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transsexualbloodlust · 3 years

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Shrek and SPN an analysis

okay i said i would do a shrek and dean arch analysis and i’m here to deliver

before we ~get into it~ i’d like to say that this started out as being based on my head canon that dean likes the first shrek movie and the musical (secretly) but instead it just became it’s own analysis of the parallels, I will be doing a very short explanation of why i think that after this.

okay let’s do the obvious parts: the both have layers, and they r both bisexual and homophobic (i will not take criticism on this i’m right and u know it)

in regards to the layers:

In the shrek musical we get to see shrek’s childhood and back story. The basic summary is that on his 10th birthday his family abandons him and tells him he has to raise himself, that society will never accept him so he needs to “build a wall” (emotional) and find somewhere no one can get to him (emotional and literal). Shrek grows up knowing he is hated by society and although he doesn’t try to outright conform his choice of being the monster everyone wants him to be and living alone was conforming in itself, we learn later in the movie that shrek is lonely and wants friends but is afraid of vulnerability and how people view him. Now I’m sure we’ve all read a million and one essays on Dean’s personality but you’ll be reading one more. Dean also gets metaphorically thrown out, especially emotionally, by his father and is forced to fend for himself, except (and this is why shrek and dean’s personalities r so different) dean has sam and is forced to raise him. (dean is the woman coded version of this arch and shrek is the man coded version, once again i take no criticism). Dean is forced to live on the outskirts of society, constantly hopping schools, knowing about monsters and hunting, and he embraces that role as a form of protection for himself. This of course mixes with the way J*hn villanises dean to himself, he’s verbally abusive (and almost definitely physically) and holds dean to such a high standard he can never see himself as good enough. Not to mention how his bisexuality is likely seen as something disgusting. So in order to save himself he embraces that roll that his father has layed out for him, to the point where (like shrek and his roar) is very much a performance.

okay so how are the plots similar/something dean can relate to??

well dean and shrek both exist within the outskirts of society, never really wanting to enter and seemingly content with the performance they give. However (in very different ways) their ability to uphold the performance is tested and they embark and a journey to be able to go back to normal life. Shrek has to deal with the fairy tale creatures, and Dean has to save his father. (I genuinly think a lot of deans dependency on j*hn had to do with how much he based his identity on the man, and even though he does care about him and wanted to save him, his dependence on john and inability to recognize the abuse was a part of the performance he had to uphold). They then both get side characters , both Sam (no he’s not the main character stfu) and Cas for dean, and donkey for shrek. Who push them emotionally and force them to explore the possibility of life outside of that performance. They then both assume the roll of heros, something that their self image never truly allowed for. And when they get back to their old lives/rolls they realize it’s not something they truly want anymore, and that maybe it never was. Deans is much more subtle because he always feels the obligation to continue being a hunter wich is so heavily tied to the imagine J*hn projected on to him that he couldn’t move away as quickly as shrek did. But we start to see it in season 10. Then we ofc get to see the parallels between the love confessions. 😀😐

Okay so there’s the obvious “oh no they hate me what will i do” nature to both shrek/fiona and deancas but there’s literally so much more holy shit.

Cas/Fiona parallels:

The way Cas and Fiona r similar has a lot less to do with backstories and more to do with the essence of their arch’s, how they’re used, and how they’re coded. Cas and Fiona have Very different lives, however they where both agencies of the status quo. Fiona wants to be this maiden in her tower and be saved, and she actively reinforces that by following the ideas of a fairy tale even though she truly doesn’t understand the purpose of what she’s going through. Cas on the other hand is an actual soldier of god, he actively fights to uphold the bible and bring about heaven winning, he works to reinforce heavens power. However both he and fiona don’t fit the model of their stories perfectly and in doing so r rebelling against the story. Fiona is Quircky TM, and a whole ogre, she doesn’t fit into the basic model of her story and the fact that she’s different is what causes her to rebel against the story. Her very existence is what caused her to question the narrative. Cas’s very existence defies the narrative because he, unlike most angels, cares about humanity (dean, like humans but mainly dean). He is supposed to be an unfeeling soldier of the lord but instead he ends up being gay for a repressed kansas boy which throws a cog in the narrative he’s supposed to play out and causes him to question it. And on top of that their personality is what pushes their love interest to confront the parts of themselves they aren’t really willing to embarrass. Dean being bi and Shrek being an ogre.

