#listen to me. it's never too late to get the teenage boyhood you never had.

[liusaidh-writing]

Call it True - Chapter 3

[Prefer AO3?]

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2]

Here is Chapter 3! I am sorry it’s so late. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy. Chapter Four is on its way soon, too!

*****************************

Claire and Jamie exchanged texts and phone calls in the following days and nights. Unable to connect in person, they did what they could to remain close. Claire's night shifts ended after a week, and she was relieved to be back in the world of daylight once again. She also hoped this meant she and Jamie could get together again. And soon. 

I'm free! Well, until my time rolls around again, anyway. Next two days off, and not a single thing planned!

She hit send with a grin and imagined what she and Jamie might do on her time off. Go to dinner? Watch a movie, preferably curled up on a couch. What movies did he like? She started compiling a list of possible options while she rode along in Lesley's car after her final night shift had ended in the early morning hours. They’d picked up a grumbly Harry at the sitters before heading to Claire’s flat.

Lesley, in the driver's seat, reached back to grab Harry's snack cup before it was flung to the floor by a frustrated toddler.  The car swerved slightly as she turned back in her seat, causing Claire to gasp before Lesley set it right again. 

Lesley thrust the snack cup at Claire, snapping, "Did you not hear me? I was asking you to grab it from him! Where's your mind been these last few days, anyway?" 

Claire grasped the cup in her hands, dropping the phone in her lap. "Sorry! I just...didn't hear you! I’d rather the snack cup take the hit next time instead of us!" 

"You're sitting right next to me, and unless you've gone deaf in the last ten minutes, you're just not paying attention," Lesley said in a sing-songy voice, ignoring Claire’s comment regarding her driving, but making an obvious effort to keep her tone light. She sighed, flipping the wipers on to clear the windshield of mist. It was annoyingly rainy, only a mere drizzle, but oddly cold for a spring morning. "Feels like winter outside, does it not," she remarked, attempting to change the subject.  

"Yep...pretty cold." 

Claire's mind wandered back to Jamie in the sweater he'd worn on their date. It had looked so cozy, and Claire wondered how it would feel on her. She blinked rapidly, forcing herself back to the present.

"So, you had been telling me earlier about...custody?" 

Lesley sighed, grudgingly answering Claire's question. 

"Yes...I told you everything, but you were off in lala land half the time. Not surprised you don't remember. If you're here with me now, I'll tell you again."

"Yes, please, I'm really listening." Claire shoved her phone between her leg and the seat, hoping that having it out of sight would help her stay focused on what her friend was saying. 

"Well, Frank has decided he wants full custody of Harry. Make me some kind of weekend Mum." Lesley gritted her teeth thinking about the very idea of it. "Like he's capable of taking him on full time," she said, gesturing at Harry in the back, who'd fallen asleep. “He wouldn’t last an hour before he was calling me, begging for help.”

"He doesn't have grounds, surely! He can't just...make stuff up!" Claire was indignant, knowing how great of a mother Lesley was, and how perfectly lousy Frank was at everything from keeping Harry fed when he had him to keeping promises to Lesley about drop off times. 

Lesley shook her head and rested her left elbow on the car door as they sat at a stoplight. "It's absolutely insane. He thinks because he makes more money that he should have Harry. That my schedule at the hospital isn't 'suitable for a toddler.’  He's just making sure I waste my money on legal fees fighting him instead of spending it on taking care of Harry so I'll look bad," she finished, glancing at Claire with an incredulous expression. 

"Well, you know I'll do anything to help, Lesley!" 

They had reached Claire's building, and as Claire got out she reached back and lightly ruffled Harry's hair, giving Lesley a smile and thanked her for the ride. She grabbed her things and headed to her door, feeling her phone signal that she had a text message as she walked. She quickly unlocked her door, slung them to the floor and hungrily unlocked her phone to see a message from Jamie waiting to be read.

Good to hear, Sassenach. I suppose you’ll need to go home and sleep. How about I come by later this evening? 

Claire quickly sent a reply and beamed at...well, no-one. She locked her door and dreamily waltzed to the shower, eager to strip off her scrubs and wash the night away.

“Jamie and I are hanging out tonight!” she squealed, raising her arms in victory over her head. She gave a little twirl as she moved past her bedroom. Taking off her top, she flung it on her bed. Claire felt like a teenager - she was sure her cheeks were pink and her mind raced with all the possibilities of the evening. She nearly replied to Jamie that she didn’t need to sleep, but...that wasn’t true. She was dead on her feet and her shift last night had been especially brutal with several stressful patients. She sighed,  realizing she deeply regretted not having made the effort to really meet Jamie earlier. Why had she wasted so much time? Now that they were friendly, she couldn’t seem to get him out of her mind.  Lesley hadn’t been wrong when she’d said Claire had been in la-la land. She reminded herself to thank Lesley for saving her ass more than once at work in the past week. If it wasn’t Jamie’s calls or texts, it was her own imagination getting her in trouble. Over the phone, Jamie had told her all about his family, his nieces and nephews and sister. He had a best friend named Ian, who happened to be his brother-in-law. And a father he clearly cared a lot about. Claire had never known that sort of reality, growing up as she had. She revelled in Jamie’s stories of his boyhood, clinging to bits of him that he unknowingly exposed.

For instance, Claire was sure that Jamie was secretly in love with his father’s farm, though he had claimed he didn’t care to run things when the time came, that he’d gotten his flat in the city to escape that reality. He talked of it with such pride, and Claire wondered why he didn’t live there full time, as much as he was there. It held fond memories of his mother, and it was his connection to his extended family, and she knew family meant a lot to him. 

She couldn’t exactly relate - though she had loved her uncle a great deal - but it was almost surreal hearing about hectic holidays or birthday celebrations Jamie got to experience growing up. Claire was rather envious at times.  Her holidays usually involved Uncle Lamb flat-out forgetting them, and though he always remembered her birthday, he wasn’t the greatest at remembering to mark the date in any meaningful way other than a sweet ‘Happy Birthday, darling,’ and a pat on the cheek.  She quickly made a mental note to ask Jamie about his birthday sometime. 

Pulling back the shower curtain, she sighed as the steamy hot water washed away the night at the hospital; it succeeded in making her drowsy enough to fall quickly asleep. 

---

Claire woke to a rather loud knock at her door. She rolled out of bed, hair all akimbo, eyes squinting as she opened her room darkening curtains. Padding towards the door, she quickly wrapped herself in the throw from the couch before turning the knob. There stood Jamie, a slight smile on his face that immediately fell when he caught sight of her. 

"Oh God--" 

"I'm sorry--" 

They both spoke at the same time, Claire wrapping the blanket more securely around her shoulders.  She had shorts and a small tee-shirt on, but no bra.  She began to speak again, wondering if she looked as horrible as she feared. Jamie grimaced and took a breath. 

"I am so sorry, I didn't wake you did I?" 

"Oh, no. It's fine, really! I must look frightening..." Claire carefully took one arm out of her wrap and tried to smooth her hair in an attempt to calm her curls. 

 "NO! You look...stunning!"  His eyes were wide, as though he’d seen a ghost.

 "Oh, God no.  Would you like to...?" 

She gestured him inside, and quickly caught that he was holding a few things in his hands.  A wad of blankets and a small thermal lunch bag were clutched in his arms as he shuffled inside. 

"Let me just...go change. Have a seat, will you?" She moved towards her bedroom as she watched Jamie sit on her sofa, placing his things on the cushion beside him. 

She closed her bedroom door, tossed the throw on her bed and leaned heavily against the door, her head making a distinct thumping sound as it hit. "Ow..." she muttered.  "Hope he didn't hear that..." 

She was jittery and her mouth was dry. He had that effect on her - one she couldn't put into words.  Her stomach was consumed by a swarm of butterflies as she got dressed, brushing her teeth and washing her face. She raised her arms over her head checking her armpits for odor, and swiped on some deodorant, finishing with a quick spray of her favorite perfume with a flourish. She didn’t dare go back out there smelling like a hospital. She wasn’t entirely trusting of the shower she’d taken.

Taking a few deep, but not-so-calming breaths, she went back out to her living room, where Jamie waited patiently, thumbing through a magazine on her coffee table. 

“I’m all for color in a room, but this shade of green makes me think of vomit.” Jamie was pointing at a photo of a painted room in some home decor article, curling his lip up in disgust at said shade of green.

He smiled at Claire, dropping the magazine and taking her in slowly, his eyes large and bright. 

Claire looked down at her outfit - Jeans and a warm, deep red top. She’d been told it ‘brought out her eyes’, whatever the hell that meant, so she figured it was a good choice. She smoothed her shirt down and gestured at the magazine.

“Well, we don’t have to worry about that - I asked if I could paint when I moved in and was told no. Can’t wait to be able to live somewhere without blank white walls.” She waved haphazardly around the room, devoid of artwork, save for several of her own photos from various trips, and a few of Uncle Lamb, of course.

“It’s good to see you again, Claire.” Jamie stood up, moving towards her with his hand out. She wasn’t sure what he was going for, so she moved with him, meeting him in the middle. He clasped her hand in his, and they both paused for a moment, Claire watching his eyes dance as he gazed at her. He gave a small smile with one corner of his mouth, and quickly kissed her cheek. 

“It’s good to see you again, too,” Claire sighed, her breath coming out in spurts. She felt him relinquish her hand, and she glanced at it, half expecting it to be bright red the way it radiated his lingering warmth. He stepped back just a bit, and gestured to the items he’d brought with him.

“It’s a little wet outside, but there’s a free concert at the park. Would you like to come? If you don’t want to sit on the ground, I have chairs.” He raked a hand through his hair and tapped the fingers of his right hand against his thigh. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her.

Jamie’s voice was shaky with nerves, and Claire quickly tried to put him at ease.

“I don’t mind the ground!” She figured Jamie could offer her spikes to sit on and she’d accept them if that meant he’d be there, too. “Let’s go, it’ll be fun!” 

Jamie nodded, picking up the blanket and lunch bag. “Brought some goodies for us to snack on, too.” 

“Oh, good. I’m starving! Haven’t eaten all day!” 

Claire grabbed her purse as they walked to the door together, slinging it over her shoulder and grabbing her keys from the counter. She didn’t know what kind of music would be playing at this concert, but she didn’t care in the slightest. She was also rather eager to find out what was in that lunch bag. Her stomach gurgled, and she made a face as Jamie hid a smile.

He took her hand again, pulling her toward the door and out into the damp night. It was about 7 in the evening, and though the days were getting longer, the rain clouds obscured any remaining sunlight. 

-----

Having picked the driest bit of ground he could, Jamie spread out one warm wool blanket, gesturing for Claire to take a seat while he unfolded the other one. It was as large as the one they sat on, and doubly thick. Claire shivered slightly as she watched him swirl the blanket around her shoulders. He sat down next to her - quite closely, so she could feel the heat coming off him, and he wrapped the other half of the blanket around his own shoulders, meeting the two ends in the middle between them. It was cozy, and the band had just started. She looked around, wishing they weren’t surrounded by other people at the moment. Claire looked at Jamie - who had been casually checking out the band. He glanced at her, then reached for the lunch bag.

“What do you have for us?” Claire’s stomach growled again, and Jamie chuckled as he unzipped the bag while Claire held the blanket in place. 

“Erm...not much. Some crackers, cheese, grapes. A small bag of chips, if you’re in the mood for junk food?” He held the chips out to her and she hungrily ripped it open, popping one in her mouth with a satisfied grin. 

“Mmmm...so good. I’ve not had anything to eat since about 6 this morning. I forgot to eat when I got home from work.” Because you texted me, she added in her head, and I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep quickly so I could see you. 

Jamie went for a few grapes, munching them as he watched her devour the chips. She offered him one, holding it up to his mouth. 

“Have one!” she exclaimed, wiggling it in front of him.

He went for it, and she quickly pulled it away. She laughed as he pursed his lips in mock irritation. “Give me that,” he said, pulling her hand towards his mouth again, taking the chip between his teeth. His lips slightly brushed Claire’s finger tips, and a shiver traveled through her body as they laughed together. 

Their bodies were touching entirely now, from shoulder to toes, and Claire didn’t want to be anywhere else. She leaned against him, and he let her put her weight against his chest as he held the blanket with his left hand. His right arm wrapped around her waist. Claire felt flush, slightly feverish, silently basking in his glow. The rain was cold, the ground was colder, but she wouldn’t have known it with Jamie securely keeping them both comfortably warm.  

The band played on, the bass pulsing through her. She didn’t know the songs, but nodded her head with the beat periodically. For all the sound, though, her mind was somewhere else entirely. She wanted nothing more than to turn around, place her lips on his, and fall into him. She glanced at the people around her again, most of them chit-chatting, drinking, or eating. She felt him squirm slightly, and glanced back at him as best she could in her position. She felt his arm leave her side, make its way up her arm to her shoulder, and then into her hair. He played with her curls as he stretched one long leg out in front of them, where his boot got wet with rain. Claire’s hands were in her lap - she was entirely unsure what she should do with them, so she clutched her middle as the swarm of butterflies (more like angry hornets, if she was honest with herself) engulfed her middle. Her eyes fluttered closed as Jamie continued twirling her curls around his finger.

