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stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland · 3 years

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Enzo anon here - the more this era is progressing, my theory about gaymila being used as damage control and for profit seems to be happenening.

I have some thoughts that I know many other CS share, i think it would be good to summarise what i’ve seen on different blogs into one post as well as adding my own theory. So this will be a long one but i hope you guys find it insightful and Stuck thank you again for giving me a space on your blog!

Let’s look back on CC2 and the aftermath of its release. A quick disclaimer : I’ll only be addressing her situation in terms of the social/PR aspect as we have no idea what other factors might be at play such as contracts and money etc.

It’s fair to say that C was and is not in a good place reputation wise. Señorita was of course a smash hit but was mostly used to promote S. Her fans complained about C almost becoming a double act with S. These fans understandably signed up for C, not S and so subsequently most of them unfollowed her on SM and stopped paying attention to her to escape the constant Showmila. For the GP, Showmila became a mockery and so it’s asking a lot from her fans to stay when she was constantly embarrassing herself to the point that it made it uncomfortable for them. Of course with this comes the racist controversies also involving Normani which brought back the entire 5H feud. This put C even further than she already was against LAND and so the narrative that she was hated by the other girls for being obnoxious and attention seeking was further reinforced by her being racist towards N. All of this made/makes Camila extremely easy to hate, to the public she seems like a privileged straight girl who has never once had any sort of difficulty or obstacle in her life.

On the CS side of the fandom, many having left after having enough of the Showmila circus, leaves very few CS to fight back against the narrative. Even more leave after Lauren’s bombshell of a podcast. For example, this graph from google trends show how searches for “camren” or “camila cabello camren” are/were decreasing.

We know that CS are a very large part of C’s fanbase so who are we left with ? Many solo C stans all have converted into SS accounts and again even then S takes the main focus, not C. So… its not looking good, having people being fans of yours only for your relationship is a risky move business wise. We’ve all wanted Showmila to end for a long while and we definitely can all agree that the end is long overdue, infact a lot of us believe that had there not been the pandemic they would’ve broken up a while ago. So where does C stand now? Well, in my opinion, after this entire circus (which unfortunately is still ongoing) C is in a very vulnerable position. How does she promote her upcoming album with so much of her fanbase gone? Perhaps a big break up album? That option doesn’t sound great when she most likely will get the short end of the stick narrative wise and be further disliked by the little fans she does has left. If Camila doesn’t have Shawn anymore, the SS will most likely all disappear leaving her with a very limited amount of people who have the guts to actually publicly support her. Another option she could have is to keep riding on this relationship until people get bored, only that’s already happening and Showmila does not have the punch it once did to get a second Señorita. What about a fake pregnancy or a marriage? God we hope not and I really believe that Camila would do anything in her power to avoid that as we’ve seen how extremely unhappy she seems just being his girlfriend. For all we know Shawn might be very against this idea too and even if they did go along with it would it really be enough to promote CC3 ? After a few weeks the excitement would have died down again and leave them both back to square one. Not to mention that C getting married/pregnant would make even some of her most dedicated fans leave for good and would still not be enough to get her out of the racist accusations.

This is where my theory comes into play, however i think her team will only follow through with this if they are smart and if they aren’t actually sabotaging her. This past year I watched as Taylor Swift released her two albums and broke numerous records and achieved incredible success. I do not think this success would’ve been achieved had it not been for the insane rise in speculation over her sexuality due to her new songs. T is of course a household name, she’s earned her place amongst the top artists of this generation but people were starting to get bored hearing dramatic songs about her oh so difficult love life being a straight white girl. This is why when folklore and evermore came out there was so much buzz and excitement about T possibly being LGBTQ to the point that it found it’s way to the GP. People were wondering what these gay songs with gay lyrics were and so they went to listen for themselves. Eventually tons and tons of extra streams and talk generated from people who would’ve otherwise never paid attention. Myself included. You can see below on google trends the massive increase in online searches for “gaylor swift”. The gaylor side of tumblr also expanded as there had never been so many songs with so much queer interpretations to analyse and discuss and more and more of the GP were getting curious enough to read the blogs. Regardless if you think Taylor is gay or not, the general public discussing it was an essential part in improving her image for Gen Z and promoting her albums thus creating $$$ for her team and label.

Keeping this in mind, I believe that C might (not having many options left to salvage her career/reputation) take a page out of TS’s book and have an era that will attract more LGBT fans than ever before. We’ve seen how camren is slowly coming back. Even just by C liking a picture of L’s it was enough to bring back out a whole lot of fans who had abandoned her. Her team see this, they know this, they are aware. If talks of Camila being gay will generate more $$$ they will use that to their advantage and push out the new gay narrative as much as they can. I don’t think she will explicitly come out any time soon, and i don’t think that they will “confirm camren” but this era will definitely set her up for it in the future like the way it has for TS and it will give her a stable fanbase for a long while, which at the moment she is in dire need of.

Although C would’ve probably liked her relationship with L to remain private I think she may have no other choice but to use it more than she ever has before to save herself. Sadly no amount of self improvement and apologies will ever erase her racist past, it will follow her forever and people will never stop talking about it, unless there’s something more interesting to discuss. That’s the way the internet works, a photo of camren together in 2021/2022 would generate more buzz than anything Showmila related. Not only would all of the CS who left come back but all the anti-CS would be talking about it too and an entire wave of new fans would be interested enough to join. There would be no room to talk about Camila Cabello being racist when Camila Cabello is actually gay/dating Lauren Jauregui is the new talk.

Of course this entire process will not be instant but we can see that they are building up to something like that. Perhaps Camren being public friends again which would still generate a ton of talk as it did back in the 5H days. She will not instantly break up with S and then be seen making out with L the next day but I do think that although it wasn’t her or her teams plan to use her relationship/sexuality, i think she has no other choice if she ever wants to gain favour with the public again. Let’s not forget that the rest of 5H seem to be on their way to having new music out very very soon and just as camren worked to promote 5H in the old days it will work again in 2021/2022. This would encourage her team even more to follow this route as it would suit everyone, even if they no longer are a group they will always be connected.

We shall wait and see what happens, of course circumstantial situations may arise to cause them to switch up their plans but for now all this 5H, camren and gaymila interactions are no coincidence. That’s for sure.

This concludes my very long post! thank you to anyone who took the time to read this, thank you again to Stuck and if anyone has anything else to add that i might have missed or any questions don’t hesitate! I love hearing what everyone else has to say. To clarify these are all my personal thoughts and speculations and I am not claiming to know anything for certain.

____

Wow, I didn't expect to be a window into another great submission from my dear buddies, but Enzo, I loved your post. And I really totally agree with you in what you mentioned.

The truth is that it is true, Camila has been selling her LGBT + agenda of hers since 2020 and even long before because I always had the theory that she would be let out after having a big heterosexual PR circus. This PR circus with the diva is that circus and what we have been seeing, because it checks all our theories.

As for Gaymila, she has always been there. More crushed with the fucking circus shit maybe, but she's always been there and one thing I want to emphasize is that most of Camila's fandom other than SS or homophobic, would accept Camila out of the closet, ALWAYS AND WHEN NOT WITH LAUREN.

That is why I think Camila would have more followers if the aforementioned are left aside, because they would have no problem supporting her and we would be more, considering that those clowns are partly paid fans and bots.

I don't think she will even give him permission to leave her, but if she does it is because that would also be part of her contract. Of her agreeing to do all this theater of the absurd with the circus, as long as they let her out at the end.

The fucking shit hole that is the industry knows that it has to please its LGBT + audience because we are the ones who support artists the most. The main audience for them may always be heterosexuals, but when they get bored and look for something else, the ace up their sleeve will always be the community and with the examples that you have given my dear Enzo, that is proof of it.

The thing with Camila is that she's never been in the closet. They forced her into a closet and that's different. Camila always felt good being herself and they have tried to cover that with different types of circuses since she was in the band because it is what suits business.

What we are seeing now with Camila is that, a double agenda, that of the circus managed by the idiots behind it and Camila's own agenda that lets us see Gaymila from time to time.

And when I talk about an agenda, I do not do it in a negative way but as something that she must have already planned.

My theme now is that it will come in that aspect. I don't think I'm waiting for a circus engagement or a lavender marriage, but I do hope that Camila can set Gaymila freer every time. Unfortunately, everything else is still very screwed up and this circus just represses it more and more.

The problem is that as long as she does not regain some control over her career and her image, no matter how small, nothing will change.

#submission #enzo anon #love you buddy

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aspicystrum · 3 years

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Embarrassingly, last night I wrote an exceedingly long and sickeningly heartfelt email to some Netflix people (executives? Idk) based on advice from #saveteenagebountyhunters. It felt important, so I decided to share.

Hi there, friend.

I don't usually do this, because writing in to a studio about a show that you just watched seems a bit over the top, and potentially just a drop of salt water in a river that somebody has already built a bridge to get over.

However, on the off chance that this email might make a difference, I just want to say that it would be really, really, super-mega-cool if you guys changed your minds about renewing Teenage Bounty Hunters for another season. I finally got around to watching it this week, and I want to firstly, congratulate you for such a stellar piece of work, and secondly, implore you not to leave it unfinished. Not only is it fantastic and hilarious, but I also think it's kind of important, and I'm going to apologise in advance for the length of time I'm going to spend on telling you why.

I'm definitely not a teenager anymore, but I was definitely a young christian questioning her sexuality when I was a teenager, and there was just nothing remotely like this on TV at that time. If there had been, I think it might have been a bit easier for me to figure myself out. Much easier, even. I dislike clichés, so I don't like that I'm basically saying the same thing that most queer people over 30 are saying about new media featuring queer representation, but the thing is, there's a reason that we're saying it. And Tropes Aren't Bad. The only thing that was around when I was growing up that had any gay women in it was porn and the L Word. Buffy too I guess, but I never got into it when it was airing (I'm not even sure if I'd have been allowed to watch it, to be frank) and later on, I wasn't interested in the drama and heartbreak. And of course, because I was a young christian, I thought porn was bad (I mean, it's terrible if you're looking for accurate romantic representation, but it's certainly not morally wrong like I thought it was) and because I don't live in the US, I never came across the L Word until I managed to pirate it in university. And while the L Word was massive and so important for representation and visibility... Honestly, I never really liked it. I didn't relate to a bunch of lesbians having sex and being bitchy in LA.

But Teenage Bounty Hunters? Shit. That would have been young Alex's obsession. Or lifeline. Cup of tea. Addiction. Breath of air while feeling like I was drowning? I don't know. Pick one. All of the above. I grew up going to an Anglican, semi-private high school. So while lesbianism wasn't wrong per se; (God still loved the gays - they weren't wrong for loving who they did) it definitely had to be wrong for me. Because it also sure as hell wasn't good. It was definitely no path to happiness. Lesbian was an insult that you used against girls you didn't like on the opposing soccer team. It wasn't until I went on exchange to France when I was 17 that I met girls who were out and proudly, wonderfully, sweetly dating. It's not even like it was illegal or anything, or that the LGBT+ community weren't tirelessly working to be visible and represented. I live in New Zealand. Generally, we're a pretty open, progressive, liberal country. I like to think that most of the time kiwis make pretty sensible decisions in terms of governance (though, believe me, there's always room for improvement). But, there's a difference between what's allowed, and what's socially acceptable. Especially in high school. Especially when you bring religion into the conversation. Or politics. It just wasn't done. Even in public school, you'd be asking to be an outsider.

So I can't satisfactorily express how incredible it was for me to experience the relationship and character arcs of April and Sterling. A couple of staunchly christian girls, falling in love and unashamed of that. Albeit fucking scared. Their storyline resonated with my queer little soul. I was Chapel Prefect in my final year at school. I was an overachiever like April, and I had no idea how potentially gay I was, like Sterling. I wanted to kiss boys and sort of ignored all the crushes I had on the girls I went to school with. I wanted to be a good student and above all, a good person. I believed in a god. In fact, I wanted to believe in a purpose for existence and God so badly, that I chose to continue to believe, even while I wanted to kill myself in my first and second year of university because I felt like I was a bad student and a bad person. I still believe and it still keeps me alive from time to time.

All this is a very dramatic and unfortunately slightly sad way to say that you've got something incredibly special in Teenage Bounty Hunters. And that's just from one perspective. There's so much else that the show brings to the table. So much that it has the potential to. I could talk about racism, or adoption, or classism, or so many other things that I don't really feel I have the experience or understanding to give voice to, and do them justice, but you get the picture.

Finally, I just want to say, I think I got my first recommendation for this show after you'd actually officially cancelled it. And it wasn't from your algorithm, it was from a male co-worker. Somebody I wouldn't have expected to recommend something like this show. Both based on judgements from before and after watching it. And I'm not going to lie, I heavily judged the title when I heard him talk about it, because I thought it sounded pretty frivolous and mindless. But certainly after searching for the show (I'm kind of shocked it was never recommended to me actually), and watching the trailer, I was immediately interested, because it's fucking hilarious. Now, after watching it I'm curious to know what he liked about the show too. So if your algorithm is designed to target viewers you think might be in a show's intended demographic, I feel like it needs tweaking. Also, I feel like you need to give more than two months grace-time for a show after releasing it, before you decide to cancel it. It's kind of tragic finding out about and deciding watching a show even though you know it's cancelled and then having your suspicions confirmed about you loving it. Very Fox and Firefly. Congrats, I guess?

Anyway, I do genuinely want to say thank you for the work that you do and the joy that you've brought me and others through Netflix. I do hope the decision does get reversed, but it is a small hope.

If you made it this far, thank you very much for reading all of this. You're clearly a generous person with your time.

Sincerely,

Alex

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dreamer-of-dreams-ao3 · 4 years

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a bookmark near the end - sarawatine

Summary:

Sarawat senses Tine's leg tensing next to his and he feels godfuckingawful, he could almost cry. The thing is Tine seems to have moved on from what happened in the past but sometimes, Sarawat finds his mind circling back. 'He didn't trust you.'

He has been reassuring himself that none of that mattered. They made it this far, didn't they? They are still together. He knows Tine loves him. He shows it in his own ways. The green curry he meticulously cooks for Sarawat, the way he moves closer to Wat until their hands brush when he thinks Wat wouldn't notice, the long gazes when he thinks Sarawat is not looking. He knows Tine loves him, that's all that counts.

'But he didn't trust you...' A tiny, wounded voice whimpers.

This is based on s2 ep 1 of still together. The boys are going to talk their hearts out.

Chapter 1 why didn't you ask?

He loves history. He wanted to write a biography of John Quincy Adams. I, shamefully, knew almost nothing about John Quincy Adams, so I went online and bought every biography of him I could find. One day, he called me, claiming that we wouldn’t work out long term. He said he loved me but that we had different interests. “What does love mean to you?” I said. “That’s an impossible question,” he replied. I, however, find love to be quite simple. Love is the stack of biographies on my nightstand with a bookmark near the end. — Julia Nicole Camp

"Can you trust me... again?" Sarawat asks softly, heart pounding with anxiety and blossoming hope.

Despite the cheering of the crowd, Tine hears him so clearly; he doesn't need silence if Sarawat is the pin drop. The whole world just swallows itself until there's nothing left but him and Wat.

"If I didn't trust you, what am I doing here?" he smiles, watching the colour rise on Wat's cheeks.

Sarawat swallows, mustering a smile as he reaches out to squeeze Tine's shoulder. As far as Tine is concerned, the rest is history.

*****

One year later

Sarawat likes to think of himself as a sensible guy. He's romantic, sure, but he's sensible. He knows his boundaries, knows how to say no to things he doesn't want to commit to. Tine, on the other hand... well, Tine is kind. Compassionate. Tine cares too much about not being a nuisance to someone else. So, he agrees to help Green with the video for the music club - one promoting the club as a safe space for all kinds of expression including queer love. Sarawat sees it differently. He understands why queer visibility is important, he is openly queer himself. But the idea of using his relationship as a marketing technique is aggravating, to say the least. Why can't queer people just be? Why must every step they take in their personal lives be publicised?

He's seen both extremes - the homophobic violence and the fetishising attention. He sees the comments under his Insta post, people "thirsting" after him and "shipping" him with Tine and various others. He deletes the sexual comments that are directed to Tine, asking about the size of Sarawat's private business. His boyfriend is physically affectionate but even so, Tine is demisexual and gets overwhelmed when people violate his boundaries. Wat hates it when Tine goes snooping around on Insta and then spends the rest of his day averting his gaze and wearing oversized clothes like he is uncomfortable in his own skin. So, Sarawat figured he'll disable the comments on his page but then the flock travels like water-deprived animals to Tine's social media instead. After a couple of days of watching Tine stare at his phone in half-horror, half-something else that looks like revulsion, Wat can't help but feel personally attacked. The more people inquire after Sarawat in a sexual manner, the more withdrawn Tine gets. He seems to physically distance himself at times after such online encounters. And Wat can't sleep without spooning Tine so, no. Can't do. So, he once again enabled the comments under his Insta, herding the traffic back so they will let Tine be. Instead, he waits for Tine to sleep or go take a shower, then wastes his precious time deleting obnoxious comments and blocking people who create multiple fake accounts to ask intrusive questions. He can do that for Tine. Social media means nothing to him but it sure means a lot to Tine. After all, Tine is put in this uncomfortable position only because Sarawat is a bit of a celebrity (and oh God he hates it). If only people will just treat him like a dude in a band that plays the guitar and occassionally sings. But no, that would be expecting too much from this ass-backwards university.

Which is why Sarawat was completely against Green's idea, but would Tine listen? No. He hasn't before and he's not going to start now. Sarawat declined the offer to be interviewed together but after seeing Tine mope around the house, claiming that Wat isn't as sweet as he used to be anymore, he reluctantly agreed. But now... he thinks he's going to kill both Tine and Green.

"We want to know what happened with Pam," Green stage-whispers to Tine, that dramatic fuck.

Sarawat feels Tine shift to look at him and he feels caught in between... like he's having trouble breathing. His eyes search Dim's for help and the other man looks like he is about to run.

"We are just curious about how you resolved your problems. You forgave him after the whole Pam thing, okay, I get that, but like-- you forgave him even though he didn't look after you in the hospital? Like wow, you sure love him huh?"

The bleached look on Tine's face like he was sick from just looking at Sarawat. The way his eyes narrowed when he finally opened the car door only to tell Wat to leave him the fuck alone. The accusing glare that Mil threw at him. The revulsion directed at him from Tine's friends. Fong shoved at him when he tried to approach Tine in the cafetaria and told him that if Wat gave a shit about Tine, he would stay away from him. Ohm spat on the ground and swore that he'd deck him if he didn't.

