#i mean the erasing people part and even killing Vero

[randomnameless]

TIL that Kusakihara was the one who wrote SS (I don't know if he also wrote AM and VW) whereas KT handled Tru Piss. It does kinda paint the whole Foldan shitshow/discourse wank of the past 4+ years to be more of an IS vs KT thing in addition to everything else.

Oh gods

I can fathom it, only if Kusakihara motivated the "choice" between Tru Piss and SS as "pick the lady you want to S support" lol

However, given how far ? Ridiculous? FEH's story is, especially with the Vero retcon, uwuing conqueror and war-mongerer chan (even if Vero needed a retcon and brainwashing!) isn't exclusive to KT, IS can and will use it too!

With IS "but she was sad and lonely + don't forget the uwu hammer" and KT "everyone has a point so you can't really pick a side! - I'm not surprised Fe Fodlan ended up the way it did.

In a way, Engage moving past this nonsense is a good sign for the franchise... and yet, Fodlan is apparently still more popular with all the ridiculous drama it creates so and Book 7 of FEH followed the same pattern, wait'n'see anon.

[i-write-shakespeare-not-disney]

Director’s Commentary- Lovesick Side Effects, Lance comes out to his mom

My commentary is in bold italics. I have so much of this memorized from when I revised it endlessly and then directed it aklfjakdjfak-

He walked to the kitchen where Mami was washing dishes. Lance took a deep breath and leaned against the fridge as he watched her scrub a pan, the white bubbles turning an orange red from the tomato residue. This was it. I really like the specifications, and I have very distinct memories of a pan turning orange from the rice. I wanted something concrete for Lance to focus on during his internal panic. 

So far, he’d spent his break watching telenovelas with Mami when he wasn’t watching movies with Vero. He’d watch Mami cook and keep her company. I know a lot of guys don’t usually do this, but I mean. For one Lance is very close to his mom especially as the youngest. And for another, I had the idea that he was looking for a way to tell her each time. As they were watching, or cooking, he was constantly like, “I’ll do it now” then he wouldn’t. He always loved spending time with her when he was home, even if most of that break, he’d felt like he was lying to her. 

“Que me ves?”

He blinked and reminded himself to breathe as he refocused. “Nada.” 

Mami raised an eyebrow and kept scrubbing. She was almost done. “You’ve been quiet all day today. Te estás sintiendo mal? Tengo Vicks.” Cmon. All Latines understand the accuracy of this right? 

Lance let out an amused huff through his nose. So the guy who played Lance in the skit delivered this line differently. More of a panic like l ah shit not vicks ma pls and I loved it. “No, Ma, I’m fine. I’m not sick or anything....” He clasped his hands together behind his back so she wouldn’t see them shaking. 

“Is this about your graduation? Te dije que no te preocupes, your Papi and I are figuring it out.” Her head is in a different place than Lance’s. She assumes it’s about economic issues, the gown, the ring, the travel, etc. She gave him a slightly chastising look. “You focus on your studies, leave the rest to us.” 

“No, it’s not that…. It’s just…” He gulped and forced himself to keep talking. “I wanted to talk to you about something…. I met someone.” 

Her surprise was immediate. 

“Really? You met someone….” 

Lance’ mouth was dry, but he kept talking. “Well… we met a while ago, but we recently started... dating. Like officially.” 

She tried to seem casual by rewashing the pan as he talked, keeping her expressions in check. This was mentioned in my workshop class, and I was really happy they picked up on it. She’s giving him a space to explain without putting too much pressure on him. The class called her emotionally intelligent, which made me happy bc as a mom, that’s important and that shows through the rest of this (I hope!) “It must be serious. I wasn’t sure when you would start dating again, but I knew that when you did it would be someone really special.” This line was influenced by something my professor said. She said that because of his age, she didn’t think the adults around him would believe he would absolutely never date again even if he did. And I wanted to be careful because I didn’t want it to come off as Caridad brushing off or minimizing the importance of Lance’s relationship with Allura. I still wanted her to be aware and understanding of the pain and permanence Lance felt. So for her it was like He’s very young, of course there’s going to be someone, but whether that’s in 30 years or 3 I don’t know. And it plays a lot into why Caridad is more accepting more easily. She just wants Lance to be happy (which she says)