“Hey, Sassenach, are you thirsty? I could go get us some drinks at the food cart?” Jamie gestured with his head, back behind them where beer and soda was sold at an exorbitant price. 

Claire turned slightly and looked at him, his brows raised in question.

She took a breath, swallowing all her fear and uncertainty. The hornets in her stomach faded to a dull ache as she turned some more, raising her hands to his face.  She’d caught him off guard, and as her lips enveloped his own, he was still for a split second before deepening the kiss with his hand still in her hair, clutching her curls now, tugging slightly. Claire breathed in deeply, the noises of the band and people around them fading into oblivion, a fuzzy mirage at the corner of her vision as she closed her eyes, unwilling to break their connection. His tongue danced with hers briefly before he pulled away. Claire, with her eyes still closed, felt him rubbing her cheek with his thumb. 

“Oi, if we wanted to see that, we’d have gone to see a movie!” 

Claire’s eyes snapped open, her head whirling around to her right searching for the person that matched the voice. A young teenage boy smirked in their direction, sniggering a bit as she eyed him. He held a full pint of beer in one hand, and cocked his head, daring her to say something in return.

“He’ll break up with ya tomorrow,” the boy said, laughing with his mates, one of them slapping him on the shoulder in congratulations for his stupendous observation. Claire’s brow knit in confusion.

“Why don’t you-” she was cut off by Jamie, who stood up quickly, pulling the blanket that was around them up into a ball. He put it down, and stretched his arms over his head, making himself appear even larger. The kid with the beer blanched, spilling a bit in his lap as he involuntarily jerked away at Jamie’s stone cold glare. 

“Come on, Sassenach. Let’s go…” He gathered up the lunch bag, and offered her his hand. She took it, letting him pull her up. She was shivering now, his warmth having left her. She moved so he could pick up the other blanket, and they slowly picked their way through the crowd. 

Claire was surprised to feel her chin trembling a bit. Was she going to...cry? God, not now, she thought. How silly. It had just been a kid trying to stir up trouble for a laugh. It wasn’t funny, though, Claire thought angrily. It made her feel ashamed, but for what? She’d simply kissed Jamie. She held her breath for a moment, as she wondered if Jamie had minded that she’d done that - in the middle of the park, surrounded by people. She let her breath out again as she felt him grab her elbow and tug her closer. Perhaps he hadn’t minded afterall. He wasn’t making excuses to leave, anyway, she thought with some relief. 

She felt Jamie put her hand through the crook of his elbow as he guided her back towards their building. She still shivered, and Jamie pulled her in, their shoes meeting the pavement in unison. 

“Don’t worry about him, Sassenach.” 

Claire looked up when he spoke, gave a small smile, and leaned her head against his shoulder. 

“It’s ok…” she mumbled, wondering what the rest of the night would hold. She’d be up all night now, and didn’t particularly want her time with Jamie to come to an end. 

“How about we get that full meal in you? You must still be hungry,” Jamie offered. “Let me drop these things by my flat and we’ll go, yeah?” 

Claire nodded. “Sounds good, Jamie.” 

[lightsandlostbells]

wtFOCK season 3, episode 4 reaction

Kiss kiss fall in love? More like kiss kiss stay away from me.

I have to warn you. This is the episode where I lost it. I had to go back and edit so much unhappy capslock out of my notes. 

Episode 4

Clip 1 - Het drama again

Zoë shows Milan a video of the shooting prank. Milan asks about romance on the trip, Robbe says there were too many people and too little privacy.

Senne and Zoë have tension because Zoë is pissed that Senne was partying? And that he was posting pictures of parties on IG when she wasn’t there? I mean … look, I’m never a William fan, but this seems like Zoë’s problem. If you can’t trust him to behave when you’re gone, you SHOULDN’T BE WITH HIM. And if you feel like you can trust him, this dude going to bars or whatever shouldn’t bother you. At least it seems to be portrayed as Zoë’s issues. Milan mentions that she’s jealous. He seems to like Senne, and I do find that dynamic cute so far.

I do appreciate that the Noorhelm drama this time is boring and not like “Senne was mad about how Zoë handled her sexual assault” levels of offensive.

That being said ... Robbe’s story. Where.

If you’ve been telling a very tight story so far, where Robbe’s personal journey has been steadily progressing clip by clip, then a clip like this wouldn’t be that bad. We absolutely have not been watching a tight story. Even with the next clip of Robbe doing some introspection, I’m like ... can we not make every scene count toward his story when there’s so much catching up to do? Ten seconds of Robbe looking vaguely troubled out of a two-minute clip that’s mainly about Zoë and Senne’s relationship does not count. A better writer would find some way to make Zoë/Senne parallel to Robbe/Sander, like how Noora talking about William and “if he loves you, he’ll choose you” in the first clip of episode 4 is relevant to Isak sitting there texting Even and Even choosing his plans with Sonja over Isak.

Clip 2 - Milan and Robbe talk gaydar

Robbe checking out Sander on Britt’s IG … finally, some cyberstalking. Did he take a screenshot of a pic of Sander? Lol.

Milan sits down and asks Robbe his opinion of a guy on Grindr, sexy or not? Robbe is lukewarm, giving neutral answers, Milan says he’s allowed to have an opinion on whether a guy is hot or not.

It feels SO WEIRD to have this clip so late, and I’m trying to like … recalibrate my brain so it’s not just because it’s later than usual. I don’t inherently hate if a remake changes up the order of clips. But the problem is that we’re now FOUR episodes in and it feels like Robbe’s sexuality crisis has just begun, I guess? Or rather, efficient storytelling would start out with this clear view of what Robbe’s issues are, rather than muddling into it a few episodes in.

Milan’s all, this guy says he’s not gay, but he likes to blow guys. This turns into a conversation about Milan’s gaydar and how to know if a guy is gay. In the original scene, the purpose of this conversation with Isak and Eskild was there as a way of Isak figuring out if Even was gay. That ... does not really fit this version, because this clip is so late in the season. Isak was getting Eskild’s wisdom right after meeting Even, when he had nothing but a BJ reference to go on. But Sander eyefucking Robbe while kissing Britt and leaning in to kiss Robbe should be pretty big clues to Robbe that Sander likes men, no? And that he likes Robbe specifically. Yeah, Robbe might be doubtful because Sander is still with Britt, but nothing new has happened since the almost kiss to make Robbe doubt! It would make way more sense if they’d adapted the opening clip of OG season 4, with Even texting Isak that he had plans with Sonja, into the clip prior to this one. If Robbe had texted Sander an invitation to hang out, or even just a “hey, what’s up?” and Sander wrote back “plans with Britt” then it would be an understandable transition for Robbe to have some doubt about Sander’s sexuality in this clip, like hey, maybe he’s not actually into me, after all.

The scene might make sense if you think about Robbe listening and applying Milan’s words to himself. Thinking about how there’s “something trapped in them that desperately wants to come out.” Wondering if it’s obvious to other people that Robbe is gay. It still doesn’t quite work and I actually doubt that was their intention (I think it was all about how to detect if Sander is into guys) but I am searching for any scraps of Robbe introspection, so.

OK, at least they had Robbe immediately look up Grindr (I laughed that he searched “grinder”). Good! Sexuality conflict! Why is it so late! Although it was probably more about trying to find Sander rather than a personal move on Robbe’s part.

This is a very gay song, btw (I Like Boys by Todrick Hall). 

Clip 3 - Robbe and Yasmina talk het drama

Aaron talks to Robbe about sitting close to his teacher to see her boobs and the teacher saying she knows why he’s sitting there. I highly suspect this is just a dream Aaron had, unless the teacher said it in a pissed off way. Throw his ass in the back row, big-breasted teacher!

Robbe meets up with Yasmina. Yasmina wants to know the dirt from the seaside, Robbe fills her in. Soooo are they good friends, or what? He tells her about Aaron and Amber and they laugh and stuff. I mean it’s cute and all but like … where is this coming from? Did they become great friends in the S2 that I didn’t watch?

And that’s the whole clip … again, I ask what was the point? 

To establish that Robbe and Yasmina are friends? Way to undermine the development and importance of that relationship by basically cutting through the buildup and hard work to the payoff. Sana and Isak meant more to people BECAUSE they started off prickly and grew to like each other and respect each other via their actions and words, right? That their conversations were more interesting because of their opposing views and resulting friction? That the friction was extremely relevant to the religion discussion?

Was the point to talk about Aaron/Amber and how Amber supposedly isn’t interested? We don’t need Yasmina’s commentary on that at all since we could see how Amber herself reacted to Aaron. Like if Yasmina was all, yeah, Amber couldn’t stop talking about Aaron, she says she doesn’t like him but I think she does, then I guess I could see the relevance of this conversation since it’s “new” information ... but it’s just the same shit we already know. And again: why spend so much time on a SIDE HET ROMANCE during a gay character’s season? Two of out three clips in this episode so far have been about side het romances!

This clip was just not needed at all except to set up Robbe and Yasmina so the impending religion conversation feels mildly less like two characters who have barely spoken on screen suddenly have an intense and somewhat personal talk. Something they could have done in earlier episodes instead of the other repetitive, unnecessary clips they’ve done this season. 

Clip 4 - Dance chicks

At Noor’s dance performance, Robbe’s pals are drooling over the performers (and honestly being rather inappropriate and distracting). At least they got Robbe’s lack of interest right. Even though they have established this FIFTEEN THOUSAND TIMES with the lack of interest in Noor, like this clip almost doesn’t feel necessary at this point! If they’d had it earlier in the season, sure, but now it feels redundant. Like we really super mega get it by now that Robbe’s not into the girls.

The instructor thanks the performers at the end and Robbe says that he was “so gay.” Hey, except you know what? THERE IS NO BUILDUP TO THIS MOMENT. ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NONE. Except for the homophobic jokes from his friends in the previous seasons, but there’s nothing I can recall in this season.  But more importantly, Isak’s similar comment was prompted by him taking the gay test in a preceding clip. Taking a quiz about generalizations of gay people, rooted in homophobia! Which Isak applies to the dance teacher! In order to distance himself from being gay! WE GOT NONE OF THAT HERE. For fuck’s sake.

There is no setup or reason why Robbe goes from being somewhat neutral about gay people with Milan asking him about the Grindr dude two clips ago - where Robbe is just kinda like, yeah OK, whatever, you think everyone’s gay, Milan (but he’s not overly grossed out or homophobic) - to this moment where he’s making a derogatory comment about a person he perceives as flamboyantly gay. This scene just happens because it did in OG. And the thing is, obviously you can attribute Robbe’s reasoning here to internalized homophobia. We know internalized homophobia exists and why he has it. But this is a scripted narrative, and any scripted narrative needs to have things happen for a reason rather than just because.

I remember complaining that Skam Italia had a bizarre take on this scene. But that’s nothing compared to the laziness on display here.  

Jens is like WTF at Robbe’s “so gay” comment, it’s clear he’s not feeling it. I do like that Robbe gets defensive when Jens scoffs at him. They ask Robbe why he’s such a downer lately and if it’s because of his dad, or because of the Vlogs. Robbe blames the vlogs and yells and walks off, they’re confused.

Lol I just realized that I don’t think there was any followup to the prank from the seaside trip that had Robbe all pissed off. Nothing to show that the boys reconciled or that Robbe didn’t get over it right away.

I have a big problem with the way the boy squad is characterized so far, and it might be because they come across as more self-absorbed than other boy squads, as well as having a more superficial bond. I feel like so far they’re a rather cynical take on teenage boyhood. Again, not expecting them to be perfect or to be overly mature, but this show has to do a lot of work to make me believe they have the empathy or maturity to deal with Robbe’s situation kindly. (EDIT from the future: lol)

Clip 5 - Robbe and Yasmina talk religion

Oh shit, somehow I didn’t connect that dots that Aaron mentioning the teacher’s boobs would lead to THE boob teacher making an appearance! Unless there are multiple teachers with notable breasts at this school.

Another scene of Robbe not interested in breasts ... I mean, not to sound like a broken record, but this would have been good about three episodes ago.

The teacher is talking about religion and Darwininsm and creationism, which prompts Robbe to complain about how people still have religious beliefs in 2019.

Heavy fucking sigh. Have we gotten ANY religious moments from Robbe’s mom this season? Or from anyone else? Do the writers realize that Isak grilling Sana about religion was prompted by his OWN MOTHER’S religious beliefs and his fear of her judgment of his sexuality? No? Not surprised.