He has been reassuring himself that none of that mattered. They made it this far, didn't they? They are still together. All of Tine's friends are his friends now. Type has begrudgingly accepted Sarawat as Tine's boyfriend. And he knows Tine loves him. He shows it in his own ways. The green curry he meticulously cooks for Sarawat after a long day at school, the way he moves closer to Wat until their hands brush when they are in public, the long, soft gazes when he thinks Sarawat wouldn't notice. He knows Tine loves him, that's all that counts.

But he didn't trust you... A tiny, wounded voice whimpers.

He hates Green for this, for bringing it up in front of people. What does he get out of it? More fans? More sponsorships? More members joining the club? Is any of that worth forcing Wat to relive the painful memories he's been trying to outrun for an entire year?

"Green, how do you know he didn't take care of Tine? Don't just assume shit." Dim barks, exasperated with Green.

Sarawat is now pinned down by Tine's curious gaze even as he refuses to return it. He swallows the lump in his throat and watches Dim drag Green out of the room. He almost wishes that Dim and Green could stay just so he doesn't have to face what's headed his way. When the figures disappear in the distance, the sound of their bickering fading away, he turns around, pretending to be nonchalant, and grabs their bags, announcing that it's time to leave.

"Well, did you?"

"What?"

"Come to the hospital?" Tine asks carefully like he's afraid of the answer.

Wat sighs deeply, looking away and combing his hair back before tersely replying, "Yeah."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Tine scrunches his eyebrows and tilts his head slightly.

Any other instance, Wat would have reached over and patted his head lovingly. This little buffalo of his is the cutest when he is confused.

With what's left of his energy, he pretends to be casual about it and retorts, "Because..." He shrugs, lips pursed.

Tine remains persistent and awaits an answer.

Wat shrugs again, adjusting the strap of his bag uncomfortably, "You didn't ask."

He swallows what's left of his thought... because you didn't trust me.

(continue reading https://archiveofourown.org/works/27242776/chapters/66550216)

#fanfic #tine #sarawat guntithanon #2gether #still 2gether #sarawatine #boys in love #hurt/comfort #declarations of love #insecurities #oblivious tine #sarawat needs some tlc too #dreamer_of_dreams #dreamer-of-dreams-ao3

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dvp95 · 5 years

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is that as good as it gets?

pairing: dan howell/phil lester

rating: teen & up

warnings: none

tags: memory loss, amnesia, fluff, introspection, established relationship, some gender-y discussion

word count: 9,101

sequel to still the best, more or less (which you can read on ao3 or here on tumblr) and so easy to come back into you (on ao3 and tumblr) and written for the lovely @intoapuddle <33333 happy belated birthday pal!

read on ao3 or here!

Phil loves his parents. He always has, even in the worst of the puberty-fuelled rebellion. Well, alright, 'rebellion'. There were a lot of long nights spent with a book and torch or his GameBoy under the covers, heart pounding in his ears as he listened for any sign of his parents coming to check on him, but he doesn't think that counts.

Even when things were at their hardest, he still loved his parents. He loved them when his dad kept asking after girls with absolutely no inclination that there were other things he could be asking in order to know his son better. He loved them when his mum pulled him aside and said his new hairstyle made him look 'a little girly, love'. He loved them when he was grieving for a friend and they didn't know what to say, how to help.

Right now, he loves them. Beneath the fear and the guilt and the anxiety and the frustration that's been his whole weekend, there is a solid bedrock of love and trust that will never crack.

"They keep treating me like I'm twenty," Phil complains, quiet because he isn't sure how thin the walls are in this new house.

"You kind of are. Like, in a way."

Dan's voice is so comforting, even with the swirling mix of emotions that Phil is dealing with right now. It helps to ground him, that soft, posh, sleepy voice.

"Yeah," Phil says. He rolls over, stretches out, because even a double bed feels too big without a second set of too-long limbs. "But it's like, they're not even acting like I'm an adult. Mum's been asking how I'm feeling every twenty minutes and dad called me 'kiddo' at dinner."

"They're doing their best," says Dan. He's five hundred kilometers away, on a different island entirely, but if Phil closes his eyes he can pretend they're just murmuring across the distance between their pillows.

"I know they're doing their best, babe," Phil sighs. "It's just that this was so easy for you."

Dan laughs. He doesn't have to be quiet the same way Phil does, nobody trying to sleep on the other side of his headboard, but he matches Phil's volume anyway.

"I'm sorry," says Dan. "Did you just say this has been easy for me? I'll have to refer you to my therapist."

Somehow, Phil smiles. He doesn't feel like smiling at all, so exhausted by the role he's been playing with his family, but Dan always seems to have that effect on him. "I mean, you just treated me like a regular person right out the gate. They're acting like I'm gonna break."

"Maybe you will. I've seen how you stumble on those cliffs."

Phil chuckles, low, and then sighs into the phone. He's getting more comfortable with having the flat rectangle between his ear and shoulder. "I miss you."

"Mm," Dan hums. It sounds like he's smiling. Phil has never wanted to be somewhere so desperately. "Miss you, stupid."

"Are we always this bad when one of us is away?" Phil asks. He wishes he was talking on an old landline, wants to twirl the cord through his fingers while he and Dan whisper to each other. It's better than what his fingers are doing now, which is reaching out on reflex for a warm, citrus-and-mint body that isn't there.

"Yeah," Dan says with unabashed simplicity.

"I'm glad," says Phil. He feels a slight itch under his skin, unsettling him, but he fights it down by repeating, "I'm really glad. Like... I'm glad I'll still feel this way about you ten years from now."

"You're such a sap," Dan says, fondness seeping out of every word. "Normally you just call me a rat and ask if I'm eating."

"Are you eating, rat?"

The loud bark of laughter down the line makes Phil's toes curl with happiness. He loves that sound, loves making Dan laugh in such an unrestrained way. "Yes, Phil, I'm eating. Probably not as good as you are, I'm sure mum's got you eating like a king."

It's still so strange to hear someone else call Phil's parents 'mum' and 'dad' - someone who isn't Martyn, obviously. From everything that Phil has learned about Dan over the past two and a half months and every tiny detail he's remembered, Phil is certain that the titles were something his parents insisted on. He doubts Dan would have just started saying them on his own, even with all the social grace he sometimes lacks.

That makes him feel warm, too. He's never exactly thought his parents would hate him for who he is, but. He hasn't been a hundred percent sure.

Phil doesn't think that anybody is a hundred percent sure that their parents will love them the exact same way if they bring home someone who's the same gender. He loves his parents, he trusts them, and he's still been terrified about letting them in on the life he was living at uni.

They know Dan, though. They ask after him every time they talk to Phil, call him whenever Phil doesn't answer his phone, tell him to think of them as 'mum' and 'dad'. Like he's part of the family. Like it's all the same to them what Dan is, as long as he's making Phil happy.

"You're sure you don't want to come up?" Phil asks, fully aware of how needy he sounds.

"Positive. It's important for you and your parents to get to know each other, like, as you are now. I'm afraid I'd just distract all of you with my wit and charm."

That's probably true. Phil huffs another sigh, anyway. He pulls a pillow closer to him, wraps an arm around it. "But I miss you."

"Christ, Phil," Dan says lightly. "You been drinking or something?"

"Am I not allowed to miss you?" Phil grumbles.

"Course you can miss me," says Dan. "I miss you when you're in another fucking room of the apartment, sometimes. I just haven't heard you say it so much since we first started dating."

Phil thinks that's a little unfair. It still feels like they are in that honeymoon stage of their relationship, to him.

He wonders how long it's going to take before his slow trickle of memories and natural progression of time team up to make him as settled in their relationship as Dan is. It's almost disheartening, knowing that Dan doesn't want him as desperately as he wants Dan. It's a different kind of want, of affection, and it's a kind that Phil has never experienced before. He's almost afraid to reach that point.

"I'll be quieter about it, then."

"Don't you dare," Dan says, and Phil laughs. The knot in his chest starts to ease.

"Should sleep," says Phil. "Mum wants to go for a walk before we eat breakfast, what the hell. Who walks?"

Dan laughs. "Be grateful Martyn isn't there, or the walk would turn into a hike before you could say," he makes a dramatic wheezing noise instead of finishing with a word, and Phil has to cover his mouth with a hand to contain giggles.

"You're so annoying," he whispers. He wonders if Dan can hear the emotion behind the words, the same way Phil has figured out that when Dan calls him stupid, it means 'I love you'.

"Yeah," Dan agrees warmly. Phil thinks, yeah. He can hear it. "Go to sleep, Lester."

"Oh, honey, you remember Mrs. Oliver, down the street?" his mum asks, bustling around the kitchen and waving Phil away anytime he tries to jump in and help. It's starting to get to him, a bit. He's not an invalid.

"No, mum," says Phil. He wonders if he sounds as annoyed as he feels. "I don't know any of your neighbours. I don't even know mine."

If he does sound annoyed, his mum breezes past it. "Right, of course. That's probably a good thing, to be honest with you, love - she's a right witch. Just last week..."

Phil zones out almost immediately. He loves his parents so, so much, but they have no idea how to act around him. His mum has been plying him with cakes and giving him neighbourhood gossip, doting like he's sick, and his dad has been watching him like he's a ticking time bomb.

That might actually be true. Phil had only clung to his composure by a thread when they decided to tell him, conversationally, about his dad's health issues. Just dropped the C word with no hesitation.

Being with his parents is nice, but he wishes he had Dan at his side. Even Martyn would be better than nothing. He needs something to dilute the smothering worry and death bombshells they've been putting in Phil's lap all weekend.

Phil has been counting down the hours until he can be back in the noise and bustle of London, far away from all this anxiety. He has never exactly been outdoorsy, and as much as he appreciates the beautiful views here, as much as he appreciates his lovely parents, he just wants to go home.

It's strange. By all intents and purposes, he should feel more comfortable around his parents than he does around Dan. He's known them his whole life, and twelve years isn't nearly enough to erase everything they know and love about each other. He hadn't known a single thing about Dan when he woke up in their shared kitchen, but. That doesn't seem to matter.

London isn't the only thing that feels like home to Phil. It isn't just the rolling hills and the sound of the sea making him unsettled, it's the lack of a big hand on the small of his back, guiding him away from a tripping hazard.

The itch hasn't gone away. Phil keeps expecting it to fade, the more he and Dan get to know each other as they are now, but it's still there. Persistent.

Growing up, Phil never expected to be someone that was scared of commitment. He'd always wanted what his parents had, after all, even after he came to terms with the fact that he might never be able to be married the way they were. Then, he actually started to try and date boys.

Phil doesn't fancy himself an expert on gay culture. He didn't join the society at uni or anything, has never read a queer theory book in his life. So he has no idea if this is, like, typical, but it turned out that gay boys - at Phil's university, in any case - weren't interested in dates. They only really cared about hooking up.

Honestly, Phil has never wanted anything more than he wanted to go on a proper date with someone he wasn't pretending to be attracted to, but it's always been easier to just act like those desires aren't there.

The idea of getting married, now, is terrifying instead of a pipe dream. He isn't sure when that happened.

Somehow, he'd become one of those boys who'd hurt him in the beginning, who called him the wrong name unapologetically or reminded him not to wake up their flatmates on his way out. He'd finally understood the appeal - he couldn't get hurt again if he didn't care again.

He doesn't want to hurt Dan, though. This self-built fear is his to deal with, something he's positive that 2019 Phil has long since gotten over.

"Mum," he says, cutting into whatever she's been saying about her neighbour while he sulks.

She doesn't seem very bothered by the interruption. She gives him a quizzical sort of smile as she mixes flour and eggs together. As if they need more bloody cakes in this house. "Yes, dear?"

"You like Dan, right?" he asks.

It feels like a pointless question. He knows the answer already.

Still, his mum doesn't laugh at him for asking. She smiles, more warmly, and leans her hip against the breakfast bar he's sat at. Phil's damaged brain supplies him with a hundred moments just like this one, watching his mum bake up a storm for no reason besides keeping her boys fed and happy.

"We love Dan," she assures him. Phil notices the 'we' statement, so caught up in the way Dan uses them as he's been. "He's a lovely boy."

"Even though he swears a lot?" Phil jokes weakly. He can't bring himself to ask the question he really wants to.

His mum gives him a look, like she knows exactly what he isn't saying. It's uncanny, how she's always been able to see through him. She'd had a blind spot, sure, but Phil can't put that on her shoulders when he'd done all he could to keep it under wraps.

"Daniel is lovely," she repeats, turning back to her mixing bowl. "He's a good man who takes care of you, dear, what else could we ask for? Besides, he's no worse than your brother."

Phil doesn't think that's true, exactly, as he's heard Dan come out with curses that Martyn probably doesn't know exist, but he isn't about to argue the point with her. Not when he hears the words she isn't saying.

They really don't mind. His mum and dad are happy for him, they have Dan calling them 'mum' and 'dad', after all. His brother doesn't bat an eye when his partner kisses him at the dinner table. They don't just tolerate this part of Phil's life - they embrace it. They embrace Dan, the man Phil had fallen in love with.

He doesn't think he's quite there. Not yet. He's never been in love before, so he's sure he'll notice when his feelings tumble into that.

"I miss him," he tells his mum's back, because he can say things like that to her now. That's not something he's going to take for granted, no matter how stressed they've been making him.

"You'll be home soon, love," she hums.

Home. Also known as the space where he slots his knees into the backs of Dan's and buries his nose against Dan's soft curls. He'll be there soon.

"How are you feeling, actually?"

Phil's dad looks up from the malfunctioning radiator and gives Phil a thin smile. "How are you feeling, actually?"

"Touché," Phil mumbles. He's not helping with the repairs so much as he's sitting on the cold cement floor and passing tools to his dad when he asks for them. He wonders who's going to do this sort of thing when he and Dan buy a home.

Great, now that itch is back. All he wanted was to know if this is something he should be learning how to do. They've probably got enough money to pay someone else to do it, Phil supposes.

Dan still hasn't let him look at his bank account or their joint account, which would bother Phil if he had any idea of how to handle money at all. His parents have taught him the basics of budgeting and investing, sure, but he doubts that they've properly prepared him at this scale. He's happy to leave all that to Dan for now.

"I'm feeling good, actually," his dad says. "Still kicking, and all."

"Same," says Phil. Neither of them laugh.

A quiet falls over them again as his dad works. Phil leans against the wall and tries not to get frustrated by the little glances his dad keeps sending his way.

He understands that they're worried. He'd be going out of his mind if this had happened to someone he loves. It's really starting to get to him, though, the undivided attention on his health when he is already so anxious about it to begin with. Don't they know that he's doing the best he can?

"Does it bother you that I don't know how to do this?" Phil asks. He wonders if he will ever be able to say what he means to the people he loves the most, to ask what is on his mind instead of layering it under something innocuous.

Being with Dan has been helping him with that, he thinks, but something about being around his parents always makes him revert back to a shy, uncertain teenager.

His dad hums thoughtfully and shakes his head. "No, you were never much into this sort of thing."

"And that doesn't... I dunno, disappoint you?"

"I could never be disappointed with you, kid," his dad says, almost incredulous with it. Like this is something Phil should already know. Like he's said it a million times. Phil can't speak for the past twelve years, but he knows damn well that he hadn't heard that enough, growing up.

"I'm just not," says Phil, scuffing at the floor with his socked foot. "Dunno. Not much of a man, I guess. I'm in my thirties, aren't I? I should be a man by now."

"You are a man, Philip," his dad says. "There's no right way to be a man."

It takes a lot to make him cry, but this conversation is getting to Phil in a spot he forgot was sore.

"Yeah," he says instead. "Need the torch?"

His dad lets the topic drop almost gratefully. Phil isn't sure if he's happy for that or not.

The frustration has been climbing up his spine all weekend. It's not exactly fair of him to be getting mildly annoyed by everything they've said, not when they're only trying to help. He takes a few deep breaths - in for four, hold for seven, out for eight, just like Dan taught him - and tries to pull a good mood back around him. For his dad's sake, if nothing else.

Phil has to get out of the house for a bit on his own, despite the chilly winds coming in like the waves and the lack of good cell signal.

He walks the same path he'd gone down with his parents that morning, pulling the fleece jacket tighter around his body. It's one of Dan's, something he'd smuggled into his bag and hoped Dan wouldn't miss.

The view here is unparalleled, really. Phil finds his breath catching several times, and only some of those are from exertion. He takes photos with his phone, because he's still clumsy with most of the controls, but he's figured out this one easily enough.

His phone doesn't have any social media apps on it, which he's not about to try and correct. Dan deleted them for a reason. So Phil opens his texts and sends a couple of the better photos to Dan.

The signal fails. The pictures don't go through. Phil wants to go home.

"This feels familiar," Phil says, grinning at his shoddy laptop camera.

"Does it?" Dan's voice is a bit distorted, his face more pixelated than Phil would like, but he's smiling so wide that Phil can't find it in himself to mind.

"Yeah," Phil says simply.

The sofa isn't very comfortable compared to the bed upstairs, but Phil had figured this would be better to not wake his parents up. He folds one leg under himself to try and find a position that doesn't make him feel hunched over his laptop like he's still a student.

Even through the mediocre quality of the webcam and internet connection, Dan looks good. He's wearing a wide-necked jumper and his curls are still soft and pushed off his face, like he hasn't bothered to do anything with them today. Phil wants to reach through the screen and run his fingers through them.

"Wonder why," Dan says in that teasing way he does when he knows something Phil doesn't.

Some days, that tone gets to Phil. When he's feeling anxious and frustrated with himself about all the things he can't remember, the last thing he needs is that tone.

Today, though, it makes him grin. He fiddles with the wireless earphones he's still getting the hang of and murmurs, "Tell me why."

"We used to do this for hours when I lived with my parents," says Dan. He messes with his curls to make them fall with more purpose, probably looking at himself in the screen instead of at Phil. "For, like, almost the whole first year we knew each other."

"You look fine, you dork," Phil says. He's watching Dan with an absent smile that, when he glimpses it in the corner of his screen, makes his breath catch. He's never seen that look on his own face before, doesn't even know what he'd label it as. Dan huffs a laugh, and Phil turns his attention back to him instead.

The lighting is low in Dan's room - in their room - but Phil can make out the warm colour of his eyes.

