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sevenkittensinatrenchcoat · 3 years

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Cats 1986 (and Others) vs. 2016

A post I made a few months ago comparing information gathered from interviews with different Cats casts has come up again recently and I’ve heard even more interviews since, so I want to add on to that a little and elaborate on the things I’ve already said.

CW: Some of the language regarding Demeter’s backstory is a bit darker than I’ve previously mentioned

So, I’ve now heard interviews from US Tours III, IV, and V, spanning from 1986 to 2012. They’re all Broadway-based, and the Broadway Revival went in a very different direction, but the three tours were all very similar to each other.

In both the tours and in 2016, the cast was sat down before rehearsals to hear the “story of Cats”. However, this meant two completely different things. The Tour casts were told the plot of the show, who their characters were and what they were meant to be doing. The 2016 was told the story of how the show Cats was created, how ALW had the idea and made a show out of it. No mention of the story and characters. This means that the Tour casts were given useful information for building their characters, while the 2016 cast got something that was interesting but did nothing to help them do their jobs in the present. More emphasis was put on the show’s legacy than on how to actually perform it. Trevor Nunn did the 2016 explaining, I believe, and it sounds like he was on an ego trip, talking about what he did instead of what the cast was supposed to do. Trevor Nunn is one of the few people who knows how the show works, so this is quite frustrating.

Though the Tour cast was given a whole story, most of them only remembered the perspectives of their own characters. The point of learning the plot was so that they knew what they were doing. It wasn’t supposed to matter to the audience. So, everyone mainly focused on their own jobs. But, everyone knew Demeter’s backstory, because it was the first thing they were told and it caught their attention. It almost became a meme that the first sentence of the plot was “Demeter was raped by Macavity”.

The story begins with Demeter having just escaped from Macavity. He kidnapped and raped her. Though she didn’t want it, she kind of enjoyed the sex, which messed with her head quite a bit. Bomba went through the exact same thing, but because she enjoyed it, she acts like the whole thing was nothing more than an annoyance. The two react to the same situation in different ways.

Jacob Brent was either given a toned down version of the story (he mentions kidnapping, but not rape), or he chose to give a toned down version to avoid the uncomfortable subject.

The 2016 knew that Macavity and Demeter had some sort of backstory, but they weren’t very clear on exactly what happened. They decided that they’d had an abusive relationship, but that the whole thing was consensual and there was no kidnapping, because the only element of this story that the audience can pick up without context is that there was some sort of sexual relationship between Macavity and Demeter, but she’s now afraid of him.

At least one cast member said that Macavity was a rapist, but she didn’t elaborate.

This messed with Demeter’s character far more than anyone expected. The rape element honestly isn’t necessary. Demeter and Macavity had some sort of sex, but it could’ve been consensual, with Demeter enjoying the sex but hating the man. That’s actually what Gillian Lynne seemed to have implied in interviews. However, the kidnapping part of the backstory is important, because it establishes the connection between Demeter and Grizabella. While hiding from Macavity, right before the story begins, Demeter sees Grizabella on the Bad Side of Town. Due to not being a Jellicle before this night, she doesn’t know who she is, and therefore has no bias against her. She just sees this woman living on the streets, humans wondering aloud why she isn’t dead, and felt sympathy for her.

So, when Grizabella appears at the ball and everyone hates her, Demeter wants to intervene, but she doesn’t want to upset her new friends. She came to the Jellicles for protection and is afraid of them rejecting her for siding with their enemy. Still, she tells the tribe what she knows about Griz, possibly trying to convince them to be nicer to her, but it doesn’t work and Demeter just starts following the crowd.

The lyrics Demeter sings, by themselves, are musical exposition that doesn’t imply sympathy. A line like “You’d really have thought she’d ought to be dead” sounds like it could be played as an insult. The words can either mean “I’m surprising the poor thing’s still alive in her condition” or “Why can’t the bitch fuck off and die already?”. Without the context of Demeter’s backstory, Kim Faure picked the latter, when with the context, it’s clearly meant to be the former. So, Demeter’s delivery of her lines in Glamour Cat in 2016 is venomous, almost sadistic.

Later on, towards the end of act one, 2016 Demeter reaches out to Grizabella like she does in most other versions, despite the earlier delivery. What made her change gears? I have no idea.

So, there was a lot of insight on Demeter. She’s the character with the most detailed backstory, making her the closest thing the show has to a protagonist.

Another character that gets a lot of attention, as he demands, is Tugger. Many Tugger actors were interviewed. I think he’s the favorite character of the host of the podcast. Different Tuggers from different eras responded to certain topics differently. Tuggers from the 1980s were unaware that Tugger was commonly interpreted as Not Straight and that Tuggoffelees is a thing. But, the more recent the show their from, the more they’re aware of and interested in the topic. The Tour V Tugger joined very late, during the last few years of the tour. He had access to the internet and could see what the fandom was up to. He played Tugger as ambiguously bi and, though he hadn’t thought of it at the time, liked the idea of the Tuggoffelees pairing. Tyler Hanes, 2016 Tugger, was the only one interviewed who played Tuggoffelees on purpose.

Tyler Hanes was very interesting. He watched the 1998 film while preparing for the role and didn’t seem to like it very much. He wanted his version of Tugger to be his own and avoided taking inspiration from any other version. John Partridge’s Tugger and Hanes’ Tugger being so different from each other might’ve been deliberate.

But, the choreography is what really messed with Tugger’s character. The host of the podcast mentioned Tugger’s pelvic thrusts and Hanes said that he wanted to do that sort of thing, but the new choreography removed all of it. He couldn’t make Tugger as horny or sexy as he wanted to. It was a key part of the character, but the choreography just wouldn’t let it happen. The result is that a bunch of queens fangirl over Tugger, but because Tugger’s defining trait in his number is being vain and obnoxious, the reason why he, of all toms, is considering the sexiest is completely lost. He’s just a dick to everyone (except Misto) and they love him anyway.

Other Tuggers do act like assholes during the number, but it’s not the focus. The lyrics are about Tugger being difficult, but the choreography, often to a comedic degree, isn’t about that. The message of Lynne’s choreography is that DESPITE Tugger being obnoxious, he’s a sex god and that’s what matters to his fans. Blankenbuehlers’s choreography mainly focuses on Tugger being obnoxious, which is a better match to the lyrics, but it makes the character less likable.

Also, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The two most sexualized numbers are Tugger’s and Macavity’s. Tugger’s number is about a man being sexy. Macavity’s number has two women being sexy. Blankenbuehler redid Tugger’s number, toning down the sexuality, but he left Macavity alone completely, so it’s as sexual as it always is. Male sexuality needs to be toned down, but female sexuality is fine. This is what happens when a woman is replaced with a straight dude. I doubt it was done on purpose, but there was definitely some subconscious bias going on there.

The way the casts talk about the two choreographers is also different. Both of them are treated as the experts on the show, more like how a director is normally treated. But, how well they filled that role varied. Lynne could explain what every single move meant. Those who worked with her knew exactly what they were doing. Nobody has ever described any of Blankenbuehler’s choreography with the same detail. In numbers in 2016 that Blankenbuehler left alone, even without Lynne present at all, everything was clearly explained. Skimble actors, since Skimble’s number wasn’t altered much, describe people who’d worked with Lynne talking them through the choreography. No one talked about Blankenbuehler’s work like that. Every move of Lynne’s Jellicle Ball apparently represented something. Blankenbuehler’s Jellicle Ball looks fine, but there isn’t that level of detail.

The rehearsals of the the choreography were paced differently as well. 2016 was apparently put together in something of a hurry. Most Cats rehearsals begin with several days of the cast studying cats and learning how to move like them. 2016 devoted only a few hours to this. Gillian Lynne reportedly visited a rehearsal and was upset the none of the dancers knew how to move like cats. Cats has unique choreography in a unique cat-like style, but the 2016 team had no time to practice it, so they often come across as a bit too human. They’re talented human dancers, but they’re not very cat-like. Blankenbuehler’s choreography is often in a different, more modern urban style, that doesn’t seem like it was done with cat-like movement in mind.

I don’t hate Blankenbuehler. In behind the scenes stuff, he seems like a nice guy that the team liked working with. But, I don’t think he really understood what his role was. He was a choreographer and he did choreography. This would’ve been fine, even great for any other show, but not Cats.

Most modern musical theatre is based on opera. Characters sing about their feelings and that tells the story. The added element of dance takes the feelings of the song and amplifies them. The actors are emoting with their entire bodies in a larger-than-life way that creates an emotional intensity that audiences can empathize with. The music makes the audience feel what the characters are feeling in a way nothing else really can. Music is kind of magical. You hear a certain melody with certain instruments, and suddenly you’re happy, or sad, or angry.

This, by the way, is why going for realism in musicals is a terrible idea. Musicals don’t exist in physical reality. They exist on an emotional level that realism takes away from.

Cats rarely works like opera. The lyrics are mainly just adaptations of whimsical poems, so they don’t tell you much of anything. Memory, which features original lyrics and no dancing is an exception to this rule. In general, because they’re not dance roles, Grizabella and Old Deuteronomy have to use music and song lyrics to play their parts in the story. Jemima also does this whenever she does something connected to either one of them.

But, Cats is normally more of a ballet than an opera. Ballet tells a story purely through dance. Because the lyrics in Cats matter so rarely, it ends up working like a ballet, because the dance, unrelated to the poems, means something. It’s still a heightened reality where music invokes emotions and actors emote with their whole bodies, like in other musicals, but instead of the dance being an amplifier, it’s the storyteller.

ALW really liked a bunch of poems and wanted to put them to music. The result was a bunch of songs with a similar them but no real connection to each other. That works as a concept album, but Webber wanted a musical, an actual show where people danced to his concept album. He didn’t care about the story and didn’t expect anyone else to.