Okay so the actual confession parallels:

Obviously they are different, for one shrek is canon reciprocated in all countries (that i know of). But thematically?? what the characters r saying to eachother?? girl i’m loosing it.

Shrek is about accepting ones self as who u truly are and recognizing that that doesn’t need to be changed for u to be lovable. And Cas’ speech does exactly that, it tells dean that even though he views himself as a monster who’s driven by hate, even though he see’s him as his enemies do (think shrek seeing himself through the townsfolks eyes) he is actually driven by love and that he, without changing, is lovable in every sense of the word. More than that he’s lovable by what common society would consider to be the Ideal (angels being like 🤩 and princesses being 🤩). In this confession of love Dean/Shrek r moved to accept themselves as they are, Shrek in the moment and Dean later when he doesn’t kill chuck. And their loved one has their final closure to their story. Fiona is forced to accept herself as an ogre as well and Cas shows that he’s, like Dean, fundamentally driven by love even though he was told he shouldn’t be.

This is where we once again see the whole “dean and shrek have the same arch but dean’s is woman coded” thing which I will be getting into in a separate essay. But the basic idea is that Shrek comes to the realization partially on his own and gets final validation from Fiona where as Dean gets confessed to.

Then after the initial confession both lovers are pulled apart, deancas have the empty, and shrek/fiona are briefly pulled apart by lord farquad. In both instances the characters are punished for the fact that they’re in love. HOWEVER shrek understands good story telling and has the lovers come back together.

And then ofc both Fiona and Cas get enveloped :D (Cas in goop and Fiona in light)

But this where we get into the exploring where Supernatural’s narrative SHOULD have gone, (as shown in shrek):

After the love confession we finally get to see Shrek realize that he isn’t the monster society painted him as and that that requires absolutely no change on shreks part, he’s accepted himself and realized that he can tear his walls down. Dean goes through the tearing down of walls much slower throughout the seasons, because Dean has the woman coded version of this narrative he already understands found family but he doesn’t understand that he is worthy of his family’s love in return.

So in Shrek we see shrek live out his life with his found family, he’s had his arch he understands his worth and he realizes that he doesn’t want to be alone. Now as a finale denialist I will not be talking about what happens in the finale but we’ve all seen it and you know how supernatural doesn’t follow through.

This was so much fun i will be doing more later but I hope y’all enjoyed this <3

#god this was so cursed but so beautiful #I genuinly feel passionate about this now and will talk about it later #also deadass dean is the women coded version of shreks arch but he ISNT fiona #i hope u all liked this

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folderalconspiracy · 3 years

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Stop hurting people

First, I want people who are talking about Destiel with no knowledge to think about something. And that's who I'm talking to here:

I know there are some Destiel shippers who aren't happy, although I think you're mostly unhappy because you think this is the end...but I think you're wrong, and sorta you're being duped into that by the people I've addressing, who have decided to become giddy about queerbaiting or something. If you are Destiel shipper, or even a current viewer of the show, I'll know everything I'm about to say, and you might want to skip to my conclusion.

And let me be clear: I’m not a Destiel shipper, in the sense I really care about the relationship. In fact, I'm not really a 'fan' of the show exactly...I watch it, but often a season or two late. I just have caught up to 'see the show out', if you will...I watched it from the beginning, and I will see it end. And it's not like anything else is on. So I'm saying these things as a general, moderately engaged viewer of the show, not a shipper or fan.

