#how do we make the romantic tension between the leads less gay? just give the main mc two more hot boys that have an interesting dynamic

[ctl-yuejie]

                        when the show decides that it is very natural to look like you are about to spiderman kiss after a poisoning by your ex

a league of nobleman ep. 22

[btsandvmin]

How much do we really know?

I really don't understand how any BTS shippers can be confident enough in their ships to turn into “supporters/believers” that believe their ship is real 100%. For any ship. Like even deep diving into some theories or getting literally 100+ reasons from various believers own mouths for why some ships have to be real, nothing has been big enough to count as proof in my opinion. (Of course this includes Vmin.)

Like... They all have questionable moments. Some more than others, sure. But proof of more than very strong and unusually intimate friendships? No.

You could argue some things seem “gay” or has possible LGBTQ+ connections. Like GCF having a LGBT+ song, or 4 o'clock including a reference to a gay movie, or Vmin's literal gay drama whatever that was. But most of it is just fans zooming in on various things and adding their own meaning to it. Like it has to mean something becaues it is connected to your ship. (But only for your ship.) Sometimes, a lot of times, it’s not even directly connected to the ship... It’s just assumed to be connected to them. It’s a guess or a theory, not a fact.

I get questions from Vminies not knowing things about Vmin all the time, and I myself know I’ll never be able to remember or even see everything that is out there with Vmin. And that’s just from the content we are able to consume to begin with. Beyond that is a lot of guessing and assumption based on the fraction of moments we get. But if some Vminies might not even know where the soulmate label comes from, or that 4 o’clock was written with Jimin in mind or that Vmin seem to casually sleep together in private (if we take Tae’s words for it in the Billboard vlive) it’s clear that something I might see as obvious and common knowledge isn’t. Even further it’s clear that other shippers will know even less about Vmin. 

And how can you dismiss something you don’t even know about?

We all focus on, remember or look for/get exposed to our biases or favorite ships the most. Even if we consume the original content we will likely zoom in and see things for our own ship simply because we look for it. And there is nothing wrong with that, it’s natural. But we need to realize it means we will miss things when it comes to other ships, and need to be aware that we know more and end up in echo chambers of both facts and interpretations for our own ships.

It’s so blatantly obvious to me that many non-vminies have no clue about even some of the biggest moments between Vmin. And again, it’s nothing really odd or bad about that... Until you start to act superior even when you lack a lot of knowledge. So much misinformation is spread this way too...

That’s why even though I personally think I know more about other ships than perhaps the regular person, I still won’t preach or explain too much about other ships. Because just as I know others don’t seem to know or notice a lot about Vmin, I know I work the same in regards to other ships. I can’t possibly even remember everything when it comes to Vmin, so how can I with all other ships too?

If I get questions about tae/kook or ji/kook or any dynamic in BTS I might be able to answer it... But I might also lack the full context or might not even have noticed some things to begin with. Coming to me with questions about other ships will give you a very different view than if you ask a shipper focused on that ship directly. I try to be unbiased, but I can’t. I try to be informed but I can’t remember or notice everything. So even if I feel I know a lot, I might never know enough to get the full context of any situation regarding BTS. 

Of course trying to remember to watch unbiased content is very important and helps to keep a better balance. Or as in my case where I actively looked up other ship theories and felt “I know enough to see there are weird things and I can’t dismiss everything since we don’t know the truth of what it might mean”. Just as I feel a lot of things about Vmin shouldn’t be dismissed. Many other shippers also came to me and talked long and detailed about why their ship is real and my isn’t. Many times I lacked knowledge about specific situations about other ships, but so did they about Vmin. I don’t think you can dismiss something if you don’t even know about it to begin with, and there is a big gap of knowledge between the shipping communities.

I mean, the way hyung x maknae line ships have so many great moments and you barely see them outside of the actual content. At this point all ships in BTS are big and get attention, but they don’t seem to register the same way in people’s minds, with the focus  always being on the three youngest together.

This is the thing about worrying about “rival ships” too... They only matter if there is a moment between the ones you already see as “competition”. Does anyone worry or cry about Vmin or Ji/kook when Ji/hope or Hope/kook get very intimate and sweet moments? No, because they don’t seem to register at all. 

I wasn’t even able to find a gif of this ji/hope moment from Run recently... (And I can’t add twitter videos from desktop)

Yoon/min holding hands and joking about breaking up.

Meanwhile if Tae/kook have fun together or if Ji/kook does something cute all hell breaks lose. We have been tainted by the narratives from shippers. The more we see and hear about other ships the bigger “impact” they will have on us.

If moments like this between other members doesn’t make me feel insecure about Vmin, then why would any similar moment from Ji/kook or Tae/kook? People need to stop hyper focusing on both skinship and “rival ship” moments in general and stop adding importance to them, especially when they don’t even do it equally with all ships.

It’s not that one is good:

One is neutral:

And one is bad:

They all happen and exist and we need to realize that’s how it always has been and likely always will be. Any interpretations of these moments shouldn’t change how you view them when nothing is even confirmed. They all happen so we should all accept that and be happy the members have close and intimate relationships with each other.

I really don’t think people understand my stance on all of this. I literally don’t mind if another ship turns out to be real (even if any ship being real is probably not that likely), because I trust in Vmin’s relationship after having watched it for 5 years. But since nothing is confirmed I still remain of the opinion that Vmin’s relationship and behavior is weirder than other ships IN MY VIEW, based on MY INTERPRETATIONS. But I am totally ok with being proven wrong, because it doesn’t matter what kind of relationship Vmin have as long as I can trust that the love they express for each other is real. Thus I also don’t have to downplay moments between other ships. They are there and that’s nice.

We lack a lot of information for many reasons even though we do get to see a lot. But even knowing all the things we know, I still don’t think it’s enough for any ship moments to count as “proof”. For example with Vmin, they were denied to sing a song because it was essentially “ too gay” and Taehyung complained about it, but that doesn't mean they have to be a couple and is forced apart by Big Hit.

We put weight into things because we have our biases and guesses and we find things because we look for them. Here are just some things that fans of various communities says have to mean something but to me really doesn't have to mean anything even if proven:

Physical intimacy Emotional intimacy Jealousy Screen time Fanservice “Sexual tension” Heart eyes or any looks in general Joking about being a couple Showering together Sleeping together Being alone together Living together Writing songs about each other Secret signs Hidden messages to fans Hiding in rooms

And so on...

But even If you do want to count these things to mean something, at least acknowledge how many of those things other ships have too. Vmin literally have several of these confirmed as well. Many of these moments either have happened or gets speculated to happen between many ships. You might find your ship isn’t as uniqe as you feel it is if you actually start diving deeper. If you did and it makes you doubt your own ships superiority, that’s good. Being sure won’t lead to any good for anyone.

Also if you wanna go there.... If other shipper say these have to mean something they are either ignoring Vmin or more likely doesn’t know or say it doesn’t mean the same if they do it.

Fine if hand holding and cuddling doesn’t make you wonder about Vmin, that’s totally legit. In fact you don’t have to wonder about Vmin unless you want to. But using excuses for why something doesn’t mean something you don’t want it to mean or downplaying moments or automatically calling them platonic and “not the same” doesn’t mean you can’t be wrong about those assumptions. Especially when you might not know the full context of it. Again, it should go both ways and include moments from all relationships.

I am legit curious how ji/kookers and tae/kookers are able to be so confident about their ship being real with Tae doing the things he does towards Jimin.... Like... They mean to tell me Tae and Jimin being soulmates, Tae wanting to sing a romantic Christmas song with Jimin, Tae writing 4 o'clock, Tae having Sweet night and telling us it's a personal song while he keeps calling Jimin his only best friend doesn't even have a possibility to mean something non platonic? 😗

Soulmates + Friends lyrics + "how could I know one day I would wake up feeling more" + "are you my best friend?" + "sweet night is a personal song" + "Of course Jimin is my only friend" + 4 o'clock/dumpling fight + the not allowed Christmas song + "Jimin-ah I like you the most" + "I told him to come sleep next to me as I was too lazy to go to him" + “we told our candid stories as honestly as possible” + “Oppa, why are you still awake? I’m dreaming of Jiminie” = Vmin is probably the best known guess to what relationship Tae might be talking about in Sweet Night.

Is it confirmed though? Can I call it proof? NO! Because while it fits in theory, we don’t know and we don’t have all the information to know. But I can make a damn good case for it and that’s the whole point. I can do that because I look for material, see things and add them together with a narrative. Just as other shippers do with their ships. In the end it’s all just narratives though, not proof.

Getting all these asks recently just confirms that the people who worry, or who says other ships are real, haven’t read even a fraction of my posts or they just don’t understand them. Or let alone noticed major moments between all BTS members that should show that their belief is not as “obvious” as they might think.

I am tired of insecurities when it shouldn’t even matter. If any ship in BTS is real, let’s support them and be happy. It doesn’t change the dynamics and relationships between the other members if some of them happen to be a couple. What we see is still there. The “worst” that can happen is that our ideas and theories prove to be wrong. 

But let’s at least try to be aware of how little we see and know, and especially about ships that aren’t our own. I am writing about Vmin because there is a lot to see, but me focusing on Vmin also gives me a knowledge about them I can’t compare with other ships. Which is why I won’t sit and write essays about other ships, and which is why Vminies coming to me for information about other ships is going to lack the depth I can provide for Vmin. All shippers are biased and all shippers lack information.

If you want to ship do it, if you want to speculate go right ahead. But be aware that there is a big difference between facts and knowledge and narratives and speculation.

I hope you found this an interesting read. And if you are considering sending me asks worried about Vmin because of interactions between other members or you want to send “statments” or explenations about other ships being real, just know you are barking up the wrong tree.

[guiltycorp]

about the ‘sworn’ or ‘righteous’ part of Kaeya’s relation to Ragnvindrs Considering the fact that Kaeya must have been ~10-13 years old when he was taken in by Crepus and also that his profile description calls him his sworn son (義子) I believe it's safe to assume that this was the primary relationship. Later in his stories Kaeya is often referred to as 養子, adopted or foster son and it is my belief that the meaning is 100% foster because being a sworn son is different to actually getting adopted. Sworn children don't share their 'parents' surnames and they don't inherit anything, in fact, often there's no form of written contract at all and instead it's just an agreement where one side provides patronage and care while the other offers filial piety. So, that means that it probably wasn't Diluc's decision to swear an oath of brotherhood with Kaeya! Instead Kaeya first became Crepus's sworn son and thus became Diluc's sworn brother by association; though calling the children of your sworn parent your sworn siblings isn't an absolute rule it's still kind of expected. Having skimmed through the Chinese Wikipedia page it seems to me like the main contemporary reason to make other children your sworn sons/daughters is because people weren't allowed to have more than one child and 'adopting' sworn children like this allowed the kids to learn the value of 悌, concept of fraternal loyalty. Also just in general easier to make close friends when your parents already did that for you. It would make sense to me if Crepus didn't want to risk adopting a random kid but still took in Kaeya as his sworn son specifically to provide Diluc with a close friend of a similar age and semi-equal status (sorry Elzer т_т). I should note that the practice of sworn parents/siblings was often historically used for political and economical reasons, in turn leading to corruption and abuse. For example, 'I give you filial piety, you give me money and promotions' or 'I give you a roof over your head and you give me your servitude' etc. This isn't really relevant to Kaeya's character since he mentions happiness while being with Ragnvindrs (when comparing his duty to his feelings), but still this is to provide context bc the practice isn't seen as completely ideal&pure. Plus he diiiid become a knight under Diluc ehe, but of course it’s easy to make the case for ‘he deserved it’.  Anyway in my opinion, considering the fact that Kaeya's and Diluc's sworn brotherhood oath wasn't made by them on purpose, the only thing that truly matters when it comes to their relationship is the characters' own view. We don’t really have much information on their pre-fight dynamic aside from them having been very close with Diluc as the older perfect prodigy and Kaeya as his sidekick (support + planning). However, they are said to have been as close as the gemini, like, the sign that means twins. This is probably a point in favor of an actual brotherly relationship rather than a fairly distant friendship. Meanwhile their current in-game relationship is fraught with tension.  Kaeya obviously wants to reconcile and Diluc still relies on him whenever Kaeya suggests it, so when it comes to professionalism they fall back into the same dynamic of brawns & brain, but their dialogues are filled with mistrust on Diluc’s end and with bitterness on Kaeya’s side.  It's fairly concerning that the only sign Diluc might still care about his ex-sworn brother is that ugly ass vase he kept in the lobby.   Considering the amount of things Kaeya managed to do for him already, it's slightly unbalanced immo to say the least :/ :/ Some like to say that Diluc not giving him over to Jean is already a sign of caring on his part but idk, considering his personality he might just see Kaeya as his own responsibility to watch over and I doubt that he would leave Mond for 4 years if Kaeya actually seemed like a threat.  And there were plenty of times when Diluc could have alluded to Kaeya (like, kaeya alludes to him in his voicelines all the time) and yet just doesn't.  Even the line that could vaguely be associated with Kaeya, the one about nightingales, is a mistranslation — he meant night OWLS, his own constellation and symbol. What a pity tbh.  We just have to wait for further content with them to be sure that Diluc isn’t completely heartless.  And more about the pairing though, read only if it’s relevant to your interests.  While ideally sworn siblings are expected to maintain platonic relations and to care for each other their whole lives, being halves of a whole and all that, interestingly enough according to the Wikipedia page the specific kind of sworn siblings you make through parents is less regulated, so if kids grow up and pursue romantic relationships between each other it's seen as just fine, sometimes even encouraged by the more meddling type of grannies. Tbh at first I was surprised by that, but likely it's because becoming sworn siblings isn't really their call? While if you swear an oath of brotherhood/sisterhood by your own decision as an adult you're expected to maintain that specific kind of relationship? makes sense to me i guess (that said, of course there are also practices like 契兄弟, Qi sworn brothers — like, specifically the gay sworn brothers, when men swore brotherhood with their lovers to avoid persecution for homosexuality... also my understanding is that women did that way more often because for them it was also a way to get out of marriages by saying that they were fully devoted to their 'sisters' instead, this isn’t relevant here, just interesting) Basically as soon as you enter a romantic relationship with your sworn-anything the boundary you maintain is replaced by the new romantic kind and you shouldn't count as sworn siblings anymore; unless you're lgbtq in which case open romantic relationships are dangerous anyway so you might as well continue calling your partner whatever. Basically there would be nothing wrong with kaeluc especially since they even already stopped calling each other sworn brothers (the eng translation took liberties again, in the comic it’s not actually clear who was the first one to stop). It’s all about the characters’ own perspective and while I’m convinced that genshin won’t have any outright lgbt representation bc chinese game, we can still assume a lot from how things between Kaeya and Diluc develop, like whether they will reconcile and if they do will they go back to calling each other sworn brothers or if they will start a completely new friendship free of the ties to Crepus. Or will they fail to reconcile in a dramatic and angsty fashion? Either way, this time it would be their own choice and thus all the stronger for it! 

[simply-not-an-egg]

Cobra Kai, Future Season/s Dump Because I Have Many Thoughts

I’m gonna split this up into sections because oh boy are there a lot of things I’d like to see in the future of this series from these characters. DISCLAIMER; THIS ISN’T COMPLETE YET, SO KEEP CHECKING BACK TO SEE WHEN THIS DISCLAIMER DISSAPEARS BECAUSE AT THAT POINT IT SHOULD BE COMPLETE. I COULDN’T BE BOTHERED KEEPING IT IN MY DRAFTS.

Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso

So where we left off in Season 3 is Daniel and Johnny joining their dojos to become one to defeat the big enemy, Cobra Kai. But what does that also mean for them? They’re pretty much friends now, as much as either would them would probably hate to admit it. Anyway, these dynamics now presented, it opens up a lot of potential plots for them, the biggest of which being Lawrusso becoming canon at some point in the future, which I’d say is HIGHLY likely considering, as we all know, Ralph Macchio is the captain of said ship, and William Zabka, as far as I’m aware, is fairly supportive of this ship (FYI, Macchio has also said in an interview before that Johnny and Daniel have a very will they, won’t they? Ross and Rachel relationship, and imo, that’s not something you’d say about platonic friends). Anyhoo, below is pretty much what I’d love to see of them, and how it all happens, because trust me, there’s a long road to get to the point where we all want Lawrusso to be.