"You always think I look fine," says Dan, which doesn't exactly sound like a complaint. He leaves his hair alone, though. "Which is useless, since I know you have no taste."

"Is this about the carpet again?" Phil asks, exasperated.

"I just don't understand why you don't see the value of a good rug anymore," Dan whines. "It took me four years to convince you."

"Hardwood is cold on your feet in the morning and - you know what," says Phil, fighting back a laugh, "I'm not having this conversation again. We can duke it out when it's relevant, we aren't buying a house right now."

Dan grins at him. "I'll win."

Probably. Phil is stubborn, though, and he's not about to take everything Dan says about his changed tastes as fact when he could easily use that to win arguments.

"It's not relevant," Phil repeats. "You know what is relevant? I kind of remember Skyping you."

Dan is still and quiet for so long that Phil thinks he's frozen at first. Then he blinks. "You do?" he asks, voice careful.

"Kind of," Phil says, not wanting to get Dan's hopes up. He pulls a face, scratches at his jaw. "It's hard to explain. I don't remember doing it, I just remember that I have done it. Does that make sense?"

"No," says Dan, blunt as always. He smiles weakly. "Explain it to me?"

It's hard for Dan, Phil knows it is, but he makes such an effort all the time that Phil has, tentatively, attempted to do the same. He's not always comfortable talking about his innermost thoughts, since giving voice to things makes them more real. For Dan, he'll try.

"It's not like a flashback or anything," Phil says slowly. He doesn't want to say the wrong thing, but he also doesn't want to make Dan think he's still holding back. "That's not the way this has worked for me."

"I know," says Dan.

Phil traces shapes on his own knee, wishing he could be touching Dan instead. "It's more like... I just know."

"Right," Dan says, and Phil can hear the way he's holding something back. Disappointment? Excitement? "Kinda like déjà vu?"

"I guess so, except it isn't, like, disorienting. I just saw you on my screen and I was like, yeah, I've done this before." Phil feels like he's explaining this badly, like it's all coming out wrong. "I dunno, babe. I'm sorry it isn't more."

"You're," is all Dan says. He looks offscreen, takes a couple of deep breaths.

Maybe it's the familiarity of this whole thing, or the sound of Dan's shaky breathing in his ears, but Phil has the sudden certainty that he's looking at a Dan who is about to start crying. A Dan who has cried on Skype with him before, Phil knows that, too, somewhere deep in his gut.

"Hey," Phil says softly. "I'm sorry."

"You've got nothing to apologise for," Dan tells him, rather more sharply than Phil thinks it intends to come out. Dan grimaces. "Fuck. Sorry. I'm not - I'm not upset with you, Phil."

"You look upset," says Phil. The physical ache he's been carrying around all weekend has intensified, makes him think he could swim back to Dan if it would shorten the distance quicker. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Dan considers it for a moment. That on its own is a step in the right direction, Dan no longer brushing everything he's feeling off with a joke and a kiss. Phil taps an erratic rhythm against his knee while he waits for Dan to make up his mind. Eventually, he shakes his pretty head. "Not tonight. Can we talk about it when you're home, maybe?"

That's progress. Phil has to remind himself of that every time they make a point to communicate, every time he says or does something that makes Dan freeze up for a moment.

"Of course," Phil says. "Talk to me about hardwood floors some more. You're still wrong, but I'll hear you out."

Dan looks relieved, and Phil doesn't let that get to him. Neither of them are avoiding emotional conversations outright. Phil can remember the way Dan likes his eggs cooked, even though he can't remember learning that. Dan hasn't even eaten eggs in the past couple months, on a vegan kick that Phil doesn't understand, but Phil knows exactly how to cook them to make Dan grin at him across a breakfast bar.

Slow progress is still progress, Dan's therapist says. Phil is inclined to agree with her.

Leaving his parents is bittersweet. Phil always wants to spend more time with them, knows he'll never quite grow out of the momma's boy phase, but they've been getting under his skin all weekend.

Phil does wonder if that's a regular part of being a proper adult, the desire to cling to gained independence, or if it's just him feeling smothered and wistful for Dan.

He gives them tight, lingering hugs anyway, makes them promise to come visit him before Christmas. He'll feel better about that, he thinks. Having Dan around makes it all so much easier that he can't imagine living a life without him, now. He fits into the places where the rest of Phil should be, allows Phil to settle into shape around him.

It's early when Phil gets on the plane, early enough that he gets to watch the sun rise until he's dropped back under the line of clouds that seem to permanently hover over England. The sun still hasn't peeked out by the time Phil unlocks his front door and lets himself in, juggling his bag and keys and wallet and proceeding to drop them all on the floor of the entryway. There aren't any echoing noises from deeper into the flat, so Phil thinks it's safe to assume that Dan is still dead to the world.

Sure enough, he finds Dan spread out in the middle of their bed, his bare back rising and falling steadily with sleep. The blankets are in disarray, half underneath him and half wrapped around his legs.

Phil smiles. It feels like something settles into place inside of him just looking at the expanse of Dan's skin. He undresses to his pants and doesn't bother digging around for something else to wear, not when there's some necessary snuggling to be done. The cool air makes Phil shiver, but only until he's set his glasses aside and crawled into bed, pressing himself along Dan's back with a kiss to his lightly-freckled shoulder.

London is chilly in November, but Dan carries a warmth with him that emanates from his very core, and it drags Phil into sleep easily.

He's home now. He can breathe again.

Phil stirs from hazy dreams when his heat source disappears, and he makes a little whine of a noise to express his deep displeasure. He gets a throaty laugh in response.

"Fucking drama queen," Dan's voice breaks into his half-asleep state. It's soft, just like the kiss that's pressed to Phil's hair. "I'll be right back, I gotta piss."

"Wait," Phil yawns, stretching out his arms in search of Dan. He doesn't want to open his eyes. "Coffee?"

"You little - fuck, fine, yes, I'll make you some fucking coffee. Unbelievable."

Phil must fall back to sleep, because the next time he's coaxed into awareness, it's by the smell of coffee and the feel of a mouth on his jaw.

"Mm," Phil hums, reaching out to blindly pull Dan closer and tilt his head for a kiss.

Dan chuckles, a gust of breath against Phil's face before soft lips find his. Phil runs a hand over Dan's back, sleepy and hesitant, because that's not something he's always allowed to do. This time, Dan makes a pleased sort of noise against Phil's mouth before he pulls back with a low, "Mm, yourself. Good morning."

"Hey," Phil murmurs. He squints up at Dan and grins, loose with the contented feeling of being home. "Missed you, pretty boy."

The laugh he gets in response is more of a honk. Phil is so endeared. "You can't even see me," Dan points out. He's not wrong, but Phil doesn't have to have his glasses on to know how pretty Dan is.

"It's not like I forgot what you look like," Phil says dryly. He lets his hand continue to trace shapes on Dan's bare back, since Dan doesn't seem to mind the contact.

"Maybe I grew a beard."

"Yeah. Because you can totally grow an entire beard overnight."

"Probably couldn't grow a beard if you gave me a month," says Dan. "I missed you, too, stupid."

It feels like Phil has been away for weeks rather than a handful of days. He can't get enough of the bumps and grooves of Dan's back, like he's never touched it before, and his whole being aches to be impossibly closer.

He kisses Dan's temple - at least, he thinks he does, it's a bit of a blur but at least Dan doesn't make a noise as though Phil has accidentally connected with his eyeball - and runs his thumb slowly along the ridges of Dan's spine.

"We don't spend a lot of time apart, do we," says Phil. It isn't a question, really. He knows they don't.

"No," Dan says, simply. "Why should we?"

Phil supposes that there isn't a reason. In the back of his mind there are always niggling fears, worst case scenarios chasing each other around until he's worked himself up, and right now those fears are trying to make themselves known. The codependency of it crawls over Phil's skin, making him itch.

He doesn't want to spend more time away from Dan, that isn't it at all. It just worries him that he doesn't know if he'd even be able to.

The weight of Dan on him is solid, the skin under his fingers so soft and warm, and that helps Phil feel grounded.

"Let me up, baby," says Phil. He needs coffee and maybe some food before he feels fully functional, even though this is his third time waking up this morning. He might have a problem.

Dan huffs - at the pet name or at Phil himself, it's unclear - but flops onto his side next to Phil anyway. He keeps his hand on Phil's thigh through their blanket and gives him a lazy grin. "You're less grumpy today. Happy to be home?"

"You've no idea," Phil says, sitting up against the headboard so he can cradle his mug to his chest and breathe in the aroma. "I love them so much, but it's not the same."

"I've got some idea," Dan says on a yawn. "You bring any cakes home?"

"Of course. What do you take me for?" Phil scoffs. He shoves his glasses unceremoniously onto his face with one hand so he can actually see more than the vague shapes that make up his boyfriend.

Fiancé, he guesses. Technically.

The smile that Dan shoots up at him is sleepy. His eyes are half-lidded and a little red, lashes clumped together by the moisture that wells up every time he yawns. He's just in his pants, like Phil, and he's not self conscious about it in the slightest. Once again, Phil is struck dumb by how beautiful he is.

"What?" Dan asks after a long moment of Phil just looking at him. Hints of dimples are showing around his mouth, like he's holding back a bigger grin.

"Nothing, you're just," says Phil. Adjectives bump against each other at the forefront of his mind, competing to be the most truthful without being ridiculously sappy. He can call Dan pretty or hot without issue, but a flush creeps its way up Phil's neck the moment he wants to say something like 'gorgeous', 'perfect'.

"Just the best thing that's ever happened to you, right?" Dan says, all performative sarcasm.

Yeah, Phil thinks. He doesn't say it. He doesn't think he can.

"Totally," he says instead, dripping his voice in the same irony as Dan's. He refocuses on his coffee, and Dan starts to scroll through his phone.

He leaves his hand on Phil's thigh, though. He's not usually the one initiating contact, always complains jokingly when Phil reaches for him too much, but Phil guesses that Dan has missed him almost as much as Phil has missed Dan.

Phil drinks his coffee and watches Dan's screen scroll through photos of people he doesn't recognise, places he's never been.

The scrolling stops on a face Phil does recognise with a jolt, just long enough for Dan to tap it twice with his thumb and move on. It's so strange to see Anthony Padilla look... old. He's not old, not really - Phil can't remember for sure, but he's fairly certain the Smosh guys are the same age as him - but Phil is so used to seeing him look a specific way. He's got an image in his mind of the way Smosh looks, of the way he looks, and it's like the screens and mirrors are lying to him.

It doesn't help that Phil sees a bit of Dan in the pose, the curly hair, the big sweater. He wonders what came first, wonders which of them looked at the other and saw something they wanted in themselves, or if they even did it consciously. By the time Phil thinks to ask if they know each other or just know of each other, Dan has opened a different application.

Being with Dan is too much, sometimes.

Phil has been very lucky in his life. He knows what it feels like to be loved unconditionally by his parents, his brother, a handful of friends, and how it feels to love them the same. The way that Dan loves him, though, is different. New. Something Phil didn't know could ever be directed at him.

Most days it isn't an issue. Dan loves him, and he's very fond of Dan, and they do all they can to meet each other in the middle of the gaping chasm where a decade used to be.

But there are moments when the itch gets so bad, when Dan's big hands and brown eyes get so intense, that Phil doesn't know how to handle it. Dan loves him so much that he projects it like an aura, enveloping Phil in the gentle warmth he manages to carry with him even when he's shouting obscenities at Phil over a game, and sometimes.

Sometimes, it's overwhelming. When it gets like that, the smallest things can make Phil feel like he's missed a step or five on a staircase he can't see the bottom of. It's not stifling, suffocating, upsetting. It's simply too much.

He doesn't know how to convey that to Dan. How to explain the itch. So he doesn't.

In the days following his return from the Isle, Phil feels it more than he ever has. Something about being apart, even if it was only for three nights, has Dan clinging in a way that Phil hasn't experienced yet. Sure, Dan is cuddly enough, especially when they're curled up together in bed or on the sofa, but this is another level.

Dan has currently plastered himself to Phil's back while he washes the dishes, an arm slung over Phil's shoulder, lips pressed to Phil's jaw, and he's stayed there for nearly fifteen minutes while he chatters on about whatever's on his mind.

It's not the casual brushes of lips and fingers that Phil expects, that they both initiate every day; it's Dan planting his feet and staying in Phil's space like he never wants to leave it again.

That's scary. Never is a scary, overwhelming, too much word.

"Love you," Dan reminds him on his way out of the room, taking the overwhelming warmth of his aura with him. He no longer qualifies the statement with a 'you don't have to say it back'. Phil doesn't know if that's because he wants Phil to say it or because he thinks Phil has probably understood that by now.

The words get choked in Phil's throat the way they do every time. It's reflex, instinct, to say he loves someone when they say it to him. That wouldn't be a fair thing for Phil to slip up with at all.

Phil breathes deeply in the sudden quiet of their big kitchen and tries to calm himself from that missed-step panic.

"What are you doing?"

There's a note to Dan's voice that Phil doesn't recognise, not without turning around to see his face. It's sleepy confusion, mostly, and Phil doesn't think he needs to know what else it is.

"I'm snooping," says Phil. His hands pause in their rifling. "Or organizing, I guess, but snooping makes it sound more fun."

"It's five in the morning," Dan tells him.

Oh. That is a bit startling. Phil doesn't know what time it was when he gave up on sleep and got out of bed, but he's made it through a dresser and a half. He wonders if he's sorting things wrong, if Dan's got a system for the drawers like he does for their hangers.

Phil stares down at his hands, tangled with the loose socks in one of their top drawers. He feels weirdly disconnected from the physical sensation.

"You didn't come to bed," Phil says, the reason behind his earlier restlessness coming back to him.

"No, sorry," says Dan. He doesn't actually sound sorry, but Phil still can't figure out how he does sound. "I got caught up in this thread, I know I've read it before but I, like, forgot enough about it that it still fucked me up? There was this guy and he kept seeing these, I dunno, sticky notes, I fucking guess, in his own writing, and he didn't remember writing them, right, so he -"

"Cool," Phil says, probably too sharp. He isn't sure where that story is going, but he knows that it's hitting a bit too close to home as it is.

There's a beat. "Sorry," Dan says again. This time it seems like he means it.

Phil shrugs. "I'm not upset."

"No, you're not. Will you look at me?"

Honestly, Phil had forgotten about his physical form entirely. He blinks. After a moment, he takes his hands out of the drawer to turn and face Dan.

Dan smiles. He looks exhausted, sitting at the foot of their bed in just an oversized jumper. Probably some pants, as well, but the way his top hangs makes it impossible to tell for sure. His long legs are bare and crossed at the ankles.

"Are you wearing pants?" Phil blurts out, like his thought process is connected directly to his tongue.

He is reminded, ridiculously, of Cordelia Chase, and the way her speech and thoughts mirrored perfectly. Sure, he can't remember the PIN to his own bank card, but he can get a flashback to Earshot like he watched it last week. He wonders if Charisma is happy in 2019.

Phil's thoughts are ping-ponging so much that he almost misses it when Dan laughs and nods, rucking up the front of his jumper to show them off. "Yeah, you fucking pervert, I'm wearing pants."

The sound of Dan's laugh relaxes some of the tension that Phil didn't even realise he was holding in his body, and he gives Dan a tired grin.

"Oh, I'm the pervert?" he teases. He gestures behind himself, indicating the dresser he's half done organizing. "I'm not the one who's got a collection of women's underwear. Unless I am? Am I? You'd tell me if I wore women's underwear, wouldn't you?"

Dan's lips twitch, but he gives Phil a surprisingly stern look. "They're not 'women's underwear'," he says with little air quotes. "They're just underwear."

This seems like one of those things Dan can rant about for hours that Phil doesn't completely understand and has to make discreet Google searches to keep up with, but he's always willing to listen. Or, well, any time but five in the morning, he'd be willing to listen. He's sure Dan can rant about gender roles and normativity when they're both properly awake.

He's curious about this, though. He does his best to make sure that the curiosity is all that comes through, doesn't want to accidentally sound like he's being judgemental when he says, "So they're yours, then."

"Yeah," says Dan, simple.

"Is it a sex thing?" Phil asks, because apparently a distinct lack of sleep makes him tactless. He thinks of Cordelia again.

Dan doesn't seem bothered by the question. He shrugs, pulling idly at the collar of his jumper. "Sometimes. Not always. I dunno, Phil, not everything I own is from the men's section. I just buy things I like and wear them when I want to."

He says it like it isn't a big deal, but Phil isn't stupid. Dan doesn't do anything without overthinking it. Neither of them do, really, although they overthink in different ways - Phil's anxiety is what makes his thoughts race and his palms sweat at any decision he makes, while Dan will sit down in a quiet place and let all his thoughts tumble forward so he can try to sort through them.

It's so easy to picture. Dan in one of those stores Phil is always afraid to touch anything in, flipping through hangers with a bored look on his face. Getting his attention caught by something black and glittery on the opposite wall. Hesitating. Turning to Phil and saying, "Sometimes I wish I was a girl."

Phil realises with a little jolt that it isn't imagination alone. He knows in his gut that the exchange, or something like it, has happened before. He remembers the nervous look on Dan's face all too well.

"It's not weird," Phil says, to the Dan in front of him and the younger Dan in his mind's eye. "I don't fully get it, but that's okay. I shouldn't have said it was weird."

Something flashes across Dan's face, too quick for Phil to decipher.

"I know it isn't," says Dan. "But thanks."

He doesn't think that Dan has always known that. He thinks that there must have been a lot of bravery in the simple action of crossing a store. But it's five in the morning and they're both tired, rough around the edges with it, so Phil holds his tongue.

"In any case, your underwear's been sorted and folded," Phil informs him.

Dan rolls his eyes, but he's smiling. "Folded, sure. I've seen you try to fold shit that's a hell of a lot easier than some of the pants I have."

"There's just not a lot of fabric to some of them," Phil admits. The material hadn't helped, since Phil doesn't think he's ever touched lace that isn't attached to a tablecloth at his grandparents' house. "I did my best."

"I'm sure you did," says Dan. He dimples up at Phil and reaches his hands out in invitation. The missed-step swoop in Phil's stomach doesn't come, so he just smiles back and steps closer, settles himself comfortably on Dan's bare thighs. "So, I was thinking about when you Skyped me."

It takes Phil a moment to try and figure out Dan's train of thought, see where the statement has come from, but he decides that it's useless. Dan could have been waiting to bring it up for days now and a tired Phil with no filter was exactly the opener he needed.

