#which is probably part of the real crux of the issue

[windwardstar]

anyway food has been procured and the fridge is now full

[weirdowithaquill]

Let's Talk About Rebecca:

Well, I said we needed to talk about Rebecca, and here we are.

To begin with, I would like to preface this with a simple disclaimer: I am in no way telling people to like or dislike the version of Rebecca found in BWBA, but instead looking into what caused such a deep disdain for this character, one that lasted long after Henry had been departed and was fuelled not by her position as a ‘replacement’, but rather by the series itself. This is not a dissertation on why Henry is a stronger character and why Rebecca should never have been introduced - that is counterproductive and, in some ways, false. This is instead something adjacent to an essay in which I will focus on how Rebecca’s flawed introduction, characterisation and tenure in the series both represents the BWBA era as a whole, but also what led to her being notably absent from All Engines Go, the reboot of Thomas and Friends. This will be followed by me attempting to redesign her characterisation and create an alternate version of Rebecca, one which in my opinion would have done far better for herself in the series. 

Part 1: Who is Rebecca, and Why Her Characterisation Doesn't Work:

According to the former official Thomas and Friends website, Rebecca is: “...a very cheerful and happy engine. She is painted a sunshine yellow which reflects her positive outlook on life. Rebecca always sees the best in others and enjoys helping everyone around her feel good about themselves. Despite her warm nature, Rebecca is not afraid to stand up for herself or her friends. She is a big, strong tender engine who is not intimidated by the more experienced engines on the railway. Rebecca is the number 22 engine.” 

Already, there is a major issue here: her characterisation is a strange amalgamation of others, who could probably just as easily take on her roles without really breaking any of the episodes she is in. “Cheerful and happy” are characteristics held by Ryan, Stanley, Whiff, Thomas, Percy, Edward, Mavis, Peter Sam; the list goes on. There are already far too many engines whose main qualities are cheerful and happy. She is painted yellow - like Molly and Flora were, or if we go further back, like Jock, Pip and Emma were. “Sees the best in others” was once upon a time a quality unique to Edward, as well as Salty. “Enjoys helping everyone around her feel good about themselves” sounds way too close to what Emily has become in the series, without mentioning the evolutions of Mavis’ character or Rocky’s character. If we add in her clumsiness and shyness, we get Kevin and Molly respectively - and Kevin is also yellow! She isn’t intimidated nor does she have any trouble at all with fending off engines who want to be mean to her. She isn’t unique here either: Duck did this when he first arrived, and he had a much bigger and more notable impact because of how he acted when confronted with the big engines' attitudes. What all this really means is that Rebecca has already finished a character arc at some point in the past and does not need to grow further. 

And here we reach the crux of the problem with Rebecca in BWBA: she has nowhere for her character to grow into - something all the other main characters have done decades ago. This is especially problematic at this late stage in the show; Thomas & Friends has been running since 1984, and almost every character they pair Rebecca up with has had an exceptionally long time to bed themselves in and grow into the space they occupy. For Rebecca to compete, and truly qualify for her status as a main character, her character needs to make its own space - and importantly, make that space bigger than as many other characters as possible. This is a running problem in the TV series post Season 7, and something that really baked itself into the show by the time the series reached CGI: the characters do not develop. The Steam Team (bar Emily) hasn’t had any real, natural character developments since the Mitton era - not any sustained over multiple seasons, at least. If we go back to the Classic series - or further back to the Railway Series - we find that the very essence of Thomas is in its strong characters and their natural growth. Gordon grows into being more humble, Edward and Henry grow more confident in themselves, Thomas and Percy mature and (to some extent) learn their limits - the list goes on. There are characters that do not grow as much or remain the same, yes - but they still have some sort of character arc where the essence of them as a character is tested. 

Rebecca does not undergo character growth in the series, and her character itself is not tested in any meaningful way. Instead, she is overused and underutilised - by which I mean, she appears constantly throughout the series but is given nothing to define her as being any different to any of the characters mentioned above. Worse yet, Rebecca’s leads are easily interchangeable with any other Steam Team member, and this further complicates her. Rebecca takes trucks perfectly - like Donald or Douglas would, or perhaps Edward? Rebecca is too fast and leaves passengers behind - like Peter Sam did to the refreshment lady. And when she causes all kinds of delay, is that not like James did way back in Series 3? And she’s tricked by Diesel… like almost every single engine in the entire series, going as far back as Gordon, Henry and James were in Series 2. 

Would it have been better to divide Rebecca’s leads up and give other, more established engines more spotlight? Probably. Her personality is similar to a number of others, and her introduction is basically a mix and mash of older episodes - notably the eighth series episode, Thomas and the Tuba, the tenth series episode, Seeing the Sights, the first series episode, Thomas' Train, and the fourth series episode, Peter Sam and the Refreshment Lady. This really doesn’t help to define her, especially when all fans think about when they watch the episode is what other, older episode it is most like. Her subsequent appearances do very little to endear her either, both due to the lack of effort put in by Mattel to ground Rebecca in the series and the low impact of the episodes she does star in. Characters like Oliver or Duke have had lasting impacts on the fandom despite their short tenures because their episodes have high impact. Duck is one of the most popular characters in the fandom of this show, despite having been a secondary character ever since Series 5, and being practically absent from the series between Series 8 and Series 16.

Rebecca also takes up a difficult spot as a replacement for Henry, which complicates her relationship with a large portion of the fandom, meaning a lot of her as a character is questioned in relation to what Henry would have done. While technically, Rebecca was slated as a replacement to Edward, her arrival coincides with Henry’s departure, and thus for the purposes of this, we will consider her to have taken the position Henry had, similarly to Nia and Edward. Whether or not Henry’s departure from the main cast is a bad thing is an issue unto itself, which dives into character assassination and to what extent the Henry seen in Season 21 is the same Henry seen in Season 1. In either case, Rebecca’s roles could have quite easily been filled by Henry or another standing character, and her characterisation is too similar to other, pre-existing characters to make her stand out amongst her costars and their longer, more notable characterisations and character growths. 

Much of this is compounded by how Rebecca was introduced and integrated into the main cast, which is clearly seen when compared with another notable case of an engine joining the Steam Team after it had been first codified: Emily. 

Part 2: Rebecca vs Emily - How to Introduce a Main Character: 

Rebecca’s introduction is extremely underwhelming, especially for a Steam Team member. Thomas and Gordon shared the very first episode, Edward established himself as a foil to Gordon in his introduction and in Henry’s first appearance, he is bricked up in a tunnel in perhaps one of the series’ most infamous and iconic episodes. James makes his grand entrance by crashing into a field, Percy nearly gets destroyed by Gordon and Toby tugs on the viewer’s heartstrings as we watch him lose his entire livelihood. Moving forward several seasons, Emily’s introduction includes her saving another engine from a terrible accident - and then lastly, Nia gets an entire movie to embed her. Rebecca just bumbles about for ten minutes and takes the final shed at Tidmouth. 

To make matters worse, Henry’s departure is equally low-intensity. Edward at least got a full episode; Henry got a single line, used to further Gordon’s character as opposed to finalising Henry’s arc and introducing Rebecca’s. And while Gordon’s character here is interesting and new and possibly the first real growth we’ve seen from any of the Steam Team since Henry, Toby and Percy regressed into children before CGI even began; it does nothing to create a satisfactory conclusion to Henry’s arc or properly build up Rebecca’s arrival. This ultimately undermines Rebecca’s position as a primary character in the series, where she has joined far too late in the series to make an impact without dedicated time and effort being put into her. 

We are expected to accept that Rebecca has simply arrived and is now a main character by the show without any reasoning behind this. There is no connection between the viewer and Rebecca to justify this promotion to main character status, and it is telling. The writers don’t have anything new or unique to say about Rebecca either and it reflects in her episodes, which are remixes of old episodes or bland and unoriginal. This is especially painful in an era when so much of the writing is like this, bar the few episodes that really manage to break through the white noise. Ironically, two of the episodes that do really stand out have Edward and Toby as main characters respectively. 

In contrast, Emily is very well introduced to her position and has a long, notable character arc that plays out across both the Classic and HiT eras to cement her as a main character before making her a permanent member of the Steam Team - a journey that endeared her to fans and helped to build her characterisation to make her unique and interesting. Emily is first introduced in Season 7, where she has a strong introductory story played out against Thomas where she steals Annie and Clarabel and then rescues Oliver from a nasty accident. I’m not entirely certain, but this might be the first time that an engine takes Annie and Clarabel without asking - prior to this, Percy and Duck both got permission or it wasn’t mentioned. And after this episode, Emily does not immediately move into Tidmouth Sheds - she remains at Knapford, despite having further notable appearances across the rest of the season. 

What is made apparent in Season 7 is her characterisation. Emily is brave and bossy, but kind-hearted. She doesn’t headline constantly either, instead playing off other characters and rolling into the background when needed. She slots naturally into a secondary role in this season and feels like an engine who belongs on the NWR. Season 7 introduces Emily to viewers and gives her characterisation to back up her unique appearance. Season 8 continued this trend, building on her more and pairing her up with different engines to settle her comfortably into being a proper presence on the island - notice how it’s an evolution over two seasons? By Calling All Engines, Emily is a main character by virtue of her cementing herself into the cast, and her berth at Tidmouth feels like a natural progression of her story, firmly planting Emily as a Steam Team member. By Season 11, she is being used as a primary character to bounce newbies like Whiff off of! 

When considering Emily and Rebecca, two takeaways make themselves known: firstly, that characters need time and effort to be cemented in the story, especially when introduced long after most other central characters have had time to imbed themselves; and secondly that characters need strong, interesting differences when compared to those they share the screen with in order to fill unfilled positions. Emily is brave and bossy, giving her a unique style that makes her work great either as the protagonist or antagonist of a story. It gives her character flexibility - she can either be the engine that the protagonist is paired up with to learn something from or it can make her big-headed and in need of being taught a lesson of her own, one which she will - in her own way - try and pass on. We don’t meet someone with a truly bossy personality like Emily’s again until Bradford, and even then it isn’t the same. Bradford is used as a comedic character, whereas Emily’s bossiness was treated seriously. 

In comparison, Rebecca’s characterisation causes her to fade where she needs to shine. By being given a personality that has already been used consistently in Thomas, she fails to have a lasting impact and the abruptness of her introduction and elevation to the Steam Team is jarring and gives older viewers no reason to be interested in her. When combining this with the few defining qualities she has, it is equally hard for Rebecca to intrigue new viewers, making her feel bland and unoriginal when compared to many of the characters she shares the screen with. Rebecca is asked to attempt and hold her own against characters who have been intentionally woven together by the series for decades - and as explained above, this is not an impossible feat. It is not an impossible feat in the CGI series either, as Hiro, Paxton and Marion have all managed to stand out in an era when characters very rarely got much character building beyond their introduction. Unfortunately, Rebecca is given none of the same care, and it is reflected in how little she is used. Despite appearing more often as the seasons continue, she gets fewer leads to the point where she has an equal number of leads to Toby in the final season.  

Emily and Rebecca are two sides of the same coin in terms of introduction, both first appearing in an episode rather than a movie and then becoming members of the main cast - the difference is that where Rebecca was shunted in and thus the writers were unsure how to use her, Emily’s careful character-building and integration into the series ensured she would always have fans, something that is reflected in her being given a proper conclusion to her character arc in Series 24, where she is given the number twelve and thus immortalised in the same way that Thomas through to Oliver were. 

Considering the above issues, it becomes quite clear that the potential best way to introduce Rebecca and have audiences become invested in her and her story is not to simply drop her into the series, but rather to build her up slowly, similarly to Emily - which was entirely possible and plausible. 

Part 3: What Could Have Been: 

If we assume that Mattel was fixated on Rebecca having her canon characterisation as well as the BWBA series, there is still an entirely plausible method that could naturally build her character into the main cast, though it is underpinned by the original intent of the showrunners to have her introduced in Series 21 and replace Edward: 

In Series 21, Rebecca is introduced and shown to be clumsy but kind. In keeping with the original episode, she messes up the express and gets in trouble, however she then redeems herself by rescuing Gordon when he breaks down with the express. She is shown to be clumsy but kind, and gets the lead in a couple of episodes, as well as several minor roles. Preferably, she stars in at least one episode with Thomas specifically. At the same time, audiences are introduced to Henry’s dilemma surrounding whether or not he should sleep at Tidmouth - be it cause of the Kipper, arguments with Gordon, or whatever. This both places Rebecca into audiences’ minds while simultaneously opening up the question of whether or not Henry will remain at Tidmouth. Edward leaves, but the shed remains open - this is filled by Nia. 

Continuing in this vein, in Series 22, Rebecca gets a couple more episodes than last season, specifically with both primary and notable secondary characters - I’m talking Duck, Oliver, Rosie, Daisy, Ryan - characters who are popular, relevant to the series and allows the series to cement her as a main addition to the cast. This is to cement her and give her plenty of characters to bounce off and develop relationships with. Meanwhile, Henry’s arc comes to a conclusion and Henry quits Tidmouth in the last episode of the season, leaving it open. This also allows the creators to build up Gordon’s reaction to Henry leaving, showing his struggle to adapt to Edward’s absence and his simmering disdain towards Nia for replacing Edward before the 23rd season. 

Finally, in Series 23, Rebecca takes the empty berth at Tidmouth, replacing Henry and kickstarting an episode - or preferably two, but this is Mattel, so it is likely to be one - where Rebecca is forced to withstand the brunt of Gordon’s anger as he boils over, being compared to Henry before proving herself. This plants her firmly as a main character, while also potentially giving her a strong reason to become close friends with Nia - who also had to deal with Gordon’s stubbornness. Henry is given a proper farewell arc as well, allowing him to gracefully retire to his secondary character status. 

By arranging Rebecca’s arrival over several seasons, she is given time to fall naturally into her position and role, developing slowly and making the connections with other characters needed to cement her position on the NWR before taking centre-stage. This would also help writers learn how to write her, creating a scenario where Rebecca has a real chance of taking off as a character and potentially even getting similar stories to Emily where she is the lead main character who is used to introduce new characters - like how Emily interacted with Whiff in the eleventh season. This would also help viewers to understand who Rebecca is and get comfortable with her presence in the show before being asked to accept her as a member of the Steam Team. 

However, I still feel like her characterisation is weak in comparison to other Steam Team members - as mentioned previously, her clumsiness has been done by several characters including Kevin and Percy, who is a fellow Steam Team member. Her “Cheerful and Happy” characterisation has been used by far too many characters to count - including Percy, Peter Sam, Derek, Stanley and more recently Ryan - and not even her bright yellow paintwork makes her unique in terms of the series, seeing as Molly and Flora both had similarly bright shades of yellow for paintwork back in the model series. Moreover, her leads place her in relatively generic situations where other characters likely would have produced far more interesting plotlines, such as Molly easily pulling trucks despite being built for expresses or James trying to prove he can still pull the express and getting into trouble. Based on this, a complete overhaul of Rebecca’s characterisation is needed. 

Part 4: How to Redevelop Rebecca as a Character: 

When designing a Thomas and Friends character, one of the first things required is a real-life basis - and Rebecca was given a very interesting and unique basis that had the potential to give her very interesting stories. Rebecca is a Bulleid Light Pacific, in particular an unrebuilt West Country Class.  These were strong, powerful mixed traffic Pacifics used by the Southern Railway from 1945 until 1967, giving them a lifetime of about 22 years. They were praised for their free steaming, excellent boilers, and had a number of notable innovations for British steam - including welded fireboxes and frames, as opposed to the traditional, riveted system. The class was also well-known for their availability, being able to pull trains on almost every line that the Southern Railway had. 

In contrast, the class was also very famous for their flaws. Remember, Rebecca is an unrebuilt West Country Class, which had many of the same problems and flaws as their larger Merchant Navy Class relatives. These issues would plague the three Bulleid Pacific classes to such an extent that many of them were rebuilt by British Railways in the 1950s into a more conventional design which utilised the strengths of the class while altering or replacing many of the issues that Bulleid built into the engines as he used them as a testing bed for some of his more modern ideas. In particular, the major problems with the West Country Class were: 

Adhesion problems: the lighter load on their driving axles meant that they were even more prone to wheelslip than the larger Merchant Navy class, requiring very careful control when starting a heavy train - there are several surviving videos of these engines struggling to start a train due to their wheelslip. 