Personally, I would think neither Johnny or Daniel bat an eye about this whole potential relationship between the two of them until certain kids in their dojo start pairing up, and by certain kids I mean Eli/Hawk and Demetri, which would likely happen at some point during Season 4 after they’ve talked through their trauma and, for the most part, forgiven each other (mainly Demetri forgiving Eli/Hawk). 

The reason I say this is because I don’t think either Johnny or Daniel would have ever expected such a relationship to be considered normal, or for one just have it be accepted, because the two of them grew up in the 80s, where it was still shamed upon to be anything other that cis and het.

Such a thing leads me to the next point of internalised homophobia and repression, and the absolute confusion and probably shame that would come with realising that they aren’t straight, more or less on Daniel’s end. I feel as though Johnny wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it though because a) he’s a free agent, and yes I know he’s had an almost on/off thing with Carmen, but they’ve never actually, you know, laid the cards on the table and said, ‘yeah we’re a couple’, and b) I, like many others, are inclined to believe Johnny may be bisexual, which therefore gives him the crutch of ‘well I also like girls so I must be normal to a degree’. I also think Johnny would be in some way learning through the kids that all is well, and that’s it’s alright to feel the way he feels about people, because, I mean, let’s face it, literally no one in that dojo is straight. The show’s not Cobra Kai, it’s Cobra Queer. Now, Daniel, on the other hand, would have so much more trouble coming to, and accepting the conclusion that he may have a thing for dudes.

The biggest reason for that being, of course, his marriage to Amanda. I think that would definitely be the thing that messes with him the most, and I feel as though he’d be doing a lot of self-questioning, you know, such as things like ‘did i ever love her?’ or ‘have i been faking it all these years?’, which to both, we know, the answer is no, because, even if he was a straight A gay, it is possible to love someone without being attracted to them as per say. But anyway, I digress.

Daniel would probably end up questioning Amanda a lot too, whether she feels he’s good enough for her, or if he’s done right by her, et cetera, et cetera. This would likely make her question him, obviously, because her husband’s acting stranger than normal, and I feel like all that questioning on her part would likely lead to a breakdown on Daniel’s end in which case he would spill out all these emotions and feelings and realisations about him liking dudes. And obviously, all of this would absolutely crush Amanda’s heart, and he knows it, but she takes it in her stride, and does what she can to help him.

With this though would obviously come the divorce, something which is mutually agreed on, but they remain good friends. Course, they also have to tell the kids then why this is happening, and Sam is terribly accepting, of course. Anthony I’m not so sure about, but I think at the end of the day he loves his dad, nonetheless. I also think that Anthony would be inclined to live with his mother post-divorce, although he’d still come round on weekends to see his dad, meanwhile Sam lives with her father. 

Following their sexual awakenings then, along with personal acceptance, comes the realisations of the crushing. The way Johnny cares so much about the kids and how Daniel smiles at that, the way Daniel is always so calm and collected and how comforting of a feeling that is for Johnny. And I think, as an added bonus, the kids realise their senseis have a thing for one another before they even do themselves.

Their friendship grows though, one step at a time, and I think at some point there’s a night where Johnny and Daniel are sitting out on the deck at the dojo, drinking and reminiscing and laughing all the while. And it is that exact night that changes everything. Because at some point, when they’ve become substantially intoxicated, they let both their walls down completely, and in Johnny asking a question about Daniel’s divorce, the latter opens up as to why it happened. Because he’s gay. And I swear to god Johnny almost chokes hearing that, because, deep down in his subconscious, he’s been waiting to hear something like that from Daniel since they were in high school.

Suddenly, after that, the metaphorical blindfolds come off, and Johnny and Daniel actually, properly, begin to realise now that they are crushing on one another and hard. They’ve fallen head over heels and there’s nothing they can do about it. But they are both timid, and I feel Johnny more than Daniel in this case. 

Eventually Daniel gets the guts to ask Johnny out, on a date, to which the latter agrees, and they likely just spend their night eating gas station food (to Daniel’s begrudgement), and driving around various spots in town, including the sports hall where the All Valley Tournament of ‘84 was held. There I think they also really talk, for the first time, about everything that went down that night. Daniel thanks Johnny for giving him the trophy again, and Johnny ends up in tears when he talks about Kreese and what he did to him. And all the while Daniel comforts him, and probably gets a bit cheesy in saying they’ve got each other now, and they’ll take him down together, at which Johnny makes a snide comment about the cheesiness, but they laugh together nonetheless. They end the night with a very tentative first kiss outside Johnny’s apartment before Daniel drives home, smiling all the while. 

Of course, as fate has it, and schedules, the next day there is a karate session, and it’s likely a bit awkward between the two then because their stuck in that position of ‘we’re not friends but we’re also not in a proper romantic relationship yet and we’re also basically gay so like what do we do’. To fix said awkward tension, Johnny ends up asking Daniel out on a second date on the weekend, and Daniel agrees, granted he chooses what to do and where to go (because Johnny did that last time).

I feel like Daniel takes Johnny to the forest he took Robby to for that karate training session, because it means a lot to Daniel, that spot. And much like the last time, they find themselves talking more and more about whatever deep, unresolved trauma the two have, whether that be because of each other or because of external factors (family, friends, shared enemies, et cetera). I think this date also has them gaining a tad more confidence with each other when it comes to physical things, like kissing and holding hands and just all that relationship stuff (because they enjoy it a lot, they’re both just still afraid to do these things, because, again, this stuff was taboo when they were growing up).

They end up going on a third and fourth date, the latter of which they discuss their respective families (aka the children), and what and how they’re going to tell them, along with Johnny’s own fears about Robby and, if and when he comes back, how he’s going to feel about this. 

Following the fourth date they decide to make things official between them, and once again, there is a bit of tentativity when it comes to calling one another ‘boyfriend’ but they get over it soon enough, and in time the two are happily commiting to soft PDA whenever they see each other. All the karate kids(TM) are of course happy and accepting of their senseis. 

And I’m just gonna say, the moment their relationship becomes truly public is at the All Valley Tournament. They’re holding hands, their giving comforting hugs, and when their kids kick Cobra Kai’s asses, you bet they give each other the biggest, most public kiss ever. 

And following all of that, I just wanna see the domestic karate dads just being happy??

Oh and Robby has a great reaction to this relationship, because, you know, Daniel was like a father figure, so him just being with his dad is great (not to mention, it probably makes him more open about discussing his feelings to them about Miguel)

Demetri and Hawk

Miguel, Robby, and Sam

Robby getting chokeheld by Kreese after losing the All Valley. That’s it. I want that parallel between Robby and Johnny. Adding to that, Johnny then beats the sh*t out of Kreese, and as Kreese has made the mistake of trying to choke a minor in front of a crowd, this gets him arrested

Tory

Ali, Carmen, and Amanda

Kreese and Silver

As much as I hate it, I would like to see this Daniel’s trauma pop up in season 4, better yet if it affects Daniel to a point where it worries Johnny, because then perhaps there’ll be a good understanding between the two that they’ve BOTH had traumatic senseis in the past

What I’d also like to see is for Silver to continue Cobra Kai, if Kreese gets arrested for whatever public displays of violence, because that would create quite a large fear plot for Daniel’s part, and it would be really cool to then explore all his trauma

I’d love to see more of Kreese and his Sugar Daddy in general. Like I never thought I’d say it but I do ship them. Do I like them? F*ck no. But they are husbands imo, and I need to see more of those type of scenes in S4

Something I thought of was Silver showing up at Daniel (and Johnny’s) dojo while they’re doing a class, and I want that to be the first time Daniel sees him. It will make him freeze, I know it, and as much as I hate watching Daniel suffer, I also love it

The Lawrusso Dojo

Cobra Kai

The All Valley Tournament

LaRusso Auto Group

Other

[cto10121]

Does R&J Play With Gender Stereotypes?

So I came across this piece of meta by @hamliet that rather intrigued me:

There’s also another layer here: the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine. Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one. That’s the first thing Juliet declares to Romeo in the balcony scene: that she will always be loyal, and she shows this in every choice she makes in the story.

Let’s break this down.

“the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine.”

Romeo does indeed call Juliet the sun, but Juliet never calls Romeo the moon—or likens him with anything symbolically feminine, come to think of it. The closest she or the play gets is a small but clear association with night: Romeo has “night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes” and Juliet implores “loving, black-browed” night to give her her Romeo. Even then it is so that he can “make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night / And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

Instead, Juliet consistently uses the same love language of authority as Romeo does with her, calling him her lord, husband, knight, “day-in-night,” “mansion of a love,” “god of my idolatry,” and, (my particular favorite), “tassel-gentle” or “falcon.” “Pilgrim” is the lowest social rank she uses, but of course she is following Romeo’s pilgrim-and-saints flirtation and its wink-wink bilingual allusion to his name. Romeo’s use of “sun,” then, could be viewed in the context of both lovers conferring cosmic/earthly authority, beauty, ownership, and sovereignty to each other—the Elizabethan equivalent of calling each other wife/husband. And of course they begin doing that immediately after they marry.

Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one.

Definitely not. Romeo is plenty decisive and bold—making the first move in wooing Juliet, climbing the orchard wall, showing himself to Juliet, immediately agreeing to marry her, nearly killing himself when he thinks Juliet might not take him back and, er, actually killing himself for her. I wouldn’t say he is impulsive, either—though he makes decisions fairly quickly, it is almost always with some deliberation beforehand (“Can I go forward when my heart is here?” “Shall I hear more or shall I speak at this?” and his monologue after Mercutio’s exit) and of course there are instances in which he restrains himself (“I am too bold” and his monologue after Mercutio’s death). The most accurate description of Romeo is that he is a risk taker—at least when he is well and truly motivated. And even then it does not rob his deliberation or even his wits.

He is also not flighty. In fact, he proves just as loyal as Juliet—as soon as he meets her, he forgets about Rosaline and leaves her clear behind. He doesn’t once waver in his conviction that Juliet is for him and makes plans to die with her (and does!). His love for Rosaline is clearly framed by the narrative as shallow, performative, and passive, and the verse bears this out. He was never in any kind of relationship with Rosaline—his love was an unrequited crush that he was at perfectly liberty to have ditched, frankly. After that, it’s Juliet, Juliet, Juliet until he dies.

Also, once more, Romeo is no crybaby. He explicitly cries a total of two times—one even before the events of the play, when he pines over Rosaline under a grove of sycamore, and another when he’s 1) seen Mercutio get mortally wounded, 2) killed Tybalt, 3) learned that he is banished from the city, and 4) mistakenly believed that Juliet no longer wants him (the Nurse’s reply is vague enough to be misinterpreted); at the very least he is devastated to have been the cause of her pain. Anyone would break down in those circumstances. Juliet herself breaks down on hearing the news and arguably is more verbally vehement than Romeo—namely, that even the words “Romeo is banishèd” are worse than if herself, Romeo, her parents, and Tybalt were dead. She ends that monologue with a passive suicide threat: “And Death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!” How anyone can argue Juliet isn’t as lovestruck as Romeo is beyond me.

What Shakespeare was most likely aiming for was showing the mutuality of R&J’s love with parallel scenes and even language. Both have chances to act strong, decisive, and bold, both show vulnerability and great emotion and passion, both are lovestruck. Both demonstrate so-called “masculine” and “feminine” traits, which is almost always culturally-and time-based, anyway. There are only a few key differences between the two—almost all of the above traits, however, they both share. It’s almost as if…Shakespeare understood that no man or woman had all masculine or all feminine traits.

Moving on to the conclusion:

In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit). It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society. And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later. 

In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit).

You just opened up 200+ years of fandom wank, OP. I’ll just do a quick sum-up.

The Sonnets are a complete mess. They are contradictory as hell, there is clearly more than one persona speaking, there is evidence that Shakespeare edited and revised them, evidence they were published with his permission, quite a few sonnets are based on pre-existing sources, and, most damnably of all, none of the most likely candidates for the so-called Fair Youth and Dark Lady fit the narrative of the Sonnets perfectly or even satisfactorily—if there is even a clear narrative to these things to begin with. Sonnets were artificial works whose clichés and conventions were heavily satirized in Shakespeare’s own works—Berowne’s own rant-y sonnet swearing he would never believe in love sonnets comes most readily to mind. They were usually not meant to denote an actual real-life relationship, although there was a kind of “game” in trying to figure out which parts are true and which ones fiction. At least one sonnet sequence had a completely fictional addressee (Fulke Greville, I think).

Shakespeare’s sonnets do break a lot of these rules and conventions, and radically, and as they seem to have been compiled over many years, they lend themselves to autobiographical speculation. But, as a bit of a poet myself, I feel this: No one writes 154 sonnets—plus a whole narrative poem!—to one lover or even multiple lovers. Poetry is much less personal than laypeople think. Outside the sonnets, Shakespeare is not linked to any man romantically, and, besides his wife, only to two women (unnamed citizen’s wife and Jane Devanant).

Even if we assume Shakespeare’s bi, though, that doesn’t mean R&J is a queer narrative, which brings us to…

It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society.

A queer narrative that has its lovers express their love through the language of heterosexual marriage (husband, lord, wife, lady, pilgrim/saint), and commit suicide by a chalice-and-blade symbolism that mimics heterosexual sex (Romeo drinking a “cup” of poison and Juliet stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger. Freud couldn’t have done it better). If Shakespeare was thinking “gay allegory!!!” he would have had to at least change or erase the symbolism (straight coding?) of the double suicide, or have Juliet attribute to Romeo explicitly feminine imagery. He would have to have done some major plot rejiggering. He would have had to, in short, change the whole story.

(Unless by “queer narrative” you mean “anything that has an emotionally constipated male lead who doesn’t growl sexily and a female lead who doesn’t cry/faint at the drop of a hat.” That’d be most every narrative, lol.)

Also, I’m hard-pressed to think of love romances that are 100% patriarchal narratives, and those that do (Casablanca, maybe?) are not really true ones, anyway. Patriarchy inherently opposes all romances of love and sex, including heterosexual. It demands that men be raised as soldiers to kill enemies, slaughtered, and discarded, and women as chattel and land to be bought and sold. Marriage was that transferral of property. Having children is necessary, not out of love and care for them, but to propagate the species and create even more future warriors and womb incubators. It grudgingly accepts only (mostly straight and like maybe 1 or 2 gay) love narratives that can be subsumed into this narrow paradigm, but the tension of interpretation is always present. Ideally, it prefers to ignore, diminish, scorn and mock, or even suppress them. I suspect most people’s problems and discomfort with R&J stem from this pathology, this deep-seated unease over anything that touches on human experience patriarchy can’t quite control or subsume.

Shakespeare was obviously no lover of patriarchy (in his personal life, though…well, it’s debatable). His plays resist it greatly to various degrees, and R&J is no exception. R&J hews much closer to the reality of heterosexual love and love in general, which are informed by, though are not inherently tied to, patriarchy (as are gay relationships, sadly). Shakespeare is just being a good writer in throwing most of that rotten apple away; it doesn’t apply to what he was trying to do, anyway. R&J’s challenge to patriarchy, though, is heterosexual in nature.

And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later. 

True dat.

[emy-loves-you]

Wrong Numbers and Useless Gays Chapter 15

Sandwiches and Self-Jealousy

Chapter 14 | Masterlist | Chapter 16

Warnings: Jealousy, half-lying, mentions of abandonment issues

Virgil shot up, surprised by Janus slamming the door upstairs. He stared at his phone. What was he supposed to do? He’s been flirting with his 3 crushes as Anxiety, and they don’t know that he’s Anxiety. Virgil sighed, gathering up what courage he had left. Might as well gather intel.

V- (1:10 PM) You’ve been flirting with THE Anxiety?!?