But, other people cared about the story. No one knew how to make a musical that’s not about something. Trevor Nunn added Memory and the storyline with Grizabella as an emotional centerpiece. There wasn’t a clear plot, but, on an emotional level, it now felt like something was actually happening. Gillian Lynne had no idea how to choreograph a musical about nothing, so she didn’t. She came up with her own interpretations of things and made the show about something. Several somethings, in fact. Victoria is going through puberty and discovering her sexuality. Demeter is recovering from an abusive sexual experience, with Bomba having a different attitude towards being in the same situation. The women in the story were given detailed story arcs that often revolved around their sexuality.

How sexuality is portrayed in Cats could be its own essay.

Anyway, Cats tells its story with a unique style of choreography. Because the choreographer is the story teller, Lynne had a lot of influence over the show. She was the one who knew all the details. Blankenbuehler was brought in to choreograph a show, like a normal job for him, not knowing what that would actually mean. He came in to have dance amplify the emotions in the song lyrics like in any other musical, not knowing that that’s impossible to do with Cats. The role of choreographer meant a level of knowledge and control that would normally belong to the director, composer, and lyricist. He didn’t realize that the show having any story at all depended on him.

So, he did stuff that looked cool, but didn’t tell the story, or that took the story in a direction that it wasn’t supposed to go. Tugger dancing in front of a giant mirror is funny in the moment, but that sort of narcissism, though funny, isn’t likable, and Tugger needs to be likable. He’s a major character and he helps save the day at the end by hyping up Misto. But, 2016 Tugger hypes up Misto because if feels like Misto is the only cat he truly respects. He has the same respect for Old Deuteronomy that the others have, but he doesn’t sound quite as sincere when he sings about him. He spends so much of his number antagonizing Munkustrap in particular that it’s hard to believe that he has any respect for him.

What can be learned from these interviews is that Blankenbuehler didn’t know what his job truly was and was there because someone important thought Cats would be more popular in 2016 if it was more like Hamilton and got the Hamilton guy to give it a make-over. Nunn was so proud of the show’s success that he neglected what made it successful in the first place, and the 2016 cast was rushed through rehearsals without proper instructions. Everyone tried their best, but they were all stuck.

For the most part, I blame whoever decided to have Blankenbuehler rechoreograph the show. Blankenbuehler did what he thought his job was and the cast did their jobs to the best of their ability. What really ruined Cats 2016 was an executive decision to fix something that wasn’t broken, believing if they made the Old Big Show more like the New Big Show, that would make people love it again. But Hamilton is no more like Cats than a cat is like a dog.

#cats 2016 #lots of cats tours #really long post #andy blankenbuehler is bad at cats #but it's not his fault #a cat is not a hamilton #gillian lynne #don't let her legacy die with her

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panharmonium · 4 years

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you can be my ride or die: a staggeringly long essay about a deceptively short appearance

(aka, pan’s personal depository of notes about prince william of ealdor.)

now that my fic is long since done and posted, i can finally transfer this monster piece of meta out of my google docs and onto my blog, where it can serve as an unasked-for, absurdly detailed, beginning-to-end analysis of my obscure fave.

(whose line ‘yeah, and i’m prince william, of ealdor’ is still the funniest damn shit i’ve ever heard and also the most shocking burn arthur has ever received; i hope he thinks of it sometimes and remembers that humility is a virtue)

(the BRISTLING DISRESPECT! the ZERO FUCKS GIVEN! i love him! please can someone else talk to arthur like this! he needs it!)

disclaimer before we begin: i wrote this over a year ago, as a character check for myself during the very early stages of working on my fic. i kept messily adding bits to it over the course of a couple weeks as i explored what i knew about this character and who i understood him to be, but at the time, i didn’t intend on posting it; it was just prep work for my own story-making. it’s still essentially just a record of my train of thought as i pieced this character together - i’ve cleaned it up a bit now and added some recent links to make it more coherent, but it was never meant to be a posted essay, just a collection of notes for myself.

be forewarned, it is more comprehensive than the things i’ve written about this character since, and it goes on for years. if you are not interested in many, many pages of super heavy in-depth musings about a character who appeared in one episode, now is the time to scroll on by. i promise i won’t mind in the slightest; i wrote this for my own purposes and don’t really expect people to read it - i’m posting it just to have it archived with the rest of my merlin stuff.

if you are interested in that sort of thing, however - hit the jump, and off we go!

i really love the episode where we meet will, though i’ve started to love it for new reasons since the first time i watched it.

the first time i watched season 1, 'the moment of truth’ was my favorite S1 episode overall, because it was the first time the Fab Four went off on an adventure together, and that was very exciting; and i also loved it because all the character stuff in that episode was so good; and i also loved it because look, all of us are suckers for that classic seven samurai plot, you know - i loved it in TCW, i loved it in the mandalorian, i loved it in merlin. not gonna get bored of ‘simple farmers defend their homes with pitchforks’ anytime soon. it is overall just a solid, self-contained plot with clear emotional arcs, and it sticks its landing well. it’s a simple, strong story.

nowadays, though, i also love it because of will.

i. will whomst?

prince william of ealdor, that’s who!

will straddles a kind of weird place in canon, because he feels like a minor character to the audience but is very much not a minor character for merlin, who has known will much longer than the brief hour we get to spend with him and who has spent his entire life with will as his sole friend.

but, because will only appears once - let’s start with a round-up. what do we actually know about him?

he’s a peasant farmer from ealdor, like merlin

his father was killed fighting for king cenred (as a foot soldier - these people are not wealthy enough or high-status enough to afford or be accepted into the knighthood)

his mother is either dead or absent

he’s painfully class conscious and doesn’t trust the nobility

he’s a “troublemaker” (the interpretation of which is...well, it’s left to the viewer’s discretion. fandom seems to jump to ‘fun mischief and pranks,’ though i personally don’t get that vibe from this episode. “troublemaker” in will’s case seems to mean more “doesn’t know how to keep his head down/can’t go along to get along to save his life.” it means when he sees something that he thinks is Wrong, he absolutely will not shut up about it even when all his neighbors are sick of him and want him to just let it go. it means he can’t stop rocking the boat even when rocking the boat makes everybody want to strangle him.)

he supplements his agricultural pursuits with carpentry. you can see in his house big piles of hewn timber along one wall, as well as a grindstone and a shaving horse, and when he comes out of his house on two separate occasions he’s holding woodworking tools (mallet, chisel, etc)

he knows about merlin’s magic - for how long this has been the case, we’re not told. it doesn’t feel like a new thing to me, but ultimately that’s guesswork.

he appears to have just one friend

that one friend is merlin

will loves merlin enough to die lying for him

merlin left will behind.

ii. it wasn’t what i wanted

so let’s talk about that.

merlin is asked “why did you leave?” twice in this episode, first by arthur and then by will. he gives completely contradictory answers to the two of them, and it’s worth remembering, before examining both responses, that one answer is inherently more honest than the other, because merlin is only able to tell the whole truth to one of these people.

so when merlin talks to arthur, it goes like this:

“why did you leave?”

“things just...changed.”

“how?”

*silence*

“come on, stop pretending to be interesting and tell me.”

“i just didn’t fit in anymore. i wanted to find somewhere I did.”

arthur has to drag this answer out of merlin, and it’s not because merlin doesn’t feel like sharing (i mean, come on, we know merlin; merlin wants to be in everybody’s business and he feeds off human connection like a starving man; he’d be thrilled that arthur was interested in his life) - the problem isn’t that he’s shy; it’s that he’s not exactly telling the truth and he’s trying to figure out how to do it in the least deceptive way possible.

i just didn’t fit in anymore. i wanted to find somewhere i did.

that’s nice.

it’s also a lie.

it’s not a total lie, of course - there’s an element of it that becomes true, after merlin gets to camelot and realizes that working for arthur is “not totally horrible all the time” - that he sort of likes the excitement, and the newness, and being somewhere where nobody knows him and nobody will judge him - but that’s the reason he stays in camelot, not the reason he leaves ealdor.

by contrast, when will asks the question, merlin gives a completely different answer:

“why did you leave?”

“it wasn’t what I wanted. mother was worried. when she found out you knew - she was so angry.”

it wasn’t what I wanted.

can we digest that for a moment?

merlin didn’t want to leave home.

not that he isn’t enjoying himself in camelot now, of course - which he conveniently doesn’t mention in this conversation, because will is upset with him and merlin feels guilty that he’s been off enjoying his new life while will has been struggling at home alone - but at the point of departure, merlin didn’t want to go.

his answer to arthur about finding a place where he belonged is certain-point-of-view bunk. he didn’t just up and decide that he wanted to run off and find a place where he fit in better. he didn’t leave because he wanted to escape a place he didn’t belong. he didn’t set off in search of adventure and a new life. it’s true that he didn’t feel like he fit in in ealdor, but that’s not what sent him packing. he left because his mother found out that will knew about his magic, and she panicked and sent him away.

iii. why did you leave

most fannish things i’ve encountered tend to interpret merlin’s departure in a much more generous light than i do, with merlin explaining to will that he’s leaving and will being unhappy about it but eventually understanding and kind of like...giving his blessing before merlin goes. this is fine, of course, but it did surprise me, when i started dipping my toes into fandom, because i never interpreted events in this episode like that, and i don’t think it’s even a plausible read, not from the conversations we’re actually given. the antipathy that accompanies merlin’s return doesn’t make sense under those circumstances, and moreover, from the way things actually unfold in this episode, we’re told, in order, the following three things:

1) the fact that will asks “why did you leave” tells us that he and merlin did not discuss it prior to the point of departure. there’s no other reason for will to ask this question. everything about will’s tone and body language in this scene indicates that he’s been stewing over this for a long time, that he doesn’t understand, that this is something profoundly difficult for him to address. and while it might be nicer to think that merlin sat down and discussed things with will before leaving for camelot, that’s not the inference we’re being asked to make here.