If you are not a viewer, here's a ton of background about Cas 'dying':

You do not understand how this show works. Stuff is happening at the cosmic level, and almost all the players can immediately bring anyone else back to life.

And not only is death a revolving door, Cas didn't 'die' anyway. Jack went to The Empty, the same place as Cas, _literally earlier this episode_. And was sent immediately back out. The Empty is not hell...and also hell isn't hard to get out of, the main characters have wandered into hell (the actual hell) three times this season, once to borrow a cup of sugar.

Besides the Empty, Death can bring anyone back, and, she just died (We think?), meaning there's a new Death out there...although we don't know how that relates to everyone vanishing.

God probably _can't_ pull people out of the Empty it...or, least, we don't think he can. We're not sure. He's been upgraded a bit now that he has merged back with his sister. (No, I'm not explaining this show to you.)

Speaking of that: The end of this eposide had God erased all people from existence except the main characters. Probably cleared out Heaven and Hell too. The dead aren't going to stay dead, or this the most downer ending that has ever existed.

I mean, I get you don't watch the show, but you didn't even watch the _episode_!

As for the relationship:

These two characters have been in love with each other for quite some time. This isn’t me being a ‘shipper’, which would be something like promoting it or wanting the ship...I don’t really care. I am aware this relationship exists because it is clearly, textually, there. By both characters.

Dean has had worse reactions to losing Cas than losing his brother. (And had one at the end of this episode, although I don't know if the ten second clip you all apparently watched showed it.)

So, every single person who thinks Dean doesn’t love Cas is...hilarious wrong. It is maybe possible to argue it isn’t romantic on Dean's part, and it’s even more possible to argue that Dean can’t let himself go there, either out of some level of self-loathing homophobia and toxic masculinity, or the actual answer: He can’t let himself be in a relationship with anyone, because he knows it will end horribly, which is, of course, a thing I know because I watch the show. (And Cas literally said that thing in the very scene.)

Meanwhile Cas has said, a few times, how much he loved Dean, although he has tended to immediately backtrack in the way he did in this speech...saying he loved Dean, and then saying he loved everyone...but in this speech, he went back to talking about Dean. Making it very clear.

Other things I know, that you don't:

The phase ‘I want things I can’t have’ is a meaningful phrase as it has been used by Dean, about himself, talking about love, in regard to flirting with an imaginary women.

Dean recently has had a lot of realizations about himself, and some closure on his relationship with his father.

Only two episodes ago, God explain that this universe went sideways due to Castiel. In other universes, the apocalypse story (waaay back in season 5) played out as intended, but in this one, it didn't. Castiel used his free will, and the entire story, and universe derailed. And here, this episode, we get Cas confessing about how he learned to love due to Dean.

Thus, Castiel love for Dean saved the universe. Not metaphorically, or a shipper reading that in. That is a textual fact within universe of the show Supernatural: According to God, Castiel's free will derailed the End Times, and according to Castiel, his love for Dean is the reason that happened.

You guys basically just watched She-Ra and turned it off when Adora apparently died and ran online to start yammering about the show is homophobic for doing 'bury your gays'. Good job, everyone!

And I almost leave this out because I don't even want to have to say it: While it is a bit shitty for you, who don't know the character at all, to attack an actor portraying emotional responses in a normal way for a character, whatever. But it's incredibly offensive to imply this was due to the _actor_ being homophobic. You can attack the acting, because you...don't know anything and...came in with some weird assumptions based on whatever the clip said. But don't attack the _actor_. At worse, he's a bad actor. (He isn't.)

--------------------

And that brings me to my conclusion. It's technically a hypothetical:

When Cas comes back, either to be part of the next two episodes, or just to say goodbye, and when Dean manages either to stammer out his love confession or...not do that but somehow manage to indicate it's really there but he's not able to deal with it...

...how do you think all your clowning is going to look?

And how do you feel about shitting over all of this, when you don't know how it's going to end, and you don't even really know what's going on?