L- (1:10 PM) More like he was flirting with us.

P- (1:11 PM) You know Anxiety, Kiddo?

V- (1:11 PM) Yeah, I’m a fan of his

V- (1:11 PM) Are you sure that he’s flirting? Last I heard he was dating his bandmates

L- (1:12 PM) He said that he was flirting with me, but I don’t think he means it as a romantic gesture. He seemed more interested in my consent than my unavailability.

V- (1:12 PM) Wait, why were you guys okay with each other flirting with strangers?

R- (1:13 PM) We might all have the teensiest tiny crush on him

Virgil felt his cheeks heat up. They all had crushes on Anxiety? What was Virgil supposed to do with that information? Should he ignore it? Or should he try and be more serious with them as Anxiety, to see if he has a chance as a rockstar instead of a faceless friend?

Virgil suddenly felt something stirring in his gut. It took a few moments to recognize the feeling: Jealousy. Virgil had been pining after his crushes for months. He was not losing his chance to a person they’d only known for a week. Sure, that person was also Virgil, but it was the principle of it, Dammit! Virgil thought about it. While it would be easier to date them as Anxiety, he’d much rather date them as Virgil. Maybe I can give myself a leg-up through Anxiety. Virgil thought about it for several more minutes. This could work. Finally smiling, Virgil turned back to his phone.

V- (1:20 PM) Okay, you guys wanna get closer to Anxiety?

V- (1:20 PM) How does VIP tickets to their next concert sound?

R- (1:21 PM) SERIOUSLY?!?

R- (1:21 PM) YES PLEASE!

P- (1:22 PM) You don’t have to, Kiddo!

V- (1:22 PM) The concert’s on February 17th. Consider it a Valentine’s Day gift from me to you guys.

L- (1:22 PM) The concert is in less than 3 weeks. How do you have VIP tickets? Were you intending on using them, Virgil?

V- (1:23 PM) No, I just know a few people

V- (1:23 PM) By the way, where did you find that album, Lo?

L- (1:23 PM) I am at home right now due to nasopharyngitis. A coworker of mine dropped this off as an early birthday present. He said that I might find it useful. I assume that he saw Anxiety visiting me at the library and recognized him.

Virgil sighed. He’d have to pay more attention. He’d dropped his guard down when interacting with them. He didn’t want anyone else recognizing him.

R- (1:25 PM) Well, I must take my leave. I have lunch with Anxiety today, so I will inform him of our situation.

P- (1:25 PM) DON’T TELL HIM ABOUT OUR CRUSH ON HIM!

R- (1:25 PM) I WON’T!

Virgil swore, getting up. He’d completely forgotten about his lunch with Hottie/Roman. He quickly grabbed his stuff before running out the door. He sent a quick text to Janus, telling him that he had left. He speed-walked to the sandwich shop that Roman liked, ordering the same sandwich that Roman ordered every time, as well as one for himself. Before he knew it, he was standing outside of the theatre, sandwiches in hand. He sat there, remembering what he wanted to say to Roman. Roman soon walked out, a nervous yet somewhat awe-struck look on his face.

Flirt Mode: Activated

“Hey, Hottie. Ready for sandwiches and banter?” Anxiety held out the sandwich, a teasing glint in his eyes.

“We need to talk.” Anxiety startled slightly. He knew that Roman wanted to talk to him about his identity, but he didn’t think that he’d be this direct.

“Sure, mind if we sit down? My back is killing me.” They sat down on the sidewalk, uncomfortable silence between them. Anxiety opened his mouth to break the tension. “So-”

“I know you’re Anxiety.” Roman’s voice was soft, softer than Anxiety ever remembered it being. He stared down at the concrete. “And I know that I’m not the only person that you’re flirting with. You’ve actually been flirting with my 2 boyfriends. I just thought you should know that I knew before we continued anything. I don’t want to trick you or lie to you.”

Anxiety felt a wave of guilt overcome him. He shouldn’t be leading them astray like this. But what could he say? Hey, I’m also the guy that’s been texting you for the past 7 months. Hope this doesn’t pressure you into liking me. Anxiety mentally shook his head. No, he couldn’t do that. But he also couldn’t fully lie to them. Maybe some half-lies would make it better?

“I already knew.” Roman’s eyes shot up.

“How? We just figured it out today!”

“Apparently you told my friend too. Unless he made up the exact same story when he asked for the VIP tickets?” There, Virgil can be Anxiety’s friend. Close enough to where it would make sense for Anxiety and Virgil to know things that they shouldn’t, while far enough to draw away suspicion.

Roman’s jaw dropped. “You know Virgil?”

Anxiety nodded, taking a bite out of his sandwich. “Mmhm. He’s a good friend of mine. He sometimes goes on tour with us.”

Before Anxiety could even blink, he suddenly had a face full of Roman. “What’s he like?”

Anxiety stared, dumbfounded. “What?”

Roman huffed, the light never leaving his eyes. “Virgil. What’s he like? I’ve been talking to him for months, but we’ve never met face-to-face. So, what’s he like?”

It took a few moments for Anxiety to talk again. He wanted to know about Virgil? Not the literal rockstar in front of him? “Well, he’s sarcastic, for one (yep). He likes to spend money on people he cares about (you, Logan, Patton). He bounced around the foster system for a while, but I don’t know why (why didn’t anyone want me?). He has really bad anxiety (hence the persona), so he doesn’t go to any of my concerts (not as Virgil). He talks about you a lot (I can’t stop myself. I bring at least one of you up in every conversation I have with J and Re).”

“He does?” He looked so… happy? Hopeful? Unsettled? Virgil couldn’t tell.

“Yeah, he’s always blabbering about what you said that day or what he’s planning on getting you (not a lie). So, now that you know what I think of him, now it’s your time to spill. Who’s Virgil to you?”

Roman suddenly had a strange look on his face. Anxiety couldn’t name the emotion in his eyes. “Virgil is… different. He has such a cynical view of the world, yet he still makes lighthearted puns. He’s doesn’t want to meet us in person, yet he spends so much money on us. He can’t bake for shit, and he sends adorable apology chocolates when he thinks we’re upset. He loves Halloween and Disney. He listens when we need someone to talk to, and he rambles off random facts when we need a distraction. He comforts Patton when he’s sad. He makes Logan laugh after a tiring day, even if Lo plays it off as exasperation. He calms me down when I think that the world’s against me.” He sighed. “I wish he trusted us enough to let us meet him. I respect his wishes, but it’s hard, y’know? Trusting someone that you’ve never met.”

Anxiety felt another wave of guilt, this one even stronger. He opened his mouth before thinking. “I’m sure he’ll open up to you soon.”

“Really?!” Roman looked up, with so much… joy, and hope, and that same emotion that Anxiety couldn’t name. He recognized it somewhere, but he couldn’t remember where.

Anxiety smirked, internally screaming. “Of course. You think I’d lie about something like that? He just needs to build up his confidence first. Once he does, he’ll be dying to meet ya.” His smirk softened to a half-smile. “And from what I’ve seen so far from you, Angel, and Starlight, he won’t be disappointed.” Anxiety checked the time on his phone. “Well, your lunch ends in 2 minutes, and I’ve gotta go. See ya later, Hottie.” And with that, Anxiety stood up and walked away.

Virgil was surprised that his comment about opening up didn’t make him feel guilty. Instead, he felt… relieved? Hopeful? He couldn’t tell. But it felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. I do have to tell them eventually. Might as well promise it. Pressure myself into actually doing it.

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

Taglist: @bisexualdisaster106 @self-taught-mess @itawalrus @arodynamic-enby @sanderssides-angst

[jonathanrook]

legally i have to give you intern 2

em you have awoken an ungodly beast inside me so i need to warn everyone that this post is. incomprehensible. but so is mymusic so i guess we're all used to it.

How I feel about this character:

i watched mymusic as it was airing/running/coming out specifically bc i'm a jack stannie, and as a kid melvin was my second favorite character (w scene being in first, obvs) for mostly that reason. he basically hovered around this ranking until my most recent rewatch in the summer of 2020, which was actually spurred by some events in my personal life that vaguely reminded me of scene's season two arc w jeff, and i thought it'd been a funny/nostalgic way to get my mind off things.

(i want to side note here that -- i know you didn't ask, but -- i love jeff. i have since i was a kid. like, obviously not as a person but i think he's honestly the best written character in the series, w indie close in second. idk what it says about the f*nes that their most interesting and well rounded characters are the villains, but i digress. to this day i'm salty that jeff never got added to the theme song and wasn't really included in promotional merch.)

however, in said rewatch, certain things about how he was written started to really get under my skin, and certain moments in particular have really stuck out to me in a negative way. like, for the entirety of season one and a good chunk of season two he's one person, and then he leaves mymusic and we have an entirely different person, but not in a nuanced character building sort of way.

i've said a few of these points before but i'll repeat them here regardless. at the risk of sounding like i've put on a tin-foil hat, it's my sneaking suspicion that scindie was supposed to be endgame, but since fan reception to it was pretty neutral, and scenechart stans were, at the very least, more vocal, changes were made to the intended finale, which is why in the last scene he's basically just. indie. like, if everything about the show was exactly the same but indie was the one who had ended up w scene in the end that would have made so much more sense since a) scene had a crush on indie that he/everyone knew about and b) indie was kind of a dick despite the half-assed attempts at redemption, so both combined make it slightly less weird/out-of-nowhere that he kisses her w/o her consent (since, even though like. implied consent is not real at worst and a fuzzy subject at best but you could argue that scene would want indie to kiss her); and this isn't even taking into consideration that c) melvin is heavily queer-coded in both seasons, with his friendship with nerdcore being, dare i say, homoerotic at times, and his arc about leaving the company and changing his name mirroring nerdcore's almost perfectly (with nerdcore being a character who b*nny [at least] has all but confirmed is actually gay).

i've also been on the fence about melvin's behavior in that final scene making more sense for indie's character being an intentional decision as a way of shoe-horning in a theme about the lasting effects of abuse/cycles of abuse/the corruption of power but i also don't think the f*nes are smart enough for that. however, for the sake of defending my straw theory, i also point to the scene where indie comes to visit the acid factory after melvin told him to shut up, and we see melvin use reggie as a foot-stool, going as far as to say that it feels good to do so (which, in all honesty, i think is a bit that was entirely improvised, since the f*nes were "notorious for never saying cut" [paraphrased from a bts video], but work w me here). he's also given a seltzer mug that perfectly resembles indie's kombucha mug. in these moment melvin is directly emulating the behavior of his previous abuser, purposefully or not, literal moments after being promoted to an equal position of authority, which was totally just included as a joke, but could also be argued is meant to show that he's becoming indie; or, if we acknowledge that the f*nes have no fucking clue what they're doing and were just directing like chickens with their heads cut off, it at least shows that melvin's new position of power is leading him to understand where indie was coming from, which is supported by their conversation in the finale.

the following contains a couple brief mentions of irl sexual assault so if that's something you'd like to avoid skip to the next section!

HOWEVER, that alone isn't what i have a problem with, since i think melvin is completely justified in being a dick to indie (and also reggie enthusiastically consents to being used as an ottoman so good for him i guess). the issue comes completely in how he treats scene in the scenes where the f*nes clearly thought what they were writing was super romantic. like, the fact that the only thing he's got hung on his cubicle wall is a single picture of scene taken from the fucking opening credits (like. how hard would it have been to have. literally any other photo[s] esp since there's an abundance of cute bts pics of the cast in costume that could have been put there) and him scrolling through her twitter at work really creep me out (and at the risk of oversharing the weird, like, social media stalking angle really fucks w me bc that may or may not have been the exact fucking thing i was trying to escape in rewatching mymusic in the first place). also, having him sexually assault scene as a means of comforting her after she had just been sexually assaulted in the same way by someone else was... a choice (which is also, uh, personally familiar).

again, i recognize that demonizing melvin wasn't what the f*nes were trying to do here, and i perhaps seem hypocritical for opening liking jeff, but what makes jeff work is he's intentionally "the bad guy." having melvin do the same things as indie and jeff uncritically only proves further that the f*nes can't write for shit, and ruins his character which had, up until he quit mymusic, been unironically good. like, it's obviously not beneficial that the exact asshole things he does are personally triggering, but the character would still be a mess and i would still dislike him regardless.

i want to say though that jack delivers a surprisingly great performance despite how shoddily his character is constructed and how little experience he has as an actor. like, it's clear he was having a lot of fun on set and i would love to see him in something, like, good; i think he could pull off even like, guest television roles, which is a lot more than can be said for other youtubers.

-----

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

nerdchart should have been canon i'm sorry. i know that close, nonromantic male friendships are valuable, esp between queer men, but also gd wouldn't it have been baller to have a canon interracial mlm ship. like. c'mon. and they could have been such a good friends to lovers story! we already got to see how melvin was the only person nerdcore could really be himself around so it would have been so cool if melvin's self-advocacy arc/flowchart arc had revolved more around nerdcore with a little role-reversal! and then they kiss! like god intended!

also i ship him and indie bc i'm a grubby little gremlin man ohoho. enemies w weird sexual tension? sign me up. not even enemies to lovers i'm not saying this one should have been canon i just love the vibes. do you think melvin and indie ever explored each other's bod-- *gunshot*

-----

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

i wish him and scene had just been bros. god remember in season one when they were just bros that was the life.

alternatively, i wish we'd seen more bonding w him and metal, as a means of reconciling that. uh. moment from season one. along similar lines i would have loved to see him get closer w rayna in a similar way to how she bonded w nerdcore in season two. i think that could have also worked to show how she'd grown between the two seasons.

-----

My unpopular opinion about this character:

HIM. AND. SCENE. SHOULD. HAVE. JUST. BEEN. BROS. (though i think my general dislike of him is pretty unpopular, lmao).

when the show was coming out i don't think it's unfair to say that scenechart/scenetern 2 was the most popular ship (aside from potentially techstep whatever) but luckily we're all gay and have better taste now. unfortunately i totally fell into this camp and scenechart was even my otp for years (until it was arguably more unfortunately usurped by reddie in 2019) and i didn't even realise that it's a hot mess until, again, the summer of 2020.

when actually watching the show the choices the f*nes made in regards to how the ship actually became canon are so odd and out of place, too? okay, so, on one hand everyone just shipped scenechart bc it was the whitest hettiest ship in the show (esp in season two when idol left) aside from scindie (and we already discussed what's wrong w that). but, on the other hand, lainey and jack clearly also just got along? and i suspect that lainey probably also admired jack's work and was happy to be working with him bc we have so many shots throughout even the first season when the ship wasn't the intended endgame of lainey scene looking really fondly at jack melvin at times when it doesn't make much sense at all, esp since she's smitten w indie? this trend continues into the second season which arguably works but it still seems really out of place for him to be the one to ultimately make the first move on her since it's clear she was the one crushing this whole time and also he's gay! this bitch is gay what the fuck!!

-----

One thing I wish had happened with this character in canon:

at this point i'm struggling to think of anything i haven't covered yet. oops.

i've talked at length before about how he should have been a woman/lesbian, but the tl;dr is that it would have solved a lot of the queer-coding "problems" that just didn't get resolved in the show. if he'd been a lesbian then not only would the friendship w nerdcore still made sense, but scenechart would have as well (not even mentioning that both of scene's other relationships w men make a lot of sense as comphet anyway).

[buckevantommy]

'(Un)Happiest Season' review

Simply put, it wasn't enjoyable as a romance or a comedy or a Christmas flick. It failed on many fronts, but this reviewer from Salon.com puts the thing into words for Happiest Season's main failings: 

What's bad: There were two main criticisms of "Happiest Season." The first being: Can't LGBTQ audiences have a holiday movie where the main plot isn't about mining the anxiety and trauma associated with coming out, being closeted and casual homophobia? Then there's the fact that Harper really is just kind of the worst. After pushing Abby back in the closet, Harper ditches her in a town where she doesn't know anyone to go drink with her ex-boyfriend until two in the morning, then proceeds to call Abby "suffocating" when called on it. It's a pattern of s**ty behavior that is pervasive and present throughout the movie, so her redemption arc doesn't feel super genuine. 