2) there is absolutely no way they wouldn’t have discussed it, if will had known that merlin was going to leave. like - if your only friend in the world told you they were moving to another country tomorrow, there’s no way “why?” wouldn’t be the first question you asked. there’s no way you wouldn’t have that discussion, at the most basic level, before separating. it just wouldn’t happen.

3) so, given that information, the unfortunate, inescapable conclusion is this: will didn’t know merlin was going to leave. merlin left without telling him.

everyone is free to continue to headcanon this in their own ways, of course. but this is what we’re actually being told.

iv. we don’t want your kind round here

the fact that merlin vanishes without so much as a word to his best friend goes a long way towards explaining why merlin is so uncomfortable when he first sees will in the street.

when they first encounter each other, merlin looks so apprehensive and wary, and the writers are playing it like ‘uh-oh, someone saw him use magic and now he’s nervous about it!!!’ but two seconds later, you realize that this can’t possibly be what’s causing merlin’s concern, because it’s made immediately clear that will already knows about merlin’s magic and isn’t going to say anything about it.

merlin isn’t afraid of being outed, in this scene. but he might, however, be afraid of the reception he’s going to get, given what we just discussed.

merlin just up and disappeared from home, and not so much as a letter since - we know will’s had a secondhand update, probably from hunith (“how’ve you been?! i hear you’re skivvying for some prince”) but he very clearly hasn’t had any direct contact with merlin since before merlin left.

merlin knows this was a big fuck-up. he feels guilty.

(and to be clear - i think there is a lot to be said about just how merlin’s departure unfolded, and what stopped him from getting in touch. it’s a complicated enough topic for its own piece, and it’s not quite within the scope of this essay, but suffice it to say for now that i don’t believe it stemmed from deliberate thoughtlessness or callousness on merlin’s part; it’s...deeper and more complicated than that. honestly, i think merlin looks back on this as like...the first major mistake he ever made in his life, his...original sin, sort of. and i don’t think he’s ever forgiven himself for it, either, but again, that’s a story for another day.) the point here is that merlin didn’t necessarily want to cause harm, but he knew that’s what he was doing regardless - he knew that leaving without a word was the wrong thing to do. and in this moment he feels rightfully guilty about all of it, and he’s afraid that his friend won’t welcome him home.

merlin’s moment of uncertainty is real, when will pretends to greet him with hostility. merlin is afraid that will is angry with him for leaving him behind.

(and let’s not kid ourselves, will definitely is)

it’s a festering thing that keeps boiling to the surface as we progress through the episode. it shows in the way will finally asks why did you leave, avoiding merlin’s eyes, the question laden with vulnerability. it’s in the exchange “are you going to abandon them?”/“what, like you did?” there’s real pain there, and confusion, lots of hurt feelings.

but.

despite all of that, will doesn’t freeze merlin out, when merlin comes riding back into town. merlin is rightfully afraid that will might not want to see him, afraid that “we don’t want your kind round here” might be less of a joke than it ought to be. and while all of the troubles that merlin is worried about are absolutely real and poised to cause friction later, the truth is that at that exact moment, when merlin comes walking up the road - none of it matters. will has been nursing a collection of hurt feelings for months now, yeah, but in the immediate moment, when it comes down to it - he puts them aside.

they both do. nerves, guilty thoughts, bruised feelings - they temporarily abandon all of that in favor of a momentary joy. you can see how excited they are when they reunite. how they start smiling at the same time. how they laugh their way into that hug. they’re so happy to see each other.

people get pretty worked up about ***That Time Arthur Finally Hugged Merlin!!!***, but i don’t know. i think it matters to remember that merlin had people who knew how to hold him long before arthur was even a flicker of a shadow in merlin’s mind.

v. why are you being like this

so they reunite!

and then they fight. D:

but what really matters is how they fight, because even when they’re having an argument, they never let things escalate quite to the level of interpersonal nastiness, certainly never to the level of cruelty for cruelty’s sake - just a few hard truths and a pile of hurt feelings:

“i trust arthur with my life.”

“is that so? so he knows your secret, then?”

...

“face it, merlin, you’re living a lie, just like you were here. you’re arthur’s servant, nothing more. otherwise you’d tell him the truth.”

the delivery in this scene is essential for understanding how these two interact with each other. it’s so telling. merlin and will are having an argument, and will is angry about everything we’ve already discussed, and on top of that, some prince is trying to round up a bunch of will’s neighbors for a fight that’s going to get a lot of people killed, and will sounds so sharp when he’s talking, up to and including the challenging “is that so?”

but then when he sees that he’s touched a nerve there and merlin knows he’s right, his voice drops those edges and goes gentler, regretful, like - he and merlin aren’t all hunky-dory right now, but he’s not out to rub merlin’s face in it, either. he’s not trying to “get back” at merlin for leaving him. he’s not like...happy that merlin’s situation is shitty.

vi. if i broke it (would you quit?)

we mostly only see these two in a tense season. they’re arguing with each other for almost the entire episode, and yet even in this at-odds state, there are little things that remind us of what they’re usually like - that they don’t want to be arguing, that this isn’t a natural at-rest state for them, that this isn’t what they’re used to. they butt heads, but they keep swinging around back to each other, and trying again, and trying again, and trying again. they never write each other off. they keep trying to make it work.

examples: merlin asking “why are you being like this?,” the implication being that will isn’t usually like this, that this isn’t how they usually act around each other. the two of them together in the background of arthur’s pitiful training session, coming right off the tail-end of another argument and busying themselves with their own work, but still reflexively hanging in each other’s orbit. merlin, even in the middle of a strained conversation, helping clean up the mess that the bandits made of will’s house, without asking or being asked, like it’s just the automatic, reflexive, natural thing to do. merlin using will’s proper name when discussing him with other people, but always the diminutive when they’re talking to each other. merlin following will every time will walks away; will doing the same when merlin’s the one who’s leaving. that moment up in the hedgerow, with will’s embittered “you know why,” which sets them to arguing again, except instead of it pushing them apart, it pulls them closer together - will climbs right up into the hedge where merlin is standing so they can sit next to each other and talk.

like. he’s angry! but the instinct isn’t to storm away, it’s to get closer.

i love that so much. i love how they’re starting to have another argument and merlin stands there and says “why are you being like this,” to which will, already upset, responds “you know why,” BUT -

but

will stalks up into that hedge and plops himself down right next to merlin, and merlin, without a moment’s hesitation, sits down beside him.

i love that. they’re angry with each other, but their first instinct is still to close the distance.

i wonder, sometimes, how much of that is a function of them only having each other. when you’re on the outs with someone, usually you can lean on your other friends, but what can they do? it’s different when the person you usually seek out for comfort is the same person who’s pissing you off. you don’t have anyone else to run to, so you can’t ever really storm off. you have to learn how to hash things out. you have to learn how to make it work. you have to learn not to give up on each other.

vii. she was so angry

the implied backstory for how merlin actually ended up in camelot is so painfully fascinating and, quite frankly, wrenching to think about, given how this episode eventually ends.

when will asks merlin why he left, merlin tells him, “it wasn’t what i wanted. my mother was worried. when she found out you knew - she was so angry.” this is telling us that merlin’s departure for camelot was directly preceded by his mother discovering that will knew about merlin’s magic. that is what ultimately prompted her to send merlin off to camelot. of course there would have been other contributing factors - it’s evident that merlin’s situation in ealdor has always been precarious - but her immediate reason for sending him away was the fact that she found out that will knew about merlin’s magic, and she was angry and afraid to learn that merlin had been lying to her about something that put him at risk.

“i wouldn’t have told anyone.”

“i know you wouldn’t.”

but merlin’s mother didn’t believe that, or she wouldn’t listen to him when he tried to tell her, and she shipped him off to camelot anyway, despite the fact that camelot is arguably more dangerous for merlin than ealdor ever was.

the web of how this played out is such a tangled mess. is it my fault, thinks will, before the episode even starts, desperately trying to figure out why merlin would abandon him like that. it’s my fault, thinks merlin, at the end, knowing that if he had used his magic sooner, or come back alone, events would have unfolded differently. it’s my fault, thinks hunith, realizing that the particular fear upon which she based merlin’s entire departure was utterly unfounded.

merlin doesn’t blame her for it, even though he has reason enough to be angry about it, by the end of this episode. he understands that she was just trying to protect him. but the truth of the matter is that she did make a mistake. she was afraid for him, and she saw danger everywhere, and so she made a misjudgment.

it’s the miniest of mini-arcs, but it’s there. at the end of this episode, right after will drops the Big Damn Lie, merlin looks desperately around for the only other person in the room who understands, and the camera rests on hunith’s face for one lingering moment, as she realizes what’s happening. when she’s exiting the house, there’s a shot where she pauses for a minute on her way out the door, staring back at her son's dying friend, who just offered himself up as a willing sacrifice to keep merlin’s secret safe.

she and merlin are the only people in the room who understand the real import of that moment, the real meaning of that gesture. they’re the only ones who know what’s happening, what it really means for will to say “i did it.”

hunith knows she misjudged that kid big-time.

viii. you can be my ride or die

so. will.

why am i even interested in him? what is it about this character that makes me want to write about him?

number one: i love him because he’s the only person we ever meet who cares exclusively about merlin.

everyone else merlin has met up until this point is either a) as beholden to camelot and arthur as merlin is himself, or b) aware of merlin’s “destiny,” which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but does change the way people talk to him and treat him.

it’s not that merlin doesn’t have people who care about him, but those relationships are not the same as the one he has with will. merlin is obviously #1 in his mom’s life, of course - but, importantly, even hunith’s immediate reaction to merlin’s uncertainty at the end of 1.10 is to tell him that he has to go back to camelot, that arthur needs him, that he’s “the other side of a coin.” this despite the fact that hunith has known arthur for all of five minutes and that merlin, in the moment where she talks to him, is in a lot of pain, and maybe it isn’t the most appropriate moment say, ‘hey, you absolutely must devote yourself to that guy i literally just watched lecture you about the evils of magic while attending your (supposedly magical) dead best friend’s funeral.’