"Yeah," Phil says, tracing the bags under Dan's sleepy eyes with his thumbs. "What about it?"

"I don't think I'm being very fair to you," says Dan. "When you remember things, I mean. It's a good thing, and I was happy, I just."

He pauses, bites his lower lip.

"You just wish it was more," Phil finishes for him. A small pang hits him in the stomach when Dan grimaces and nods. "That's okay, you know. You're allowed to wish I was... him, again."

"You're not separate people," Dan says again, quiet.

"I kind of am," says Phil. "I hope you know that I - I want to be him. For you, and for me, because he seems like he's got a really good handle on this life thing and I've got no bloody idea what I'm doing, but I can't just. I can't make myself him. I can't even, like, guarantee he'll ever fully be here again."

Dan's inhale is shaky. He runs his hands up and down Phil's thighs in a show of comfort, although Phil can't tell which of them it's for.

"That's scary," Dan murmurs. His eyes are so big and warm and vulnerable, Phil almost feels like he shouldn't be seeing him like this. "That's really fucking scary, Phil."

"It's scary for me, too," Phil reminds him. He's got a bit of a tightness in his chest, anxious from the lack of sleep and too-serious conversation, and he tucks his face into Dan's neck to break from the eye contact. "I don't want this to be happening, you know? I kind of hate it. You're so - you're really good, Dan, you like. Deserve to have him back."

The room is quiet for a little while. It's dark in the safety of Dan's neck, and only the feeling of Dan's hands on his thighs keeps Phil grounded to reality.

Eventually, Dan says, "Thanks for saying that, but also, like. We've gotten through a lot together. I'm sure we can handle this if it's permanent. It's just one of those things that... we aren't going to know what we're doing right away."

You're home for me, Phil thinks. You're home, and that's overwhelming sometimes.

"You can tell me what we've all gotten through tomorrow," is what Phil says. He pulls back and presses his lips to Dan's cheek, because he can. "I think we should get some sleep."

"Alright, stupid," Dan hums, squeezing Phil's thighs and dimpling up at him. He's so beautiful that it makes something ache in Phil's chest, some weird combination of pride and want. "You'll have to get off me, first."

"Okay," says Phil.

It takes him another few minutes to actually leave Dan's lap. Luckily, Dan doesn't seem to mind.

Dan still doesn't think that having social media on his phone is a good idea for Phil, too easy to get overwhelmed by, but he's happy to sit back against Phil's chest while they watch tv and scroll through his own feeds. He shows Phil a lot of things that Phil doesn't understand, and most of it is just perplexing.

Some of it is viscerally upsetting, but Phil knows that Dan doesn't mean for it to be. Advances in technology are only cool to hear about until the wheel of worst case scenarios in Phil's head starts to spin. Maybe self-driving cars and robots that talk back are neat to think about in theory, but the reality of them makes Phil so, so anxious.

He hears Dan murmur, "God, she's getting so big."

So he looks. Then, suddenly, he feels like he is going to pass out. All the blood in his body rushes to his head and his eyes start to water, because. What the hell.

The girl in the photo isn't one Phil recognises. She looks younger than twelve - he isn't good at guessing ages, he'd place her between six and nine - so he guesses that's not very surprising. What's making his head spin is the man with her.

"Is that Ian?" Phil asks, blinking a bunch like it'll change the fact right in front of him.

Dan locks his phone immediately and winces, turning in Phil's arms to hold him close. "Yeah, that's Ian and his daughter. Are you okay? I should have warned you, I didn't even think."

"Ian has a daughter?" Repeating it doesn't make it sound any more true. Phil shakes his head. "I just watched him throw up in a girl's purse. Like, he just gave himself a concussion trying to climb out of a ground floor window. He doesn't have a daughter."

"Are you okay?" Dan asks again, softer.

No, Phil isn't okay. The reality is, of course Ian has a daughter. All of Phil's friends and family have lived a life that he no longer has access to. Every memory he has of Ian is so much clearer than the memories Ian must have of him, clouded by time and nostalgia. He wonders if Ian remembers the concussion and then thinks, don't be silly, how could he forget? How could he forget anything about Phil? How could Phil have forgotten anything about him?

"No," he says out loud, because Dan deserves to know the truth. "No, I fucking hate this. I hate it, Dan."

The laugh that's startled out of Dan is wobbly and wet, and Phil really wishes he wouldn't cry. If Dan cries again, Phil will desperately want to comfort him, and he wants this selfish moment of anger for himself.

Dan's voice isn't shaky when he speaks, though, his arms tightening around Phil and their legs all tangled. "Yeah, it really sucks, huh? She's a good kid, if that helps. She likes you."

"I don't know if that helps," Phil says, "but thank you for saying it."

He wonders what Ian thinks of Dan. How does his best friend feel about Phil settling down like this? Was it surprising to him or did it seem organic if you'd lived it?

It doesn't feel organic to Phil. He's getting there, he is, because Dan is wonderful and he wants to be around him all the time, but. Dan feels like home in a way that Phil doesn't think he's earned.

Slow progress is still progress, Phil reminds himself. He knows how to cook Dan eggs he doesn't even eat anymore, knows what Dan looks like when he's about to start crying on Skype, knows a thousand things that he's learned ever since he woke up on the kitchen floor.

It's progress. He has to keep telling himself that or he's going to lose his entire mind.

Dan's voice, quiet and empathetc, breaks into Phil's spiralling frustration. "Do you want to talk about it?"

No, Phil doesn't want to talk about it. He isn't okay and he doesn't want to make a big deal out of it in case everything comes tumbling out at once.

The itch isn't there right this second, but Phil knows how easily it comes on. He wonders if there's a way to get rid of it without Dan ever knowing its existence, wonders how his brother and parents and probably Ian are all so chill about this relationship when Phil himself feels like it's all-consuming.

He can't exactly get frustrated with Dan for not talking about his feelings if he just turns around and does the same thing, though. So.

"No," he says, "but I will anyway."

Despite his worries, Phil's words don't come tumbling out the moment he gives them permission. Instead he has to force them, stammering and avoiding Dan's big brown eyes as he talks about the way it feels to be thrust into a life he doesn't remember making, a life he doesn't feel like he deserves. He talks about the itch under his skin that he'd thought would go away if he just embraced the reality of being in a committed relationship and how it hasn't, really, and sometimes it feels even worse than it had when he first woke up.

Dan lets him talk. He's good at that, Phil thinks. He doesn't try to interject in any of the pauses where Phil forces himself to say things that have been on his mind for almost two entire months.

It isn't until Phil apologises that Dan's large hand is covering his own and squeezing.

"What on earth are you sorry for, stupid?" Dan murmurs. "I'm glad you told me you feel this way, because, like, it isn't the first time."

Phil blinks. He meets Dan's gaze, his heart pounding a bit at the sheer amount of affection behind those eyes. He turns his hand over to link their fingers together, holds tight like Dan is an anchor. "What?"

"I told you," Dan says with a sad little smile. "I know everything about you. Do you really think you never panicked when we first moved in together and a dozen times after that? Do you think I didn't? You're not the only one who was in love for the first time, Lester. I know it's been a few years, but I remember how it feels to be thrown in the deep end of feelings you can't get a fucking grip on."

The sheer relief at being understood washes over Phil, and he laughs.

"Ten years," he says, the same awe as always washing over him as he does. Right in this moment, it doesn't scare him the way it has been.

Dan's smile is still sad, but his eyes are twinkling. "Ten years. There's no part of your bullshit I can't handle by now."

"You're so annoying," Phil says. He knows that Dan can hear the emotion behind it, the same way Phil has figured out that being called stupid means 'I love you', but voicing his other feelings has made him brave and stupid with it. "I think - no, I don't think, I'm pretty fucking sure - that I, like, love you."

He's not sure what he expects. His heart is pounding and he waits for Dan to beam at him or cry or something else ridiculous, but Dan just gives him a little shrug.

"I know," he says, grinning. "I know you." He doesn't say it back this time, but that's okay.

Phil knows him, too.

#phanfiction #phanfic #phan #dnp fic #words words words #i'm going to be late to work sjkghjks

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dnp-and-blankets · 5 years

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Love Lessons

TW: Abuse mention, Suicide mention, Abandoned, if theres any more pls let me know

3,441 words

Soulmate AU where you don’t realise who your soulmate is until they leave, and then you cry whenever they cry OR Phil is a sunflower happy new kid with a fascination for soulmates, Dan is an angsty, angry, artist who hate soulmates with a passion, ft Patrick Stump

"We can't take him" "Why not" "You can barely look after yourself, and are you forgetting we already have a child?" "He has no one!" "Chloe I swear to fuck" "You'd want Daniel to have somewhere to stay wouldn't you?" "It's not my fault the boy wasn't wanted!" "Would you want Daniel to be treated like this?" "He never will be in foster care" "What if something happens to us?" "My sister's ex bought us that house remember? Already furnished, for when Daniel wants to live on his own." "Philip never had that" I don't know what's going on. All I know is that Chloe equals food. And I really wants food. "He's only 4 years old!" "Pwease can I has some toast?" "Philip go to your room." "Chloe, you're not fit enough for this" "Miss Chloe, I'm really hungry" "Philip!" I go upstairs sniffling, and catch a glimpse of a little boy my age. He growls at me and throws a fox teddy. I pick the teddy up and name him Thomas.

~*~

I'm very excited today. Today I start at a college that teaches soulmate lessons weekly. Today I start at a college in the town I'll hopefully spend more than a few weeks in. Today, I can finally start figuring out who my soulmate is. I take a deep breath and look in the mirror. My quiff is being pressed down ever so slightly by a sunflower flower crown. My glasses hang lazily off my nose. I smile brightly at myself and glance at my outfit one more time- a yellow shirt, with the sleeves rolled up halfway up my arms, black jeans, odd socks, white trainers, and a light blue denim jacket- and went through my bedroom door. "Good luck at school Philip!" Stephanie's chirpy voice sang as I walked passed the kitchen. Me and Stephanie moved here to celebrate her second year of adopting me, and we decided homeschool just wasn't going to cut it anymore. I thanked her, grabbed my lunch money, college I.D, shoved Thomas into my pocket, and begun the walk to school. I kick leaves as I walk, and talk to birds that fly passed me. "Bords," I mutter under my breath as a flock flies over my head. I hear a snort behind me and turn to see someone with glasses similar to mine, and strawberry blonde hair. "Not typical behaviour for 17 year olds but carry on." He had an american accent. I was mesmerised, and he seemed to notice this, "I'm a transfer from Chicago, my 'rents moved here a couple months ago, but I'm just starting college now."

"I moved here last week." He smiled at this and hurried to walk the same pace as me. He was much shorter than me. "I'm Phil!"

"Patrick!" another voice yelled. It was an ever so slightly tanned boy, with brown hair that curls, and deep brown eyes surrounded in quite a bit of smudged eyeliner. He definitely slept in his makeup last night, and just reapplied this morning. "Big mood." He twirls to face me and sneers, "What?"

"Sorry, I was just-"

"This is Dan. He's angry. At everything, always. Don't take it personally," Patrick laughs, "want to walk with us?"

We step into college laughing and wheezing, Dan had been talking about how useless giraffes were, and it was so surreal to see someone harbour so much rage for an animal they've never even seen. "I have English resit lessons first, what about you guys?" Patrick asks. "Love lessons," Dan rolls his eyes, the words laced with hatred, "yay." "Same!" I smile and follow him to the classroom. We stand outside the classroom door and he looks me up and down. I blush ever so slightly, feeling a bit too exposed for some reason. He nods to himself gently and then makes eye contact. "What are you taking?" "Soulmate Theory and Art," I declare, happy that I have a chance to show my enthusiasm, "what about yourself?" "Acting, and Art," he forces the words, seemingly biting his tongue, "why on Earth would you take Soulmate Theory? We're all literally forced to learn the basics once a week, why would you want to dedicate a years worth of college just to get a level 2 BTEC in something fake?" I ignore the fact that he just said soulmates were fake, and decide instead to question him on his logic, "You literally take acting," he smiles at this and we enter the classroom as the tutor greets us.

"Good Morning everyone! We have a new student joining us today, would you like to like to introduce yourself?" The tutor had wavy blonde hair, and looking at her I.D, her name was Sharon. She seems very perky. "I'm Phil." Is all I manage to say before I notice Dan pulling stupid faces at me and I snort, breaking into laughter. Sharon looks at me in confusion and just lets me sit down. "Today we'll be touching on how much you need to know your soulmate before it counts when they leave," She says, writing a big question mark on the whiteboard, "and the answer is, to put it simply, not at all! They just need to enter your life, be it an accidental brush of the foot, they cough and it catches your attention, or even someone yells their name and you notice." "Sounds like this bullshit theory is grasping for straws. How many people actually find their soulmates after they've suposedly been crying for years?" I look up in shock at Dan's language towards a tutor. Sharon glares at him before answering, "It's not a large statistic, but sometimes people get lucky, and they witness someone crying at the same time as them multiple times, and then-" "Is there actual proof for this?" "Well, of course there's not lots, but we do know that people who never cry have reported crying just as their wife starts crying, and-" "This is such bullshit!" He yells, standing up and kicking his chair for dramatic effect. "As if you idiots teach a mandatory class on something you can't actually prove," the boy mutters before storming out.

I sit down in my art class, still not fully over Dan's outburst from over an hour ago. He never returned to the classroom, and I didn't have much hope of seeing him in my art class either. "Phil?" The art tutor had sat himself next to me for some reason. My eyes flickered to his I.D, which said, "Mx Quinn" which confused me to an unknown extent. "I'm non-binary," they explained without missing a beat. They hand me a tissue and I take it slowly. I aimed to say, "What's this for?" but it came out in a sorrowful sob, and I realise with a shock that my soulmate must be crying somewhere. "I don't even know his name" I say sadly. Quinn's eyebrow raises but they seem to accept my queerness pretty quickly, not even questioning it. "When did you meet him?" "Steph says my social worker told her that I've been crying randomly since I was put into foster care, so it must have been pretty early on. And trust me when I say I've been in a lot of different foster homes, so I have no idea how to even begin tracking him down." "My soulmate is my wife, but she wasn't my wife until last year, so I wouldn't give up hope just yet" They pat my shoulder before turning and walking to their whiteboard. "Students!" They say with a clap. "Quinn!" A chorus of students clap in response.

"Now that first term is over, and we've finished our Christmas break, I've decided to actually assign you work, instead of letting your imaginations run free. But don't worry, I won't be telling you what to draw, just hopefully giving you some inspiring prompts." The door swings open and Dan walks in, looking angry as per usual. He sits down next to me. "Today’s prompt, is Beauty, take it as you wish." Quinn claps once more and everyone begins moving. I take out my sketch book and my pencil, and start drawing a circle. I cover the remainder of the page in easy-to-remove sellotape, and then get my water paints out. Dark navys mix with deep purples, and they both mix with magentas, and then are left to dry. Whilst waiting for it to dry, I remove the tape, and then look over at Dan's page. He's using white chalk on black paper. He's drawn the lines of multiple people, with one person in particular being coloured in white, whilst the rest are left uncoloured. This person is now being shaded around, to give them the appearance of glowing. "Is that your soulmate?" "No, they're even better" "Why?" "Because they exist" I raise my eyebrows at him, but don't question it. "Who is it?" "Does it matter?" "No, but-" "Then drop it."

At the end of the class I have fully painted a little circle of galaxy, that's surrounded by vines and flowers and various other plants. "Plants killing the universe? Irony is beauty to you?" Quinn was stood over my desk "Nope," I smile, "I just really like plants and space!" "Stop," Dan chimes in, "we get it, you're a soft person." He sounds angry but he's smiling as he says it. I pack up my bags and leave the classroom. Why is he so angry all the time? I think about what could be upsetting him when Patrick grabs my arm. "Soulmate Thoery right?" I nod and we begin walking to class together.

~*~

"Phil, stop crying, please" Kat begs, "David will be home soon. You mustn't be crying so much on your first day here." I sob in response. I'm not even sad. I don't know why I'm crying so much. "You don't want to end up back in the orphanage do you?" "I'm not sad," I plead, tears still streaming down my face, "I'm very happy I'm here!" "Then stop crying before David arrives." The front door swings open just as she says this, and a tall, dark eyed man enters the room. "Why does he cry?" He has a Russian accent. "Why does the small one cry? What happens to 9 year old that make them cry so much?" He seems to be getting angrier and angrier. "Phil please stop" Kat begs me. David raises his hand and yells, "Why do you cry?" "I don't know sir" "Bullshit!" He bellows, his hand coming down rapidly. I don't stop crying for a week. They send me back to the orphanage after two days. The crying doesn't stop. I go about my life, eating, playing games, reading, but for a week straight, my body is wracked with sobs.

~*~

I was 4 years old when I found myself in my first foster home. They kept me for two weeks, and then I was moved to a different home, because the mum was getting sad, or somet, and she could only handle one child, so naturally she kept her own, and not the foster kid. According to my social worker, I've been crying randomly ever since leaving the orphanage in that town. So that's the first place I decide to check. Soulmate Theory is a class dedicated to finding logic in soulmates, and the only reason I decided to take it is because it will provide resources for me to locate my own soulmate. "So, what do you think she will look like?" Patrick asks, hyped for me, as he already found his soulmate, sadly it was after he had moved to the UK, and Pete was still in Chicago. "Well, I hope he has curly hair, because curls are the cutest, and maybe he'll have glasses like me? I want him to have darker eyes than me, so maybe green," I pause for a second in thought, "Brown would be nice too" "tanned?" "kind of? I don't expect them to always be tanned but it'll be nice to have someone who can tan, unlike me." "what colour hair" "I'm naturally ginger, so not ginger or black, maybe blonde, or brown" "brown eyes, brown curly hair, can tan?" "Yeh?" "You mean, Dan Howell?" I choke and look away from my computer screen, eyes wide and aimed directly at Patrick. "No"

I open a new tab and search for the orphanage I was sent to after my first foster home. I type in the year I was sent there. Patrick notices the town's name and asks if I'm for real. "Yes, why?" "That's Dan's home town," He winks, "Maybe he is your soulmate" "Dan could be my soulmate? Should I tell him?" "No, he doesn't believe in soulmates." "That's good, because I don't think I could spend the rest of my life with someone so negative." Patrick snorts and continues tapping away on his phone. I write down a list of people that were in the orphanage at the same time as me, and make a checklist. I'll message a different one every time I cry. I start stalking each of them online. Stephen, Karla, Bridge, Lucy- Bridge? "Trick, is Bridge a boy or a girl name?" "It's architecture" "It's someone on the list" "Just message them and see." Tears begin falling down my face. "Hey I didn't mean it like that, I'm sorry-" "This isn't me!" I smile widely and message someone called Chris, I read the message out loud as I type it, "Hey, I have reason to believe that you're my soulmate, are you crying right now?" They mustn't have any privacy settings on, because the response I receive is immediate, "nope, I'm not crying, and I got my soulmate pregnant last month, so unless this is Keighleigh messing with me, you're not my soulmate," I read it out to Patrick. "Who spells Kaylee like that?" "I know, it's supposed to be K a y l e i g h" "Incorrect" "We'll ask Dan on the walk home?" "Absolutely."