Why can't we have main queer characters in Christmas movies without their presence being all about their queerness? We want fluffy festiveness, dammit! They could've made Harper less selfish and more attentive while still playing into the *I'm not out yet Because Reasons so we need to hide our gay relationship* trope, but they didn't. Who knows why, but what a waste. 🎄👩‍❤️‍👩☃️

^ Look at that trailer and tell me you don't expect Misunderstandings with fun and tropey antics + Domestic Christmas Shenanigans + Comfort for Hurt! You will be sorely disappointed. 😞 

NOTE: The flick does have a few good moments. And it's probably worth the watch just to see what's missing/mishandled when it comes to queer characters and queer romances in mainstream movies. 

But it's not really fun or funny or heart-warming - where are the snowball fights? Insightful conversations? Christmas elements like eggnog/spiced wine, candycanes, mistletoe? Where are the many colourful side characters and the hungover brunches? We get one scene of ice-skating for a few minutes and it's wasted on sibling rivalry bs rather than, say.. Abby and Harper skating together but not being aloud to touch—omg the tension!! 😍 

There's just not enough comfort for the hurt Abby (Kstew) goes through; the film wholly lacks those warm-n-fuzzy Christmas vibes; there's just way more wrong with it than is right with it - which sucks, because this had the potential to be such a great movie if only Harper was written as less ignorant/selfish and we'd gotten more enjoyable family interactions and more festive fun - like a celebration in town. Instead we get a few limited shots of the adorable town, a crappy bar, and an OTT fancy Christmas party for performative rich white folk on a career path for power and "perfection" (ie. wholesome family values). 

The story they went with was definitely better suited for a dramatic film, so in a romcom setting it really didn't work. Plus the side-characters were flat; we needed more depth from the supporting characters, more meaningful interactions. 

^ Look at those intro credits!! Look at all the domestic happy moments and tell me you don't want to see a movie filled with such fluffy festive goodness!! Well, if you don't want to see such moments, don't worry because you won't. I naturally thought we were going to get this kind of romantic-and-non-romantic happiness dispersed throughout the entire film, but no. Not a one. There's 5 minutes of Happy Couple at the start, and that's it 📸☹️ (unless you count a photo collage of the happy ending and year that follows stuffed into the end credits). 

BTW: That intro song is the most Christmasy song in the whole movie. The soundtrack features modern pop songs which 1) don't help set the festive vibe and 2) are really fucking annoying; the song choices are grating, not pleasant, not enjoyable, and they overpower the scenes with a whole lotta noise. I really wish we'd gotten more tunes like the one above. 🎶 

About the image below—Abby is actually miserable the entire time, getting worse by the day, barely a smile seen on her.. while Harper is the one schmoozing her family and contacts with teeth bared, so.. this image isn't what you'll get, just fyi:

(also: the only POC actors they had were the perfectionist-stone-faced-bitch's husband and his girlfriend - wife + hubby being secretly separated.) 

The things that the Salon reviewer liked are the same things I did (see below), but imho even those elements weren't enough to save this film from being: 

an infuriating 102 minute-comedy of errors buoyed by a healthy dose of gaslighting 

More cons of the flick are pointed out by denofgeek.com: 

Some of its issues come from the structure of the film, which shoehorns very real queer struggles into wacky rom-com tropes too fluffy to contain the stakes at hand. Meanwhile the choice to have one half of the lead couple be so aggressively and repeatedly cruel—while her high school ex Riley, played by the ever-perfect Aubrey Plaza was standing right there having all the chemistry in the world with the other romantic lead—was a fatal one.

It really was a dramatic plot idea crammed into a fluffy narrative. You can see the conflicting genres fighting to stay alive and they both die a slow, agonisingly dull death throughout the film. The whole *Abby being converted to loving Christmas by Harper inviting her to spend the holidays with her family* thing, only to have Harper force their relationship + Abby into the closet. Straight conversion much? I'm 100% sick of heteronormative bs in my queer Christmas films. 

For the most part, when you're not feeling for Abby's harsh treatment by her would-be fiance and everyone but Riley ignoring her completely, you will be bored af from the lack of festive cheer - not just twinkle lights and boisterous seasonal music, but those good ol' homey family Christmas vibes. With the Harper house + family members, everything's a performance, so that lack of sincerity and warmth makes for a depressing viewing experience: 

^ Jane (one of Harper's 2 sisters) is the only character allowed to be consistently genuine in the narrative (aside from John, but he's restricted mostly to phonecalls, and Riley - but even she's keeping Harper's secrets). Jane is the only character who is naturally vibrant and reminds us of some of the reasons we get excited about Christmas movies: to feel joy and to enjoy the company around us during the holiday season! 🎄☃️🥳 But rather than give us a fun day out with Jane + Abby, we get Abby + the second sister (i don't even remember her name, just BitchFace) which leads to more bad treatment of Abby - this time by two spoiled af no-smile rich kids. *le sigh* Jane carries the spark of honest joy for the entire Harper clan and that is TOO MUCH to expect of one character, let alone a side-character. 😪 

There are so many ways the story could've been tweaked to make more sense and be somewhat enjoyable, including: 

The orphan!Abby thing is just bad. Rather than give Abby a voice, chances to let her personality shine, almost everyone interacts with her to merely briefly express their condolences for her long-dead parents 🙄 

Abby is a pet-minder, ie. she's an animal lover, yet at no point do we see her interact with animals! Not a dog or cat or hamster, no reindeer at the petting zoo, nothing. 🐕🐈🦎🦜🐠

Riley + Abby getting together (even just a kiss) 👄 

Abby + Harper separating so Harper can get her shit together - and then we get several flashforward shots of them separately living their lives (Harper especially), and then meeting back up again - maybe the next holiday season, after some much-needed time apart 🏃‍♀️🤸‍♀️ 

side characters who engage with Abby in a sincere, meaningful way instead of ignoring her (again, we got Riley, but she was outside of the family dynamic) 😊 

MORE FESTIVE CHEER! where were all the staple Christmassy passtimes, the smile-inducing season-specific experiences??? 🎉 

More from denofgeek: 

Where the script gets into trouble is that it doesn’t distinguish between Harper being closeted and her poor treatment of Abby. The two are separate issues and treating them as one does no favors to Harper, nor others struggling with the closet. As Dan Levy’s beautiful monologue late in the movie alludes to, the closet is a safety mechanism—but it’s not a free pass to treat people like garbage. [...] 😟🏳️‍🌈

Even a brief conversation teasing out that being in the closet doesn’t justify how Harper acted, and that plenty of people in the closet don’t treat others like trash, would have been important. Instead once Harper is out (which the movie takes pains to make clear only happened because Harper’s sister Sloane outed her), and a gesture so small it could never credibly be called grand is made, all bad behavior is washed away. [...] 😤🙅‍♀️ 

The jarring underlying issue is that 'Happiest Season' attempts to apply the standard rom-com and made-for-TV-holiday-movie tropes to queer life. So Abby having to go back into the closet isn’t framed as a painful regression or being forced to deny an essential part of herself, but rather a fun twist, in the vein of “but the guy she insulted on the plane is the owner of the ornament factory she has to impress to win the Christmas contest!”🚪😒 

All of Harper’s behavior adds up to making her feel like something the audience wants Abby to be free of, not someone Abby should be fighting for. Once Riley tells Abby about Harper’s cruelty in high school, where Harper outed Riley and mocked her rather than standing up for her or finding an excuse that protected them both, it becomes incredibly difficult to root for the lead couple to get back together, or for Harper at all. 👏💃 

With this information, Harper’s other transgressions go from frustrating to part of a larger pattern. Sadly, it’s a pattern Harper repeats when her sister outs her and she throws Abby under the (lesbian) bus. 🤬 

FAVE THINGS: 

all interactions between John (Dan Levy) + Abby (he's witty, honest, and 100% the most entertaining element of the entire film; i wish we'd gotten more of him) 😆 

Riley (Aubrey Plaza, Harper's ex) + Abby's scenes together because CHEMISTRY, both between the characters and the actors 👩‍❤️‍👩

Notable between Abby + Riley scenes include 3 instances of Riley comforting Abby's hurt: outside at the fancy party (Abby feeling excluded/ignored/not worth anyone's time due to the way they treat her even though they don't know she's gay), at a gay bar in town (sandwiched by scenes where Abby's made to feel like crap by Harper), and at the fancy home Christmas party where Riley gets Abby something stronger to drink after hearing Abby was going to propose to Harper (but it's been a helluva shitty week and those plans are dead) 👭 

Every scene with Riley was blessed relief from the hurt and discomfort and boredom of the rest of the time with Harper's family. 🤩 

Sister Jane, for being a genuinely fun character 🤗 who was written starkly different to her family and treated somewhat like an outcast 

Aubrey + Kstew killin it in various pantsuits 👀 

In contrast, Riley connects Abby to queerness, bringing her to an LGBTQ bar to decompress and enjoy a Christmas-themed drag performance. It’s the most relaxed and comfortable Abby is on screen since the opening scenes, a chance to glimpse Abby’s authentic self before Harper summons her back to heterosexuality, and where she once again ignores and disappoints her. Riley actually talks to Abby at the various holiday parties whereas Harper keeps leaving her to please her family, especially her father. It’s not hard for the natural chemistry between Plaza and Stewart to take over

I wouldn't watch this film again. For a hopeful Christmasy love story I'd just watch all Abby + Riley's scenes: 

In closing, here's a batshit article title from observer.com that just makes you go, huh? 🧐:

‘Happiest Season’ Isn’t Happy, But That Doesn’t Make It a Bad Rom-Com

Um.. yes, yes it does. 

Rom-Coms are supposed to be fun, light-hearted stories about love even when the plot deals with lying - The Proposal, Sweet Home Alabama - so a movie that leaves you hurting more than comforted in sympathy with one of the main characters because the (apparent) love of their life is treating them like shit, then it doesn't deserve to be in the genre of Rom-Com. 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨💞🎬

In summary, Abby and Harper got 5 minutes of happiness in the beginning, and an eventual happy ending after a super rocky middle. The journey was painful and unenjoyable, and it made their happy ending unbelievable and, for Harper, undeserved because of her behaviour through 90% of the story. 

In short: it was not, in fact, the happiest season. 😕👎

[candicewright]

Kindly requesting that analysis on wangxian being peak romance and how it compares to queerbaiting please 🙏 🙏 🙏

Hello, anon! I am very genuinely happy that my rambling thoughts interest you in any way (because I have a lot of thoughts) so here is my analysis as promised. It is veeeery long (almost 2k), sorry about that but I’ve really been looking forward to talking about this for a very long time. In the end, it isn’t so much about how Wangxian is peak romance and more about the censorship and how it compares to queerbaiting, I may have to do another post about that later on. Without much further ado, here it is!

The Untamed’s tasteful censorship vs. BBC Merlin’s queerbaiting and why I prefer one over the other.

I know most people follow this blog for Merlin and believe me when I say that I love this show more than I can say because it has quite literally changed my life. But The Untamed has opened my mind to a whole new world (insert Aladdin’s A Whole New World here) and it has given me a lot of perspective on a lot of things.

I often joke with my friends saying that my first consideration when choosing a new show to watch is saying “is it gay?” which is not far from the truth, but it’s also not the complete story. What I mean is that I ask myself “does this show have a relationship that I think is worth getting invested in?”. Yes, t usually happens that those are not heterosexual romances, but what can I say, I’m queer and I like my emotional support fictional characters to be so too. This is the exact reasoning that led me to Merlin. I saw a couple of videos about them on youtube and immediately found their dynamic compelling and their story beautifully tragic. But like with most shows these days, the writers failed (among other things) to make their relationship explicit. This has happened with every show I watched after Merlin too; The Witcher, Sherlock and Good Omens being the most notable ones. 

You can argue if they are or are not queerbaiting, I at least think Good Omens isn’t, but again, it is pretty subjective.

But i had grown so accustomed to this type of media that I fully went into The Untamed expecting something similar.

And oh boy was I wrong.

Now, the case of The Untamed is a curious one because it is supposed to be a love story between two men due to being based on a BL novel, but because of censorship, it had to be very toned down. I found this out right before actually watching the show while doing some preliminary research and while it did change my thought on what I was getting into I truly thought they would just erase the entire relationship and try to hide it behind straight relationships like in most other shows I had watched.

But that was absolutely not the case, to my endless relief and joy.

But how? How did they get away with censoring all the explicit aspects of a romantic relationship while still managing to tell a wonderful love story? And how does this compare to the queerbaiting of a show like Merlin?

Warning: I will be using different parts of both shows and probably some of the MDZS novel to illustrate my point, so there will be spoilers.

The initial accidental chemistry + innuendos vs. The establishment of the very clear enemies to friends to lovers trope

I’m going to use Merlin to compare and contrast this because it’s what I know best and the other show I've given a lot of thought to.

Merthur and Wangxian are both similar and different dynamics in the way they’re written and it was one of the things that drew me into The Untamed in the first place. Both stories begin with our main duo meeting and instantly disliking each other, ending up in a fight. And while they both set the story up to lead to a more intimate bond being created between the pairs, there’s something very different from the start.

Merthur is deliberately set up to be a close friendship and all innuendos and chemistry are accidental (in my opinion and only at the start). Let me explain.

The concept for Merlin clearly started with the idea of how the story would change if Merlin was a young boy arriving in Camelot instead of an old powerful sorcerer. Then they made the main plot to be his destiny/friendship with the young and arrogant Prince Arthur. I truly believe that the first innuendos were not what they intended and that all chemistry and sexual tension between the characters comes courtesy of Colin and Bradley and how undeniably good they look on screen together. Fans then started speculating (as we always do) and then the production team decided to run with it, making it almost a recurring joke when it shouldn’t have been. Had they treated that developing relationship seriously like what they were hinting it was, the show would have been very different.

The Untamed on the other hand, is everything but accidental. What they’re doing is deliberately establishing the enemies to friends to lovers trope from the very beginning. It’s not an accident that during their first fight on the roof of the Cloud Recesses Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji that women would find his true character very disappointing and that no one would want to marry him. he says so several times in fact and this is clearly both to highlight the change in their relationship as well as to say that Lan Wangji is not at all interested in the opinion of any female (or anyone besides Wei Wuxian for that matter). This is the same stuff we see in mainstream straight romances: one of the characters saying something to the effect of “who would want to date them?” only to end up involved with the other at the end of the story.

You could argue that Merlin does something similar with the conversation between Merlin and Kilgharrah where Merlin is affronted by the idea of having to help Arthur where he says “There must be another Arthur because this one’s an idiot...If someone wants to kill him, they can go right ahead. In fact, I’ll give them a hand.” but the difference between these two is that Merlin is hiding behind the guise of destiny and friendship to make these parallels while Wangxian is deliberately and clearly in a romantic context.

The deliberate continuation of the subtext vs. The suggestion of something more

The accidental nature of the subtext doesn’t last long and in true BBC fashion, it turns into full-on queerbaiting real fast. Again, you can argue endlessly about when the deliberately suggestive comments start, but by the end of the show, we know for a fact the entire production staff and even the staff were aware of the effect and reception their show was having. This was no longer an innocent mistake on people reading too much into it, it was a very purposeful narrative that they were pushing without ever truly committing to it. This is what got fans going crazy over “poetry” or lines like “you’re the only friend I have and I couldn’t bear to lose you”. These are all very intentional choices they made to keep their devoted fanbase interested and while we’re all very thankful for this material it really keeps us wondering what it could have been if they had taken that extra step.

The Untamed can’t take that step because of the censorship laws, but it’s still much more daring than Merlin ever was. While Merlin keeps the soulmate aspect of the Merthur relationship a suggestion, The Untamed outright says it, which was baffling to me. It even does it at a pint where the first kiss happened in the novel, which you would think makes it less romantic. But that's absolutely not the case because of both the non-consensual nature of that original kiss and because of how heartbreakingly beautiful the replacement scene is. Not only that, but they also keep all the elements you could expect to see in any pre-relationship stage of a developing romance story: endless amounts of mutual pining, not-really-unrequited love, jealousy, panicking at the sight of your crush (yes I’m looking at you 15-year-old Lan Wangji) and even some fun in vino veritas moments. They even have a son together! It doesn’t get more clear than that!