High fuel consumption - these engines were hungry, and this was in many ways highlighted during the 1948 locomotive exchanges where the West Country Class burnt 13.5 kg/km as opposed to the 9.02 kg/km of the T9 class that they replaced - for reference, the West Country Class’ coal consumption is comparable to the Gresley A1 Pacifics prior to the exchange trials of 1925 - a number which was dropped to roughly 10 kg/km after they were modified into the A3 class. 

Restricted driver visibility due to the air-smoothed casing and soft steam exhaust from the multiple-jet blastpipe. The exhaust problem was never adequately resolved, and smoke continued to beat down onto the casing while moving, obscuring the driver's vision.

Maintenance problems: the chain-driven valve gear proved to be expensive to maintain and subject to rapid wear, which was particularly problematic during the Post War period, as British Rail focused on availability rather than high quality maintenance. 

Leaking: leaks from the oil bath onto the wheels caused oil to splash onto the boiler lagging. Once saturated with oil, the lagging attracted coal dust and ash, which provided combustible material, and sparks from heavy braking would set the lagging on fire underneath the air-smoothed casing. The fires were also attributed to oil overflowing from axlebox lubricators onto the wheels when stationary, to be flung upwards into the boiler lagging in service. In either case, the local fire brigade would be called to put the fire out, with cold water coming into contact with the hot boiler causing stress to the casings, meaning these un-rebuilt locomotives would have warped casings, the result of a lagging fire!

All of these strengths and flaws tell a notable story about the kind of engine Rebecca may have been in real life: an engine with extremely good power and speed, but with difficulty at slow speeds and design issues that could have dangerous and rather embarrassing unintended consequences. This is a brilliant basis for a character, and it really irks me how little of all of this characterisation gold that Mattel ended up using - while it is consistent with how they treat their newer characters, it is also a real shame. Especially considering that from all of this, it is really not hard to build a genuinely interesting character that wouldn’t feel too out of place in the Railway Series or Classic series. 

Firstly, based on the high coal consumption and severe maintenance and wheelslip issues, we can suggest that Rebecca is a bit clumsy and worries about how others perceive her. Her class was large enough for this to be less apparent back on the Southern, but perhaps she was one of the worst for it, so she was teased mercilessly - and so after having moved to Sodor, she fears how the other engines will treat her. To cover for these insecurities, Rebecca acts standoffish or gruff, wanting to keep the other engines at a distance so they can’t find out about her flaws and tease her for them - already very different from her original characterisation, but far more interesting as it makes her one of the few new NWR engines to actively try and push both steam and diesel engines away. Furthermore, her excellent steaming abilities and fast speeds in service could translate into Rebecca being somewhat reckless or a speed demon, wanting to use her strengths to both hide her weaknesses and as something she enjoys. Rebecca has an air-smoothed casing, and it may help her feel the wind better at speed, like Spencer with his streamlining. Quite simply, by using her basis as a starting-point for her personality, building up character-traits from strengths and flaws of the class, we can construct an interesting and different characterisation that draws people in, similarly to how the Reverend Awdry did with his eight famous engines. Better yet, it means that once the other characters crack open this more standoffish side to Rebecca, we can still see the kind and clumsy Rebecca from the TVS, but it feels more natural and rewarding to go through a journey to get there and if it’s directed only to her close friends, while also meaning that we the audience can still see her gruff side when dealing with unknowns or characters she dislikes. 

There is also the fact that by considering her class basis, show writers can find interesting stories or take other issues with Rebecca’s class to incorporate into her personality. For example, the low-visibility created by the air-smoothed casing could translate into eyesight problems for Rebecca that she tries to hide because she fears engines would tease her for them, potentially culminating in Rebecca passing a red signal and getting into a crash. Maybe she doesn’t like fire or hates the works because of bad memories, meaning Rebecca hides any mechanical faults until they cause her to break down on the main line. 

By building her character around her class basis, we can develop an alternative personality for Rebecca that naturally stands strongly around other engines - especially as there are very few other Southern Railway engines on Sodor who could see Rebecca’s gruff and cold attitude as the defence mechanism it is. It also gives Rebecca a strong connection to Henry, who acted practically the same when he first arrived on Sodor to hide his steaming problems, making him sympathetic to Rebecca and opening the two up to a long-term arc that ends with Henry having helped Rebecca grow into the happy, cheerful and clumsy engine from the series before leaving. Her recklessness could translate into a rivalry or competition with Gordon, who is far more responsible and meticulous with his express due to his experience and the pressure that has been put on him. 

However, this is not the only way to build a better characterisation for Rebecca, the other option being to make Rebecca into a foil for other main characters. 

Part 5: Rebecca as a Foil: 

The other way to build Rebecca’s character into something that flows naturally with the other, previously introduced Steam Team members with making her more unique and interesting is to build it around the concept of the foil character. A foil character is a character who contrasts with another character, typically contrasting with the protagonist - a strong example of foil characters are Edward and Gordon, or Thomas and Diesel 10. Rebecca could quite easily fall into the position of being a strong foil character to the three big engines, more specifically James and Gordon, who are without a solid foil character to be contrasted against since Edward’s departure. In BWBA, when Nia arrived, she was considered to be closer to Thomas and Percy than Gordon or James, leaving them without a natural opposite. Rebecca has all of the strengths and weaknesses to fill this role. 

For the first option, using the personality the series gives Rebecca, we get the following scenario: Rebecca arrives on Sodor and is both an express engine and a mixed-traffic engine. When she arrives, instead of fumbling her first Express badly, she succeeds, and James and Gordon become worried about their status and jealous of her high speeds. Remember, prior to the codification of the characters into one or two jobs by CGI, James was a common replacement for Gordon on the express, and having his role as secondary express engine threatened would be a major blow to his ego. Worse yet, Rebecca likes pulling trucks, and is thus both similar but also a complete narrative opposite to the pair. Other engines like her for her kindness and helpfulness, even if it does get her in trouble when she doesn’t get her own work done on time - which Gordon and James exploit to make rude remarks about her. 

Already, Rebecca is a natural foil for Gordon and James, being similar enough for viewers to compare one to the other while also being different enough that her positive traits are highlighted against their negative ones. 

Then, Gordon could discover her hidden clumsiness and wheelslip problems, exploiting them to cause her embarrassment - something that has previously happened to James and when Rebecca is reprimanded for the resulting incident, he remembers his own struggles with wheelslip. This makes him more sympathetic to both Rebecca and the audience, and places him on a path towards apologising to Rebecca for how he spoke to her - while Gordon enjoys having the express to himself again. This could follow naturally towards an endpoint where Gordon gets his comeuppance and Rebecca is accepted into the Steam Team, having been a natural foil to both and developed close character relationships based on how she is positioned in contrast to Gordon and James. The series then progresses to seeing Rebecca act in opposition to the pair, as well as trying to one-up them, being either the protagonist or antagonist depending on who the hero of the story is. 

The second option is to use the character made for Rebecca in the previous part - the one built out of her basis and its issues - to turn Rebecca into a strong foil to Gordon and Henry, as well as potentially to Diesel or Thomas. This would begin with Rebecca arriving and acting recklessly with the express, being a speed demon where  Gordon demands professionalism due to his experience. This startles CGI Henry, who is also not a fan of recklessness and places her at odds with them but also potentially makes her interesting to James, who is himself quite reckless. Furthermore, Rebecca’s standoffish behaviour and grandstanding alienates engines like Thomas or Percy, while being very similar to how Gordon, Henry and James acted during their younger years, forcing the three to be confronted with how they used to act, reminding them of their old selves (BWBA is so obsessed with flashbacks and dream sequences, so this would be a good opportunity for them to use classic series moments to help flesh out all three and Rebecca here). 

This could build into Henry recognising the traits he used to hide his insecurities before he was rebuilt, helping to shift how the audience sees Rebecca and giving Henry an arc where he helps Rebecca learn to trust other engines and accept friendships - though notably not Gordon and James, who she sees as being the most likely to make fun of her. This helps Henry gain his classic series confidence back, giving him a boost to stand up and tell the Fat Controller that he wants to move, as well as the confidence to push back against Gordon when the big engine gets angry about the change. The series then follows Rebecca as she argues with James and Gordon, with engines taking sides depending on the episode - including  Thomas potentially absolutely hating Rebecca due to his alliance and friendship with Gordon.

Finally, Rebecca’s actions and attitude could help spur Diesel into recognising some of these negative traits in himself, finally ending the character arc that was attempted with Springtime for Diesel. 

Both of these options really focus on taking these established characters and growing them using Rebecca’s characterisation and unique position as the new big engine at Tidmouth, while also building off of Rebecca’s character strengths to make her stand out as unique too. Remember, Rebecca is the same size and strength as Gordon - the series hasn’t seen a NWR engine of comparable size to Gordon since Hiro was introduced, and he was neither an express engine nor a candidate for the Steam Team, so he was never a credible threat to Gordon. And before Hiro, the last engine of that size was Murdoch right the way back in Series 7, who never made it beyond the model series era. Rebecca has a real potential to be this threat to Gordon, being the first engine of such size introduced in almost a decade - she can pull express trains as well as Gordon while showing up James and being mixed-traffic and versatile like Henry. This is what irks me - Rebecca had everything going for her before she debuted, and got none of it. 

What is even more painful is the fact that there are an infinite number of ways to further develop and build her character or other characterisations to give her that take inspiration from the source material while still being fresh and interesting - for example, what if Rebecca’s clumsiness came from her being a static exhibit, possibly one at a children’s theme park which would explain the bright colours. She could be so kind and cheerful as a way to handle the pain of watching her siblings be scrapped - something that she could bond with Oliver over. The point is that Rebecca had and still has potential but needs a lot more effort put into her than what she got in canon. 

Part 6: Characters to Pair off with Rebecca: 

This brings me to my final core part to this long, and slightly ridiculous dissertation: who to pair Rebecca up with to best build her character and insert her into this universe while feeling natural and potentially giving them some more screen time and character dynamics outside of their usual social circles. 

For this, I decided not to look at Gordon, Henry or James, seeing as they got a lot of consideration in the previous parts, where they were core components of building up Rebecca’s character while also naturally removing Henry from the Steam Team. The following ten characters are engines who I feel would be some of the most interesting to pair up with Rebecca earlier on in the series, to help her bed into the series and give a wide range of popular or interesting characters for viewers to connect her to: 

1: Rosie: Rosie is a USATC s100, a class that worked at Southampton when Rebecca would have been in service! These two potentially have history, and even if they don’t, Rosie would be one of the first engines to realise why Rebecca is acting so standoffish and breaks through to her, seeing as she would have known the class from her younger days. Maybe they become confidants once Rosie manages to break through Rebecca’s facade? Maybe Rebecca decides she prefers Vicarstown and we go back to the Classic-era ensemble cast? The opportunities here are great, and it has the potential to give Rosie some real backstory too! 

2: Salty: Salty also worked at Southampton when Rebecca would have been in service, his class having been introduced in 1962, giving up to five years’ worth of potential overlap. Though it’s less likely the pair would have crossed paths, Salty would still know a lot about the West Country Class. He could potentially even float the idea of her getting rebuilt like a number of her siblings, which would add some real-life facts to the series! It would also be interesting to see Rebecca avoid Salty because she doesn’t want to be exposed by him - remember, she was in service at the end of BR, and really wouldn’t trust diesels based on what they did. 

3: Thomas: Thomas’ class also worked at Southampton when Rebecca would have been in service! However, Thomas would not have personally been at Southampton which means the connection is a little looser. Instead, he could have heard about them from a sibling, or maybe Stepney? Imagine Thomas being really excited to meet this new engine who he’s heard all these positive things about and then it’s this standoffish, grumpy engine who Gordon says is dangerous at speed. It would make for such an interesting dynamic and we could see the cheeky and blunt Thomas from the early series again! 

4: Oliver: These two both made it through the darkest days of BR and survived, and both are also very proud of their achievements - these being Rebecca’s speed and Oliver’s bravery - which could make a scenario where the two hype each other up, much to their own detriment. It would also be interesting to see how Toad would fit into this, seeing as Rebecca is quite reckless and Toad would be opposed to such a thing - and could create a really interesting dynamic where Oliver is forced to pick which of the two he believes during an episode. I can see Oliver being someone Rebecca trusts due to their shared experiences, and it gives Oliver some spotlight. 

5: Emily: Emily was what Rebecca is - an express engine with wheelslip issues who is considered to be one of the best engines of their time. Emily is also an engine who has some issues with CGI-era characterisation and could really do with being revitalised, so why not work with it? Emily tries to be nice and kind with Rebecca, only to keep hitting brick walls and reverting to her old, bossy ways to try and force the new engine to do what Emily wants - bonus points if this is held as being the right thing to do in that situation! It could also play into her getting her number, maybe by rescuing Rebecca from an accident she got into? 

6: Sir Handel: Sir Handel is another engine who desperately needs their characterisation revitalised, and Rebecca is a great chance! Sir Handel considers himself an express engine, and meeting Rebecca puffs him up as she regales him with tales of her speed. This plays into Sir Handel’s cockiness and he gets himself into trouble - and then he decides to get payback in whatever way possible, and we see the reverse of the situation where Sir Handel’s stories get Rebecca all fired up and she gets her own comeuppance. This would not only reintroduce Sir Handel, but also could set the foundations for Duke to return, with references to the MSR. 

7: RWS Flying Scotsman: I specify RWS Scott because I want the kinder, more humble version we got in the RWS to the version we got in the CGI era. Seriously - this engine has just been saved from scrap and given a second chance and his first action is to antagonise his only living sibling? I want him trying to be a voice of reason to Rebecca, seeing as he is uniquely placed to know the consequences of wheelslip - something he also has; as well as recklessness - Scott was the first to officially hit 100mph, so he knows a thing or two! Even more, Rebecca might look up to Scott, based on his fame, though his stories may lead to her being more reckless! 

8: BoCo: Remember I mentioned that the West Country Class caught on fire? Imagine a story with that, with BoCo (a Class 28 infamous for catching fire) as Rebecca’s foil. It could begin with BoCo backfiring and Rebecca making fun of him for it due to her disdain for the diesels who replaced her class before she suffers a similar fate when her boiler lagging catches fire and it’s BoCo who has to help her get her train home. It would be a great way for Rebecca to learn that diesels aren’t all bad, as well as giving her someone new to be friends with - and it would reintroduce BoCo! This could also help draw Rebecca down the branch to meet Bill and Ben… 

9: Molly: Overtly shy Molly and secretly shy Rebecca who covers her shyness up with aggression would make for such an interesting dynamic! I can imagine Molly gathering up all of her courage to speak to Rebecca only to be shot down (unintentionally) and then never want to talk to Rebecca again, and it’s only when Rebecca realises that the bigger engine tries to hunt Molly down - possibly with hilarious consequences. This idea would really work well if you popped in Mavis, who would want to help Molly and stand up to Rebecca. It would also be interesting to reintroduce Molly, especially with Mattel wanting more gender equality. 

10: Mike: This would be a case of grumpy, standoffish Mike versus standoffish-to-hide-insecurities Rebecca! These two would be about as productive as a house on fire. Literally! These two would naturally bump heads in the worst way possible, and it would create incredible comedy and infinite story potential. This would be even better if you added some inferiority complex on Mike’s side, based on the fact he’s never seen an engine this big before - seeing as Rebecca is the only engine of this size able to visit Arlesburgh. They would rile each other right the way up the wall and it would probably never get any better. 

To conclude, Rebecca had real potential as a character - she had an iconic basis, good timing for her introduction and the role she was aiming to fill in many ways needed to be filled; Henry’s character assassination had made him hard to watch for a long time, and moving him out of the spotlight to give writers some time to rehabilitate him was long overdue. It’s just a real massive shame that they managed to fail so badly. By failing to properly plan and develop Rebecca, Mattel created a background character that they tried to have fill a major role that she simply was not able to fill. There were many better choices in the show to take Rebecca’s role, not least of all Molly - a yellow tender engine who was shy and a bit clumsy. By neglecting to properly integrate Rebecca into the series and then giving the show writers very little personality to work with, Mattel ensured that Rebecca would be a BWBA-exclusive character, an engine who never managed to gain half of the popularity of other characters who had comparable runtimes. Engines like Murdoch, Molly and BoCo have far better legacies than Rebecca, and it comes down to how they were treated by the series. All three were introduced with something that made them unique, be it through their interactions with other characters or through their own unique characterisation. Rebecca is a grim reminder to people developing characters for stories - especially characters being added later in the series to a cast of strong, notable and even iconic characters - that these late introductions need a lot of effort and carefully designed arcs to make them viable and allow them to become embedded into the series alongside those they share the screen with. 