and when it comes to merlin’s camelot network, well - he’s #1 in gaius’s life, too, but gaius also is deeply concerned with the greater good, with the future emergence of albion, with what merlin is meant to become and do. morgana and arthur - well, they don’t know merlin, first of all (really know him, all of him, the important bits) - they definitely like him well enough, and care about him in their way, but ultimately they’re royalty or pseudo-royalty and they have priorities that go beyond merlin, who, at the end of the day, is still a servant. gwen comes the closest to being on merlin’s level, but she doesn’t know him-know him either, and as time goes on she gets more involved with the Crown, with arthur, and with the responsibilities all of that brings. even merlin’s later friends all go on to have other missions - they absolutely all love him, but they all become knights, and they are as concerned about the well-being of the realm and the king as merlin is. even merlin HIMSELF puts arthur’s life ahead of his own - he defines his worth by how well he can protect his prince.

but will is the only person we ever meet who just cares about merlin - merlin the regular person, not the servant he pretends to be, or the legend he’s supposed to become. not the fake, non-magical merlin facade (which is what almost everyone else needs merlin to be before they can condescend to be his friend) and not some destiny-laden figure out of prophecy, either. will doesn’t know anything about destiny or prophecies. he’s never needed to know about any of that stuff to care. he’s always liked merlin. just merlin. just as he is.

that matters. all merlin ever does in this show is deny himself or be denied of the things every regular human being needs to thrive - love, acceptance, truth, safety. he constantly puts or is forced to put other priorities ahead of his own interests, to a point where now, by season five, he’s spent years defending a regime that oppresses him, protecting kings who would execute him.

will, in a display of true-to-character contrariness, upsets that entire narrative, because he does not care one whit about any of the things for which merlin is supposed to sacrifice his life. will gives less than zero (count them: negative zero) fucks about arthur pendragon, and he doesn’t care about camelot, and he wouldn’t know what “albion” meant if he heard the word. and it is refreshing - a blessed, beautiful, heartbreaking relief - to see one person in the world who only cares about merlin, for whom arthur pendragon, in comparison with merlin, isn’t the slightest bit important. arthur isn’t even on the map. he’s a non-entity. he doesn’t exist.

it’s a complete inversion of the way things are supposed to go, in this story. you know how it goes - arthur is the once and future king, and merlin’s job is to usher in his reign. "maybe that is its purpose,” gaius says, about merlin’s magic being meant to protect arthur, about merlin being born this way for that particular reason. it’s merlin’s job to save arthur’s life. it’s merlin’s job to teach arthur to be a better person, at his own expense. it’s all for arthur. i give my life for arthur’s. his life is worth a hundred of mine. what is the life of a servant compared with that of a prince?

will delivers the biggest fuck-you to that entire framework, because he doesn’t assess merlin’s worth based on what merlin can do for some random prince on the other side of the border. merlin’s magic wasn’t purposed for anything, as far as will is concerned. it doesn’t need to justify itself. it just is. it’s just who merlin is.

and who merlin is has always been just fine.

ix. am i the only one wondering who the hell this is

for will, it’s people like arthur who need to justify themselves. arthur with all of his power, arthur riding into little villages with his sword drawn, arthur and his bossing around and his “now, merlin!” conversation-interrupting. will makes no allowances for wealth and couldn’t be less interested in royalty - his frame of reference isn’t you’re the once and future king and merlin exists to prop you up; it’s who the hell are you? what gives you the right to be here? what did you do to earn what you have?

will, like gwaine after him, is acutely aware of the injustice of the reigning social system, and he’s not afraid to throw it in arthur’s face. he knows that people like himself and merlin and all of their neighbors are unjustly disadvantaged from birth until death, and he knows they’re disadvantaged solely because the people at the top of the social chain are greedy lords who sow no seed but reap all the grain, who do no work but enjoy the greatest rewards, who steal from the people with impunity and call it divine entitlement. will knows that he and merlin and all of their neighbors are considered no better than plow-beasts or war-fodder, and he knows that there is absolutely nothing they can do to stop the nobility from either taxing them into starvation or sending them off to die in a ditch - which makes him impossibly angry, and, unlike everybody else in his village, he’s not shy about saying so.

will is, at this point, literally the first non-villain to look at arthur and not immediately see some messianic pinnacle of human greatness - which is refreshing, to be honest, and fair enough besides! he’s evaluating arthur from merlin’s side of things, after all, which nobody - including merlin - ever does, and while i love arthur as much as anybody - for the people’s hero that he could be, and for what he is, sometimes, if not frequently enough - the truth is that he’s not good for all of his people, not yet, and he’s not good for merlin, not the way things stand right now.

will knows that. he looks at arthur and sees a guy with a lot of power, who also happens to rule over the the least magic-friendly place in the five kingdoms, to whom merlin needs to lie in order to avoid the executioner’s block, and he sees merlin deluding himself into thinking that this supremely unequal, extremely unsafe situation counts as friendship.

now, is will’s assessment of the situation a snap judgment based on personal encounters with an unjust social system and very limited knowledge of arthur as a person? yes, definitely. are there nuances to merlin and arthur’s relationship that he’s missing? absolutely.

is he wrong?

not really. and merlin knows it.

x. friends don’t lord it over one another!

i think about that line every damn episode.

over and over again, it comes back to me. i hear it every time arthur gets On His Shit and invokes power he pretends not to have, every time i see more evidence of how this supposed “friendship” between him and merlin is inherently imbalanced. it’s my favorite thing will says in all of 1.10, because it is so true and yet, most of the time, so unacknowledged as a dynamic.

we’re meant to love arthur and merlin together, and we do - i do; i do; when i see those moments that approach true mutual respect and care between them i am as swept up by the potential beauty of this friendship as anyone - but i still think about this line all the time. it’s not right, the power dynamic between the two of them. it’s not just about servants vs. royalty, though of course that’s a structural part of how it plays out. it’s about the fact that, in a real friendship, one person can’t just whip out “you ever say anything like that again, and i swear you’ll join her in exile forever” to shut down a conversation and cow you into silence. one person can’t just throw you in jail to spend a night “cooling off,” and they definitely can’t arrest you whenever someone levels a random accusation at you. in a real friendship, it’s not one person who has all the power.

but when it comes to arthur and merlin, that’s exactly what happens. arthur gets to decide when he and merlin are and aren’t friends. arthur gets to call merlin in or send him away. arthur gets to make all the decisions about when to listen, when to ignore, when to trust, when to believe. merlin can nudge, encourage, suggest, even defy, but ultimately, when you get right down to it, arthur is the king, and merlin is his servant, a dynamic which is compounded by the deadly particulars of merlin’s situation. the relationship isn’t unequal solely because of a difference in social class, it’s unequal because arthur literally has the power of life and death over merlin. arthur could (and would, as far as merlin knows) have merlin executed any day of the week, if he found out who merlin really was.

that’s why when merlin tries to tell will that arthur is his friend, will snaps, “friends don’t lord it over one another!” it’s not that you can’t care about someone who has more power than you, and it’s not that you can’t have some kind of relationship with them, but it is not real friendship if you think your “friend” will kill you when they find out who you really are. it is not a real friendship if you have to pretend to be someone you’re not in order to preserve the relationship. real friends don’t leverage impossible amounts of power to shut you up when you say something they don’t want to hear. real friends don’t say things like “you’ll be a friend for life if you do [x thing]” to convince you to lie to their dad while they go out with a girl and thus get you clapped in the stocks three times in a row, and then turn around and show their appreciation by letting people raid and ransack your house multiple times, throwing you in jail at least twice, accusing (and once nearly executing!) your loyal long-serving mentor more than once - among innumerable other issues. real friends aren’t “you’re my friend when i need you to be, but not when it’s inconvenient.” they don’t have the kind of power to turn things on and off whenever they want.

i love that will is the only person who ever acknowledges this, across five seasons of this show. i love that he spits it out immediately, without hesitation, the minute merlin tries to makes things sound better than they are. i love that he says it unapologetically, to merlin’s face, because he says it for merlin’s sake, after all - the point of saying ‘friends don’t lord it over one another’ is to say ‘that guy doesn’t appreciate you the way you appreciate him/this isn’t reciprocal and he’s taking advantage of you/this isn’t the friendship you want it to be and i don’t like seeing you settle for this.’ will is that friend who watches you interact with someone and then later gets in your business like ‘EXCUSE ME! I DO NOT LIKE HOW HE TALKS TO YOU! I DON’T LIKE HOW HE TREATS YOU!'

will knows that merlin deserves better than arthur pendragon, even when merlin himself won’t concede that point. merlin won’t advocate for himself, so will tries to do it for him. merlin can try to convince himself that arthur is a real friend all he wants, but will knows what’s up. he knows. he knows where this is going, if merlin’s relationship with arthur is allowed to continue on exactly as-is. will knows, from the very beginning, that this is a recipe for disaster.

