i noticed something...
I was watching S04E01 (because I needed screencaps for an edit I made that I’ll post sooner or later) and, oh my, I had to share with you all.
As soon Lucas says this, look at Mike’s reaction:
To me it just screams: “yeah you’re right”. And there is even a little disappointment? And what about the last frames where he nods a few times as to convince himself?
I haven’t made a gif but seconds later he is nervously playing with the shoulder strap of his backpack.
We understand here, that they started high school with a goal: to make things better, to change, twist their lives for the best.
But then we see Mike and well... he looks disappointed, almost guilty, getting nervous, because he knows that for him things didn’t get better: new chapter but same book, same mindset, same everything.
He nods, trying to convince himself that maybe, things will eventually get better.
Now fast forward to Mike and Dustin’s search for a sub for Eddie’s campaign. After search with no results, Mike proceeds saying this:
If we assume correct the supposition that high school didn’t really provide Mike with the change he wanted to have, then, it’s understandable that he hates high school, and so, why keeping convincing himself that things will be any different?
Also, by saying hate it means that he’s still hoping things will change, he hasn’t given up on that already (when you say you hate something, means you still care, remember xoxo).
But again just notice Mike’s expressions a few moments later, because he’s either on the verge of crying or just out of breath.
In this last one gif, to me, it’s pretty clear that is the first option: he’s on the verge of tears. I am feeling it in my bones, blame it on my water placements, but it couldn’t be any clearer.
So, my take on this, and I ought to kiss my meninges because for once in their lives have clicked on something, is that:
Will left, and Mike had to re-adjust his life, find another balancing point
No wonder he started playing DnD again, it’s like connecting with his inner child and keep Will next to him even if he’s far
However, as much as he wanted high school to bring some fresh air into his life that didn’t happen and Mike is left with hating high school because it didn’t bring any clarity, Will’s still in California, nothing has changed.
The only person that can actually substitute Lucas would be Will and the reason why he hates high school it’s that it had to help him not to think about Will being far, but here he is again, thinking of him.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, btw! Hope it made some sense!!
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raksura for the ask meme?
YAY
blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most) moon was designed in a lab to appeal to me personally, so. it's about the trust issues!
scrunkly (my "baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped) the sky copper clutch!! traumatized children imprinting on a guy with baby fever is usually what i go to fanfic for so to have it right there in canon? incredible. i love all of frost's little tantrums and idk, just the way that she claims moon as her family in a way that has nothing to do with court politics? she's like, we're your clutch, obviously. and this is our court because it's your court, and all the other jabronis who live here are on thin ice. she's ready to throw down with moon's wife/the government at all hours of the day and she's like six years old. i love that moon has that energy in his life even though he personally is pretty confused and exhausted by it lol.
scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave) it's hard out here for an ember stan because he is in so few scenes relative to the space he occupies in my psyche! i need 5000% more interactions between him and moon. him and stone. him and shade. him and river. him and the teachers. him and the clutches. him and jade and balm and chime. oh my god him and malachite? him and celadon? him and delin??
glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week) niran. i'm always up for a "longsuffering ship captain resigns himself to another restless night of hearing gigantic shapeshifters with incredible stamina fuck nasty on the roof of his cabin" moment. technically i have never been in that exact situation, but i feel like i can relate.
poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave) river who is CLASSIC poor little meow meow territory like yes his whole personality is being a grade A asshole and sure he tries to kill my blorbo a few times, but once you get to know him he's so sad and pathetic that i'm kind of like okay where can i sign up to defend him from the largely factual aspersions of his dozens of quite frankly justified haters? he'd hate that. the good shit 👌
horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason) stone. every time he crankily says "why did i ever reproduce" upon finding himself entangled in yet another ridiculous clusterfuck thanks to one of his hundreds of idiot great-great-great-great-great grandchildren, an angel gets its wings. he's depressed and antisocial but he can't totally check out because he has to mediate relationship issues between his dumbass relatives. love that for him.
eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell) malachite but specifically because malachite would not be scared of superhell. she'd skulk around being invisible, maybe fuck some shit up if she felt like it, and leave when she got bored. she probably makes it like. opal night's sister city or something. and nobody in the court is at all phased. yeah that's our reigning queen who recently got back from vacation in superhell. she does that. she says it's relaxing.
