#my isak and matteo comparison stuff

[evakuality]

I’ve been thinking of doing this for a long time, but it kind of got kicked into another gear when I got this ask a while back.  That gives a broad overview of the similarities and differences between these boys, but I’m also interested in drilling down and looking at them as their respective stories progress.  Now I know a lot more about Isak because I have actually seen all the seasons of Skam and have only seen the full season 3 of Druck.  So I’m going to stick to the storylines in their own seasons, but bear in mind that there’s a broader understanding of Isak behind what I’m saying.  Having said that, I did watch those ‘season x but it’s just Matteo’ videos for s1 and 2 of Druck but it’s not really helped a huge deal.  I don’t feel like I have that good a handle on his character as it stood before s3 started.  Anyway, the thing about these characters is how fascinating it is that they share a lot of similarities (of course, since Matteo is based on Isak) and yet they’re very different and their stories play out in quite different ways.  So I decided to take a look at why this has happened.  Episode by episode because as usual I’ve been very wordy.

Season 3 introductions: From the start, we get some very different vibes from the two of them.  The music chosen to set the scenes for each is interesting from this point of view.  Isak’s is ‘LiQR’ which holds suggestions of needing social lubricant to enjoy the situation.  And indeed, there is a lot of that on display: people drinking, smoking etc to enable them to enjoy the party.  Matteo’s, by contrast, is ‘turning me on’ with it’s heavy suggestions of sex.  That also plays out.  Lots of sexually charged behaviour happens before we see him and even when he meets up with the boys it’s all very explicitly sexual.  I think in a lot of ways, these things set up how the seasons play out.  Isak does need to learn how to rely on himself rather than the easy drug and alcohol-fueled flippancy he’s been used to hiding behind.   By the end of the season he’s much more secure in his own sense of self and we see much less dependence on those social lubricants.  Matteo has been holding back from his life, including sexually, staying on the edges of those conversations etc (and it’s interesting that when he blows up later in the season at the boys it’s sex talk that he targets as the way they piss him off), and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Matteo waits til the last episode before this is something he really explores.

Then we get the actual introductions of each of the boys.  Isak’s in a bathtub surrounded by his friends, outside of the party which is what we see first.  Matteo is at the party, but on the wall.  He’s isolated himself not just from the schoolmates but also from his friends who at this point are in the bathtub together.   Isak is far more integrated into the boys’ conversation than Matteo is, and seems to be far more consciously deploying the ‘I’m a straight guy’ cover.   Matteo, as we see later in this episode, almost falls into the pretence without his own impetus, whereas Isak very definitely uses it to convince the boys.  There’s a reason for this: Matteo has fallen into a reluctant relationship with his Sara and is still in it.  Isak has removed himself from the relationship with his Sara, and has no ties at all with Emma.  In fact, he uses her as his cover story before we meet her.  Once she’s there, he has to carry through with it or he risks losing his mask with his friends.  It’s very obvious that he’s only doing this for their sake by how quickly and how thoroughly he pulls back as soon as they’re gone.  Matteo is still with his Sara, and we see him with her before we see him with the boys.  He’s dragged into it by her but doesn’t want to be there at all, and yet he plays along.  He seems kinder at the start (not to say Isak isn’t kind, but he hides that side of himself a lot more at the start of the season), and he doesn’t want to hurt Sara at all.  Isak’s ‘insult her to intrigue her’ thing isn’t something I can see Matteo doing at all, even if he wasn’t already connected to Sara in a deeper way than Isak is to Emma.  

The interesting thing here is that, despite the very deliberate facade Isak is wearing, Isak has a real connection with his friends and he has a happy enough life.  I get the feeling that if Even hadn’t come along, Isak was reasonably happy with how things were.  He may be tired of the pretence but it isn’t affecting his ability to engage in the rest of his life.  For example, Isak has a much longer time with the boys in the bath and he’s much more present in the conversation.  Matteo is very quiet by comparison, and is faced with explicit sex talk immediately, while Isak’s boys are much less forthright at this point (again, this ties into sex being part of Matteo’s learning curve; that’s all part of being present in his own life by the end).   Part of this is because Matteo is isolating himself, putting himself on the edges and he quite clearly doesn’t really enjoy his life.   From the start,  Matteo is a lot softer with less hard edges, and so he feels a lot of the things in his life more obviously than Isak does.  He’s also a lot more internalised than Isak is, even though they are both fairly clearly introverts.

Matteo has already gone through getting with Sara, so his comments to the boys about things with her are all vague; he has no need to convince the boys of his heterosexuality as he’s already got the cover he needs.  Isak has to ‘perform’ in front of the boys to make good on his boasts, and indeed he has to make the boats in the first place to let them know he’s into girls when they question him.  This is partly his own fault: he talks up his chances and talks a good talk so when Emma arrives he’s put on the spot.  Still, even though the situations for each here is different, they’re both left alone with their own thoughts when the boys leave.

Interestingly, they’re both isolated and unhappy at the end of the bathroom section, but how they get there is different.  Isak is there because of Emma and how that whole little farce had felt (pretty awful as it went on and he was left alone with her), whereas Matteo was already there before he got into the room and lets it out properly once the boys have left and he can be alone.  Neither of them has any focus on the girls they’re with at this party; Isak is performing for the boys, and Matteo is so tuned out he can’t wait to get away from Sara.  He’s not performing here, just genuinely totally not into it.  They both reject sexual advances from the girls, though at different points in this episode.  Emma has literally just met Isak and wants to go down on him, which flusters him because she’s just supposed to be an easy cover and not this forward this soon.  Later in the episode, Sara wants to seal their newfound relationship with sex.  Both boys are visibly uncomfortable (to the audience) with the idea and find ways to get out of it.  Both girls don’t recognise how uncomfortable the boys are, though Sara seems to get it faster.  She just always manages to talk herself out of it.

Getting the weed is different too.  Isak’s boys are arguing about who ‘has’ to take it, whereas Matteo keeps it as a way of teasing when Abdi wants it back.  They both have different responses to the police as well.  Isak’s not at his own place, and just wants to get rid of the weed.  Matteo fobs off responsibility for talking to them (but only after Linn also does), and plants the weed on Amira.  Matteo’s actions are far more shitty to the person who confronts him about it, though both are shitty in trying to hide it somewhere that it will come back to bite someone else if found.  This of course means Isak doesn’t know what happened to his weed, whereas Matteo does which in turn changes how they go about getting it back.  

Isak in general is far more glib, able to use his wit to get himself out of trouble (eg with the police the way he talks to Emma etc), apart from the disastrous story he tries to spin Eva to get the weed back from her.  Matteo is much less vocal even with his friends, and therefore less able to talk his way out of things.  They both end the clip (or start the next one) with their Jonas, but Isak’s much more bro-ish.  He seems by this point to be over whatever it was that he felt for Jonas.  Whereas Matteo is very clearly still pining.  This of course changes how they approach their love interests.  Matteo seems hit by a truck, whereas Isak is flustered again.   Isak sees Even in a very public place, catches his eye across a crowded cafeteria and immediately tunes out everything the others are saying.  He’s ready, I think, to find this overwhelming big passion, the thing that will force him to drop his carefully cultivated mask.  Matteo, on the other hand, is tuned out of his life already, moving once again away from his friends, going through the motions of the day.  He wakes up suddenly when David appears.  He doesn’t need to break a facade at all; he’s a bit more self aware I think, in terms of accepting who he is.  So, what he needs is someone to push him out of his apathy and make him face life.

The social media stuff the morning after the party is interesting too.  Isak is included and involved even if Eskild insults him a bit; he’s cuddled up with the others while they talk to Noora.  Matteo leaves before they take the picture and so is once again excluded, even from his own bedroom, though again this is a deliberate choice he makes when Jonas and Hans are talking.   Matteo flinching away from Jonas when Hans comes in is fascinating too.  He’s hiding everything he’s feeling and it’s part of what’s isolating him so much.  We see Isak consciously deploy a persona to cover up for who he is, so he puts himself out there almost as a larger than life version of himself.  But Matteo doesn’t want that; his preference is to fade so far back into the shadows that no-one ever notices him and he does everything he can not to be noticed and not to be seen as different.  

Having said that, Matteo is a lot more proactive in some ways than Isak (again, not to say Isak isn’t, but Matteo takes more action even at this point).  It’s his choice to go and talk to Amira and try to get the weed back.  This is partly because he knows exactly who has it and Isak doesn’t, but it plays out over the rest of the season as well.  He’s an odd mix, actually, because he’ll let people tell him what he should think and he’s passively willing to go along with Sara but I think it’s because it doesn’t really matter to him.  When it does matter, he’s all action and quite determined.  Isak will be proactive in defence of his mask or persona, but he doesn’t do much about pushing in other ways.  This is seen quite clearly at the kosegruppa meeting vs the abistreich meeting.  Isak slips away, sure, but he follows Even outside and kind of lets the conversation come to him.  For the first half, Even is definitely the leader and Isak follows, even if he picks it up more in the second half.  Matteo, by contrast, speaks to David first, gets him to come along with him to the hallway and is the one offering weed.  While they both take an active part in their respective conversations, Matteo is more of a leader definitely at the start.  David does eventually engage further in the conversation and gives as good as he gets, but Matteo is the driver for a lot of the first half.  

So that’s the first episode.  Clearly, while our boys have some similarities and their stories are still mostly the same at this point, the differences in the way they are presented and the way they react have already turned up some big contrasts.  It all boils down to what each has to learn, and as I said earlier, for Isak that’s to open up to himself in a more real and authentic way.  To drop the mask and be true to himself.  For Matteo that’s how to re-engage in life and stop hanging on the sidelines letting things passively come to him.  They both actually make some progress with this stuff in this episode, but they both have a long way to go.

Episode two can be found over here.

[skamamoroma]

Hey, who do you think has the most intense/passionate relationship out of the evak pairings?

Oh anon. OH ANON. Another comparison request!!! This is a question and a half.

I cannot possibly answer this. For many reasons!

I am not best equipped to assess this stuff 😂 but I think also it depends on what you mean but passionate and intense

I think all of them have the capability to be just that. I mean, they are ALL all over each other and completely head over heels so I don’t think any of them can be placed above others... they just do it differently!

I think the most gross (meant in the best way) would have to be Eliott and Lucas. I mean. My boys. I love them DEARLY but they absolutely sicken everyone around them with their general soppiness...! They are the very definition of extra when it comes to each other. The fact they just lay in the middle of a lounge with people around them, all over eachother on a mattress and didn’t give a damn... and even carried on after they’d been interrupted...!

Isak and Even practically made out in every corner... I mean at school... on the window sill... while the class filled up... they have this emotional intensity and this very very very intimate (in every sense) relationship so...gross.

I think Marti and Nico would never be like that in public for obvious reasons but they absolutely 100% are the more intense pair when they’re in private. I mean we saw the heart kiss, right? Nico’s cleverly rented apartment with red lit room. The whole undressing Marti thing and constant intense eye contact and general overwhelming love. Gross.

Matteo and David are just as bad! Their love language is touch, 100%. They’re a very emotionally available pair now, very honest so that breeds intensity I’m sure. I think they get so much from touch and closeness with one another that that cannot be the case without this level of ridiculous passion for one another. Very gross!

And then Cris and Joana. Did you see their first kiss? The tears, general hair touching and intensity...... they may not have shown it but they’re practically one person when they’re together they’re THOSE ladies... gross

And then there’s Robbe and Sander and they’re mid-story so we haven’t seen potentially some of the most intense moments yet... but DID YOU SEE THE DATE. Need I blooming say more? I mean they are genuinely incapable of a second without touch which is very sweet but there’s this very specific way they have around each other and it’s all a little desperate and grabby and intense... and so I think by the end of their season they will 100% be unbearably gross.

Sorry I am incapable of answering this and I’m a very ill educated person to answer this but here you go! 😂 another comparison post complete!

[inmyarmswrappedin]

DRUCK reactions - s4 ep1

Ages ago I said I wanted to write meta about Cris’ and Matteo’s seasons, so of course, when I finally sit down to write reactions to a Skam remake, it’s about Amira instead.

A few weeks back I was composing tumblr posts in bed before falling asleep (my number 1 hobby lol) when it struck me that the writing for Amira’s season was really… indefensibly bad. So let’s stroll down through memory lane and revisit Druck s4, or how to throw away your potential because you have to put out this season before summer is over!

CLIP 1: Dark clouds over Winterberg

Obviously I’m writing these with the benefit of hindsight, but I will try and incorporate what my initial reaction to a clip was whenever I can remember.

Sometime between the Abiball episode and episode 32, I argued (on twitter) that the Abiball special was the Abiball episode instead, the first episode of Amira’s season. It would thus introduce us to the conflicts and characters that would take place during Amira’s season. I thought that in addition to the obvious Amira/Mohammed, Carlos/Kiki/Essam would be important, Kiki’s family life would be important, Stefan would be important, and David/Matteo would probably not be important as they seemed to be doing just fine in their scenes.

I didn’t think Mia/Alex would be important because I didn’t actually watch their clip lol. The Winterberg stans on my twitter orbit thought the clip was cute and nothing to worry about. That should’ve been my first clue that the (twitter) stan habit of repeating the “we never lose” mantra doesn’t make for great viewing comprehension, because watching the clip, it’s so obvious that shit is gonna go down lol.

Mia moves from one of the flat share’s bathrooms to the other because they never really recreated Mia’s room in the s3 flat share.

I still haven’t watched Mia’s episode, so I don’t know how all this stuff is going to get resolved, but it seems like Mia doesn’t think they can handle a LDR, and Alex is picking up on those vibes hard. I guess I don’t really get why Mia is so pessimistic about it because at that age I kinda thought a few months break weren’t really an obstacle. (Not sure if it would help me to watch Mia’s season, because this seems like a wholly new conflict.)

Anyway, Alex acts sweet/reassuring (I really like how soft spoken everyone is in this episode), so Mia puts it out of her mind for now. But Idk, they haven’t really spoken about the elephant in the room.

CLIP 2: Don’t call them the chastest evak ever again

Tbh this clip comes across as a direct rebuttal to all the s3 commentary about David and Matteo seeming like they’re not into each other, or like they aren’t ~passionate~ like the other evaks.

It’s like, “these gremlins are horny on main, now shut up.”

But I like that they’re fully dressed, like yes, you can show physical intimacy without undressing your teen actors (shade fully intended).

I love Lukas von Horbatschewsky’s hair and I’m very jealous of Matteo in this sequence, lmao.

Luis Sepúlveda died of coronavirus this year, in Spain. You’re welcome for that bit of 2020 misery dripping onto this cute clip.

I do think David feels guilty that he may have caused Matteo to fail his Spanish exam because of David’s own issues, which I think is very on brand for David. Obviously it wasn’t his fault.

I really like how soft spoken everyone is in this episode, 2X.

And this has been said a million times by now, but David and Matteo are the one evak version where they’re the same age (Joana is in the same year as Cris, but is a year older, so she must’ve gotten held back at some point). So it’s funny, and possibly a reference to Isak and Even, to see David talking about what it’d be like if they had that age difference. Like, maybe David would be more like Even in behavior! And, going by Matteo’s reaction, he wouldn’t be into that.

This clip really feels like the ending to Matteo and David. They’ll go on a road trip, they’ll work on David’s movie, they’ll be around, but this clip is their conclusion. They both feel secure and content in their relationship, and ready for everything that’s to come.

Like I said on the post about Cris and Joana, I like that David and Matteo don’t have further issues. And while I have tons of issues with Druck s4, which I will be talking about forever in the following posts, I never had an issue with how they deployed Matteo or David. (Okay, self. Now say that again without crying about David’s season that should have been.)

Fucking David cutting their make out short only to then say such a highkey flirty, romantic thing to Matteo though. No wonder Matteo’s like, “STOP, I’M SUPPOSED TO STUDY.”

CLIP 3: A challenger appears!

I like the fanon that David is a healthy eater (or at least in comparison to Matteo), because all we ever see David eat of his own volition (i.e. not food that was made for him) is candy.

God, I love Kiki snatching David’s fruity gummies out of his hands. It makes me laugh every time, particularly how she demands to know if the candy is vegan.  

Hanna looks beautiful. ;_;

There’s a split second when Jonas is about to give Hanna that box where David looks alarmed in the background. In my mind he’s all, “Bro, no. Not a public proposal. Reel it back in, bro!”

And then, to the surprise of Jonas and all the viewers, we find out that not only are Jonas and Hanna not together, but Hanna is dating German Arthur. Again, in “fandom refuses to acknowledge storyline conflict until it’s staring right at them” news, Stefan had actually been introduced via an audio to Hanna the day before, but people were convinced it was Hanna’s dad. Whose actor they called just to record an audio. Clearly.