For real, Robbe just complains about religion out of nowhere … and like, obviously religious homophobia isn’t a rare thing, it exists. But it has not been established why Robbe in particular cares about the effects of religious homophobia, compared to say, the casual homophobia of his friends, or gay stereotypes, or gay bashing … we don’t know why religious homophobia has PERSONAL relevance in Robbe’s life. And yes, this is a concern for every gay person! But from a STORYTELLING perspective, there should be some focus as to what Robbe’s main fears are about being gay. Lack of acceptance from his peers? His family? Religion? Violence? Homophobic slurs?

I would say based on previous seasons, the most compelling basis for Robbe’s internalized homophobia would be the homophobic attitudes of his friend group. A revised take on the dance chicks scene might have been done with this in mind, but it wasn’t, and so it’s all just very muddled. 

Anyway, Robbe goes on this tangent and asks Yasmina why she believes in God. The teacher voices what I thought and is like, why the fuck are you talking in class?

Again, there is NO BUILDUP to the involvement of religion at all. They have this shoehorned in friendship, I guess so he can ask her. He does bring up homosexuality at least, and how religion is so black and white.

Yasmina asks him what he believes. ONE THING they got right: they had Robbe challenge Yasmina on an intellectual level, and so Yasmina challenges him on an intellectual level right back. Because a lot of their dialogue is lifted right from OG, that’s why it works. LMAOOOO. Yasmina points out that homosexuality is an evolutionary “dead end” so therefore it can’t be genetic, so what is it? A disorder? A choice? I will also give some credit for her invoking the most anxiety-causing options to get under Robbe’s skin.

But the tone of their friendship does come across very different, because in the previous scene they seemed like good chums who had a rapport, and here it’s like Robbe lashed out at her for no reason, even less than Isak did with Sana, because Robbe just decided to torch his friendship with Yasmina out of the blue. I guess the answer is that Robbe is cranky so he decided to grill Yasmina over religion, but again, the fucking question is: why was he cranky? Two clips before this one they were on warm, friendly terms. In the last clip, he lashed out at his male friends, but that has nothing to do with religion. What the writers are asking us to do is basically just imagine all the stuff that’s happening in Robbe’s brain instead of doing their jobs and showing it to us. You don’t have to spoon feed us but you don’t also get to stick a few peas on a plate and wonder why we’re going hungry.

(REALLY. IT WAS NOT PROMPTED BY ANYTHING, NOT A TEXT FROM HIS MOM. WHICH IS WHY ISAK WAS UPSET AND LAUNCHED HIS INTERROGATION AT SANA.)

(CAUSE AND EFFECT, MOTHERFUCKER)

Clip 6 - Bowie playlist

Robbe is doing homework when Sander sends him a Bowie playlist. Robbe listens to Space Oddity and has a brief Moment. It’s very nice but wow, wouldn’t it be even better if Robbe fell for Sander listening to that? Say, in the last episode? Before they almost kissed? And before Robbe was suddenly declaring himself a Bowie expert to Noor?

Sander calls him, I like Robbe fixing his hair before he answers. It’s a video chat, gotta look his best! They have an actual conversation about Bowie and they flirt. Sander invites Robbe to the cafe later and Robbe is happy except then Britt is in the background and apparently she’s going with them, so it’s not a date after all, oh no. Robbe’s actor is good at subtly conveying his disappointment here.

Robbe hangs up and sticks his head against the bed (lol) and then goes back to Grindr. He immediately gets messages for horny sex and then gets rid of Grindr. 

At first I was like, yay, this clip had a clear point and a sense of cause-and-effect, but now I’m like ... ehhhhh. Because the purpose of Robbe checking out Grindr is either A) so he can look for Sander or B) so he can check it out as a general way of exploring his sexuality (or both). The suggestion is that it has a lot to do with the former, because it was part of Milan’s advice as to how to find out if someone’s gay. But it’s a little weird here, because Robbe just saw that Britt was coming along to the cafe, so he should be discouraged about Sander. I mean, I think it’s still possible that he’s trying to figure out if Sander likes him because he’s getting mixed signals between the playlist and Britt, but it’s just a little off. And as for option B, I’m not sure why now of all times is the best time for that, like if you think about it, the sting of getting his hopes dashed should be the predominant emotion here, would he go straight to Grindr just to be like hmmm, maybe I’m into dudes?

And it bugs me because there is a super easy fix to this clip! Just have Sander send the Bowie playlist, Robbe listens to it, and as he’s daydreaming and smiling a bit, he gets out his phone and checks out Grindr, ready to search for Sander. But there are too many sex messages so he’s just like WTF and gets rid of it. Then Sander calls and they have this conversation that ends in Robbe being reminded that Britt is still in the picture. (Or he doesn’t need to get the sexy messages at all, I mean they’re kind of funny but I’m not sure they’re plot-necessary here.) 

Noor texts him that they’ll meet up later. It’s not 100% clear but it sounds like she knew about meeting up with Sander and Britt, so that means Britt probably told her previously. Which is a little bit of different context from OG, because I was under the impression that Even asked Isak to hang out with them hoping that they’d be alone, and then somehow Sonja found out and made it into a group thing with Emma, making Even grumpy. With this it seems like it was planned as a group thing from the beginning, Britt knows they’re meeting up later.

Or wait, when Sander says he’ll give Robbe advice at the cafe later, does that mean Robbe already knows they’re meeting up? That would make sense because it’s what happened in OG (Even invited Isak in an earlier clip and then Isak found out Emma and Sonja were coming in a later one). They’re incorporating all kinds of OG elements in this episode so I wouldn’t be surprised. But I assumed that this was the invite because we didn’t see Sander talk to Robbe earlier this week? Shouldn’t we have seen that clip since it’s the first time they’ve interacted since they almost kissed? I checked the texts for this episode and I don’t see anything like Sander inviting Robbe, either? Did I just miss something? What is going on?

Clip 7 - Robbe is late to meet Noor

Later that day …. Robbe rides a bike. Very fast. The music is dramatic! This would not be out of place for an O Helga Natt scene

And yet it’s not OHN, it’s Noor? Noor seems annoyed. Because Robbe is late. OH NO THE TENSION WHATEVER WILL WE DO. WE CARE A TON ABOUT ROBBE AND NOOR.

Noor is super pissed at him and starts screaming and shoving at him. What the actual fuck? She complains that she thought he was dead or something and is mad he didn’t even send a message. She says fuck you and walks off. Robbe follows her on the bike.

I don’t know how popular this opinion is, but Noor did not come across as great here, like when I watched it I was baffled at her response. I say this as someone who is chronically early and also gets annoyed at lateness. She has every right to be annoyed that Robbe is late and that he didn’t message her to tell her he’d be late, and I get that there’s supposedly more to her reaction than just this one incident. But the screaming and especially the shoving at him is just WTF. 

Also, she told him to meet him at 19:00, and the beginning of the clip is at 19:21 (I see what you did there) and Robbe arrives like a minute or two later. So he’s 20 minutes late, which is certainly annoying, especially because it’s dark and chilly outside, but IMO not a cause for “I thought you were dead or in an accident!” and the OTT reaction. 

Clip 8 - Robbe and Noor fight

Sander and Britt are in the cafe, Robbe and Noor argue outside about him giving her mixed signals. Has ... he ...?

OK, I’d say I half-see her case, and I half-don’t. If Noor can somehow sense Robbe’s disinterest during their makeouts or lovey-dovey moments or w/e, then I can buy that. I think there are slight moments where he doesn’t seem into it. But Robbe has put so much more genuine effort into their relationship than Isak did. He hasn’t even turned Noor down for sex, really, they’ve just gotten interrupted every time, or she’s thrown up. He didn’t want to go to her dance performance except then he told her he would go approximately thirty seconds later. He went to her dance performance. He went to the seaside with her and kissed her and slept in the same bed with her. This is the first time he’s actually fucked up with her.

Noor sounds ridiculous right now. “Do you still love me?” Uhhhh what??? You’ve been dating for less than a month, really? Did he tell her he loved her at any point? I’m serious, is there some material I missed? Some nuance in the language that didn’t completely translate?

I get it, I’m watching insecure overdramatic teenagers! I’m just wondering if I’m supposed to be on Noor’s side here. They could have portrayed this less OTT and more fitting to Robbe’s actual offenses.

Anyway Robbe and Noor have a screaming fight in the street and he says he can’t breathe anymore because of her. I can buy that even if it’s dramatic because he’s feeling trapped by her due to his sexuality. She walks off, Sander and Britt come outside. Britt goes after Noor and hugs her, Sander sings Space Oddity to signify the crash and burn of Robbe/Noor. He has on a Pink Floyd shirt so at least his musical taste is more varied than Bowie.

Clip 9 - Robbe and Sander by themselves

Robbe and Sander drink alone at the bar, they don’t think the girls are coming back. Sander texts Britt and then tells Robbe they’re going to do something else. He shows him Britt’s text saying that Noor needs some time alone. I mean. this drastically changes the context of them going off together … it’s not because they want to be together, necessarily (although they do) but it’s by default now.

So they leave.

Yeah, I do not love what they did with this scene. It’s short and to the point but I want to point out a few things.

First, because again, there’s no need to break up most of these clips into such short, choppy scenes just because 15 or 20 minutes have passed in-universe. It might be exciting if you happen to be watching and following at the exact time these are being posted, but it also messed with the flow of the scenes and the build of emotions. Imagine if we cut off after Isak and Even left Emma and Sonja and then 10 minutes later we got them riding around on a bike. We’d missed that beautiful transition from the silent, empty room to Isak on the bike and then Head Over Heels kicking in. That’s one of my favorite moments in season 3 and it’s because of that transition. It’s because I was sitting there watching this uncomfortable scene and wishing Isak and Even could be alone and then they got to be alone and my stomach swooped! If you break up moments like those, there’s just not as much build. (Or imagine - horror of horrors - an O Helga Natt where Isak gets the text from Even and it cuts off after he runs out of the church and then resumes when he arrives at the school, so we don’t see his journey. You lose so much.)

Second, there is a curious lack of romantic/sexual tension in this scene. It’s there on Sander’s end, I think, or at least you can read it there due to his focus on Robbe and even some of his body language. Robbe, on the other hand, seems more upset that his girlfriend who he doesn’t even feel genuine attraction to has walked out on him rather than the fact that he is sitting next to the boy he’s crushing on, alone together, right before they share their first kiss later that evening. And it just makes me want to know why. 

I don’t blame Robbe’s actor at all, because it’s the director’s job to tell him how to play the scene. But I rewatched this scene trying to be generous, and there is not a single shred of attraction or tension from Robbe toward Sander.  He checks the cafe door when it opens, he asks Sander to text Britt, and when Sander suggests they leave, Robbe’s first instinct is to ask what if Noor comes back. He sits there moping into his beer the whole time. He doesn’t sneak looks at Sander. He doesn’t try to talk to Sander about anything except Noor and Britt. No banter, no discussion that’s focused on them, Robbe-and-Sander, you know, the main couple of this season (supposedly). It doesn’t even feel like he’s consciously trying not to look or interact with Sander because of the romantic tension. No, it genuinely feels like Robbe’s #1 thought right now is Noor. Does that make sense to you? It makes sense for him to be a little out of sorts due to the fight, but does it make sense that Robbe seems to have no perceptible reaction to being alone with the guy he likes? Does it make sense that they didn’t take this chance to throw in some romantic and sexual tension in order to pave the way for the kiss that is going to happen very shortly? Gotta say that I think this scene exemplifies my earlier complaints about how Noor was so prevalent early in the season and how Robbe/Noor was built up. Because once again, Robbe/Noor has taken precedence over the undeveloped Robbe/Sander pairing.

Finally, as I said above, the situation makes it so that Robbe and Sander are on their own by default, not by choice. Combined with the bizarre lack of tension, that makes this scene fall totally flat. There’s no sense that these two really really want to be alone together. There’s no joy in them running off together. Robbe actually seems reluctant to go off with Sander. And not even because he’s fearful of what might happen, ooooo things might get a little gayer than I can handle right now, but like he’d rather sit here and drink and think about his girlfriend. 

It’s like they were concerned that Isak and Even were too mean to Emma and Sonja so they decided Robbe and Sander would only be alone because it was the girls’ decision to leave them, not the other way around. We even get that text from Britt so we know that Noor totes isn’t coming back and it’s OK for them to leave. I have no idea what their actual motivation was to construct the scenario this way, though. I would love to know. (The answer would probably annoy me so I’m better off not knowing.)

It’s little stuff like this that makes me want to sit down the writers/directors/whoever’s behind wtFOCK and have them watch scenes from Skam S3 and write an essay on the construction and execution of clips. Do some homework about timing, tension, narrative structure, and everything else that makes S3 work. 

Clip 10 - Smooch time

It’s 21:21 so you know what’s happening. Also, bullshit! Why is this happening so fast. You haven’t earned this!!!!

Sander buys them booze. The Sander actor is very good, honestly. I like his screen presence. It is a testament to his abilities that this relationship is working for me at all, because it sure ain’t the writing. (Robbe’s actor is doing well, too, but the writing is dragging him down since he’s present for all this nonsense.)