Rebecca is one of those characters who is enough of a blank slate that it is easy for people to project onto her. In some cases, this is useful to a character’s legacy - Fergus, Molly, and even Smudger all have been remembered far more fondly by the fanbase than their limited appearances ought to warrant, however this is mostly because they were given a strong enough personality by the show that these projections had preexisting characterisations to connect to. Rebecca was given far too little, and in redesigning her character, I feel like I’ve gained a new understanding of just how far Mattel had pushed the show prior to its cancellation. By expanding the series to include new characters from around the world while also demanding episodes with new, untested characters back on Sodor, the writing team was rushed to complete episodes with a plethora of new faces that had no substance to back them up. There was no chance for these foreign engines to become anything meaningful while Mattel demanded enough new characters to fill an entirely different series, nor was there time for many of the characters back on Sodor to develop meaningfully while the writers scrambled to try and create far too many new characters from scratch. 

And it was the characterisations that suffered for it. 

Once again, this was not an attempt to convince people to like or dislike the version of Rebecca found in BWBA, but instead look into why Rebecca as a character failed to stand up against the other Steam Team members or even many of the more notable secondary faces found in the TVS at this point in the series. This can be boiled down to comparisons to her predecessor, a lack of effort from Mattel to give Rebecca a chance to develop and the decision to use cliched characteristics to create a version of Rebecca that never was going to capture many viewers’ imaginations. This was also an attempt to redevelop Rebecca into someone that can be used by the fandom to rehabilitate her image, or at the least to point out what went wrong and what could have been done to fix it. Maybe someday Rebecca will get the redevelopment she deserved, or perhaps she will be left to the annals of Thomas history, becoming just another footnote in the ever-expanding list of characters who couldn’t stand the test of time. 

Thank you for reading.

[jemmo]

the way they are structuring the arguments minato and shin have in this season are absolute genius, and i cannot get enough of it. and this episode is so good for showing that, bc everything that seems petty or trivial or silly when they bicker hits at something deeper and more prominent that exists as an actual issue in their relationship, and somehow every time they bicker, it goes back to it, the real crux of the situation, which is how they see each other as childish. it’s minato’s favourite rebuttal to call shin a kid or a little brat, bc he thinks he can just reduce any actual problems or grievances shin has to just childish behaviour. and when we think about how the strong, passionate confidence with which shin shares his feelings is associated with the naivety of being young, you don’t know the world or haven’t experienced it enough to have those learned insecurities, you can see how minato has the excuse to reduce his behaviour down to this. and you can also add on this generational divide that’s probably exacerbated by how familiar and ingrained minato is to the society and community where he lives where he sees elder people day to day and becomes close to them, plus him leaving his city job to continue a family business almost feels like an early retirement so the life he leads is only shared by older people, he feels like he belongs to an older generation despite not being old, and thus has picked up all these notions about his identity and relationship that belong in that older generation, hence his difficulty with coming out and exposing his relationship.

shin, on the other hand, is part of this youth where it doesn’t matter and it’s not ingrained in him to feel guilty or like he needs to hide, and he’s aware of this and how it affects minato. and when he sees minato as childish, it’s not that he needs to grow up necessarily, it’s more like he needs to grow forward, out of these old notions of gayness being tied to guilt, and emotionally mature in that way, almost like he needs to grow up again, just in the current surroundings and be taught these new things about identity that allow him to be comfortable. but another way in which shin does see him as childish is how fickle he thinks he is, that he’d fall for people easily, which centres around this insecurity about minato’s feelings for sakuma and feeling like he can’t be secure in minato’s feelings for him because of it. it’s ironic bc minato turns his nose up at this idea shin not trusting him, but he also easily distrusts shin and thinks the worst when he sees him with someone else, almost like he can’t have any security in shin’s feelings for him bc that childishness of his passion implies that it’s not genuine, that it too is fickle and temporary. and shin’s distrust would be placated if minato learned to be more forward and reaffirm his feelings for shin without seeming like it’s hard or a big deal, but he can’t do that bc of all the reasons above about why he’s insecure in this relationship in the first place. it’s all connected, and it needs growth on both sides to get better, but my favourite thing about all of it is that neither of them wants the other to change fundamentally. shin can list all the things he likes about him and it encompasses his looks and his cuteness and his kindness and his brattiness and how difficult he is bc he likes him being this complicated handful minato knows he is and doesn’t shy away from. and when minato just says shin is handsome, I don’t think it’s just him stuck on looks, I think it’s more that there’s this inherent handsomeness to him, not just in the way he looks but the way he holds himself, the way he pursues his goals, the way he shares his feelings with confidence and is so kind and giving, it’s handsomeness in every facet. shin doesn’t want minato to not be difficult, and minato doesn’t want shin to not be so full on, they just need to find the ways to stop these things they like clashing and getting in the way.

and ps. I just love seeing shin talk to shu and rolling his eyes bc emotionally immature men really do be coming at him left right and centre

[sequencefairy]

Hi, I hope this is okay to ask. If not, totally okay! I am recently becoming comfortable with my attraction to women and bisexuality. However, I am also in a relationship with a cis man I care about and love very much. Can I ask about your journey and becoming comfortable with your sexuality within the context of your relationship?

Big question, I love it. Thank you for asking.

So, my partner and I have been together since I was 18, which was well before I really started interrogating my sexuality and what that meant for me. I grew up Catholic, with Conservative-leaning family, especially regarding social issues, so I never really knew there were options other than being straight.

Looking back, I definitely had some very intense friendships with girlfriends in highschool that probably should have clued me in earlier, but I didn't know it was an option and I liked boys just fine, so I figured everyone had girls they wanted to sit really close to and whose hair they wanted to touch, and clearly I enjoyed kissing boys, ergo I was straight.

When my partner and I moved in together in my third year of university, that was when I started to wonder about my sexuality and what being queer meant, especially as someone who was and continues to be in love with a cisgendered dude, and is generally monogamous. I looked at my attraction to women and my attraction to my partner, and looked at our relationship, wondering if I was missing something in it, and wondering if I wanted something he couldn't give me. I worried a lot about whether it was like, the seven year itch, or a quarter life crisis brought on by swapping majors in university and narrowly avoiding a nervous breakdown. I wondered if I was just imagining things, or if I was just being influenced by being around out, proud queer people on the regular as part of being a volunteer at the women's center on campus. I wondered if I should say anything, to anyone, or if I should just keep it to myself forever, suppressing the desires I realised I'd been feeling for such a long time, now. I wondered if my friends would still like me. I wondered if I would have to come out to my family. I wondered if my partner would leave me. I wondered if we would survive this revelation I was having about myself.

It was a scary thing to think about. I could lose someone I loved very much and who I knew loved me, and whose life was entwined with mine. But I also knew that he was a good person, and a kind person - I wouldn't have been with him otherwise, so I had to trust that he would see this not as a threat, but as a deepening of our intimacy and so, in the end, I decided I couldn't keep it to myself. I couldn't go on pretending I was something I wasn't.

It's been a journey, really - I had to come out to myself, and then to the people around me who mattered and who I needed to love all of me and not just the most public bits. I came out to my partner fairly early on, and it was a bit fraught! I was worried he'd not take it well - and initially, to be honest, it was a touchy thing between us! We've grown so much as a couple since then though, that now it's just a part of me that he accepts and celebrates and acknowledges.

I still, many years on, struggle with being queer enough because I'm passably straight, and don't outwardly 'Look Queer:tm:' so people just make assumptions. Even though I'm pretty loudly out online, I'm a little less out in real life. I work in a professional corporate setting, my parents are still Conservative, the community I live in is very rural, etc., which all adds up to not always feeling safe to be out and so I maintain my stealth mode a lot.

But, the crux of it all for me, is that my relationship is queer because I am in it. I am queer regardless of who I am or am not dating. I love my partner, and I intend to keep on loving him until we are old and grey and buried, and my being queer is just a part of me as the person who my partner loves. I fell in love with him before I was out to myself, and maybe, in another life, I'd have met a woman I loved first, or figured it out sooner, or or or - but I don't live those other lives, I live this one, and in it, I love him, and he loves me, and I'm queer, and that's enough.

Welcome to the journey, beloved. It's a lifelong one, and we all do it at our own pace. There's no right or wrong way to be queer, there's only the way you are.

[galaxyofhair]

The Real Issue with Luke in TLJ

I don't want to get marked as ~one of those~ Star Wars fans, but I do have an issue with the Sequel films that I think would not have been fixed, even if the films were made to be truly 'good.'

The issue with Luke Skywalker's depiction in TLJ was not that he was depressed, or that he succumbed briefly to the darkside or any of that---been thinking about this one alot and realized that this was never my issue with the character.

My issue was always that they gave up on Luke's goth aesthetic, and had him return to Jedi orthodoxy.

Luke being goth was cool, but also important

In ROTJ, when first released, Luke's cool new black outfit signified a couple of things:

One, it was a representation of his development as a Jedi. Luke had lost a hand in battle, and learned the terrible truth of the father he had in Vader. His outfit not only represented his status as a well trained jedi warrior, but it also represented the impression that darkness had left on Luke. While he was warm and happy with his friends, he was also savvy in the face of danger, and emotional in the face of darkness.

Two, it was part of the larger vibe of that film: which was a darker and more gothic descent into the dark side. ROTJ has a creepy side. Where TESB depicts the force as mysterious and wonderous, ROTJ depicts the force as dualistic, fickle, and dangerous. Palpatine enters the stage as the perfect evil wizard character, showing Luke (and the audience) the effects of mixing the force, desire, and power. Luke's outfit thusly reflects this descent into darkness, and the overall more dark-fantasy tone of the film.

Three, later films and series would add a further context to Luke's outfit: Luke's outfit is not orthodox, even to other Jedi. The Clone Wars, the Jedi Purge, and the years spent under the empire have created a generation of bokken Jedi whose outlook is much, much darker than their predecessors. In a way, many of these jedi survivors seem to live in perpetual mourning, the destruction of the order being the great defining event of their generation.

So Luke's outfit is not just a swanky choice from Hot Topic, but it's a symbol of his jedi journey, and the kind of jedi that he is in comparison to those who came before him.

Obligatory Legends Canon Insert

I promise not to harp on this too long: Legends canon was filled with holes and issues, and overall its probably better that the majority of it is gone---but there were some good points in there that are worth noting:

Luke's Jedi Praxeum in Legends Canon was an extension of Luke's own journey as a Jedi: rather than simply recreating the order as it was, Luke's order recruited padawans who were much like Anakin had been: Older than the old order's standards, brash, adventurous. Luke didn't forbid them from having connections, and partners even. For all the reasons that Anakin betrayed the order of old, Luke's order had learned and adapted, and thrived because of it.

In the past, my favorite comparison used to be that Luke is sort of like the Martin Luther of the Jedi religion: He had found some critical flaws in the religion he was following, and led a reformation which created an essentially new order, wholly separate from the order of Anakin and Obi Wan's day.

The Warrior and Teacher

I don't want to harp too long on "OoOoO Legends Canon did it better" it's done, and all we can do is try to move forward and make future projects good. But that is sort of the crux of my issue.

I could absolutely see a version of events in which Luke's history of fighting, and his close encounters with the darkside lead Luke to become a hardened teacher, who became increasingly merciless to his students as he got older. I can absolutely see how Ben resembling Anakin, and Luke by extension, would get under his skin---and I could be sold on Luke having a moment of weakness, briefly allowing the darkside to guide his actions purely because he had let his guard down.

What I can't get behind is the idea that Luke had listened to his father's story from people like Obi Wan, Yoda, and Ahsoka---all of whom had long reevaluated their beliefs following the Purge---had experienced the darkside for himself, had been trained as one of the bokken Jedi, took all of that experience and learning and returned to the Jedi's flawed orthodoxy.

This comes with a visual cue in TFA and TLJ, being Luke's brown and tan jedi robes in both the present and in the past---but it was also an implication of some of the dialogue in TLJ and in the Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett.

Like, how could he see and hear all of that, but then only learn it once his own order had failed? Maybe that's one of those things where its a complex enough story that it can't be told in reference---I would want to see it directly.

How would I fix this?

5-7 years on from ROTJ, we see Luke is laying the foundation of his own temple, one that he appears to be running entirely on his own, with only some assistance from Ahsoka.

While I am not a big fan of fixing films through context, I would find ways to depict a few pivotal events that would mark Luke's journey:

A reduced version of the Jedi Praxeum which is not a training ground for new jedi, but a sanctuary for jedi survivors. It would have to be within the first 4 years of ROTJ, and given that the Galactic Civil War doesn't end until 5 ABY, it's likely that the first meeting of this praxeum would be to discuss the end of the empire. You could depict the praxeum as being fundamentally broken: Many of the jedi who survived the rise of the empire have ended up as gothy as Luke, Ahsoka, and Baylen---e.i. not truly jedi. With the vast variety of views and attitudes present in the traumatized survivors of the war, Luke and Ahsoka eventually disband the council of the praxeum, and return to the drawing board.

Depict Luke's order as making changes, and learning from the past. Even if it means watching Luke give up his badass goth look, Luke's order needs to be fundamentally different from the jedi who came before---if his order is to be flawed (and it should be) then it needs to be flawed for new reasons. Luke being a perfectionist with a lot of war trauma would be a good well to pull from for that.

The downfall of Luke's order is complicated: It's not that he was an orthodox fool who couldn't learn from the past, it's that his order was flawed for its own reasons, fragile in its infancy, and beset by tragedies on all sides, finally killed by a fearful mistake.

Rey's new order, given her unique upbringing under Luke and with the guidance of Luke's ghost, represent a more perfect expression of his life's work.

This is, for me, the first part in a larger thought I want to write about goth jedi, but its a good start. If I think of anything else, I'll come back and edit or something.

[chapitre7]

a light in your tune

แฟนผมเป็นประธานนักเรียน | My School President fanfiction

Tinn Tinnaphob Jirawatthanakul/Gun Guntaphon Wongwitthaya

7k words

Gun crushes on a cute guy who's bad at dates. Gun pretends he does not have a crush on cute guy who's bad at dates. Romcom ensues.

Read on AO3

If you asked Gun why he did it, he would splutter and stammer and blush and probably fake out a phone call to flee. If you asked Por why he thought Gun did it, Por would happily tell you, “I don’t think Gun thought anything at all!”, which is both 1) true and 2) a regular occurance, and it’d make Gun splutter and yell again.

The fact is, Gun did it, and it changed everything.

Maybe that’s a little too overdramatic for you, but at one point, there is a rain scene and eyes interlocked and the fluttering of butterflies in his stomach and a beautiful boy that reminds Gun of the sun-tinted days in high school.

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Por says, giggling, and hey, he is right, we are. Before the singing and the rain and the new year, there is:

The restaurant.

Now, there isn’t anything particularly special about the restaurant, other than draining all of Gun’s energies because customers are exhausting and tourists are a particular brand of annoying that test all of Gun’s people skills.

But that does mean that whenever Gun meets a customer that is polite, kind, and flattering, his day is turned around. He remembers that he does in fact love people, and that one day he’ll be a famous musician and he’ll make people happy when he sings and then all the impolite ones won’t be able to affect him anymore because fuck the tourists who complain about the spice level of the dishes, who cares when he has the real public?

Sigh.

Por pats him on the head when he gets that faraway look on his eyes, saying, “There, there,” because he, too, was there when they failed another audition and—

Okay, digression. Back to the real crux of the issue:

When did Gun even get a crush on that guy?

“I do not have a crush on him!” Gun says, voice an octave higher for some reason. Suspicious. “I don’t even know his name!”

Yet we cannot help but squint our eyes at him.

“Didn’t you mention how he always wears a blue tie?” Por asks, index finger tapping his chin.

“So?” Gun shoots back, crossing his arms, not at all defensive.

“So,” Por says, word heavy with implication. “Who even notices what strangers are wearing?”

“First of all, I’m quite observant, thank you very much,” Gun says, index finger raised in the air, yet it is important to point out that he never noticed when Por changed the parting of his hair from left to right early this year. Gun glares, sticking out his middle finger to form the number two. “Second of all, he became a regular, so I just. I don’t know? He seems to like blue, okay, at one point it was hard not to notice.”

“I never noticed it,” Por says as an important addition.

“You don’t even pay attention to the weather forecast before leaving the house.”

“It’s not important! It’s always hot anyway and rain season is already over!”

“Then why do you get annoyed when you’re overdressed for band practice?”

“Because it’s ruining my vibe!”

“Just stop wearing vests, man.”

“You seem to like when glasses wears a vest.”