I message four other people, but none of them are my soulmate. I finally stop crying around ten minutes before the tutor dismisses us, and I feel strange. This time it didn't feel full of emotion. It felt empty. "Hi nerds" "You look like a mess," Patrick chirps. And he's right. Dan's face is paler than usual, and his hair is messy. "No duh, I just did the final scene of the drama I've been writing, the scene where my dog dies and I scream and cry in the rain. Someone's been dumping water on me as I've forced tears, I'm obviously not gonna be looking glamorous." "You've been crying? That's so weird, because-" I glare at Patrick and he stops talking. "Phil's soulmate search hasn't been going too well" "That's cause she doesn't exist." "He," Patrick corrects him, and Dan's eyes widen a little bit. We start walking home and me and Patrick exchange worried glances at each other. "Dan, you never talk about your childhood" "What's there to talk about? My mum's gone, as is my dad, and I've been living on my own since I was 15" "What happened to your parents?" "Phil," Patrick warned me, clearly Dan doesn't talk about this very often. I apologise and we carry on walking. Patrick turns a corner and waves goodbye. Steph apparently lives pretty close to Dan. "Come over?" Dan asks. I smile and nod, maybe a little too eagerly.

~*~

"He's been crying since he was 4 years old, are you prepared to take on this child who has in fact lost contact with their, seemingly very emotional, soulmate?" "Of course. He needs stability. I've always been a fan of stability." I start crying. "Sweetie, I know you don't believe me, but-" "It's not me," I sniffle. She wraps her arms around me in a hug. "He needs someone who has dealt with soulmates." "As you wish. Although, He's 15, and met his soulmate over 10 years ago, so instead of helping him find her, I suggest you book him into a support group for lost soulmates" "I'll do as I please with my child." "Foster child" "Only for a few months. And then he's my child" "Whatever. Sign here." "Go and adventure, Philip, your room is top left." I hear muffled conversation as I close the front door. I finally have a forever home. Someone finally wants me. I could cry, but as per usual, I don't. I never cry. My soulmate cries enough without my tears adding to it. I've been bottling it up for years now. Instead, I smile. I wipe my mirroring tears and try desperately to let him know I care about him. But soulmates don't work like that.

~*~

"You live here?" My jaw drops, "It's awesome!" "My aunt's gave it to me when I was little. I didn't need to use it until a couple of years ago though." "why not?" "Because soulmates aren't real" He says with a shrug. "Who did you draw today?" "You" I splutter, "Me? Why?" "Isn't it obvious? You're beautiful Phil" "But- I mean, thank you- but you don't- soulmates- and-" "Just because love isn't real doesn't mean beauty isn't" My mouth forms an 'O' and that's all I manage to respond. "Why don't you like soulmates?" "Because they ruin people's lives" "Elaborate?" "When I was little, my mum would never shut up about soulmates, she would even tell the little kids we'd foster occasionally" I shot him a quizzical look, "My mum was bipolar, so she'd foster whilst my dad was at work, and they'd get sent back as soon as my dad would come home. She obsessed over it ever since we tried to foster someone when I was little and my dad had decided it wasn't best for mum's health. Anyways, my mum was obsessed with soulmates. It's all she'd ever talk about, it's all she'd ever research, for days on end. But she killed herself when I was nine. And dad didn't get that warm feeling my mum always spoke about when you lost your soulmate. He didn't love her once he found out that they weren't soulmates. He didn't love me once he realised I was a mistake "He started hitting me, ranting about how he wasted his life with the wrong person. But he had loved her when she was alive, so clearly his love was false, because of the bullshit soulmate theory. My dad killed himself when I was 14, and I spent around 6 months in foster care before my Aunt Stephy contacted me and reminded me of the house she bought me when I was 4. So many people waste their lives looking for soulmates and 'true love' that they don't even look twice at anyone until they're crying. It's fucked up. And plus, I've never cried without meaning it. Ever. Everyone my age has met their soulmate by now. So what? Mine just doesn't exist? Mine doesn't have emotions?" He laughs pitifully.

"Or maybe they just love you enough to hold back their tears." "What kind of bullshit excuse is that?" "Love isn't just somet you see on TV, Dan" "Yes it is," He yells, suddenly stood up and bearing his teeth, "Soulmates aren't real, relationships aren't real, none of it is fucking real!" "Dan-" "Get out of my house" "Dan, no, please just-" "I said get the fuck out!" "But," I whisper softly. "But what?" "I think you're my soulmate" And for the first time in over 13 years, I start crying, because of my emotions. As I look up, so is Dan. His face is of pure shock, and he doesn't seem to be properly crying, his tears are instead mirroring mine. My hand in my pocket squeezes Thomas ever so slightly. "What's in your pocket?" He tries to say, choking on my sobs, wiping his eyes furiously. I pull the stuffed fox out of my pocket and this time it's Dan's jaw that Drops. "It was you?" "Wait- you were-" "I knew I remembered those eyes" "Wait" "Philip!" "Daniel?" He launches himself at me and captures my lips in a kiss.

Dan doesn't get over his fears of soulmates immediately. But he starts paying attention in Love Lessons, he starts asking more serious questions, he runs to me whenever he starts second guessing himself, he paints me in art, and most importantly, he doesn't cry as much anymore. I love Dan, I always have, and although he may not ever love me 100%, I know he'll always be with me.

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bellabooks · 6 years

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Annie Briggs and Natasha Negovanlis give us the scoop on their new hit webseries, “CLAIREvoyant”

Over the last few years, Natasha Negovanlis and Annie Briggs have become near and dear to the LGBTQ fandom for their roles in the smash hit webseries/movie, Carmilla. The two castmates and dear friends have now teamed up to being viewers a new comedy series (with it’s share of tender and hard hitting dramatic scenes) about two best friends, Claire and Ruby, who create a fake psychic website to try to drum up rent money. When Claire discovers she might actually be a powerful psychic, it makes a complicated scenario even more challenging, and hilarious. Natasha and Annie not only star in the series, but they are co-creators and writers as well along with Jason Packer. Bella Books sat down with Natasha and Annie to get more of their insights into the series and what it has been like creating something together. Bella Books: You guys made a web series baby together, and now your baby is out there in the world. What has it been like for you for the past few days, watching all these responses roll in and seeing your creative work out there? Natasha Negovanlis: It’s been wild! I’ve only shat my pants a few times. Annie Briggs: Oh, that’s a good sign. Like Natasha said, it’s been totally wild. These things are always a combination of great excitement and relief and nervousness—the whole bit. Because we had a pre-existing audience, we knew that we would have some viewership. We were very fortunate that we were going into this with an audience already, but what’s been really exciting to see is that there are a number of people in a different demographic who have been responding so positively to it. And it’s been really cool to have friends reach out to us personally, and to see how people are relating to it as well. Natasha: Well, I keep joking that we wrote an absurdist show, and we keep marketing it as an absurdist comedy. But it’s quite funny to see people comment things like, “This scene was too real.” Bella Books: How did the idea for CLAIREvoyant start in the first place, and how did you know – or did you – that the two of you would work so well together as creators? Annie: Too much wine, Dana. No, no! Natasha: Annie, don’t say these things. Annie: Natasha, you talk to the seedlings of this. Natasha: The creation of CLAIREvoyant was sort of a number of different things. The biggest thing was obviously our mutual fascination for psychics, the occult, and our interest in things like divination and tarot. Years ago, before I had ever met Annie, I had a character that I created, Vivienne, who we ended up using for the psychic. [It really began] just one day with an old roommate because I was down in the dumps. I had just been dumped and fired for my barista job. The only way I knew how to deal with that was to put on every piece of jewelry I owned and sit in my bathtub and call a psychic and make these little videos. But that was a very early, early seedling. And then one day Annie and I were hanging out and just chatting about different things, and I was talking about how I went to a nail salon. I was like, “It’s so interesting. What does she do outside of her work? What is her life like? Who are these people like?” We were just talking about it, and being a couple of silly gals that we are, we came up with these silly characters and we spent the rest of the evening as these characters. The next day Annie texted me and she was like, “I think we might be onto something.” Annie: In terms of the development of the project, we spent quite a few years in development on this. I would say the process was organic in many aspects. The characters we created came out of ourselves, exaggerated aspects of ourselves and other people that we’ve known and lived with. Also, in terms of working together, I feel very fortunate that Natasha and I mind-melded a lot on this project. So, we were really on the same page for a lot of the creative decisions, which was great. It made working together very intuitive and incredibly collaborative. On the flip side of that, we spent a couple years working together on this. It’s not all roses all the time. There were certainly times that were tricky for us when we weren’t seeing eye to eye. That’s just part of the creative process. You don’t know really what you’re getting yourself into when you start out with these things. But I’m still so grateful that on the whole this thing just flew out of us in a really beautiful, collaborative way. Natasha: Yeah, and I think in areas where we didn’t necessarily see eye to eye, our skillsets really complemented one another’s, and we had a lot of trust in each other’s abilities to take on certain areas. I think we just really complemented each other. It was also really nice to just become better friends and strengthen our bond as friends throughout this creative process because a lot of the times that we would meet up it was to work on this show and it really helped us get to know each other better. When we worked on Carmilla, our characters as Carmilla and Perry didn’t really interact with each other that much. We went for the entire first season not really knowing each other. We met on set, but we didn’t get to work together. It was really through different fan events and cast events that we bonded and found out that we had so much in common. I think it was the very first time we hung out alone, one on one, that we came up with the idea for the show, which I just realized in hindsight. It’s so funny! Annie: That’s really true. It was the first time that we just had a solo date. Bella Books: Well, it’s so evident that the two of you are so simpatico in this. In every scene the two of you have such…it’s like, I don’t want to say machine because that makes it sound like it’s stiff, but you’re such a well-oiled machine together. Annie: That’s great to hear. From an acting standpoint, it was an interesting experience coming in to play these roles. We didn’t, as you often do, we didn’t receive the scripts two weeks before filming or ten days before filming. We’ve been sitting with these characters for a couple years. So, by the time we rolled around onto set and actually got to play off each other they were integrated into us in a completely different kind of way. Natasha: Yeah, in a way, we had almost been playing these characters when we would just hang out sometimes. Like we would morph into them. So, I think we really knew our characters, and we had that benefit as well. It was interesting though. I think we did discover a lot about each other on set just doing comedy, you know, learning how to work. Because we actually have quite different acting methods, I would say. I don’t know if you would say that, but we kind of do. Annie: Oh, no. For sure. Natasha: And learning how to balance that. But it still really translated so well because we have so much love and respect for each other. I’m glad that people find it funny. Bella Books: I love a good, awkward queer. And, Natasha, Claire is gifted with an abundance of awkwardness. And you were talking about how people say, “Oh, man, I relate to that.” That is the thing I have heard more than anything. So many people really relate to Claire’s awkwardness around women. After playing somebody for so long who’s so steady and confident, what was it like to go in the complete opposite direction – so different from Carmilla? It seems like you’re having a blast. Natasha: Oh, I’m having so much fun. People often ask, for both of us actually, if these characters are outside of our comfort zones. We have to say no. As actors you get cast as a number of characters; it’s our job to play different characters. My typecasting is very much a Carmilla type, but Claire is so much closer to me in real life. It’s funny because when we wrote these characters we wanted to create women that people could relate to, but I didn’t set out thinking that those moments would be the relatable moments. I didn’t think, like, “I’m going to write this really relatable character.” I thought that I’m a weirdo and now I’m just going to write this weirdo character. I just kind of put it out into the universe, so it means a lot when people say they relate to it. For so long I’ve been really oversexualized in my roles, which I don’t mind. When I auditioned for Carmilla, people said, “Natasha could have chemistry with a rock.” That’s something I really leaned into for a large part of my twenties. In reality, I had a really awkward, hard time dating women, in particular. Men were easy. Men I knew how to figure out. I started dating men when I was super young, and I kind of knew how it all worked. But because there was almost something greater at stake for me, with women, I just had zero game. Annie: I really loved finishing every day on set and pulling Nat aside and just beaming because I really think she totally shines in this role. Natasha: I think that you shine in this role! Bella Books: I was going to say that you both shine. Annie: It was a real joy to see her play this character, and the whole time I was just grinning to myself being like, “Yep, yep. This is the good stuff.” Natasha: I’m so shocked by that. Bella Books: I’ve been seeing a lot of young Canadian actors, particularly those that are queer or queer allies, making their own art. What do you think that is, and is that something that’s just really embraced in Canada? Annie: My hunch, or my initial reaction to that, would be that we have a great industry here in Canada, but it’s not the same as in the States. Natasha: Yeah, yeah. Annie: There’s sometimes a sense on our side of things that there’s not the kind of agency or heat oftentimes here. So, I think as an actor, especially when so much of your career, and the trajectory of how things are played out, is in the hands of other people, you can get bored very quickly. I just see a lot of people in Canada deciding to take matters into their own hands if other people aren’t going to be doing it around them. That’s how I feel personally. Natasha: Yeah, I think Annie said it so beautifully. Echoing what she said, I’m obviously such a supporter of the Canadian industry, but it is very different and there is a lack of roles and work. Canadians are less likely to take a chance on a new face. There’s also just less money here, so I think people are, as Annie said, taking matters into their own hands and creating the content they want to create. On the flip side, I do know that Canada provides a lot more government and financial support for digital than in the States. And I do know that there are a lot of grants and small independent production funds and opportunities. So, we’re really lucky in Canada in that regard. Because our film and TV industries are not quite as strong as America’s, I think the digital side has really seen that and ran with it. Annie: And as new creators and people starting out on the other side of the camera in development, it feels like a more accessible way to cut your teeth. Natasha: That being said, I think it’s important to note that we’re really grateful for the opportunity that the IPF provided for us as well. They’re such a great production fund for new creators and we wouldn’t be able to make the show without them. Annie: Hear, hear! Bella Books: Tell us a little bit more about Nico and Xavier. We haven’t seen a lot of them yet, but from what we have seen they are as charming as all get out. Annie: You will see more of them, Dana. You will! Bella Books: I had a feeling we would. Natasha: What can we say? Bella Books: Or, you know what, you can talk about the actors, Sabryn Rock and Jsin Sasha. That would be great, too. They are also as charming as all get out. Annie: They certainly are. And I will say that both Sabryn and Jsin just rose to the occasion so beautifully. Shooting in digital is a super expedited schedule, and there’s a lot of material to cover. Again, we’re working in comedy with coverage. We were going really fast. It can be difficult for people if they haven’t worked in that way before, but they were fantastic to work with—so giving and funny. Natasha: They were so lovely, and without giving away too much, we do put them in some pretty ridiculous scenarios. So, they were real troopers. Real good sports. What’s exciting also is seeing how people are pleased with the way we cast. But when we auditioned them, they were truly the best people for the roles. What can we say about them though? I’d say Xavier is a very sensitive, poetic, artistic soul, and Nico is a really no bullshit kind of gal. Bella Books: There are so many killer lines in the series. I was laughing so hard. I’m still dying over the Mary Floppins part. Do each of you have a favorite line or favorite little scene you wrote? Natasha: Actually, the scene where we do talk about our vaginas is one of my favorite scenes because it’s such a real moment. You have the characters close together. You have them bonding, and they’re just having this very matter-of-fact conversation. And when you actually look at the text, they’re saying some pretty ridiculous things. That’s also one of my favorite scenes because there are lines in that scene that all three writers wrote. It was such a collaborative scene. Bella Books: Alright, I’ve got one more question for you. Natasha, what is something you admire about Annie? And, Annie, same question for you. Both: Oh my godddd. What? Oh no. Annie: Well, I could wax on… Natasha: …About me… Annie: About this lady’s complexity as a human being in myriad of wonderful virtues, but one of the first things that comes to mind, which I continually feel so fortunate to experience from Natasha and saw so much during the creative process in shooting this series, is that Natasha is such a huge champion and supporter of women in the industry. She really does a lot for other ladies, throwing support and shedding light on their other work. This can be a really cutthroat business, where there’s this horrible mentality of scarcity floating around. Natasha does her best and damnedest to combat that. It’s really beautiful to see, and it’s really inspiring. Natasha: Oh my god! That’s really nice. Well, how do I follow that? I think one of my favorite things about Annie is how openminded she is and how non-judgmental she is. Like, I sometimes have the tendency to be a little hot tempered. Wisdom just oozes out of you all the time, and you just have such a sense of maturity. Annie: You know, in university my roommates used to call me Grandmother Willow. And, I was, like, 19 at the time. Natasha: Absolutely, though! I think your ability to be calm and patient and grounded and rational during situations is so inspiring and really helpful when you’re working with someone as a co-creator but then also as a friend. You always give sage advice, but you’re never judgmental when you’re giving it, and that’s what I really like. CLAIREvoyant airs on the KindaTV Youtube channel with new episodes premiering on Wednesdays at 7pm EST. http://dlvr.it/QV4SpP

#News #Webseries #Annie Briggs

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freespiritcreations · 3 years

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Welp.. That’s Something to Think About

What’s good y'all? Yaya is back, and at this point, y’all should know not to expect me to post often. And if you don’t see the active pattern at this point, then that sounds like a personal problem. Anyways, like usually I’ve spent these last couple of weeks watching a ton of movies, like the fake-ass movie critic I am. This time, I’ve decided to watch movies that have more of a LGBTQI narrative. These movies are Mysterious Skin (2004), Boys Don’t Cry (1999), Moonlight (2016), Call Me By Your Name (2017), and of course Brokeback Mountain (2005). After watching these movies, I started to think of the visual style within these movies, and how they relate to one another.