This scene of Sander and Robbe drinking and riding bikes is genuinely good on its own and they have strong chemistry when they’re allowed to show it. They have easy banter and interaction, there’s a callback to the booking.com reference from when they met. Really, this part makes me sad, because I can see the potential here! If the writing was GOOD, if the story had a legit direction, if it was just better storytelling all around … this season could have been wonderful, they had the right guys to do Isak and Even’s story justice. Instead it’s like this one terrific moment in a sea of wtFOCK.

If they go in the pool I will roll my eyes. C’mon, guys, you DO NOT HAVE THE SYMBOLISM to do this scene. It had a meaning in Skam, in most of the remakes it’s just an arbitrary location.

Yep, it’s a pool.

Sander takes off all his clothes so he jumps in bare-assed, and Robbe laughs. Sander yells at Robbe to get in the pool so Robbe does a fucking striptease while Sander watches, more or less, and he’s about to get in the pool in his underwear, but Sander is like “all the way or no way” so Robbe takes off his underwear after a brief moment of hesitation and jumps in. So they’re naked in the pool. Cool cool cool.

 Seeeeee, on the one hand this COULD be a moment of liberation, I could see it, taking off the clothes and jumping in as a representation of abandoning the stale hetero life or w/e. But I don’t think wtFOCK has built anything resembling a clear arc for Robbe, to the point where this act means anything, really. (Can you imagine Isak doing this in episode 4? I don’t know if it fits his character at that point, but I could at least be like, OK, this is part of his ~rebirth and I think we’ve built him up enough that this moment of liberation feels like a culmination of something.) I’m also not totally sold on the way they presented this, like we’ve got a closeted gay kid alone with his crush and the crush takes his all his clothes off and then Robbe takes all his clothes off with only the barest reluctance (but he’s not like … distressed or worried, just kinda like “aw, man!”) For some closeted gay kids? Sure, guess I could see it! But in the context of “this kid is struggling with his sexuality and he’s alone with the boy he likes and he’s supposed to be going through Some Shit”? Why doesn’t this have a bigger reaction in Robbe? Since they are drunk and not necessarily overthinking things in the moment, however, I will let this slide. Cynically I think this is mostly about trying to make wtFOCK Sexxxxy. I’m not a prude and I don’t have an objection in theory to a teenage couple skinny dipping together, but wtFOCK has a trend of taking a thing that happened in OG and going “How can we do this but more?” and these remakes know Evak is the big sell in fandom, so. They’re making it spicier. (EDIT from the future: Jumping ahead to later content on wtFOCK ... they very much are trying to make it Sexxxxy.)

Also, these guys just haven’t had a lot of buildup yet! And I can see like … rewriting this scene so the first kiss isn’t necessarily some epic release of a simmering tension and growing love, but more of a tentative, pivotal moment with a gay kid kissing a boy for the first time, and having the relationship grow from there. But wtFOCK isn’t doing that, it’s trying to do the Evak thing with the epic romance, and they haven’t earned it.

They go underwater for the breath-holding contest, Sander tries to kiss Robbe (Robbe’s eyes are pointedly closed so this feels like some unnecessary POV breakage) and Robbe shoves him back. He’s still in a good mood, though. They go back underwater and Robbe kisses Sander. Yay, I guess.

Lol, I don’t actually want to sound like a bitter asshole. The song choice is lovely! The cinematography is pretty good! And like I said, they have nice chemistry. It’s just that the storytelling has been so messy up to this point that I can’t get too invested. The very first clip I saw in real time for Skam season 3 was the pool scene - I had just discovered the show a few days prior, and I kept watching the clips on repeat. I could not get enough of this story. I really really needed those guys to kiss. Yeah, I recognize that at the time the story was brand new and this wasn’t the fourth iteration of the same pool scene and the sixth first kiss for this couple, and you really can’t recreate that feeling of not knowing what comes next in a remake like this. Still, I think that if the writing had just been better, I could have been happy and invested in this moment.

I also think that the pool scene in particularly has a tendency to get written in kind of a rote way in the remakes. Some of them have put their own spin on it - I had plenty of criticisms of Skam France’s S3 but I did enjoy their first kiss and I praised that they made up their own symbolism - but some of them have gotten so close to the original, the exact same banter, the interruption at the end, and it doesn’t feel natural for those versions of the characters. I’m not sure if the remake showrunners think that the original scene is something the fans want to see or if they’re being lazy or if they think the OG is just that good (which it is, lol). I don’t think any remake has been that faithful with their O Helga Natt clips, by comparison. 

Anyway they get caught, yadda yadda.

Clip 11 - Morning after the pool smooch

Robbe gets up and sees Zoë looking at Senne, seemingly hungover, on the couch. She makes coffee to spite him since the coffeemaker is loud.

Zoë asks Robbe about last night and says Noor was at the door. Robbe doesn’t tell her what really happened. Apparently Noor looked like she felt bad. I don’t think I can handle more Robbe/Noor, guys. I appreciate that OG didn’t drag out Isak’s thing with Emma once he kissed Even, but I’m not confident this won’t happen here.

Zoë asks if he’s all right. Man, the most effective relationship this season is probably Zoë and Robbe? Which is fine! But like … boy squad ain’t great, Sander and Robbe aren’t well developed, they fucked up Yasmina and Robbe already, Milan and Robbe are way behind schedule…

What if the reveal were that Sander were in Robbe’s bed?

It’s not. Instead, Sander texts him as a cover of Space Oddity plays. Robbe has angst and blocks Sander on WhatsApp. Ohhhh my. Another thing I appreciated about OG? That Isak was all in after he kissed Even, and that the angst came from different places besides the typical gay coming out storyline of “kissed a boy, regretted it, went back in the closet temporarily.” Not that it’s unrealistic, just that it’s done so much.

I think we’re supposed to take away that Zoë saying Noor was there looking sad made Robbe reconsider what happened with Sander? Or just general internalized homophobia. I don’t think the latter is totally out of Robbe’s characterization based on what we’ve seen so far, although I wish there was clearer writing so it felt more like “Robbe has internalized homophobia that made him block Sander” and less like “????? internalized homophobia I guess.” Again, I’ll letting this slide because I can also rationalize it as him being a little drunk last night, and now that he’s sober he regrets his choice, even if I don’t think this is a great choice at this stage in the season.

Clip 12 - The heaviest of sighs

The subs helpfully gave a trigger warning for homophobic slurs so I knew this was going to be “good.”

Robbe is listening to music as he goes home. Sander comes up to him, smiling, wanting to know why Robbe blocked him. Robbe says to leave him alone, that Sander got him drunk and took advantage of him.

L M A O welp, this would soooo kill this ship for me if I were invested.

FIND SOMEONE ELSE, SANDER, YOU DESERVE BETTER

Oh, so Robbe also shoved him and called him a dirty f****t! What a great romance!

No, really - this is the EXACT THING I was so glad that Evak DID NOT DO. I’m not saying their romance has to be free of flaws, that there can never be fuckups, that Isak can’t ever hurt Even and vice versa. But this is such a common and ugly trope in gay media. 

Robbe goes inside and slams his door, Milan asks what’s wrong, Robbe tells him to leave him alone. We get Milan’s POV and not Robbe’s at the end. 

Anyway lmao. wtFOCK indeed.

Did you enjoy the cuddle scene in Skam, where a same-sex couple got to be tender and sweet and open with each other for almost seven minutes? A clip that felt refreshing and even revolutionary for its normalization of gay intimacy? Hahahaha, fuck you.

Okay, seriously though. It’s not a problem that we didn’t have the cuddle scene immediately after the pool scene. It’s not a problem that they want to change up this storyline and make it their own - though again I would ask the creative powers at wtFOCK why they’re making these particular choices. It’s not a problem if Robbe and Sander’s relationship has some extra bumps along the way to their happy ending.

WHAT EVEN PROMPTED THIS CHANGE IN ROBBE, like I get the answer is “internalized homophobia” but Robbe was BUCK NAKED WITH SANDER IN THE POOL so like. Can we please get SOME context for why he suddenly had a freakout? Can we please get some narrative structure with cause and effect? Can we get a fucking reason that Robbe went from 0 to 100? Because if it was just the blocking Sander on WhatsApp, that’s one thing, but accusing him of sexual assault and calling him slurs is so vastly beyond that. If we’re supposed to take away that Robbe feels bad about Noor, that still doesn’t explain the ugliness of his reaction, rather than just telling Sander that he has a girlfriend and it was a mistake or whatever.

I’m going to add that I understand that Robbe went through some additional homophobic shit from his friends in previous seasons - I remember Moyo saying crappy things to him in S1, and I watched a S2 scene where the same thing happens. So I can understand if  Robbe’s internalized homophobia is very strong. But they’ve also cut out so much stuff in this season that added to Isak’s internalized homophobia (no mom’s religion making him anxious, no gay test, no gay generalizations from Emma...) If they want to rely on internalized homophobia from previous seasons, then we really need a reminder in this season, such as his friends making homophobic jokes, which I do not recall hearing so far. And they need to show what happened between the kiss to provoke such a homophobic reaction.

After Sander said that thing about not knowing if anyone would ever love him … why did they do this? I love me some pain in storytelling but this isn’t just angst, this is needlessly cruel.

There is, believe it or not, a middle ground between “conflictless fluff” and “cruel homophobia and assault allegations” where you can have some tension, even have Robbe have a freakout, without bringing in this kind of material. Robbe could have told Sander to stay away without accusing him of assault or calling him slurs. He could have said he wasn’t gay or that it was a mistake or even “I was drunk” without following it up with “and you took advantage of me.” All of these options might have stung for Sander and for any viewers who were hoping for morning-after cuddles, but they also create conflict without pushing it over the edge into OTT cruelty. 

HOW I WOULD REWRITE THIS EPISODE:

Ahahahaha

So far this season is like a disconnected set of scenes from Skam S3 with bonus filler scenes and unnecessary clips about non-Robbe things. It’s getting hard to think about rewrites because the point, if you will, so often so unclear. It’s also hard because this episode squeezed in so many OG scenes that were missing from earlier in the season that it’s like, well, shouldn’t we have had this a few episodes ago? Should we just leave them out now?

Okay. Start by getting rid of the first clip in this episode that’s mostly about Zoë/Senne, bump up the Milan clip. We start with Robbe looking at pics of Sander on IG, Milan comes in and asks if there was any romance on the trip, then they get into the Grindr talk, etc. The Grindr talk makes more sense before Robbe almost kisses Sander, but like. We can’t do anything about that now. What might be better is if the whole “how do you know if a guy is gay?” thing takes a swerve into not just Robbe trying to figure out Sander, but to something uncomfortably close to Robbe’s own behavior (like IDK, referencing body language and how a guy will lean in closer, like Robbe did with Sander) and then Robbe gets cranky because he’s worried he’s too obviously gay to other people. After Milan leaves, he starts looking up stuff like “how to act straight” or “how not to seem gay” or whatever. That leads us into the next clip...

... the dance chicks scene. Now we’ve seen plenty of Robbe being disinterested in girls already, so this time we’re going to show him trying to be interested in girls instead. Like he’s watching his friends’ annoying horny reactions and he’s clearly trying to imitate them and join in, but we can see that he’s awkward and not totally feeling it. But he’s trying. Then after the performance, Robbe makes the comment about the dance instructor being so gay.

There is a problem, IMO, in that Robbe’s friend group has been shown to be more homophobic than the average boy squad (as seen in S1 and S2). And frankly I don’t really believe yet Jens is the type to shut down a homophobic comment. Like in S2 Moyo and Robbe straight up start calling each other f*gs and Jens is like chill, no one here is a f*g, but if there were, you should date each other. That’s his idea of intervention. So I’m not sure how to handle that. 

I don’t love this idea, because I hate what they’re done with Moyo in particular, making him pointedly more homophobic (to be discussed in a future reaction) but Moyo and Aaron could perhaps laugh at Robbe’s comment and start riffing off it, while Robbe is sitting there pretending to laugh but looking increasingly uncomfortable, and Jens notices something is off with Robbe, and he tells the guys to knock it off, the guy is gay, so what? Big deal. Then aside from the other guys, he asks Robbe if something is wrong, and Robbe snaps at him or attributes it to family problems again. 

I was going to also say that the setting for this clip doesn’t really allow for Sander to swoop in, like Even did to return the snapback, but actually maybe it could? Noor could have invited Britt and Sander to watch the show, right? So maybe when Robbe makes this gay joke and his friends are laughing, Sander comes up while Britt is talking to Noor and is like, hey guys, what’s up? Robbe’s friends are just like, oh nothing, did you see how gay that guy was? Then Sander is like, sorry, what’s the problem with being gay? He tells them off a little. Meanwhile Robbe is standing there awkward as fuck, not looking Sander in the eyes, while Sander is looking at him for backup, but Robbe just makes an excuse to bolt. Maybe he walks past Noor without saying anything, so she looks confused.