My belief at this point was that Stefan would be relevant to Amira’s storyline, but instead it was just a way to give Hanna her own episode. 🤡

Matteo’s transformation into Michi is complete by donning his grandpa hat.

He also makes to trip David for no real reason. Throwback to Unter Wasser.

Matteo saying Inshallalalah in a sing song voice is cute, but so annoying.

Matteo Florenzi: He’s a pain in the ass, but we love him.

CLIP 4: I guess Abdi and Axel picked up his grades at another point

I love the way Matteo grabs David’s head to pull him along. They’re so cute and I’m gonna enjoy every second.

Jonas also grabs Hanna along, because fans needed to be further confused as to what was happening with Hanna and Stefan and Jonas.

Thank you, Druck, for telling me Kiki’s and Amira’s grades, but as you can understand, that’s nowhere near enough to satisfy my curiosity and I will be needing to know everyone’s GPA because that is the kind of thing that’s important to me. What about it!!!

I think, going by how impressed Mia is, that Mia’s grade isn’t as good as Amira’s. Which I think is a neat detail, since the Nooras are kind of supposed to be the perfect girls. I like that Amira is even better than Mia at school.

I thought the concept of Carlos failing his final exam and maybe realizing school wasn’t his thing would’ve been an interesting storyline to explore, but I’m not mad that it didn’t happen. Hopefully Druck will touch on it with the next kids.

And we’re now treated to three reveals about Kiki. Kiki has a sister (now she has two), she likes the idea of moving out and living with Carlos, and her mom isn’t doing well.

The remakes trying to develop their Vildes past s4 make sense to me. By the end of Skam, Vilde clearly was the character who’d been the most robbed of a season, there were several potential storylines to do with her. Financial instability, alcoholic mom, eating disorders, plus it seemed obvious that any season taking place during the girls’ russetide should go to her. And that’s without getting into Vilde’s strong denial that she was a lesbian.

So the remakes are sitting on all these potential storylines, but as we now know, they can’t make their own Vilde season.

And from a European TV exec’s point of view, Vilde (who in every version is a white, skinny, ostensibly straight girl) is a very safe main after the gay and Muslim seasons.

Cue the LITTLE SISTER.  

I get why people are fed up with the Vildes’ prominence in the remakes that are in their latter stages, but at the same time we got 8 versions of Noora’s season, most of which are a limpdicked enemies to lovers story with a misguided sexual assault storyline tacked at the end. (And I say misguided because after a strong start, it’s mostly about what William will think, how William will react, I can’t tell William about this, etc.) So in my case, I’ve had quite enough Noora to last me a lifetime, but my Vilde thirst has only begun to be quenched.

Tangent over, Kiki lies that she’s not going to the lake because she’s going to check on Carlos. Bad form, Kiki.

CLIP 5: Graduation (Friends Forever).mp3

In clown news, I predicted there’d be a clip between the Kiki stuff and the actual dance (maybe a Sam clip), as it seemed to me there wasn’t much of a connection between Kiki looking sad on that ping pong table and PARTY TIME. Lol at me.

And speaking of clowning, while I thought the Abiball episode was part of s4, I also thought that was fine because it was just doing the multi POV episode in the beginning of the season rather than at the end, right? Wrong.

As much as it would’ve been great if Sam and Abdi had storylines pertaining to racism and islamophobia (whether Abdi is or isn’t a Muslim, people would probably assume he is), I also have to admit… This conversation is hilarious.

“I want to have intercourse with you.” [glass breaks in the background]

Abdi closing his speech with a wide smile gvvhvh.

The first hundred times I watched this scene, I thought Alex seemed a bit alarmed at the conversation taking place, but really… We’re back to stone-faced Alex lol.

Don’t kill me, but I feel a little bad for Abdi in this moment. He really put himself out there and Sam just leaves without giving him an answer, yikes. I actually got tired of Abdi’s sad sackiness during the season, but right now I feel for him. L

There’s this smile Jonas sometimes directs at dudes (like Alex here) that makes me think… Bi. He also directs it at Matteo in s3.

Ugh.

There’s a parallel universe where Stefan was the villain of Amira’s season, and it would’ve been a much more interesting season than the one we got.

Because Stefan is a bit of a Darth Jonas. He works for Greenpeace, but, at least in this scene, seems a bit full of himself, and like… twisting the knife in a way that feels like it has to be intentional. And it would’ve been so interesting if Druck had tackled the white dudes who seem like they’re not going to be assholes about Muslims, but then turn around and say some shocking garbage. I’m sure we’ve all met a guy like that before.

In my mind, Stefan would’ve driven a wedge between Hanna and Amira, which would’ve been way more compelling than what we got, but on the other hand, it probably would’ve made fandom people hate Hanna, and people outside of fandom hate Amira.

Anyway, tag teaming gays! I love how David and Matteo share a look and immediately take care of both Jonas and Stefan.

I also love it when David looks murderous. It looks good on him.

But I feel like this didn’t go anywhere? Like, Matteo always hated Stefan and continued hating Stefan until the finale. In this scene, David seems to dislike Stefan just as much, but it’s not a thread they bother following. It’s too bad because I think Matteo and David together sabotaging Stefan is a lot funnier than just Matteo doing it.

I love how soft spoken Amira is when telling Essam not to show up at her graduation party. I would’ve been a lot less polite lmao.

You know, I actually thought Kiki was genuine here when she said she wasn’t a fan of competitions. Obviously that’s not the Kiki we’ve known until this point, but like, I thought it was meant to show character development on her part, But we’ll talk about THAT more in the following episodes.

Matteo fully blames their win on David being so hot, mysterious and new, and it’s hilarious because that’s also what initially drew him to David. Like, “fuck you for being so hot!”

I thought it was such a nice detail that they brought back the girl from the refugee classes in s1. We’re saying goodbye to all these school people who are going on their own post high school journeys without us!

In my mind, Abdi and Alex are talking about something completely serious, like, I don’t know, Abdi’s dad wanting him to study business and Alex advising Abdi on the best business schools in Berlin or something.

I feel like Hanna is the one girl in the squad who really doesn’t feel ready for post high school life and I HATE the writers so much for how they wrapped her character up, but we’ll save that for later.

I could watch Matteo passing the tiara (=the main) to Amira forever. The way he tips his hat and looks like even he’s a little surprised that he (a character like him!) was ever the lead on a teen show, David’s voice asking Matteo if he’s coming, Matteo leaving with David to live happily ever after, the initial notes of Just Got Paid as Amira looks at nighttime Berlin. This meme is overdone by now, but THE POETIC CINEMA.

Jonas glaring at romantic rivals at end of year dances is iconic at this point.

Amira being tagteamed by an annoying little brother AND a well-meaning, embarrasing older brother. Choose your own nightmare.

I really love the set up for the Essam/Kiki/Carlos conflict. The emotional potential is SO good because on one hand you have Kiki, who wants to have a good time for once instead of parenting her own parent, then Carlos whose self-esteem is on the floor after having failed his final exam, and Essam, whose own sense of self-worth hinges upon whether white German girls find him attractive. Like, obviously Essam is never going to come between Kiki and Carlos who have been through some shit together, but with Carlos out of commission and Essam eager to please, you can see how the situation could so easily turn into a mess.

Amira and Mohammed have the most sexual tension out of any Yousana pair, period. They literally just said hi to each other and I already feel like I’m intruding gvhvhv.      

Social media

David saying of Matteo: “Er bekommt Auslauf.” (Something like, “he gets walkies” because he’s been good with revising) is the cutest shit ever.

Remember when Stefan sent Jonas a whole ass message and signed it “with sunny greetings”? Stefan was much more fun when we were supposed to find him unbearable.

Kiki creating a new Whatsapp group for every single thing is so true to life.

I’d forgotten that Amira also hated Stefan almost right away. The season that could’ve been, I tell you.

All the Abi Chaker Clan content reminds me of how I thought Jonas looked like, well, such a child, compared to Stefan, and I thought that was intentional. Like, here is Stefan with a Greenpeace job whereas Jonas doesn’t know what to do with his life, and he’s like, spray-painting abi chaker clan onto walls and posting pics to the abi chaker clan account. It’s not that I thought Jonas should’ve acted like a whole ass adult, of course he’s having fun with his high school friends, but I thought Jonas might feel inadequate in comparison to where Stefan is at this point of his life.

I can’t remember who revealed it, but Sara was supposed to end up with Toilet Sam and that was supposed to come out during the s3 finale (on that week, Sara posted a story with a guy whose face was obscured iirc). Since that was part of the clip where Hanna and Jonas also got back together, which they cut to make way for Hanna/Jonas/Stefan drama, Sara takes some other dude to the Abiball. And I think we’re supposed to think that’s the same dude she went on that date with.

[evakuality]

Welcome to episode two’s version of my lengthy comparison of these two characters.  At this point, despite their stories being fairly similar, the boys are starting to diverge a lot in terms of who they are and how they react to the situations they find themselves in.  The first episode can be found over here if you’re interested.  

Isak’s second episode opens with him spending quiet time in his bedroom with Eskild.  It’s really sweet, actually.  Eskild likes people and being with people and he obviously feels like Isak needs someone with him, but he’s also content to be quiet and doing his own thing while letting Isak do his.  By contrast, Hans comes into Matteo’s world.  He’s also very happy by himself and Hans hasn’t felt the need to be there with him in the same way Eskild has.  This is one of the least stressed/down/unhappy moments we see Matteo in during these earlier episodes.  He’s playing a game and using his phone.  He seems quite content.  The difference is interesting here, too.  Isak is just sharing space with Eskild so being asked about the attractiveness of guys is a natural progression of the situation, whereas Hans actively comes to Matteo to ask his opinion.  It’s a more deliberate action, and I do wonder how much Hans suspects at this point, given that we don’t have the ‘he met me at a gay bar’ story in the same way we did with Eskild.  It just seems like more of an open secret with Matteo than it does with Isak, and as we see later in the season, Matteo isn’t quite as adamant about it as Isak is.

The conversations they have are also quite different, though we get the same content.  Eskild and Isak have a discussion about Eskild thinking ‘every guy’ is gay and that leads them into the discussion of how you can tell if someone is gay and leads to Isak’s realisation that Even joked about dicks and so he could be gay.  Matteo, on the other hand, is much more deliberate in searching out the information he wants (finding out if David could be gay).  He looks at his picture of David and he wonders out loud how you can tell if someone is gay.  They both want to know the same thing, but Isak is reactive and Matteo is proactive in uncovering that information.  Eskild is far more serious in his answer to how gaydar works than Hans, who makes a joke about noses.  At this point, I feel like Isak has a better and more clear answer to his question regarding Even than Matteo does about David, even if his actual search for information on Even was unfruitful.  Matteo, at the end of this conversation, has no better idea than he did at the start.

The next section is quite different for each of them, which is really fascinating.  By this point, Matteo already has his David picture and is already starting to spend a lot of time obsessing over it, whereas Isak discovers the video of Even now.  He’s charmed, of course, as Even is quite charming in this video, and we get to see him as he is increasingly fond while watching it.  Matteo, by contrast, is with his friends and yet he’s still on the outer with them.  They all got into dress up week while he either forgot or didn’t bother.  But instead of mooning over a recorded version of David, Matteo gets actual interactions with him.  It’s deeply awkward (so awkward!) but they’re both obviously happy to see each other despite that.  So by the time they see Sana and Amira respectively, Matteo has another meeting under his belt and one that David initiated while Isak has just been caught watching an old video of some of Sana’s friends (though he doesn’t know that yet of course).  It’s here that we really start to see some of the ways in which the two boys are so different.  Isak is still in the romance of it all, the crush, and it’s still fantasy in a lot of ways.  Matteo is having more real life connections and so is learning that David is at least interested in a friendly way.  This is probably because by now Isak has a more firm knowledge of Even’s potential gayness (because, as per Eskild’s thoughts, he talked to a stranger about sucking dicks), whereas Matteo never got that from Hans.  He has to glean it from David himself during these interactions.  This means, of course, that at the end of the episode on the tram/bus Isak is taken by surprise as Even starts a conversation, while Matteo goes to David himself.  Because Isak is definitely still in the ‘this is a fantasy about the hot new guy’ stage and Matteo is in the ‘this is a person I know and talk to and am interested in’ stage.

It’s even more obvious that Isak is still in a fantasy when we see the way he reacts to Even crossing the courtyard and completely tunes out everyone he’s with, to the point that they all go out of focus and their voices disappear in favour of a musical track.  It’s not like Matteo is completely immune to this either, of course.  He has his own little ‘wow David’s so attractive, imagine what he’d look like if he twirled to a nonexistent musical track’ moment.  But when he does it, he’s already tuned out of the moment with his friends, exasperated with their discussion (which is yet again about sex).  Isak is much more obvious in the way he tunes out that it’s a wonder the guys don’t pick up on it, particularly since he then tries to slide his way out of having to hang out with Emma.  Isak’s fantasy extends to watching Even’s video over and over again (well I assume; he certainly watches it at least once more), and in watching a Baz Luhrmann movie to get closer to Even somehow.  At this point, he’s still not made a genuine connection as yet and is still living in his constructed world where Even is an unattainable godlike figure.  Whereas Matteo, as said before, is meeting up with David and seeing him around a lot more.  And they are painfully awkward in a very real way.  Matteo desires David, absolutely, but he’s not the god figure that Isak sees in Even.  Consequently, Matteo doesn’t watch David’s favourite movie until after he’s told by David what it is because he has more real life things to hang his crush on rather than an online fantasy.  

It’s a different route they take, one that’s more natural in some ways but much less ‘romantic’ fantasy-esque.  It makes Isak’s meeting with Even on the tram much more poignant.  He’s so deep in his fantasy crush by now that this is like a dream come true, a meeting with his crush!  It’s big and powerful and sweeps him away.  Matteo’s meeting with David is much more low key.  They meet on the bus and stare awkwardly at each other because this is what they are now used to.  Both boys, however, learn to relax as they spend more time with their crushes.  Both open up and start to get to know the other boy.  The scene in the apartment is very similar for both.  They are both able to share and be open and they both find out things about their future partners.  They both admire the art made by the other person, though Matteo gets a more intimate look because David (by virtue of this being Matteo’s house and not his own) has to show him his sketchbook rather than the things already hanging in public as Isak gets for Even.  This scene is crucial for both pairs, imo, and while the ways they talk and interact are different in some ways, the scene serves for both Isak and Matteo to see their crush as a more real and rounded person.  The disgusting food just highlights that and by the end they are both very comfortable with this person now.  The mystique (for Isak) and the awkwardness (for Matteo) is mostly gone by the time they eat the sandwiches.

Of course, it ends differently for each of them.  Isak is confronted with the very real, very present and very physically intimate girlfriend that Even never mentioned.  Matteo gets ghosted.  And this serves to highlight some of their differences too.  Both Even and David appear to be ‘hot and cold’ but Matteo is running on assumptions whereas Isak has cold, hard facts right there in front of him.  He even has the words ‘my girlfriend’ to hammer it all home.  They’ve both lied to people about where they are and what they’re doing, but Isak has a harder wall put up by Even than Matteo does by David.  Matteo is confused, but he’s not unwilling to approach David again as we see next episode.  Isak pulls back because this is a big thing for him.  So while Matteo looks more proactive than Isak, it’s mostly because he doesn’t have the same roadblocks in his way.  They’re both left isolated and confused at the end of the episode, but Matteo is in a better situation.

Speaking of that lie he told Sara, Matteo, interestingly enough, makes a conscious choice to ask Sara to his place in the first place and so she has more right to feel aggrieved that he stood her up.  And that’s partly because she’s his girlfriend and not a girl who’s trying just a little too hard to get with him.  But it also says a lot about the boys.  Isak is spoken over and the boys set up the meeting with Emma for him, presumably so they can find themselves other girls.  Matteo’s boys agree to go to a get together for the Abistreich committee, and Matteo has made his own decision to be entirely alone with Sara by then.  He again separates himself from them and what they’re doing much more obviously than Isak does.  He doesn’t seem as connected to his friends as Isak is as yet, and that makes sense of the fact that he pushes for and gets the more connected relationship with David much earlier than Isak does with Even.  He needs it more at this point.  There’s a lot of focus on sex for Matteo this episode, actually.  Sara tries to make it work when she’s upset, and his excuse is dreadful (‘have to clean’?  seriously???), and then they make this meeting time for Friday.  Coupled with the boys’ focus on wanting it, sex looms large in his life despite clearly making him uncomfortable.  Isak seems much more at ease with these sorts of discussions even when he thinks of them as irrelevant to him.  The Carlos/Kiki sex talk takes a much different tone than the Magnus/Vilde one, but even so, Isak seems more willing to be present and attentive in those conversations.  Matteo literally doesn’t care, even when it turns to discussion of his own sex life.  It’s this set of conversations that he tunes out from to watch David spinning in his imagination.

