-consuming, good sense and self-preservation just flies out the window. And it’s TOXIC. Alex realizes in that moment he needs to move on from Michael because Alex feels like the sex between them DIDN’T CROSS LINES and IT SHOULD HAVE.

Boundaries man. I was somewhat glad Michael set some early on in season 2, I thought it was healthy and put them on more of an even footing. Now it’s Alex’s turn to figure out boundaries with a romantic partner, and he’s learned he doesn’t have any with Michael and that’s not healthy for Alex.

On a flip side, I think Michael was motivated by that same all-consuming, throw good sense out the window, LOVE as well, but what really breaks my malex-shipping heart, was Maria motivated it. He’s going where she wants him to go. All those healthy boundaries he set in 2x01 and 2x02 with Alex-- are gone with Maria in 2x06. So I kinda feel like the toxic label belongs here too.

It leaves me in a place where I don’t really have hope for the pairing, and I want hope. I want to have an open mind here. I don’t want to let go of my hyperfixation but I don’t see a way out for them. I also feel like I can’t trust my judgment, because I feel like I tricked myself into believing that Michael and Alex can be good for each other.

Fucking toxic man.