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AYRENN before and post her exile (the exile)
YELENA (fo3) // MORGAINE (fnv)
LIRINWEN (elder scrolls) // HINATA (cp2077)
my dears @risingsh0t and @chuckhansen tagged me to make the loves in this cutest picrew! thank you so much airika + alyssaa! 🖤
tagging: @griffin-wood, @shellibisshe, @adelaidedrubman, @blackreaches, @belorage, @florbelles, @leviiackrman, @heroofpenamstan, @preachercuster, @jackiesarch, @queennymeria, @amistrio, @redroci, @celticwoman, @sunsetseasons, @steelport, @marivenah, @hoesephseed, @blissfulalchemist, @aceghosts, @flyntz, @cobb-vanthss, @lustyargonianmaid, @loriane-elmuerto, @rosebarsoap and @luckycamden and you! 🖤
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no, actually, where is the whimsy?
my ex had a best friend named larry who asked me once: what do you think comes after irony?
we were at the bar where larry worked. it was a quiet night, and he'd hopped over to sit with us on the patron side. i swirled the lemon around my limoncello martini.
earnest positivity, i said, while my ex said, art self-destructs.
i stared at my ex. he stared at me.
his argument was the cinemasins argument: look how bad media is becoming! look at the loopholes and the dumb shit!
it was roughly 2011. galaxy print was still in. at the time, i had a favorite shirt that was a wolf howling at the moon. it got ripped in half in the wash and i honestly still mourn it. i dressed like effie stonem, because everyone did. and irony was the name of the thing. men liked MLP "ironically." the internet liked the kind of crass, "anti-mainstream" vibes of things like fuck romance, touch my butt and buy me pizza. we put cats in sunglasses everywhere, which was because we only liked things in irony.
and media had the same vibe in it: anti-hero white men would be "hard to love" and then storm off the scene. nobody was just earnestly trying to save the world: they were jaded, angry, unoriginal. mad you even asked them to try to help.
my ex ends up not being wrong. cinemasins becomes super popular. a lot of people start viewing media with this lens that is the cruelest, most jaded depiction. it's wrong for your character to have unexplained powers, even if the entire movie is about how strange it is she has unexplained powers - that is still considered a "loophole." characters make thoughtless, panicked choices? loophole. characters are actually kind people, despite hardship? loophole. features a woman doing literally anything without assistance? loophole. movies become hyper-aware of scrutiny, and now irony rules the media.
which means you go to a movie, and the character has to turn to the screen and say "beats me!!" or one of the side characters has to have some kind of quip like "are you seriously telling me that you think this is normal?" because nothing can happen in earnest. like a sitcom laugh track, we now anticipate the fourth-wall break: the moment that the media acknowledges it is telling a story. the media has to apologize for itself, or else someone like my ex rolls their eyes.
but here's the thing: i wasn't wrong either.
the difference might be that i am (and always have been) so soft-hearted that any crack in the light of this world will spear me into the ground. and i was the poet in the relationship. (he thought that was the same thing as being na��ve and stupid). i was making things daily. i knew how all of us artists are driven by some strange desire to evolve. he notably liked to critique art, not to create it.
so yes, i've made things that are bitter and angry and even ironic. i've made long, sharp poems with all capital letters, and i've made poems about how the silence stretches out like a song. someone wrote once that we will spend our whole lives just circling the place we grew up. i think it's more that we spend our whole lives trying to remake a home. i think it's that as we age, it becomes less exciting to build the castle on the beach - we become aware of erosion, of windforce. we realize what we really want is to come home to our dog, castle or not.
and while art in the foreground is mired in white male violence and irony, and aggression, and not taking anything seriously - i don't think that's true of all art. i think more and more artists are leaning in to the things we love. the world has changed so much. they have taken so many things from us. the only thing we have left is love. at the bottom of the moving box - all we get is the faint sense that we have to appreciate what little we've got. i can't enjoy this stuff ironically anymore: what room do i have for irony? if it makes me happy, that is an amazing thing. there are so few happy places left for me. i want to be happy because of how leaves shiver beside each other like nestling birds. i want to be happy because of the color pink, and how magenta doesn't exist. i have spent so much of this life suffering, i have earned my right to a gentle ending. if nothing matters, i get to assign meaning to the nothing. i get to create meaning. i am an artist first and foremost, which means creation is my thing.
where is the whimsy? wherever i fucking put it. because if this is my last fucking chance to do any good in this world - i want to do it earnestly. i want to write things that make you happy. that make people feel heard and seen. what comes after irony has to be positivity.
it was close to my 21st birthday. in 7 years, i would end up writing a book about this relationship, which is hopefully coming out somewhere around May 2024. i come back to this bar scene in my memories a lot. i keep thinking of how pale my ex was. the look that crossed his face. how i looked back at him. how for a moment, both of us couldn't recognize the other person. like the gulf between us was a suddenly wide and cavernous thing. like we were alien to each other. he never took my opinion seriously, and he always seemed surprised whenever his manic-pixie-dream-girl ever broke free of the plot. like in the whole time we were together, i wasn't human enough.
this knowledge: where he said nothing comes after, my only instinct was what comes after is love.
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