The differences in how they feel about their girls, and thus in how they treat them are huge as well.  I don’t blame Isak here at all; he’s effectively bullied into spending time with Emma when he really doesn’t want to.  But he’s quite dismissive and the way he talks about her is quite rude.  Matteo, on the other hand, spends time alone with Sara and while he’s not interested in sex, he does want her to be happy and he does care for her.  It’s a deeper, more enduring relationship so this makes sense.  But it does show up how caring Matteo is, even at this point, compared to how distant Isak is holding himself.  Again, it’s the performative vs the truly felt.  Isak is still performing for his friends and he’s finding it hard to be true to himself, so his caring side that Eskild mentions later in the season isn’t displayed as much as yet.  Matteo is being true to himself, in that he’s trying to be a good caring person, but it’s getting him into awkward situations with Sara where she wants the relationship to get to a point he doesn’t.  He cares about her enough to try to make this work (at least he does after he sees David with Leonie and assumes they’re together), and so he looks up how to sleep with a woman if you’re not into her much earlier than Isak does.  The reasoning is the same: I’ve seen my crush with someone else and I think he’s with her, though in Matteo’s case that’s a really over-zealous assumption from one hug.

So.  That’s episode two.  It’s an interesting one to look at because while the boys do share similarities at this point, they are diverging more and more.  Isak is more present in his own life and with his friends, so he’s far more conscious in protecting his identity to keep that friendship intact.  Matteo is largely absent from his life and from a connection with his friends, so he’s more willing to make a real connection with David sooner.  He’s stuck in a situation with Sara which he’s not sure how to navigate effectively, but he cares about her enough that he can’t be as cavalier with her as Isak is with Emma who he wants to shake off at this point.  Because Isak is more connected to his boys, it’s harder for him to push back against their expectations around him and Emma too.  There’s a fear around losing them that Matteo doesn't have in the same way because he’s already consciously isolating himself from them anyway.  

Episode three can be found here

[evakuality]

This is the fourth in an ongoing series comparing Isak and Matteo.  The previous episodes can be found here:

Episode one

Episode two

Episode three

This episode starts quite differently for each of the boys.  Isak is surrounded by his friends, and while he’s included in the room, he’s tuned out of the conversation and his (valid!!!) concerns about the way the flat will be able to continue with 4 people in 3 rooms are dismissed.  Matteo is alone in his room but he’s happy.  He gets a text from his mother which makes him smile and he is cheerful enough with Hans even before he gets a message from David, even comfortable enough to ‘help’ by cheekily throwing slippers at Hans when he asks.  His mood is presumably lifted already because of the situation the night before.  Even before getting the message, Matteo seems to be riding high on having almost kissed David.  It’s hard to know why he’s so much better affected than Isak in this case, but perhaps it’s because it’s been much slower and more natural as a progression.  Isak is still on edge a bit because Even has a girlfriend who he ‘can’t dump’ and he’s being treated pretty badly in this conversation with Eskild.  Eskild has no tact at all and his commentary that Isak is ‘jealous’ just because he doesn’t like being talked about in such a way as if he’s not even there is plain weird.  Matteo’s version of this conversation, by contrast, doesn’t hold the same tension.  Mia already lives in the flat, no-one is acting as if she’s in a competition for ‘most appreciated flatmate’ with Matteo which Isak is kind of dealing with.  Matteo isn’t really involved in this conversation, and is just as caught up in figuring out the ‘right’ message to send David as Isak is with Even, but he’s voluntarily spending time near other people.  For the first time, he’s not really isolating himself in this space.  It’s not fully engaging with the group, but it’s a nod to feeling more comfortable around others - until his contribution gets shut down, that is.  

Isak now gets to have another meeting with Even where they agree to pregame together before the party that weekend.  It’s a really good example of why Isak thinks Even is a bit hot and cold: he preferred to spend time with Sonja in the weekend when Isak (obliquely) suggested spending time with him, but now he’s initiating contact and being all suave and cool.  There’s still some air of mystique here, but they have concrete plans and they obviously are on the same page, which must be reassuring for Isak after Friday and after some of the pointed remarks from the others about people who want to be with you choosing to spend time with you.  Matteo, on the other hand, sees David from a distance while he’s talking with Sara.  At this point he’s much less sanguine about David’s feelings because he didn’t answer the messages and they haven’t met up again.  His buzz from the day after the party is gone.  The conversation with Sara shows he was paying attention to Mia and her problems and that he likes and trusts Sara enough to have those conversations, the low key everyday ones, with her.  There’s no way Isak would talk with Emma like this, and the connection between Matteo and Sara is one of the bigger differences between them.  He genuinely likes and enjoys spending time with her.  I think he’d be really happy with that relationship if he could keep it as a friendship rather than the romance she wants it to be and thinks it is.

The set up of the birthday for Magnus vs Abdi is a bit different too.  Jonas is hurt by Isak’s lack of invitation to the pregame he hosted, and Isak tries very hard to downplay what happened and what he was doing.  This is obviously different to Matteo’s situation because Matteo had all his friends at his party so there’s a totally different vibe to how this works.  Jonas kind of hints that he wants Isak to come to something for Magnus and they talk in a lot more detail about what they will do for it and how they will set Magnus up with some girls.  Again we see the difference between Isak and Matteo: Isak is fully engaged in this conversation about sex, whereas Matteo in similar situations backs off and tunes out.  It says a lot about how they engage with heterosexuality.  Isak at this point is still very much engaged with this type of discussion and he seems much more interested and at ease with the concept even if he’s not interested in it for himself, with girls anyway.  Matteo is the one who comes up with the idea of the party for Abdi after Jonas says they should do something, and while they talk about getting him a woman it’s not the same sort of explicit talk that Isak and Jonas have.  That makes sense, partly because they have less time on their way to exams, but also partly because Matteo is less vocal than Isak anyway and far less interested in the sex talk the other boys take so much delight in.

At this point we see Matteo’s stress reactions again, with the way he finds all the noise etc so distracting and overwhelming during his exam.  This is one way he differs from Isak as well.  Isak’s issues stem from difficulty sleeping and he masks them well most of the rest of the time.  Matteo doesn’t really mask his at all.  His panic attack earlier and this moment both really drive home just how much he’s dealing with and how hard it is for him to control.  Of course, this allows him to go to the bathroom and coincidentally run into David so they do get their moment together here but unlike with Even there’s no firm commitment to see each other.  Having said that, Matteo is the one who suggests another meeting for toasties so again we see Matteo being more proactive than Isak, where Even is the one who makes the approach.  

Isak is rightfully surprised when Emma comes and tells him that she’s going to the pregame with him when he’d thought he and Even had an understanding and also there’s a weird presumption that Emma will be included when she and Isak are not actually together and he is understandably confused about why she’s involved.  Whereas Matteo’s situation is very different.  When Sara comes to him, he’s just been schooled by Amira about homosexuality and he’s feeling exposed and vulnerable and so this is one of the very few times he actually deploys Sara as a ‘cover’ the way Isak does so readily.  Ironically in this case, Isak is annoyed by Emma’s talk but he’s not using her a cover in the same way.  His ‘I don’t go around thinking about homosexuality all the time’ is much more convincing than Matteo’s.  He seems genuinely annoyed that Sana is addressing that part of his talk rather than addressing the main point of what he was asking which is why be religious in this day and age.  Of course, he brings up homosexuality because of the connection to religion via his mother’s texts, and it is what he wants to know but he covers for this much better than Matteo does.  Matteo seems really unsettled by it, his is more of an outburst and it’s clear that Amira’s words have affected him.

When we get to the party/pregame itself the differences are really obvious.  Isak is stuck in a really awkward situation where Emma and Sonja are having a great time together, getting along like a house on fire.  The whole group have clearly been sitting there for quite some time and Isak is bored.  Bored and awkward.  Matteo starts with just him and Sara, and when he calls for backup it’s Jonas he wants.  Worse, he says he’s ‘on my own’ which Sara rightly calls him on.  The dynamic is totally different here.  It’s just the two of them and he isn’t all that excited about it.  She’s happy and excited to be here with him helping out like this is a proper relationship, but he is still keeping the brakes on and trying not to be too physical with her, not engaging in her suggestions etc.  It feels like he wants Jonas there as buffer against being too intimate.  Isak, for once, is the one who is tuned out.  He only joins in the conversation when it has anything to do with new information about Even, otherwise he’s checked out for most of it, even looking in the opposite direction a lot of the time, though he does sneak glances at Even a reasonable amount.  When Sonja leaves, Isak finds it really awkward.  He’s unsure how this will go or what he should do.  It’s an uncomfortable moment he’s just witnessed and he’s not at ease here at all.  Matteo changes when David arrives, going from trying to delicately keep away from Sara to actively antagonizing her.  He’s reminded of David obviously and doesn’t want to be coupley in front of him.  Their greeting was so unnatural and he’s feeling the strain now.  So he’s not awkward at all, instead acting very deliberately to get Sara off his back.

So the way they two couples leave is different, too, because of the differences in the situations that have been set up here.  Even does it on a whim because of 21.21, after no discussion at all and Isak is willing to follow just as easily.  He’s bored and all he cares about is Even, probably wanted Even to himself for this evening anyway and isn’t going to pass up the chance to be alone with him.  Matteo is clearly stressed and angry, irritated by Sara and the situation, knows he’s been shitty.  So when David asks if he’s okay and he says no, he wants to leave because he wants to get out of the situation just as much as he wants to be alone with David.  The ‘running’ itself is similar, with Even and David both knowing where they’re going and Isak and Matteo following willingly enough (with Isak even physically giving up all power to Even on the back of the bike).  The difference is that, as we see later, Matteo and David spend a fair bit of time at the abandoned place before they get into the pool.  They’ve had time to be at ease and to enjoy spending silly time together whereas Isak is still off balance (literally and figuratively) and so he’s more wary and hesitant.  

The moments for both when they get into the respective pools are charged in similar ways, but with Matteo and David it’s much more deliberate.  It feels like they both know what’s coming and are ready for it.  Isak and Even fall into the pool by accident, and while Even clearly brings him into this place to take him to the pool to recreate the underwater Romeo and Juliet kiss, the actual moment in the pool comes across as more organic.  Even sounds it out bit by bit and Isak takes his lead.  There’s banter and a game and it’s all designed to be plausibly deniable.  Isak’s relief and delight is so clear after the first kiss that the second is inevitable even in the scenario of the game.  While Matteo and David share this dynamic of teasing and banter that’s carried on from the previous stairway ‘directing’ moment, the time in the pool is much more heightened much more quickly.  The way David circles Matteo and the deliberate step he takes to get close to him, it’s obvious what’s going to happen.  They both play at the ‘game’ with Matteo jump start at David and David’s ‘I won’ after the kiss.  But they both know what’s happening much earlier than Isak does, I think.  This has been building for weeks now, whereas Isak has only thought of the possibility as real for a much shorter time.  Even has been a much more absent figure and so Isak’s dealings with him and his thoughts about him have been much more fantasy-esque.  David has been a genuine presence for Matteo for longer and I think for both this has been inevitable since the almost kiss.  The deliberate way both leaned in at that moment sealed then what happens here, whereas for Isak everything was still much more up in the air.  He was more hesitant during that almost kiss (having just learned about the amount of time Even and Sonja had been together) and so the way this one played out is more feeling out a possibility than a knowledge of the inevitable.  

Again, I think the ways in which Matteo is more proactive play out in the different vibes in what happens for each couple here.  Matteo isn’t more confident; Isak is probably the more confident of the two in terms of being in the world and engaging with what’s around him.  He’s better able to talk his way out of awkward situations and go with the flow of life as it happens.  But Matteo is definitely more likely to go for what he wants when he wants it at this point.  Part of that is, again, because of the differences between Even and David and the ways in which Even having a girlfriend vs David not having one change how they act and react.  But part of it is how secure Isak and Matteo seem in knowing who they are.  Matteo is checked out of his life, but he sure knows who he is and he sure knows what he wants and how to get it.  He knows that what David makes him feel is good and he wants to keep it and is in fact quite proactive in trying to make sure it happens.  Isak’s one attempt at being proactive fell flat when Even put him off for Sonja and so he feels stuck in a situation where he has to react to Even rather than put himself forward, and because he really is still stuck in his ‘I’m straight and a player’ persona.  Not to mention that Even is still occupying a ‘hot, unattainable suave older guy’ role for Isak in a lot of ways.  Matteo has no such problems because David, while still being a little mysterious, is far more reactive when Matteo approaches him, and Matteo doesn’t have as much desire to play up his heterosexuality.  This has been true through the whole season so far and allows Matteo to be more active at this point now that he’s found someone to shake him out of his apathy.  Isak is still in a place where he’s being swept away rather than taking as much of an active role in the sweeping.  That side of their relationship comes later for him once he has a better idea of who Even is as a person rather than as an icon.

Episode five can be found here

[evakuality]

Episode five of this ongoing comparison.  The earlier episodes can be found here:

Episode one    Episode two    Episode three    Episode four

What we have here is the start of the pain.  This is where things start to go downhill for both of our boys, though in different ways.  Because we also have the start of the bigger diversions, or in this case more accurately the bigger shifts in clip placement, from the original in Druck.  Before we get to the pain, though, we of course have the post-kiss cuddling, making out all night scenes.  The actual cuddling etc goes mostly the same for both.  They’re both wrapped up in their partners, soft and warm and glowing.  The one really big difference is that while Isak has some teasing banter with Even they stay mostly wrapped up in each other, whereas Matteo and David are more physical in their teasing and banter.  There’s wrestling and pretend biting.  They’re more active and energetic together and this sums up a lot of the differences between Isak and Matteo as well.  Isak is far less physical with Even in these sorts of ways.  He’s far more likely to be quiet and calm together with him.  Whereas Matteo and David are much more physical in their way of being together.  They wrestle, kick, run, poke, play fake table tennis etc etc.  And in fact this is a cornerstone of the way Matteo interacts with others.  Later on we see him playing table tennis and a weird football game with the boys.  It really highlights how unlike himself he’s been at this stage where David is the only one he’s doing this stuff with.  Isak, by contrast, hangs with his boys in much more static ways.  They sit around, they talk, they play video games, they joke etc.  But they’re not as physically active.  Part of this difference could also be the timing of when each couple left the party and thus when they might have got home and thus how much sleep they might conceivably have got.  Matteo and David left mid afternoon, whereas Isak and Even left well after 9.  But the differences in this way in other scenes are also quite clear so it’s at least partly because of a difference in preference in terms of how they enjoy hanging out with people.

What we do get here is Isak having the confidence to contradict Even, though.  For once he’s not just being swept away but is carving out his own space in this thing.  It allows for a deeper, more real conversation even than the one they had in episode two.  Matteo and David have already had this sort of conversation, where they were both open and vulnerable with the other.  So this for them is just a continuation.  I don’t think that Matteo and David are genuinely more ‘equal’ than Isak and Even, but I think Isak thinks Even is out of his league for a lot longer than Matteo thinks that of David.  That’s partly to do with how much vs how little time they were able to interact in previous episodes and also to the fact that their ages are different with Matteo and David being in the same year.  This difference is really highlighted at the end of this clip when it’s ‘I’m so fucked’ vs ‘we’re so fucked’ -- Isak is still more aloof from Even and his issues than Matteo is from David’s.  The thing here is that Isak is getting comfortable with this new person and is beginning to let his true colours out.  He’s competitive and argumentative and he likes to talk and discuss.  This is the point where he starts to come into his own with Even and Even really becomes less of a godlike figure and more of an equal.  The other difference in this scene is the variety of things we see Isak and Even talking about.  Their conversations roams, bouncing from thing to thing and they don’t dwell on any one topic for long.  Isak is open and curious and wants to know it all, but he’s unwilling to share too much of his own stuff.  He shuts his Eskild story down with ‘blah blah blah’ whereas Matteo, when asked a similar thing, is much more willing to talk about his family life and why he’s thinking what he’s thinking.  He’s very clear about what he needs: yeah being alone is bad.  He’s so willing to let David in, again probably because they’ve been here before and that conversation went well and it therefore becomes easier to share vulnerabilities.  Isak is still feeling out how much and what he should tell.  Matteo is clearly having just as long and just as varied a conversation with David but we don’t get to hear it.  Instead we see how energised they are together, how much David makes him laugh, how much he enjoys the time together.

