on twitter, a viral thread started where people around the world shared their translations of “If I must die”, the last work of Dr Refaat Alareer also known as "the voice of Gaza". A beloved poet, teacher and life-long activist for Palestine, he was recently assassinated along with members of his extended family by a targeted Israeli air strike. His loss leaves a hole in the heart of palestinians all over the world.
Below the cut, I’ll be posting the translations of his poem, with links to the original posts. Unfortunately, tumblr limits posts to a maximum of 30 images. I will update when I can.
ok I have A Lot of thoughts about the staircase confession (well really about Edwin's whole character arc, but all roads lead to rome) but for now I just wanna say that, yes, I was bracing myself for something to go terribly wrong when I first watched it, and yes, part of me was initially worried its placement might be an uncharacteristically foolish choice made in the name of Drama or Pacing or Making a Compelling Episode of Television but at the expense of narrative sense--
But I wanna say that having taken all that into account, and watched it play out, and sat with it - and honestly become rather transfixed by it - I really think it's a beautifully crafted moment and truly the only way that arc could've arrived at such a satisfying conclusion.
And if I had to pinpoint why I not only buy it but also have come to really treasure it, I'd have to put it down to the fact that it genuinely is a confession, and nothing else.
That moment is an announcement of what Edwin has come to understand about himself, but because it takes the form of a character admitting romantic feelings for such a close friend, I think it can be very easy, when writing that kind of thing, to imbue it with other elements like a plea or a request or even the start of a new relationship that, intentionally or not, would change the shape of the moment and can quickly overshadow what a huge deal the telling is all on its own. But that's not the case here. Since it is only a confession, unaccompanied by anything else, and since we see afterward how it was enough, evidently, to fix the strangeness that had grown between him & Charles, we're forced to understand that it was never Edwin's feelings that were actually making things difficult for him - it was not being able to tell Charles about them. 'Terrified' as he's been of this, Edwin learns that his feelings don't need to either disappear completely or be totally reciprocated in order for him to be able to return to the peace, stability, and security of the relationship with which he defines his existence - and the scale of that relief a) tells us a hell of a lot about Edwin as a character and b) totally justifies the way his declaration just bursts out of him at what would otherwise be such a poorly chosen moment, in my opinion.
Whether or not they are or ever could be reciprocated, Edwin's feelings are definitively proven not to be the problem here - only his potential choice to bottle it up - his repression - is. And where that repression had once been mainly involuntary, a product of what he'd been through, now that he's got this new awareness of himself, if he still fails to admit what he's found either to himself or to the one person he's so unambiguously close with, then that repression will be by his own choice and actions.
And he won't do that. Among other things, he's coming into this scene having just (unknowingly) absolved the soul of his own school bully and accidental killer by pointing out a fact that is every bit as central to his self-discovery as anything about his sexuality or his attraction to Charles is: the idea that "If you punish yourself, everywhere becomes Hell"
So narratively speaking, of course it makes sense that Edwin literally cannot get out of Hell until he stops punishing himself - and right now, the thing that's torturing him is something he has control over. It's not who he is or what he feels, but what he chooses to do with those feelings that's hurting him, and he's even already made the conscious choice to tell Charles about them, he was just interrupted. But now that they're back together and he's literally in the middle of an attempt to escape Hell, there is absolutely no way he can so much as stop for breath without telling Charles the truth. Even the stopping for breath is so loaded - because they're ghosts, they don't need to breathe, but also they're in Hell, so the one thing they can feel is pain, however nonsensical. And Edwin certainly is in pain. But whether he knows what he's about to do or not when he says he 'just needs a tick,' a breather is absolutely not what's gonna give him enough relief to keep climbing - it's fixing that other hurt, though, that will.
Like everything else in that scene, there's a lot of layers to him promising Charles "You don't have to feel the same way, I just needed you to know" - but I don't think that means it isn't also true on a surface level. It's the act of telling Charles that matters so much more than whatever follows it, and while that might have gone unnoticed if anything else major had happened in the same conversation, now we're forced to acknowledge its staggering and singular importance for what it is. The moment is well-earned and properly built up to, but until we see it happen in all its wonderful simplicity, and we see the aftermath (or lack thereof, even), we couldn't properly anticipate how much of a weight off Edwin's shoulders merely getting to share the truth with Charles was going to be, why he couldn't wait for a better, safer opportunity before giving in to that desire, or how badly he needed to say it and nothing else - and I really, really love the weight that act of just being honest, seen, and known is given in their story/relationship.
every time someone mischaracterises jay ferin as the therapist friend a fairy loses its wings btw. put some respect on her emotionally-constipated ass.
POOR GABRIEL MONTEZ! YOU NEVER SAW THIS COMING DID YOU? ALL YOU WANTED WAS POWER. SECURITY. SAFETY. & THATS EXACTLY WHAT YOU GOT! JUST IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR BODY. LETS JUST HOPE NO ONE FUCKS THIS UP. LETS JUST HOPE YOU WONT HAVE TO CLEAN UP THE MESS.
"Funny enough I—like, if street hockey, ministicks, I always wanted to be a goalie too! Like, for some reason I always wanted to go in net. You know, probably because of [my Dad] and then, um, you know, once you get dinged a couple times and the shots get too hard you realise—then it's not so much fun after all so... Yeah, it was great he'd always—"
"You probably wanted to be goalie 'cuz you're fucking crazy, man! Those guys are bananas! I actually went as a goalie in morning skate one time when I was suspended in the coast, and it was the scariest thing ever, bro. It's nothing like blocking a shot because you're literally just standing there, and these guys are shooting right at you. It's unbelievable!"
"Yeah! You gotta get in the way of the stuff to save it! That's crazy! I know, and like obviously gear is like great and they don't really feel—but there is, like, that psychological thing going on where, like, you know, you wanna move out of the way 'cuz it's gonna hurt! I get—I mean, it must not hurt that much, like, 'cuz Bob's crazy, man! Bob loves taking—Well, I wouldn't say loves taking it off the head, but he doesn't hate it, like he—"
"Feels good?"
"You know, every once in a while—they hit him in the head and you go up and say sorry he's like, 'No, no! It's all good! I love it, I love it!!' and like, kind-of shoos you away so."
The Buzz Pod | 8.7.24 (x)
so speaking of banking pucks off bobbys head and how much he loves it flashback to that day in october of 23 where bobby was doing that for practise and managed to rope in matthew to the shenanigans to the utter confusion of everyone involved (x)(x)(x)(x)
"They were never really that close pre-death" "Dick was mean to Jason before warming up" etc etc are the worst Dick&Jason takes possible. Why would you even say that about them
no youre completely right - im a gay (trans)man and i legit wanna see so much more about the women bc There Is So Little. I wanna make a lesbian oc who gets bent in half by taash. im very normal.
i’m just tired man!!!! it feels so obvious how disproportionate it is when you’ve got. a cast of characters that we know almost equally little about. and a few of them explode in popularity and it’s like spongebob sticking his hand out the curtain. literally all a character needs to do numbers is to be a light-skinned man
My bet on if they cave and add nettles to the show, is that they wont have her pop up behind a rock and suddenly exist and already have claimed sheepstealer, but instead theyll do something insane and stupid and have her claim the cannibal or some shit instead