“It is,” he said. His throat fought to cut his words off, but he pushed through it. He thought of those deep indigo eyes and a full-hearted laugh paired with a scrunched up nose. “That’s why I wanted to tell you about him.” This shows more in the skit, but I really wanted the pronoun to be a casual mention, though his actions would be more anxious. I didn’t want the “him” isolated because I wanted to show what it would be like in a world where gender and pronouns didn’t cause a big deal, it was just natural to hear. But of course, the following silence carries the tension and fear. 

If the pronoun registered, he couldn’t tell. Mami just kept making the same circle on the pan, eyes cast downward in fixation. He didn’t notice any change in her breathing. Her expression remained the same with its slightly intrigued quirked eyebrow. 

She rinsed the pan and set it on top of the other dishes where it balanced precariously, the pans balancing as precariously as her shock is ahaha no but really this little detail is just a nod at Caridad’s deliberateness. then she shut the water off and dried her hands on her apron. She looked up at him, her eyes glossy but not exactly tear-filled. “Quieres café? Voy a hacer café.” She turned away and grabbed the coffee pot. 

“Uh. N-no.” He watched her as she measured out her Colombian roasted coffee and let it brew. In all that time, she didn’t speak, and Lance felt more and more tense. 

“Mami?” he risked saying when enough time had passed that she’d started preparing her coffee with a lot of milk and more sugar than usual. This entire silence and pretext of coffee is just giving her time to think and sort through it. She heard the “him” she knows. And part of her had her suspicions since Christmas. This was just that moment of why didn’t I do better and catch on earlier? But also her thinking “this isn’t about me, this is about him, and I need to focus on that.” 

“Let’s sit.” She walked past him to the dining room table. Her eyes remained on her coffee as the spoon clinked against the porcelain. Lance sat on the other side of the table, facing her. She looked at him, her gaze somewhat distant. “How serious is it?” Honestly this is... the safest question when you don’t know what you’re allowed to ask. 

Again, he wondered if she’d caught what he said, but he answered anyway. “Mami, I… I wouldn’t be talking to you about it if it wasn’t serious. If I didn’t see a future… with him.” He caught the way she gulped, but her face remained composed. There’s a lot to unpack. I mean. A lot of beliefs to turn over. A lot of moments to rethink. A lot of “could this have been done better?” i.e. Christmas. “I don’t… I don’t want to hide a part of my life from you, especially not one this important. It’s been killing me to keep this from you, but I didn’t know how to… tell you…. The thing is, I’d like for you to meet him one day.”

Mami took a deep breath and nodded slowly. After a while of silence, she said, “That’s why you’ve been…. so hesitant. So quiet. So unlike yourself. Not to steal from Love, Simon, but it is a lot like holding your breath and tiptoeing around. She could see that. Mi niño. You know one of the hardest times for me as your mother was watching you fall apart after Allura’s death. Fue lo peor tener que verte así. You were so sure you would never want to be with anyone again. You didn’t eat, you didn’t write, you didn’t talk, you didn’t laugh. You weren’t yourself. Has estado en duelo por casi tres años-” This part... well to be honest, she was starting to veer towards an “Are you sure, or is this just because someone is making you feel happy, it might not be romantic” kind of thing. Like... is this just to get past all that pain?

“Grief doesn’t have a time limit, Mami. Even now…. he’s still mourning now and then” He sighed and shook his head. “You know I can’t write about her anymore.”

“Y ahora? Do you write poems for…?”

“His name is Keith.” Just saying his name gave Lance a small sense of comfort. He knew that whatever happened, he would have those arms to run to. “And no, I haven’t. But he makes me want to.”

Her eyebrows went up as she looked down at her coffee. because honestly, she expected him to say yes, and that would’ve made her say okay fine. If he brought that back to you, then this is it. But there’s something more meaningful I think in that sense of “not yet, but I want to because HE makes me want to” and being able to acknowledge that. It shows that Lance is actively trying to... create again. She didn’t stir it, she didn’t drink it. Lance expected many reactions. At worst, he expected screaming, slurs, maybe even a chancla thrown at him. At best, he figured she would cry and ask what she did wrong. The different scenarios had plagued him all night. But this silent, pensive response was somehow more terrifying. He didn’t know what to do about the fact that her mind seemed elsewhere entirely. 