Their morning after personas are very different too.  Isak is wary, scared at having been ‘caught’ when Even left and he shuts his friends out, very deliberately via the door to his room.  Matteo, on the other hand, literally doesn’t seem to care that he’s so different to usual.  He actually invites the girls to share some of his pasta and jokes and has some fun with them.  Considering that to this point, isak has been much more open and connected with his friends and Matteo has been the opposite it’s an interesting development.  It speaks again, I think, to Matteo being much more secure in who he is.  Literally all he’s been needing is someone to push him out of his rut, whereas Isak has now had his experience with a boy and is swimming in all the new things that throws up for him about who he is.  He wants to process it alone or with Even not with the general world.  Matteo is more than happy to be seen happy, and as we see later in this episode, he’s far more willing to be open about this relationship and to kiss etc in public spaces, something we continue to see Isak struggling with almost to the end of this season.

This more connected Matteo and less connected Isak carries through into their post-weekend meeting with the boys.  Isak is sidelined, clearly on the outer and can’t even find Even at all.  And his boys, who he blew off to be with Even, now have a shared experience and are animatedly talking about it with Isak visibly pushed off to the side.  He feels lonely and isolated.  Matteo on the other hand gets a firm commitment from David to meet later in the week and when he talks to Jonas he’s invited into the discussion.  That’s easier of course because it’s just the two of them, but it’s still a major move away from his self imposed isolation of earlier.  He’s found David, is happy and positive about their future, and so he’s re-entering the world.  We get a really good indication of who he really is here, and it’s someone who enjoys being open with other people when he’s feeling good.  He has his down moment when Sara confronts him about breaking up with her, but even then he doesn’t seem all that bothered by it not even when she ‘accuses’ him of not being into girls.  In fact he’s so unbothered by it that he’s genuinely confused when David asks how she’s doing after their date.  Yeah he’s not into girls, he met ‘this guy’ and he’s willing to go after what he wants and doesn’t care who knows it.  He makes his intentions very clear to David, while still respecting David’s choices and preferences.  David’s conversation here is very opaque, and we don’t really know what he means or why he’s acting the way he is.  Matteo certainly doesn’t seem to get it, and while he’s confused he’s willing to let David take it at his own pace during that date.  He still thinks they’re on the same page, and in a lot of ways they are.  David is scared to be open but not because of anything Matteo has said about the things that are important to him and so the path back to each other is a lot less fraught.  Matteo into the next few episodes is more free to reminisce about their time together as ‘beautiful’ without the strain of some of the other things Isak deals with.

Isak by contrast is left in a very awkward state.  He thinks they make a commitment to each other there in that locker room.  He isn’t aware that he’s said anything that will push Even away, indeed he thought that saying keeping mentally ill people (eg his mother, who he has a difficult relationship with) away from him is a drawcard.  So the path of both of these boys to the end of this episode is very different.  For Isak, the ‘we’re going too fast’ text comes out of nowhere, after he thinks they make a firm commitment.  Even used words that very much suggested they would be together, so it’s not strange that Isak believes they are.  Isak is also forced now to talk about his parents in a way that he avoided with the ‘blah blah blah’ story, and so he’s being vulnerable at a time when he wants to be honest.  He genuinely wants to answer Even’s question about how they’d feel if he was with a guy.  But he fumbles it a lot because he’s doing it on the spot and he knows it’s a delicate topic.  His mother probably wouldn’t be happy, but he doesn’t want that to drive Even away so he makes the infamous comment that is what actually pushes him away.  That text also comes after the very passionate discussion with Eskild whose disapproval of Isak’s commentary on being ‘gay gay’ is so very deep and cutting.  His reaction to that is shame and then he’s hit with that message from Even.  It devastates him as we see when he’s isolating himself from the boys again the next evening.  He withdraws into himself and his self isolation only gets worse once he sees Even.  He completely shuts the boys out and goes off on his own, wanting to deal with this huge emotional blow by himself.  It’s a far cry from the Isak we saw at the start of the season.  

Matteo’s reaction is to get angry with himself.  The tone and the flow of the conversation is different even though the content is much the same, with Matteo at the start once again seeming to try to explain why he feels the way he does, unlike Isak who was quite defensive in his dismissal of being ‘like that’.  Matteo is more ‘that’s your thing, this is my thing, and I want to stay me’. Unfortunately, Matteo does get to Isak’s level of causing offense by the end as he digs his hole deeper with some of his comments.  He tries to apologise, much the same way he did with the dancing girl scene, but Hans cuts him off and leaves.  Hans seems much less hurt than Eskild, or at least less bitter with it.  There’s no ‘I don’t want to talk to you’ comment and so Matteo’s reactions mostly stem from his own internal annoyance with himself.  His ‘fuck’ is directed at himself because he knows he screwed up and didn’t get the words to come out right.  Isak’s seemed more ignorant to start, whereas Matteo appears more to be just trying to define himself (though this could be in hindsight just because Eskild and Hans react quite differently).  This means of course that when Matteo gets David’s ‘we’re going too fast’ text he has no qualms in going to his house.  This is more in character for him anyway; he’s never been one to just accept David coming to him.  He’s always been more proactive and in this case he’s going to fight for what he wants.  That of course ends badly because David gets spooked and pushes him even further away.  One thing I haven’t really mentioned before is how much more aggressive Matteo is than Isak.  When he gets upset or angry he throws things to relieve some of that pressure and tension.  It’s never designed to break anything, indeed he usually chooses harmless things that will let off steam without causing damage.  But it’s something I can’t ever see Isak doing which is why the way he shoves Mahdi at the party shows how much he’s hurting.  Matteo’s is more of the same, Isak’s is a shocking burst out of nowhere.

Both boys are left devastated at the end of the episode, but Matteo’s is far more from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.  David’s text seems to have come out of nowhere, just a random ‘it’s going too fast’ after he’s been mulling it over.  Even’s is in direct response to Isak asking to hang out.  And Matteo gets shut down when he goes to see David, both by his sister and by his second text, the much harsher ‘I’m not into you.’  Isak sees Even from a distance when he’d have no way to know Isak would ever see, and so for Isak there is still the possibility of hope.  ‘I need time’ is much less definitive than what Matteo is told.  The result is the same, though.  They both further isolate themselves.  But for Isak this is a continuation of what he’s been doing or what has been happening this whole week; it’s just a deeper slide into this state.  Whereas Matteo had one shining week of reconnecting and being happy before this hit him hard.  He retreats to his old standby after this, taking it even further.  It’s interesting that again we see Isak trying to take the lead a bit by asking Even to hang out, and getting shut down again, which reinforces the idea that Even is still the one calling the shots here.  But Matteo is used to being the one to take the lead.  He and David generally share that role, and so it’s easier for him to decide to fight.  The thing is that in the past David has been willing to go along when Matteo has taken the lead (and vice versa, but that’s not so important right now), so having him back off so many times during the date and on the Friday night really drives home for Matteo that something has gone wrong.  All he knows is that one day things were great and the next he’s lost David for no discernible reason.  Of course he’s devastated.  Isak’s week has been pretty bad, with one shining moment of brightness in the middle, so for him this is just one more blow on top of a number he’s already endured.  His has been building up to this point.  Either way, they’re both suffering at this point and we get the real start of all the pain.

Episode six can be found here

[evakuality]

So, here is the third of these comparisons of these two characters, this time for episode three.  You can find the earlier ones here:

Episode one

Episode two

Episode three starts with Isak alone on a bench getting a barrage of texts from Emma about what a shitty thing he did.  In some ways, this is understandable.  He did lie to her about why he didn’t go to her place.  But, he was coerced into it in the first place and was fairly clearly not really in the mood.  Matteo is also alone, but his loneliness is very different.  First because Sara did her text yelling on Friday and so he has nothing to distract him, and second because he’s inside and his isolation is from people who are actually present.  Again, he’s on the outer from people who are actually in the same space as he is.  

For Isak, when Jonas and Mahdi arrive he is once again entered in their conversation, but it’s more of the same attack for having ditched them on Friday.  There’s a sense that he has to ‘make it up’ to them for what he did on Friday.  They don’t know it, but it’s a huge contrast between what he experienced and how much fun he had with Even and the lack of fun he’s pretty sure he’d have with the others that day.  He’s ‘making up’ for actually enjoying himself and for falling for a guy -- and one who has a girlfriend he never bothered to tell Isak about.  Matteo, on the other hand, is fully focused on David.  He’s wearing his beanie, he sends him a message or two and he drops everything when David texts back.  The only dampener here is the conversation with Mia, who reminds him forcefully that he has a girlfriend and that everyone thinks that’s great.  At the same time as he’s enjoying the feeling of getting to know David (a time they spent together that he will later describe as ‘beautiful’), he’s being reminded that actually he can’t have what he wants because he has this strange half-life with Sara.

They both do the gay test at this point, but for very different reasons.  Isak has given up on Even.  He must feel pretty stupid, that he let himself fall into this fantasy about this guy who in the end turns out to be apparently uninterested ‘that way’ and who in fact has a girlfriend.  He looks at a picture of Emma, who he feels like he should be into, and then takes the test.  Matteo takes the test because he’s reminded about David, and that’s where his thoughts go.  He seems much more sanguine about the answer he gets too, and his question and the way we see him answering suggests a better understanding of himself.  Isak tries hard not to pick the ‘gay’ answers, but Matteo quite cheerfully says yeah of course he’d kiss a guy for money.  Even so, Isak immediately looks up how to sleep with a woman if you’re gay so he’s at least somewhat accepting of himself even if he doesn’t like the test’s answer.  

The scene with the dancing girls is pretty similar for both, though again Isak’s responses feel more performative than Matteo’s.  Matteo’s is phrased like he’s genuinely wondering why you can’t be ‘normal’ and be gay, like he’s trying to figure out how he can slot himself into the idea of being gay when he doesn’t have any of the usual trappings of ‘gayness’ that he expects to see and when he realises it sounded bad he apologises.  Isak feels more like he’s judging and doesn’t back down and his Jonas rightly calls him out on that in a much harsher way than Matteo’s does.  It’s interesting, the way they talk to and about Even and David here as well.  They’re both caught out by their approach but Matteo recovers faster (indeed he looks much less panicked and actually manages to communicate with David unlike Isak who is frozen for the entire encounter) and his ‘some new guy, a friend of Leonie’s’ is much kinder than Isak’s ‘Vilde’s revue nerd’ comment.  Part of this is that Isak lied about being with Even to these guys, whereas Matteo really only spun that tale for Sara, and part must be that Matteo has more reason to know of David since they’re actually in the same year.  There wouldn’t be the same suspicion that could come for Isak being on friendly terms with the new guy from another year.

The way they’re forced into having the party is different too.  Firstly, timing.  Isak gets coerced into his by Vilde before meeting Even again via the dancing girls, whereas Matteo has already had yet another interaction with David, which of course makes it easier for him to go to him and ask if he wants to come (well that and the lack of David having a girlfriend to put the brakes on, even if his own should be something of a dampener here).  Second, Isak has already kind of agreed in principle to holding one.  Back when he thought Even was as free as he himself he was okay with it as an idea to get closer to him.  Now, he doesn’t want to face that and effectively Vilde calls him on it and makes it happen.  Matteo literally says no he won’t do it and Kiki just tells him he will.  He’s not listened to not because he already agreed but because no-one seems to listen to him.  They’re all so used to him doing what they think he should that his actual spoken wishes are ignored.  Isak looks flustered here, like he’s not used to having his sweet talking excuses denied and he finally gives in because his excuses run out and Vilde literally walks away.  Matteo basically gives up because he always does, but on seeing David thinks that it’s maybe not all a dead loss and goes to ask him to come.  Again, the way Friday played out changes how and what they do here even though the end result is the same: a party at their place that weekend.  

A big difference is that Isak goes to Emma at this point, tries to make it up with her.  Suddenly he needs the mask she offers (and this is partly why the ‘how do I sleep with a woman if I’m gay’ stuff comes in) because he made a fool of himself with Even and he needs to prove to himself and to the world (including Even) that he’s a heterosexual guy with a heterosexual interest in girls.  Matteo of course has no such qualms.  First, everyone believes his relationship with Sara and second, David hasn’t done anything to suggest he’s disinterested, apart from leaving and he’s kind of papered over that part already with his response to Matteo’s message.  So while Isak feels he has to deal with Emma, Matteo is free to make more connections with David.  

Matteo also has his conversation with Sara, of course, but the tone is very different.  Emma is delighted with Isak, loves his charm and the way he’s trying to make it up to her, but Sara is hurt.  She rejects Matteo’s attempts to charm her and demands real, honest behaviour.  At this point, what Matteo does is quite a bit more shitty than what Isak does.  To Isak it’s still a light flirtation and Emma is clearly happy to go along with it and there’s still really nothing riding on it.  They hooked up at a party and that’s all it really is.  To Matteo, however, he’s had to make a choice.  Sara tells him she doesn’t want to be with him if he doesn’t mean it and despite knowing he doesn’t mean it, he still clings to her.  I don’t think he means to be an asshole, he wants to make her happy as much as he can, but this here is where he should have backed away because he knows how he feels about David, and this here is where she feels like he’s made a proper commitment to her.  It’s one he really doesn’t have the heart for but which he makes anyway.

The differences in the neon parties are very stark as well.  Isak spends the whole time with someone else, mostly Emma.  Whether she found him or vice versa we don’t know, but he’s engaged and happy enough in the conversation, an active and interested part of the party.  Once again, we get the same sort of ‘flirting’ he’s always done, ie some jokes that are basically insults but serve as banter between them.  She’s interested and excited by this and their dynamic is pretty easy.  It feels a lot like he’s taken the ‘have some beer and focus on what’s attractive’ suggestion to heart a bit even before Even turns up and he plays it up for him.  Matteo starts out with a bunch of friends but once Sara has dragged him away and he’s left by himself (and thinks he’s seen David with a girlfriend) he retreats to the walls rather than re-engage.  Unlike Isak, who has some conversation with Even (of a sort, mostly carried by Even and Emma), Matteo only stares at David from across the room.  They’re both sad and jealous of the ‘girlfriend’ that comes with their crush, but Isak and Even have a LOT more interaction than Matteo and David do.  Part of that is of course that Even is a lot more proactive in the situation than David, who seems content to also hang around by the edges rather than finding Matteo.  The ‘call your girlfriend’ moment with Isak and Even is super charged with the eye contact etc, whereas Matteo and David don’t have this at all.  Instead we get pining from across the room with no response at all from David.  

And obviously one major diversion here is Matteo’s panic attack and retreat into his own space.  Isak chooses not to go with everyone to the real party because he doesn’t really want to be with Emma, and doesn’t want to be in a taxi with her and Even and Sonja.  He still feels happy enough in himself.  Matteo stays back because he’s feeling terrible and in his own words ‘everything’s fucking me up right now’ and so the ways they come across Even and David at the end of the evening take on different meanings.  Even deliberately stays back as a way to interact with Isak again and he’s very bold with how he does it.  Interestingly, he spins stories for Isak in the way Isak does for others and so they’re on the same wave length in this way.  The vibe is light and flirtatious and they talk for quite a while before they almost kiss.  Matteo comes out of his room to find David in his kitchen quietly cleaning up.  He would have no way of knowing for sure that Matteo would emerge once everyone was gone, but he still took the chance.  This conversation is much deeper, less fraught with tension, and much shorter.

The two boys are in different headspaces in this scene and so it plays out differently for each.  Isak is happy, he’s had the supercharged eye contact with Even and so he knows there’s something here even with Sonja in the way.  The sadness of the end of Friday is gone and there’s this charged flirtation in its stead.  Matteo is newly convinced that David has a girlfriend (he seems really quick to assume that David is with any girl he hugs, which says something about how much he values himself and his charms - eg, not much) and he’s had a bad experience with being dragged out of his comfort zone to reluctantly dance, and the moment with Andi earlier as well.  He’s definitely not in a space where flirting and banter would work.  David isn’t like that here, seemingly picking up on it and his words are quiet, direct, meaningful.  

Obviously, they both end in an almost kiss but getting there is a different journey.  Isak’s facing up to the reality of his fantasy coming true; he’s hesitant, wary even while he wants it.  Matteo moves in almost as much as David does once he’s clarified that there is, in fact, no girlfriend (apart from his own, who he really should remember!!).  He is, once again, more proactive than Isak in the situation.  He’s far more direct in asking about Laura and acting once he knows than Isak is about Sonja.  Of course, Isak gets the even more unwelcome news that Even and Sonja have been a thing for years whereas Matteo hears there’s nothing standing between him and David, and has in fact been told he looks good which is a clear hint of intent.  What’s happening between them has come from a much more gentle and less charged place at this party, but there has been a lot more actual connection and interaction between them in the past (however awkward it’s been) and so it’s just as natural a progression here.