[addendum 2020: speaking from a post season-5 perspective...will understood where merlin and arthur were headed long before even we the audience did.]

xi. friends don’t lord it over one another [reprise]

you know what real friends do do for each other, though?

a) listen - even when they don’t like what the other person is saying

b) care - even when they’re angry

that’s it. that’s what matters.

we don’t need more than an hour of watching will and merlin onscreen together to see that this is how they interact with each other. they’re arguing for most of this episode, and they’re both right, in different ways, but by the time they’ve had it out with one another, they both understand where their own arguments were wrong, too. they listen to each other despite the fact that they’re angry, and despite the fact that they both have very strong feelings about their respective positions. they care enough about each other to look past their personal injuries and accept where the other person is coming from.

merlin starts off this episode absolutely dead-set against using his magic to help ealdor, if there’s any chance arthur could find out about it. but later, before he and will have even officially reconciled onscreen, we can already see that he’s been listening to what will’s been saying, that he’s come around to will’s way of thinking, because he tells his mother “if it comes down to a choice between revealing who i truly am and saving lives - that’s no choice at all,” hearkening back to will’s “are you telling me you’d rather keep your magic a secret for arthur’s sake than use it to protect your friends and family?” and: “if arthur doesn’t accept me for who i am...well...then he’s not the friend i hoped he was” (you’re arthur’s servant, nothing more. otherwise you’d tell him the truth.)

merlin has been listening the whole time, even if he didn’t like what will was saying.

and the same goes for will, too. he’s (understandably!) bitter about merlin’s situation, about the way merlin left, about the new life merlin built for himself while will was suffering in a confused limbo of abandonment at home - and will also obviously thinks the Farmers’ Resistance is a total disaster, a noble-spun farce that’s going to get good people killed - but even though he doesn’t trust the camelot contingent and couldn’t give fewer shits about prince arthur pendragon specifically, he trusts merlin. he listens to merlin, even though they’ve been fighting. he comes back because merlin keeps telling him it’s the right thing to do.

they both listen, even when it seems like they’re just arguing with each other. and they both acknowledge where the other person was right, even when it means making themselves vulnerable. will comes back to help his neighbors fight a battle against hopeless odds. merlin exposes his magic to save people’s lives.

they teach each other how to do the right thing. they make each other brave.

xii. you just saved my life

let’s talk about being brave, then.

this kid jumps in front of a crossbow for a guy he doesn’t even like.

can we be clear about that? will doesn’t even LIKE arthur. he doesn’t particularly care about him. he doesn’t accept him as the noble savior of all mankind. he isn’t interested in defending the nobility, and he certainly hasn’t jumped on the camelot bandwagon. just because he’s seen that arthur wasn’t planning on sending them all to their deaths without risking his own neck doesn’t mean will is suddenly going to start flying the pendragon crest from atop his house.

but he isn’t going to step back and let a coward shoot another man in the back, either.

arthur’s still a prince, yeah. arthur’s still sitting at the tip-top of an unjust social system, benefitting from all kinds of privileges he didn’t earn. arthur’s still a crappy friend to merlin. heck, two seconds before that crossbow gets fired, arthur’s gone full-on inquisition-mode, interrogating merlin about sorcery, which, given that arthur can just go ahead and have merlin executed with a snap of his fingers, isn’t a great way to earn will’s respect or trust.

but you know what? when it comes down to it, will’s automatic, reflexive reaction upon seeing someone in immediate danger is to Get In The Way.

it doesn’t matter that will doesn’t like arthur. it doesn’t even matter that he actively dislikes arthur. will doesn’t even think about it, he just moves. instinctively. automatically. he isn’t going to let anyone standing right in front of him get murdered with their back turned, no matter how much he can’t stand them.

let’s all take a second to remember and acknowledge something in arthur’s stead, since i’m not sure arthur will do it himself - arthur pendragon would have been dead right there if it weren’t for a dirt-poor peasant farmer from cenred’s kingdom who never had anything nice to say to a prince but still stepped between a pendragon and a crossbow in the name of doing the right thing. without will, the story would have ended in season 1, episode 10. albion itself owes its future existence to a young man with no surname who will never be acknowledged or recognized for anything he did, not for teaching the future king a lesson in humility, not for saving the prince’s life, and certainly not for the greatest and most noble move he ever made, because that gesture’s success is predicated upon its remaining a secret.

this kid saves the entire World That Will Be. the show would have ended before it ever really began, if not for our man prince william of ealdor.

merlin knows that, and merlin never forgets it. but i’m not so sure about everyone else.

xiii. yeah, don’t know what i was thinking

let’s talk about defiance.

this kid is dying, and he’s still full of piss and vinegar. when arthur says, wide-eyed, “you’re a sorcerer,” will responds, “yeah. what are you going to do, kill me?”

what a power move. what a thing to say.

that’s not a question. that is a no-fucks-given, shame-and-blame challenge.

what are you going to do, kill me?

merlin uses those exact same words during his confrontation with morgana in 3.02. when he’s trapped - when he’s cornered and betrayed and angry - he reaches for the kind of defiance he once saw exercised on his own behalf, for a shameless bravery that burned itself into his brain. for the kind of strength he wants to channel himself.

when it comes to holding your ground in front of the pendragon dynasty, merlin learned from the best.

xiv. and i’m prince william, of ealdor

let’s talk about names.

william: from wil (will or determination) and helm (protection, a helm)

hence the common translation of resolute protector.

which, given the events of 1.10, seems very fitting.

xv. i did it

let’s talk about lies.

because resolute protector rings even more powerfully true when it comes to merlin than it does for arthur.

at the time of this writing, i have four more episodes to watch before i’m done with season 5. at this point, at the end of the show, merlin’s magic is still a secret. merlin’s gotten involved in a lot of dangerous situations, risking his life in other ways, but the one danger he’s never had to really confront is the executioner’s block, because none of the pendragons know his secret.

and the reason none of the pendragons know his secret is thanks to our boy prince william of ealdor, who turns his own untimely death into a last-second rescue operation by telling the Biggest Damn Lie of his life and then doubling down on it when merlin tries to tell him no.

will is the one who secures merlin’s next five years of relative safety. not from all of life’s dangers, of course; no one can do that - but when it comes to merlin’s greatest fear, the worst outcome, the prospect of being dragged out of his home in chains and murdered in front of an ogling crowd for just existing - will buys merlin’s escape from that fate with his life. merlin remains hidden and unexposed to this very day because will died protecting his secret, because will lied to the prince of magic-hunting and invited upon himself all of the risk and scorn and danger and condemnation that a false confession like that entailed.

i honestly don’t know how to express clearly enough the enormity of that moment. the momentousness of that gesture. i called it a bold and tremendous lie in some other post somewhere, and i don’t know how else to capture what it was. the thought of what it would mean, to be merlin, and to see someone throw themselves on the block for your sake, for your safety and your future and your freedom, when the rest of the world and every message you’ve ever absorbed says you don’t deserve to be safe, you don’t deserve to be free, you don’t deserve to exist.

it is impossible to overstate how much that matters. merlin carries that with him for the rest of his life.

xvi: i can’t fight you anymore (it’s you i’m fighting for)

let’s talk about love, okay?

this ep is called the moment of truth, right?

so here are some truths about will. in the time that we spend with him, we come to understand that he is the following:

a poor peasant kid with nothing to his name

a kid whose father is dead

a kid whose mother is either dead or absent

a kid who “people are used to ignoring”

a kid who’s been making his own way through this backbreaking subsistence-farmer’s life with no grown-ups to hold him or help him or listen to him when he comes home at night

a kid who isn’t trusted to protect merlin’s secret, even by merlin’s own mother, whom will has known for his entire life

a kid whose only friend in the world fucked off to the country next door without a hint of warning or any indication that it was something that should matter to either one of them, making will think he misread the only meaningful relationship he’s ever had, because if merlin can just vanish to nowhere and not even bother to send a note, then either merlin wasn’t actually his friend to begin with or merlin was his friend at one time but doesn’t want to be anymore, both of which options are soul-crushing

a closed-off, heavily-armored, hurting kid who’s been unspeakably lonely for the past few months but also angry and ashamed at himself for feeling that way, because how stupid did he have to be, to think that he mattered to someone, that someone would ever want him or love him or need him or miss him, to think that this time would be different, that this time somebody wouldn’t leave him -

and even in this state - even in the midst of all this -

at the moment of truth, he still puts himself on the chopping block. he still says, “you’ll have to go through me.”

he comes through for merlin. of course he does. the irony is bitter and beautiful - hunith sent merlin away precisely because she didn’t trust that merlin would be safe with will knowing about his magic, but in the end it’s will who gives up everything to keep merlin’s secret concealed.

not just to keep it concealed, even - to reverse merlin being outed. merlin had already been exposed. the deed was done! the magic was seen! it was all over - and then, miraculously, it wasn’t. what will did was the only way merlin could ever have slipped safely back under the cover of secrecy.

will didn’t have to do that. he didn’t have to lie about performing magic, and he didn’t have to save arthur, either. it would have been better for will to let arthur die, in fact, and it would have been better for him to let merlin get caught, too, because ‘maybe then merlin would have to stay here with me’ - but will is so much better than petty revenge. he’s so much better than anybody ever gives him credit for, merlin excepted.

the fight will has with merlin doesn’t matter to him, in the end. it was a complicated situation for both of them; will knows this. if he weren’t dying now, he and merlin would have talked it out and made up - will knows that, too. things could have gone a little smoother between them, maybe, and will still thinks going back to camelot is less than what merlin deserves, but it’s what merlin wants, and the mark of truly loving someone is when you want the best for them, even if it means you don’t get what you want for yourself. so ultimately, when it comes down to it, the truth for will is this: he wants merlin to have a good life. he wants merlin to be safe. he wants merlin to be happy. he wants merlin to be with him, too, but if he can’t have that, it’s no reason to withhold any of the other gifts he can bestow. if one of those gifts is freedom, if one of those gifts is safety - it’s no choice at all.

merlin is will’s one good thing. merlin deserves everything will can give him, as far as will is concerned.

xvii. the only place worth being

this place has been boring without you.

what a thing to tell someone.

what a powerful thing to say to someone whose entire life up to this point has been a litany of ‘there’s something wrong with you,’ ‘you don’t belong here,’ ‘you’re cursed/broken/wrong/unnatural.’ what a dauntlessly loving thing to tell someone whose entire life has been the message ‘people like you deserve to die,’ over and over and over again.

what a singularly beautiful thing it is, for someone like merlin to hear ‘you are what makes this place worth living in.’