Now onto Robbe and Yasmina. Man, I truly hate saying this. But: If you are not going to incorporate other religious themes into this season, then you don’t need to redo the Isak-Sana friendship. Again! I don’t like suggesting this! But what actually is Robbe and Yasmina’s relationship bringing to this season when it’s portrayed like this? 

They left out the weed blackmail, which is really just a plot device in OG, but it’s a plot device that sets up Sana and Isak’s thread. It also gets Isak to kosegruppa to meet Even, something which is irrelevant here.

Sana’s main tie to S3 is Isak’s mom. Isak’s mom is religious, that makes him anxious, and it’s a hurdle to coming out to her. Robbe’s mom is not religious, Robbe’s internalized homophobia doesn’t seem to have anything to do with religion specifically other than this one scene with him and Yasmina. It’s just a disconnected tangent. What’s more, what is Yasmina’s eventual advice going to do for him? Sana’s advice led Isak to come out to his mom.

I really like Yasmina. If there’s another way that her presence is relevant to the themes of this season, by all means let’s find it and include her. As it is, either make it that Robbe’s mom is religious and include the Robbe-Yasmina subplot, or don’t and leave it out. 

I would love to see in-depth and meaningful friendships develop among all the characters in the Skam squads, just because I love all those kids. Jonas and Vilde? Even and girl Chris? Eva and Mahdi? I don’t care how random, let’s have them all! But there is a finite amount of time per season, and we can’t extend time for all possible relationships - just the ones that are most relevant to the story we are trying to tell. 

I mentioned above a fix for the Bowie playlist clip that makes it have a little more sense to me. If you include Sander in the dance chicks clip like I said, you could have Robbe thinking about Sander again and wondering if he’s into men since he called out the boys’ homophobia. That’s how he ends up on Grindr. Then Sander sends him the Bowie playlist, Robbe listens, Sander calls and they talk, Robbe apologizes for bolting out of there the other day. Sander invites him to the cafe later, Robbe’s all :D until he realizes Britt is there and is coming too, then he’s :(

He’s late to meet Noor and Noor is upset, but not like ... screaming and shoving at him. She’s more snippy and passive-aggressive, she walks off. She says she’s upset because he ditched the dance performance without talking to her, and then he’s late to meet her, it seems like he just doesn’t care that much. They have a fight but it’s like a normal fight and not The End of the World. Just tone down Noor’s OTT anger and make it more natural.

I don’t have a preference in this version whether Noor and Britt leave the cafe and Sander and Robbe know they’re not coming back, or whether Noor and Britt just go to get some air and cry it out and Sander is like fuck it, let’s leave. The important thing for me is that Robbe sits there with Sander, painfully aware that they’re alone, and there’s lots of tension and awkwardness and his brain is clearly hyper-focused on the proximity of Sander’s knee to his own. They banter and flirt and then when Sander suggests they leave, Robbe acts like he wants to go.

Don’t do a pool scene for the first kiss. Give a shit, make it your own. Except IMO they have done so little to establish this relationship in terms of larger themes or symbolism that they have nothing to choose from. 

Man, what if THIS episode was about going to the seaside, after they had been talking for several episodes, and they kissed in the sea when they were alone? That would be at least somewhat plausible? A take on the pool scene/underwater kiss that wasn’t the exact same.

You could do something related to graffiti, perhaps? Instead of breaking into a pool, they break into the tagging place or wherever. Or something else related to Sander’s artwork, because I know that this comes up in their version of O Helga Natt.

I’m not wild about adding this blip in Robbe and Sander’s relationship after the kiss, because of how much ground we need to cover the rest of the season (it messes with the pacing yet again) and also just because I like that Skam didn’t do this expected route. However, if they wanted to make Robbe try to shut out Sander again: the strongest case for his internalized homophobia seems to be his friends. So have him meet up with them again the day after kissing Sander. His friends bring up Sander and how weird he was at the dance performance about the gay instructor, like it’s just a joke! He took their comments way too seriously! Is Sander gay or something? And maybe Robbe tries to defend Sander - no, he’s a cool guy, really - and then his friends are like, pffft, what, do you have a crush on him? Robbe denies and everybody chills out, but Robbe seems troubled. Maybe this is when Jens finally gets a fucking clue and realizes something’s up with Robbe, and in the future there’s a scene where he shuts down gay jokes. For now, though, we do see how Robbe would feel compelled to go back in the closet. Sander texts him and Robbe blocks him.

Now we come to the worst part. So. Take out Robbe calling Sander a sexual predator and a homophobic slur and pushing him, that’s for sure. If he must reject Sander, do it in another way. “I’m not gay.” “I was drunk.” “It was a mistake.” “I have a girlfriend.” It’s not actually hard to do this clip without adding this ugly taint to their relationship.

Since I’m trying to think of rewrites without just copying Skam, here is a radical change on how to include a post-kiss freakout from Robbe earlier on so the pacing isn’t as odd. In previous recaps, I suggested Sander should be introduced earlier as a mysterious stranger that Robbe is trying to find. Well, maybe we can rework that. Robbe and the mysterious stranger share a kiss in episode 1. They’re hiding from the police or security or something after getting busted at a party or while tagging or w/e, and they’re both a little drunk and high on adrenaline, they’re smiling and laughing because they actually got away, and it just ... happens. The mysterious stranger can initiate it, but Robbe tentatively reciprocates before running away. Robbe freaks out and it’s after this that he starts heavily pursuing Noor. Because, you see, he’s not gay, he was just drunk, and it was all that other guy’s fault. But at least he doesn’t have to see that random guy again, right? No one will ever know. Just like no one will ever know if late at night when he can’t sleep, he does a Google search to see if he’s gay if he liked kissing a boy or if he can’t get it up with his girlfriend. Or if he goes on Grindr to see if he can find the mystery dude. It’s a bust and Robbe gives up and settles into dating Noor. Except in episode 2, OH SHIT, he’s introduced to Sander again via Noor, and it’s awkward and fuck, Sander has a girlfriend. Well, that’s good, right? Totally not a bummer. Anyway, Robbe tries to avoid Sander or tiptoe around him but they end up spending time together because they’re stuck at the seaside under the same roof. Maybe they directly address the issue by Robbe saying he’s not gay and Sander being like “me neither” (which technically is not a lie, lmao) and brushing it off as a mistake, or maybe they both pretend that it never happened. Maybe Robbe is more aggressive about it at first and Sander is like, whoa dude, chill out, I’m not going to tell anyone. Still, they get to know each other, there’s heaps of sexual/romantic tension, and in episode 4 (or 5 or whenever) they kiss again and it’s Epic.

This arc is definitely not the same as Isak’s or Evak’s and I absolutely won’t claim that it’s in the same league as what Julie Andem did, but I can see a narrative arc like this making some sense. Better than trying to do Isak’s arc half-assed.

It occurs to me just like … how little we know about any of these characters in terms of subtext or something? No hints about Sander’s background, really? Let’s get some clues in there.

I think something I miss about Skam was how kind it was. How all the characters were at heart, good people capable of the most generous love and empathy. And maybe we’ll get there with these characters in the end, but overall, so many of these people just don’t feel like that! There’s so much more ugliness and cruelty involved in this story, and it doesn’t feel like it’s done with good intentions, like to show the audience how to handle these situations and to heal. 

There’s this weird attitude of defense where cruelty, tragedy, and negative events are defended in the name of realism and there’s a backlash to the backlash, acting like the critics just want fluffy plotless hand-holding and cuddling, a conflict-free season, or a story where no one makes mistakes. And it’s like people forget that in Skam season 3, the story was FULL of angst! We know Evak get their happy ending but like … from episode 1 all through O Helga Natt, the story is packed with conflict. People hurt each other. Even in episode 10, not everything is perfect. It is very possible to do angst and conflict without this ugliness. Like … I have to assume people weren’t here for episodes 5 and 6 of Skam S3, or for the hotel scene, or episode 9 up to OHN, because I can assure you, there was no lack of angst. There was just a lack of shock value gratuitousness.

As always, let me know if I missed something due to cultural or linguistic context.

[whiteredrose13]

Trigger warning: mentions of death

Adrian "Alucard" Tepes is a character I instantly knew I'd love, but not one I expected to relate to. It took me a while to realize that that's one of the reasons I love him, because I relate so much to him. And not just because he's a dramatic little shit who shares one singular brain cell with his boyfriend and girlfriend friends.

Alucard grew up very quickly, both literally and figuratively. Given his dhampir nature, he was probably kept away from other people for his own protection--we saw what they did to Lisa, the wife of Dracula, can you imagine the horrible things that would have happened to Adrian, their son, had he been found out by the church? Can you imagine the fear both she and Vlad constantly felt for their son? Of course he wouldn't have grown up with many friends his age, if he even had friends at all. And I can say with experience that, living around mostly adults, makes you grow up very quickly. You honestly do become a teenager in an adult's body.

You don't understand how to interact with people your own age. Social cues are a foreign language because, when you're around your parents, they don't exist, at least not like they do outside your front door. Alucard isn't used to having one or more darling idjits to enable your stupid plans or listen to the things to can't tell your parents, because he never had the chance to have it until later in his life. Hence why he's so cold and distant, as Sypha notes. It's why he constantly throws barbs at Trevor. It's his defense mechanism, him putting up walls because he doesn't understand that two dorks care about him despite him being the son of Dracula. He's never had that from anyone but his mother. He's cautious because he was likely raised to believe that he had to be way off such affection from other people, because it could be a ruse. Get his guard down and then kill him, kill the monster, like the church killed his "witch" mother, probably would have killed him if they had found out about him in his boyhood.

I was raised by a very overprotective mother. I didn't have siblings, nor did I interact with kids my own age until I went to school. My mother was constantly afraid I would be abducted or hurt somehow, so I never hung out with or even got to make real friends. Oh, I'd girls I wanted to be friends with come over sometimes, but my mother didn't like them, so they were never invited over again. And I never saw them outside school enough to really truly become friends, or even learn HOW to keep a friendship. I was isolated for most of my life. I couldn't read social cues until about sophomore year of high school. (Let me pause for a moment to say that I don't hold any malice toward my mom. Far from it! She loved me and was trying to take care of me the best way she knew how. She adopted me very late in her life (her 60's), so there was obviously a few generational divides there as to how she protected me.)

Both Alucard and I did not know what it meant to have friends until after our childhoods were over. And it happened at a very similar time. After the deaths of our mothers.

And here is where I feel most strongly connected to him, twofold.

I do a lot of things according to my mother's wishes, even now that she's gone. The main thing I do is college (haven't started yet, will in the spring). She never got past middle school, and she always wanted me to do better than her. So I promised I would. While obviously not the same level, so does Alucard: He vows to kill his father and stop a war Lisa never would have wanted. Even in death, Alucard still files his mother's wishes. "Slaves to our family," and all that.

And when he does manage to do that, honor his mother and kill his father, what happens? He's in shock. He doesn't grieve right away, not the way most of us would. He simply says that the man his dad was died a long time ago. And he's right. Even Dracula admits it out loud that, to stand there, killing his boy, he must already be dead. Except, he wasnyt totally gone just then, was he? In his final moments, he positioned himself, knowingly or not, in a way that his son can kill him without hurting Alucard further. And in the split second before Trevor draws his sword, he reaches out, one final time, to embrace Adrian. His boy. Or was it to try hurt him? He didn't know. No one does.

And it's there in that room, gazing at the pile of ashes that it begins to sink in, to sting. The monster that was terrorizing the country was the same man who he grew up idolizing, loving. Dracula was also Vlad Tepes. Dracula was also his father. He only gets the chance to truly grieve, to "mourn the man", when he's alone. When he finally let's himself remember the happy moments of his childhood. Because, to the very end, the thing that hurt him also loved him.

Towards the end of her life, my mom started to greatly deteriorate. I won't go into too many details, because this is not the time not place, but it really ended up hurting me. She would fight with my dad constantly, accusing him off random crimes, then acting like nothing happened. Or not remembering at happened at all. And then it moved to me. She would say I was picking my dad over her, and in one instance told me that she would leave and I had to choose one of them. As can be expected, this left some lasting issues. But through it all I tried to stay positive, show her as best as I could that I did love her, that I want choosing my dad over her. It didn't work. It only got worse and worse, until I finally reached my breaking point, and we walked away from each other. She had a stroke on they opposite side of the neighborhood, and died a few weeks later. She never woke up.

The thing, the person that hurt me was gone. But so was my mom. They were the same person. And I sometimes, when I think about it, I can't cry or grieve. Because the monster that terrorizes me is dead; I'm happy. And then it sets on that the monster was also the woman I grew up idolizing, loving--that I still love. And I wonder, then, if that makes me a monster, too.

It wasn't until I watched Castlevania, and started delving into these characters--the character--that I love and relate to so much, that I heard Sypha say those words, that I watched Adrian grieve and remember, that I realized I wasn't. I can mourn the woman, the Mom I lost, but I don't have to mourn the monster.

I know this is probably silly to say, but I feel better having found this show. I feel better having connected, related, to these characters. To Alucard.