Again, Isak is still slightly in awe of Even, I think.  He’s still this larger than life figure who has taken notice of Isak and swept him off his feet.  Matteo isn’t being swept away so much as he’s learning how to open up slowly and organically with someone who is desirable, yes, but who is much more his equal.  And I don’t think a sweeping romance would have worked for Matteo any more than I think a gentle David type would work for Isak.  Matteo’s in a space where he needs to be encouraged to get back into his life and an Even would be quite challenging in that respect, unlike David who takes things as they come and is far more at Matteo’s pace and on his level, and their interactions to this point have been more even.  Not that Even isn’t gentle; he is, but at this point he’s quite a lot more exuberant and larger than life than David, with his tall tales and teasing.  There’s no taking things slowly for Even in this moment, he’s too extra for that, and that’s exactly what Isak needs anyway.  A quiet approach like David’s wouldn’t intrigue Isak at all, I don’t think.  They’re different, Isak and Matteo, they have different needs and so their partners are quite different.

Episode four can be found here

[evakuality]

Episode seven of this ongoing series of mine: one in which I spend far too much time on one set of clips because the differences fascinated me too much.  The earlier episodes can be found here:

Episode one          Episode two          Episode three

Episode four          Episode five          Episode six

The guru talks in these two episodes are so interesting because they are very different.  First, the dynamic between each pair is quite distinct.  Eskild reassures Isak immediately that he’s ‘sick’ of hearing him apologise for what he said about being ‘gay gay’ and it’s clear that Isak has been angsting over this since it happened and getting on Eskild’s nerves with the depth of his apologies.  Then the teasing when Eskild works out that Isak wants some gay guruing is adorable, but Isak is unwilling to explicitly say ‘you’re my guru’ despite reluctantly agreeing to it in principle.  He’s ready to walk away from the conversation before doing that and Eskild knows when he’s gone too far and lets Isak talk.  Hans is a lot less welcoming when Matteo first shows up, though he does say he doesn’t need to apologise and Matteo says he wasn’t planning to.  At this point, Hans has been absent for a while and so this is probably their first meeting post-disastrous ‘gay gay’ talk.  That it’s so different to Isak’s shows just how different this dynamic is.  Matteo doesn’t feel a need to apologise which tends to suggest he doesn’t feel like what he said was ‘wrong’ the way Isak does.  And in fairness to him, Hans’s reaction was much less harsh than Eskild’s and there has been time to chill since they last saw each other.  Still.  It means the idea that Matteo is trying to figure stuff out rather than judging seems more likely.  Matteo is, however, much happier to tell Hans he’s his guru ‘if it makes you happy’ so each in his own way lets his guru know what he means to him and how valued he finds him.  It’s just that they have very different styles of doing that.  Isak needs to let Eskild know how sorry he is, while Matteo needs to make Hans feel accepted and happy.

The talk itself between Isak and Eskild is very hesitant and I think Isak already knows what Eskild will say, he just wants to talk about it a bit.  It is an awkward situation and Even is still very opaque at this point so trying to decipher meaning is hard for Isak who’s still navigating his first real experience with genuine emotions.  Eskild tells Isak that guys don’t often break up with girls to be with other guys, and yet that’s exactly what Matteo has done.  Isak’s been given a fairly explicit reminder that a long relationship isn’t easily ditched and is left just as unsatisfied as before.  Matteo, on the other hand, is told that David is probably not ready to come out (which is true but not in the way Hans means, but I digress).  And Matteo is given a course of action when he asks what he should do: wait for him to be ready to stand up for himself or give up on him.  It’s very definitive, unlike Eskild’s wishy washy attempt to make things clear.  Eskild is not very reassuring here and his guruing is hilariously awkward as he tries to say what he thinks but also tries not to upset Isak.  Bonus: saying he’s not God and so he doesn’t really know everything while he tries to be not too harsh.  

This segues nicely into Matteo’s version because his is entirely bound by church and religious activities.  Hans, who is preparing an Easter meal for them all, takes Matteo away and literally into a church to have this discussion.  He may not be God, but there’s a clear suggestion that God won’t judge harshly as they have this conversation literally under his roof.  This has a lot of relevance both to each character’s relationship with his mother, and also to his relationship with religion.  Isak has effectively rejected his mother’s religion and all the texts we see from her to this point are just religious.  Matteo gets religious texts from his mother, but they are also peppered with other things like best wishes for his exams.  Isak doesn’t see his mother anymore and is visibly irritated with her religion being foisted on him, whereas Matteo is much more sanguine and has a much closer relationship with his mother.  In fact, she expects that she might see him at church this day and while he fobs her off because ‘I have to study’ it’s clear that they have some contact outside of text messages about bible verses.  This means that for Matteo, having this chat here is comforting rather than scary as it might be for Isak, who is still unsure what his parents might think of him being gay and who isn’t really willing to use that descriptor for himself as yet.  To Isak, church is something he builds up to doing, where for Matteo it’s a familiar thing, maybe not actively preset in his life but not something to be wary of.  Matteo and Hans discuss something of the comfort you can get from religion and even indulge in some rituals before they leave.  There’s hope here, for Matteo, as he’s reminded that his mother is on medication and is feeling better and he hears about the steps Hans’s has taken.  It’s a strong suggestion that nothing is static and things may look bad, but they can improve.  He’s left in a much better position than Isak at the end of this conversation.

Another difference is how defeated Matteo looks before he goes to talk to Hans (which also emphasises how much he gets out of the conversation they end up having; it’s a much lighter matteo we see at the end than at the start).  He’s so sad, despite having had such a good talk with Jonas about all his stuff.  It hasn’t been enough to make him feel completely at ease because for him it was never about ‘will people accept who I am’ and more about wanting to feel something.  So his relief isn’t as immediate as Isak’s.  Not to say Isak is truly happy here, he’s clearly very worried/concerned about what’s happening with Even, but a lot of his issues were what Jonas would think and that’s been settled and so he’s a lot less caught up in the whole sad mess.  For this reason, we never see Isak destroy (or rather damage because it does come back later) any of the gifts/messages from Even the way Matteo does to David’s ‘it’s not you it’s me’ drawing.  That’s partly because Matteo is a more impulsive and aggressive character but also partly because the issues are/were different for him and so he’s still a maelstrom of emotion.  This only makes the end of this scene more poignant, of course, because for Matteo it’s the real start of healing.  For Isak that process was well underway with the Jonas talk.

This difference in what they were feeling carries through into the scenes with Sana and Amira.  Matteo’s in fact, combines two scenes between Isak and Sana and so hits with everything it has right in one go.  But even if they were split as Isak’s are, the tone is different.  Isak and Sana are in school and competing for who has the right answer.  Isak is in his element and doesn’t feel a need to make amends with her (mostly because he didn’t drive Sana away the way Matteo did with Amira), and so it’s much more casual than matteo who has set up a study zone and made sure to be prepared and to prove to Amira that he really does value her.  As Isak does with Sana but they show it in different ways.  Isak has intellectual battles with Sana, bouncing ideas off her and sparring with her about their work, proving that he values her brain and her abilities and they both clearly enjoy the debate.  Matteo shows with the way he carefully prepares everything that he’s taking Amira seriously and appreciates her help and effort.  There’s a lot more weight given to Vilde and her ‘are you gay? Yay I love gays’ message to Isak than Kiki’s to Matteo, because for Isak this is his nightmare: everyone finding out and facing once again that possibility of rejection.  The situation panics him a lot.  It becomes obvious as Isak questions her, that Sonja and Emma between them have been telling people and Isak can’t hide from it now.  He’s clearly stressed and anxious about it.  Matteo really doesn’t care if he’s outed in many ways: he’s ready and willing to shower the object of his affection with love and attention as publicly as he’s allowed to.  Having Kiki ‘support’ him this way is just irritating rather than anything that genuinely rattles him.  Having said that, he’s genuinely happy that Amira apologises (in her own roundabout unique way) for what she said about ‘genetic dead ends’ and he thanks her for her support.  Clearly, there are ways he welcomes support and there are ways he doesn’t (or maybe it’s just that he likes Amira and finds Kiki annoying at the best of times).  

The way they come out to the boys is fascinating too.  Isak is effectively forced into it because of the rumours at school which Magnus helpfully updates us and him on in the most oblivious sort of way and makes the whole thing that much harder for Isak, because now it’s ‘hilarious’ that he’s gay.  Matteo is asked about it by Carlos who has heard it through the rumour mill.  Its taken out of his hands a bit, but that doesn’t seem to worry him since he’s far more ready to be open about it already.  For him, the big thing now is whether he can get David back because he still stubbornly ‘can’t believe’ that David means he doesn’t want him (with good reason; it’s obvious they had something good).  We can hear Isak’s nerves in his voice and in the very long pause before he says ‘we had a thing’ whereas Matteo just seems to be stalling because he’s not sure how to say it, not because he’s scared to say it.  Isak is clearly taken aback when the boys starts arguing about bisexuality vs pansexuality as if he’d expected a bigger, weirder reaction, and he’s quick to reiterate for these boys just like he did for Eskild that he’s not ‘gay’ just because he likes Even.  Matteo shares an amused look with Jonas during this same conversation and in his case is very comfortable saying he ‘believes’ he’s gay.  He doesn’t have the same hangups about that side of things, which is becoming more and more clear.  He wants to be ‘normal’ (his word) and also ‘gay’ and wants to reconcile the two things, but he’s still willing to accept the label even with the perceptions that don’t seem to fit him.  The ‘point’ of Matteo’s meetup with the boys is for him to apologise for his behaviour the other day and to make it up and spend time with them so for him the question comes out of nowhere, and yet it doesn’t phase him and he’s not worried about it in the same way Isak is.

One scene that differs for Matteo here is the one where he starts cleaning up his act, literally.  It’s a lovely visual metaphor for his state of mind and how much better he’s feeling now, and it also reminds us of how he feels about David even now when he hasn’t seen him in so long and is basically clinging to hope rather than any real indication that he can salvage anything out of this relationship.  Of course this leads to his conversation with Sara which mirrors Isak’s with Emma later but goes into more depth and in which he has more to apologise for.  I think he makes the leap to Sara here because he knows he feels about David the way she potentially felt about him and so he knows he owes her something.  We see more of how much she means to him compared to the relatively more superficial version Isak does with Emma.  This is partly because Matteo was actually in a relationship with Sara vs Isak and his casual hookups with Emma which she read more into than he promised.  But it’s also partly down to their difference in personality.  Matteo’s caring side is much closer to the surface and he seems to want to shower those he loves with affection.  The biggest example of this is of course David, but it’s also true of others including Sara.  Isak’s caring is hidden behind his sarcasm and grumpy persona and I don’t think it’s a surprise that once he was feeling better with his boys his first reaction is to roast Magnus for having no game.  This is what he’s like when he’s feeling good  Matteo doesn’t do that sort of thing and never has.  Instead we see his genuine concern that Sara has been bottling up her worries about her father and his job.  Having learned for himself that it’s important to talk to people to keep yourself healthy and happy (ish), he offers her the same advice he got.

The drinking scenes with the boys where they coach Isak and Matteo through texting Even and David go mostly the same.  Both boys experience the support and caring of their friends, both talk about irrelevant things with them while they do so and both are talked into basically sending an ultimatum.  They’re both reconnected with these groups and feel welcomed and at ease with them.  The one big difference is the way they greet Even vs David at the door.  They’re both anxious and excited, which we can see in their body language, but Isak takes one look at Even and despite being told to be chill and distant and play hard to get he goes straight in for a kiss and then things progress very quickly from there.  Matteo takes one look at David and has no idea how to react at all.  They stare at each other awkwardly before falling into a hug it seems like they both need.  I think Matteo is still a little more vulnerable and fragile about things, which makes sense because he got a much harsher rejection earlier.  He’s not really in a spot where he’d be ready for sex, even if David was.

This was the last time the episodes really line up properly because the things that happen as we progress are so different and come from such different places that it’s going to be interesting to look at the ways the differences in the two of them affect how they react to what is coming.  There are still similarities, of course, but starting with David’s confession the timing and purpose of events really diverge.

Episode eight can be found here

[evakuality]

Episode Ten: the last one!!! (and just in time for s4 to start!).  Previous episodes can be found here:

Episode one        Episode two        Episode three

Episode four        Episode five        Episode six

Episode seven    Episode eight      Episode nine

So here we are at the business end of this venture.  Our two boys have grown and developed and while their stories have been similar, they’ve diverged quite a bit by this stage.  I said way back at the start of this thing that the opening shots/songs kind of summed up the journeys each of them needed to take: Isak’s into being real and not using social lubricants to hide behind a mask, and Matteo’s into being fully present in his life in a way he wasn’t then.  And I think we see these two contrasting things in the first clips of each of these episodes.  Isak’s is very quiet and soft, and he’s real in a way that he doesn’t often let himself be.  His kindness, which he has in spades but hardly ever shows, is out in force in this scene.  With Even, with Sonja, just in general.  There’s nothing brash or cocky about him, which he often uses when he’s feeling vulnerable with and around people.  Instead, he’s quiet and calm, he asks for guidance from Sonja and he applies that guidance to Even.  He’s ready and willing to stand up for what he wants, too.  There’s no deference to Even’s experience (eg: ‘yeah okay Even, you know best, we’d better break up now in case it’s all bad later’) as he has so often done in the past.  It’s ‘no you have no idea what’s going to happen in the future and I’m refusing to let you go without a fight.’  This is a moment for Isak to reconnect with himself, with who he truly is and what he truly wants.  

Matteo, on the other hand, has been working up to this.  He’s been getting stronger in terms of who he is and being able to articulate that to others.  He’s actively tried to be more present for people and for himself even when he’s been feeling bad or something has gone wrong.  The last week he’s been holding back, unnaturally waiting and having to be inactive.  He’s chafed against it the whole entire time, even while doing it fairly willingly.  Having sex with someone is a very vulnerable thing, and it does require (when done right) for you to be fully present and engaged.  It requires openness, and that’s where these two are at this point.  They did most of the soft, quiet reunion stuff off screen via instagram, but we know it happened.  But what we have here is really Matteo fully allowing himself to feel and to be.  Sex has been a difficult topic for him the entire season, from the boys’ constant talk about it through Sara’s constant attempts to get him to do it.  So it’s really fitting that here he gets to experience that in this way with this person who he loves.  It’s not something he has to hide from anymore.  It’s something he wants and is engaged positively with.  Which he genuinely hasn’t been for the rest of the season.  It seems right that he’s doing this now when everything is secure and he has a firm commitment and he’s totally comfortable being actively engaged in his life.  Isak, I think, needed that connection when he got it because it was at a time when it cemented who he is and helped him be properly comfortable in his identity.  Matteo has always been more comfortable with, and accepting of, his sexuality.  

Both boys at this point in their seasons are getting what/who they want and taking active control of their own destinies, but each is showing it in different ways.  Isak’s quiet intensity is a powerful reminder of how ‘fake’ some of his other personas have been, and Matteo’s active engagement from the start of this scene is a powerful reminder of how disengaged he was at the start.

Again the differences in how they got to this point are highlighted in what comes next.  Isak continues his trend of being kind and caring and thoughtful (which he always was, just hiding it), as he talks to Vilde and agrees to host the next kosegruppa meeting/party.  He knows she’s caught up in it and while he really doesn;t care, he agrees to do it because he wants her to be happy.  Then he has his reconciliation with Emma, which is much briefer than the one Matteo had with Sara.  Partly because the history is less intense and so he owes her less.  But again, it’s a kind thing to do.  He wants her to know he cares about her as a person, and even though she doesn’t accept his offer to go to his party she clearly appreciates what he’s doing.  Matteo now gets his ‘morning after’ scene with David which Isak got so many weeks ago with Even.  It’s a quiet bonding moment, interspersed with their own brand of affection: teasing and physically irritating each other.  One thing that’s always been true with Matteo is that he doesn’t tend to talk a lot, but here we see him talking more and again being fully engaged in the conversations.  Of course, it’s always been like that with David; he’s always had the ability to bring Matteo out of his shell.  But even with Laura, and despite being still fairly quiet overall, we can see Matteo is taking an active part in this conversation.  He’s no longer on the sidelines.  On another note, at this point both boys are far more comfortable just giving in to their desire to touch their partners.  Isak caresses Even through almost all of their previous conversation, though a lot of that is for comfort as well.  Matteo is now taking every opportunity to drape himself all over David as much as possible.  The fact that he’s very tactile comes out now.  It was there before, and we saw hints of it, but now that he’s completely secure in David and what they have there’s no stopping him at all.