BUT, before I go on, let me warn y’all again… EXTREME SPOIL ALERT!!! Like deadass! I’m finna go in with these movies, so proceed with caution.

Now, I’m sure we’ve all heard the term “queer eye,” which typically refers to a specific aesthetic that has a particular style. Usually, people use this term to describe the style within fashion, house decoratives, or anything that has something to do with art. Some people visualize that style to be incredibly creative or sheik, and others have more of an insultingly stereotypical view of it. As for the movies I’ve watch, I can’t say that the style of those films have a “queer” aesthetic within the editing style. Instead, I feel that the editing within these movies portray more of a variety of perspectives on the lives of the LGBTI community.

First of all, can we all agree that the styles within each of these movies are completely different from one another? For example, the mise-en-scene, language, and character style for Moonlight compared to Brokeback Mountain are total opposites.

The setting for Moonlight takes place around a city-type setting, and their choice of fashion and language is more urban. For example, the movie LITERALLY starts off with showing such characteristics within those factors. The second Juan enters the scene, we can already get a feel of that type of atmosphere just from watching the two minute sequence alone (0m:35s - 2m:30s).

In Brokeback Mountain, the setting had more of a western theme, and the setting usually took place around an isolated wilderness. As Ennis and Jack begin their first shift, we can admittedly notice the country-like atmosphere that focuses around the mise-en-scene, language and character style aspects of the film. (8m:26s - 10m:30s).

With that being said, the cinematographic styles for these films do share some similarities, but not in a “queer” aesthetic style. What I mean when I say they share similarities, is how the cinematography heightens the romantic tension between characters. In most of the movies listed, the close-up shot angels captured the intimate moments between the couples in each movie.

For instance, during the sex scene in Boys Don’t Cry, a series of close-up shots captures the lustful moments between both Brandon and Lana (54m:46s - 56m:22s).

This type of cinematographic style can be seen again in Call Me By Your Name. During the sex scene between Elio and Oliver, medium and close-up shots captures the intensely intimate moments of their foreplay (1h:23m:56s - 1h:25m:46s).

But, doesn’t every film involving romance or sex edit their shots in that specific fashion? Exactly! So, I feel it those factors have little to do with a ‘queer’ aesthetic. Anyways, like I mentioned earlier, the style of the characters and film captures more of the perspective of the LGBTQI community. Their style in fashion and vocabulary is influenced by the setting and atmosphere surrounding the characters.

Now as I mentioned earlier, yes again, the characters personalities and styles resemble their surroundings. Nonetheless, there are certain factors within the characters that I can say can be read through their visual styles in the movies. I mean, when you think about it, certain factors such as race, gender and sexual identity sort of go hand-in-hand when creating a particular visual style.

For instance, in Moonlight, the setting wrapped around an urban area. The social expectation for Chiron was to act similar to the other characters within his neighborhood. Chiron grew up in poverty, and lived in an area affiliated with gangs and drug abuse. Because he was bullied for not fitting in with the other characters, it proned him to grow up into becoming a drug lord in order to be accepted by society. We can instantly notice his dramatic personality transition when he reunites with Kevin as an adult (1h:22m:12s - 1h:36m:02s). Furthermore, he also does this in order to prove his masculinity to the people around him.

As a black woman, I can definitely vouch and say that there is a particular acceptance level within the black community. For some dumb ass reason, in order to be considered ‘black enough,’ you would have to act and look a certain way. Such as, being ghetto, speaking ignorantly, dressing ‘hood,’ and having a ‘hood-like’ mindset. Because I don’t necessarily fit into that category, most black people would say that I’m ‘acting white,’ solely based on my appearance and intelligence level. To be honest, that’s one of the most ignorant and pressuring things to have to deal with as a black woman. Thus, is why he would often get in trouble and engage in illegal activity.

Also, the visual style in gender roles greatly has a connection between one another. For instance, Brandon in Boys Don’t Cry, made it apparent that he sexually identified as a male. In the beginning of that film, Brandon was adjusting his appearance, in order to emphasize his masculine features (1m:42s - 2m:27s). The way he dressed and carried himself made it completely obvious. Furthermore, throughout the movie, Brandon would engage in extremely risky stunts and activities, in order to prove his masculinity. Even when Brandon wasn’t 100% comfortable with the activities, he still proceeded in order to fit in with the masculine crowd. Overall, these factors do go hand-in-hand with one another to create a visual style within the movies.

Now, with all of that in mind, I started to think about how queer films shape and influences the perceptions and emotions of the audience by the power of the queer aesthetic. I’m telling you, the power behind these movies will definitely have you feeling some type of way. And, that feeling usually comes from a sentimental place. To be honest, I can name you at least one scene from two different movies that will definitely have you feel some type of way, just from the queer aesthetic alone.

Note, that the way the queer aesthic is used is to capture more of the intense moments of the films and characters, not necessarily the appearance or look of it. Also remember, when it comes to this aesthetic, I’m focusing on the emotional aspects not the editing styles. So, don’t try to tell me I’m contradicting myself with those two different factors.

Anyways, firstly, the character arcs in both Neil and Brain from Mysterious Skin will have you sympathize with them as the story unfolds. Once you see how much the molestation from their former little league coach has shaped them, you tend to feel bad about how much that had affected their entire lifestyles. Brain suppresses his memory of being molested, and thinks that he was actually a part of an alien abduction instead. Neil begins to prostitute his body because he didn’t view sex very highly or of utter importance. Once Neil and Brian finally meet, Neil explains to Brain what actually happened that night he thought he was abducted (1h:28m:44s - 1h:41m:43s). That intense conversation had definitely made me feel incredibly sympathetic towards Brain. Some may even question Neil’s true intentions towards that situation. But honestly, I feel just as sympathetic towards him as I feel towards Brian. I mean think about it. Neil didn’t know what the fuck he was getting himself into as a child. He was tricked and deceived by his former little league coach. Honestly, I feel like his misinterpretation towards sex was just his own way to suppress his feelings towards those past incidents.

You also can get an emotional connection with Brandon from Boys Don’t Cry too. I mean how can you not feel some type of way after watching him get sexually harassed and raped by John and Tom (1h:25m:33s - 1h:31m:33s). And, don’t get me started on when they killed him (1h:47m:51s - 1h:50m:33s). Not only did I feel extremely appalled towards the situation, I also felt anger and hatred towards John and Tom, after seeing what they had done to Brandon. And, once you learn that the movie was based on a true story, well that’s just more fuel to the fire right there.

Anyways, I know I really dragged this blog out, but those movies literally made me go through some whole type of movie-related epiphany. I honestly really enjoyed watching them, and it made me more interested in watching more movies similar to those ones. I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but I’m more of a horror movie fan. It wasn’t until recently when I started watching more movies of other genres. Well, it’s also because there hasn’t been any good horror films being made lately. Ehh.. maybe someday. Anyways, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read what the fuck I had to say. I know y’all love it when I put my two cents in. Welp, until next time guys. Bye, bye!

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lifes-a-dick · 7 years

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High Wycombe is the Sussex Downs

The “triple poisoner” Sherlock mentioned he caught in High Wycombe at the end of TLD is from Doyle’s The Sign of the Four:

I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money - ACD

I once caught a triple poisoner in High Wycombe - Sherlock in TLD

What’s cool is that when Holmes says that line in the canon, he is slyly comparing none other than Mary Morstan to the triple poisoner. It’s kind of an iconic scene, where they have both just met Mary for the first time, as a client.

“What a very attractive woman!” I exclaimed, turning to my companion. He had lit his pipe again and was leaning back with drooping eyelids.

“Is she?” he said languidly, “I did not observe.”

“You really are an automaton- a calculating machine,” I cried. “There is something positively inhuman in you at times.”

He smiled gently.

“It is of the first importance,” he cried, “not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.”

“In this case, however-”

“I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule.”

An exception disproves the rule. Oh, Sherlock, you salty thing. Holmes is warning Watson about his attraction to Mary, and that you can’t judge a person’s inner quality by how appealing their facade is. In fact he’s saying you never should, because it’s always wrong. He gives an example: the most appealing woman he ever met was a murderer of children. While the most outwardly repellent man he knows is truly a hero. Watson begins to suggest that Miss Morstan is surely an exception, and her inner quality is as lovely as her facade. But Holmes cuts him off before he can make his point, and says that there are no exceptions. The very fact that Watson was drawn to Miss Morstan at their first meeting, by Holmes’s reasoning, means she’s bad news.

Then there’s also the fact that the example that occurs to Holmes makes the woman “not what she seems”, then an initially “repellent” man his example of someone who is beautiful underneath. Gosh I wonder if he’s talking about himself, and simultaneously suggesting that he is the better of the two romantic options who were together in the room with John just a few moments before.

More under the cut.

Holmes says facades are false, without exception. The more appealing the facade, the more likely it’s a trick. Mary’s image was improved for S4; her cute soft curls instead of the more harsh slicked back short hair from S3, the tan, her wardrobe had even improved from the bizarre things they dressed her in in S3. I believe Mary’s S4 ‘look’ was to exaggerate, and draw our attention to, the falseness of a facade. Mary’s facade as something empty/false was already pointed out quite dramatically in HLV when her image was projected onto the empty house. I think that was to warn us of what was to come. That like Holmes warned Watson in The Sign of the Four, WE would now need to guard ourselves from being fooled by a facade.

She’s a triple poisoner with a winning facade, and apparently she’s been caught:

I once caught a triple poisoner in High Wycombe - TLD

And here Sherlock was the one to catch the triple poisoner, whereas in the canon nothing like that was mentioned (even though you could argue that it was implied), therefore we can assume that this has significance for our story because that detail was added for TLD. I’ll come back to this at the end.

What’s also interesting is the rich philanthropist who seems repellent. Sounds like Culverton Smith.

Culverton Smith, who is clearly made to be physically ugly and “repellent”; the teeth, the bad suits, the general creepiness. An example of someone (or something) that we find near impossible to see past the repellency to the good underneath. Culverton did say that he was “in credit” for the things he’s done, lives saved, money donated, etc.

Sherlock says of Smith in TLD that he’s “the most dangerous, the most despicable human being I have ever encountered” compared to “the most repellent man of my acquaintance” about the philanthropist in The Sign of the Four.

Then there’s a neat little thing in TAB that completes the story; a near identical comment made by Holmes to one in The Sign of Four:

My dear Watson, you are allowing emotion to cloud your judgement - TAB

The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. - The Sign of the Four

If you recall the context of that comment in TAB, it was John berating Sherlock about his cocaine use, calling him a “drug addict”. So when Sherlock tells John that his emotions are clouding his judgement, it’s clearly because here is Sherlock behaving “repellently”, but wishing that John could see past that to who he is underneath. To reinforce that this is indeed a reference to that theme from the canon, little Billy then rushes in with the telegram that alerts them that Mary has gone off on some assassiny mission. John is then unwilling to admit that Mary is anything other than his ordinary wife. He still can’t see past a facade, a winning one, or a repellent one.

WATSON: What is it? What’s wrong? HOLMES: It’s Mary. WATSON: Mary? What about her? HOLMES: It’s entirely possible she’s in danger. WATSON: Danger? HOLMES: There’s not a moment to lose. WATSON: Is this the cocaine talking? What danger could Mary be in? I’m sure she’s just visiting with friends. (x)

If facades are always wrong, then Mary is the murderer, and Culverton Smith isn’t. Because well, he wasn’t, and didn’t kill Sherlock in the end. One layer of the many different ideas that Culverton Smith seems to represent, could be the idea of someone or something physically unappealing that puts us off, but which is “in credit” in terms of goodness once you look further.

My thoughts always go back to homophobia and what the commentary there could be; like something that initially repulses or repels people (queerness), but which is beautiful once people break down and dispel their own ugly ideas. Think of Madame Vastra in Doctor Who, Moffat’s custom made Sherlock mirror. Her lizardiness represents that perceived ugliness, yet she’s somehow extraordinarily beautiful too - her appearance represents both how queerness is perceived by homophobes, and also the beauty that it truly holds. Holmes clearly sees himself as having a repellent facade to John, but I’m not sure how much this reflects John’s actual thoughts, since that was Sherlock’s dream. And the subtext here is not referring to attraction so much as how facades are a bi-product of repression, and that they’re broken down the more knowledge we gain, aka information is power.

I think John is also that “repellent” alternative for Sherlock, just as Sherlock represents John’s initially repellent alternative to Mary. Sherlock and John both battle the internalised enemy that is repression. Our repression is why we find something repellent that isn’t repellent, because repression is brainwashing.

Repression stops us from seeing past a facade. So this theme could also be behind the Culverton-John mirroring that many have pointed out. Sherlock lying there in that hospital, dying, letting his “repellent” male-attraction in the shape of Culverton, be the death of him. Or, letting it (the John who bursts through the door) save him instead.

What is High Wycombe?

It’s a real place. A fairly normal/ordinary large town in England, and could be supposed to be a juxtaposition of ordinariness to make a joke about the idea of Sherlock taking Irene Adler there for dinner; an unlikely scenario. (High Wycombe does, however, boast a well-known BDSM sex dungeon/B&B. Very funny, Steven.)

Amy’s Choice is a Doctor Who episode in one of Moffat’s seasons that you’re possibly sick of hearing about. Anyway, it’s significant here again for different, non-EMP reasons. In that plot, of Amy’s two choices that the episode was named for (it was sort of subtext, but she needed to choose between two cute boys, Rory or the Doctor), Rory represented an “ordinary” existence as an alternative to the excitement and danger of life with the Doctor. There were two parallel realities (both later revealed to be hallucinations, but anyway). One of them was Amy and Rory’s ordinary but blissful domestic dream life in a quaint country home, in a town called Upper Leadworth. Upper Leadworth is an entirely fictional location invented for that Doctor Who episode. Here is what I’m proposing, then I’ll tell you why. I think this all does link back to the EMP-parallel in that episode, but for now this little connection stands on it’s own:

Upper Leadworth = High Wycombe

Upper = High. Yes?? Yes.

But also...

The village of Upper Leadworth and the charming country home represented a sort of promised land, a utopia for Rory and Amy (even though Rory wanted it more than Amy did). Remember that over and over and over, in both Doctor Who and Sherlock, Moffat uses a marketable het-romance as a mirror for Sherlock and John’s story, or certain aspects of it anyway. Including often Amy and Rory.

Upper Leadworth:

I think High Wycombe is the equivalent for Sherlock and John, to Rory and Amy’s Upper Leadworth.

.... AND I think High Wycombe is a temporary place-holder for Sussex and bee hives.

I think High Wycombe is a little code, and an assurance that this future for Sherlock and John exists (as does the night of passion). Even the idea of it being High or Upper suggests the idea of rising upwards, rising above limitations, coming up from “the underground”. Also, the “down” in Sussex Downs is the opposite of Up or High.

Rewriting Down as Up, and replacing Sussex Downs with High Wycombe (if only temporarily), is sort of like rewriting history - taking Sherlock’s lonely retirement in the Victorian era where he couldn’t openly be a couple with John, and replacing it with one where they will live together.

Also, there’s the fact that High Wycombe exists, whereas Upper Leadworth, for no clear reason, was chosen to be a fictional location. I would suggest that this is because Amy and Rory never really did exist there together in Upper Leadworth. They ended up being (sort of) defeated by the Weeping Angels who I argued briefly over here, mirror Mary as a villain. That’s why Upper Leadworth is a fictional village - it wasn’t Amy and Rory’s future.

High Wycombe is a real place however, because so is Sussex Downs, and Sherlock and John are going to actually go there.

I don’t think I need to convince y’all that the “romantic entanglement” in TLD conversation was not about Irene at all, but about Sherlock and John’s relationship with each other. Just as ASiB was exactly that; not about Irene, but about Sherlock and John. Irene represented that wedge of heteronormativity that came between them; she causes as much confusion between Sherlock and John as she does for the audience. And still, the writers use her as a coded way for Sherlock and John to talk about their feelings for each other, like they’ve done before:

So she’s alive then. And how are we feeling about that? - ASiB.

WATSON: Irene Adler. HOLMES: A formidable opponent; a remarkable adventure. WATSON: A very nice photograph. HOLMES: Why are you talking like this? WATSON: Why are you so determined to be alone? -TAB x

So let’s look at the High Wycombe mentions at the end of TLD and try to decode the scary mess that it is, because we’re pretty sure they’re not really talking about Irene.

D’you go to a discreet Harvester sometimes? Is there a ... night of passion in High Wycombe?

Night of passion. Hmmm. Then a minute later...

...High Wycombe is better than you are currently equipped to understand.

So now John is using High Wycombe as code for sex + a relationship. We’ve stopped talking about Irene. Sherlock the machine is not yet relationship material, not until his head and his heart can hug and make up then start working together.

...currently equipped to understand...

Remember when TLD aired and all our hopes and dreams were still alive we were in fairly good spirits because this WHOLE DAMN scene clearly seemed like a set-up for romance in episode 3?? I think it is, and was, still exactly that - a set-up for romance.

The dialogue actually does foreshadow that Sherlock was about to go off and seek that which would “equip” him to “understand” how good “High Wycombe” could really be.

Romantic entanglement...would complete you as a human being.

Sherlock points out the obvious here when he says

That doesn’t even mean anything.

Because it really doesn’t. Unless you reverse the sentence, when it then becomes the plot of TFP...

Completing you as a human being, will make you ready for romantic entanglement.

Delving deep into metaphor-land, which is the only possible way to analyze The Final Problem in any way which yields answers instead of questions and frustration, we can now see exactly which of the many bizarre scenes in TFP was foreshadowed by this dialogue from the end of TLD.

As befits something as climactic as Sherlock becoming ready for love, and that love then saving John’s life, the “completed as a human being” bit was the climax of The Final Problem itself, and indeed the climax of the entire series, and I would go so far as to say, yes, probably also the climax of the entire show so far. You just have to squint your eyes and see past the weirdness of Eurus and her weird game, the girl in the plane, the clown, and definitely squint your eyes and ignore the plot holes, because as I’ve argued a lot, plot holes have always been, and are now more than ever, an invitation to dig deeper and look further.

Anyway. The climax of TFP was the sort of “on paper” completion of Sherlock’s character arc, hence why he was then immediately declared by Lestrade, in very cheesy fashion, to be “a good man”. Great to good. Done, complete. This is the scene I’m talking about -

Sherlock’s last and biggest challenge, finding Eurus, and thereby saving John from dying in the well.