Gun lets out a sound that is very much like a mouse squeak.

Okay, maybe we should back up a little.

Back to the restaurant and the customers and Gun liking the polite ones.

He likes the ones that tip him with a heavy hand because they’re used to different countries. He likes the one that look him in the eye like he’s an actual person, and the ones that ask him for suggestions and he can see the way they light up when they take the first bite of their dish. Those make his miserable days a little better.

And then there are the dates.

Now, Gun wouldn’t call himself a romantic. That’s Por, and it’s honestly a little irritating because he’ll create whole fics about customers, with background stories and tragic family plots if the shift is chill and he has had too much coffee that day, and a lot of the time Gun tells him to stop shipping people, but mostly he suffers it with a modicum of restraint because it does make Por write some pretty nice lyrics.

Gun still pays attention to those dates, however, wearing his most handsome smile and on his most patient behavior as the lovebirds nervously browse the menu for something mild, as only a tentative first date can be. Gun has never dated anyone, but he is observant when he wants to be, especially when he’s shifted into singer mode, and he tries to fit some of his favorite songs to romantic pairs.

He sees the friends-crossing-the-friendzone-line when the banter is easy and relaxed and the hands keep touching as the pair speaks. There’s the obvious-pining-turned-into-real-date when one side can’t keep their eyes off the other. There are the older couples who share a lifetime of history, knowing each other’s favorite dishes and laughing at inside jokes that Gun would never understand. You can see all kinds of people and how they relate to one another simply by how they make an order and eat their dinner.

So, when glasses guy first showed up, a pretty girl by his side, Gun easily switched into observant mode.

Take that, Por.

He pulled her chair for her, which, yeah, okay, a little old fashioned, but nice. He had a pleasant smile that made the girl smile in return, a little shy, and oh, it was a first date. Maybe a blind date? No, no, if it were a blind date, then they wouldn’t have arrived together. Or maybe they had met up someplace before?

God, sometimes hanging out with Por is like sharing clothes and getting his habits like an annoying rash. Just like in seventh grade.

“Are you ready to order?”

Glasses guy, at this point in time, wasn’t really glasses guy because he was not wearing them. Gun doesn’t know if he was wearing blue that day, either. He made a good impression in different ways, such as when he asked his date, “What would you like? Please feel free to choose anything.”

We love a date that does not care about budget. Yeah, yeah, something, something, dates should split the check, but Gun is a huge supporter of getting free meals out of boys. If the date ends up sucking, at the very least their date won’t have to suffer double the injury by also having to pay for the bill. It makes sense in his head.

Not that glasses guy — or Gun’s guy (“He’s not my guy! What the fuck!”) — presented any indication that he’s a bad date. In fact, from what Gun observed, he seemed to be quite the green flag. He was leaning forward as they waited for the food, clearly interested, engaging in conversation, while his date remained a little stiff, but also a little pink on the cheeks, replying in short sentences. They shared a laugh before Gun arrived with their food, and when he looked up at Gun to thank him, Gun could swear his eyes reflected all the lights in the room.

Por whistles. “You noticed that?”

“Look,” Gun says, palm open in a clear sign that says hold on now, “I just mean he looked friendly! And warm! And very obviously nice to talk to!”

“Sure,” Por says.

Sure, Gun.

Anyway, he was very obviously nice to talk to, and Gun has no idea how that date managed to turn around, because one minute it was going well, the next minute the guy’s smile dropped and he went pale, mouth hanging open, and the girl was shaking her hands then clasping them, and, oh boy, yeah, that was it. It was halfway through their meal too, and they were both too polite to end it there, so they ate the rest of the food in such a state of complete silence that Gun had to visibly wince.

The girl said something — was that a wai? oh God — and then left.

Date boy seemed dejected. Hunched over the table, mouth pulled into a thin line, swirling his drink absentmindedly. The saddest part is that it was not even alcohol, he was just swirling soda around.

Maybe it was the very fact that he was not getting shitfaced in those trying times of rejection that got Gun to move. Or maybe it was the pathetic kicked puppy look on his face. Or maybe Gun just felt highly benevolent on that day.

If you asked Gun the reason, he would not be able to give you a clear answer.

“He has the emotional awareness of a goldfish,” says Pat, and Gun takes offense to that.

As it were, it happened like this: Gun took one look at that dejected man, walked up to him with the menu in hand, offered his brightest smile, and said, “Would you like to have your dessert now?”

The young man blinked a little owlish at him.

“I didn’t order any.”

“Are you sure, khun? We have the best oh aew outside of Phuket.”

He still looked a little lost. But something in Gun must have convinced him, because a few beats later he said, “Okay.”

Now, Gun’s boss would be pretty proud of him for securing another order out of that failed date, but the truth is, Gun wouldn’t even charge the man if he could. Whenever he lost an audition, his mother would make him the sweetest shaved ice to cheer him up, so when he saw that crumbled paper bag of a man, he wanted to give him some sugar.

Maybe the man said something to fuck up his date, but Gun’s gut didn’t agree, so he did what he wanted. And Gun was not known for making choices agreed by the general population (or even his band mates).

So, he did bring the dessert to the man, and also a little extra. He watched from afar as the man ate all of his sweet treat before he noticed the message Gun left on his paper napkin: Don’t give up. It’ll be better next time.

“But I’m the romantic, I’m the embarrassment,” Por says. “You left him a love message—”

“It wasn’t a love message, it was—”

“—And then you bolted to the kitchen before he made eye contact with you!”

“—not for the eye contact! Or any contact! I just wanted to cheer him up a little! He looked really damn sad, Por.”

Like a kicked puppy, as we established. And Gun’s message did have the desired effect. The corner of his lips immediately curled up, his smile a shy, tight-lipped thing. Gun couldn’t see anything else due to the aforementioned bolting, but he did see the smile, and he understood why people wrote about making others happy. It was a great feeling.

Seeing the guy on his second date was less of a great feeling.

Not because Gun was embarrassed or anything (quote, unquote), and the guy was pretty nice and his tip was even nicer, but now his date was a guy. A very good-looking guy with possibly the best hair Gun has ever seen, and it made Gun feel some type of way.

As soon as the pair sat down and Gun didn’t move towards them, Por had so many questions, expressed not with words, not with any proper language, but a secret third way (moving his eyes back and forth between Gun and the pair and widening them each time Gun refused to move). Resigned, Por walked to them himself, friendly and ready to take their order, while Gun pretended his thoughts were leading somewhere coherent.

Of course he didn’t have problem with the other guy. Gun would never be the kind of singer that sang of just one type of love. Especially because, in theory, Gun didn’t have experience with any kind other than platonic and cuddling with Por when it wasn’t too hot. And hey, the girl didn’t work out (maybe his guy snored? Wait, not his guy, fuck), so maybe he’d have better luck with a guy.

They certainly seemed to vibe. From the window in the kitchen, he watched as the pair talked, relaxed and close, feet touching under the table. At one point, guy-with-good-hair grinned wide and appeared to reach forward to pinch the other’s cheek and oh, the other was definitely blushing.

Huh. Now that was new.

But the guy wasn’t smiling, at least not in the same way that he had smiled in his previous date, or the way he smiled when Gun gave him his napkin message. Not that Gun was categorizing his smiles or anything, that seems a little creepy, actually? Maybe? In any case, the guy kept looking around even after Por brought them their meal, a little distracted, and even though he seemed to get along pretty well with this date, guy-with-good-hair still excused himself and left first.

Gun wasn’t an expert on dates in any capacity, but he did have to wonder what green-flag-guy was doing to get ditched so easily.

“Maybe he’s oversharing,” Por suggests. “Maybe he has an overbearing mother and it’s scaring people away.”

“Maybe he has bad breath,” Win quips.

“He doesn’t,” says Gun, who would know.

“You’d know,” says Yo.

“I think we should start band practice,” says Gun, moderately, getting off his chair at a normal speed.

“Pat’s still in the bathroom,” Win says, and Gun groans, sitting back down, looking over their setlist, willing band thoughts over guy thoughts.

“It’s not that bad to have a crush, you know,” says Por in a very amiable, sweet voice. Gun groans again.

Because the third time had been the worst.

It was on the third time he came to the restaurant that Gun saw him in glasses for the first time. He was also wearing a blue vest and white pants, and it was all so pastel and friendly that he looked like he had walked out of a laundry detergent commercial. If Gun touched his vest, he would probably feel it dip softly under his touch. Not that Gun had any touching thoughts. That’s ridiculous.

Especially not with the guy’s date glaring at him in such a way that Gun almost feared for his life.

Almost. He had never backed down from a confrontation in his life.

(Por resented that.)

When he walked to their table, glasses guy did seem to perk up at him. He was all smiles — the small, timid ones that made him look like an emoji — and friendly, asking, “What do you suggest?”, as if he and Gun and his date all miraculously shared the same taste.

Gun was not sure if his date even blinked the whole time he was there to take their order.

“Is it even a date this time?” Por asked, brows furrowed, speaking to Gun from behind a menu.

“I think so?” Gun tried. The angry one kept his arms crossed but glasses guy was leaning forward, trying to appeal to him in some way or another, and Gun was glad to see that he was not so fucking easy that the guy’s eyes only melted his insides. Arms were uncrossed, eyes were rolled, and the man… flicked glasses guy on the forehead? “Is that romantic?”

“When I was in fifth grade, maybe.”

They both tilted their heads, musing over definitions of love.

And there was definitely something there from the way the guy glared at Gun in a very pointed, gratuitous way when he brought them their order. There was also something about how glasses guy kept adding meat to his date’s plate, as if trying to please him. But again, once the dishes were clean, his date stood up and left, and glasses guy remained there, in his pastel blue silence.

“I feel bad for him,” Gun told Por.

“Why though?” Por asked. “I mean, he seems nice, but it’s not the first time we’ve seen bad dates.”

Gun shrugged. Because he kept trying, even after that disastrous first date? Because he seemed nice, always appearing interested in his date when they spoke? Definitely the rather pleasant color scheme of his clothes, if Gun were being honest.

Or maybe, really, it was the way he looked up at Gun when he walked to him. Pretty eyes, looking right at Gun’s.

“Would you like to order dessert, khun?” Gun asked. Since your date has left again.

He smiled, and it looked cuter now that he was wearing his silly round glasses.

“Yes, Khun Gun.”

Gun took a slight step sideways and almost tripped over his own feet.

Wait, wait. The nametag. He was wearing a nametag, of course. Fucking idiot.

Something must have showed on his face, because glasses guy had his hand raised in the air, almost ready to touch him, before awareness hit them and he placed it back on the table, while Gun looked down at his notepad to write the guy’s order.

“I think,” he told Por, after the guy had eaten his dessert and left him a generous tip again, “that he reminds me of someone.”

“Who?” Por asked, holding the menu to his chest.

“I don’t think you know them.”

“Gun, I know everyone you know.”

“Obviously,” Gun said, because it wasn’t a lie. “It’s not like I knew them either.”

“That makes no sense.”

But it did to Gun. Not as a tangible person, but more like… A feeling he had back in high school. Sitting in the back of the class, watching those in front. Those who were smarter than him and would definitely get into their university of choice. Those who tutored others, and spoke well in school assemblies. Gun wouldn’t say he knew any of them well, or that he had like one of them in particular, just… When Gun thought of high school, he remembered his band practices, the school festivals, and his class president who always knew his name and hyped his songs on the school radio.

“You have a very specific taste,” said Por, after Gun expressed those feelings in something less put together.

“Shut up,” Gun fired back eloquently.

But worse than the confusion, worse than paying attention to the guy every time he came back to the restaurant, worse than having a crush for possibly the first time in his life, was how, not even a week later, on an inauspicious Friday night, glasses guy’s angry date showed up at Pat’s garage, where the band practiced, with a guitar on his back.

Gun made an excellent second impression by choking on air.

“Instagram,” the guy said, taking his phone out of his hoodie’s pocket and waving it around, like it was a flyer. “You said you’re looking for a guitarist.”

Por was looking at Gun very attentively. Gun vowed not to make eye contact with him for at least 3 business days.

“Yeah,” he said, pretending to tune his own guitar. “Yeah, sure, let’s see what you got.”

One song later, Gun had to admit that he was infuriatingly good.

“Gun, I think we might actually win an audition like this,” said Yo, awestruck, looking at them as though he was seeing them like a real band for the first time and not like they had been playing together for the past several years. He would definitely be paying for barbecue next Tuesday.

“I’m Sound,” glasses-guy’s-last-date said.

“Holy shit,” said Win meaningfully. Everyone just stared at him.

Apparently, Sound was kind of a big deal online.

Unfortunately for Gun, all he could think of was Sound wiping sauce off glasses guy’s face with his thumb, kicking him under the table, and then calmly listening to whatever glasses guy was rambling about.

Was he the one? Did they meet again after that date? Was glasses guy going to show up one day during band practice to pick Sound up for a date, and then Gun would watch them—

“We’re not dating,” Sound said, and Gun turned towards him so quickly that he’d be feeling that in his neck for the weekend at least.

“What?”

Sound leveled him with a look. Gun was growing wary of the fact that Sound could read his mind.

“I’m not dating Tinn,” Sound continued, putting his guitar away. “You looked like you were curious.”

Out the corner of his eye, he could see that Por’s eyebrows were raised to his hairline. In his head, Gun was already trying to run the math of how long he could go without talking to Por before he came barging into his bathroom so he didn’t have where to run.

“I’m not,” Gun said, fiddling with the strap of his guitar.

“Who’s Tinn?” asked Pat.

“No one, good night,” Gun said, fleeing the scene without even getting Sound’s number to add him to their groupchat, which prompted Por to call him later that very night.

“He said they’re childhood friends,” Por said in a tone that made Gun feel like he was five years old. And also wonder why Por and Sound were talking about glasses guy — Tinn — while he wasn’t there.

“It’s literally not any of my business. Can’t you just send me Sound’s number?” A pause. “Please?”

It’s not like they couldn’t date just because they were childhood friends; Gun had watched plenty of dramas with his mom to know that. And still, it’s not like it was any of his business who Tinn dated or not. He actually wanted Tinn to find a nice date, because he looked nice, and he looked like he was trying. Whenever his mom talked about his father, her face would take on a different kind of glow, and she could talk for hours. Tinn looked like he could talk for hours, too. He seemed to talk plenty in his dates, so Gun was sure that love would look good on him, in his eyes—

His dark, round, sparkly eyes.

Lying in his bed, Gun hit his hand against his forehead, as he would many times after that.

He knew there was nothing wrong with having a crush. Crushes would render many good memories and many a good song and it was only natural, of course, but... Every time he looked at Tinn at the restaurant, he felt like he was intruding. Like he was looking at someone from a completely different world, and by following the curve of his smiles and the way the tip of his hair fell softly against his cheek, he was being inappropriate. Seeing more than he was supposed to see.

And Tinn would raise his eyes and find his, and it would make him panic.

“Gun,” Por says, and he drags the syllable of his name, dejectedly. “You’re killing me.”

“You’re being too harsh on yourself, man,” Pat adds, patting him on his back.

“He’s coming to the gig, isn’t he? So he wants to be around,” Yo says.

“What do you have to lose by asking him out?” Win asks, crossing his arms.

Gun almost drops his water bottle.

“I don’t want to ask him out!”

“You literally do,” Win deadpans.

“Gun, they’re right,” Por says, and Gun knows, and he hates it, and he’s going to murder Por in his sleep for explaining to the others who Tinn was.

He didn’t mean to crush on the guy. He didn’t want to do anything about it. He didn’t mean to ask him to come to their gig. He just…

When Tinn came back for his fourth date, Gun was at the end of his shift, so he didn’t even serve him. He was in the break room, with a single earbud in his ear, singing along to the song he was planning to use to open the gig they managed to land at the end of the month. A song about finding someone in the big wide city, who shows up against all odds and stands beside you. Gun had sung it many times before, ever since high school, but when he sang it that day, it sounded different to his ears.

As if it had changed color.

He stopped singing at that verse, letting the instrumental rush over him. It was raining that night, so there was the melody in one ear, the pouring rain in the other, and sweet eyes filled with stars before his eyelids.

It’s so strange how even the most well-beloved verses can take the shape of a person if you let them.

When he walked through the restaurant on the way out, he did see Tinn there. Sitting at a table alone, squinting at his phone. He must have forgotten his glasses, Gun thought, and smiled despite himself. Was he stood up? Gun didn’t think a guy like Tinn could be stood up. But then again, he didn’t know anything about him. Not his hobbies, not his profession, not anything about his life. And Gun was nobody to him. Just a server without a college degree, trying to make it in an industry that didn’t care about him.