This of course, spills over into the next clip with the boys.  Matteo starts out with the boys and actively engaged in the conversation, though quieter and more laid back than the others.  The thing with this is that, while he’s much more animated in general and has managed to get over his apathy and the way he was checked out at the start, he’s still an introvert and he still will have some of the issues that affected his mental health at the earlier parts of the season, and so he’s still going to have times when he feels like being less energetic and less active in engagement with other people.  But now, instead of choosing to completely check out or isolate himself, he chooses to stay with his friends and be part of things, taking as active a part as he wants to.  When David arrives, he chooses to snuggle and again take part when he feels he has something to say, knowing he’ll be respected and listened to.  This continues his easy way of leaning all over David whenever he can now.  He’s not insecure or afraid at all of what people might think and he’s absolutely rock solidly sure of David’s feelings and so he’s able to be as open and loving as he’s always wanted to be.  This is such an intrinsic part of who he is and it’s so lovely seeing him able to be like this now.  In fact, he never stops - hasn’t stopped yet even though the break and on all his social media.  Isak, too, has become much more comfortable when he hangs out with his boys.  His interaction with the boys and the dancing girls is filled with a confidence and ease that he has often lacked.  Gone is the cocky bro guy and in his place is one who can be cheeky and send out put downs but in a more gentle, teasing way.  He’s happy to talk about who he’d ‘bang’ and even admit to it being Jonas, so he’s settled into his sexuality in a much more definitive way.  Even when the girls are quite disrespectful about why they want him to come to their party (‘it’s insanely cute with two guys together’), he takes it in good spirits and basically plays with them, and with the boys.  He has fun with his ‘no, sorry, I’m going to the kosegruppa gathering’ and again when the boys are horrified that he denied them ‘the gates to paradise’.  He’s very comfortable being open and having fun with who he is.  In the past he’d probably have gone with the boys and helped them get the girls but now he’s happy enough to tell them to do it themselves.

It’s interesting that Isak’s conversation with Eva happens at the end here rather than earlier like it does for Matteo and Hanna.  Isak hasn’t really needed this, but it’s a bonus for him, knowing that he can properly reconnect with her and that he hasn’t completely destroyed his friendship.  The tone is happy and while Isak is apologetic, he’s in a good place and is able to explain to her why he feels secure in who he is and why it doesn’t matter what’s going to come.  For matteo, this conversation was one that was needed to start drawing him out of his deep slump.  The connection he got from Hanna (a much less secure character at this point than Eva is) is a sense of companionship, of someone who knows how he feels and is just as lost as he is.  It happened when he needed it, and Isak never needed a similar conversation in that way at that time.  And now the reunion he has with Eva is when they, too, are on an equal level.  But in this case they’re equally happy and secure in who they are and how their lives are going.  Had this happened earlier, it would not have been the same sort of meeting of equals and it wouldn’t have the same power as a rekindling of this friendship.

So, by the time each of them gets to his final party, he has come a long way from the start of the season.  They’re both surrounded by the people they love, celebrating a moment of joy, and they’re both at peace with themselves and those around them.  Isak’s mask is completely gone and in its place he is relaxed and comfortable with who he is, with no desire to be playing a role or trying to please anyone else with being someone he’s not.  Matteo has the confidence to be able to express himself and be a little sarcastic (like when he told Abdi he’d sleep with him, then took it back), he’s actively participating in his own life in a way he’d never have been able to imagine at the start of the season, and he’s happy and content.  He’s not struggling with the fear of not knowing what to do in the future anymore, content just to live in the now with the people he cares about.  Isak, too, is happy where he is.  He’s finally real in a way he’s not allowed him to be in the past and he, too, is living in the now.  Day by day.  Minute by minute.

[evakuality]

Episode six: one in which not a lot is different in terms of storyline and things that happen, but in which the wide gulf between these two characters is really highlighted.

Previous episodes can be found here:

Episode one   Episode two   Episode three   Episode four   Episode five

It’s the similarities of the stories that are really highlighted by the differences, and there are some significant differences in how the start of these two episodes play out.  First, of course, is that Isak went awol for a week and we didn’t see him for that hiatus time.  So by this stage he’s been in this state for quite a while, and he’s forced back into contact with people because of school which is still ongoing.  Matteo, on the other hand, moves straight into the next week but he’s able to isolate himself very effectively because his phone is damaged and there’s no school, just exams.  Poor Isak tries hard to pump himself up, make the exposed walk across the schoolyard into something ‘cool’ - like he said to Even way back when they first really talked, he listens to this type of music when he wants to feel cool and confident.  He needs every ounce of that this day, and yet it’s undercut by the kid who bumps into him.  The confident, cool Isak is a fragile facade and it breaks very easily.  He looks pale and washed out and anxious anyway, let alone when his attempt to settle himself fails and his bubble is burst.  Matteo is deep into a weed-fogged haze.  He hasn’t changed at all since Friday and has presumably been doing some variation of lying around smoking ever since he got home that night. He clings to his phone despite not being able to use it and the messages that pour in but which he’s unable to access are symptomatic of his growing isolation.  The things he’s surrounded himself with are things that remind him of David (the picture, cheese sandwiches, though not toasted and not filled with disgusting extras), and that’s all he’s doing.  Blunting the pain with weed while presumably thinking about David.

The rest of each of these scenes plays out differently too.  Partly because of the difference in situation with school vs exams for each, but also partly because of the people who step up at this point.  Jonas is there for Isak in a way that Amira isn’t for Matteo because their friendship goes back further and is more filled with understanding of what is going on in Isak’s life.  Isak approaches Jonas in a very conciliatory frame of mind and he even apologises for how he’s been behaving.  He isn’t yet ready to admit what’s really going on, but he does mention his sleep issues and explains why he’s been so aggressive recently.  Jonas offers at this point to ‘talk about it’ if Isak wants to.  Matteo’s Jonas already offered this, but as I said in my communication meta, he picks the wrong things to focus on: Sara and Matteo’s mother.  So, while they both offer and they are obviously both there for Isak and Matteo, Matteo has a bigger problem making himself talk about it with his Jonas.  Not to mention that he doesn’t lash out at his friends until after Jonas offers to talk, whereas Isak and his Jonas are making an uneasy peace here.  Matteo can’t be sure after the way he spoke to his friends, if Jonas would still be willing.  So, for him it’s not Jonas who talks to him at this point and it’s not his choice.  

This leads to a much different conversation.  Gone is the soft, accepting vibe of Jonas (no-one’s mad at you, we’re just worried) and instead we have Amira and some hard home truths (you have to do something about it, Sara is fucked up because of you etc).  Home truths Matteo isn’t really ready to listen to as yet.  He’s apathetic and uninterested, preferring to stay in his own little bubble of weed and angst rather than try to study effectively and trying to make light of the situation which only alienates her further.  Because his phone is broken and he’s been out of contact he wasn’t expecting this meetup even though Amira did let him know she was coming.  But it means he’s not in any mindset for building bridges and making amends.  Which, we should remember, is partially because he had a week of things looking good and feeling great and it all came crashing down on him just a day or so back.  He came from a depressed place into something bright and hopeful and now he’s been dumped right back into that space.  It’s no wonder he’s not ready to come out of this yet; it hurts and it sucks to feel those good things and lose them.  As he says later, this numbing by the weed makes it all more bearable.  Isak, on the other hand, has been slowly sinking into this for quite some time after a long period of stability where he was at least content with his life, and so at this point he’s ready to start reaching out and making amends with those he’s treated badly.  He’s been in a good place with everyone recently and he wants that back; the bad space he’s in isn’t a nice cocoon for him the way it has been for Matteo.  It’s not something he’s chosen for himself and so he really wants to find a way out of it.

That makes the next few days for him even harder.  He can’t sleep and we see his anger and frustration over that (though I still say his aggression here is totally justified; Noora is being extremely inconsiderate), and then the heartbreak of his meeting with Even, where everything is awkward and no-one has anything particularly helpful to say to each other.  He wants to reach out and connect but he’s exhausted and heartsick and has no idea how to go about building those bridges he so obviously wants.  So in the end he just gives it all up and walks away; that’s easier than trying to make awkward small talk with this person with all the things that are still hanging between them.  Matteo meets up with his friends again, or more to the point they come to see him, and clearly try to help him work through whatever is going on with him with all the talk of spas and thermal baths and wellness etc.  Matteo is still not in a frame of mind to be accepting any of this though; he’s so tuned out from their conversation that his only response to their talk is that he’s going to put on some music.  Then the problem gets bigger again.  They make it obvious that they’re here because they think his funk is because of Sara when for him that was never the problem.  Breaking up with her was a relief to him and this whole ‘Sara’s feeling badly’ thing that everyone (including David) has been piling on him just pushes him further away from wanting to talk.  It’s not even what the boys are doing here )(they’re more focused on him) but because he’s heard it so often he’s getting really sick of it.  They’ve got such a disastrously wrong end of the stick with what’s going on with him and of course it culminates in his outburst that they only care about whether he was having sex with her.  They say he doesn’t talk to them and his indignant response is that’s because they have one track minds.  It pisses him off that everything is reduced to that (and when looking back he’s right; a LOT of what they talk about is sex related, even in this conversation) and none of it is based on anything really going on.  To the point that they have no idea of what that is.

What actually turns things around for Matteo, and serves as his own Isak-and-Jonas bridge building conversation, is when he talks with Hanna.  Unlike the other people who try to get through to him, she’s open and vulnerable herself, admits to feeling overwhelmed and anxious and so he’s able to be open himself.  It’s a moment where he gets to have some clarity and because she doesn’t push at him, he’s far more willing to accept what she’s saying.  It’s not over yet for him, of course, but her quiet acceptance of him and her admission that just because he’s done some shitty things it doesn’t mean he’s an asshole goes a long way to helping him start to turn himself around.  Moving this scene from the final party to here really fits for Matteo, I think.  He needed this here in a way that Isak, with his friends who have been more of a solid presence for him throughout the season, doesn’t.  Matteo really needed to hear that what he did to Hanna has been forgiven and that he can still have worth to other people, and he needed to hear it now when he was at his lowest and when he really felt like he’s an asshole with no hope of redemption.

The conversations they each have directing them to talk to other people otherwise they’ll end up like Ibiza are ostensibly very similar.  But they go to these people for different reasons, and expecting different results.  Isak’s desperate to be ‘normal’ again and to get over his sleep issues.  He wants pills to fix him and make it all feel better.  Matteo just wants more weed to blunt the pain and make everything more bearable.  I don’t think he feels like he can be fixed as such, but he’s keen to keep doing what has been ‘working’ for the last little while.  The people they speak to are both weird and unlikely bearers of the advice they give, though Isak’s doctory person at least tries to get him to see a professional.  Interestingly, he gets quite anxious at that idea and she backs off (probably because she’s not a ‘real’ doctor).  But the outcome for both is that they figure out that they need to open up and talk to people.  For Isak, that’s a scary thought because he’s still worried that telling people about Even will end up in rejection and isolation.  And we’ve seen over this last little while how much isolation is something he doesn’t enjoy at all.    For Matteo, the thought of talking to people is confronting because he still thinks he’s an asshole and he doesn’t want to put himself out to be with people and mend bridges in case they don’t want to mend them back.  I think for Isak it’s more about losing what he has so he doesn’t want to put himself out there, and for Matteo it’s about risking rejection if he tries to reach out, so it’s better to self isolate than to attempt it.  Both, however, are at the end of their tethers at this point and so they both make the decision to contact their Jonas and try to work through it.

The actual coming out conversations are again similar.  They both have a lot of love and support from their Jonas and they both feel relief when they’ve told him and it goes well.  The one big difference is how effusive Matteo is when he talks about David, and the way he describes their time together.  And the conversation Isak has with his Jonas beforehand is much more lowkey, just random talk about silly stuff that’s happened.  Matteo’s Jonas talks about how when he felt bad he did things to make himself feel better and more clear.  This again goes to each of their personalities and what they’re each afraid of.  Isak’s afraid he’ll lose this normal casual relationship with his friends and this conversation is there to assuage that feeling and when Jonas carries on being exactly the same after Isak tells him it’s such a relief for him.  You can see it in his face and hear it in his voice.  Matteo, on the other hand, feels like he’s different and not the same as anyone else so for him the relief is in hearing that Jonas was feeling this way before and that he was able to get out of it.  Like with Hanna, he gets some sort of comfort from knowing that he’s not the only one in this boat.  His ‘I scare away my friends’ to the dealer is so heartbreaking because he honestly thinks this is what will happen if he tries to connect because he’s been so shitty both in the past and recently, so to have Jonas do this in this moment allows Matteo to be easier with being open.  It’s also probably relevant that he had his little boost from David’s picture before he talks to Jonas rather than after like Isak.  The fragile knowledge that David isn’t completely lost to him does fuel a lot of what he says in that conversation with Jonas.

The two boys, while ending up with the same result (coming out to their best friend and being accepted), are so different in the ways they deal with the situations.  It’s still fascinating to me that Matteo is based off Isak and that their stories to this point don’t diverge that much, and yet they are such different people with such different outlooks on life.  You really couldn’t slot either of them into the other’s story and have it work; their motivations and reactions are just too different.

Episode seven can be found here

[evakuality]

Episode eight: a difficult one in many ways.  But I did my best now that we’re moving into different territory for each of them and their personality differences are coming out more.  It’s much harder now to talk about each at the same time.

Previous episodes can be found here:

episode one     episode two     episode three     episode four     

episode five     episode six       episode seven  

One of the major ways in which these characters and their experiences differ in this episode is that Isak gets his fluffy, giddy, delighted ‘morning after’ scene here rather than later as Matteo does.  What’s interesting about that is that Isak needs it now, I think.  He’s been feeling very uncomfortable and worried about how Even sees him and feels about their relationship.  Even has gone back to Sonja in the past and that insecurity is still hanging over Isak.  So when he wakes, alone, he assumes the worst, thinks that Even has left again.  He’s overwhelmed when instead he finds Even in his kitchen being friendly with his flatmates.  That Even is so easy in kissing him in front of them also freezes him, and we see him carefully watching what the others might think.  He remains wary, in fact, until they’re alone and even then it’s not til he says his piece about Sonja that he really relaxes.  This is where he really comes into his own in terms of being the one to start initiating things and being confronting on certain issues.  It was him who kissed Even the previous night, and now it’s him who refuses to accept ‘fuck Sonja’ as an acceptable answer to his implied question: what does this mean and where does Sonja fit into it?  Even so, it takes him a while to get the courage to bring it up.  This relationship, despite the sex the previous night, is fragile and he feels vulnerable.  So he needs this, I think.  First, the more serious moment where they discuss never having felt like this before and the reassurance that brings, and then the lighthearted, fun stuff after to cement that.  But he’s still living in something of his fantasy world, I think.  ‘Man of my life’ is such a big, sweeping, romantic notion and it still fits with that somewhat dreamy and otherworldly sense Isak has of what’s going on here.  The hot mysterious, cool, amazing guy is into him and they’re together now and it’s all amazing.  This is also, however, the start of Even becoming more real and more human.  He’s a dork, he dances to cheesy pop music etc which doesn’t fit with Isak’s ‘man of my life’ imagery and yet he’s charmed anyway.

Matteo’s version is a much different affair.  Yes, they wake on the morning after their reunion and yes there’s a discussion but it’s not fluffy and joyful and unlike Isak, Matteo is left in no doubt as to what has been holding David back for so long.  We see again just how much Matteo wants to shower David with all the affection that’s in his heart.  He can’t stop touching him, cuddling him, wanting to be as close as he can to him.  So when he wakes again and thinks David’s about to run away he gets quite upset and that comes out in aggression (as I said before, he’s a more aggressive character than Isak).  His ‘what, you’re going to piss off again?’ is a similar comment to Isak’s ‘I thought you’d left’ but where Isak is hesitant and very careful with how he words that, Matteo just spits it out.  He’s sick of this stuff, of the drawings and those connections when David keeps this small distance and looks like he’s going to be flighty again.  He meant what he said last night, basically: if you’re not into it then stop trying to connect with me.  It’s essentially the same as what Isak says, but it’s much more ‘take it or leave it’ -- he goes to the bed and sits after this, a clear indication for David that he can leave if he wants but this is it.  That message is received loud and clear and so David chooses to speak out rather than lose Matteo.  And so we get Matteo trying to work it out and understand it, but finding it all quite overwhelming.  Before Hans interrupts he’s engaged in the conversation and curious, asks a few questions.  But afterwards he’s shut down.  It’s not that the new knowledge itself is difficult for him; he actually seemed to take that in stride fairly easily.  It’s more that ‘what does it mean’ comes more to the fore after that bursting of their little bubble and so he’s going into his own head and isn’t in a space where he can give David what he needs right now.  But what they do have is everything out in the open, and an understanding that they can/will be in contact once things settle more.  Isak gets his moment of being shocked and overwhelmed by a piece of news later in the episode, but Matteo gets his here.  What this does is a) makes it David’s news to tell and so solidifies the connection between them and b) allows Matteo more time and space to process it.  Which, tbh, is something he tends to need.  Isak assimilates information much faster usually and he adapts and changes his behaviour to fit more readily.  Matteo doesn’t; it takes time for him to shift in his understanding.