Either way, it's almost 5:30 in the morning. Goodnight, all. And remember: You're not alone. ♥️

[geezeralert]

Deep Dive Duly Delivers

From my boxes: Some sleeves that came with Beatles’ 45 rpm records

(Second of three parts)

I still love Beatles music.

In my months of replaying and studying all the songs produced in the group’s eight-year recording period (1962-1970), I continued to close my eyes and listen raptly to the tunes, often over and over and over (my practice since youth for favorite songs; I’m like a little kid repeatedly playing a favorite video or asking for a re-reading of a favorite book).

From “She Loves You” to “All My Loving” to “Words of Love” to “No Reply” to “Tell Me Why” to “She Said She Said” to “Hey Bulldog” to “Penny Lane” to “With A Little Help From My Friends” to “Get Back” to “Two of Us” to “Let It Be” to “Glass Onion” to the “long medley” on side two of “Abbey Road” . . . the foursome’s pop output of 50-plus years ago remains among the most pleasant sounds to my ears.

That state of enjoyment is to be expected, I guess. These musical creations dominated the soundtrack of my taste-formulating teen years, ahead of other loves like Motown, Sinatra, the Beach Boys and the myriad of hits coming out AM and FM radio.

Of course, my knowledge of the Beatles’ songs is now greatly enhanced, which, I’m pleased to find, only serves to heighten my enjoyment.

Learning how individual songs were conceived and executed, and then hearing the eventual product and how (or if) it reflects — by design or accident —the artists’ intentions, adds layers of fun to the listening experience.

The same was true for songs I do not particularly enjoy, like “Rain,” as those I do, like “Penny Lane” or “Two of Us.”

For “Rain,” the revelation was that Ringo Starr considers his drumming work on the song his best ever. Song chronicler Ian MacDonald (“Revolution in the Head”) called Starr’s work “superb” while also lavishing praise on Paul McCartney’s “high register bass” as “sometimes so inventive that it threatens to overwhelm the track.”

Perhaps any “true fan” of the Beatles knew such details but I never paid attention to either the drumming, the bass line or just about anything else about that song. Now, listening to it with this new knowledge, I at least give it some respect.

Likewise, for many tunes I did listen to closely and often over the years, there were plenty of tidbits that make them even more fun to hear.

Like the painstaking attention paid by McCartney to the rather simple-sounding (to me) “Penny Lane,” the technically expert drumming of Starr on “She Said She Said” (called “the outstanding track” on “Revolver” by MacDonald, who says that album is considered by many the Beatles’ best) and the performance on “”Two of Us.”  

Hearing that last tune, with my new knowledge, had me choking back tears.

Understand, “Two of Us” was recorded for the Beatles’ second to last album, “Let It Be,” and I played it after months of reviewing their musical endeavors as boyhood chums (McCartney wrote “When I’m 64,” one of the classics from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band,” when he was 16), as a newly formed band spending hours at their craft in a foreign country, as an insanely popular pop group dominating the musical world, as a trend-setting studio creative force, as a drug-addled crumpling unit and, finally, as bitterly feuding individual musical achievers no longer interested in being a fabulous foursome.

But even as the storm clouds gathered, producing occasional thunder claps, there were still lightening flashes of what made the Beatles the Beatles.

Moments like the one, in late January 1969, when McCartney and John Lennon sang in beautiful harmony — a sound straight out of 1962 — strumming acoustic guitars, on “Two of Us.”

“The close harmonies of “Two of Us” reminded McCartney and Lennon of their teenage Everly Brothers impersonations and, during the second day’s work on it, they broke off to sing ‘Bye Bye Love,’” wrote MacDonald.

The image of these two boyhood chums and creative masterminds, after years of ups and downs, burying the hatchet for a few minutes while under the influence of nostalgia — well . . .  (insert cry-face emoji).

To be sure, that continued camaraderie for all four group members was captured in the “Let It Be” film, along with the more well-known contentiousness. They jammed to rock ‘n roll standards in the studio and played their last live performance as a group on the rooftop.

The books I consulted also told how these four individuals continued to work together despite all their mounting, serious differences, and, like the tale of the “Two of Us” recording, those passages were among the most noteworthy to me during my research.

MacDonald notes this this lasting togetherness showed the Beatles to be “in no respect an ordinary phenomenon.”

He continued:

“Many have spoken of the charismatic atmosphere that switched on whenever all four were together — a group-mindedness which kept them united through a further 18 months (after their “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper” successes) of in-fighting during which they recorded well over 50 more tracks and which continued, albeit less reliably than before, to function as the psychic antenna by which they maintained contact with the shifting currents of popular feeling at large.”

Listening to their musical creations while getting more details about how much they were starting to really hate each other in the late 1960s was a indeed revelation for this big Beatles fan.

It culminated with the tale told by the engineer Geoff Emerick (“Here There and Everywhere, My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles”) of the band’s final recording together, Lennon’s “Because,” as it wrapped up the “Abbey Road” album.

The tune brought their legendary producer George Martin back into the studio to orchestrate nine harmony parts. For technical reasons, it required John, Paul and George Harrison to sing their three-part harmony together live, rather than overdubbing each part one at a time, and then add two additional passes to add on the remaining six parts.

Emerick recounts how the three Beatles were totally into the effort.

“They knew they were doing something special and they were determined to get it right. There was no clowning around that day, no joking; everyone was very serious, very focused,” he wrote.

He continued:

“That day I saw the four Beatles at their finest: there was 100 percent concentration from all of them — even Ringo, sitting quietly with his eyes closed, silently urging his bandmates on to their best performance — all working in tandem to get that vocal nailed, spot on. It was a stark example of the kind of teamwork that had been so sorely lacking for years. It’s tempting to imagine what the Beatles might have been able to accomplish if they could only have captured and sustained that spirit just a little longer.”

For me, though, the “Because” effort was amazing for taking place at all, both in terms of the Beatles’ problems and just how long any group of performers can co-exist and produce excellence.

Another fascinating act of cooperation, in my judgment, was Paul helping John on his very personal “Ballad of John and Yoko.” By that time, Yoko One was an extremely divisive element in the groups’ universe so I found this friendly cooperation especially praiseworthy.

Speaking of Yoko . . .

Of course, all Beatles fans have read stories of how disruptive her constant presence was during the final years. But one of the biggest revelations I’ll take away from my project is just how badly she disrupted the group’s cohesiveness and creativity, from early 1968 forward.

Emerick believes much of the improved atmosphere in the recording studio during “Abbey Road” could be attributable to the absence of John and Yoko, who were injured in a car accident in Scotland.

When the pair finally were recovered enough to attend the recording sessions, John arranged for a bed to be brought into the studio for Yoko, complete with a microphone suspended over her so she could comment on the proceedings.

Yikes

Wrote the engineer:

“For the next several weeks, Yoko lived in that bed. Her wardrobe consisted of a series of flimsy nightgowns, accessorized with a regal tiara, carefully positioned to hide the scar on her forehead from the accident. As she gained her strength, so too did she gain her confidence, slowly but surely starting to annoy the other Beatles and George Martin with her comments.”      

Interestingly, as the Abbey Road sessions progressed and Ono got out of bed, she  was asked by John to stay in the control room while he, Paul and George performed what, in my opinion, was one of the most incredible feats of their later years: the three simultaneous guitar solos during “The End.”

I always wondered how that section of the song was done and was amazed to find that it was all three of them taking turns. I never tire listening to it.

Emerick says perhaps it was Yoko’s absence “or perhaps it was because on some subconscious level they had decided to suspend their egos for the sake of the music, but for the hour or so it took them to play those solos, all the bad blood, all the fighting, all the crap that had gone down between the three former friends was forgotten. John, Paul and George looked like they had gone back in time, like they were kids again, playing together for the sheer enjoyment of it. More than anything, they reminded me of gunslingers, with their guitars strapped on, looks of steely-eyed resolve, determined to outdo one another. Yet there was animosity, no tension at all — you could tell that they were simply having fun.”

I suppose knowledge of these scenarios, and the different parts played by the Beatles, in something that separates the really big fans of the Beatles from the really huge fans.  

The latter already knew those details. And they also can say what songs were played when and by whom without consulting the various books that I used.

And they know a lot of other things that were news to me in my research.

Like the fact that Harrison auditioned his classic “Something” (originally eight minutes long!) for the group during the “White Album” along with “Old Brown Shoe” and “All Things Must Pass” but had them rejected.

Perhaps even some “really big” fans also had picked up those tidbits over the years while I missed them.

In any event, here’s some of they other things that jumped out at me in addition to the inspiring, intermittent camaraderie and the depressing, disruptive force of Yoko Ono:

** The amount of drug use by the group and the effect it had on their music.

The marijuana, the LSD and, for Lennon, the heroin all took at least the two main songwriters into their various musical directions. MacDonald notes that 50 days after the soaring achievement of “Because” Lennon “was back in the studio howling his addiction in ‘Cold Turkey.’” He makes the conclusion that heroin was “flowing coldly around its composer’s body” at the “Because” sessions.

** The influence of their various girlfriends on their songs.

Many of the songs chart the various stages of McCartney’s romances with Jane Asher and Linda Eastman along with John Lennon’s marriage/breakup with Cynthia and, of course, infatuation with Yoko.

** The nonsense of their lyrics— many of them were just thrown together and others had strictly personal meanings.  

Under scrutiny, a vast number of their early songs are far better musically than lyrically. I guess the simple old “moon June” love messages sounded plenty deep enough to my teen ears.  The Beatles themselves got tired of them and rarely returned to basic love songs in their later years.  

Then we have a lot of phrases or passages that have meaning only to them, like those in “I Am the Walrus” (Lennon says it was a deliberate attempt to parody “the fashion for psychedelic lyrics” prevalent at the time) “Across the Universe”  “Savoy Truffle” and “Glass Onion,” to name a few.

Another example: McCartney and Lennon, in a fit of marijuana-inspired laughter, made up some Spanish-sounding gibberish for “Sun King” on Abbey Road.  

** The synchronizing of the songs — how they came at us on albums or singles — was far different than how they were conceived or executed.

I suppose this is pretty obvious to even the most passing fan but when you experience the songs in the order they were recorded, as I did by following MacDonald’s sequential presentation of them, it gives you a much different feel than what we originally had.

One example: “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” intended for “Sgt. Pepper” (they were the second and third songs recorded for that album, after “When I’m 64”) but released instead as a 45 rpm single, were followed in the studio by the intricate “A Day in the Life,” which eventually was put at the end of that album, giving it its unforgettable finale.  

That sequence presents a far different perspective on the songs than how they were publically presented and received.

Another tidbit: The last song recorded by the Beatles as a group was “I Me Mine,” a Harrison tune produced for the “Let It Be” album after it was played informally in the “Let It Be” movie. It was formally performed and mixed after the “Abbey Road” sessions had wrapped.

Lennon was absent for that session so it was ironic that the next time the former Beatles recorded together was when his three ex-bandmates gathered again, after his death, to play with Lennon’s home-produced tune, “Free As a Bird.” That tape (three songs recorded by Lennon) was provided McCartney by Ono at Lennon’s 1994 induction into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame.  

Another tidbit in that category: In between “Abbey Road” recording sessions for “The End” and “Sun King/Mean Mr. Mustard,” McCartney recorded “Come and Get It,” playing all the instruments and double tracking the vocal.

The tune went on to be a big hit for the Apple group Badfinger and MacDonald calls it “by far the best unreleased Beatles song.” McCartney “knocked off” the recording in under an hour, he wrote. He offered it for Abbey Road.    

** In contrast to the Hall of Fame’s insulting choice to induct Lennon years before honoring McCartney, my conclusion from what I read and heard is that McCartney was the dominating force behind the band’s production, creativity and longevity.

He softened Lennon’s often-harsh musical tendencies and pushed all of the others to  better themselves, often to their annoyance.

In fact, McCartney’s criticisms of Harrison’s guitar playing was a major source of the friction in the group. There are several tales of McCartney going back into the studio to re-do the guitar solos for his songs.  

He also kept the group involved in challenging projects, like the “Magical Mystery Tour” film and attempts at stripped down recordings for “Let It Be,” at times when other members wanted to just end things.

And his continued musical endeavors surely pushed the others to also keep trying to explore and create.  

As a teen, Lennon was my favorite Beatle (every kid had to choose one!). Now . . . it’s complicated.

** A fun part of my listening experience was following the progress of the four Beatles as musicians, particularly McCartney on bass.

He was made the group’s bass player by default in their teenage beginnings. He quickly progressed to some great work on “All My Loving” and “Tell Me Why.” And from there, he perfected his skill on the instrument until it became a major contributor to a lot of the recordings, most especially “Hey Bulldog.”

I also was impressed by Starr’s drumming. He has been downgraded by some as a “human metronome” and a deep-background player in the Beatles saga but he gets a lot of credit in the books I read for his savvy, expert drumming. My own listening, as a simple fan, supports those conclusions.