xviii: the only one worth seeing

likewise it’s good to see you again.

because it’s not just “it’s good to see you again;” it’s an acknowledgement that merlin is the last person will is ever going to see.

and will is like, okay.

he’d rather be alive, yeah, but if he had choose - it’s good that it’s you.

xix: the only bed worth sleeping in (is the one right next to you)

the most devastating moment in this sequence, for me, is at the very end, when will confesses fear.

it doesn’t happen until everything else has been taken care of. arthur’s been fooled, merlin’s been safely shuffled back under the cover of secrecy, everybody’s been taken in by the ruse and sent away, none the wiser - all the necessary and important business has been dealt with.

only at the very, very end does will’s own predicament rear its ugly head. only after everything else is done does he even allow himself to feel it. he’s spent the rest of this sequence making jokes and roasting arthur and keeping it all together, but at the last second, when he falters, he comes undone for the only person he trusts, the only person who understands him, the only person in the world who gives a damn about him. his defenses come down, in that last moment, for merlin - and it could ONLY be for merlin - when will says, “merlin, i’m scared.”

we don’t need anything else, to understand their relationship. we’ve seen enough of will by now to recognize that he keeps the world at arm’s length, that even his walls have walls, that this is just not the sort of thing he would ever admit to. confessions of pain? acknowledging vulnerability? never. he’s not that kind of character. we know he has a big heart - look at what he’s doing - but we also know he’s had a hard life. he’s wrapped himself in layers upon layers of protection - snark and anger and deflection and sarcasm and still making jokes at the prince’s expense after being shot in the chest - nobody is allowed to see him open and undefended, never.

except merlin.

will is dying. he is so young. he has been so alone, for so much of his life, and he’s so young, and he’s dying. he clutches for this lifeline like it’s the only thing he has, because it is the only thing he has - merlin is his only friend. merlin is the person will loves best in the whole world.

merlin, i’m scared.

that is so unbelievably vulnerable. that is so utterly naked. that is totally defenseless, exposed, belly-up and barethroated under someone else’s burning gaze.

that is absolute trust. will would never have said that in front of anyone else. he would never have allowed anyone else to see him like that.

his confession is, like pretty much everything else he ever does, for merlin alone.

xx. your heart is on my sleeve

merlin, will keeps repeating. merlin.

how much do you have to love someone, to make their name your last words? how much do you have to care about someone, for that to be the only thing you can think to say, again and again, in your last terrified moments on this earth?

that’s a rhetorical question.

i know how much.

xxi: i missed you too

i think, sometimes, about will, when i watch the later seasons of merlin, and about how he would feel if he could see what merlin’s life has turned into.

i sometimes wonder how he would feel, if he could see how merlin allows himself to be passed over, disbelieved, disrespected. if he could see how merlin has started to define his worth in terms of how well he is able to protect Some Dude who doesn’t even know who merlin is, who keeps people like merlin trapped in the shadows of subjugation, hidden citizens in their own kingdom. if will could see how merlin has laid his entire life down for other people’s enrichment, if he could see how little hope merlin now holds for his own happiness, if he could see the way merlin in S5 has given up on his own liberation -

i don’t have to guess what will would say about it. i know how he would feel. if will could see merlin in season 5, his raging little heart would break.

i wish he were here to tell merlin exactly what he thought about it. merlin does all this self-sacrificing for the sake of his “destiny”; whereas will would think that any destiny making merlin this miserable was a steaming pile of trash. will would tell kilgharrah to get lost, and to take his questionable advice with him. will would tell arthur to fuck off - he’s done it already, in slightly less explicit terms.

does that mean i truly think merlin is supposed to abandon his mission and ditch camelot and run off to live his own life? no. merlin cares too much about making the world a better place to be truly happy with that kind of existence; he wants to change things for the common good; he wants to help the people he cares about. but merlin, as he tries to fulfill his mission, is desperately missing will’s kind of support in his life. merlin needs someone who is only here for him. he needs someone who is going to get up in his face and remind him, “you matter.” he needs someone to tell him, “you deserve better than this.” he needs someone who isn’t afraid to tell destiny to fuck off, when telling destiny to fuck off is in merlin’s best interests.

merlin needs someone who is on his side.

not camelot’s side. not albion’s side. not arthur’s side.

HIS side. merlin’s side.

xxii: he still is

the thing about will, then, for me, is this: i can’t minimize him.

i can’t do it. i can’t diminish that part of merlin’s life.

i don’t think it’s possible to overestimate his importance, frankly. merlin, when we meet him, has only ever had two people in his life. that is such an...unfathomable experience, for many of us. just two people. just two people to know you. just two people to love you. just two people, for your whole life.

will wasn’t just some friend. will was half of merlin’s world.

fannish pursuits that i have seen...the things where will appears are already so limited, and of course that’s completely understandable - it’s not like he’s a main character, or even a side character, by any means; i totally get that. but - so much of what i see is him serving solely as a set-up for merlin/arthur, or otherwise being shoved out of the way as soon as arthur shows up on the scene, or showing up only to be a receptacle for discussion about arthur and merlin’s developing relationship - even will and merlin’s own ship tag is 90% merlin/arthur fics.

and there’s nothing wrong with this, ultimately; everybody should continue to write exactly what they want and enjoy exactly what they want; that’s the fun of fandom. i mention these things here only because for me, personally, the whole point of will’s character is that merlin’s life is bigger than just arthur. the most important relationship merlin had for most of his life had zip-zero-nothing to do with arthur pendragon, and it still has zip-zero-nothing to do with arthur pendragon, after will is dead.

you remember will’s funeral at the end of 1.10? arthur has an entire conversation (a horrible one, fyi) with merlin, and merlin doesn’t look at him once. he answers arthur’s questions because he has to, but his eyes never once leave the pyre in front of him - not while he’s listening, not while he’s talking, not once. not ever. arthur comes, arthur chastises, and arthur goes, all without being granted so much as a glance, because this isn’t about him. this is none of his business.

the whole point of will is that it is possible for someone to love merlin and not give a tinker’s cuss about arthur pendragon. the whole point of will is that having someone love merlin without caring about arthur pendragon is, in fact, a good thing. merlin needs somebody like that in his life. he struggles when he doesn’t have someone like this around to advocate for him. just look at where he is in season 5 - look at what his life has become, when it’s been years since he had an in-the-know friend.

merlin suffers when he loses this kind of support. it’s easy to say that will is never mentioned again after 1.10, but there are real reasons why merlin wouldn’t be willing to explicitly mention him, and the lack of explicit references doesn’t mean we can’t still see him, if we pay attention. we see the immediate impact of his death in merlin’s attitude shift in 1.11. we see him in 2.02, when merlin names his fake tournament knight sir william and spends the rest of the episode roasting arthur to within an inch of his life. we see him in the season 3 opener, when morgana levels her sword at merlin and the first thing that pops out of merlin’s mouth is “what are you going to do, kill me?” we see him in gwaine’s intro episode, when merlin immediately cleaves to this class-conscious ‘people get sick of me too quickly’ stranger whose father was killed fighting one of the king’s wars. and his absence is felt, more generally (as is lancelot’s) in how quickly merlin’s life starts to spiral out of control once the only two honest friends he ever had are gone. their loss doesn’t have to be explicitly referenced for us to understand that merlin, without that kind of support system, is faltering. we see it happening with our own eyes.

[edit, post-viewing-of-S5-finale: and we see where it eventually leads, too.]

so, once again, as i said - i can’t minimize this character. i can’t overstate the positive impact of merlin having somebody who was here for him and only him, who affirmed merlin’s value independently of arthur pendragon’s fate, who knew and loved merlin without caring about a “destiny” that ultimately, in the end, turned out to be a cruel joke made at merlin’s expense.

if will had lived, i’m not sure we would have ended up in quite so dark a place. we might have landed in some other tight spot, sure, but i can tell you one thing for certain - will would not have sat quietly by and allowed merlin to throw his life away, not for camelot, not for arthur, and certainly not for a parade of empty promises.

xxiii: where you are, there i’ll be

the bottom line is this.

merlin spent the first two decades of his life with one friend.

one.

loved by one friend.

one.

merlin had his mother, who was there for him from the beginning, whose love was unconditional, who was an “of course.”

and he had will, who chose merlin, who kept choosing merlin even after merlin told him the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Secret. will’s presence in merlin’s life is the only reason merlin grows up believing himself to be deserving of love from people who aren’t his own mother. his presence in merlin’s life is the only reason merlin knows how to have and be a friend. his presence in merlin’s life is the only reason merlin is who he is - a merlin who’d spent his entire life without a single friend would not have been the same confident, optimistic, gregarious person who later walked into camelot and told arthur pendragon, “i’d never have a friend who could be such an ass.”

will mattered. we don’t talk about him much, because he only appeared in one episode, but it wasn’t “one episode” for merlin; it was closer to twenty years of companionship, of elbows in ribcages and smirks exchanged across the room and someone to natter on at, a person to sit next to and walk beside, in every season and all sorts of weather.

will chose merlin, and he kept right on choosing him, until he breathed his very last breath. that is enough for me to love him, to feel grateful that he existed. i don’t care how rough he is around the edges. i don’t care that he hates arthur pendragon’s guts, that he has a big mouth, that he speaks out of turn, that he has no tact, that he can’t suffer fools, that he has a chip on his shoulder the size of a minor planetoid and wings it at people’s heads when the mood is on him.

he loved merlin. actual, magical merlin; merlin as he truly is, merlin in all his gifted, unnatural, beautiful imperfection.

that is a desperately rare thing. that is worth celebrating.

#the once and future slowburn #no kings no masters #meta #<3

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nightshade-zoe · 5 years

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AWAE 3x06 Commentary

Matthew’s Radish ❤️❤️

Anne has a cold and she’s baking a cake. . .uh oh (for context in the books she tries to bake a cake for the minister’s wife at tea but she puts liniment flavoring instead of vanilla because of a cold).