If you view Sherlock’s “sister” as a long-lost part of him, then once he learned of her existence, found her, and “reconciled” with her, he was making himself whole. Complete as a human being. Two halves of one whole, back together again.

The whole “save John Watson” narrative is still going here. Whereas in TLD Sherlock needed on his death-bed to realise the value of his own life to John, (which is definitely not made clear in the slightest), here in TFP Sherlock is doing the same thing over again - saving John by saving himself.

Eurus symbolises the part of himself that was stolen from him as a child, when he began to figure out what he was, and then ‘what he was’ was immediately taken away from him. She represents the repression of his sexuality, which is why she was taken away and hidden and forgotten and locked in a cell (kept behind glass). Eurus is Sherlock’s fear of what he truly is and what he wants, she’s the “dangerous” in “love is a dangerous disadvantage”.

So he finds and saves Eurus, the two of them almost becoming the silhouette of one person as they hug in the dimly-lit attic room. Then up shoots John, de-chained and lifted from the well. Because Sherlock became ready for love when he “completed himself” by merging with his lost half, and then John was subsequently saved by that love.

Completing Sherlock as a human being has made him ready for romantic entanglement. He is now equipped to understand how good High Wycombe can be. So.....I guess that comes next? Steven? Mark? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Mary is Caught

Mary is the triple poisoner Sherlock caught in High Wycombe. He ‘caught’ her there, because the very act of Sherlock replacing Mary as John’s love interest, exposes her as the fake that she is. Making johnlock canon exposes heteronormativity as the villain in Doyle’s canon - the murderer who forced Doyle to decide to kill his creation.

@monikakrasnorada @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @devoursjohnlock @the-7-percent-solution @possiblyimbiassed @sagestreet @shylockgnomes @sarahthecoat

#high wycombe #the lying detective #johnlock #tjlc meta #tld #sherlock s4

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theletterformallyknownasq · 4 years

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Kaja - August 22nd, 2018

Me: All right. Session 2. I'm here with Kaja Vang. Thank you for allowing me to interview you and hear your stories and your experiences of being Queer and immigrant while living and working and making home in Minnesota. Can you tell me how you received your name? Kaja: My mom said that my grandma had a dream and it was filled with a lot of fireflies. She just woke up and told my mom 'you're gonna name your kid Kab Ntsha.' That's how you pronounce it in Hmong. Kab meaning Bug, Ntsha meaning Light. And my mom was like 'OK cool.' And then she gave me my middle name which is Mindie. But my grandma basically named me.

Me: Have you ever revisited that story with your family to confirm that? Kaja: When I was a teenager, yeah. So my grandma passed this past winter, so I wish I took the time to actually talk to my grandma and figure out how did she specifically came up with my name. Because memories and words aren't always 100% what my people say. My mom is super dramatic sometimes. So when I was little when I first entered the academic world, my teacher couldn't pronounce my name, so they came up with Kaja, I just went with it. Then I was like, 'is that how I pronounce my name?' It sounded way easier. So I'm like 'OK cool whatever.' And then when I was transitioning into my freshman year in college, I was like 'oh I really want to reclaim my name and make sure people say it right.' And then I was talking to this white boy. He's like, "What's your name?" I'm like 'It's Kab Ntsha.' He's like 'Oh, ganja like weed?' And from that point I'm like 'nope, zip, I'm going with Kaja, pronounce my name wrong. I don't give a shit.' I only correct you if I love you dearly and you're a part of my life and I want that to be a thing. But general strangers, the youth that I work with, they sometimes call me the wrong name that sounds similar to Kaja. And people always question 'Oh is that how you say your name in Hmong?' And I'm like, 'no but I'm not trying to teach you right now.' Me: How have people mispronounced your name? Kaja: They call me Kaia which is like some white European shit. It's K-A-I-A instead of the J. They call me Kesha. Me: No. Kaja: They call me Tasha. Me: Nahhhh. But The "T"?! Kaja: Right? But that's the general gist of what people call me. And I just don't want to correct them unless I really care about them. Me: How do you identify? Pronouns et al? Kaja: I identify as a nonbinary and Queer Hmong writer. I write a lot. I'm pretty gay. Me: You kind of already touched on this but where's your family from? Kaja: So they are technically from Laos. I don't know my dad's history, I mainly know my mom’s. She grew up in the refugee camps in Thailand. Thailand and Laos is where my family is from. Me: And what brought them to Minnesota? Kaja: Colonialism. White supremacy. The U.S.-Vietnam War. My mom was born in 1974, so she grew up in the middle to end-ish of the Vietnam War. My mom's the oldest in her family and she had I think two younger brothers at that time when my grandma decided to leave Laos to go to the refugee camps in Thailand. She left my mom and her younger sister behind. So my mom and her younger sister had to basically leave. Someone ended up taking them to a refugee camp somewhere. I'm not sure if it's in Laos or Thailand. My mom was like 5 or something. She found aunties at the refugee camps and every morning before the sun rose, she would exit the refugee camp and then knock on neighbors’ doors and beg for food and she would come home, come back to the refugee camp and feed her younger sister. All the aunties kept telling her that her mom didn't love her, that she abandoned her and her father left as well. My granddad left way before my grandmother left to go to another refugee camp. But eventually a couple of years later, my grandpa came back and realizes she's his daughter, tells her to leave with him. And the whole family got reunited in the United States again. Me: Wow. I’m holding that for you, that's really heavy and hard to recall. My family had a similar experience but we were never displaced from our homelands. Thank you for sharing that. And what has kept them and yourself here? Kaja: I think the hopes and dreams of living a better life. For my parents, this is what they've always thought the U.S. would be. A place you can make it on your own and have your own business and be wealthy in terms of what Hmong immigrants think is successful. In my eyes, they're super successful. They have always thrown themselves into new experiences. So I grew up in a grocery store that my mom and dad got handed down from shady ass uncles. My mom and dad just kind of winged everything and learned everything about business by themselves. And they've always pushed me to be super innovative, creative, and to make a lot of money. And for me the reason why I'm here is because I'm about community. I found people who love me for who I am, and really support me and my journey of finding and expressing my authentic self. And that's why I'm here. Me: Would you want to stay in Minnesota? Kaja: For the time being, yes. I’m pretty sure this is an excuse for myself, but my parents are transitioning from owning a grocery store and then having the state buy the land because they want to pave a highway through it and do this man-made sewage lake thing.

Kaja: So then my mom and dad then purchased another commercial building a few miles away from the original one and this was a transitioning time my mom got her hairstyling license. And we bought this commercial building with the money that the government gives and my mom opened up her own beauty salon. And so right now, business has been going down and instead of renting out the open spaces in the building, my dad decided to renovate the middle space and make it a grocery store again. And so right now I'm kind of stuck helping them. Feeling obligated to be here for them still. But I mean I would like to move elsewhere and experience what life could be or how community looks like outside of Minnesota. Me: Hmm. East Coast then, maybe? Kaja: I haven't been there as an adult. I've only been to New York when I was a teenager. Me: What do you do for a living? Kaja: I work at a homeless drop-in center for youth between 16 and 23. I'm basically a social worker that stays in one spot. I don't leave the building ever, so I just do a lot of case management stuff or I build relationships with youth and provide them basic needs. But outside of that stuff that I do for a living that I don't get paid for, I do a lot of community organizing but not in terms of what the white structure of what community organizing is. I write and hope that would be something I can get paid to do one day. But I'm still trying to figure that out. Me: Next question is what gives you joy? Kaja: Gives me joy? Off the top of my head, I think puppies and babies. That gives me joy as well as connecting and getting to know more Queer and Trans folks of color as well as seeing how my parents are slowly learning and shifting their verbiage of talking about Queer and Trans Hmong people. My mom and dad are always using the excuse that they're too old and can't learn anything new, relying heavily on their kids. Just seeing the initial moment where I told my mom that I'm Queer. She's been referring to my partner as my partner instead of my friend. Slow steps. And that's cool with me. And that brings me a lot of joy, intermingled with a lot of frustration and anger. Good food brings me joy. Eating with other people brings me joy. I hate eating by myself. Me: What does Queer mean to you? I'm going to ask you to elaborate on your definition. Kaja: Queer. It means freedom or space to invest in yourself where you're liberated from the constraints of who you should be. So before I came out or identified as being Queer, I wondered if I was bisexual, and then was like ‘nah, bisexual doesn't feel like me, doesn't feel good to me.’ And then I wondered if I’m pansexual? Am I just attracted to people's personalities? And I'm like ‘nah, that doesn't feel good to me.’ And coming across the word Queer and having a community to reclaim that word again felt right. And it didn't feel too constraining or too rigid, but rather I get to define what Queer means to me. And you might have a different definition and that's cool. I don't mind that. But to me, it just means I'm able to move freely in my journey of discovering all of my identities and how that affects me in the ways that I navigate life. Me: What do you like or don't like about the mainstream definition? Kaja: I don't like white Queers. They're terrible. I have a couple of co-workers who are white cis gay men who say stuff like, "Back in my day, the word Queer was horrible. I don't know why you young kids are using it now." And I'm like ‘ok, to each their own, whatever. Don't judge me. Don't judge anyone.’ And then to the younger Queers or Queers my age, the mainstream usage of it just seems too academic where you have to have the right definition of Queer. And there is no fucking right definition of Queer. And even if your definition doesn't match, you're shunned. Using the word Queer in the mainstream way just seems so full of privilege and whiteness and I don't like that.

Me: Amen. Affirming all of those things. How does your family's culture define Queer? Kaja: YIKES. Me: If they can? Kaja: It's like an intermix of adopting the english word 'gay' to describe all types of Queer relationships and Queerness. Using slang terms. I don't know how to say it correctly, but it's a word that people have adapted to describe Trans women in community. But that's a really negative context that they use it in. It's just also kind of not spoken about. We don't talk about it. We don't acknowledge it. We pretend that Queer and Trans Folk people have never existed before and people think you're just crazy and that you need to find yourself a good man or woman then you'll be OK. I can't describe it in words but rather like in feelings of what Queerness means to the Hmong Community. A lot of shame and guilt and a lot of gaslighting that happens. Like an out of body experience of where you're like ‘Oh am I really Queer?’ But we don't have a word for it. It's shameful. So they think I'm just crazy. So I should probably marry a man.

Me: Last question before we get kicked out of this booth! It's a lil long though. If you could address the most influential public figures and decision makers in the state right now, what would you say about improving the standard of living for someone like yourself in Minnesota? Kaja: Well I don't know the academic term, but the health care where they don't bill you separately and you never meet your deductions and so you have to pay out of pocket for your health care. Universal health care that's affordable. Affordable in terms of we're not sacrificing X Y and Z to pay off our health care bills. We need health care that is encompassing all identities and all genders and all needs so we don't always have to go to specialty doctors and having to pay more and take the chances to cover it out of pocket. Kaja: Housing. Having a more sustainable way of providing housing for folks. Because homelessness is a huge issue here and people always go 'well why don't they work? Then they can get a place. Why isn't there enough public housing?' But there is enough public housing. The thing is we don't provide support to make that housing sustainable for them and we're only worried about if they're going to make enough money on time to pay for rent. It's more than that. It also includes mental health that affects their stability in housing. It also affects what barriers do people have to go through, especially being Queer and Trans and folks of color, to get jobs that pay you well and pay you enough so that you're able to have sustainable housing and that you don't always have to move here and there. And at the end of your lease, if your rent has gone up, you don't always have to find a new place, you know? We're always being displaced. We're always being moved. We are constantly forced to choose. Choose to live in a communal space where we're sharing a house with people, like 6-8 people in one place. And it's not like I only want my own house or my own space, but instead I want that to be a choice rather than out of necessity. Where you have Queer and Trans folks of color having to pool money together, having to share the little resources that they have to be able to support one another. That shouldn't be a thing. It should feel like a choice. But we're doing it out of necessity and survival. Put more Queer and Trans people in higher positions instead of assessing their background in education and experience and them not being good enough for those positions. Or the worry or the threat that we pose as Queer and Trans folks of color when we're trying to get hired for a supervisor position. It's not a threat to you and your power for the company to hire more Queer and Trans folks of color in a higher position.

Me: Well it challenges a power structure, that's why they don't do it. Make us the public figures and decision makers? Kaja: Hell yeah. Especially if you're working with Black and Brown youth, don't you think that? Me: They would respond a little more if they recognized themselves in the people in positions of power?

Kaja: Yeah. Like, why would you hire a white person to fill a role who doesn't reflect the population you’re serving? Me: Or does it? Kaja: Oooooh. Me: On that note. I think that is really awesome. Thank you Kaja!

#interviews

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thehandmaidstalehulu · 7 years

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Samira Wiley is modernity defined. While Elisabeth Moss, her co-star in The Handmaid’s Tale, rose to prominence in prestige television dramas such as Mad Men and The West Wing, Wiley has built a reputation almost entirely in shows made by streaming sites.

“It wasn’t a conscious decision,” says the 30-year-old over the phone, “the shows that are being written on streaming sites have surpassed anything seen on television traditionally.” After four seasons playing Poussey in Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, she now plays Moira, an activist and lesbian – in a world in which homosexuality is punishable by torture and death – in The Handmaid’s Tale, made by US streaming site Hulu.

Both shows were game-changers. Orange Is the New Black broke new ground for myriad reasons, dealing with drug abuse, mental illness, and the experiences of bisexual, lesbian, queer and transgender women in an infinitely more complex and sophisticated way than had been seen in mainstream entertainment before. It also featured a large cast of relatively unknown actors, most of whom did not conform to the Hollywood stereotype.

“In the past, on television, the ‘ideal woman’ was thin, white and always looked perfect, the farthest thing from any woman on Orange,” says Wiley. “Now we know that audiences don’t want to see some ‘ideal woman’, they want to see women who look like themselves, or look like their friends, their aunts, their mothers, their children.” The Handmaid’s Tale, meanwhile, would likely have always found an audience, thanks to Margaret Atwood’s seminal novel on which it is based. But, given the political context in which it has aired, the dystopian programme has thrust itself into popular discourse in a way that few series have managed in recent memory. “For something to resonate in this way is just overwhelming,” Wiley agrees. “And to have it happen twice in row … that’s just unheard-of.”

Wiley grew up in Washington DC, studied drama at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, and spent the first few years post-college working in theatre in the city (she played Maria in Love’s Labour’s Lost for the city’s Public Theater company). Her career was never something carefully planned or strategised, she says, recalling an early meeting with her agent. “I remember going to his office and frantically telling him: ‘I just want you to know that I can do anything. I will do anything,’” she laughs. “Now, I think it is important to have some discernment.”

Her close friend from Juilliard, Danielle Brooks, had already been cast as fellow inmate Taystee in OITNB when Wiley auditioned for the show’s debut season. “Orange gave me my life,” she says, emphatically. “Not just in terms of my career, but it’s also where I met my wife.” When she married Lauren Morelli, a writer on the show, earlier this year, her parents officiated (they are both pastors).

The show also dealt Wiley an unprecedented level of recognition overnight. When it launched in 2013, it was one of the first Netflix Originals. All 13 episodes were released at once, enabling audiences across the globe to binge the entire first season and connect with Poussey. “I didn’t know how to handle the success at first,” she admits. “I was scared. I had people following me home. I spent a few days not leaving the house because I couldn’t deal with it. It was a huge shock.”

Wiley’s warm, funny, empathetic portrayal of her character soon became a fan favourite. “Poussey’s the definition of a lover not a fighter, and that is what people connect to,” says Wiley. “She’s a genuinely good person and she’s looking for love in prison, in such a pure way. When we look at her, we see potential, we see hope. We feel like, when she gets out, she is going to immerse herself back in society and have some success.” Consequently, the dramatic climax of the show’s fourth season – (spoiler alert!) Poussey’s death at the hands of a prison officer exerting undue force during a peaceful protest – was one of the most shocking and pivotal plotlines thus far.

“Everyone in the prison is affected by it,” says Wiley. Indeed, season five is all about the turbulent three-day aftermath of her death. Even though Poussey’s final storyline was inspired by the recent deaths of black men – including Eric Garner and Michael Brown – at the hands of US law-enforcement officers, Wiley says that at the denouement of the episode, race “suddenly goes away”. “The other prisoners finally see Poussey as a person. Not as a member of the ghetto dorm or the black girl in that clique that they don’t talk to,” she says. “They think: ‘Oh my God, if this happened to her, then this could happen to me, too.’”

For the actors playing the scene – Wiley motionless on the floor, Brooks sobbing beside the body of her best friend – it was no less highly charged. “Danielle and I were wiping each other’s tears,” she told the Hollywood Reporter.

Her metaphorical prison in The Handmaid’s Tale is no less bleak, brutal or dehumanising: the fictitious Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, where environmental factors have reduced the global birthrate to almost zero. The country is under military rule and fertile women have been rounded up, forced to become handmaids for the ruling elite and their barren wives. Homosexuals meanwhile are branded “gender traitors”. Her character, Moira, is, she says, “So many minorities, and she is all of the minorities that I am: she is a black, gay, woman. And the experience of walking through the world being a black, gay woman is such a specific experience. Sometimes, you can’t even talk about all of the things you go through, with that as your reality.”

In the original text by Atwood, Moira’s colour is never divulged, but the Republic of Gilead is one of white supremacy: Jewish people were given the choice of converting or leaving for Israel, and ethnic minorities have been removed and “resettled”. Bruce Miller, who adapted the story for television, tweaked that detail. “If the TV show itself is an all-white world, then you are making a racist TV show,” he reasons. “It was more interesting to me to have a world where fertility trumps everything, including race.” Moira’s colour does not prevent her from being used a sexual slave by the Commanders of the Faith, albeit in a somewhat different way to Moss’s character, Offred.

Where Poussey was a lover, Moira is most definitely a fighter. “Moira has such strength, she is such a spitball of fire, and Offred (Elisabeth Moss) is boosted just by the idea of her,” says Wiley. “She has lines like: ‘Moira wouldn’t take this shit,’ and, ‘Moira wouldn’t be like this.’ When Offred says: ‘I intend to survive,’ I think she gets that Moira is always going to survive.”

Wiley adds that she “really identified” with that. “Growing up,” she reflects, “I have been that person who pushes the envelope and is doing things that other people are not as ready to. I even think about my journey as being an out member of the LGBT community. I felt very connected to Moira in that way.”