He walked out and stood by the porch, waiting for the rain to subside. Patrons walked past him, running towards their cars, and Por left him on read, probably too busy eating dinner to reply to Gun.

The pattering of the raindrops against the roof of the restaurant, coupled with the sound of the cars on the road before him, kept him from noticing the footsteps that approached and stopped by his side.

“Did you get stood up too?”

He turned sharply to the side, coming face to face with Tinn.

Was he always that tall, or did he grow taller in the short couple of months since their first meeting?

“Ah,” Gun said after a few seconds of staring into Tinn’s eyes, “no, actually, my roommate is already home. I’m trying to decide if I should call a taxi or make a run for the bus stop.”

Tinn hummed, and Gun’s eyes strayed from his control, falling from Tinn’s eyes, down to his mouth, and then to his neck. He was wearing a light blue button-up that day, but with the first four or five buttons undone. It was a physical effort to look away.

“I’d offer you a ride but,” he paused, laughing, showing off beautiful pearly teeth. “I’m not confident enough to drive in the rain without my glasses.”

To think that even Tinn had things he didn’t feel confident about.

“Guess we both lost our chance at free rides tonight then,” Gun said, a lopsided smile playful on his lips.

“Oh, God, no,” Tinn said, making a face. “Kajorn has road rage, I’d rather run to the bus stop too.”

They chuckled together, and turned back towards the rain. The city was just a blur, making it seem as if only them and the restaurant were tangible and real.

“Are you a singer?”

Something in his expression when he faced Tinn again must have made him shy, because Tinn quickly shook his hands, palm up, before clasping them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude, I swear I was just looking for the bathroom, but I heard you... singing, earlier.”

Gun had been a singer for many years already, but he could feel his neck and ears flushing at Tinn’s admission. As if Tinn could have read his emotions, transparent like glass, from the way he sang. Por always said that he was bad at lying, and that he could tell what Gun was feeling by the way he sang each song. But even if Tinn heard him, there was no way he could know who the one person among the million others in the rain-soaked city was.

“Yeah,” Gun said eventually, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He kept his eyes in the rain, but he could see Tinn visibly exhale beside him. Again, like it was impossible to stop it, a smile tugged at his lips. “My band is performing at Rendezvous on New Year’s.”

Before his brain could catch up, his mouth said,

“Do you want to come?”

He kept his hands inside his pockets as he turned to look at Tinn. For every purpose, it was a casual invitation, speaking nothing of the thudding of his heart against his ribcage. And if Tinn thought anything of it, the only thing he showed was a momentary surprise, a slight widening of his eyes. The seconds in which they looked at each other seemed to stretch, and the space between them seemed to shorten. It felt like, if Gun tilted his head slightly upwards, he could feel Tinn’s breath against his lips. The rain receded, but still echoed its pitter-patter like calm, static noise.

Someone bumped into Gun’s shoulder as they left the restaurant and ran, and just like that, the ticking of seconds resumed.

“Yeah,” Tinn said, just as Gun regained his posture after almost tripping into the curb. His smile was a pretty thing, pleased and shy all at once. “I’ll be there.”

Warmth took over Gun’s chest, and that was all he could take that night.

He nodded and started to sprint into the rain, but stopped when Tinn called for him to wait.

“I’m Tinn, by the way!” he said.

Gun felt really proud of himself.

“I know!” he answered, waved, and turned to run, the song in his earbud resuming, surrounding the night in melody.

***

And this is now: bar Rendezvous, New Year’s Eve. After the exposé about his feelings before the show, his bandmates didn’t exactly call Gun out about Tinn, but they didn’t not say anything. “You haven’t stop shaking your leg in the past half hour, you know that, right?” said Por, and “Do you have stage fright tonight?” asked Pat with a frown, and “If you don’t stop pacing around, I’m going to break your legs,” promised Sound.

Gun isn’t nervous. He isn’t. He can sing perfectly fine, they had rehearsed despite everyone’s schedule; not even Yo cancelled a single time. It’s fine, it’s all fine. A crush — and he will give you that, okay, maybe it is a crush by the way something unfurls in his stomach when he thinks about the way Tinn looked at him — won’t impact his performance. Nothing can possibly beat singing on stage with both his parents in the audience when he was in third grade, and if he survived that, he can survive a beautiful boy in the audience of a warm-lit bar.

But he sees Tinn in the audience as he’s adjusting his mic, and he goes deaf for a second. Just like the night outside the restaurant, even if there is no rain now, the rest of the world is just static. He’s wearing his glasses tonight, and his jacket is a beautiful forest green. Gun is once again thrown back to memories of high school, of their P.E. uniforms, of big crowds and loud laughter during sports events. The smell of chlorine from the school pools, the taste of lemon soda in his mouth.

Gun doesn’t really understand why Tinn brings him back to when he was seventeen, but one thing is certain: every day was so bright and alive when he was seventeen. Maybe Tinn is just like that — a tilt in the axis of his world, a pocket time machine. There is no other time to feel as intensely as one does when they’re seventeen.

He wants to know him. To talk to him. To sing to him.

And then Gun notices the man beside Tinn. The handsome curls of his hair and his cat-like smile.

If his guitar hadn’t been securely strapped around him, he might have dropped it.

“Ready?” Por asks him, and he must have seen something in Gun’s face, because he frowns and asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Gun says, without much conviction. He looks at Por, blinks, and says more firmly, “Yeah, of course. Let’s do this.”

Pat times the one-two-three with his drumsticks, and the rest is as easy as breathing.

Tinn spends the entire time with his eyes on him. Good-Hair talks to him a couple of times, but mostly he smiles at the band too, moving his head to the rhythm. It’s still a couple of hours until the countdown, and Gun sings with abandon. They take a few requests from the patrons, and Tinn sings along. When Gun sings his own songs, the light glows pink in Tinn’s glasses and he closes his eyes, Gun’s lyrics falling over him like rain.

About half an hour before midnight, the band takes a short break. For a brief moment, Gun wonders if Sound will walk up to Tinn, but he walks away with Win. The rest of his friends scatter, taking their bathroom break or drinking break or simply doing anything other than walking up to their crush, sitting beside their stool at the bar, and ordering carbonated water.

“You’re incredible,” says Tinn, loud and clear and close to his ear, and Gun tries to convince himself he does not shiver. “I can’t believe I had never heard of you guys before.”

“Do you hang out at bars often?” Gun asks. Tinn’s mouth opens and closes without a word and Gun can’t help laughing at him. “That’s what I thought. What about your...”

Gun lets his sentence hang there when he notices Good-Hair is nowhere to be seen. Tinn glances behind him in slight confusion, before it dawns on him. His thought processes are so transparent, Gun wants to scream at him to stop being cute.

“Tiw’s enjoying it greatly. He seems to have a particular interest in your keyboardist.”

Gun blinks at Tinn. Tinn points at somewhere over Gun’s shoulder, and it takes him a moment before he sees them — Por holding a water bottle and talking animatedly to Good-Hair, the latter bending slightly to Por’s height, listening attentively. It’s only when he hears Tinn giggle that he notices his jaw had dropped.

“Por’s super shy, I don’t think he’s taken so quickly to someone before,” Gun says, sipping his drink.

“Tiw is very good with people. It was always difficult to study with him; the entire grade came to ask him to tutor them. There were so many people at one point that he had to use the gym once.”

Gun laughs, looks at Tinn as he rests his elbow on the bar counter and rests his chin on his palm. Gun rests his arms on the counter as well, sustaining Tinn’s gaze.

“What about you?” Tinn asks.

“What about me?” Gun shoots back.

“Do you come here often?”

Gun’s both surprised and delighted, another laughter bubbling out of him.

“Was that a pick up line?” he asks, brows furrowed but an unstoppable grin on his lips.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Tinn says, and the pink on his cheeks doesn’t seem to come from the lighting. “Do you want it to be?”

Gun shakes his head and the drink in his glass.

“You’re ridiculous. This is why your dates don’t work out, you know?”

And he didn’t mean to mention it, he really didn’t, but now it’s out and he’s looking at Tinn, and Tinn is looking away. Gun could take it back. He could make an excuse and walk away, but the distant look in Tinn’s eyes isn’t scary. He seems to think about something before he looks at Gun again, and there it is. The look Gun hasn’t been able to stop thinking about.

Tinn looks at him like he’s the only person in the room, and the one who shines the brightest.

“The first date was something my mother asked of me, and as pleasant as it was at first, it would never work out because the girl already had a girlfriend. Do you know why I kept coming back, Gun?”

Gun couldn’t answer, his whole being taken by anticipation.

Tinn leans in, head tilted slightly to the side. Gun finds that he likes having to look up to look at Tinn, unlike all the other times at the restaurant when Tinn looked up at him.

“It was for you. I wanted to see you.”

It stirs something inside of Gun. Maybe he’s blushing, maybe he’s blinking, but he can’t look straight at Tinn anymore. He licks his lips, bites them, finishes his drink, and then his friends are calling him, waving him back to the stage. Gun gives them a thumbs up, before he turns to Tinn again.

Tinn’s smiling. Pretty and friendly and inviting in baby blue.

“See you next year, Tinn,” Gun says, flashing him a grin. Tinn’s eyes become crescent moons when his smile widens.

Gun’s the one who does the countdown. And when he shouts, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!”, he and Tinn can’t look away from each other.

***

“I don’t want to go,” Tinn whines, dragging every word, clinging to Gun’s middle. Gun pats Tinn’s clasped hands on his stomach and Tinn’s cheek as he hooks his chin over Gun’s shoulder.

“Tinn, it’s fine if you can’t go tonight,” Gun says, and Tinn drags him along with his ridiculous movements as he sways from one side to the other.

“I want to be there,” he says. “It’s our anniversary. I’ll ditch my shift if I have to.”

“You’re doing no such thing,” Gun says, making eye contact with Tinn through the mirror. Tinn tries to hide his face in Gun’s neck, but Gun sighs and turns around in his arms to face him.

“Tinn,” he says, but Tinn interrupts him.

“We’ve been apart for too long. I can’t remember the last time I heard you sing that wasn’t through my earbuds.”

“Last night, in the shower?” Gun asks, cocking an eyebrow. Tinn frowns, as it is a matter of great importance.

“Doesn’t count, you weren’t even on key. Gun,” he continues his whining before Gun can hit him for that comment.

“Tinn. We can always plan something for Valentine’s Day, if you want,” Gun says, hands resting on Tinn’s neck.

“But it’s our anniversary,” Tinn says, and he’s honest to God pouting, Gun is dating the world’s most overgrown fifteen-year-old. “I was looking forward to it.”

His antics are playful but his eyes are always honest. He’s so sad, and Gun is once again faced with the fact that Tinn likes him so damn much. He wants to kiss him, give in and spend the entire day inside the house with him, doing everything and nothing.

But his mom has raised him better than that and he will not give in to his boyfriend’s clingy impulses.

That doesn’t mean he can’t try and make him feel better.

“Today isn’t our anniversary,” Gun says, and Tinn’s frown deepens somehow.

“Yes, it is.”

Gun pretends to try and remember, eyes glancing up.

“I gave you the napkin back in... October? The 20th, I believe.”

Tinn’s whole face changes, lighting up like a Christmas tree.

“You’re counting our anniversary as the day we met?”

Gun rises on his tiptoes, pecks Tinn on his silly, pretty lips.

“It can be if we want to,” he says, thumbs brushing against Tinn’s flushed cheeks. “Or it can be the day you heard me sing for the first time. We can celebrate anytime we want. We can celebrate whenever you get home, no matter how late it gets, and then in the morning again.” He backs away from Tinn’s space as an idea hits him. “Oh, do you want to have a brunch date? At the new place that just opened.”

Tinn doesn’t answer. He pulls Gun against him, arms around his middle, nose nestling in the space between Gun’s neck and shoulder which he claimed for himself.

“I do. I want to have all the dates with you,” he says, just to make Gun tremble again, like a teenager in love for the first time. (It is his first, and it as wonderful as the songs say.) “I don’t want to leave you at all. Let’s ditch work today.”

Gun is already dressed though. And the sun that filters through the window is warm, and the birds are chirping, and although Gun loves to be in Tinn’s arms, he does want to go through his day, see all the vivid colors of the last day of the year where he had Tinn and Tinn had him. A winter day that was like a summer day.

Gun whispers, “See you next year, doctor Tinnaphob,” kisses Tinn’s temple, and then backs away and runs before Tinn can react.

He giggles throughout his day, because he’s lovesick and disgusting and annoying and a nuisance like all his friends say he is.

Sound, in his most benevolent, shakes his head at him almost fondly during practice. Gun can only hope that it means Tinn’s oldest friend approves of him for a long time.

Ten minutes before countdown that night, the door to the Rendezvous opens and Tinn walks in, panting and beaming and beautiful. He’s forgotten his glasses again, like an idiot.

Gun kisses him while everyone shouts, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” A long kiss, lips parting and coming together again and again. Kissing had never been as good as when Tinn kissed him for the first time, under a lamppost on a sweet night in January. Gun keeps track of that anniversary, too, and of so many other memories, until he has so many firsts to keep track of that it all blurs together as a life shared with Tinn.

He kisses Tinn until he gets tired of it and then some more, until his friends start playing the first song of the year on stage, and their kiss breaks with a soft pop. Gun grins, the happiest he is on the first day of the year, backs away from Tinn, the person who gives meaning to all of his songs, tall and giddy and in love with him, and then, Gun sings.

[redjennies]

In regards to Dragon Age, what really gets me is that people miss the part where the Circles and Templars- while both being *bad*- are fear-responses rather than thinly veiled and easily defined vehicles for oppression and bigotry entirely. They’re not equivalent in any meaningful way to real world institutions like that.

The setting established from the beginning that Mages can- even unintentionally- be very dangerous. It’s not irrational to be a little nervous about people that can level city blocks in a temper tantrum, or become vessels for demons by accident, because these are documented realities; it’s not a matter of ‘oo witchcraft!’ because they actually can do those things. Oppressing and holding these people at gun point, who acquire this power through no fault of their own, is vicious bullshit- but it is a flawed solution to a very real problem, not an invented one. Of course they’re terrified! Mages have demonstrated in extreme cases the ability to bend the flow of time or punch holes in reality!! We’ve watched them do it in the games! What can anyone else do about that?

That doesn’t in any way justify the circles or what the Templars do and act like, but the idea that they literally only exist to be the world’s most obvious oppressors is so dumb. It doesn’t help that the setting forgets it too sometimes.

FUCKING THIS THO.

I don't know how long you've been following my blog, but this is like the crux of my major issue with the Dragon Age fandom. it's not that I'm anti-mage, pro-Chantry. most of my personal canon playthroughs are pro-mage because as I said, in the first two games, siding with the templars means murdering all the mages, which is not my personal cup of tea. my issue here is that this specific oppression metaphor does not work for me for the exact reasons you listed, and yes, that's a problem I have with the writing, but I could deal with bad writing if the fandom at large was willing to add this layer of nuance to the discourse.

like at this point, my expectations for DA4 are abysmal. I will play it and I will probably not shut up about it for weeks, but one thing I'm genuinely excited about is Tevinter because the politics of Tevinter actually make fucking sense. as I've said before "RIP to Circle mages, but if I could throw fireballs, I simply would not let guys with swords oppress me." if we're introducing magic to a setting, it makes more sense for people with literal special powers to be the privileged class (or a more than the oppressed class because otherwise, you end up with this metaphor backfire of accidentally saying "yes, oppressed groups are inherently more dangerous than your average person." regardless of whether your conclusion is that "being bigoted against them is still bad."