Beatles songs were not about blasting percussion but needed the steady, consistent, skilled drum sounds that Starr provided.

** Another interesting part of the project was learning various music or recording terms.

These included: arpeggio (“the notes of a chord played in succession as a fan-like spread rather than as a single sound, as if on a harp”; used on “You Never Give Me Your Money,” “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “Sun King,” the middle of “Here Comes the Sun” and “Because.”); ADT (artificial double tracking, used often for Beatles’ voices and now a music industry stable); flanging (too technical to summarize here); and compression (“reduction of the overall dynamics generated by a voice or instrument”).  

The amount of what we hear (and love) that is affected by such studio tricks as ADT, flanging, compression, manipulation of microphones or drums, or changing speeds on recorded material (to name just some of them) was astonishing to learn.  

** Taking the Beatles’ catalogue as a whole over a short period of time demonstrated just how much effort the group put into always trying new sounds, new recording techniques and new musical approaches.

These could range from a simple change in how a piano was played (“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” “Oh Darlin’”) to an entirely radical approach like “Revolution 9.”

This was done out of personal musical interest along with inter-group competition and intra-group competition. It was a key to why the group remained together, creative and popular for far longer than normal bands, particularly those in the rock era.        

To be sure, the three primary songwriters in the group also borrowed liberally from what sounds were popular at the time — Motown, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, psychedelia, the Byrds, the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Who, the Kinks — but improved on them and created a sound all their own.

** MacDonald feels the McCartney song “You Never Give Me Your Money” was the earliest musical acknowledgment that the group was coming to a close, particularly its opening verses.

“To anyone who loves the Beatles, the bittersweet nostalgia of this music is hard to hear without a tear in the eye. Here, an entire era — the idealistic, innocent Sixties — is bravely bidden farewell.

“Having regretted this loss, the song shows us what it was all about in a quick kaleidoscopic resume of the group’s ambiguous blend of sadness, subversive laughter and resolute optimism. Everything hangs on the words ‘nowhere to go,’ arrived at ruefully but instantly spun around and seen from the other side: as freedom, as opportunity. The Beatles’ future may be gone but McCartney is determined to salvage their spirit, and that of the Sixties, for his future. ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ marks the psychological opening of his solo career.”  

** Emerick’s own conclusion about the Beatles’ breakup gave me a new perspective.

He begins with an opinion I found startling, given all his and others’ accounts of how well the Beatles could still get along even as their inter-personal troubles mounted:

“By the end, it’s fair to say that the four Beatles hated one another, for a variety of reasons. It’s actually understandable, considering all the time they’d spent together, stuck in hotel rooms and recording studios for year after year; no wonder they couldn’t wait to get away from one another. When the announcement was made, I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that it had been almost four years since they’d done their last tour. For four years, they had been doing nothing but recording in that dank, depressing place known as Abbey Road.”  

Emerick goes on the discount the financial squabbles or presence of Yoko Ono as the key reasons for the end of the group, saying Ono was good for Lennon. He concludes:  

“No, I always felt that the main reason for the breakup was irreconcilable artistic differences. John, Paul, and George Harrison simply wanted to follow different paths. John wanted to make art; Paul wanted to continue doing pop music; and George just wanted to pursue his Eastern interests. Sadly, inevitably, there was no common ground anymore, only a common history.”

So, having digested all this material over the last few months, where does that leave me as a Beatles fan?

I’ll explore that in part three of this little exercise, coming tomorrow.

[occupyscifi]

Memory Mods

Before leaving for the meeting Johnny Amani mainlined some Abandoned Father Issues with a quick kick of Moody Adolescence, topped off with a chunk of Teenage Quest to get him in the right mood.

“oh yeah” he nodded as the memories came back to him, washing away the previous evening’s Happy Boyhood and Teenage Country Farm memories. In a few moments all recollection of his smiling parents, supportive siblings and that time with the girl from the farm down the road faded. In their place there grew memories of restlessness, of ambition and other people letting him down. In the bathroom mirror he felt his face get more serious. His eyes narrow slightly. His father’s eyes, and damn that man for pushing him to the brink. Well today he’d show him. Today he’d brave the things his father had never dared. He could look his father in the eye without getting called a pussy.

The meeting was taking place in the former palace of a Silicon Valley firm that had been requisitioned during the revolution and turned into community buildings. Now the great silver torus rang not with the sounds of data acquisition nor the cries of tormented coders but instead with communal civic startups and privacy therapy centres.

Johnny breezed in through the entrance, nodding at the blond wood and the blandly cloned trees whose wood still bore the imprint of the long gone branding that had been encoded into its genetic structure. He felt like a Jobs or a Bezos, ready to take on the world and hold it in the palm of his hand. With that thought in mind he manfully strode into the smoked glass cubicle of the meeting room, all the other attendees looking up at him as he took his place on the smart plastic chair.

“Okay” he said as he felt his buttocks firmly gripped by the chair “lets do this” he looked around the room at the rest of them, feeling them bow before his authority “My name in Johnny Amani, and I’m a false memory addict. Welcome to the first meeting of memory addon addicts anonymous”

“Its not the fault of technology” Johnny explained once they had gone around the room and they had all introduced themselves (back at the first meeting. He’d been maudlin, having been mainlining some lost first love he’d downloaded on the darknet) “FakeMem technology had a noble start” he looked at the small group of fellow addicts, knowing almost instinctively what their addictions were. Pria, the teenage girl in the corner was lost in kiddie fantasy land, revelling in memories of secret worlds through ordinary wardrobes and aliens coming to collect her to fly their last starfighters. Elena, the corporate bitch on his left and his current closest girlpal, could just as easily been tattooed with the same Daddy issues memories that Johnny had dosed himself with “memory rewrite technology was developed back before the revolution to help PTSD cases – a branch of Google dreamed it up, tried to sell it to the Pentagon for soldiers who’d left their sanity down Mexico way. But of course by then Uncle Sam wasn’t buying anything. So they instead went all philanthropic. California was awash with refugees from both sides of the war. Kids who’d seen things no human being- let alone a child- should see. The engineers figured it was simple. PTSD is all about memory, you see something that fucks you up, your brain can’t handle it. It plays it out on repeat, forever. It can’t get past it, like a stuck record” he paused for dramatic effect “so if you replace the memory then you get rid of the trauma. Course it ended up being used for evil means – Mcluhn’s maxim still applies” Johnny nodded at the wall where the late, great prophet of the revolution’s most famous phrase hung on the wall. Under a picture of a plump middle aged woman the words went ‘any sufficiently advanced technology will first be used for liberation, but then inevitably for repression and control. Often by the same people’. Johnny bobbed his head in respect to Mcluhn’s wisdom “which we saw in the revolution when the Silicon Valley oligarchs realised they couldn’t just charm their way out of trouble so they tried to make us forget. Had whole cities where overnight people got their entire lives turned upside down. Woke up not knowing what memories were real and which were not. Evil times” he shook his head, he’d just been fresh out of college in the Midwest when the silicon valley appligarchy had been overthrown so he’d been sheltered from the worst of it. Even so the town right next to his had been hit by a wartime era fearbomb and it had taken years for the residents to restore their real memories from social media backups and simulated approximations “but this is not about all that. It’s about us. Because we’re not frightened little refugees, nor are we Navy SEALs who saw too many heads explode down in Juarez” he looked around at them all “we’re addicts. We’re addicted to changing our memories because either we get a buzz off of feeling like we’re someone else or otherwise we’re too terrified to face reality with just our own boring memories for company”

“I’m Pria” the teenage girl had stood up first. Brave of her, Johnny though, but a cynical part of him knew that her bravery came not from within but from false memories of that time when she was twelve and she’d faced down an army of orks with nothing but her mage skills for survival. Course he only knew that because he’d done the same. Got fired from his job because of it – not for being an addict but for flipping out when a co-worker had laughed at him checking all the cupboards in a board room for secret passages to other worlds “and I’ve been using false memories since I was about ten years old” the girl gulped, wearing the faraway expression that meant she was refusing to meet anyone else’s eye. The room was good for that, the glass was only smoked on one side so from the other you could look out over the centre of the torus, down to where once cadres of Silicon Valley brodudes had set forth to conquer the world in the name of big data “I don’t even know why I started. I used to think it was cause I got bullied, then I checked my downloads and I realised that the whole bullying thing was a FakeMem too. I must have just been lonely, so I started taking them. I started with a few light ones. You know, the meet a celeb memories. A couple of Shanghai Disney world rides. My dad wasn’t always there so he used to share a few from his travels, so we could both pretend we’d been together” her voice quavered slightly “maybe that’s why I got too deep” she glanced at Johnny “but I don’t wanna act like I blame my dad. I got myself addicted. I didn’t want to be me, I think, it was easier to be Princess Peach or Empress of the Porcelain people. Better than being boring old Pria Park who went to the local high school and didn’t have a single experience different from anyone else I’d ever met”

With that she abruptly sat down. Johnny started the applause, nodding bullishly at her admissions “excellent. Remember, there’s no judgement here. We’ve all done things we regret, things we want to forget. Hell, that’s half the reason we became addicts” he looked suddenly serious “but because of that there isn’t a quick fix. The only way we can get past our addiction is to recognise what it is, to work together to support each other. To remember that our addiction isn’t some harmless fun” he looked around soberly at all of them “most of us have had so many mods we can’t even tell our real memories from the fake ones. We’ve squandered reality chasing some impossible dream. We need to stop looking to some bolt from the blue remedy. There isn’t something we can download into our brains that will magically fix us. There isn’t some brand new mod that will bring everything back and make us better again. We only have each other”

 “You know there’s an erase doing the round” Elena cornered Johnny, waiting till everyone else was gone and doing so on the pretext of cleaning up the coffee cups and wiping down the non digital whiteboard of its inspirational slogans. Only when the room had emptied had she sidled up to Johnny and whispered in his ear.

“didn’t you listen to my inspiring and not at all plagiarised speech?” said Johnny dismissively as he reset the room, wiping the machine memory of the defiantly non networked software that monitored the office. Revolution protocols stated that it was illegal to store any digital information of any user without express permission and even then to make sure it was not accessible by anyone with any commercial purpose “there isn’t some quick fix download. Its fantasy” he looked her in the eye, her façade of corporate bitch almost totally vanished. Now he saw the anxiety and insecurity that had lead to her addiction. The worst part was knowing that his own face mirrored that too “memory isn’t archaeology. You can’t just peel back the layers looking for what was originally there. Human memory is organic. When you change a memory you are literally moving the brain cells around. You change their alignment. They make new connections and the old ones are broken. There isn’t an erase function for that”

“This time its different” said Alma “look, I’m not going to get into a technical discussion but it seems like its more of a reconstruction than an erasure. Because you know that when you implant a new FakeMem it overrides the old one, but to do so you need to understand the old state. So it already maps your brain, right?”

“Sure” said Johnny, whose technical knowledge was probably less than Elena’s but wasn’t about to admit it. Perhaps had he not been stuffed to the gills with father resentment memories he might have not been indulging some alpha male bullshit but that was an argument for another day.

“So all you’d have to do to roll back the memories would be to establish the right trail. If’ you’ve got a record of the mods you’ve added then you should be able to follow them back and restore the original”

“Sounds like this software is pretty heavy duty” said Johnny “and also pretty fucking illegal. To go through a download record like that would violate, like, a dozen Revolution protocols. In fact it probably qualifies as a bioweapon in itself. Could probably be Gitmoed because of it”

“I’ll take that as a no then” said Elena turning to leave “cause I’m gonna download it in, like, two hours time”

“Oh no” said johnny quickly, leaping to intercept her “I just said it was seriously illegal. I didn’t say I wasn’t interested”

“in that case meet me here” Elena scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to him. Her handwriting was almost illegible, side effects of growing up before the revolution when every piece of information was sent via machine “at 4pm. Its gonna  be a blast”

“sure” said Johnny, already having moved beyond second thoughts into third and fourth thoughts. Did he really want to do this? He sighed as Elena exited the room “guess I’m going to have to call my sponsor”

 “so let me get this straight, another FM junkie wants you to download something that’s going to definitely roll back you mods and free you of your addiction?” “yup” said Johnny. They were sitting across the street from the former silicon valley campus in a café that had been liberated for the people but was otherwise unchanged from its days feeding the libertarian messiahs and the big data pushers of silicon valley. There were even still the posters on the wall of the last generation of Silicon Valley billionaires. Anywhere else in America those posters would have been torn down, but there was still an ambivalent relationship to the survivors living in the valley itself. Most of them had been hardcore privacy crusaders but there wasn’t one of them that hadn’t been raised on stories of the tech entrepreneurs, the men and other men who had taken a bunch of numbers and made a billion dollars out of them. Indeed the man sitting opposite Johnny was a typical example “that’s just what I’m gonna do Greg” “dude, that’s fucked up” said Gred Deen. Back in the revolution he’d on the frontline, former coder turned poacher, white hatting for the good guys when his former employers at Google had taken the ‘don’t’ out of their famous slogan. He’d met Johnny when the pair of them were in rehab, Greg could remember nothing of his life before the revolution, because for the five years after it he’d modded his memories so heavily his synapses were permanently screwed. Now he worked as a barista at the coffee bar, body occasionally wracked by flashbacks to memories that may or may not have been his own “you understand that, right? I mean that’s junkie talk. That one final big hit will set you straight? That’s not how it works. Hell, if I thought I could get back my real memories that way then I’d sign on the dotted line, but the fact is that it doesn’t work. I got out of being a junkie the hard way, same as you need to”

“but I want the real me back” said Johnny pitifully, pulling at his shirt “not this macho bullshit guy I am today, nor the sensitive well rounded guy I pretended to be yesterday. The real me”

“not sure any of us would know that even if we had our memories” he shook his head as he poured out cups of GM’d java guaranteed to wake up even the sleepiest of heads “I mean, you know what life was like before the rev, right?”