I'm part of the Supercorp fandom, and we, right now, have been talking about how we _might_ be seeing the buildup to the slowest, most epic slowburn on TV.

What if Supernatural beat us, what if they've been playing the long game for...not this entire time, but like five years or so? And create the slowburn to end all slowburns.

And _this_ is how the internet responded right at the end, by memes about being sent to super-hell for being gay, because we couldn't keep our fucking memes in our pants for two goddamn weeks?

So maybe all you clowns just...stop? Wait it out.

Because it's possible that the greatest Supernatural quote of all, which predates Castiel and certainly was intended as a joke at the time: And here we were thinking that, you know, we were teaching you and all this time you were teaching us, about heart, about dedication, and about how gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day.

...ends up being how the show ends?

#destiel #supernatural #gaylovecanpiercethroughtheveilofdeath

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firelxdykatara · 3 years

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Jenny Nicholson posted a 2 1/2-hour Vampire Diaries overview on YouTube today and you were the first person I thought of. I watched the entire thing despite only having seen about two episodes five years ago, so you'd probably get a lot more out of it than I would (although spoiler alert she was positive about the series finale, so... proceed with caution??)!

I just finished watching it, actually!

It’s funny, because I’ve been like... deep-diving into the depths of youtube and watching a lot of Jenny Nicholson videos (and also SarahZ and that ‘when posting goes wrong’ dude and hbomberguy, sidenote but i now know much more about the johnlock conspiracy and destielgate and various tumblr controversies and like msscribe shit than i ever needed to lmfao), but I took a break today to do some writing and then a friend of mine was like OH JENNY NICHOLSON’S TVD VIDEO IS UP, and I was like ‘her what???’

Anyway, needless to say I rushed right over to watch it. (I fucking screamed about like, the China Beach shit and also that weird af point-and-click game??? that was so fucking weird lmfao) I will say that while there’s a lot I disagreed with, I do have to give her some latitude because from the sound of things she watched the show almost entirely divorced from the fandom (insert ‘god i wish that were me’ meme here) and had a very surface-level reading that, I think, comes from watching it all at once and not getting embroiled in deeper meta analysis and just not caring that much about getting Deep into the show. Which I can understand, like if I hadn’t been watching tvd since fucking.... 2009 oh god I actually remember this because I started watching around when episode 5 of the first season was airing... I probably would be a lot more casual about how I read the show.

As it is, I’m an Elena stan first, last, and forever, so....yeah I don’t agree with her on everything. But I did agree in a lot of broad strokes, and I think even her ‘Elena’ section had some points to make, she just came to somewhat different conclusions than me, and part of that probably comes from my attachment to Elena and how much of that whole Situation that I saw through that lens. (And also I think she skates right around ‘Elena is a depressed and suicidal teenage girl’ but never quite arrives at that particular point and misses some of the finer points of her overall character arc.)

We did agree on some major things (like season 5 being objectively The Worst), but then she had to say things like ‘Stefan is the guy you would actually date’ (and also ‘it’s better than buffy’ which, like, careful jenny, them’s fightin words), and that was the point where I went ‘hmmmmm someone didn’t actually take time to think through his relationship to Elena and put a lot of the not-so-great points together’, which again I attributed to missing the fandom (and therefore the fandom infighting, so again I have to say I somewhat envy her experience) and not really caring to dive deeply into the source material. Which I can respect! But as someone who spent four years obsessed with the show, and another two angry at it but clinging for the sake of one (1) character, finally freed when she left (and so I do have to admit that Jenny’s actually seen more of the show than me, since I never watched seasons 7 or 8 [except the finale] and don’t intend to ever), I can’t help but be like ‘WELL ACTUALLY -insert list of things she’s wrong about-’.

And then there were things that I couldn’t technically disagree with, like her opinions on Jeremy, but I was also like ‘you don’t have all the facts, I love him’ so I was just that angry ‘I GUESS’ meme for a few sections.