Wow her hair is so glossy and the loose braids are 😘

Is Matthew going to have a heart attack ....oh no

Holy **** that radish is huge

She smashed the vanilla and yes they’re definitely going the book storyline.

No Anne please ask someone to smell the bottle 😣

I live for Bash sass.

Okay so I’m like a little bit whiplashed here. Last episode we saw Gilbert just suggesting winnie visit. How have they been communicating? Have they been on that many tea dates? It seems like they only saw each other four or five times after their first “date”. But I guess it’s been two months since then.

“But your mother wasn’t skittish” I’m dead.

No he hasn’t settled on Winnie. Does this mean Bash knows about Anne? She’s “easy to be with” okay I guess it makes sense Gilbert is stressed about constantly feeling things for Anne.

“Fond enough to marry her?” Bash literally slipped that in because Gilbert was talking about marriage last week.

“Winifred doesn’t have such expectations” dude you’re meeting her parents in the 1890s of course she does.

Gilbert you literally were considering marriage last week.

Josie doesn’t want to create a scandal yet her mother seems to be pushing her to it??

Anne crying over Mary my heart it can’t ❤️❤️❤️

Poor Anne is so flustered because she wants to not look like a mess in front of her crush. So relatable.

Gilbert, do you see any onions???

It’s interesting they showed this scene between Gilbert and Matthew when we barely have their interactions. Gilbert is denying it’s a special occasion when we’ve just seen him freaking out about his appearance.

The framing of Anne by the window is gorgeous. Also this episode seems designed the humiliate Anne every way possible.

Why is she sneaking out to go to Diana’s??

She’s going to confess to Diana isn’t she. This seems like really fast development for Anne who has recently been like I am the Bride of Adventure.

Yikes Minnie May overhearing this and finding Jerry’s gift.

I think it’s interesting and important (because even though I’m sure this episode will be painful) Anne’s crush is very much romanticized and infatuated. While I’m unsure about her realizing her feelings this early, the comparison to Mr. Darcy, the reference to novels seems in character even if the fact it’s Gilbert is sudden.

Can someone make a gif set of all the Cuthberts straightening up in front of a mirror.

Wow Anne really jumped to daisies. I definitely feel like they’re trying to do the whole dramatic teenager I LOVE THIS BOY AND WANT TO SPEND MY LIFE WITH HIM angst rather than set up her real love for him yet.

THE FOAL IS SO CUTE ❤️

Dellie and Bash ❤️ also oh my goodness he was knitting yellow socks for her.

Noooo Gilbert don’t belittle yourself. You’re an orphan and are incredible. Anne’s an orphan and she is too.

“can’t cook”.

How has Anne recovered from her cold this fast also?

They’re definitely going up in the hot air balloon.

Subtle reminder Ka’kwet is still in hell and we need to get her out.

There’s a stiltswalker. I literally wrote that into my fanfic.

I’m so scared about this cake but at least it will look beautiful.

Wow Rachel not making me mad for once ❤️

What is this ear pulling Matthew?

Also omg the white grub reference I can’t get over the throwback.

The fortuneteller and the smoke haha. I feel like this Anne would have more sense than to believe in fortune telling though?? I agree the daisy was more helpful but this is clearly just meant to amplify Anne’s infatuation.

It’s interesting that they spent so much time on how the fortune teller is clearly a fraud.

Diana please pay attention to and comfort Anne.

Aghhh I clowned myself I was right Diana was leaving because of something related to Jerry’s family but also they made Anne look this devastated over Winnie.

Also ugh it’s such a trope to have her see Gilbert help Winnie when she stumbles.

But also the handkerchief book signaling Derry thing was so well done.

The Rachel/Stacy development has been interesting also wow the shooting.

It’s interesting we have Prissy who is super feminist and advanced, Billy who’s a sexist pig, and Jane who is still figuring things out.

Wait so Mrs. Barry and Winnie are the only two people I’ve seen with parasols. I’m guessing it’s a status symbol? Something only rich people carry?

I hope Minnie May has her own storyline. She does reappear in a later episode.

DIANA A QUEEN I LOVE I SCREAMED. THEY KISSED.

But I feel like we definitely will see some sort of rift/problem given how fast this has been accelerating.

Also the musical theme for them (which also played during the scene by Diana’s house where Jerry quotes Frankenstein) is so so beautiful

No, Anne don’t go back to the fortuneteller.

Why is Gilbert so condescending about Queens? Also he’s not admitting that the Sorbonne is a dream because of money. Instead it’s the impression he thinks he won’t get in.

I’m learning so much about Winifred’s dad and yet I still know nothing about her. I hate when characters are so one dimensional.

“Can we PLEASE just enjoy the day” paralleling Gilbert earlier saying he’s just going to try and enjoy the day

What is this ear pulling thing we have now seen Matthew, Jack, Thomas Lynde, and Nigel Rose do.

Why do Gilbert and Mr. Rose pronounce Sorbonne so differently?

Couple points on Winnie. She seems to represent the part of Gilbert that was never content with the small town life and now also the part of him that is tired of fighting with Anne. So she really has been boiled down to whether he will choose an easy life with connections but no fire or Anne who makes his life incredibly complicated but extremely lovely.

Also it was interesting that they again paralleled Winnie stumbling with Josie stumbling earlier this season. (Post episode addendum her Mr. Bones scene weirdly foreshadowed Josie’s situation)

I swear Gilbert just visibly hesitated to introduce them to Bash. Also they really are making them out to be the perfect family which rings the alarm bells that either they are not or all they’re meant to do is be a foil for Gilbert’s current life/affections.

Okay it seems really extreme to have Anne call Gilbert her true love. Like I get they are trying to emulate teenagers but Anne is not like this and we already did this with Ruby.

“I want to believe you that it was true that someone could look at me that way. I never even dared to hope before” this hurts so much because we have seen how much Gilbert adores Anne. But also it hurts because Anne has just been able to accept family love and shes been told her whole life no one will ever want her. I’m crying.

But also I think it’s very important that this is a very idealized crush and is definitely emulating teenage fancies and the real realization from Anne will be much different.

I love all the eye/I puns and how this fortune teller goes against herself and decides to comfort Anne because Anne is just endearing like that. I think we’re supposed to simultaneously feel Anne’s pain while also being amused at the melodrama

Oh no they’re really doing this with the cakes.

Your schoolmate Gilbert? Really??? At least say she’s a friend.

I know they’re trying to make Winnie seem really nice but it’s strange she asks how Anne spells her name. It’s like it’s meant to add more weight to the visual way in which we see Anne comparing herself to Winnie.

Bash is so amused by the Winifred Anne meeting. I guess it’s also important Gilbert has told Bash about Winnie but still keeps his feelings for Anne a secret (even though they aren’t)

This cake thing bothers me so much. There was no need to take a relatively funny book scene, humiliate Anne in front of a large group of people and add to the already massive embarrassment she feels by having Gilbert and Winifred both be there. This episode just really was out to get Anne

Hmm so I think it’s definitely telling that Gilbert’s automatic instinct was to run after Anne to comfort her and he definitely looks upset when she runs off but I also don’t think he was super helpful. He clearly doesn’t get why she’s upset and also Mary would’ve been more likely to run after Anne and console her. I miss Mary.

Anne no ❤️ she’s hiding under the exhibit she was looking at with such wonder earlier.

Really? They couldn’t even let Matthew win. This is an adorable adorable scene between them though.

Matthew, Marilla how do neither of you realize Anne is upset because Gilbert is walking around with a super high class, beautiful girl.

The music when they get into the balloon is the same as Anne visiting Ka’kwet the first time + Gilbert taking the flower + Derry walking home the first time = new adventures?

Marilla on point “we are literally going to hell in a hand basket” “before I die, fly”

Yes Anne embracing her uniqueness ❤️

This is the most beautiful and joyous scene this episode and the music is excellent (ive definitely heard it’s before but I don’t remember which episodes). Well it plays when Marilla and Rachel head off to the oculist and Marilla tells Anne not to get into trouble

It’s beautiful seeing how Matthew and Marilla have grown due to Anne. This balloon ride is like symbolic of their relationship.

Passing over the first part of the dance scene which is clearly just an inverted love triangle from the last episode . .though Gilbert does look over at Anne after the dance ends...he also looks uncomfortable in certain shots with Winnie

I guess also “Seems like you’ve done this before” “I can’t hear you” parallels the first tea scene a bit.

I’m frustrated Ruby is basically the exact same just with a different boy who I guess at least shows interest in her

Also Anne dancing with Charlie >.<

It’s really effective that the scene with Billy and Josie is outside in the dark compared to the bright barn but also that you can hear the dance music and it seems garish and grotesque. Also FUCK BILLY ANDREWS.

Props to Anne for noticing something is off :-/

They do a good job portraying how rumors are spread fast and also twisted because it goes to people saying they saw billy and Josie

Hit him Anne HIT HIM . . .okay I guess I’m satisfied with yelling. Also I would like to point out everyone else looks shocked and confused.

I guess I understand why the other girls don’t get it given their different experiences but SIGHS. Also Diana constantly freaking out about Jerry when no one knows what she’s talking about

No Gilbert this is important

Okay but Anne’s references. Whose CABBAGE IS BIGGER. You don’t need a CRYSTAL BALL. Clearly salty about the fortuneteller and Matthew’s loss.

Oof she’s clearly jealous but also angry for her friend and I get that Gilbert doesn’t like being yelled at but also for him to just shake his head as if this is a normal Anne tantrum

Peep Gilbert looking back at Anne twice

Moody the mediator. I like the effect of everyone’s voices blurring together and fading

YES ANNE ACTIVIST WRITING but also im so scared about the potential backlash. I really hope they treat this story carefully because I’m so worried about Josie and Anne now and so so mad at Billy

#awae spoilers #anne with an e spoilers #anne with an e #awae #anne shirley cuthbert

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doompapi · 7 years

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A Letter to the Void [10/05/17]

Foreword.