I've talked about this before too, but it's extra infuriating because Bioware actually got the "how would magic interact with systems of power" situation right with the biotics in the Mass Effect series. Liara having space magic isn't the same as Kaidan being a biotic. Liara is a member of a species where everyone has biotics and has for some time so they know how to use it without hurting themselves. while Kaidan, on the other hand, was part of the first generation of humans to develop those abilities. it's two completely different experiences, and the game frames the problems Kaidan faces as a human biotic as being tied to his specific experience as someone who developed what were until recently supernatural abilities that could kill him (and by his own account, did kill other children like him) and being fitted with a faulty implant due to humans not having the technology to treat him. while he does mention being stigmatized for "being a freak," Kaidan isn't inherently oppressed for just having magic. he is a disabled test subject who the government would quickly abandon to deal with his physical and mental trauma on his own were he not in the military and he is considered "one of the lucky ones." still, while the specifics of his trauma are fantastical, the general theme of what happened to him is rather realistic given how we treat people with disabilities in the real world.

so to circle back to the Dragon Age mages, were it not for the Templars being meanies, there's no real drawback to being a mage in Thedas so long as mage children are trained properly. it has been around for several generations, it is incredibly powerful, and would you look at that? they have been conveniently put in one place where they can easily communicate with each other and organize. seriously, though, how did the mage rebellion not happen sooner? I mean you could make some comment about why the proletariat, the largest class, does not simply eat the bourgeoisie, but that falls apart when you remember I cannot shoot lightning from my hands.

and what gets me is how many Dragon Age characters are thrown under the bus for simply remembering people CAN shoot lightning from their hands. an obvious example I'm still mad about is Sera, who was initially widely hated by the fandom for being afraid of magic when she literally just has arrows and jars of bees. it still drives me up the wall that Anders fans act like Anders' trauma at the hands of templars inherently absolves him of any wrongdoing, but Fenris just needs to get over Tevinter mages enslaving him and be friends with Anders, who is regularly shitty to elves, and join his fight for justice already. like it is genuinely so funny how most of the fandom hated Dragon Age characters like Fenris and Sera and Vivienne because they firstly committed the sin of "having weird feelings about letting guys with fireballs do whatever they wanted while being a minority" and then the Mage Rights crowd who love their white boy Anders will turn around and be like "why would Chantry stans do this?" like WHAT?

[77-fxes]

WF: Reflections of Shuri

In the ancestral plane, Shuri's conversation with Killmonger is easy to flatten out to 'Shuri confronts her grief and desire for vengeance and, momentarily, chooses vengeance.' But as with any Coogler film, I believe that the dialogue between characters is communicating a bit more than that. Furthermore, I think there's some insight into the reading that the ancestral plane is both a physical plane where you meet the spirits of real people and a conversation with one's own subconscious or conscious (I first heard it on NewRockstars)

I think the scene can be separated into three conversations. The first part of the conversation centers on why Shuri took the herb in the first place. At first, she tries to say that she took it to see her family, but Killmonger calls that out and we as the audience already knows that he's right due to her earlier conversation with Ramonda about T'Challa's spirit. So eventually, she drops that and admits that she wants power and doesn't correct her cousin when he suggests it's for revenge. This essentially is the first time that Shuri outright admits her rage, pain, and desire for revenge unreservedly.

The next phase starts with her denying that she's like him, calling him an unworthy king to which he retorts that he and T'Challa did what was needed to open Wakanda up in such a way that they would have protected Riri in the first place. No argument there, but she goes on to blame his burning of the heart-shaped herb for not only T'Challa's death, but in many ways, the predicament that Wakanda finds itself in, which he denies. I feel like as an internal conversation, this is Shuri reconciling the benefits of having opened up Wakanda to the outside world with the dangers, suggesting that she's been more ambivalent about this issue than she's let on.

In the final piece, the conversation turns to the kinds of rulers that her family members were. Ramonda's bravery, T'Chaka's hypocrisy, T'Challa's nobility, and N'Jadika's ruthlesness. This is, to me, the crux of the matter. Having come to grips with her own desire for revenge and the inevitable precariousness of Wakanda's situation in the world in order to do what's right, Shuri is now confronted with the uncomfortable truth of how she feels about her departed family members. All three of these people (maybe even her cousin in a way) are people that she's mourned in what to her is about a two year period (minus the blip). In the glow of mourning, it's comforting to beatify our departed loved ones; it's a way of insulating us from our own feelings of anger, loss, even betrayal of the death of a loved one. But now, each in turn, Shuri is left to confront the fact that even though she loved her mother, father, and brother, she also knew their various strengths and flaws. This can be a painful revelation to accept, the hardest of all probably that deep down, she really does feel like T'Challa was too noble, or at least too short-sighted with his nobility. Moreover, the guilt of finding common ground with Killmonger, not just about the revenge aspect (for a short time), but more pointedly, in the need for ruthless, pragmatic decision-making is jarring. Though for someone so science-minded, someone always looking for the better solution, someone who is not bound by sentimental attachment to tradition, it does make quite a bit of sense. Killmonger was able to do what he did because he had no attachment to the traditions of Wakanda, hated them even. To him, Wakanda was a means to an end, a way to gain power for both personal and political reasons.

To me, this last part is what informs Shuri's approach to taking up the mantle and her eventual truce with Namor. These are matters of practicality. She knows M'Baku is right about the consequences of killing him, both for Wakanda and Talocan, who she knows to just be people living their lives. In that moment, Shuri does show us who she is, a compassionate but ruthlessly pragmatic person. If a truce is what keeps oblivion at bay today, then it's a truce. I don't believe that someone as unsentimental as Shuri believes that this means that Namor is a changed man, nor will it stop her from designing countermeasures to his army after she gets back, or turning her attention to the world and it's desires for vibranium. In these matters, I expect Shuri to take a realistic look at the world, Wakanda's situation, and strike ruthlessly when the time comes for action.

[gojuo]

1/4 (sorry, long). People saying Rhaenyra's sons bastardry doesn't matter because their claim derives of her make no sense. Even if their parent is Supreme Ruler of the Universe, by Westerosi law, bastards don't HAVE claims to a speck for dirt unless they're legitimized or forcibly take it a la Edmund from King Lear. Unfair, yes, but from a legal standpoint, the Strong boys don't have any more right to the throne, than, say Mya Stone and everyone knows it, which is the crux of the whole issue.

2/2 Going by the books, Jace would probably have been a good king, but the issue is that Rhaenyra is very obviously trying to pass off Harwin's bastard as Laenor's kid and in doing so she's dealt a serious blow to her image when she needs popular support, potentially alienated nobles who are leery of the potential precedent this would set (since like in real-world Europe, marriage is a tool of alliance and a mechanism to transfer property partially on the basis of 'joining bloodlines' and such,

3/4insulted the Velaryons who are a major part of her power base, and threw a heap of accelerant on the brewing succession conflict that Jahaerys and the Great Council set the stage for and Viserys made inevitable, since even if you accept the Great Council as precedent for a king choosing their own heir, rather than locking women out from succession, Aegon, as the king's next oldest trueborn kid, should be after Rhaenyra in the sucession. And if Alicent's kids are already in danger as they pose

4/4 a threat to Rhaenrya's rule by existing, they would be in ten times more danger from black supporters if Jace took the throne- even if there is nothing but goodwill between the two branches of the family, as Larys proves it only takes one over-zealous or ambitious supporter- simply because they are Viserys' trueborn kids.

The argument that the Strong boys being bastards does not matter because their claim comes from their mother is such a cope. Like if that's true then why could Aegon IV not make Daemon heir over Daeron like he so badly wanted? Well guess why? Because Daemon was a bastard, end of conversation, period, full stop.

Like, there is woobifying a villain, there is whitewashing a villain, and then there is just outright coping like a loser. So pathetic.

[inspiteallthedanger]

Wow that Fred Seaman quote about John is such a labyrinth. Paul ruined their friendship by being angry at John for cutting off their friendship?!?

Yeah, I can see why it's a bit of a mind bend at first. But I think this quote is brilliant actually, because it totally lays out what John's issues with Paul are and why, despite continued effort, it was so hard for them to reconcile. So, I'm just going to go through it and explain what I think he means below, if you'll indulge me.

Firstly, a disclaimer that there's definitely some concerns about Seaman as a source. That said, this does ring fairly true to me for something John might have said at points. Partly because of this:

“I don’t have any friends!” John reminded me. “Friendship is a romantic illusion!”

This is one of the core parts of Janov's teaching. There's no such thing as friendship, essentially, because it's actually all entirely transactional. People only form these 'bonds' to escape the trauma of their childhoods but they don't really care about you. Which, like, I can see there's something in there but to then go, 'We all cling together because life is hard... therefore friendship isn't real' makes zero sense to me. Anyway, it's something John's still apparently trying reconcile after his 'therapy' basically confirmed all his worst fears. You can see this thinking when he talks about why he's suspicious and angry (reportedly) with Paul later. In his mind, Paul only gets in contact because he wants something from him e.g. to feel better about himself because John's not creating while Paul is. It's fucked up, but as I said, it plays into John's base fears so would be hard to shake.

“The basis of our friendship was an intuitive understanding we had as musicians,” he said. John explained that when he and Paul first started working together, he needed Paul more than Paul needed him, because in addition to being a well-rounded musician who could help John translate rough ideas into songs, Paul had a secure family background, “Being around Paul gave me a sense of stability,” John said.

So far so good, John. You built a relationship on the basis of a shared passion and because you both gave each other something you needed. Also, note the mention of childhood trauma which while John does have, Janov makes into the primary reason for everything. There's no room for they just liked each other, they had to be getting something from one another. But anyway, it still makes sense.

“When I met Yoko, I knew it was time to cut myself loose."

Hmmm. This is the crux of it. Why'd you need to do that, John? I guess he's removing one load-bearing pillar to put another in. Despite the idea that maybe having two... would be better? But let's not get into that now or we'll be here all day.

"Paul hated me for turning my back on him and did everything he could to turn the others against me. He saw that he couldn’t compete with Yoko, so he tried to stab us in the back. He was absolutely vicious, and it shattered whatever illusions I had about our so-called friendship.”

Okay. So, here's the main issue. I think he's talking about two things here: before and after the split.

Before the split is the 'turn against me' bit. And, I'm sure Paul did lobby the others not to go with John and Klein, would be sorta weird if he didn't, to be honest. But it sounds like John's projecting more ill intent onto it than there probably was. But, I don't know all the ins-and-outs of exactly how they fought for control of the management situation.

After is where he 'couldn’t compete with Yoko' and thus announced the split and his solo record and 'tried to stab us in the back'. This undermining of the announcement of the split seems to have been the sticking point for John. We know that they asked him not to do this, because that's where the story about Paul chucking Ringo out his house comes from. That's the sort of thing he's probably referring to with, 'He was absolutely vicious'.

So, John's saying, "I walked over the bridge away from Paul, and he took that rejection so hard he blew up the bridge and salted all the ground between us". Obviously from our perspective, even if John's right about that, we might be inclined to say, 'Doesn't that hugely strong reaction show he actually loved you loads and was just really hurt?' But I can see the opposite view of, 'If he really cared, he would have put that hurt aside and worked with us to get the best result for everyone, not just himself'. He's essentially saying that he thinks Paul thinks his solo career and getting the best deal out of the divorce is more important than preserving his relationship with John. Which, I can see what he means?

This isn't to say I agree with John's pov and clearly he's not thinking about why Paul did anything he did or how John's own actions might have caused it. I'm just laying out what I think John's saying. From John's pov, John did put his career to one side to wait until the deal for the band as a whole went through. He did make sacrifices so they could all leave on good terms and then Paul went and sued him for his efforts and dragged them through the mud, while using it to promote his solo album.

That's the problem with the divorce. No one thinks they're the baddie and everyone has fair enough reasons for their actions. Obviously in an ideal world they'd all be less reactionary and petty. But. They are who they are. So, yeah. I don't agree that John's understood the situation correctly, but I can see how he gets to this statement. Especially when he's surrounded by people who are all agreeing that he's right and Paul is a terrible person that never cared about him and is only out for himself.

[datawyrms]

“Did you apologize to Tucker yet?”

“About what? Wait, are we talking again? I thought we weren’t talking.” The ghost circled back, blindly fumbling with the thermos lid, eyes busy squinting at the hunter’s mask as if it would let him see through it better. “You’re not gonna say it’s fine then shoot me, are you?”

“Why do you always remind me why I don’t like talking to you like this.”

“What’d you mean like ‘this’? Like I should pretend that isn’t a totally valid question?” 

Valerie groaned, gesturing at the ghost. “Like that sort of thing is normal!”

Phantom smirked, letting the edges of his boots hit the hoverboard. “Welcome to my life.”

“And how you just keep that stupid confident face up.”

“Uh huh. I thought you were lecturing me about Tucker, not my personality.”

She deeply considered having the board jar the ghost off, but that’d probably just amuse him more. “You seriously don’t remember why you should be apologizing?”

“Well according to you, I should basically apologize for existing. So sometimes I lose track on the particulars.” There was an edge there that the blithe tone couldn’t quite cover up, even as the ghost sat down. “Y’gonna enlighten me or what? I’m bad at twenty questions.”

“You broke your promise to him, remember?”

The blank stare she earned in response was absolutely infuriating. “Uhhh. Which one?” He had the sense to look embarrassed, hand glued to the back of his neck.

That wasn’t going to help him though. Shooting him was actually sounding like a fair idea if it was the only thing that would get him to actually learn and pay attention. “To stop possessing people. The big one? The really easy one that NONE of his other friends need to worry about doing ‘accidentally’?”

“Wow Val, if you just wanted to say you think I’m weird you didn’t need to drag Tuck into it.” The embarrassment slid into a scowl easily enough, arms crossed as if that would defend him. “I haven’t done that for months.”

“He’s been telling you he hates it for years.” Before she even figured out Danny’s dead man walking secret. Tucker was too good a friend to be ignored for literal years because a ghost conveniently forgot how fucked up it was to invade someone’s body and use them as an unwilling meat puppet if it was ‘helpful’.

“I try, okay? I’m not doing it to upset him!”

“Somehow everyone else can manage without doing it.”

The ghost tilted his head. “Well duh, you guys can’t.”

“Even if we could, we wouldn’t.” She snapped, the confusion and completely casual excusing of his actions just a little too much to deal with. “Heroes don’t control people.”

“Well excuse me for needing to protect myself. If what I am gets out to the wrong people, I’m dead. More dead.” He groaned face in hand “You know what I mean. Worse than dead. Dani too.”

“Do you really think Tucker’s dad would have ratted your whispy ass out? That he wouldn’t help you explain? Or was it just an excuse to let yourself do what you want?”

“Well you seem to have decided that it was! Which it wasn’t!” His eyes flared green with the defence, and Valarie had to work to not react to the impulsive want to get away from an angry ghost. “I just- reacted, okay? I told him that!”

“Well Tucker and Sam keep forgetting how much of a ghost you are, so of course they won’t buy that excuse.”

“Excuse? It’s not an excuse!” He was up, the offended squawk reminding her so much of how he was before. When they were all fourteen, and every uncomfortable problem could be chalked up to being ‘a moody teenager’ and ignored for a while longer. “And you could stop saying ghost like that, while you’re at it?” The glow dimmed, but he kept the distance. “Sound like my dad.”

“What, you want me to say it like you do when they keep coming here to threaten people? Deal with it.”

“There are plenty of ghosts who don’t do that.”

“Yeah. They don’t come here, and they aren’t my problem,” she shrugged, considering. “I’ll say it nice to them.”

“Oh, real funny.”

“You deserve it.”

She expected a scoff, at least. Probably a laugh, considering how often he’d joke about being the town’s public enemy for a time. Instead he averted his eyes. “Maybe we can finish this talk on the ground?”

It was easier to be ticked off at him when he was joking, or steamed himself. Phantom didn’t ‘do’ uneasy. Maybe it was a good sign that he was actually listening, if he wanted to continue ‘off the clock’. “Space cadet wants to land? Sure, if you want.”

“I wouldn’t go with ‘want’, but yeah.”

It wasn’t much trouble, in the middle of the day. A quick glance while hidden in at least one direction was enough. People who lived in Amity Park knew they should get out of the area of a ghost sighting at this point. Even if she and Phantom were trusted enough to deal with it, stray shots happened. Things fell. Not too many eyes to avoid, even if her identity felt like an open secret most of the time.

Danny had it even easier. He just had to think. It felt like a sick joke, that he could stop being dead on a whim and blend in fairly well. The gangly man leaning against the tree looked human. Black hair, blue eyes, needed a tan, unremarkable. Average. Unless you knew what to look for, anyway. How a casual slouch didn’t match up with how he was always looking for something, a tense energy that seemed desperate to crack free of that spine. That he could walk in winter with the thinnest of jackets and not shake from the cold even once. “Hey.”

Valerie rolled her eyes, sitting on the bench. “Hey yourself.”

Danny grimaced, looking up and away. “How much of a ghost I am, huh?” It wasn’t an angry question, exactly. He was still slouching, hands in pockets. Guarded and uneasy. How much of that fear and caution the person she thought she knew, and how much of it was just another part of his act?

“You’ve said you’re at least half of one.”

“Yeah. You just make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”

The whole crux of the issue, really. How no one really knew how to deal with Danny, his secret and how he’d changed. “It’s not a bad thing on it’s own.”