This is all the way the show has of suggesting something more without outright saying (even though it’s a pretty not subtle way of suggesting it).

Merlin, on the other hand, keeps trying to deny the romantic nature of the Merthur dynamic, which brings me to my next point.

The introduction of a female love interest as an excuse vs. The awareness that the audience understands the relationship in the way it's meant to be

Now, this one really bugs me, because of all the ways they could have done this they truly chose the worst and destroyed Gwen’s character in the process. 

In my opinion, the writers could have done a few different things. They could have fully developed the Merthur relationship as a romantic one while keeping Gwen’s role as a queen and creating a much more satisfying character arch for her, maybe even getting her together with Morgana or Lancelot. They could have focused on the Awen romance and therefore lowered the suggestions of romance between Merlin and Arthur, once again creating a much more enjoyable subplot for Gwen, though it could have also meant sacrificing the very powerful bond between the main characters. They could have even taken advantage of Gwen’s crush on Merlin in the first season and gone on the full-on polyamory direction! That would have been much better! Instead, they halfassed the romance between Arthur and Gwen and made it just...meh. Not that Angel and Bradley didn’t do a great job, it was more of a writing problem than a them problem.

The Untamed (despite the rumours and possibilities of a Wen Qing/Wei Wuxian relationship) decided to just run with the not really platonic relationship between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, making them the complete focus of the story while still upholding the censorship laws. What I think the biggest difference between the two shows is, is that one runs on assuming the audience is stupid while the other one assumes the audience is smart.

Let me explain once more.

The Merlin writers clearly thought that by introducing Gwen as the love interest to Arthur he would just become what? Magically straight? As if we hadn’t seen the last four seasons of sexual tension between him and Merlin? The audience was not fooled for the most part, but some people did fall for this, coming with the argument “But he’s married to Gwen so he’s straight!” as if being gay or straight are the only two possibilities but oh well.

The Untamed does quite the opposite. It relies on the fact that the audience is going to catch onto the romantic aspect of the narrative without them actively saying anything because we are Not Dumb. It also does something that I think is quite beautiful which is leaving it up for interpretation as far as whether it’s platonic or not and even more touching is the way the story has resonated with the ace community (that is according to what I’ve seen, please do correct me if I’m wrong) by focusing on their emotional and intellectual connection instead of in their physical and sexual one.

This is why, in the end, I prefer what I call The Untamed’s tasteful censorship over Merlin and other shows’ blatant queerbaiting.

I feel the need after all of this to state that Merlin is still my favorite show of all time and that this is not by any means me saying that Merlin is absolute trash or something like that. There’s also a lot more that I think can be said in this conversation, so please feel free to tell me what you think and if you’ve ever encountered something similar to this.

Also, if I made any mistakes or wrong points, please don’t be shy about telling me!

I hope this rant was at least somewhat interesting and that you found it satisfactory, anon!

[atruththatyoudeny]

Happy 28th! Sending out all my love to the authors and artists in this fandom! ♥ Here are all the fics I read and loved this month:

Ferricadooza! | suspendrs | 1960s - historical - boxing - period-typical homophobia - violence - sexuality crisis - identity crisis - hurt/comfort - Polari - 65k Harry can’t even fathom the idea of surrendering; he’d fight ‘til he died, if he had to, anything to keep from surrendering. Or, the year is 1963, homosexuality is illegal in the UK, Louis owns a gay bar, and Harry’s an underground boxing champion with an unfortunate enemy.

The Little Dog Whisperer | lovelarry10 | strangers to lovers - kid fic - fluff - dog walking - 29k Louis lives alone with his dog Clifford. When he spots a sign in the neighbourhood advertising dog walking services, along come Harry and his son Alfie into his life…

Pretty Please (With Sugar On Top) | angelichl | a/b/o - Sugar Baby Harry - strangers to lovers - mutual pining - miscommunication - soul bond - soulmates - angst - 113k Harry is a sugar baby omega who cons rich alphas for a living. Louis is a rich alpha with too much self-control.

Step Into The Light | lovelarry10 | PWP - established relationship - 13k Harry’s filming his music video for his new song in the humid heat of Cancun, Mexico after dark. Louis watches him with hooded eyes from behind the visor of his motorcycle helmet watching it all go down. How far can Harry push his desire?

Take on Me | haztobegood | magical realism - 60k Actor Harry Styles is preparing for his next leading role as Antonius the Gladiator with the help of Louis Tomlinson, Hollywood’s top stunt coordinator. When the demands of Harry’s career get in the way of their training, the pair head to a secluded cabin to complete their training. Then, Louis begins to share senses with Harry. What is causing this mysterious connection and can Louis and Harry figure out how to stop it before they leave the cabin?

Don’t Move In (Don’t Move Out) | 2tiedships2 | a/b/o - friends to lovers - mutual pining - misunderstandings - fluff - 14k Only one more week and Harry would be living under the same roof. Gone would be Liam’s alpha scent, quickly replaced with Harry’s. All Harry. Louis was going to fucking die. You’d think Louis would be used to it by now, that Harry’s scent would simply fade into the background like Liam’s did. But Louis had a feeling he would simultaneously be living in Heaven and Hell once Harry moved in. Louis was pulled out of his thoughts when Niall smacked him on the back of his head. "The fuck was that for?" Louis asked, rubbing his head and looking at the bloody Irishman he called his other best friend. "You were basically drooling, mate,” Niall said. “That was a courtesy smack to keep your daydreaming from seeping into your pheromones."

It's A Never-Ending Helter-Skelter | runaway_train | Circus - Desert Island - strangers to lovers - 8k The one where Harry winds up on a desert island with a bunch of circus performers and it might just be the best thing that's ever happened to him.

So...how's parenting going? vol. i: the case of the imaginary friend | thealmightyavocado | crack - established relationship - fluff - 8k Harry and Louis’ three-year-old son has an imaginary friend that is making their life a living, breathing hell.

Ad arbitrium | star_k ❶  Find what you love | a/b/o - soulmates - one-sided attraction - pining - angst - 26k Harry learns 16 years is a lifetime to be in love with someone else. ❷  And let it kill you | a/b/o - pining - miscommunication - 19k Louis doesn't believe in fate, but rather in choice. There's nothing romantic about being stripped out of his own.

Lambing Season | HelloAmHere | Farm AU - comfort - fluff - 24k “Shut up,” Louis says, an involuntary grin tugging at his mouth. It’s not every boy who will stand in the middle of a cold barn in a suit and play musician trivia. “I’m Louis.” //lambing season brings sleep deprivation, noisy alarms, cold barns, demanding animals, and warm strangers.

Its Mutual We (All) Discussed It | nikogda | a/b/o - polyamory - omega/omega/alpha - slow burn - soul mates - 28k Two omegas in a committed relationship are ready to start a family. In the process, their alpha donor becomes part of the family too. Every part of their relationship may be unconventional but all of them have never been happier

Promise in the Sky | Throwthemflowers | friends to lovers - slow burn - religion - sexual repression - internalized homophobia - homophobic language - angst - suicide attempt - implied conversion therapy - healing - acceptance - 99k AU in which Harry Styles, a naïve, repressed, socially awkward Midwestern highschooler tries to navigate his fundamentalist evangelical parents and radically progressive older sister. He’s doing an okay job of this until the Tomlinson family starts attending Lakeside Baptist Church and a boy named Louis changes everything. Harry is forced to come to grips with his true self when Louis becomes more than just his best friend; but their relationship opens a can of worms and sends them on the most painful, heartbreaking journey of their young lives. They risk everything and nearly lose, and Harry learns that perhaps only one Bible verse is true: that perfect love casteth out fear.

This Glorious Mess | theweightofmywords | mpreg - miscommunication - post-break up - 14k His head lolls to the side, and his eyes float open to focus on what used to be his bedside table. It’s empty now, devoid of the framed photo of the two of them. And Louis knows that he has no right to feel hurt, but somehow, this only confirms what this really is. “This is the last time,” he cries, his voice breaking both from pleasure and pain. “I know, baby,” Harry breathes, burying his face in Louis neck.

(It's New) The Shape of Your Body | FallingLikeThis | mpreg - enemies to friends to lovers - angst - hurt/comfort - fluff - mention of abortion - misunderstandings - mutual pining - 18k Taking a deep breath, Louis tears open the packet and holds the test in his hands. Deep down he already knows what it’s going to say. He can feel the certainty of it in his bones but he needs to see it. He needs confirmation. Movies always make it look like you have to wait a bit to know, like you have to set a timer and give it a few minutes, wringing your hands for an answer. Even the box says it’ll take time, but it actually only takes a second after Louis pees on the strip to see the two pink lines appear that tell him what he already knew. He’s pregnant. “Oh god,” he breathes, staring down at it. And just like he’d known the test would be positive, he knows now that everything about his life is about to change.

If We Have Each Other | ishiplouis | mpreg - One Night Stands - friends to lovers - angst - fluff - miscommunication - 23k AU where Harry is a single father and a one-night stand is going to change his life forever.

Little Miracles | Summertimebutterfliesandhome (RoseDaggerLouisHarryLS_28) | mpreg - IVF - infertility - 9k Harry and Louis have been trying to have a baby for ages but they haven’t been lucky yet. The doctors tell them IVF is the only way but when that doesn’t work either they give up. However, some little miracles happen.

We've got a lifetime to kill | louislovesharry | mpreg - kid fic - minor pregnancy complications - 5k Harry and Louis have a three year old daughter, Evie, who is their whole world, and another little girl on the way. When Harry falls and is put on bedrest for the remainder of the pregnancy, Louis and Evie must adjust - but it is all worth it for their newest addition to the Tomlinson family.

Lost in Leeds | Open_Direction | mpreg - camping - fluff - 8k After a couple of amazing nights together at Leeds fest, Harry and Louis get separated with no way to contact each other. This might be less of a problem if Harry didn’t end up pregnant.

Dirty Little Secret | Dont_Stop_Larry | mpreg - secrets - 10k The one where Harry and Louis fall in love, but can’t figure out how to tell Gemma. That is, until Harry gets pregnant, and they don’t have much of a choice.

This I Promise You | xDnicki | mpreg - friends to lovers - friends with benefits - 34k A long awaited boys night out leads best friends Harry and Louis go further than they ever have before. It also leaves them with a surprise pregnancy that will help neither of them to forget that night.

Come In and Change My Life | lightswoodmagic (sarah_writes) | mpreg - a/b/o - fluff - 12k Harry and Louis become friends when Harry looks after Louis' cat during away games, until one night at a party changes everything between them. It's just a shame Louis' going to be away for the FIFA World Cup for three months.

My Sun and Stars, Moon of my Life | OhHarold | mpreg - Game Of Thrones Fusion - arranged marriage - 7k Harry was used to the luxuries of Kings Landing and then Pentos but when his brother is desperate for the crown he is entitled to, Harry must be part of an arranged marriage to a ruthless Khal of a Dothraki tribe.

Dancing With Masks | messofgorgeouschaos | mpreg - fake/pretend relationship - One Night Stands - pining - fluff - 18k With awards season coming up and new films on the way for both of them, Harry and Louis' managers decide it's time for them to date for publicity. They don't mind, given that they are best friends and have known each other for ages. Besides, years of sexual tension built into a fake relationship for press, what could possibly go wrong?

You Wouldn't Believe the Dream I Just Had About You & Me | larryatendoftheday | mpreg - college/university - friends to lovers - slow burn - memory loss - 21k After a back-to-school bash and a few too many drinks, Harry finds himself pregnant from a one-night stand he doesn’t remember. His best friend Louis is the only one who knows about the baby. Together they try to find the father of Harry’s baby, but they keep looking in all the wrong places.

[awkwardlittlepringle]

Queer ‘n Crazy

CHAPTER 8

Hello, fellow fanders! This is chapter eight of Queer 'n Crazy, I wrote it in one go, so sorry if it's a bit rushed. Be sure to check the tags, I don’t want anyone to get hurt!

Also, whenever you feel sad, imagine a LAMP cuddle pile with a touch-starved Patton in the center. Platonic or Romantic. It works, or at least it makes me feel like there's beauty in the world. :) The summary is at the bottom just in case you can’t read it!

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

WARNINGS: Contains mentions of a bad mental state, references to and mentions of an abusive mother/abusive parents, self deprecating thoughts, eating disorders, medication, anxiety, self conciousness, depression, lack of sleep, swearnig, repression and hiding emotions. Let me know if there are any others, please!

Thanks for reading this!

...................

"Are you sure this is the place?"

Logan glanced down at the flyer in his hand, before nodding. "Yes, I believe so. Meeting is held in the sports hall, starts at 3:15. We seem to be in the right place." The two looked up at the rusty metal sign that was set above the entrance, and sure enough, it was emblazoned with the words Sports Hall.

Logan glanced up and down the silent foyer. "We seem to be the only ones here." he turned to Virgil. "Do you think we're early?" Virgil bit his lip, his fingers starting to toy with his hoodie strings. "I dunno, are you sure we've got the date right?" "Yes, we have, Virgil." Logan sighed, exasperated. Virgil froze at his tone, instantly curling in on himself. He stayed silent instead of replying. Logan hadn't seemed to notice his reaction. Or maybe he did and doesn't care. At that moment, the foyer door opened.

"Seriously?! Cavetown is superior. You cannot change my mind." Virgil turned his eyes to the noise, grateful for a distraction.

The girl who'd spoken was short and round, with pale skin and yellowing teeth. Her hair hung limp in little clumps, and she was wearing a black oversized hoodie. Accompanying her was a taller, skinnier girl, with thinning brown hair. The taller girl scoffed.

"Nuh-uh. Twenty one Pilots is better." "You're just in denial." "I'm telling the truth, you heathen." "Your truth is a lie!" Something in Virgil's chest lightened at the mention of one of his favourite bands, but his jaw felt like it was wired shut. They were probably in Lyra, eating disorders. Virgil couldn't understand how. He was a stress-eater. He was probably staring at them - he should stop staring at them. God, I'm such a weirdo.

Virgil pulled his hood up and shoved his hands in his pockets, his stomach tightening. They probably thought he was some kind of recluse. He could feel Logan's gaze on him, but he didn't look at him. "Cavetown's lyrics have meaning! I can't say the same for ToP." "Cavetown's lyrics are bullshit compared to Twenty One Pilots'. Do you know how many lives they've saved!" "Lives saved doesn't equal quality." "One of their taglines is stay alive, for god's sake!" "I don't think God would like Twenty One Pilots." "Because they're calling him out for the disorders he's inflicted on us." The shorter girl scoffed. "Bullcrap. What do you guys think?"

Virgil didn't respond, and Logan looked down at him.

"Uh, Virgil?" Virgil jumped, turning to Logan. A concerned expression filled his field of vision. Oh god, he's worried. I can't give anyone a moment of peace, can I. I guess mum was right about that one.

"The girl's asked you a question?" "Are you assuming my gender?" said the shorter girl with a exaggerated expression. Virgil stifled a laugh, a little bit of panic fading from his eyes. Logan however, looked at the two, baffled.

"Sorry, are those not your preferred pronouns?" "No, no, they are. Sash's just joking." The taller girl looked over at Virgil, who was now surveying the two with interest.

"Do you listen to ToP or Cavetown?"

Virgil nodded. "Which one?" "Um, Twenty One Pilots." The shorter girl pouted. "I've listened to a bit of Cavetown too, though."

"Aha! So tell us, dear emo - wait are you emo?" Virgil glanced between to two, confused. "Uh, I guess?" "Alright. So tell us, dear emo, which one is better?" "Hey, you can't ask him! He listens to your stupid Pilots more!" "Well you can't expect to find someone who listens to then equally-" "I think I can, thank you very much!"