This is a dump of feelings and thoughts I’ve been having. I’m not going to proof read this or try to make it like a real story or anything. It’s quite literally just a dump of everything swirling around in this black hole of a brain. I hope this maybe helps someone feel not alone if anyone stumbles upon it, maybe help them feel like they’re not the only ones that feel a certain way. This is just a raw account of what I’m thinking and I’ll try to keep it concise but it doesn’t have a focus and will probably be all of the place. Thank you for taking the time to read. I. The Girl.

I met a girl in November 2015. By the end of the month we were deeply attached and I know now that that was real love. You were my first real thing. I’d been involved with other girls but it never truly meant anything until you. I’d had all my “firsts” before but they were never as meaningful as they were with you. I truly did and still do love you. For a while before I met you I was in a nihilistic, carefree place where I was just doing things and I didn’t really give a shit about anything. Looking back I see how much you’ve shaped who I am now. You’ve shown me how to care about people and things in general. You’ve shown me how it feels to be truly loved. You’ve shown me life isn’t always dark and bad and sometimes there is major positives. Now that I feel as bad as I do I remember just how content I was when we were together. I remember how people would as how I was and my answer was never bad because no matter what was going on I never truly felt bad. I always had you and you were always hope and a light in the dark. I could be in a terrible place and we’d talk on the phone and in 20 minutes I’d be okay again. I can never thank you enough for that. I’ll always be grateful for that, and you in general. Every time we hung out in person I knew that’s exactly where I wanted to be. Every time we hugged or showed affection I knew that’s exactly where I was supposed to be. That was my home. II. Speedbumps. Alas, things aren’t always perfect. I’m not perfect, I’ve never claimed to be. Life isn’t perfect, it never claimed to be. You, were perfect in your own way. You have flaws, sure, but we all do and I believe they make you as perfect as you are. We’re both stubborn and sometimes we both have bad thought processes. I think now that that was the root of the arguments we’d have. We were constantly talking and things and I think it’s impossible to get along with someone you’re always around all the time. Those arguments are nothing to me now, they were always trivial. This part of the letter is mostly in case someone stumbles across this and they are going through something similar. No relationship is objectively perfect. To me, our relationship was perfect and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, even with any negatives that came along. But it’s important to note that negatives exist and they can play a part in things. These problems are called speedbumps because they may be rough for a little while but they always get smooth again.

III. Sisyphus.

I always felt a connection to characters like Sisyphus and Prometheus. Sisyphus’s whole deal was that he was cursed to push a bolder up a mountain for all of eternity. That’s how I feel in my head sometimes, like it’s a constant uphill battle and I can’t ever get a break from the climb or the fight. Sometimes I run out of energy and I’m at the point of giving up and I feel like no one wants to help me and when I try to cry for help it’s just a burden. I guess most depressed people feel like a burden. On my worst days I feel like Prometheus. I feel like my mind is an eagle and I’m chained to the rocks and it just eats me alive until I’m on the brink of death and then I have to go through it all again. I’ve felt these parallels for many years. Sometimes I feel like a Frankenstein monster with all these issues sown together to make this abomination that even my creators are ashamed of. This is undoubtedly the most negative part of this letter. It has nothing to do with anyone else but me. I feel like a villain sometimes. I feel like I’m trying to be good, but no matter what I do I upset someone or I bring someone down. I just want good things for others and for myself. All I want is to help and be helped. I think I downplay my problems to a lot of people. I honestly hate talking about this stuff. I hate that depression is part of me. I hate that anxiety is part of me. I would trade anything to not have to deal with them. They are and will always be my greatest enemies. Sometimes I feel like life is unfair, but I guess that’s life isn’t it? Completely objective and unsympathetic. Natural to the highest degree. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. Right now I’m on the latter. IV. Thrall.

I’ve been self-harm free for about a year and a half. It used to be a daily thing, a habit I couldn’t shake. I needed it to remind me I could feel. I still see the scars every day and I think it’s naïve to say I’m proud of it. I’m proud it’s no longer something I need. I’m proud of what it signifies but those are the only scars on my body I’m embarrassed about. The only scars I wish I didn’t have because the story isn’t one I want to tell. About two years I was admitted into a psychiatric hospital because I was on the brink of suicide and I was doing very harmful things. I recall being on the way to the hospital and I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to face it. I remember lying about being better to get me out earlier that the doctor thought I should have been let out. He recommended at least two weeks and I was out in just under a week. These days I wish I’d have agreed to stay, but I was surrounded with people like me. Kind people who were nothing but nice to me and the people around them. People who were going through bad things themselves but were trying. I won’t forget the faces I saw there, because even though they were in pain they were still smiling and they were trying their best and they were fighting too. I hope they all are winning. It wasn’t all good though. I heard unrelenting screaming in the night and saw more wounds than I wish I had. If I learned anything from being there, it’s to just keep fighting and trying, even if you feel like you’re failing.

V. Recluse.

I had three real friends in High School. I’ve fell out of contact with two of them, and I hope one of those two is doing okay. I still talk to one of them on occasion, though it’s not as often as I wish I did. He seems to be doing well and I hope it stays that way. I have a friend in LA who is dear to me but we also don’t talk as much as I wish we did. Ever since I moved to AL I haven’t really had any real friends, besides the Girl. I’ve tried more times than I’d like to admit but generally speaking I feel like most people lose interest in me. There have been at least 3-4 in the past year that I’ve tried to be friends with and they just sort of stop talking to me one day. Maybe it’s something I’m doing, maybe it’s them but either way it sucks. The Girl was a friend who never gave up on our relationship. No matter how bad I got she’d always support me and be there to try to help keep me calm. I’ll never be able to thank her enough for that. I’ve been clean for about a year and a half and a major key in it turning from an everyday thing to an uncommon thing is her. For one, I simply didn’t want her to see me that way. Second, I knew it made her sad. I’m very grateful I had her to help me stop, because it gave me a reason to. She’ll argue and say it was just me because she’s kind and great and that’s somewhat true but I simply wouldn’t have been able to do it if it weren’t for her support and presence. Thank you. You will never truly know how grateful I am because I can’t put it into words. Just know that for everything you’ve done for me over time I’ll always have a special place in my heart and mind for you. Not to mention how great you are outside of that. VI. Daddy Issues. My dad was abused by his mother as a child. I think that plays a major part into who he is today. I’d be a liar if I said his issues didn’t play into mine. My psychiatrist said my depression is most likely genetic (it’s going to be a fight for the rest of my life because it’s in my genes). We’ve moved around a lot, lived in five places throughout my life. It has its positives but overall I think it negatively impacted me. I could get attached to people, sure but there was always an end in sight. I’d always lose friends. My dad and I don’t talk much and for a long time I was scared of him. As a kid he’d yell at me sometimes and poke my chest hard with his finger and I think that made me afraid of him. We still don’t talk much to this day and I think I’ve accepted it. He left for Germany for three years yesterday and I’m not sad about it. If anything I’m happy I get to use his truck while he’s gone. I think that speaks for our relationship. I’m also intimidated by other males and I don’t trust them very much and I think that has to do with my dad. When I was a child I used to play with fire and I wonder if that had something to do with trying to get his attention. I also remember being upset at him at times and hating him. The first time I cried over something good was when I was an early teenager and I read a letter he wrote apologizing that he couldn’t be there for my fifth birthday because he was in Afghanistan. I have a lot of appreciation for how hard he works to support us financially but humans, especially children, need more than that. A couple weeks after I left the hospital he got angry at me for something trivial and I put him on blast. I called him out for never being there for me and only talking to me when he’s drunk and treating me bad most of my life. I tore him apart and I made him cry and honestly it felt good. He told me he loved me afterward and I believe that he does, I just think he has too many issues from his life and I don’t think he’ll ever try to wort through them. I could go on for a long time about this topic, but I’m going to end it here. The Girl was the antithesis of this. The Girl was always kind and good and even when she had her bad moments it was never an attack on me. She supported me and talked to me when I was at my worst. She understood me, and tried to help. She knew how I was and it never made her think negatively about me. I remember caring about her more than I cared about anything, even my dog. I remember never knowing what I was doing but she stuck by me. Before her my relationships were only like 2-3 months at most but it was two years with her and I wouldn’t trade those two years for anything. Two of the best and most positive years of my life and I can’t thank her enough for them. VII. Little Blue Dog. In October of 2016 my dog that I had for thirteen years died. She was very important to me and I miss her greatly. The house was depressing and empty for a few months until November when we adopted a three month old Australian Shepard from a co-worker. He and I spend a lot of time together and we had an immediate connection. When I went to a psychiatrist she recommended I get a therapy dog but we couldn’t at the time, and in a lot of ways I consider him my therapy dog. If I get up to go to the bathroom he runs through to keep me company. He’s always by my side when I’m home and he’ll listen to me over anyone. I read that in the first six months of their life Australian Shepards choose “their” person. A person that they connect with over others besides being close to the others. I feel and hope that that is me. He’s my best friend and I can’t thank him enough for all he’s done for me. I’m in Scotland for three weeks and I miss him more than anything else from home. I hope he still loves me when I go back. He’s the closest thing I believe to be a true angel, along with the Girl.

Closure. I think I’m done with this letter for now. Maybe I’ll do another next time I feel like it. Thank you for taking the time to real this mess and I appreciate the interest. A special thank you to the Girl. I know you might see this so if you get this far: thank you for all you’ve done for me. Thank you for supporting me and helping me be a stronger person. Thank you for being there for me unconditionally. Thank you for still being my friend even though our relationship is over. Thank you for putting up with me when I’m struggling. Thank you for being who you are and thank you for being pure and kind. You are one in a million.

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