“I got too many memories man, you know that”

“back then people had their public selves – all that social media profile shit. Then they had their sensitive inner selves they’d only reveal in messages to their nearest and dearest. Were either of those the real them? Hard to know. You could watch someone’s livefeed for hours and you don’t know if it was the real them or not. People act differently depending on who they think is watching”

“I looked up my social media feed a couple of years ago” confessed Johnny, dropping his voice to a whisper. It didn’t do to talk about things like that. Even before the revolution social media had been a warzone. After the revolution a general amnesty had been predicated on the notion that any every trace of data harvested in those years should be destroyed. Some people had grumbled that this let the perpetrators of the Twitter massacre of Osaka and the snapchat murders off the hook but it was generally agreed that peace relied somewhat on amnesia. An irony which Gregg and Johnny could well appreciate.

“and?” asked Gregg carefully, his hands shaking minutely

“I didn’t find anything”

“nor should you man”

“no, but really. There was nothing. I mean, I used some back channels that would get me in trouble if certain people knew. But I was desperate. I was using several times a day back then. I’d have done anything. I thought if I could find….”

“good job you didn’t” rumbled Gregg menacingly “people know you’ve got that kind of data then they think you’re with the tech underground….”

“you really believe that even exists?” said Johnny “come on, its just rumours. If any of the silicon valley execs survived the last days of the rev then they’re hiding pretty deep. Hardly think they’re plotting some kind of takeover. People would never stand for it”

“never know” said Gregg “you didn’t know these people like I did….”

“I didn’t think you remembered” said Johnny accusingly

“don’t need to. I kept diaries. Stories that would make your hair curl. These were people who got to where they were by hacking society. Disruption, that was their big deal. They didn’t see the world like we do. Where you consider other people’s feelings and point of view. There was one thing they cared about. Power. Sometimes that came from money and other times it came from having so much dirt on people they could play ‘em like a harp. These people don’t just vanish” Gregg looked up to where several customers were waiting “like I say. Don’t try to dig up the past. If you fail you’ll just keep on being a junkie and if you succeed, well you might just wish you failed”

 Elena was waiting impatiently outside the hotel. It had the slightly melted pastel look of cheaply 3D printed walls and the fixtures inside recalled both the enthusiasm of the immediate post rev world as well as its terrible design choices.

“You got it then?” asked Johnny, still not sure if he was doing the right thing. He’d changed his mind five times since speaking with Greg and nearly turned around and headed home. But he needed to know, either because life is a journey towards truth or else as Greg said he was just a junkie needing a fix.

“course” said Elena, the last of her corporate bitch memory mod fading like old hair dye. Together they strode into the dilapidated hotel, the automatic credit readers long having been ripped out and replaced by a small armoured booth where a revolution veteran sat starting into space. They paid cash with the certainty that the veteran wouldn’t remember who they were. Odds on she wasn’t sure if they were real in the first place.

“are you ready?” asked Elena as she prepped the EEG machine and laid the electrodes across Johnny’s head. He could hear the apprehension vying with the excitement in her voice.

“no” said Johnny truthfully “ I mean, shit. What if we don’t like who we are? Cause chances are we were not good people. Otherwise why would have modded our memories in the first place?”

“we’ll never know unless we give it a try” said Elena, adjusting the electrodes on her own head “ready when you are”

“Listen if it turns out that the revolution was a fake and that we really live in google verse or Apple gulag then I’ll never forgive you” Johnny looked at Elena fiercely.

“Yeah, that would be awful” she said “not least cause there’s already, like, a dozen conspiracy theories that say exactly that” she smiled “probably find that actually we were just assholes instead. But I’d like to be my own asshole, if that makes sense”

“Hey, I don’t need memories to tell me I’m an idiot” said Johnny as Elena tapped a code into the machine “I see that every morning when I wake up”

“See you on the flip side” said Elena as the machine counted down from ten “lets hope we weren’t too bad people”

With that there was a burst of light. With most memory mods the effect came on slowly, the memories trickling through like coloured syrup through water. With this one however Johnny staggered under the weight of it. Echoes of past memory mods imploded in his mind as the program traced back through a decade of mod addiction. A burst of Happy Childhood suddenly overwritten by Growing up Gangsta. The light notes of Teenage Adventurer melded  with High School Hero. He could feel his neurons requiring themselves. The false memories being replaced by those he had gathered himself through eyes and ear, processed by his own mind. Suddenly it was there. Reality. And at the same time he finally realised why he had become an addict in the first place. And he realised that Greg was full of shit. Not only had that fucker clearly had his memory working, but that he had known full well who Johnny really was.

“Oh shit” he said, opening his eyes to see by the expression on her face that Elena was having the same realisation as him. He ripped the smooth electrodes off his head, holding it like it was bout to explode or send him mad, which effectively it had done. “Oh shit, shit shit. The fuck have we done?”

“Well I don’t know about you” said Elena, or as he realised now former CEO of Google and warcriminal responsible for the privacy deaths of millions, Mia Ramsey “but I’m gonna download as many memory mods as I can till I forget this ever happened”

“Oh yeah” said Johnny, or rather Facebook chief security officer Alan Khan. AKA the man responsible for the fear bombing of three cities and the subsequence suicide spike that had seen ten thousand people take their own lives “I guess there are worse things than being an asshole after all”

[thegreenribbonjournal-blog]

as I began to ponder...

To make it clear from the beginning: he was an asshole.

We all have met certain kinds of assholes in our life and some had had a special place, once before they were moved to the hall of shame.

Mine, was two years younger. He had been dating a very attractive girl, with starry eyes and shoujo manga girl’s smile. She was kind and wife-material. I had also been dating a really nice guy; he’s so artsy, like the serious one who actively acts in theatre group, studies about them and he is so calm and emotionally controlled. He was like me, with penis. We were so alike in so many things that we didn’t worry about each other, like we could always know what happen to each other.

I was the wildflower, if it’s appropriate to say so, the “tomboy” (I begin to sound like a cheesy teenage rom-com). He liked me because I was his type of girl. I was startled when he said this, like, really? You’re 25 and still considering “type” as something essential?

He described me as the tomboy who “reads books, knows a bit about serious things, watches serious movies and understands his kind of music” and “gets along with so many male friends”, then the “conversations between us are rich and fun, so many things to talk about”. In a short time, we had this “tourism”. I coined this term when I told him about my undergraduate thesis that has something to with tourism – which the essence of tourism is “seeing and having experiences we don’t get in daily basis”. John Urry’s the tourist gaze. As we were stuck in routines, we had the urge to be “fertile”, to talk about other than work. As we became more synchronized in conversations, we moved to something else.

I have to admit it was.. fun. I felt alive for a while. Suddenly the more it felt wrong, the bigger the excitement and the satisfaction. We visited nice places, smoked cigs watching mountains from afar and talked about substantial things. I told him about Camus, Beauvoir and Sartre, which he listened attentively because in law school these were not taught in class. I even wasted my time telling him about Bataille’s Story of the Eye, Wong Kar Wai’s masterpiece and how Foucalt see sexuality as an institutionalized discourse. As we talked, he would put on Sigur Ros, or Zeppelin and other songs he liked that I had to admit they were pretty cool. This phase gave me quite a positive impact, as I recalled what I read in college, re-read and I realized this is where I got both of my feet in the mud.

He called me as a feminist who craved for freedom. It was not about the freedom, but about how women are as free as men to choose what they want to do and give meanings to their choices. I was always skeptical about marriage – why we should get married? But deep down inside, I am waiting for someone to break my walls and knock on my door.

We had some good times, until he began to show that he was into me. He began asking questions like; “if I left her, would you be serious with me and never leave me?”. He was offering me a contract. I didn’t sign it. It was far too soon. Forever is not a cheap thing that you can ask from someone in few weeks. We are not living in Stone Age. We meet other people, we grow as a couple and forever sometimes sounds like a mythical concept from Homer’s Iliad.

Soon I discovered that he could not manage jealousy. He was jealous to my male friends, just a brief explanation, but I could sense it. The question was: who are you? He was dating too and was jealous, that somehow has something to do with ownership, has a place in our interactions? I was sure the answer is no. Even if I were jealous (which I secretly was), I didn’t want to bring it up. In addition, there was nothing to be jealous about, as far as I understood. Two days in a row he was so cranky but I was never a girl who gave attention (or treatment?) to this kind of situation. I didn’t play his game.

I am that kind of person. I did love him, but to play his game was something else. To research and see what kind of person he was, was very important before I jumped in and said yes. However, I didn’t realize he changed the game. He began to made me feel.. needy. He was sometimes out of my reach, but maintained to stick around from time to time.

Until the girlfriend found out. She and their family were so panic. They were going to be engaged soon. He was panic too. And from here I should have understood that he never wanted me that much. He was just.. bored but never really sure about moving in.

It was probably his ego that could not accept me. He was a traditional, patriarchal man who needed to be obeyed and great urgency to dominate anything. I know I am difficult person. Somewhat unpredictable and my skepticism about marriage somehow frightens guys like him. And some feminism issues probably also take part here.. this guy didn’t even believe in gender studies. He skipped it. His world and set of values are black and white. He had no place for my colors.

Then we continued the “tourism” thing. It became harder and harder for me to hold on the grip. I admitted that I love him. And this is not possible to go on, but I was so blind that I would not mind to stick around in any possible ways. He was still with her. I was never really sure he stayed for her or the family, or just his needs – I guess three of them were correct.

Then I decided to take a bigger decision. I left my boyfriend. It was hard for me to split my feelings like cake. No more lies. I don’t deserve him. What was on my head, I just didn’t want to lie to myself. Then I was alone now and becoming the other woman. At the moment I realized how freedom is a very abstract concept, it only makes sense if we are capable of defining what the boundary is; otherwise, freedom will be just a waste. At least, I knew what I wanted. And I knew what I didn’t want. Decided to be alone is not because I expected him to come to me, but I was sure that there was something serious was missing from my relationship. I needed to step away and think about it. To be able embracing myself without emotionally attached to any man, was probably my main goal. However, this is something that the asshole guy could never understand, as he could not manage to be alone.

Then, we began to lose it gradually. He asked me to find other man. It was the cruelest thing I ever heard. Now I was a hundred percent sure he wanted to leave me but he didn’t want to take the blame. But I stick around like shit. I would never forgive myself for this…

At times he was in my “side”, he said he never wanted to end this. I was so comfortable he wanted to be with me all the time, to wake up beside me and just felt happy. Doesn’t matter if we would get married to other persons, this “interaction” must be continued. For a moment this idea seems flattering to my blinded mind; how he wanted me this bad he would risk his future relationships. But when I already had enough oxygen for my brain, he was treating me like a facility. While he always wanted his girl to be the home. I was snacks, and he was my main course.

What he found in me was a teenage excitement; getting a rebellious girl, rock and roll romances, a bit of wilderness and madness. Sid and Nancy. Cobain and Love. Whatever. I am not buying those narratives. To me now, he is a rock and roll guy with K-Pop mentality. He was late to understand that this kind of excitement is not the material you need to begin a family. And I hope I am not too late either.

Still it’s difficult for me to understand, that ever was in a history of decent and morally-educated society, I found a guy was so cunning, selfish and slippery and malicious. Yet he seems so alive, so fun and dependable and really smart. Altogether at the same time. He must be so drunk in the air of living that his brain could not think correctly about how to live in a noble way. This is a defect from how society grows a boy into a man; and it is necessary to develop an assessment to make ensure whether or not a human with dick deserves to leave boyhood and enter manhood with a morally appropriate understanding about what it means to be a man.

I should never believe he loved me. Maybe he did, but he did it all wrong. What made me depressed was... in the process of sensation-perception, the sensation might be fake, but the emotions were always honest. What I felt about him was true. Despite of me being cold hard bitch and hard to handle, so sarcastic and rude and skeptical about anything. That was just me being myself. It was all my defense mechanism and now I see he deserved to be treated like that. Such a shame. I am really sorry to myself for being in this condition.. should have been a better friend for myself.. because that is all I have now.