Logan shot a look at Virgil, who returned it, and the two redirected their attention to the bickering pair.

"Well anyway, which one's better?" Virgil started, his throat turning dry. Whatever he said, he'd probably offend one of them, so...

"Um, I like ToP better-" "Ha!" "-but Cavetown's valid too." The taller girl pouted, her eyebrows scrunching up. "Well shit. I thought I'd won that." "HAHA!!!!!!!!!!! ROBBIE AIN'T GOING DOWN THAT EASILY!!!!!!!!!!!" "Isn't his name Robin?"

A silence overtook the group, all of whom stared at the tie-clad boy. Logan looked at the three, confused. "Are you guys okay-" "I"VE FOUND ANOTHER ONE!!!!!!!!!" The shorter girl screeched, throwing her hand up in the air. Virgil flinched away from the noise, but he found himself smiling none-the-less.

"What in the name of Rose Quartz is going on out here?" Virgil's heart jumped into his throat and he froze like a deer in the headlights. "Oh, you must be here for gay club!" Gay club?  

Virgil turned around, confused. A flicker of recognition ran through him when he saw the grinning face peering around the door, before his stressed brain made the connection. Thomas.

"Hey, aren't you that kid from the orientation?" Virgil nodded stiffly, before attempting to crack a smile. Thomas smiled, walking toward them with a clear bounce in his step.

"I'm Thomas, president of Gay Club." "It's LGBT club, Thomathy." Virgil glanced at the door again to see a ...person, probably male, but they were dressed andro. They glanced at the four of them smiling. "You guys are at the wrong door, but we can make an exception."

Thomas started bouncing on his heels, and clapping. "Oh goodie! Right this way, my rainbow friends!"

Logan straightened his tie, before following Thomas, Virgil and the girls in tow. Thomas gave them a basic run-down of the club as they walked. "We're an LGBT club, obviously. We don't really do stuff, we just meet up and be gay." "Define what you mean by "be gay"."

"Well, we do have a little clique in here that like to call themselves the "matchmakers", but they'll lay off you if you tell them to. We also set people up in straight seeming relationships if they want us to, exclusionists are not allowed. Otherwise it's mainly just gay jokes and sitting on chairs wrong. C'mon." Thomas lead them through a set of heavy blue doors, and suddenly they were inside the hall.

It was basically a gym. A gym that was packed with people -god, there were a lot of people. Across the pulled-out bleachers there was a large rainbow banner decorated with the words LGBT YOUTH in a striking gold. Students of all ages, from 12 to 19 were scattered across the place, chatting. There were a few couples flirting, Virgil could even see a group of punks playing uno with a few other kids. Despite the clear differences in personality, everyone seemed to be getting along really well, and as far as Virgil could tell, there were no rivalries.

This did ease Virgil's tension a little, although he still stuck close to Logan. Maybe he should ask about increasing his dosage.

"Oi, Talyn! We've got some more newbies!" The group followed Thomas to a large table in the center of the room, behind which sat a person with flaming blue-dyed hair. She looked at Thomas grinning, before shifting her gaze to the four following him.

"Hiya! My name's Talyn. They/Them." Virgil smiled at them, nodding. "Just put your name down here, along with your contact details. If you don't want to add your number, that's fine. Email will do. And if you really don't want us to contact you, that's cool too."

Virgil and Logan signed their names, followed by the girls. Virgil was ready to book it to a corner, but Logan waited. Once the girls were done signing, he spoke up.

"May I know your names?" The girls looked up, pleasently surprised. "Oh! I'm Kate, and this is Sasha." "Generic names, we know." Logan smiled. "I'm Logan. I hope to see you around." "'m Virgil." said Virgil, putting down his hood and smiling. "Nice to meet you."

"So what are you guys." Logan's brow crinkled with confusion, something which looked adorable on him.

"I beg your pardon?" "She means what about you is not straight or cis?" "Oh. I'm asexual and homoromantic." "Bi." "Cool!"

"Specs!" Virgil snickered as Logan sighed. "Well, it was nice to meet you two." He turned around. "Hello, Roman. Fancy seeing you here." Roman scoffed, sauntering toward them with Patton in tow. "Geez, Logan. Is that your standerd greeting? Ya gotta mix it up a little!" "What do you mean by mixing-" Roman cut him off with a sigh. "You're hopeless."

"Ro, you might wanna turn down the sarcasm a little. Hey, Virgil." "Hey, Pat." Virgil frowned, taking in Patton's appearance. He was wearing a grey hoodie, and his skin was pale and ashen. Despite the fact Virgil had seen him a few days ago, his seemed considerably more tired, bags visible through his glasses. His hair was greasy, and he had his arms wrapped around his stomach, slouching. Even his smile seemed half-hearted.

"Are you alright, Patton?" said Virgil cocking his head. He felt an undescribable urge to hug the shorter male, but he resisted. Patton's expression changed quickly, his cheeks quivering as he tried to force a smile onto his face. "I'm all good, Virg! Just feeling a little down!" Yeah, he's not okay.

Instead of saying this out loud, Virgil cocked his head to the side. "Patton, you do realise you're talking to someone who's been in a bad mental state before, right?" Patton sighed, his shoulders sinking even lower. "Yeah, I know. It's not too bad, I promise." "It's all good. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." Virgil glanced over at Roman and Logan, who were discussing Roman's latest hairstyle.

His bangs were swooped out of his face and the tips were dyed a dark red, something that constrasted against his dark hair dramatically. His expression, however, did not match his hairstyle at all.

"Whaddaya mean you don't like it." whined Roman, pouted. Logan sighed. Is that all he does around this guy? "You asked for my opinion, Roman. I personally, do not like it. That is not to say it looks bad." Roman's pout grew impossibly larger, and he turned to Virgil.

"What about you, Emo Nightmare?" Virgil surveyed Roman's hair with interest.

"You dyed it yourself, didn't you." Roman shot him a look, surprised. "How could you tell?" "A proper stylist would have done it from the roots," Virgil mused, a smile gracing his features. "But for a first timer, you've done pretty well. Nice colour choice, too. It suits you." Roman grinned ear-to-ear, before twirling around. "Yay!" he cheered. Virgil raised an eyebrow.

"Did you just twirl?" "Aha!" "You do realise we're not in a disney movie, right?" "Shut up!" he shrieked.

While the noise irritated Virgil at the time, he later decided Patton's small chuckle made it worth it.

....................

SUMMARY : Virgil and Logan go to LGBT club where they meet two girls from Lyra named Sasha and Kate. They end up meeting Roman and Patton inside, and Patton looks like he’s going through a rough time. ROMAN GOT A NEW HAIRSTYLE!!!!!!!!!! His tips are now dyed red. 

Tag List : 

@tired-babyboy 

@someone-idk-is-here

@true-chaotic-dumbass

@666frostwolf

[loftec]

I was really hoping to update NTW this weekend, but it’s looking less and less likely... so, here’s something else.

I found an alternate season 6/7 thing I started outlining when that whole mess went down, like just ideas for how Ian’s storyline could have worked out after season 5 (I would have included the other characters too, but honestly I don’t know what they’ve been up to since I stopped watching. Fiona bought a building. For some reason. I don’t want to know.).

So I’ve added some stuff for season 8 and 9, and since I’m probably never going to write it I thought I’d just share it for laughs.

May the 4th be with you!

Alt Shameless after season 5

Ian is on his meds and since he broke up with Mickey because he thought he’d be better off alone, he doesn’t go looking for new boyfriends.

He sleeps around a lot though.

He doesn’t have a lot of storyline, because he’s mostly clammed up and moping around, and his family keep assuming that it’s because of his meds.

Maybe four episodes in, something happens at work that makes Ian seek out an LGBT+ group, where he meets Trevor at a charity event. They work together all day and really hit it off, they have some similar interests (interests!), and they end up talking about a lot of things (things!). At the end of the day, Trevor asks him out, and Ian says yes before he’s remembered that he doesn’t do that stuff.

He’s nervous about the date and drinks a couple of beers before Trevor even shows up, he gets piss drunk and wakes up the next day in a strange room.

It’s Trevor’s bedroom, and Trevor comes in with coffee, telling him that Ian was pretty much drunk when he showed up and barely able to stand on his own two legs by the time they left. He doesn’t know where he lives, so he took him home for the night.

Ian tells him about being on meds, and that’s why he got so drunk so fast.

Trevor thinks he could have just told him, and Ian says his mental illness pretty much was the reason his old relationship didn’t work out.

Trevor asks if it was Mickey. Ian wonders what Trevor knows about it.

“You may have mentioned him last night.”

Ian says yeah, and is quick to correct him when Trevor assumes that it was Mickey who left.

“I broke up with him, thought it was the best for the both of us at the time… also don’t think I expected it to last. We usually find our way back.”

“But not this time?”

“He’s in prison. Fifteen years.”

It’s the first time he says it out loud.

Trevor says he’s not interested in starting a relationship with someone who’s clearly still in love with their ex (and Ian kinda smiles, because it’s true and it’s so nice that someone else can see it and accept it and take it seriously). But, he says, you do look like you could use a friend, and not to brag, but I make an excellent friend. He does the cheesy handshake, re-introduction thing (where we find out his last name!) and they agree to be friends.

(Turns out Trevor is estranged from his family, and after maybe a shaky start, he finds a natural spot in the Gallagher clan and becomes part of some of the other plot points throughout the season.)

Ian’s storylines can be about his work, and about stuff happening at the LGBT+ youth center, and they get into hijinks, but nothing super serious (or illegal!!).

Ian at some point has a big moment with Yevgeny, where he comes to terms with no longer being a parent, and maybe even thinking that it’s for the best. (Svetlana and her thrupple storyline can basically be the same, but end differently. With the three of them happy and together, and Yevgeny thinking of Kev as his dad. It’s not ideal, but neither is Yev being sad about his dad being in prison.) Maybe Ian talks to Svetlana about Mickey, maybe finding out for the first time that they aren’t married anymore. We don’t find out what Ian thinks or feels about this.

Throughout the second half of the season. Whenever the Gallaghers gather and Ian isn’t there, they wonder where he is and try to reach him, letting it go when he doesn’t answer.

But after it happens too many times to be a coincidence, they start wondering. Maybe Lip and Fiona talk about it, worrying about Ian having a low, or a high, but not knowing if they should intervene.

Lip talks to Trevor, and tells him more about Ian’s bipolar. Trevor denies having noticed anything going on, and maybe even questions if Lip has any right telling him Ian’s personal stuff.

(Also, I think it would be really nice for Trevor to have a romantic/sexy storyline... so I wouldn’t mind Trevor and Ian starting a friends with benefits relationship, deciding on the terms of it before they start it. Or, Trevor starts a relationship with someone else. Depends on how much drama one wants. Trevor could develop unrequited feelings. If one wants. But personally I think it would be more fun for everyone involved if he was allowed to fall in love with someone else.)

Last episode of the season, they’ve had some big plot point resolved by the Gallaghers getting together and working it out as a goddamned team, and they’re all sitting on the porch steps when a police car stops outside their house.

The officer tells them that Ian is on record as having visited Mickey in prison, and Lip is like, yeah, maybe a couple of times a year ago, what’s that got to do with anything? And the officer says, no, he’s visited once a week for the past six months. And Mickey has escaped. And they have a warrant to search their house.

The Gallaghers sit packed together on the couch watching the news as the officers search through the house, and on the TV we get the whole scoop. There has been a massive prison break and like 40 highly dangerous inmates have escaped, Mickey amongst them.

BOOM. Credits.

Season seven.

Throughout the season, we get like comedic side story lines about the police and the escaped inmates basically roaming the streets. Potentially outrageous and lots of opportunity to oscillate between slapstick comedy and high-stakes drama.

Ian waits for Mickey to contact him, but it doesn’t happen until maybe a couple of episodes in. TENSION.

Ian has other storylines through the season, but mainly it ends up being his secret rendezvous (plural, frequent, in-depth, sexy) with Mickey where they get to spend time together, talk. Bonus if they try to “be friends” for a while, because they don’t talk about the important stuff and they don’t know where they have each other, and they don’t know what’s going to happen. It doesn’t last long, culminating in an explosively passionate love scene.

At some point, Ian is approached by an FBI agent, telling him they have a deal for Mickey if he turns himself in and gives them info on the other escapees. Ian says he’s not in contact with Mickey and even if he was, Mickey would never snitch.

Later on, he talks to Mickey about their future. Mickey explains that the gang he joined in prison are escaping across the border to Mexico, and he has to go with them. Ian says he’ll come with Mickey, but Mickey is firmly against it.

He wants Ian to come with him, of course, but he doesn’t want that life for Ian. No security, a life of crime, on the lam. He kind of gets why Ian broke up with him, now, if this is anything like what he felt at the time, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Ian pleads with him, telling him that breaking up is something he’s only ever regretted since he did it.

Yeah, but what other choice have we got?

Ian tells him about the deal, and takes out two gold bands he’s bought from a pawnshop. If they get married, they can be put in the witness protection program together, and start over.

Mickey agrees, to Ian’s great surprise, and they end the season being shipped off to an unknown location as the busload of prisoners get apprehended on the way to Mexico (cartoonish, but with a little bit of work and research, maybe could be an acceptably goofy and almost realistic plot point).

(For Drama, Mickey could be with the prisoners when they’re apprehended, and he’s shot dead by the police. Cut to Ian being in the ambulance that picks him up, and Mickey is still sitting in his body bag, all bloodied, as they suck face and the FBI drive them to their new location.)

Season 8

Ian and Mickey try to start a new life and it turns completely ridiculous (like, imagine a mix between IASIP where Mac and Dennis are in the house with the Mac & Cheese mixed with like, Suburgatory, or Weeds, or whatever. Two gay South Side kids suddenly trying to make a life for themselves in some middle class suburb somewhere, and they hate it and it all goes to shit. But they love each other and get each other through it.)

The hardship they face in their new life doesn’t come from them, (it’s from situations and circumstance, and other people being impossible) and every time something happens it only leads them to break down another barrier by eventually talking about their feelings and hopes for the future, and thoughts about the past. And I want them specifically to talk about Yevgeny, how hard it was for Mickey to feel anything good about him at first, but now he misses him like he’s missing a limb. Them trying to be a wholesome couple in a suburb somewhere is an unmitigated disaster, but it does help them get a lot closer to each other and work through their problems, and their past.

And then through some Shameless™ retcon, something suddenly makes it possible for them to return back home. Or maybe they’re just like, fuck this, is there anyone stopping us from just grabbing our shit and going home?? No. So they do.

Yevgeny is part of the reason why they return. They move in to the apartment above the Alibi at first, and Mickey can work with Svetlana in the bar and cook up semi-illegal side-hustles with Kev. 

Everybody they know are on their side, denying everything in true South Side style if anyone asks about them, once again solidifying the core concept of the show; we take care of family.

The whole thing where they’re possibly in danger from the Mexican cartel looking to exact revenge for Mickey snitching (if they ever find out that he’s alive) could be played for laughs and brushed off, until it might come back and create more Drama in a later season, if needed, before being permanently resolved.

Characters thinking they’re invincible and being stupid about stuff like this is fine, I think, if they do it for a good reason.

[mst3kproject]

307: Daddy-O

I am nearly convinced that Alphabet Antics represents some kind of early MKULTRA experiment. There’s something about the juxtaposition of the chaotic imagery and the narrator’s soothing voice… like it’s trying to put me into a trance and a seizure at the same time.  I don’t yet feel any need to ask my neighbours if they’re communists but it might take a while to sink in.

On to the movie.  Our hero is Phil, who’s sort of a prototype of Buffalo Bill from Riding With Death in that he’s a singer, a trucker, and a racecar driver all in one.  As the film opens he’s just met a girl named Janet who’s even worse at both driving and social skills than he is – clearly they were made for each other.  Sure enough, they team up to investigate the death of Phil’s nerdy friend Sonny, and discover he was making deliveries for a drug ring.  Unusually for a movie like this, they do end up agreeing to call the cops, but only after they have committed several more crimes, and this waiting nearly gets them both killed.