“So I’m the part you like to sneer at,” his brow furrowed, the creases and wrinkles more ominous as blue slid closer to green. “I thought we went over this. You know what actually happened. How I never really attacked people.”

She admired Tucker and Sam’s patience, she really did. “We have. It’s not about that stuff. That’s years ago, you know it. It’s the other stuff.”

The anger was gone in an instant. “What other stuff?”

He was a living migraine waiting to happen. “How you keep thinking things from seven years ago are more important than things happening right now?”

“Hey, you’re the one that held the grudge for two.”. 

“Months. Not years.”

He slouched more at the correction, apparently very interested in his own hands. “Oh. Right.”

“You haven’t been using the reminders like Jazz told you to, have you.”

“I can remember fine! I don’t need some box doing it for me. I’ve just been busy.”

Busy. That was his excuse this time? She crossed her arms and leaned back. “Okay, what year is it?”

“Uhm.” he paused to pick at a non existent loose thread “One starting in 2?”

“Danny.”

“What! Lots of people don’t care too much about the time.”

He didn’t even try to guess within ten years. There was living in the present, and there was this. “No, you know your ghost side makes you act in certain ways and keep denying it. So you still get the complete pain version of ghost. Get it?”

“I’m not that different.” He wouldn’t look at her, hand clenching. “I’m human too, you know.”

“Uhuh. The way your eyes flare up when you’re mad is super human.” She ignored his scowl, pushing forward. “I get it. You don’t like being reminded. Tuck and Sam try to ignore it for your sake.”

“Val, I’m not denying it okay? I know. It’s pretty obvious!”

“Then stop pretending you don’t know. They’re trying so hard to help you have a chance of getting a job that isn’t with your parents and you won’t even use the reminders to help you remember where in time you are!”

That got him to bristle, shaking off his slouch in a sudden reminder of how tall he really was. “Why does it matter? We’re all just kidding ourselves about me ever leaving here.”

“So you just won’t try? Just give up on finding anything else? For someone who keeps insisting he’s human, you sure seem eager to ditch that half of your life.”

“That isn’t what I’m doing.”

“Then what are you doing? Because all I’ve seen you do is get tetchy about ghosts and instinctively do ghost things. When you’re human.”

“I’m putting in the work.You know it’s hard to study or hold down a job.”

“So stop making it harder on yourself.They’ve found ways to help keep you grounded, so do it.” Sam should be saying this, of course. She’d heard it frustratedly repeated so many times, but she never dared to actually say it to the one who had to hear it. Because he was already prone to pulling away or vanishing when you pressed too hard, made things too uncomfortable. Ghosts didn’t do coping, and Danny was never great at facing personal issues head on before becoming a menace to her sanity either. “You think making things harder makes you more of a hero?”

“‘Course not.” He wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was looking for an escape, an out. “I shouldn’t need that stuff, alright?”

Now it was her turn to be puzzled. “Why shouldn’t you?”

A lopsided grin answered her question. “Who likes admitting they’re a freak?” The tree no longer had a human standing by it, but his voice was easy enough to hear. “ But I guess some people care about a freak like me anyway.”

(did Valerie use a tracker to smack him and say ‘you’re not a freak’ right after this? yes)

[potteresque-ire]

Not sure if this has circulated before, but here’s a link to Henry Jenkin’s reactions to 227, largely as responses to an interview he did with Sanlian Lifeweek magazine (三聯生活周刊), a publication modelled after TIME magazine and published under China Press Publishing group (中國出版集團), the largest and state-owned publisher in China. The magazine asked for Jenkin’s opinions on the fandom-related aspects of 227 back in March, 2020. Henry Jenkins, as many may already know, is among the most renowned scholars of (Western) fan culture ... if not the most renowned.

Personally, I find this article to be quite limited in perspective, because 227 had a significant non-fandom-oriented, sociopolitical component ~ and hence its scope, its chaos, its damage. IMO, 227 stopped being a fan war, stopped being about solos, cpfs, and even Gg the moment AO3 was shut down ~ the powerful Chinese state had intervened, and the incident necessarily became a political incident. That One Fic on AO3, the conflict between solos and cpfs about whether and where That Fic should exist was at most a lighter left at the scene of what would become the blaze; it wasn’t even responsible for igniting the first fire. Most i-turtles (i-fruits?) are probably aware too at this point: if fan wars are sufficient to start 227, then there wouldn’t have been a 227 ~ because 227 would have been every date of the year.

Fan culture is fundamentally transgressive, and what that means can only be defined in the context of the subculture’s “mainstream” sociopolitical and cultural environment. I therefore find the article’s attempt to transplant Western fan culture’s observations / theories / analysis / conclusions to the incident without explicitly comparing, addressing in depth the differences of the pre- and post-transplant environment to be ... prone to rejections (as organs are after transplantations!)—exclusion from being useful or valid. And this article was very short on such comparisons or address. Jenkins being a fandom expert aside (and he was careful about not treading outside his area of expertise), early “antis” of 227 presented themselves as crusaders for the freedom of speech and, by late March when this article was published, the heated debates surrounding the incident on Chinese social media had already led to embarrassment for multiple powerful state publications. It was probably a wise choice to not make another dive into the political aspects of the incident.

Being a new(-ish) turtle who joined the fandom a full half-year after 227, I’ve been backtracking, trying to really understand the incident, which remains very much beyond comprehension in many aspects. The discussions I’ve dug up that have most fascinated me have been those in non-fandom spaces, by non-fandomers / politics enthusiasts who barely knew who Gg was, who didn’t know That One Fic involved more than one idol and had zero knowledge about solos vs cpfs. In these discussions, “antis” are not referred to as “antis” because while the action of the so-called “227 coalition” was to kill Gg’s career, that wasn’t considered its ultimate goal ~ its ultimate goal was to warn whoever tried to clamp down the freedom of expression that their opposition was strong enough, populous to fight back and take away whatever, whoever those who attempted the clamp-down care the most about. In this case, “Gg fans”—I put this in quotes because eventually, no one would know who would lurk behind those pro-Gg Weibo IDs (and the anti-Gg ones as well)—were the perceived enemies of creative freedom. Gg, assumed to be the one, the symbol of what “GG fans” cared about the most, naturally became the target of the coalition.

Gg wasn’t special in that sense ~ and that was perhaps, the saddest thing I found about this incident as a Gg fan (without quotation marks); Gg could be any idol who achieved top fame at the moment, who had enough fans to make the point known. The coalition was therefore not “anti-Gg” in its ideological sense. It was anti the fan circle culture that had cemented Gg’s popularity, that had already been known to deal extremely poorly with dissent—complaints had been abound that c-ent was no longer fun for bystanders because the latter could issue no critique, not even doubt, about an idol without the fear of being reported, torn down by fans. The coalition eventually grew to include anti the many happenings, the many censorships and imprisonments in the past few years that had silenced the creative crowd in China, happenings people dared not speak about beyond a loud grumbling ...

The coalition tried to take down Gg, because they couldn’t take down the force that had shut down AO3, that was truly responsible for the silencing. They played the Hunger Games in the Weibo arena instead of challenging Who The Real Enemy Was, because some might not have given much thought about  The Enemy; some might have thought the Enemy too invincible to be worth the effort; some might have got too carried away by their blood thirst, the cruel schadenfreude of shredding a beautiful, successful young man into pieces, and forgot why they were there in the first place ... 

And that was only the political side of 227. 227 was also widely suspected to have a commercial component, which added another layer to the symbolism behind Gg the Idol ~ pretty much as soon as 227 happened, netizens investigated, tried to uncover the chain of capital behind Gg. With the scent of money was the memory of filth associated with it, in a country not exactly  unknown for its corrupt business practices. Much like in The Book of Exodus in the Bible, the Idol is believed to be forged with gold; it is ungodly, tainted. Whether Gg the Person was identical to Gg the Idol, Gg the Symbol mattered to few. That Gg *was* a person seemed lost to many ... 

I’ll have to dive into the non-fandom aspects of 227 with more rigour. As much as I'd love to leave 227 behind, every time I see Gg, I see its legacy on his face, in his smile, and perhaps, I’m not the only one ~ ADLAD cast him as Patient #5 because of 227′s effect on him. Put it another way, 227 is already modifying, writing Gg’s career trajectory ~ a trajectory that is undoubtedly under scrutiny by many who wish to duplicate his success but circumvent his pain. And every time I see a young idol—Gg, Dd, and anyone else—I wonder if the hurt of 227 can happen to them (again) because the crux of the incident has never been resolved; the oppression and silencing have remained strong as ever. 

Anyway (sorry for the rant) ... what I found noteworthy about this article was the quotes the magazine highlighted in its published form (in Chinese), which weren’t highlighted by Jenkins on his own website. They reflected what the magazine would like to be the take-home messages of the interview. I’ve listed them below; all of which had Jenkins as the speaker:

[Pie Note: About Real Person Fiction (RPF) in Western fandoms]

“American fans often do have some shared norms about what is and is not appropriate to write, mostly having to do with protecting the privacy of other people in the star’s life. Writing about the star is seen as fair game; writing about their family members is not.”

---

[Pie Note: About GG being “cast” as a transgender woman in The One Fic that started the incident; gender in fandom]

“We write fan fiction as a form of speculation and exploration. For some people, it may be one of the few spaces in the culture where they can express who they are, what they are feeling, what they are desiring. And for others, it is a place of “what if” where they explore in fantasy things they would not necessarily desire in reality.” 

---

[Pie Note: Whether GG should be held responsible for his fans’ behaviour]

“Under these circumstances, I would not hold a performer responsible for his fans’ behaviors but the performer is responsible for their own behavior and fans may respond negatively to performers who over-react to the existence of alternative fantasies and insult or hector their audiences.”    

---

[Pie Note: About AO3 and why fans were so upset about its closure] “Keep in mind that AO3 is a particular kind of platform. Alongside Wikipedia, AO3 is one of the greatest accomplishments of participatory culture in the digital era.”

---

[Pie Note: About the “problematic” content on AO3]

“Among my findings were that fan fiction sites can be a valuable space for young people to acquire skills (and receive feedback) on their writing from more experienced writers who share these same passions ... That said, while teens have participated in fandom, a large part of those on AO3 are adults, engaging in adult conversations on adult topics.”

---

[Pie Note: About media text in the new media era]

“First, I would stress the proliferation of media texts at the current moment ... We have access to a much broader range of media content than ever before and in this context, fans play a constructive role in curating that content, helping some shows get greater visibility ...  Second, these texts have become more malleable”

---

[Pie Note: About idols not producing “good” media texts]

“Rather, the question should be what are fans finding meaningful about these performers and the texts they generate. I start from the premise that human beings do not engage in meaningless activities. I may not immediately recognize why something is meaningful but my job as a scholar is to understand why cultural materials are meaningful to the people who cherish them.”

---

My understanding of this selection of quotes is this: this state publication (as others) was quite ready to forgive Gg, to put this incident behind. It could choose to not publish this interview; it could choose to leave out certain quotes, or not do the highlighting that cast both AO3 and Gg in a positive / innocent light. But it did all these things. This article furthers my impression that the state never intended 227 to blow up the way it did, and that it did—enough for stories about it to be found in non-China websites, and in English—was what I’m still trying to comprehend. 227 was, admittedly, how I was first introduced to Gg beyond Wei Wuxian. And as I got to know Gg, like Gg, my want to understand 227 only becomes stronger, perhaps because only through comprehension I feel I can find peace for the GG fan (again, without quotation marks) in me.

Maybe I should email Dr Jenkins and ask if he’s looking for a PhD candidate. 5 years of research and thinking ... maybe that’s what it’ll take. 

I feel I’ve already started anyway. 

[chikkou]

That post abt people trying to weirdly moralize the John Green thing is such a relief to see cuz I’m seriously tired of people being like “um we were fighting back because he was problematic!” like lol I was there and it was like 90% because he was cringe tbh that was really it. There’s a lot to criticize wrt him but he was just an easy target to mock. Also nobody talks abt how a lot of the “John Green sucks cock” jokes back in the day were weirdly homophobic LOL. Tumblr was different back then.

Like a lot of the people making “John Green sucks cock” jokes were NOT like. gay leftists they were fangirls running slash ship fandom accounts with Neil Patrick Harris Ellen The Generous Rupaul Born This Way Glee Macklemore “RB if you love the gays!” (Sparkly rainbow gif) -level acknowledgment of gay people cuz tumblr was entirely inundated by those types back then 😭

IM IN FULL AGREEMENT TBH... like i definitely do think there is merit to the claim that many people were weirded out by him/thought he was #problematic, cause since i was there i know that that IS true, but the real crux of the matter is exactly what you said - he was 30-something years old and super embarrassing so it was easy to dunk on him LMAO

and tbh even now i dont really think it was unfounded either. the homophobic aspect is a fair criticism of the john green v. tumblr era (although id say that the major moments of that historic battle definitely fell toward the tail-end of the "reblog if you love the gays!" era), but that aside, the way he conducted himself and also interacted with fans WAS weird, presumably because he joined tumblr at a time when celebrity worship was at an all-time high (so 2011/2012), and so he sort of posted his egocentric ramblings without really thinking about how it made him look as a professional writer/small time celebrity.

like again, we can turn to neil gaiman as an example of how to NOT do that - neil gaiman joined tumblr probably around the same time john green did, maybe even before him, and even though im pretty sure he has had many issues with fans on the site, for the most part hes had a fairly consistent presence on here with little to no drama flare ups, because he recognizes that he is still a damn professional and keeps the extra embarrassing shit to himself... which is a memo john green never got i guess LMAO

[twopoppies]

Some people are taking this stunt extremely bad and they're letting their feelings dictate what they perceive it. As for now, there's no such thing to return to harry's womanizer image. Sure thing they stick with the old women narrative, but harry spent like 3 years without a public relationship, they tried to link him with the asian influencer but that was clarified fast, plus just a couple of mysterious women articles that end up in nothing. There weren't dozen of articles with rumours of him sleeping around like during the band. The issue on this stunt is him being considered the reason of a 10 years relationship, which is terrible and everybody hates it, but it is different. I feel like the inicial plan of this was to simplify things since Harry needed a beard and it'd work for the movie. But it's obvious they didn't think this well and didn't expect the backlash, or that Olivia would try to take everything she could from this situation.

I don't know the terms of Jason and Olivia as a couple, I know the main reason for all of this is promo for his series as well but I personally think Jason let go of her hand and is trying to distance himself from her image. He probably didn't expect how desperate Olivia would behave. Perhaps that blind about Olivia having her life falling apart is actually real.

I think another beard was inevitable for Harry, for the album and maybe for him to be part of My Policeman. However thet made a big mistake on their choice on who would be the new "girlfriend".

I think the crux of the matter is that it seems that they didn’t think through clearly enough how Harry was going to be perceived, they didn’t (or couldn’t) place better restrictions on Olivia’s behavior in terms of promoting herself/connecting herself to him, they didn’t gauge the reaction of his fandom well. At. All.

Yes, he likely needed a beard. And we’re disappointed because we got our hopes up that things were moving in a different direction. But I think the uproar is because of who it is and how it was handled. If Florence had been single (and willing to do it), a PR relationship with her would probably have been responded to much differently. So I don’t think it’s just upset over bearding.

And Jason is reaping the benefits in a huge way, regardless of whether he was in on it from the start or not.

[dreamingsnowflake2013]

Chapter 47 is extremely important since it lays ground for major developments&storylines in Season 2, therefore I've decided to write a very detailed analysis, dissecting every gesture, every look and every hidden meaning. 

Painter of the Night is a work of visual art which tells a story via imagery, thus the visual component constitues the most important part of it. It stems from the fact that there is limited space for dialogues. Not only does it allow Byeonduck to make most of it with her extraordinary artistic talent, it also makes each sentence that much more poignant and important. Nothing is redudant, every word counts and is loaded with ambiguity, every sigh and pause hold a meaning, and even the silence resonates and speaks volumes. All this is even more crucial when the story takes place in an era where each piece of clothing, a person’s hairstyle or the place where they stood or sat in a room also revealed their place in society; and even more so, when both its protagonists are people who have difficulties expressing their true feelings and intention by words. The time Seungho and Nakyum spend in the master’s chamber in the morning almost seems mundane, but as always, first impressions are deceiving. They don’t talk much, yet their whole communication is loaded with meaning. And remember, communication is much more than mere words or their literal meaning. It doesn’t lead to anything sexual, still the air trembles with the attraction between them.