It’s at this point that Isak has his ‘evolutionary theory and homosexuality’ conversation with Sana, but before that he quite aggressively comes out to his father via text.  Because of his father’s reaction to that he’s a little testy when Sana arrives (potentially because of the way he perceived her reaction to homosexuality as a ‘mental illness’), but he relaxes a lot when she starts talking.  He even tries to figure out his mother’s issues around it by asking about religion/Islam.  Sana’s words here stay with him and they’re what he uses to try to explain what is happening with him to his mother later in the episode.  Unlike Matteo, who was quite amused by the whole conversation and who appreciated the support but didn’t need the reassurance in the same way, Isak uses this to try to work out for himself how to slot himself into this whole ‘gay’ thing.  Slowly but surely, his people are showing him that regardless of his sexuality they still love him.  This culminates in the next scene where Isak introduces Even to the boys.  Unlike Matteo, whose boy squad meeting this episode takes place with just him and the boys with no David, Isak is finding a way to be more open with his friends about his new relationship.  This has always been what worried him: how do I keep my life and my friends while still having Even, and so he’s working through that now.  He’s awkward and it’s a bit uncomfortable for him (particularly when Magnus exposes his eagerness to see Even alone the night he came over, to Even), but he’s learning that he can have both: a boyfriend and still be one of the boys.  There’s an ease about the boys and Even that Isak can’t quite emulate yet but the fact that he’s trying to do this and be open with everyone is a big thing for him.  This is not the boy with the facade anymore.

For Matteo, it’s been about ‘how do I stay connected with people when things start to go weird/confusing/shitty for me?’  His next scene after David comes out to him is of him alone, trying to work through what being transgender is and what it means by himself (instead of, you know, asking the person who could actually help!!).  This has always been his go to method of dealing with stuff: isolation and seclusion.  But where he’d usually try weed to help him through the situation, he doesn’t do that now and he even reaches out to Hans asking for help and guidance.  He’s finally figuring out that he doesn’t have to do this by himself, that other people will still love and support him if he’s not 100% sure of something.  And then of course, his meeting with his boys is all about bonding with them and not needing to isolate himself.  There’s still part of him that’s hesitant, though, because he still isn’t reaching out to the one person he really should be.  My assumption is that with David it feels more important because (as we see soon) he’s fallen in love, and so it’s harder to reach out to him because if he screws up and loses him, Matteo loses a lot more than he does with anyone else.  He’s getting better with this, but his tendency to self-isolate and self-medicate to avoid the big life things that scare him is still here at this point.  The good news is that, like Isak, he’s learning to face the issues and problems he has.  In his case, he needs to learn to open up to people and connect with them.  He may not be there fully yet, but he’s on his way.  This is not the apathetic, secluded boy we knew at the start of this season.

In this vein, the Matteo we see over the next few clips is one who is trying to rekindle those connections and be true to himself.  He talks with Hans, his mother and (finally!) David.  Isak has yet to be confronted with Even’s big news so there’s less for him to come to grips with at this point.  It’s about settling into who he is, trusting in Even and knowing that his friends can and will still be there for him no matter what.  He’s never been a big one for self isolation; he’s always liked being alone but it’s never been unhealthy when he’s done it.  Matteo on the other hand needs this series of rebuilding ties.  It’s important for him to know that he’s not alone either and that he doesn’t have to deal with anything by himself.  He can share his concerns with Hans and then be reassured that the only thing that matters is what he feels.  He can gain the courage to come out to his mother and he can watch a video of David and just know for sure that he wants him.  By the end of that conversation, he’s got another firm agreement to meet with David and they’re both pretty sure they’re on the same page.  He’s so sure about it that he tells his mother that he’s fallen in love.  He says this easily, much more so than Isak (though that could be a cultural thing), which ties in with his tendency to ramble about how wonderful David, and everything to do with him, is to everyone who will listen.  Matteo’s been so in love with him for so long really that it’s just been a matter of getting his head around what’s going on and what david being transgender actually means.  Isak isn’t this verbose about how he feels, which is interesting because in most ways he’s the more talkative and engaged one of the two.  Matteo is far less likely to talk much, but get him talking about David and he’s happy to talk at length.

Of course, then we get the two hardest clips of the episodes.  Both are quite problematic in many ways, and I definitely don’t like everything that happens in either of them, but this is about the characters and I’m working with what we have so bear with me.  What’s really interesting is the difference between the two of them in which parent they appear closer to.  It’s really highlighted this episode because Isak has most of his interactions with his father, though culminating in his repetition of Sana’s words to his mother.  And his father, though it’s clearly a difficult relationship, is trying to reach out and connect with Isak and he supports him financially as well.  The messages etc from his mother are always religious with no personal touches and it’s her that he was most worried about not accepting him when he talked with Even in episode five.  The contact with his father is always more personal even when it’s tense. By contrast, Matteo has no contact at all with his father, and it’s his mother who is the one with the deeper, more personal connection.  This difference between them is one reason why Matteo is less worried about confessing that he’s gay.  When he talked to Hans about it his worry about telling her ‘about all this’ it was more because she’s mentally ill and so he’s not sure how focused and clear her understanding is, than because he thought she’d disapprove.  Isak’s fear is that his mother will reject him for being gay, Matteo’s is that his won’t understand.  So the two texts from each are quite different.  Isak tries to reassure his via Sana’s message that it’s okay and Matteo just straight out tells his he’s in love with a boy.  Matteo is far less worried about what her reaction will be even though in terms of the relationship they have he has more to lose than Isak does.

After the texts, we have happy, cheerful, affirming moments for both boys.  Isak gets to spend time with Even in a happy bubble where they’re together and everything is wonderful.  It may feel a bit off by the end but not enough to really worry him.  Matteo gets to confidently walk into school and tell Amira he’s there to pick up David.  He gets to have that moment of pride in what he’s doing and that he has someone he can be there to pick up.  Of course again things go subtly wrong.  The students around him are all ‘off’ in the way they’re acting but it’s not til he sees David and watches the video that it all becomes clear.  The biggest difference in things at this point for them both is that Matteo already knows David’s secret and is willing to support him, but gets pushed away by David himself as he runs.  Whereas Isak has no idea and is rejected by Sonja on behalf of Even while he’s being told Even’s secret.  So Isak is now where Matteo was at the start of the week: alone and confused, after a very scary time when Even left the hotel and Isak couldn’t find him.  Worse, actually, because Matteo at least knew David liked him.  He was told so by David himself.    Isak has to face up to the idea that Even hasn’t been telling him everything and that he’s not in love with him all in the same moment as the one where he’s been so worried for a fair amount of time and only now has the relief of knowing Even is safe.  The fact that he’s so ready to believe it is interesting.  The fact that Even has been so hot and cold all season, and has gone back to Sonja at least once, leaves Isak vulnerable to a fear that it’s still not real.  And the knowledge that Even himself isn’t there and hasn’t told Isak himself, and that Sonja is plausible, just makes it worse.  For all his seeming confidence, Isak is too ready to believe that he’s not desirable and that the things he’s shared with Even are fake in some way.  Matteo, on the other hand, hears ‘I’m not into you’ from David himself and rejects it as utterly impossible.  David is confusing, yes, but Matteo never doubts that there’s something between them.  And at this point, he’s completely sure.

Anyway, the differences in how these two scenarios play out at the end of this episode feed the differences in how the boys act and react in the episode to follow.  Isak, who still needs to learn to trust Even fully and has yet to realise his love, has to deal with the aftermath of this new information and had to live in that terrifying time of fear for Even’s safety for a long time.  Matteo, who already knows about David and has fully accepted what they have together, has to learn to give him space and let him find his own way back.  For Isak this is hard because he doesn’t have enough confidence in himself and his own worth as yet (though he is getting there).  For Matteo this is hard because his impulse is to act and to be assertive and having to not act and to defer to David and what he needs takes choosing not to act, something that doesn’t come naturally to him.

Episode nine can be found here

[evakuality]

Episode nine of this comparison series between these two characters.  The other episodes can be found here:

Episode one      Episode two     Episode three        Episode four     

Episode five      Episode six       Episode seven      Episode eight

In this episode, our boys have to face up to their issues.  Isak has to face the fact that he may never have been loved by Even, which really stabs at his sense of self worth.  He doesn’t think he is good enough for Even (think about the way Even was a fantasy godlike icon to him rather than an attainable human boy) or that he deserves someone like Even, and the last few days must have felt like a dream that was too good to be true and in fact now appears to be so.  Matteo has to face up to standing back, not taking the steps to find his love, not being the support he so desperately wants to be for David.  He has to acknowledge that no matter how much he may want it, David’s life is not his to live.  These things are very hard for both boys as they both hit to the heart of who they are as people.  So let’s get to it, and see how well they do facing these things.

Isak’s first instinct when he wakes the next day is to research what this all means.  Like Matteo, he secludes himself to do this and what he finds disturbs and upsets him (and in some ways and in some readings seems to confirm what Sonja said: that he could just be a ‘sick idea’ of Even’s mania).  One interesting thing about this scene compared to Matteo’s version is that while Matteo actually reached out to Hans to ask for guidance, Eskild has to come to Isak.  His advice here is very well meaning, but it’s a really bad time to be saying that.  Sure, yes, heartbreak happens and we get over it, but the day after your heart has been devastated is maybe not the best time to bring that up.  He wants to help, but he really just doesn’t do or say what Isak needs at this point.  What he actually needs, and what he gets now, is affirmation from his mother.  It’s no wonder it makes him cry.  The one thing that was good and beautiful in his life is gone, lost in the pain of feeling like an absolute fool that he believed it could be real.  He’s done what he thought was right and sent Even a message basically saying he doesn’t want any of this anymore.  And that really hurts, sending something like that and ending the dream once and for all, but he’s soothed by his mother’s words: no matter what, she’ll always love him.  All the time spent stressing and worrying and fearing what she might say or do is gone when he reads that.  It’s one small catharsis in this huge swirl of difficult emotions.  When Matteo gets this message, it’s a much smaller reaction from him.  He’s pleased, smiles about it, but it doesn’t affect him in the same way because he’s never doubted his mother’s love in the same way.  For him, the bigger thing here is that she wants to meet David.

What really stands out about the meetings with the parents when they happen is that, despite being more peaceful and sanguine when he got the text, Matteo is the one who cries in his mother’s arms.  He’s the one who needs this release now.  Isak goes to the church (for the first time in his season) to reconcile with his parents in some small way.  It’s low key and fairly awkward, and while he seems happy to see them, it’s not an overwhelmingly emotional time.  Matteo (who has already been in a church and already dealt with some of the issues surrounding all this and its relation to religion), goes to church to see his mother and get some sort of peace from her.  I think that while they do have a closer relationship than Isak and his mother, it’s still not all that close and he doesn’t see her that often.  So there’s some peace in being hugged by her now that she knows who he is in its fullness and she’s still willing to love and support him.  It’s been a hard few weeks for him, and while he has managed to come out the other side of that, there’s still something really healing in the unconditional love of a parent, which he’s clearly been missing in a physical way for a while.

Where Isak’s instinct at the start of this episode is to isolate himself and deal with the pain alone, Matteo’s is to be a bit more open.  Sure he’s got his headphones on and he’s alone to start with, but he’s in a shared space where anyone could find him and he is then called into a situation where everyone is there and willing to support him and David, however it is needed.  This is interesting in that it’s a reversal of where the two boys were at the start of the season.  Matteo was closed off and isolated from everyone, by choice, while Isak felt like a bit of an outsider but was still accepted and was part of his group of friends.  If we were to see the two boys’ lives for these few weeks on a graph we’d see that Isak’s is much more of a rollercoaster of ups and downs.  It starts at a normal level, neither truly good nor bad, shoots up high in the early days with Even, with some drops because of, for example, seeing him with Sonja.  It hits several peaks: talking with Even, almost kissing Even, the kiss, the cuddling after that, reunion, the hotel stuff at the start.  But it also involves several really deep lows: Even has a girlfriend, Even goes missing, Even says things are going too fast, Even goes back to his girlfriend, Even is bipolar and didn’t tell Isak, he has an episode and Sonja yells at Isak about it.  Matteo’s is more longer, smaller rolls after a rockier start: he starts at a low point, meets David and it gets to a pretty big high (there are wobbles when David ghosts etc but they are minor compared to the shock Isak faces at the same point), they almost kiss, they kiss, they cuddle, there’s a date (this is all one big high), then David says it’s going too fast and he’s not into him and disappears for literal weeks.  This is a huge dip for Matteo, and he seems to take it much worse than Isak does despite ‘not believing’ what David said.  Their reunion isn’t all that great as a high because it’s low key and cautious, more of a soft rise and a breath of thankfulness than a peak and then David tells him something confusing and he has to take time out to process that (I wouldn’t say this is a low, again more of a small waver in the roll - during this part Matteo is pretty much at an even keel).  David’s outing and running away is painful for Matteo but again it’s not a real low.  He never really hits a low again.  His graph would be: low starting point, huge high, huge low, rolling into a ‘normal’ state, neither truly high nor truly low and at something of an equilibrium.  Isak’s lurches from pretty big high to pretty big low over and over again, and at this point there’s no soft easy normality, there’s crushing, devastating pain.  People are there for Isak, but he’s choosing not to engage with them because this is all too painful.  

Matteo actually really appreciates what his friends are trying to do and I think in the past he’d probably have gone along with the ideas about how to support David.  But one thing he took from his talk with Hans the previous week is that David has a right to his own agency and a right to decide how and what happens with things that relate to him.  Matteo’s never been one to speak up and make his own wishes and desires known, preferring to have others make decisions and go along with them.  But now, when it’s David, he makes his thoughts and feelings known.  And for once he’s listened to.  Previously we have seen Sara tell him what he should think and do and Kiki literally reject his clear ‘no’ but now they all recognise that he’s right.  His ‘speech’ isn’t all that long, but for him it’s a huge deal and huge progress.  Isak never really gets this moment because he’s never really needed it.  His issues have never been about learning how to take his own agency; he’s always been in control.  And that’s probably part of the issue.  His thing with Even was about needing to be swept up in an overpowering romance that didn’t let him go.  It was probably the only way he was ever going to be jolted out of his comfortable masked life.  Whereas Matteo was in a deeply unhappy place and what he needed was someone to lure him out of his apathy rather than sweep him away.  So at this point Isak didn’t need to be making ‘speeches’ to prove to himself and others that he’s come a long way, but Matteo does.  He needs this moment to really come into his own.  To know that he’s broken free of the shackles that tied him into that unhappy life he used to live.  Whether David is there or not, Matteo realises his thoughts have worth and he can voice them and have them be accepted.  Isak never needed to learn this.

Contradictorily, Matteo needs to also learn that he can’t take action when specifically asked not to.  His behaviour around David has always been to make a move, to make his wants known, to fight for what he wants.  And that’s also what this episode is about for him.  He has to let David have his own agency in the matter.  He’s learned from the last time what happens if he pushes David past what he wants: David pushes him away and he loses the connection he knows they have.  So he learns to wait.  It annoys him, worries him, makes him impatient.  His conversations with both Laura and Abdi show that he really wants to reach out, be there for David, be his rock.  But they both say the same thing: no, let him be.  Be there for him when he chooses to come back, but don’t be aggressive and pushy.  So he keeps in low key contact: lets him know about his exam etc (and says get in touch ‘if you feel like it’ clearly putting the ball into David’s court so he knows he gets to control how this happens) and what he gets back is pretty encouraging.  David is willing to contact him when he’s not being too confronting and so he does keep back.  I’ve dealt with this whole period of time for him in this post I made about the last clip of this episode, so I won’t rehash it again too much.  But the thing for Matteo is that this episode really does make him act in a way that he’s had to grow into over the course of the season.  And I think that’s partly why his journey hasn’t been as tempestuous as Isak’s: he’s had to grow slowly into this so he can be at a point where he can do what’s necessary here.  All the tumultuous highs and lows that Isak faced would have stagnated this growth he’s had to do.  After his one big crash at the end of episode 5 he’s been slowly rebuilding himself.  It took me a long time to work out why Matteo doesn’t go after David after he finds out Laura’s worried about him (and I still have issues with timing etc here) but it’s because he’s still operating under ‘give him time’ and so he doesn’t feel like he can go chasing around the city looking for him for fear that he’ll just drive him further away.  