I don’t like Daddy-O, but that’s not so much because of anything the movie does wrong as just because it’s not the kind of film I enjoy.  As MST3K features go, it’s actually not bad – not great, certainly, but solid enough.  The race scenes aren’t all that exciting, but we’re never at a loss for what’s going on.  The exposition can be clunky, but it tells us what we need to know.  The main character doesn’t make much of an impression, but we’re only gonna be spending seventy-three minutes with him and there’s enough going on that it doesn’t matter, and the movie never tries to do anything that’s beyond its meager budget.

The music, meanwhile, is pretty good.  I’m not gonna run out and buy the album (was there an album?) but the songs are quite catchy in a good way, and the score as a whole isn’t bad. I guess that makes sense, since the John Williams who wrote it was in fact that John Williams.  Like Vilmos Zsigmund shooting Mixed-Up Zombies or J. J. Abrams mixing sound for Nightbeast, everybody’s gotta start somewhere.  The music even approaches having some story relevance: the first song Phil sings is Rock Candy Baby, about a woman whose defining feature is her sweetness, and whom the narrator views as a possession (Rock Candy Baby, you’re mine).  Wait’ll I Get You Home suggests a less innocent relationship, in which both parties are a little more aggressive – he directs this towards Marcia, but we are meant to see that his tastes have changed as he grows to like the abrasive Janet.

Why he likes her I don’t know. I don’t know why any of us are supposed to like Janet (it’s so weird to think there was a time when that name could belong to a cute blonde in a sports car, rather than a woman who wants to speak to your manager).  She’s smug and rude the first time we meet her, lies in the knowledge that the road workers will take her side because boobies, and only changes her attitude towards Phil when she realizes he could make a pretty convincing case that she’s a murderer.  She’s supposed to be a ‘liberated woman’, doing what she wants and keeping the company that pleases her, but Phil disapproves of this and so does the movie.

The way Phil behaves towards Janet isn’t particularly admirable, either.  He talks down to her and manhandles her, and declares several times that if she were a man he’d punch her.  I hope nobody in my audience is the type of clown who’d ask ‘if women are equal does that mean men are allowed to hit them?’ but in case somebody is: I don’t think people should hit each other at all, outside of in self-defense or sports that require it.  Since neither of these apply to Phil and Janet then no, he should not hit her, no matter how obnoxious she’s being, and this would be true if she were a man, too.

Why are we supposed to root for these two to hook up?  None of their interactions are romantic and their arguments, rather than building sexual tension, just make it look like they can’t stand each other.  The ‘rivals to lovers’ trope was already old when Shakespeare did it, but Much Ado About Nothing makes it clear from the beginning that Beatrice and Benedick are actually rather fond of each other and enjoy their insult contests.  When our first interaction between our romantic leads has one party threatening to deck the other, that doesn’t work.

Another character I don’t quite get is Daddy-O’s criminal mastermind, Mr. Sidney Chillas.  Between his way of talking and his love of steam baths and manicures, I have a feeling he might be a gay stereotype of some sort, but I don’t know enough about the 50’s mindset to say.  He seems to think very highly of himself, particularly his intellect, and yet his reasons for hiring Phil don’t make much sense.  If he were half as smart as he claimed to be he would have turned this man away as soon as he learned that Phil had been taking an interest in Sonny’s death – or at least watched him far more closely, as he implied to his lackeys he would.

Is this the joke, that Chillas thinks he’s smart and he’s not? If so, it should be a repeated source of humour, rather than just a single doozy of a stupid mistake.  Or is he actually supposed to be a brilliant strategist and businessman?  Because if that’s the case, then I don’t buy it.

Chillas’ questionable intelligence is linked to another thing in the plot that doesn’t work – it seems to be a complete coincidence that he decides he wants to hire Phil.  When I sat down to watch the movie again, I remembered it as Phil deliberately seeking employment with Chillas in order to find out what happened to Sonny.  I think this is supposed to be part of the reason, but it’s mostly implied, and it’s Chillas who approaches Phil in the club to talk employment with him.  At this point he should have already seen that Phil was hanging out with Sonny the night the latter was murdered.  Or if Chillas sought out Phil specifically to keep an eye on him (or indeed, both), that would work, too, but Chillas specifically says he does not find Phil suspicious.  The movie has already had a big coincidence when Sonny just happens to die along the route where Phil and Janet were racing.  It’s not allowed a second one.

Other than that, though, the movie works pretty well.  Events follow one another in a fairly logical sequence, and the clue that Sonny left exists for a reason other than being A Clue. Daddy-O really isn’t trying to teach us anything, but that’s okay.  All a movie really has to do is tell an engaging story, although ones that don’t have a psychological theme often end up feeling, as this one does, a bit unsatisfying.  The only thing it really emphasizes and returns to is that women are bad drivers.

Janet’s driving and her bad manners are the focus of what I guess is her character arc – at the beginning she’s driving like a madwoman and nearly causing accidents just to entertain herself, at the end she’s using her skills to deliver Chillas’ lackeys to the police.  At the beginning she’s rude and abrasive to Phil, by the end she’s fallen in love with him.  We’re not given any better a reason why she likes him than for him to like her. He’s been a jerk to her, too.

Phil’s arc is supposed to be falling in love with Janet, and that’s pretty much it.  He doesn’t learn anything much about himself or the world in the process.  It seems like he ought to confront the fact that his best friend, Sonny, didn’t trust him with the truth – shouldn’t there be some angst about that, or the fact that Sonny didn’t ask Phil for help paying for his mother’s treatment rather than turning to a life of crime?  Between that and the fact that Janet turns out to be a lot nicer once you get to know her, the movie could have been about how you can never be sure you know somebody, but they didn’t bother.

The friendship between Phil and Sonny was particularly poorly-handled. Phil says, some people have brothers, I had Sonny, but this is the epitome of telling rather than showing.  When we see the two interact, Sonny refuses to talk about what’s bothering, gives Phil a locker key, and vanishes.  We know nothing about Sonny other than that he apparently wasn’t too bright (he hid the drugs in his locker at a gym owned by a guy he must know works for Chillas), and so we find it hard to get involved in Phil’s quest to find out what happened to him.  We believe far more in Phil’s driving skills because we saw those in the opening sequence. It’s disappointing that the later scenes mostly just show him at a steering wheel in front of a projection screen, but because we’ve already seen him on the road, we can believe in it.

The problems in Daddy-O are pretty easy to pick out, and could have been fixed with just one more script rewrite – none of them would have required more money or even better actors, and they would have made the whole story much more satisfying and meaningful.  The movie as it is works well enough for a crummy B-picture, but just a little more work could have made it an A.  It was also supposed to be career musician Dick Contino’s big break into film, but he ended up being in only four movies between 1958 and 1960 before deciding it just wasn’t worth it.  Since one of the other three was Girls Town, that means no less than half his entire filmography was featured on MST3K!

[floralmac]

“maybe dennis will get jealous!”: the future of macdennis

ok since s13, i’ve seen some of you lovely people on here talk about macdennis and rcg possibly going backwards with it and even making dennis straight, and i have some thots! this interview with rob and kaitlin, which we’ve all freaked out over already, heavily implies that rcg are planning on giving mac a love interest in s14. the article ends with kaitlin saying “maybe dennis will get jealous!”

with years of macdennis slow burn, gang tends bar, ptsdee, and then dennis leaving, there’s no denying that rcg were trying to build up to something between the two. we all kinda thought that mac and rex were gonna hook up and dennis would get jealous in s13, which would lead to mac and dennis, in some form or another, together. now that obviously didn’t happen, but let’s talk about what did happen. mac: gets a sex doll of dennis, doesn’t try to hook up with rex, keeps pining after dennis, and finds his pride. he generally is just trying to cope, make his own decisions (in the iasip wild way ofc), and be comfy with himself. dennis: is back, not talking about north dakota (but really wanting someone to ask about it), yelling again, pushing away mac’s advances, and it’s very apparent that his mental health is in decline. all of this made for a very tense dynamic between the two of them. even just now as i’m writing this, i realize that they seem like complete opposites. now yes, mac does tend to yell and get aggressive and dennis can be very sexual, but those don’t necessarily always translate to their intended actions towards one another. in s13, dennis is barely sexual at all towards mac, in fact tells him to stop kissing and touching him, and is very aggressive towards him, scratching and yelling at him. mac is barely aggressive at all towards dennis, in fact tries to caress his arm and compliment him several times, and is very sexual towards him, getting a fuckin sex doll that looks exactly like him. along with what i mentioned before, mac seems like he’s growing as a person and dennis seems very stuck in his ways, maybe even falling behind a little. mac and dennis are on complete opposite wavelengths in season thirteen, it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen with other characters on this show. 

but why would rcg do this? intensify things between them? 

let’s pretend for a second that for some reason, dennis doesn’t get jealous if mac gets a boyfriend. in the beginning of s13, we see charlie and the waitress in a relationship after so long of charlie stalking her, and the waitress is now Always getting in the way. she calls him when they’re having a business meeting, she’s living with him now, and he constantly has to check up on her. frank isn’t even living with charlie anymore. but in the gang does a clip show, we learn through frank’s altered reality that he misses charlie. they also reveal that they’re living together again now that the waitress broke up with charlie, however frank Still fantasized charlie telling him that he misses him. frank needed that validation, that love, that security in their friendship. so how does this all relate to macdennis? well..this is basically a tiny condensed version of what would happen if mac got a boyfriend. the more i think about it, the more i see that the parallels are so clear. minus the obsessive stalking and possibly of someone getting pregnant ofc, mac having a boyfriend would very much get in the way of the gang’s dynamic. mac would spend a ton of time with him, spend less with the gang, and i wouldn’t even doubt mac asking him to move in. dennis would for sure have a problem with this. so even if dennis doesn’t get jealous in any sense of that word (which is unlikely but stick with me), he would still Crave mac’s attention that he’s gotten so easily for over 20 fucking years. he might try to get it from the rest of the gang, but it wouldn't be the same. especially now that he's back from nd, he's more fragile than ever, and he desperately wants things to be back to normal (clip show). mac's boyfriend would completely ruin that stability that dennis is craving. so, jealous or not, dennis would have some sort of a breakdown because of that.

let’s talk about rcg’s intent. in time’s up for the gang, dennis tells mac to stop kissing and touching him and “it’s never going to happen, at least not willingly, your time’s up.” we’ve talked about why dennis said this and his true feelings and all that so I'm not going to go into that, However, dennis seemingly shutting down the possibility of a relationship, but rcg Continuing and Continuing in the rest of the season (in the bathroom problem, gang escapes, and the clip show) to reference mac and dennis’ relationship in a romantic way (heart shaped lock, mac saying dennis looks good in leather, and mac and dennis holding hands) says a lot! it means..this isn’t over. even if dennis says it is. if we think about it in a meta way and say “yea rcg were probably telling us through dennis that macdennis is never going to happen and dennis will continue to say he hates mac” then why would rcg more than once make their tension and mac's pining very very clear? if they genuinely didn't care about macdennis anymore, they would've just had mac get the sex doll and then dennis tell him off in time's up. that would've been the perfect opportunity to end the possibility of them being together. the answer: they aren’t done with mac and dennis’ dynamic, or dennis' sexuality.

rcg are incredible writers and i highly doubt they’re just gonna keep going and even end the series with mac and dennis’ dynamic still like this. i think they’ve intensified their relationship in order for it to be more dramatic when they change it up completely with mac getting a love interest. at this point, it’s a really smart way to successfully make the dynamic different and to keep things interesting. but what if for some reason, they scrap the idea of mac getting a love interest? i still think rcg are gonna turn things around on us, in whatever way they come up with. sunny always subverts tv tropes and sticking to "gay guy pining over his straight best friend" just isn't funny and I have a feeling rcg Know that, and they're doing it for a reason. them continuing to explore macdennis, putting it in a romantic and even positive light, and also having dennis get Very friendly with a man and terrible at flirting with a woman in the same episode, really shows that this isn't all for nothing. even if mac and dennis never actually become boyfriends, just them being pals again, their dynamic shifting somehow would really make sense after all this strife. and maybe after all that conflict, mac and dennis, as friends or as lovers, will grow closer. i really do believe this is what rcg are trying to do. 

[gingywritesimagines]

Mistakes and Decisions (Part 2)

Title: Mistakes and Decisions

Chapter: 1 2

Fandom: Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda/Love, Simon

Pairing: Leah Burke x reader, platonic!Simon Spier x reader

Description: After the Halloween party, you look to start anew, but that proves difficult when the person you’re trying to move on from seems to be absolutely everywhere. It gets worse when one of the friends you seek comfort in has his respect, privacy, and well-being violated in the worst way.

Warnings: cursing, public outing, M*rtin *ddison being his evil self, Simon Spier is sad and that makes everyone else sad

A/N: Part 2 is here! School is back in session and I am crying the gayest of tears- hence why the September chapter is being published now. This part has about as much M*rtin hating as the last chapter so yaaay FUCK M*RTIN. This also puts a lot more attention on the reader and their friendship with Simon, and their transition in friend groups. Hope you enjoy!

Taglist: @fandomsneverdie14 @mcoomcoo @tina20213 @berry-kitten-paws @caelestii-e @sims4ccshopingcart

Months after the Halloween party, you had been trying your best to live a blissful, Martin-free life. You’d been spending more and more time with Simon, Leah, and their friends. Bram and Nick often talked to you about lunchtime snacks or soccer- sometimes even asking you if you could come film their practice. Abby would plan girls nights with you and Leah, seemingly determined to have at least one stereotypical, 90s-teen-movie-esque sleepover. Garrett felt a lot safer about hanging out with you, but he would sometimes still apologize for what happened, still feeling like it was kind of his fault. 

Simon was kind and comforting- as always- but something felt off. You’d sometimes notice him slink off into another room, Martin either closely behind or leading the way. You were sorta worried; your first thought on the situation being that either Martin was scheming his way back into your life through Simon, or Simon was dragging Martin away to guarantee he wouldn’t talk to you. Either way you were concerned, but you decided it’d be best not to think much of it, and shook those thoughts out of your head to tune back in to Taylor Metternich’s speech about her Christmas plans.

“-after swimming with dolphins, we fly to Saint Martin for New Years. Anyone else? Christmas in the Caribbean?” 

You rolled your eyes, sharing a look with Simon as you folded yet another play program. Simon chuckled slightly before answering Taylor.

“Staying here. We have a classic Spier tradition of French toast on Christmas eve.”

“I’m staying too.”

“I’m going to an unheated vacation house in the middle of nowhere.” your band friend, Cal Price, groaned, “As is our bleak family tradition.”

Before anyone else could answer Taylor, Martin shot out of his seat, “Ow! Ow! Oh, man. Ow.”

“You okay?” Simon asked, clearly unamused.

“Oh, yeah, that’s a papercut.”

“Overdramatic.”

“Um, Simon, do you know where the bandages are?” he asked, leaning in uncomfortably close.

“Uh, yeah.” Simon muttered, turning back to the program in his hand, “They’re in the supply closet.”

“Okay, do you mind showing me?”

At that question, everyone paused and eyed Martin suspiciously. He’s 17 and he can’t find the damn band-aids himself? Before anyone questioned him though, Simon stood with an exasperated sigh. Martin smirked as he watched Simon lead the way.

“He’s like a nurse, this man.”

Everyone was at least a little confused as they watched Simon and Martin slink off into the distance, but no one said anything for the rest of the day. After that, you noticed Martin hanging out with Abby and her friends a lot more, Simon shooting you an apologetic half-smile as you left to sit with Suraj. You saw minor bits of unaddressed tension happening within that friend group, and you were honestly a little surprised that they made it to the homecoming game together.

“Hey, (Y/N)!” Simon called, ushering you over to sit next to Abby on the bleachers, “How’s it going?”

“I’m good.” you smiled, sitting down, “How are you guys?”

“I’m okay.” Abby smiled, leaning the bag in her hands so the opening was closer to you, “Popcorn?”

“Sure, thanks!”