Then again, pointing out that Caroline was metaphorically gay and being tortured by her gay dad who was metaphorically homophobic made me absolutely lose my shit laughing, so she also had some very good points, and watching the video was well worth the time.

I did have to laugh at the very end when she was like ‘I stan Julie Plec’ bc that, more than anything else, made it eminently obvious that she watched the show well after it was over and never engaged with the fandom in any meaningful sense. Which, again, I can respect, bc the fandom was batshit especially in those middle years, but Plec ran the show into the ground and I still haven’t forgiven her for it.

#jenny nicholson #tvd #the vampire diaries #asked #susiesundrop

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autumnblogs · 3 years

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Day 2: Symphony Impossible to Play

Picking up from yesterday, we just met Rose.

https://homestuck.com/story/220

Right out of the gate, here’s something interesting - another one where a character interacts directly with her medium! I wonder whose eyes she feels on her. Are Rose’s Seer powers allowing her to detect us watching her? Later on, it turns out that Kanaya was watching her all along during her intro. Maybe that’s who she senses? I think it’s possibly both of those, and a third option - Rose is a paranoid girl who doesn’t feel very secure in her own home, or comfortable in her own skin.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/223

John does a lot of roleplaying, and this is one of the earliest spots in the comic where he does this. Specifically, John performs a lot of his favorite scenes from different movies, and no surprise to anyone, almost all of the times he does, he’s performing either the role of a lover, or of a father. Malo, who I respect a lot, talks a little about John’s appreciation for signifiers here, along with some of their chums. I was going to say something about other points where John’s inner voice comments on the necessity of signifiers to make a thing itself (OR ELSE IT’S A PRETTY PISS POOR EXCUSE FOR THE THING) yesterday, but I didn’t have the thoughts fully formed at the time. Luckily, Malo will call attention to it for me.

This is another one of those weird things about the way that reality works, and it might all retroactively work that way because John expects it to work that way. Homestuck is full to bursting with symbols - everything in Homestuck is extremely abstracted as part of the art style, and also as part of the storytelling, often rendered down to some basic elements that make it recognizable. An example of something Homestuck uses as a symbol would be like, Mustaches - a symbol associated with Grandpa. Swords, symbols associated with Striders. The symbol doesn’t have to have any kind of literal logical association with the thing it represents, but we associate the two things with each other because of cultural context.

https://homestuck.com/story/225

I always liked Rose’s house best out of the group. There’s something deeply romantic to me about the premise of a wooded retreat far away from civilization. I’m pretty sure the Lalonde residence is based on Falling Water but I could be mistaken. As long as I’m thinking about Symbols, by the way, Cats are a Lalonde Symbol. Their presence in the story always evokes Lalondes even when they’re not in the room (which is not very often, as it turns out!) and by association, witches. Both of the Lalondes are witches in the sense of being powerful women who attain to that power by consorting with dubious and transgressive sources.

Rose is up front and melodramatic about her not so great relationship with her Mom, and it’s pretty much literally always on her mind. (Rose’s Mom is an alcoholic, and I should be clear that her relationship has lots of reasons to be not great, but Mom Lalonde deliberately being spiteful to Rose is not one of the reasons). I like to think there are a lot of these misunderstandings between parents and children and if that we were just a little more open with each other, we’d find that we didn’t have as much to be afraid of in each other as we think. But I might never know. Another one of my favorite series that has the inability of Parents and Children to communicate with each other as a central theme is Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion and if you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend you go do so.

https://homestuck.com/story/231

The presentation of the Guardians is so unsettling that in my first readthrough, I thought they must be some kind of monsters artificially imposed into these characters’ obviously artificial lives to create difficulty for them. Clearly, I thought the story was going in a completely different direction than it actually ended up going.

https://homestuck.com/story/236

Rose does not always think her cunning plans all the way through, something she has in common with her biological father.