He reached across the table to take her hand, and while she didn’t pull away, she didn’t seem to even notice it. “If you have questions… Mami, please. Tell me what you’re thinking.” 

“I just don’t understand how…. I thought you loved Allura, but this boy…? No entiendo como…?”  she doesn’t understand bisexuality/pansexuality. she’s also afraid to ask the wrong way because she doesnt want lance to shut down.

Her unformed questions fell between them in the empty silence that frustration and confusion left. He looked down at their hands. 

“I did love her. I still do, and I know that, and so does Keith. What I feel for Keith… it’s new, and it’s wonderful, and once I let myself… feel it, it made sense. It’s just another part of me. It doesn’t erase Allura. It’s just… when I lost her, it felt like- like everything about myself was dimmed. Like part of me went with her, and I couldn’t….” Lance sighed and rubbed his face with his free hand. “With Keith I feel like myself again. Y el me quiere, de una manera que no pensé encontrar de nuevo, Mamita. I’m not dim anymore.”

“Lo amas?” she asked. 

Lance squeezed her hand and smiled. “I think I could one day. I think if anyone could help me love again, it’s him.”  again, back to the “he makes me want to write” there’s a lot of weight in being aware and wanting something you might also be scared of. if that makes sense.

So many people in his life had known him when he loved Allura, as he grieved her, and they all waited for him to become who he’d been before he lost her. Hunk, Pidge, his siblings, his parents. They all noticed how he seemed to flicker in and out of life, and they had all been waiting on that spark to come back for him. But not Keith. KEITH DOESNT LOVE HIM IN SPITE OF HIS GRIEF HE LOVES HIM WITH IT. 

“Mami, he knows me the way I am now. He found reasons to want to be with me at my worst. He doesn’t need the version of me before Allura, he just… wants me as who I am now and who I want to become. Ahora es tan facil respirar, existir, vivir.”

She let out a shaky breath and started tracing the flower patterns on the placemat. “I don’t know if you remember, but when you were about five… you’d just met Pidge in school, and her and her brother would stop by to walk to the bus stop with you.” oh man i’d thought of this like.... this was one of the first scenes i had in mind with this memory.

Lance nodded. He recalled vague memories of those days. Skipping the lines on the sidewalk with Pidge as Matt would count to see how many they could avoid. How they’d meet Hunk and his mom at the bus stop. The only day that really stood out was when Lance tripped getting off the bus, and Matt and Pidge walked slowly with him until he got home.

“There was one day,” Mami continued, “you didn’t want to eat breakfast, you just wanted to go outside. And you started picking all the dandelions on the ground. I asked what you were doing and you- you said-” She broke off, laughing softly to herself. “You said, ‘Mami, es que son para Matt.’ Y dije, achis- what’s Matt gonna do with those?” Her eyes finally met Lance’s and seemed to focus. “Of course, I told you that you couldn’t give a boy flowers. Dios mio, the tantrum you threw. You got so upset, and you wouldn’t let me take the flowers, so I said, ‘Mira, ya se. Why don’t you give them to Pidge instead?’ Your face was still red when they came to find you, and you were still so mad when you gave them to Pidge.” She sighed and shook her head. “By the time you got home from school, you’d forgotten all about it, you just wanted to watch PBS Kids.” It’s just. not a big deal to kids until they’re taught that it’s supposed to be. This innocent little kid crush, or even if it isn’t a crush, it’s just giving a friend flowers because they’re pretty, it’s seen as such a bad thing and it’s like... really what is so wrong about a child doing that when you know there’s no ulterior motive the way there is with adults. 

Lance furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t remember that.”

Suddenly, there were the tears he’d been waiting for. They fell down her cheeks, each one a knife to his heart. He hated that he was the cause of them in any way. 

He pulled her hand to his lips. “Mami, no llores.” 