You popped a fistful of popcorn in your mouth as Leah answered your question, “We’re good. Nick and I just came from dinner.”

You almost choked, “Dinner?”

“Yeah, I took Leah out for dumplings. It was a nice date, we had a good time.” Nick answered, “Right, Leah?”

“Yeah, I had a great time.”

Your heart sank at that. You were happy for them, you were, but some part of you was screaming- some part of you was breaking at the idea of Leah going on a date with someone else. You two weren’t joined at the hip, and it wasn’t like you’d told her you liked girls, but that didn’t change the smile that popped onto your face every time she entered the room, or the years of butterflies she never failed to give you...

...before you could ponder any further on the subject, the field’s sound system crackled to life.

“Please stand for the national anthem.”

As everyone stood, Taylor walked up to the platform they’d put down as a stage, “This goes out to all the refugees... and my vocal coach, Monica Lewis. O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proud...” Before she had even finished the first part of the song, the Creekwood mascot ran up to the platform, wrestling the microphone out of Taylor’s hands, “What the hell are you doing?” 

Grabbing the mic, the bear ripped the costume’s head off to reveal Martin, “Hi everyone. Uh, sorry to interrupt.”

“Why are we interrupting the national anthem?” You heard Mr. Worth ask uncertainly.

“But I have something to say... that's a little more important than the national anthem. No offense, America. Abigail Katherine Susso…”

As he said that, Abby squeezed herself between you and Simon, and you could have sworn you’d heard her whisper, “How does he know my middle name?”

“-when you transferred to Creekwood High School, just a short three and a half months ago, you not only transferred into a new school, you transferred your way into a new heart, belonging to me. My heart. Right here. And whether it was being your partner in pong, or your Waffle House warrior, I have cherished the 135,300 minutes that we've spent together. Oh, I'm sorry. 135,301 minutes. And I know that you're this smart, talented, perfect creature. And, uh, I'm just a sweaty schlub in a bear costume. But like old Bogie used to say, it's a ‘crazy mixed-up world.’ So, Abby, without further ado... will you go out with me?”

With every word he said, Abby sunk further and further into you and Simon, but she reluctantly sat up to go answer him. Some random crowd member shouted “she’s too hot for you, assface” as she squeezed her way to the front of the bleachers.

“Martin, I am so sorry, I don’t feel that way about you.”

“You don’t?”

“No. But I really like hanging out with you and I don’t know, maybe we could still be friends, you know?”

“Yeah.”

In that moment, your phone buzzed. As you pulled it out of your pocket, you saw a notification from a walkie-talkie app that Martin had made you get ages ago. You opened the app to hear Suraj’s voice on the other end.

“What did she say? Should I release them?”

“Them?” You asked quietly, “Suraj, does Martin have birds prepared for this or something?”

“Doves, yeah. I have no clue where he got ‘em tho-”

“Suraj.” You sighed, deciding that now would be when you got your revenge, “Release the doves.”

After a couple of seconds, you heard soft gasps from a few places, and Leah was one of them, “Are those doves?”

“No, no, hey, hey! Suraj! Hey! No, no! She said no!” Martin cried, waving his arms wildly, which Suraj took to mean ‘open the other cage’, “No, don't!”

The crowd started laughing as the second set of doves flew away, and you heard Nick mutter to Simon, “Yo, I thought you said she liked him.”

“She might’ve.” You answered, “But the humiliation he just put her through probably ruined it.”

“Not the ceremonious dove launch I was hoping for. But still uplifting to free some birds. Yeah. Okay, uh... Enjoy the game.” Martin was clearly trying to remain positive, but everyone was more focused on Abby’s feelings.

“That was terrible.” She muttered, sitting back down between you and Simon.

“Are you okay?” You asked, suddenly regretting the dove decision.

“Yeah. It’s nice that Suraj released the doves even when I said no. Expose Martin for going way too big for something like this, ruin his moment, save those poor birds.” She smiled at you, but her eyes showed she was kinda uncomfortable.

“Don’t worry.” Simon assured her, “People will get over it in a few weeks.”

Contrary to what Simon predicted, the whole incident had become a massive meme on CreeksSecrets and although Abby hadn’t had to deal with it since a week after it happened, Martin had been mocked online well into Christmas break. However, that wasn’t the worst possible thing to happen over Christmas break. Less than a week before the actual holiday, you logged onto Tumblr and decided to check the school blog, but your heart dropped straight into your stomach as you read the words that first showed up on the screen:

Dear fellow Creekwood students, Simon Spier has a secret male pen pal. Because he's gay. Interested parties may contact him directly to discuss arrangements for butt sex. Ladies need not apply. We should all probably be talking about this instead of Martin Addison's homecoming debacle which was actually kind of sweet, and romantic, if you think about it. Sincerely, Anonymous.

Immediately, you grabbed your phone and texted Simon. You weren’t sure what approach to take, so you decided to act like nothing was wrong.

I just made cookies, want some? :)

You waited for an answer, but two hours later, he still hadn’t replied. You decided to call him, but it went to voicemail.

“Hey, this is Simon. I can’t make it to the phone right now, but you know what to do.”

“Hey, Simon, it’s me. I just wanted to check in. I know it’s barely been a week since school got out but I miss you, buddy. I have cookies, and I, uh, I know you’re having a tough time right now, so please just call me back. I love you, Simon, and I wanna help. Please let me. Okay, uh, merry Christmas. Call me back. Bye.”

You’d placed your call at 8pm, and refused to go to sleep until he answered you- but he didn’t. He didn’t text or call you back all night, and once you realized he probably never would, you took a long nap before getting to work. You got dressed, grabbed the box of cookies off the counter (yes, you’d told him you baked them but you didn’t actually have time for that right now), threw the cookies and all Simon’s favourite things from your house into a messenger bag, and biked your way to the Spier household. Mrs. Spier opened the door when you knocked.

“(Y/N)! Good to see you! How’s your Christmas break?” she cheered.

“It’s good, Mrs. Spier, thanks.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, but, um, is Simon home?” You asked, not meaning to be rude but worrying more about your friend than the conversation.

“Oh, yeah, he’s just upstairs. Come on in.” She held the door open for you as you entered, “I think something may have happened though, he’s been in his room since yesterday.”

“Oh.” You said, acting as though you knew nothing, “Is it okay if I go up and check on him?” 

“Oh, yes, of course, sweetheart. Go on up, just make sure to knock before you go in, okay?”

“Of course.”

With that, you ran up the stairs and navigated your way to Simon’s room, using the vague memory of the night after Bram’s to guide you. Suddenly, a room opened up, and Simon’s sister stepped out, stopping when she saw you.

“Hey, (Y/N), right? You’re Simon’s friend?” she asked.

“Yeah. You’re Nora, right?”

“That’s me.” She smiled weakly, “Are you here about the post?”

Your stance fell, and a solemn silence fell briefly between the two of you, “I’m just here to make sure he’s okay. What he went through- what he’s going through- is terrible, but he shouldn’t have to go through it alone.”

She nodded, gesturing to a door a little ways away from you two, “That one’s his. And thank you, for doing this for him.”

You offered her a smile, and headed straight for Simon. You knocked on the door and his voice very weakly answered from the other side.

“I’ll be down in a minute, mom.”

“I’m not your mom, Simon, it’s me.”

Almost immediately, the door flew open, and a very red-eyed Simon stood practically looming over you, a look of shock and confusion etched on his face. You could tell he had been crying, so you pulled the cookies out of your bag.

“I brought you some cookies.”

With that, Simon visibly untensed, taking the box from you slowly and stepping a side to silently invite you in. You were both silent for a while, just sitting on his floor, until he cleared his throat.

“So, I take it you saw the post?”

“Yeah, I did.” you nodded slowly, “I wanted to come make sure you’re okay. I can’t imagine what I’d do if someone outed me.”

Your friend’s head whipped toward you so fast you thought he might get whiplash, “Wait- Wait, you’re...” there was a pause, as though he was struggling to get the word out, “...you’re gay too?”

“You bet your ass I am, sweetheart.” you chuckled, “Girls? Perfection.”

Simon laughed too, “So you, you can kinda understand what’s going on?”

Your smile fell with those words, “I can’t imagine, Simon. I can’t imagine the pain or the anger or the humiliation that you must be going through.”

Simon frowned at that, staring down at his carpet in defeat, until you put your hand over his, “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to be here for you, no matter what. Wherever this bullshit takes you, Si, I’m there- right by your side.”

“Thanks (Y/N).” your friend smiled, “You’re a really good friend.”

Over the rest of the Christmas break, you talked with Simon almost constantly. You regaled him with tales of your father’s decorating mishaps and your new years adventures with Suraj. He showed you the gifts he’d received and he told you that he still hadn’t talked to anyone else from school; in his defence, no one was making an effort to reach out either. By the time school came back into session, you and Simon were closer than ever, but with his other friends- not so much. You even saw him get out of the car alone when he arrived, so you ran up to make sure everything was okay.

“They didn’t want a ride this morning.” was all he said, but you tried to comfort him as best you could. 

The rest of the morning was a painful blur. Sneers and whispers were thrown at Simon from all directions, but you were the only person who made direct eye contact with him all day. His so-called friends avoided him like the plague, and lunch made it much, much worse. Everything was fine, just you and Simon eating at a table by yourselves, until sudden music came blaring into the cafeteria. Two assholes- Aaron and Spencer, if you remember correctly- came skipping into the café, one dressed normally and one dressed in a wig and scarf (clearly mocking Ethan, Creekwood’s first out gay kid). They got up on one of the tables and started dancing and making obscene gestures, mocking Simon directly but dragging Ethan into it as well. Rage bubbled up inside you, but Simon got up first.

“You have something you wanna say to me?” he roared, marching up to their table, “I said do you have something to say to me?” 

Ms. Albright came up behind Simon, grabbing the speaker that was blaring music and turning it off.

“Hey, Ms. Albright.” The one dressed as Ethan smiled, but his smile quickly fell as her glare hardened.

“Don't ‘Hey, Ms. Albright’ me. We're not friends. You're not gonna braid my hair or paint my nails. Get your ass off the table now! You sweaty, hormonal virgins. You know what? You're about to be suspended for so long, that by the time it's over, you're gonna be the fat, bald, unhappily married, wildly mediocre nobodies you're destined to become.” 

“You can't talk to us like that!” 

“Actually, I can, 'cause I just did. And you know why? Because you're just those two assholes that did that shitty thing in front of the whole school. And guess what? Nobody feels sorry for those assholes, especially me. Now, walk. Mr. Worth's office now. Bye.” 

The boys got off the table slowly, and started walking out of the cafeteria. One tried to get the speaker back from Ms. Albright, but she pulled it away sharply.

“Uh-uh. That's mine now. I'mma sell it. Get my tubes tied.”

“Um, Ms. Alrbight?” you stood, and walked over to her, “May I?”

You gestured to the two assholes as they turned to look at you. Assuming you just wanted to yell at them, Ms. Albright nodded, gesturing for you to continue. You nodded in thanks, walked up to the boys.... and sucker-punched both of them. The entire student body gasped, and at least two teachers ran up to keep you from doing any more damage, but you threw your hands up in mock surrender. You turned around, gave Simon a hug, and started walking to Mr. Worth’s office, throwing your middle finger in the air as you walked out. When you arrived at Mr. Worth’s office, he was initially excited to see you.

“Hey! (Y/N)! Good to see you! How’ve you been? What can I do for you?”

“Ms. Albright sent me.” you said simply, sitting down in one of the chairs across from his desk.

His face scrunched up in concern, “Oh? How come? Everything okay?” 

“Aaron and Spencer committed a small hate crime against Simon and Ethan so I decked ‘em.”

Mr. Worth’s eyes widened, “B-by ‘decked em’ you mean...?”

“I punched them so hard they fell over.” You explained simply.

Mr. Worth nodded slowly, clearly still in shock from both what you did and how casual you were being about this. He said that although violence was never the answer, he understood why you did what you did, and he assured you that Aaron and Spencer would get the punishment that they deserved. He explained that because you took violent measures, he’d have to suspend you for at least a couple days, and you explained that that was fine- you knew the consequences when you took action, and you were prepared to deal with them. You and Mr. Worth agreed on a week-long suspension, and he sent you to get your things out of your locker and make arrangements to get homework while he called your parents. You told Suraj everything, having run into him on your way to your locker, and he offered to bring you your homework while you were gone- also mentioning that he’d seen Simon and Ethan entering Mr. Worth’s office earlier. Deciding that you should check on Simon, and that his meeting with Mr. Worth was probably over by now, you ran out to the parking lot to find him. However, when you got out there, the first thing you heard was Martin’s whiny bitching.

“-I got in a lot of shit for Homecoming, and I wanted everyone to focus on something else, you know? I just didn't think it was gonna be a big thing.” 

“I don't care if you didn't think that my coming out was gonna be a big thing, Martin!” You heard Simon yell, “Look, you don't get to decide that. I'm supposed to be the one that decides when and where, and how and who knows and how I get to say it. That's supposed to be my thing! And you took that away from me. So, well, can you please just get the fuck away from me?”

You walked out around a car to see Simon storming into his car, and Martin standing there, looking pathetically helpless. With a sigh, he turned around, but stood there gawking when he saw you watching.

“(Y/n), I-”

“It was you.”

“What?” he asked, acting nonchalant but clearly guilty.

“It was you!” you screeched, barrelling towards him, “You’re the pathetic son of a bitch who outed Simon! You did this to him!”

“(Y/n), I can explain-”

“Save it, Addison! I cannot believe you!” You screamed in his face, “You manipulate me and abuse me and treat me like shit! You get called out on it so you just toss me aside like a wet rag! You act sketchy for months, then you humiliate the shit out of poor Abby! And when you were too much of a pussy to deal with the consequences of your own fucking actions, you put Simon’s life at risk because you couldn’t take the fucking heat?”

“Hey, hey, hey! I never abused you!” he held up his hands defensively, “And I didn’t know people still did that stuff-”

“What part of ‘save it, Addison’ did you not understand, mother fucker?” You spat. When he became silent, you continued, “You wanna talk so fucking badly, answer me this, Martin: How the fuck did you get a hold on Simon’s emails?”

He looked down at his feet, “I, uh, used the computer in the library after Simon. His gmail was still up. I read a few of them- ‘cause they were just right there- and I, um, I screenshotted his emails... so he’d help me get with Abby.”

Your eyes widened in rage at that, “You what?”

“I-”

“No, no, asshole. You screenshotted the emails of an innocent kid and threatened to out him in the bible-belt of America, if he didn’t help you get with a girl who’s barely known you for three months- as thought that was a better plan than just fucking talking to her- and then you forcibly outed him anyway when your little plan didn’t work out because, surprise surprise, she didn’t appreciate that you didn’t see her as anything more than a piece of meat for you to parade around!”

As you screamed, Martin got defensive, “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds bad!”

“NO SHIT IT SOUNDS BAD, MOTHER FUCKER, YOU RUINED A KID’S LIFE JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE PATHETIC BUT YOU STILL CAN’T KEEP IT IN YOUR FUCKING PANTS!” you were booming with rage now, and you wouldn’t have been surprised if the whole school could hear you, “As if ruining my life wasn’t enough, you had to rope Simon and Abby into this shit too, you selfish fucking bastard!”

“Ruined your life?” He repeated, as though he didn't hear anything else you said, “We were friends!”

“No, I was your plaything, Martin. Just something to manipulate, and use, and beat up on until something better caught your eye and you could toss me to the curb! Then you’d just pick me back up and do it all over again once you lost interest. I was never your friend! I never mattered to you! I didn’t mean shit to you!”

Martin blubbered trying to find a justifiable way to defend himself, “Why does it matter how I treated you? I bet you never liked me anyway!”

“For fuck’s sake, you were like family. I loved you, Martin!”

“You, you loved me?”

“Yeah, I did.” You spat, opening your car door, “Worst mistake of my fucking life.”

You climbed into the car, slammed the door, and sped off- almost running him over in the process. Not that you cared; the world could do better with less people like Martin Addison.