The crux of the issue is the social divide which separates Seungho and Nakyum I mentioned previously. During the whole scene the dynamic between the two men keeps constantly changing together with their literal positions in the room which symbolize their actual positions in the Joseon society and how those positions start to shift due to the feelings they have for each other. Seungho is almost unconsciously trying to bridge that divide by treating Nakyum more and more as his equal. It isn’t a deliberate behaviour on his part but instinctive. He sees the painter as his lover, therefore he treats him as his lover because, gradually, Nakyum’s social standing has ceased to matter to him. In the beginning, he had called him a lowborn very often, demeaning him, but he used it less and less until he almost stopped completely. The last time being when he got frustrated after Nakyum basically asked him to have rebound sex with him because Inhun had called him a prostitute. Thus, the ever-changing dynamic in this scene is the result of the nobleman trying to overcome the chasm which separates them and keeps him from being close to his young lover.

To start with, there is the mere fact that Nakyum is present during Seungho’s daily dressing ritual which is a deeply private and intimate affair usually only wives had the privilege and right to attend. However, a wife would never kneel in a position of subjugation on the hard floor at the far side of the room with her eyes lowered to the ground. And Seungho won’t have it because he is always observing Nakyum and never takes his eyes off him, noticing everything about him, including the painter’s blushing cheeks and the quiver of his lashes. So he starts to woo Nakyum even though it’s still only morning. 

First, he lowkey informs him that he doesn’t fuck anyone else, basically telling him “I have only you. You are the only one for me.” in his own way, and then he proceeds to actually ADMIT that HE LOVES NAKYUM’S BLUSHES, he loves when Nakyum blushes because of him. He genuinely tries to put into words his appreciation and affection and show them to Nakyum, albeit clumsily. At first glance, it might seem as his typical, teasing remark but it’s not. In fact, it sounds like a shy but intimate and sincere confession. 

We don’t see Seungho’s face when he admits he likes seeing Nakyum blush, only his robe, and together with the split second when he ponders Nakyum’s question about his kindness, IT IS THE ONLY TIME SEUNGHO LOOKS AWAY FROM NAKYUM, other than that Seungho never takes his eyes off him. During these two fleeting moments he reveals his vulnerablity while, at the same time, trying to hide it by turning his back to Nakyum so the painter wouldn’t notice it. I love how Byeonduck doesn’t show his expressions to the readers during these moments, but still gives them visual clues to uncover the truth if they read between the lines and notice Seungho’s body language. It’s not about discovering the visible but about seeing the invisible, what is hidden in plain sight. The same narrative means is used to show Nakyum’s reaction to Seungho’s explanation why he’s been so kind to him: we only see his chin, never his eyes or facial expression in that moment.

Of course Seungho immediately guesses that Nakyum hasn’t eaten yet, because at this point he knows him that much, and moves fast to remedy the mistake, because he already cares about him that much.

Talking about bridging the divide, when Seungho orders Nakyum’s meal to be brought along with his, he’s doing exactly that. Commoners don’t eat while sitting next to noblemen. It’s simply not done but that’s exactly what’s Nakyum doing now. At Seungho’s bidding, he moves from his kneeling position on the other side of the room to the nobleman’s side, making the distance between them smaller both literally and figeratively. He is sitting next to Seungho as his equal on a place which is reserved for honored guests, wives or family members.

What follows might be one of the most interesting pieces of dialogue in the entire chapter 47. Once again, we don’t see Seungho’s face, only the table with food which makes it appear as a mere small talk or an off-handed comment, but it isn’t. Being a manhwa, Painter of the Night lacks the acoustic mode therefore the reader has no way of finding out the tone, intonation or timbre of the character’s voice unless they see his facial expression. However, Byeonduck deliberately doesn’t show it to us at very particular moments. Those moments are rare but by hiding the facial expression, she paradoxically brings readers closer to the characters because suddenly, for a brief moment, they feel exactly like her characters: in those moments, the readers have no idea  what is going thorough Seungho’s mind and what he really feels, in those moments they are at a loss, or misunderstanding or left guessing just like Nakyum is during the whole scene. In those moments, the readers are not all-knowing and can relate to Nakyum because they feel the same.

So when Seungho mentions the erotic painting, and you don’t take the red herring and dismiss it as his usual teasing, you suddenly realize there is a double meaning to his sentence. First, the noble never really ordered Nakyum to come to him with his paintings in the morning. Is it possible that the blushing Nakyum actually used that painting as an excuse to see Seungho? Especially after being so needy the previous night? He himself admits that he can’t go anywhere without him and it’s not like he has any friends in the Yoon household he could talk to. His answer clearly pleases the noble, thus his satisfied smirk. However, more imporantly, it shows that SEUNGHO WANTS FROM NAKYUM MORE THAN HIS BODY and is making a genuine, if inept effort, to tell him. He is basically saying:”I know you think of me as some sex-crazed maniac/deviant and I don’t deny I’m horny and crazy about your ass, but I am not a beast who wants to fuck you all the time. Even I crave closeness and affection and I want more from you than your painting and your body. So much more.”

When his food turns inedible and Nakyum turns to leave to take his meal in the kitchen, he isn’t trying to use it as an excuse to leave but does it out of consideration so he wouldn’t disturb the nobleman farther during his breakfast. However, judging from his slightly pained expression and instant reaction, it seems Seungho misunderstands Nakyum’s consideration for an unwillingness to spend time with him. The person he considers his lover is trying to leave him and it seems he would rather share his meal with servants in a dirty kitchen than spend time with him. That’s how he probably perceives it. There is also Nakyum’s reaction which is really telling. Previously, he would be scared and skittish if Seungho asked him a question like that, plus, he used to be noticebly uncomfortable in his presence. However, now, he is blushing and bashful but he doesn’t look frightened or uncomfortable. If anything, it’s as if he’s gained a shy confidence and learned to speak his mind with Seungho.

And then comes another shift as Seungho takes more steps to bridge the divide between him and Nakyum. Not only does he openly agree with Nakyum that he has never been a servant, he even admits that he himself DOES NOT CONSIDER HIM A SERVANT = “You’re not a servant. The servants are unworthy of you. You don’t belong in my kitchen. Your place is by my side.”

Following this interaction, Seungho suddenly says:”...come HERE.” What does the word “here” mean here?  – “Come CLOSER. Come TO ME.” So once again, the distance that sepates them grows smaller, or rather, Seungho makes it smaller, reduces it until he can touch Nakyum and there is finallly no distance between them at all.

Some pictures are worth more than a thousand words. Seungho has used to claim that all he wanted from Nakyum were his paintings and sex, but now the gorgeous explicit painting of them copulating is left forgotten on the floor. Seungho doesn’t even spare it a glance, all his attention and thoughts belong to the real man in front of him. There is no ulterior sexual motive in the way he touches him or worries about his well-being. Thus, Seungho’s explanation that he keeps Nakyum to have sex with him and then portray it on canvas is the lamest excuse ever. And these open exhibits of physical affection and closeness that doesn’t lead to anything sexual have been appearing more and more.

This one image both showing them making love and their real selves completely lost in a world of their own perfectly illustrates all the dichotomy, nuance, emotions and complex issues that lie just below the surface. If the audience read Painter of the Night superficially, they will only see the “filthy” erotic painting, that is, only one dimension of the story and then they will disregard it as a whole, just like the servant who only sees the surface of the painting but not its beauty and feelings behind it, much less the growing love between its author and his master.

I already wrote I long piece about the way Seungho pampers Nakyum and goes out of his way to make sure that he isn’t injured, so I’m skipping this part. However, what no one talked about is how Seungho gives his place at the table to Nakyum because the significance of the gesture is huge, even more so in Joseon society where every piece of furniture and clothing denoted a person’s status and worth. That seat was reserved only for the master of the house and not even wives got to sit there. So once again Seungho makes the distance between him and Nakyum smaller as he gives Nakyum a privileged position, literally making him his equal by seating him on his place.

And it really is the sight of Nakyum being treated as Seungho’s equal rather than the erotic painting itself which causes the servant to dislike Nakyum so much. The painting is only a trigger. Because in the servant’s POV, here is a lowborn boy who is considered by the society even more lowly than himself but is treated better than noble wives. Nakyum has been elevated to a high position but he is left kneeling by his feet, collecting trash from the floor.

When Seungho tells Nakyum to leave it to the servant and eat, he basically publicly claims Nakyum as his equal and makes a distinction between him and the servant. It almost feels as if he were doing it on purpose, to show the servants what Nakyum’s position is, the same way he did when he ordered the kitchen maid that Nakyum was not to eat in the kitchen.

People often describe the servant as homophobic but that’s 99,9% of Joseon society. What is much more imporant here is that he is envious and bigoted. Because the main issue isn’t so much about the fact that Nakyum has been having gay sex with Seungho, but that he is a lowborn AND he actually does have any sex with SH since in that era having extramarrital sex was considered amoral. The truth is that had NK been a woman, the servant would have reacted the same. Also, if NK were a nobleman, the servant would never dare to even look him in the eyes, much less insult him in such a manner. So this really shows that one of the main obstacles which separates Seungho and Nakyum is the social divide between them. 

And from them two, it’s Seungho who has the necessary means and power to bridge that gap and offer his hand to Nakyum, whereas Nakyum needs to have the courage and confidence to take that hand, hold it tight and never let go.

[plumrabbit]

DA Fandom and moving forward - Calling In vs. Calling Out

Hi everyone,

As a PoC member of the DA fandom, I felt I have been quiet for long enough on the issues that have been presented recently. I am not here to argue against or on behalf of any individual or group, I am only here to present some information that I hope will be helpful moving forward. This is a long post, but it’s my hope that if you read it and want to help contribute to making this place better for everyone, then you will be willing to try to put what is said here into practice.

Since I am a relatively small blog, I wanted to start with a little personal introduction that will segue into the topic at hand. My name is Liz (you can call me Jade too, that’s part of my middle name), and I am a mixed race, “ambiguously brown”, aspec person from Canada. I grew up around mostly other immigrant families, attended predominantly non-white schools that were run by mostly white admins, and completed my degrees at a very white university in a field that does not have much racial diversity. I have experienced racism first-hand many times including, but not limited to, name-calling/slurs, fetishization/exotification, being followed by staff, people second-guessing my name, jokes about hurting/killing people of my race, etc. as well as witnessing racism directed at my friends and peers. I know exactly what it’s like to be exhausted and feel unsafe or othered.  There is, however, one thing I need to point out about the multitude of instances of racism I’ve experienced - most of them were caused by ignorance, and not malice. Yes there are absolute assholes out there, but personally I can count those people I’ve encountered on one hand (I am not speaking for everyone, though). The vast majority of racism, bigotry and general harmful acts come from a place of ignorance, particularly on left-leaning tumblr (to clarify, this discussion is centered around well-meaning people and not the actual lost causes). When I say ignorance, I don’t mean a lack of education or intelligence, I mean not being able to see or understand an issue from another person’s perspective. It’s not quite the same as empathy either (where empathy means you are able to feel another person’s emotions), but fighting ignorance does require empathy. It also requires knowledge on the context of the specific situation, and that I believe is the crux of the problem.  I think the main reason why this is issue is particularly prevalent in the DA fandom is a result of the too-close-to-reality-to-ignore inspirations that have been confirmed by the devs. Yes, it’s fiction, but there are also a lot of people that see themselves (mis)represented in the themes and characters. And what one person sees as disrespectful, another person may not see at all. This can come full circle, too, for example: one person sees themselves and their trauma represented in a character, another person sees their race misrepresented in the same character. Person 1 uses the character as a comfort character or coping strategy. Person 2 thinks using that character in certain situations is disrespectful. Neither one sees the other’s perspective.  This is where intersectionality starts to come into play, and requires empathy and effort to address the intentions and emotions of the other person. Perhaps person 1 is LGBTQ+ and has been traumatized by being as such, and uses Dorian as a character to explore their trauma. Perhaps person 2 is Brown, and racism towards their people is their trigger, and thinks person 1 did not do Brown representation justice in their creative works.  Looking at this more specifically, person 1 may have put Dorian in sexual situations. Person 2 feels that the way it was conveyed was fetishist or exotified. Person 2 doesn’t know person 1′s intentions. Person 1 is not aware of certain descriptions that are racist (e.g. using food to describe a PoC’s skin tone). Perhaps person 1 was self-inserting and wanted to feel desirable on their own terms, but this gave person 2 that squick factor.  Now person 2 wants to address this issue, and I think this is where a call-in (not a call-out) would be appropriate. Here is a good infographic that compares the two: 

(Original source)

Note that there is quite a large difference in the language used. Going back to the above example, person 2 could privately message person 1 asking them why they chose to represent Dorian the way they did, with specific examples, and using call-in language (and I’m going to get back to this in a minute). 

The point of this post and infographic isn’t meant to tell marginalized groups how they should be bringing up issues (though it is a good guide if you are concerned about being polite, particularly to a first time offender), it’s intended to demonstrate to people unintentionally participating in harmful behaviour what a call-out vs. call-in looks like. For PoC and other marginalized groups, yes it does take emotional labour to use call-in language and to try to understand someone that wounded you (here is a good read that incorporates the concept of emotional labour for call-ins, and discusses asking yourself if you are ready to do so). For the people who have unintentionally hurt a marginalized individual or group, please understand that someone calling you in is not an attack, it’s a chance to explain why you expressed something the way you did. 

That being said, we may have reached another hurdle. What if you call someone in, and the person called in does not want to discuss the fact that they were inserting their personal trauma? I think this is where things start to get a bit messy, but I am of the opinion that if you’ve unintentionally triggered someone else’s trauma through ignorance present in your work, you owe it to them to at the very least mention that you were inserting your trauma, without having to bring up specifics (anyone is allowed to set boundaries). From there, the discussion can be hopefully be opened up to learning from each other, and reaching a consensus. Sometimes that consensus requires the creator to edit or remove their work. As an addendum, if you are a creator that unintentionally hurt someone with your work that didn’t have an ulterior personal motivation, it’s your responsibility to understand why what you did was wrong, apologize, remove the work and do better next time. I know some people cherish their OCs, but you are allowed to change your perspective and make adjustments to your character without erasing them entirely. Now we’ve reached another potential obstacle - what if an offender doesn’t respond to your call-in? First of all, ask yourself, did you actually call them in, or did you attack them? Here is a good opinion piece from a Black professor on this matter. I’d like to clarify that I am not trying to tone police, I am speaking as someone that used to go ham on ignorant people on Facebook and Reddit, and has since changed their tactics and has even gotten through to Trump supporters (some of this stems from my spiritual growth as well, but that is not the point here).  There is another issue to address here now as well - what if you have tried, repeatedly, to call someone in and they just don’t change their behaviour? Alright, then it’s probably time to call them out. But again, ask yourself, did you truly try to get through to them? If so, well, at the end of the day, some people are, unfortunately, lost causes. In summary, a call-in is meant to come from a place of wanting to help someone who has seemingly gone astray, because you are worried about their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours towards a marginalized group. You know that if they made a mistake it isn’t them, isn’t their heart, and you want them to be able to understand why what they did hurt others, and give them the chance to correct themselves. It comes from a place of love and acceptance, because you don’t want your friends to harbour negative beliefs.  Finally, I want to give a real example of this in action. My cousin is a photographic artist, and was recently called in to discuss the nature of one of her pieces. Her subjects are usually people, and they come from a wide variety of backgrounds. To help support BLM (she does a lot of work to help fight racism in general), she auctioned off one of her pieces. The subject of the piece happened to be a Black woman. She was called in by Black members of her art community to discuss how people bidding on an art piece that featured a person from a marginalized group perpetuated the ogling and monetization of Black people. She gave a response that acknowledged that her piece did perpetuate this issue, because she wanted to raise awareness of this historical harm, and recognized that her intention was ignorant of this perspective. The Black community also acknowledged that the piece itself was not harmful in any way, only that the surrounding issue that they were painfully aware of needed to be brought to light. The auction went ahead, and the piece sold for ~$1000, all of which was donated to BLM.  I think as a fandom we should be cognizant of when a work itself is harmful, or when the intention is harmful. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don’t. Both are talking points, and we should not be afraid to discuss them, but this requires respect from all parties. We also do need to be able to recognize what is strictly fiction, versus what has real-world impacts. My askbox is always open and my DMs are open to mutuals if you would like anything clarified or expanded upon. Or, if you’d just like to discuss a topic, vent, or have any questions about my own beliefs, you are welcome to reach out. I am happy to discuss anything, as long as there is mutual respect.