When the show went into production in the summer of 2016, no one could have predicted that by the time it was on telly, the US would be be under an administration where the rights of women, immigrants and the LGBT community would be suddenly and dramatically, under threat.

“We started filming before the election,” notes Wiley, “and after it had happened, we realised how much more prescient it all was. I suddenly thought: ‘We’re doing something very important here, we’re doing something that needs to be done.’ “At the end of the day,” she continues, “it is just television. But if we treat television in the right way, if we treat it as art, it can elicit real conversations and real change. I have seen it happen with Orange, and now I see it happening with The Handmaid’s Tale.”

A second season of the show has already been commissioned, and since the first season ends faithful to the book, no one knows where the new material will go. But fans of the original text should take comfort that Atwood, a creative consultant on the show, will remain closely involved with its direction. Wiley admits that she was so nervous about meeting the esteemed 77-year-old author at their first team dinner that she switched places with Moss, to avoid having to speak to her. Now, however, the pair are firm friends. “If you go to my Instagram,” she says, “Margaret Atwood likes all of my pictures. She usually comments on them. It’s not like she writes in Atwood prose; they’re usually just emojis.”

She still sounds somewhat disbelieving: “I put up a picture of me kissing my wife, and she just responded with a tongue emoji.”

#the handmaid's tale #orange is the new black #samira wiley #the guardian #lgbt #article

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wistfuldragon · 7 years

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Coming Out, Sort Of

I came out as bisexual this year, sort of. And it’s both a big deal and not a big deal at all. I say I “sort of” came out because a few people knew - my husband, surely all of my sisters (sibling gossip travels fast), and a few friends. But I never talked about it with anybody except my spouse and, occasionally, friends. I wasn’t sure what to say, or how to say it, or even if it mattered at all. I still feel like I’m sitting on an iceberg floating aimlessly around the ocean asking the water, “Is this okay? How about this? Am I allowed to feel these things or say these things? Does it matter?”

Almost twenty years ago I got my first big, obvious crush on a girl in college. It hit me like a sack of bricks. I didn’t understand. And - please forgive me for sounding so unbelievably naive - I wondered if was I a lesbian now? Except I still was attracted to guys. Was I straight but confused? Or a lesbian but confused? Did I need to “pick a side”? Was it a phase? What was this “bisexual” thing and why were a lot of people saying it didn’t exist or it was offensive? I stayed up late in the computer room reading scathing internet blog posts talking about college girls “experimenting” or articles about how bisexual people gave real gay people a bad name and conversion therapy proponents more fodder. (It’s important to note that I was a social idiot and never talked to anyone online or in person to get other perspectives. Give me a choice between believing the worst thing and the best and guess which one I’m likely to choose. It’s like a bad romantic comedy where you’re screaming at the screen, just TALK about it goddamnit.)

The girl I liked was straight, dating a long term boyfriend, and - oh yeah - she was my college roommate and friend of several years. That didn’t make life incredibly awkward or frustrating at all. I’m pretty sure I was an asshole for a while.

I also thought about my conservative family - and whether I would even be allowed to bring a girl home for holidays. Maybe, I decided. Probably? Still, the history wasn’t great. When I was about 8 or 9 I remember one of my sisters telling me that queer was a bad word - not precisely because it was a slur but because it meant gay and being gay was bad. She was trying to protect me, I think. She didn’t want me to get bullied over it. I lived in a lot of homophobic places growing up, though maybe that was everywhere at the time. Even though I eventually realized that being gay was normal and natural, I clearly didn’t internalize it enough. In the end, mired in cowardice and doubt, I squashed it all down and locked it in a room. All of it. I had school to focus on, good friends, zero romantic game anyway. I’d never actually dated anybody at all. Maybe it was just a phase. Maybe I was just confused. I’d ignore it and think about it later. That’s how I was raised to deal with problems, after all, and it felt like a problem I wasn’t ready to tackle.

I met my husband at a party on my first night in the dorms, had an unrequited (but secretly requited - it’s a long story) crush, and then we became friends, but we didn’t start dating until a few years later. We had a solid friendship underpinning our relationship. It was a good thing. But my sexuality continued to sit in a locked room in the back of my mind. One night about a year after we started dating we went to an LGBTQ (as it was labeled at the time) awareness event. It was a maze of exhibits highlighting love and hate. And though I considered myself an ally and not unschooled in the level of horror in the world, there was something about that evening that broke me apart. I didn’t fully realize it until the small tour group gathered in a room at the end of the exhibit to talk about the displays and why it was important to be a good ally. The facilitator went around the room asking people what they learned. I tried not to cry as people went around the room blithely talking about things they’d taken away from the exhibits. I tried deep breathing. I dug my nails into my palms. And when they got to me, I realized I should have just gotten up and left because I burst into tears. Actually, I started sobbing. And I couldn’t stop. I sobbed through the rest of the (much more rushed) follow-up interviews. I sobbed as we gathered coats in the lobby. I sobbed as we walked out to my boyfriend’s car. We sat there for a while as I struggled to get my emotions under control. And then we started to talk about it.

We talked about a lot of stuff and he asked without a hint of judgment whether maybe I could be bisexual. And something within me cracked open. I apologize for the analogy I’m about to use, but you know that scene in Goonies where they have to play notes on an organ to open the bridge? This was a correct organ note and the closed door I’d built opened a little bit. I felt freer to just have one person I cared about act like A) it was real and B) it was fine. So I started thinking about it again.

The door still wasn’t open all the way, though. Soon after that I mentioned to one of my sisters that I thought I was bisexual. She said absolutely nothing about it, neither in condemnation nor support. (And, okay, I’m fucking terrible at talking about feelings. I had slipped this into a text message conversation about something else entirely because I am an utter coward.) So, in typical fashion for me, I read the worst into our lack of communication. I decided that she probably said nothing because the internet articles were right, and it either wasn’t a big deal or it was offensive of me - a woman dating a man - to put myself forward as bisexual. Did I ask her about it again? No, because I’m an idiot.

And besides, a voice in the back of my head whispered, what if it really was just a phase?

So I waited. I fell in love and got married. I opened the door sometimes to peek inside. “Still attracted to women, too? Okay, just checking.” (Door click.) I did this for a while before I felt confident in saying, like a grand pronouncement, “I am bisexual.” Only I didn’t pronounce a damn thing, not to anyone else.

There were a couple of reasons, at this point. For one, it had been SO GODDAMN long since I first realized it and accepted it fully. Like, would I have to explain to people, “Heh, yeah good friend, sorry I should have said this years ago but, you know, I’m an emotionally repressed human being.” I actually sat around trying to imagine the conversations but always managed to come up with an excuse not to talk about it. I remember sitting on a friend’s couch one day with this new/old news balanced on the tip of my tongue. But I decided, at the time, that coming out was something people did when they needed support for a relationship. In the end, I was married to a man. I didn’t need anybody’s acceptance of my relationship. I was in the safest possible position - married for years to the opposite sex. In the eyes of the world, I might as well be straight - anything else be damned. What did it matter?

Plus, I was ashamed at how fucking long it took me to accept that I was bisexual. I tried for years to be a good ally, but it turned out I was a shitty ally when it came to myself. The shame I feel that my first response was fear will stay with me the rest of my life. I felt that I didn’t deserve to talk about my feelings. I didn’t deserve anybody’s messages of support.

And then 2016 rolled around and Trump/Pence got elected. I was commuting to work with my small daughter a few days later, still burning with rage and shock. I looked at my daughter and several great, thunderous organ notes sounded and the door opened so much wider. What kind of world will we leave for her? What kind of world is it now where someone with such a transparently hateful platform could be elected to such a high office? And I realized that I think every voice is important. I felt culpable, in my silence. Growing up, if I had known just one person who had openly said, “Hey, I’m bisexual,” I truly think I would have realized this about myself sooner. It could have spared me years of wondering. It might have spared me all this shame I feel now that I ever felt ashamed about my sexuality. Basically, I looked at my daughter as we waited for the traffic light to change and desperately wanted a better world for her. And I realized I had to start with myself.

Fandom gets a lot of flack for being a toxic place. But in the fandoms I was participating in I saw people posting about coming out on social media and I thought…yeah, I should do that. Like, it’s literally the least I could do. But it’s something. I worked my way up to it, still more than half convinced that my voice didn’t matter. Instead, I started by telling a total stranger online that I was bisexual - in a conversation related to a fictional character possibly being bisexual. I couched it in apologies about being married to a man for so many years and was told quite clearly and politely, that I had every right to talk about being bisexual - it didn’t matter who I was married to. BONG. Another organ note. The door opened further. (And, me being me, of course I cried at even the merest scrap of validation.)

So I posted something small on Facebook and Twitter, terrifically nervous about the reactions of family and friends. What kind of backlash would I get? Was it just way too weird to post this now after so many years? It turned out that all my fears of being called fake or confused or not important or a fucking coward were unfounded. Several family members and friends were supportive. At the time of that post I tried to brush it off as not really coming out. After all, “coming out” sounds so dramatic. I talked briefly about the experience it in an online chat and then felt deeply embarrassed that it had taken me so very many years to do even this one tiny thing. But, yeah. I was pretty much coming out.

Being more open is still a work in progress, I guess. My parents and I are strictly on a don’t-ask-don’t-tell plan. I don’t ask them how they feel and they don’t tell me. They didn’t “like” any of my Facebook pride posts, anyway. Yeah. Communication is…not our strong suit. I fully realize this, but I’m scared to ask them and hear something I don’t like. God, even in my upper thirties and mostly really happy with my life I’m scared of that. I find that I care and don’t care at the same time. It’s always disheartening to realize that you’re still kind of chickenshit. I’ll give them some time to process it and maybe next year I’ll work up the ovaries to talk to them about it.

Shame at my past doubts, ever-present weaknesses, and my own intrinsically awkward nature mean that I’m still bumbling around on my little iceberg asking the ocean if I’m being offensive, or overstepping, or if my voice even matters. But I will strive to be better. For my daughter, and maybe even for other people, I want to be a better advocate. And I really, really needed to start with myself this time. Our experiences constantly shape and reshape our lives and I’ll do my best to be a better, more open and self-accepting person. Maybe someday I’ll even forgive myself and shed past regrets.

So it is and it isn’t a big deal. It’s changed my life and it hasn’t changed it at all. But I’m going to keep trying to be a better person for myself and also for my daughter who might someday try to sort out her own sexuality. I’ll be able to be there saying, “I’m bisexual and proud of it and I love and accept you no matter how you identify or who you love.” That’s far more than I ever had, and I think it’s a good start. This is the first year I’ve done any kind of personal acknowledgment or celebration of pride month, and it feels really good.

#personal #bisexual #coming out #emotions feelings #pride

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elektra121 · 7 years

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ARD Charité (2017): Episode 4 and 5

And here my belated answer to tuotilo:

“They couldn’t even have one character tell her that it wasn’t her fault and that she wasn’t being punished for her sinful~ thoughts~?”

Like I said, I think this is the crucial point.

“Obviously the fanatically religious head nurse wouldn’t have said such a thing”

I really do not think matron Martha should be read as fanatic, keeping in mind this was the late 19th century. Pietistic, pious, self-righteous, yes - but maybe not even that much spiritually religious. From what we hear from her own mouth, her greatest motivation for becoming a deaconess was what you could call a feministic one, nowadays: to be safe from the unpredictable tempers of a father and/or husband. There seemed to not have been much spirituality/religion to her choice of lifestyle. She seems to be all about the security the strict rules of being a deaconess offer. Being deaconess is her way to be relatively independent from men. We don’t know too much about her personal spirituality - she seems to believe (or, thinks she believes) in charity and that charitable people will be rewarded in heaven. And I very much got the vibe she cares a great deal about sister Therese - and sees her as the rightful heiress of herself as a matron. But then she is confronted with sister Therese not being the ideal deaconess she wants her to be, a problem sister Martha has no instruction how to handle. The logic answer for a religious deaconess (heck, for any christian soul that takes it seriously) should have been to comfort sister Therese. Especially since in a Protestant mindset, being a sinner (and matron Martha seems to be at the opinion that having an infatuation for another person, and moreover another woman, IS a sin) doesn’t exclude you from heaven. This is what Jesus died for - that even sinners can go to heaven. So, not only would it have been possible for matron Martha to comfort Therese, it would have been the logical thing to do - it would have been her obligation! It is very interesting they decided to not let her do it - not even after some time for consideration. For all we know, she remains damnably silent until the very end of sister Therese.

“but Ida could have said something to that extent.”

I’m relatively sure Ida doesn’t really understand what Therese is feeling for her. My guess would be that she sees it as a kind of very close friendship that is forbidden to a deaconess (Rule 9, you know). Of course, pious people are exaggerating all the time, so that kiss was some a-little-over-the-top expression of a very deep friendship and calling deep feelings for a friend “sin” and “uncouth” and “wrong” and being grieved by such natural things is just what too-pious deaconesses are supposed to do.

“Hell, even the socialist nurse could have said this in a conversation to someone else.”

As I said in my post before, nurse Edith does not know of Therese’s homosexuality. And if she knew, I’m pretty sure it would be another point on her list of why she does not like deaconesses. Because the Marxist view is that homosexuality is the some of the exact same bourgeois bullshit as religion.

“Or Dr. Behring. Or Virchow. Or whoever. ”

It would have been very interesting to hear the “medical” opinion of the 19th century, because, you know, Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia sexualis came out just 2 years before the events in “Charité” - and I’d bet most of the doctors (and not so few of the students) would have read it, since it was a bestseller. This book basically explains a lot of things that we today see as variants of sexual orientation, gender and some sexual fetishes as mental illnesses (psycho-pathia). And however much this sounds repulsing nowadays - it was a huge step forward from the view that homosexuality was a criminal act, which the book (or better its author) is very insistent in negating, even to the point of demanding better, nondiscriminatory laws. I think Sister Therese would have taken a great comfort to hear she was simply ill instead of being a guilty sinner. Ill people deserve compassion and respect, they deserve to be helped and cared for (and this is basically, her daily work).

(One could speculate that this is the real reason for sister Therese’s self harm: only if she sees herself injured, she can perceive herself as someone who deserves to be cared for and loved, who is allowed to feel pain and allowed to be helped - even if only for a moment, even if only by herself. In the scene right after the cutting we see her seemingly fully at peace with herself again, glowing with that inner light, comforting a family at a deathbed like an angel.)

“There are plenty non-religious / no-nonsense characters on the show who would have laughed at the suggestion and affirmed Therese that it was due to her poor working conditions.”

The problem in this is that sister Therese herself certainly would not have accepted the judgement of a non-religious person on a question she herself perceives as a spiritual one. Not every nurse who works hard and under poor conditions (and they all do!) catches tuberculosis. There must be a cause I of all people contracted it!

“Also, they could have shown her poor working conditions directly, let us witness her having to get up early, work until fatigued, handling the infected patients etc.”

But they did! Nurse Edith warns Ida from the very beginning that statistically, every year one of the nurses or deaconesses dies from all the hard work or because she has catched a disease from one of the patients. We hear the working time is from 4:30 in the morning to 10:00 in the evening with two obligatory nightwatches a week, and only 3 hours of free time on Sunday, if you are lucky. We listen to sister Therese being scolded for fainting out of exhaustion - with the sole advice to drink more coffee! We see her wiping the sweat from her brow while being reprimanded for working too slowly. We are watching her executing all the most unattractive and/or demanding services in the profession of a nurse: changing bedpans, working nightshifts, washing sick people, comforting dying people and their families. And then, we see her taking short breaks at open windows, gasping for air. And we witness her secret little ritual that helps her toughing it all out. How could you make it any clearer?

“It would have further revealed the ridiculousness of the situation.”

The thing is, it is absolutely not ridiculous to sister Therese, and maybe it is not to most people who suffer from serious diseases. It’s the “why me”? (All of the other nurses and deaconesses did the same and didn’t get ill - there must be a cause it’s me!)

“But really, they shouldn’t have used her for this storyline at all. She already had her “cross to bear”, it’s ridiculous how they kept piling on the suffering just to give a viewer a faint feeling of “oh, how sad, what a pity”.

I’m absolutely with you here! You just don’t let sooo much bad things happen to a character who has not done anything wrong at all and without the faintest hint of redeeming. And if you choose to do nonetheless, you should justify it really really well - make up a “just like Jesus himself” comparison or “to good for this sinful earth” arc. But to simply drop the whole character, more or less, without being more to her in the end than being a ploy to show Tuberkulin doesn’t work - and of course, a queerbait kiss for the trailer - that is not okay! (A pity, since she was such an interesting, complex and very original character… I’d have watched a whole series with her as the leading part!)

But so the whole storyline was horrendously over-dramatized. It would have worked out absolutely fine to just let her be an over-worked deaconess that pays for her charity with death at a young age - and all modern medicine (at this time) couldn’t save her. “She saved others, herself she could not save!” It is a tale that has been all too true. And it is absolutely worth telling and bringing back to people’s minds: modern medicine and hospitals owe so much to people who worked (and work today, still) out of a spiritual drive, out of simple charity who never got any thanks nor fame.

“Making one of the other nurses the patient zero for Koch’s treatment would have worked just as well for that particular point. Using Therese was a cheap ploy to garner a little more sympathy/investment which is downright cruel considering that they had no intention of steering off the predictable “solution”.”

I don’t think one of the other nurses as patient zero would have worked “just as well”. We as the audience are more invested in Sister Therese because we know too little (mostly, not even the names) of the other nurses/deaconesses. Yet, I too, am not happy at all it’s the one queer character in the series who catches the deadly disease. Sigh. This is not what you call representation.

“They didn’t even give Therese a few last words or meaningful conversation or… anything, really. She was a mere prop to deliver Ida some money and a slight change of heart to the head nurse. Eh, no thanks.”

That was so cruel! It would have costed them a minute or so of air time to just let her have some conciliatory last conversation and a nice funeral eulogy. And she isn’t even very useful for Ida in terms of financial help: we see the very small, very light bag with the savings of her life time that will Ida only buy the ticket to Switzerland and nothing more. And the exact cause/point of the “change of heart” of matron Martha isn’t shown to us, we can only speculate about it.

“I’m sure they didn’t mean to portray homosexuality as an actual sin but they also did nothing to show that they cared much either way.”

Exactly. I think they could have done a lot here with relatively little effort - the character is a good one, believable, complex, original, representative (and the actress delivers a wonderful job!) - yet the writers simply did not care enough.

#ard charité #charité #german tv #tw self harm #sister Therese #Schwester Therese

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