https://homestuck.com/story/271

I probably could have mentioned this funny little guy earlier than I did, but Wayward Vagabond is in the story now. I’m not totally clear on whether the Carapacians have any greater meaning, but they sure are charming, and like just about everything that isn’t specifically John and his friends, they exist on a layer of the story that is just a little further away from just the text, and a little closer to the audience - they can enter narrative prompts, much like you or I would have if we were involved in Homestuck’s earliest pages. As a rule in Homestuck, the more influence you personally have over the narratives which change the material conditions of the characters’ lives, the more sinister and ambiguous you become. Luckily, WV turns out to be a pretty benign guy, but if you’re the sort of person to be reading this, you are no doubt aware of the fact that most of Homestuck’s narrators don’t turn out to be nearly so friendly. The Carapacians introduce us to the idea that characters in the story are allowed to be audience members and narrators too. So I guess, really, that’s the greater meaning of the Carapacians.

https://homestuck.com/story/272

Always enjoy Rose’s long, outlandish metaphors. Any chance to read more of them is a good chance to. (Although the main one on this page is a holdover from some of the cringy stuff in MSPA’s early days - some of it slightly racist, some of it slightly homophobic.)

https://homestuck.com/story/287

Andrew’s insistence on having characters like Dave rap at us, the audience, actually reminds me a lot of JRR Tolkien’s tendency to pepper his stuff with songs that he wrote for his in universe stuff. And while both are legitimately talented at their craft, as one of my friends put it, “I’m not a rapper... so stop rappin’ at me!”

https://homestuck.com/story/293

Jade is another character whose first post I forgot to mention, but here she is having a bit more to say than before! I think I remember my initial impression of Jade being pretty favorable, and then gradually declining until she got a bit more exposition. Perky people bother me.

https://homestuck.com/story/307

Another one of Andrew’s cool prose poems. I don’t mind these as much as the rapping, clearly. Rain and Strings are another pair of symbols pretty strongly associated with Rose, although I hardly need to tell you that. This obviously alludes to Rose’s mythological quest. I think it also foreshadows a lot of her worst decisions. Rose overthinks and overthinks and overthinks, and then by the time she should have acted, it’s too late, and she overreacts instead, usually in catastrophic ways.

https://homestuck.com/story/312

Dave’s room isn’t nearly as messy as Rose’s, but his bed isn’t made, same as every other Derse Dreamer. This is also probably the first place that we get hints of Dave’s fascination with death (he collects dead things). He’s specifically fascinated with his own death, and fantasizing about self-sacrifice, something that he ends up doing twice over the course of the comic, is one of the ways that Dave experiences masculinity. Thanks for that, Bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/320

Dave almost immediately fails to uphold his irony schtick within just seconds of our getting to know him. For all that he pretends to the same extreme aloofness as his brother, I don’t think there’s an insincere bone in Dave’s body. Then again, maybe he’s just getting distracted by food, of which there is a significant dearth in his household. Thanks for that, Bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/326

I will never get back the time I spent reading Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. Was it worth it?

Yeah probably.

https://homestuck.com/story/332

I think this is the very first time I’ve noticed that Dave has a nifty gaming computer with the transparent glass pane and the interior lights and everything. Like, this readthrough, this panel. I’m sure I mentioned somewhere that I get more out of this webcomic every time I read it.

https://homestuck.com/story/333

Dave and Rose are another character relationship I just enjoy tremendously. Their verbal sparring is one of the highlights of the webcomic.

https://homestuck.com/story/344

Bro’s puppet fascination tells us pretty early on that this is a hands-off, manipulative kind of guy. While Bro isn’t in a metanarrative layer the way that the Carapacians are, positioning him as a puppetmaster, controlling things from behind the scenes, still gives him the same kind of sinister ambiguity as one of the comic’s actual narrators.

https://homestuck.com/story/357

Far from being the kind of chill cooldude who kills with a straight face and doesn’t look at explosions, Dave kills a random bird and immediately feels remorseful about it. Poor kid.

https://homestuck.com/story/360

There is almost nothing worse than having someone perform interest in something you enjoy to try and influence you. Unfortunately, that is not what is taking place here. Rose is quick to assume malicious intent as she does a bit earlier when she tucks her journals under her bed because she feels like she’s being watched.

https://homestuck.com/story/369

Mom, sadly, giving your daughter oodles of presents and showering everything she does in ostentatious displays of affection is sadly not a substitute for earnest communication with her and your emotional presence. These two need to learn each other’s love languages. (Note to self. Not everybody enjoys lavish presents as much as I do.)