While Matteo has been learning how to be still and to wait, Isak has to start figuring out what the whole thing with Even means.  He spends the week slowly working through Sonja’s words and working out what parts were true and which weren’t.  Here we see his quick reactions in action.  He assimilates information very quickly and shifts his world view readily (unlike Matteo who takes his time to process things), and so as easily as he accepted Sonja’s words about Even’s feelings (based on his own previous experience to be fair), he also accepts Magnus’s comments that he should ask Even what he thinks and re-evaluates the situation based on Magnus’s mother.  That this is in fact Even’s thing to talk about.  Ironically, this is effectively what Matteo said to the rest of his friends but it’s something Isak has yet to learn.  However, he takes it on board and so tries to contact Even.  Isak being a much faster assimilator of information is important because he’s in a much worse position than Matteo at the moment and he has a lot to learn very quickly.  It’s not easy for him, and he does fall back into his old assumptions (eg that he’s not worth anything and therefore that it is ‘over’ because Even isn’t answering; Sonja’s words weigh on him because he’s pretty insecure about this side of things), and so while Magnus’s words gave him hope, he’s still pretty sure things are done.

The actual reunion scenes for each of them here are so different in tone, but they make sense for each character.  Isak has had to learn to value himself and trust in what Even says (and his little smile when he reads ‘love you, Even’ is really adorable).  His reunion is frantic running, despair when he thinks he’s too late and then a soft, gentle meeting.  It’s quiet and poignant and it releases a whole lot of tension.  It actually has a similar feeling to Matteo and David’s s7 reunion.  It’s a quiet catharsis and that’s exactly what Isak needs after the week he’s had.  Matteo’s, on the other hand, as outlined in the post linked earlier has a lot of big messy emotions going on here.  Most importantly, he’s been so careful in keeping back and giving David the time and space he needs, but having him go ‘missing’ the previous night and from his exam that morning has really freaked him out.  To Isak, Even’s message is first a relief (he loves me) and then a shock and a fear (what does he mean by this?).  To Matteo, David’s message is another reminder that David is just going to run away.  It doesn’t matter what Matteo has done to give him space, it wasn’t enough.  And so he’s really pissed off.  There’s nothing quiet or gentle about their reunion and that fits the surge of emotions here.  It also fits the fact that Matteo is a much more impulsive and aggressive character.  Isak waits for a while after getting the message, and it’s not until he fears for Even’s safety that he goes after him.  Matteo listens once and then goes to find David in a fit of angry fear.  In this case, I don’t think he’s fearing for David’s safety, but more for the future of their relationship.  He’s filled with adrenaline and unlike Isak who is just relieved when he sees Even, Matteo’s fear comes out in aggression.

Again, the difference in tone and which events are happening in these two episodes really affects the tone of the next episodes.  The differences in the boys again fuels the way this episode plays out for each and also how the events of the next one happen.

Episode ten can be found here

[evakuality]

Hello :) Seeing how so different Isak and Matteo are, despite Matteo is being based of Isak, do you think they could still be good friends or do you think they would eventually end up being enemies, if they were in the same world?

Hi anon!  This is an interesting question too.  I definitely don’t think they’d be enemies (tbh having enemies takes far more energy than either of these boys likes to expend really).  But as to whether they’d be good friends, I think that would depend on where in each of their journeys they’d meet.  Towards the start, no I don’t think they’d be drawn to each other at all.  Matteo is too closed off even from his actual friends to want to meet some cocky ‘bro’ guy, and Isak doesn’t seem all that keen on making new friends either.  His reaction to Sana was impatient when they were first thrown together and without that impetus I doubt they’d have become friends despite being such a good match.

In the middle?  Maybe.  Isak would probably be a little put off by how swiftly and easily Matteo doles out his affection (once he gets over his deepest depressed stage) and how easy it is for him to admit ‘yeah I believe I’m gay’ - his journey is still ongoing in that respect at that point.  I still think Matteo would find Isak’s prickliness and grumpiness difficult to deal with at this point.  It’s a key part of who Isak is, and I can’t see a newly trying-to-connect-and-be-happy Matteo wanting to be around that sort of energy.  They both suffer a lot at this point in their journeys and both are fairly closed from other people (particularly Matteo who has to work really hard to overcome this) so meeting at all would be hard.  Still, if they did and in the right circumstances, they might each find some comfort in having someone ‘normal’ (I hate that they use this word to describe this, but that’s how they think of it) figuring out their sexuality.  So there could be some bonding over that stuff.

At the end, once they’re both secure and happy in who they are?  yeah, I think they could be friends.  One thing I haven’t really talked about and probably should is that Matteo is just as much of a little shit as Isak is.  Isak’s is verbal (he affectionately roasts his friends with witty put downs all the time) whereas Matteo’s is more nonverbal (he kicks, pulls hair, wrestles etc to irritate people he feels affection for), and this is a trait they each kick up a notch when they’re happy.  Plus, they both enjoy terrible meme stuff even if Matteo takes it much further than Isak ever did.  I can see them bonding over being little shits to everyone around them and using memes to communicate and/or win arguments.  Plus, you just know they’d be in constant competition over whose boyfriend was the best and how often they could bring them up in conversation and/or share pictures of them.

[evakuality]

hello. are u continuing your analysis of the Matteo/Isak comparison with episode 6 and so on still? Please continue with it. I love your analysis and it's great to see the comparison of the OG Skam Isak character with its remake/s versions :) I've always wanted to see how someone can compare the similarities and difference between Isak and Matteo's characters, and I'm glad you are the one who did it :) Please continue.

Hi anon!  Thank you so so much for your lovely words, and I sure am!!  I’m about 2/3 of the way through the next one so it shouldn’t be toooo many hours before I get to posting it.  I’ve been having such a lot of fun doing this that I’m not likely to stop anytime soon.

[evakuality]

My Druck metas

So this is a companion to the masterlist I made of my Druck fics.  It’s a way to drag all of that together and keep it in one place (hang in there; there’s a LOT of it!)  It’s been interesting, actually, revisiting some of this stuff and I’m feeling a tiny little bit less pained when I see Druck stuff now.  And I’m feeling a lot of ‘whoops, I was supposed to finish that’ about some of them, so who knows ... one day I may be able to pick this up again.  It certainly was nice to feel a little nostalgic even while it’s still painful.

I’m putting this behind a break because wow there is a lot and this thing is LONG.  

Character analyses, general:

Let’s talk about David (and Matteo, but mostly David) - written during episode 5

Characterisation in this clip - written at the end of episode 9

Tumblr ask about davenzi’s characterisation

Tumblr ask about what davenzi might argue about 

Let’s talk about Davenzi

Tumblr ask about David and the boy squad

Let’s talk about David - again

Let’s talk about David.  Again.  Part two

‘Favourite character moments’ posts:

Moment one - David

Moment two - Matteo

Moment three - Amira

Moment four - Hanna

Moment five - Matteo

Moment six - Kiki

Moment seven - Amira

Moment eight - Jonas

Moment nine - David 

Moment ten - Laura

Moment eleven - Sam

Moment twelve - Leonie

Moment thirteen - Sara

Moment fourteen - Mia

Moment fifteen - Matteo

Moment sixteen - Hanna

Moment seventeen - Hans

Moment eighteen - Essam

Moment nineteen - boy squad

Moment twenty - girl squad

Moment twenty one - David

Moment twenty two - Abdi

Moment twenty three - Amira

Moment twenty four - Matteo

Moment twenty five - Leonie

Moment twenty six - whole squad

Moment twenty seven - Mohammed

Moment twenty eight - David

Moment twenty nine - Hanna

Moment thirty - Jonas

Moment thirty one - David

Moment thirty two - David

Moment thirty three - David

Moment thirty four - David

Moment thirty five - David

Moment thirty six - David

Moment thirty seven - Sam

Isak and Matteo comparison posts:

Tumblr ask about Matteo vs Isak which started this whole thing off

Episode one

Episode two

Episode three

Episode four

Episode five

Episode six

Episode seven

Episode eight

Episode nine

Episode ten

Even and David comparison posts (sadly unfinished):

Episode one

Episode two

Episode three

Episode four

Episode five

Episodes six and seven

Episode eight

Communication in s3 series:

Part one - ‘you look good tonight’ - episodes 1-4

Part two - ‘make a clear statement, straight up’ - episodes 5-7, part one

Part three - ‘he doesn’t talk to me’ - episodes 5-7, part two

Part four - ‘do you want to talk to me?’ - episode 8

Part five - ‘I want to tell you so much’ - episode 9

Part six - ‘they probably want clarity as well’ - episode 10

Matteo’s walls series (sadly unfinished):

s3 - episodes 1-3

s3 - episodes 4-5

Other posts:

Tumblr ask about what happened after the episode 7 reunion

Tumblr ask about whether Matteo would confess his crush on Jonas

Tumblr ask about what they did for 24 hours after the end of episode 9

Rebirth - Matteo and Isak (mostly Matteo)

Levels of soulmatiness in couples

[evakuality]

Since we are all bored in quarantine I have a prompt for you. You've (jointly!) written two Davenzi soulmate AUs, and I am curious if there are qualities or events in canon that you consider solid 'soulmate material'? As distinct from other really good pairings.

Hmmmm, this is a really interesting question, anon.  First, I have actually written other soulmate things for other pairs under a different name (and no I won’t say what name that is!), but you’re right in that Davenzi are the only pair so far that I’ve done more than one for.  In general I just like soulmate ideas, at least when there’s some sort of difficulty around it, where it’s not just ‘find your soulmate and everything is wonderful’ - I need there to be some ‘what sort of world would this look like?’ stuff.  So from one point of view, I just like exploring soulmates and the ways that can look.

(putting the rest behind a barrier because as usual for me, it got long)

Still, I’ve been thinking about this ever since I got this ask and I think there are things that feel more soulmatey with Davenzi than other pairings I enjoy.  To be clear, when I think soulmates in ‘realistic’ terms I think more about equality, compatibility, trust and therefore the longevity potential of the couple rather than actually being ‘connected mystically’ since I don’t believe that exists in the real world (lol as if fiction is ‘the real world’ but you know what I mean).  And in those terms I feel like Davenzi have more of that than other ‘really good’ pairings I enjoy.

One thing Davenzi has that a lot of the other pairings I love don’t is that they are both at the same age and the same stage of life.  I know it’s a personal thing, but I love equality between the characters I fall for and it’s very very hard to do that when there’s an age or experience gap.  I’ve seen it done well sometimes (I would argue that at least at times this can be true even of Evak), but it often just doesn’t work for me.  So Davenzi already have that on their side.  And then they both deep down just want the same thing: to be loved and accepted for who they are.  There’s a compatibility in what they want, and also in the way they go about loving.  They each do that in the way the other most needs: Matteo with an absolute rock hard conviction that they should be together and refusal to accept anything else (which David needs since he has a tendency to try to push away even those closest to him).  David with a gentle pressure that knocks Matteo out of apathy and lets him know that he’s been seen and accepted for who he is, which is what he wants most (think of that ‘fitting in’ speech he gives Sara).

This is true for another of my loves as well, of course.  Evak also both want to be loved and both think their true self is unloveable in some ways, and I do absolutely love their dynamic in which they both even out what the other most needs.  But the thing that’s different between the two pairings is how long they keep secrets from each other for, and that degree of trust they have.  It’s pretty clear that Even is still very insecure about himself and his worthiness in comparison to Isak.  Isak seems to be fairly secure, except where it comes to Even’s old friends (and how sad that we never really got to explore either of those issues - there was so much there that was left unspoken).  They do trust each other, but they also hide things from each other and/or avoid talking to each other about those things.

But what we see with David, for example, is that once he has Matteo’s support and the rest of the gang has made it clear that they’re with him too, he doesn’t seem to obsess over it the way Even does and he doesn’t keep more secrets.  The things he and Even were hiding are very different of course, but it does lead to a different sort of dynamic between the pairings.  David doesn’t appear to have any further secrets left and so he and Matteo are very secure pretty much as soon as s3 is over.  Even still holds some things tight to his chest right through s4 and so while I do think Even and Isak are rock solid, I feel like they need more time and communication to get to the point where Davenzi are by the end of s4.

Or look at a couple like Jonas and Hanna, who I also enjoy by the end of s4.  Their issues stemmed from a problem of mistrust and miscommunication (and from other people messing up their relationship with half truths etc).  I think they are a ‘really good’ couple, but there’s no way they radiate ‘soulmate’ energy the way Davenzi does for me.  They were never equal to start with (Jonas always considered himself superior to her and he had relationship experience etc), and while they are compatible, the lack of trust and bad communication caused some disastrous problems for them.  

The thing with all three of these couples is that I do think they all work extremely well together at least in the end.  They are all what I would class as ‘really good pairings’ and they are all compatible with each other.  But the thing that, for me, defines that idea of ‘meant to be’ is more prevalent in Davenzi.  If we break it down by the categories I said at the start:

Jonas and Hanna: equal: not really, though it’s better by the time they get back together.  They’ve both had pining experience over the other since they broke up and they both decide they want to work at the relationship.  Compatible: yeah, though again it’s something they may need to work at a little.  But one thing they always did have was that they seem like they’re friends as well as lovers and that’s always important as well.  Trust: hmmmm, well, certainly not at the start, and I think there are still things they need to work through by the time we see them at the end of s4, but I do think they have the tools now.  Longevity potential: I’m not 100% sure that they will last forever.  I think they can, but it would take work and so because of that I can’t say I see this as ‘soulmates’ in the way I imagine that looks in real life.

Evak: equal: in many ways, yes.  But we do have the issue that Even was older and had more experience when they met and so he took the lead in a way that meant Isak became more of a follower than he had been in the past.  Then, Isak was much more easily able to slip into a situation where he saw them as together forever, whereas Even still had his insecurities and fears and so he was keeping things back from Isak for a lot longer.  So while they’re equal, there are ways in which there are/were still some imbalances.  The fact that Even is seen as mysterious and unattainable by Isak for so long is such an integral part of their dynamic that it’s hard to ignore it even once the tables turn later in their story.  Compatible: yes definitely, no questions here at all.  They work together in a way that’s really wonderful to see, and they do each give the other what he most needs.  Trust: well, Even’s tendencies to think of himself as not good enough and therefore to hide things from Isak is a possible point of contention.  Longevity potential: If they talk it all through, I feel like there’s a good chance for things to be really amazing with them into the future, but Even’s issues with being fully open have the potential to be a stumbling block.  I think they have a MUCH better chance at lasting than Jonas and Hanna, but there’s that one shadow looming.  I suspect this would have been different if we’d been allowed to see their complete story but because we never did then we get this thing where it could go one way or the other.

Davenzi: equal: yes.  They are the same age, they’re in a similar situation to each other, they want and need similar things.  Compatible: yes, definitely.  The things they each need are given to each other very freely and effortlessly (think about the way Matteo immediately respects David’s boundaries when he says the pinned together pages of his art book are too private, the way he hears ‘I’m not into you’ and absolutely refuses to accept it as truth because he sees easily behind the words to the truth of David’s feelings even if he’s a little confused, or the way David encourages Matteo, without being aggressive, in the early days or the way he lets Matteo lean on him when he needs it, and seems to readily know exactly when those moments are, but also can get Matteo to do what he needs to do by perfectly aimed reverse psychology stuff).  Trust: I literally wrote an entire multi-part meta series on how good these two are at communication even when they aren’t great at it verbally.  Because of this, by the time David has opened up to Matteo about being trans they are rock solid despite some of the stuff that happens.  From that moment they are completely together and that’s never shaken at all.  Longevity potential: I just can’t imagine a pairing that’s less likely to split than these two.  The communication stuff is so important, they survived an entire road trip together, they just seem to ‘get’ each other, and know what the other needs, in a way that is very natural and effortless.  Their similarities and differences just seem to blend together perfectly in a way that’s really hard to define, but that has a lot to do with the fact that they are the same age and they have had similar experiences.

To be completely clear: I love all three of these pairings, but this is just to show my own personal reasonings for why I see ‘soulmatehood’ more in one than the others.  Also to be clear: I fully expect all of them to make it and I will never write any of them breaking up.  But this is just how I see each of the three dynamics.