“Tengo miedo, mi niño.” heaven. hell. wrath of god. living against religion. yknow that shit. but also that the real world won’t care about lance the way she does. She wiped at her eyes only for more tears to slide down to her chin and drip to the table cloth. “I love you. I love you more than my life, and you know that. This doesn’t change that. You are my son. Y estoy tan orgullosa….” 

She paused, trying to compose herself. When she began again, she sounded exhausted. “You fell in love at the worst age, mi amor. And to have lost her…. Le pedi a Diosito mil veces, I begged Him to help you heal, to show you that you could be happy again…. And if this is who makes you happy, then okay.” Her hand tightened around his, and with her other hand, she cupped his cheek. “You need to be careful. The world can be unkind. I know I can’t protect you from it, but you’re strong… so be careful.” this is entirely about the fear of people hurting lance just because he holds hands with a boy. She’s afraid for his safety. She barely got the last word out before she was overwhelmed by her cries. 

He reached over and wiped her tears away, leaving his fingers cold and sticky. “Ya, Mamita. No llores. You didn’t cry this much when Ricky Martin came out.” He’d hoped to make her laugh. the audience did klsjdfkaj

Instead, she just sniffed and ran her thumb along his cheek. “Es diferente. When it’s your own child. It shouldn’t be, pero….” she was going to add it is but She shook her head. “It shouldn’t be. that’s the important part of the phrase. It shouldn’t be different. But I’ll pray. I’ll pray and I’ll… I’ll be okay.” the praying thing... idk. The reality is that for some reason accepting a kid’s sexuality is something parent’s gotta pray for peace about? And it sucks, but... if that’s what helps...

Lance nodded, reminding himself that this had been his best-case scenario. Reminded himself that he hadn’t been hoping for something better, a reaction that didn’t make him feel like he was being loved in spite oh look at that. IN SPITE OF of something. Lance never understood why people cried when someone came out. It wasn’t an identity she had to live with. It took a lot of effort to talk himself out of thinking she was crying because she was disappointed, but if that wasn’t the reason then what was? What was she so scared of? Why did she need to pray to be okay with who he was? honestly I don’t have answers to this question. And I’m not a mom, and if I was my beliefs are already so different. So I think the answers are here in Caridad’s responses and actions, but they elude me even as a writer. I think a parent might be able to understand her, but I just know I tried my best to keep Caridad’s reactions consistent and realistic. 

“Y tu? Are you okay, mijo?” she asked, pulling him out of a series of questions that was bound to leave him upset. “This is a lot. Quien mas sabe?” 

Lance cleared his throat and rubbed his neck nervously. “I told Veronica… Luis overheard me on the phone with him. They helped me tell Marco. Hunk and Pidge know.”

She tried to hide her expression, but Lance caught the way it crumbled. The way it hurt her to be so far down the list of people who knew. She feels that she didn’t do enough for Lance to trust her with these things. And that’s what hurt her. Lance wished he could get her to understand that it was because her thoughts mattered most. 

“And I want to tell Papi, but….” 

She cupped his face with a warm hand and smiled at him, the same deep blue eyes he inherited from her boring into him. “We’ll do it together. Sabes que el te quiere mucho. You’re his flesh and blood.” 

“Yeah but you remember what happened on Christmas.” 

“Oye. Give your Papi some credit. Es cabezon, but he loves you. We both do.” 

He smiled and put his hand over hers as he nuzzled into her palm. “I know. It’s still scary.” 

“You didn’t answer me. Are you okay?” 

He considered it for a moment. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay, Mami.” 

“Que bueno, mi amor,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes again. But she smiled and squeezed his hand tightly, like she was sending all of her affection through that single touch. “And I would really like to meet him. No puedo hablar por tu Papi, but I want to meet this boy who’s so special.”

 Lance smiled and got up from his seat to kneel beside her as he hugged her tightly. He rested his head in her lap as she stroked his head gently. “Te quiero mucho, mi vida. Tu sigue siendo valiente.” Her voice was soft when she added, “Maybe you should pick some dandelions to take back to him.” because we gotta tie back to our motif yknow? Dandelions.