Roxy is a giver. That’s something that shows up time and again, especially when we meet her in person much later.

https://homestuck.com/story/377

Mom Lalonde performs femininity.

https://homestuck.com/story/382

Jade sees right through Dave.

In other notes, I think most of these kids would be way happier if their Guardians were more emotionally available, and less badass.

I’m going to come back to that and write more on it at some point instead of just alluding to it repeatedly. Maybe after Dave Strifes with his bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/389

Is Mom’s compulsive gift-giving because that’s her love language? Is she performing capitalism by giving her daughter extremely expensive gifts as a show of affection? Is it both things? (Roxy is never exposed to Capitalism except by the awesome powers of Dirk’s cached wikipedia archives, and her gift-giving tends to be significantly less ostentatious than Mom’s.)

https://homestuck.com/story/404

John roleplays some more.

https://homestuck.com/story/414

Here’s where I’ll say one of the things that I think is like a big deal, because I guess now’s as good a time as any. A lot of the roleplaying that John does, and the one-upsmanship that he and Dave do with each other, and Dave and Bro do with each other, and Mom’s ironic housewife routine, and the burial of Jasper in a mausoleum are rituals. Like symbols, they’re cultural touchstones that are ultimately empty when they no longer point to the thing that they signify. Funerals are grieving rituals. When a funeral doesn’t functionally serve the purpose of helping with grief, it becomes an empty signifier. Maybe this is how Mom grieved for Jaspers - I’ll have to check and see what Roxy thinks about it when I get that far, because I forgot.

We do a lot of stupid things in a monkey see monkey do fashion because we’ve just always done them that way, even when they were built for a completely different society, and no longer serve the same function that they used to serve. Big ostentatious funerals are like that, I think. Ideally, they’d give big families an opportunity to come together in mutual support, celebrate the joy brought to them by the deceased, demonstrate compassion to the grieving, and so on and so forth. I’m not prescriptively saying “don’t have a funeral” here, my point is just that funerals are one of those cultural narratives that I mentioned in the first post.

This funeral does not serve the function of helping Rose to grieve. It’s just kind of fucked up.

https://homestuck.com/story/415

Oh hey, Rose has more fish language attached to her - she earlier makes reference to her knitting-needle tech by saying that she thinks she could probably filet a fish with them. Here, she talks about having bigger fish to fry. Rose is associated with Water through her planet, the Land of Light and Rain, and with fish through Cetus. She’s also attached to other deep sea creatures in the form of the horrorterrors.

https://homestuck.com/story/420

I’m going to pause for now and post this since I’ve read through another roughly 200 pages of Homestuck this evening on the fortuitous page of 420. It probably helps that I started earlier than I did yesterday. Nanna’s about to give some exposition, and I already wrote my big brain take for the day so for now;

Cam signing off, alive and not alone.

#homestuck #neon genesis evangelion #symbols #commentary #liveblogging

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leahclearwaterdefensesquad · 4 years

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Other fictional werewolves (let's not get into Meyer's 'they're shapeshifters' turnaround, yet) are treated as subhuman, too. Is it more of an issue in the twilight saga because SM reserved that exclusively for non-white, native americans who would have/do face that disregard by many people in real life? Whereas, with others (HP, for instance) it's...well, I don't know if it's across the race spec but it's not exclusive to marginalised people (then again, JKR was exclusionary in her attitude)

Okay so this app tells me that I have a certain amount of asks in my inbox; however, there's one less ask than what it's telling me I have, which leads me to believe that Tumblr may have trashed your other ask or just isn't showing it (if you sent another one, that is). So if you did, I'm really sorry about that and it wasn't my doing, so I'm just gonna work with this ask, okay? Just wanted to clarify that just in case!

So first things first. I haven't really watched enough shows about supernatural creatures, specifically shows with a vampire vs. werewolf element, to give a statement on whether the 'vampires are portrayed as more superior to werewolves/werewolves are treated as subhuman' bit is more /across the board/ in the supernatural genre like you say it is (although I think you make an interesting and legit point that I do want to hear more about). I've watched Twilight and True Blood(a while ago) and that's pretty much it.

In answer to your first question, yes. Meyer goes every which way to beastialize the Native Americans in her books, whom are the werewolves of the series (and like you said, we're ignoring her little "they're actually shapeshifters, here's a last minute mention about the Children of the Moon" from BD). She writes it so that specifically the Native American tribe turns into animals -> makes their actions violent and their control short enough to the point that a domestic violence situation goes down (we're coming back to this bit) -> draws up the racist parallel that Native ppl, and specifically the men, are more animalistic and predatorial. Not to mention that domestic and sexual violence against Indigenous women (as well as murder) is an ongoing genocidal epidemic, so Meyer including that bit that draws a parallel to what is happening irl is so... 'Inappropriate' doesn't do it and a lot of other shit she wrote justice. (Here's a link about MMIW.)

She shouldn't have written the Emily/Sam/Leah love triangle (and especially the incident between Sam and Emily where he scars her) PERIOD because 1. Meyer writes that Emily forgives Sam and that they have their romantic happily ever after, which trivializes what Indigenous women face and 2. portrays stereotypes of Native men being violent and 3. you can tell from how much unresolved drama she creates for her Native characters (Embry's father, the love triangle, killing Harry Clearwater and placing the blame on his daughter, killing Sarah Black off page and all the grief it causes Billy and their kids, Quil's dad dying in a boating accident when he was a kid, and Quil imprinting on a toddler which we are so getting to) that she's a sadist for Indigenous pain (which is a bit more in general with the series than just the love triangle but I'm in rant mode rn and it needed to be said!!!). Like, making Quil imprint on Claire, a 3 year-old - what was the point of that??? Meyer wrote a lot of fucked up shit in those books, but making Native men be violent toward women (Sam and Jake with Emily and Bella) and child groom (Jake and Quil with Renascence and Claire) is some of the absolute worst, despicable, racist ass shit!!

The anti-Native racism becomes even more apparent when you pay attention to the double standards that the Native characters face as opposed to the Cullens. Let's take several incidents into account. We are to view the werewolves as having a lack of control over their tempers and their phrasing, as well as being violent and dangerous. The e.g. was Sam and Emily (see above), as well as Jake's mood changes and shaking post-first phase. However, the Cullens are characterized by their self-control and focus over their thirst and their general feral nature as vampires (Carlisle's god-like control to the point that he can be a doctor, Edward not killing Bella in Twilight) DESPITE a clear example refuting this - the incident at Bella's birthday party in New Moon! Bella was all cut up by the end of the evening because Señor Slavery Is My State Right lost his shit at a paper cut and then Edweirdo didn't pay enough fucking attention to not throw Bella into a glass table when he was trying to push her out of the way, which he didn't even have to do!! Then in Eclipse, his hypocritical ass proceeded to tell Bella that he wasn't allowing her to go to La Push (god imagine if your man said he wasn't ALLOWING you to do something like I'd fucking kill the motherfucker with a flamethrower up the ass) because the wolf pack was dangerous despite why he left in the first place in New Moon! There are more occurrences of this hypocritical, racist bullshit, but this is the clearest example to point out.

I've seen greater in-depth discussions going around, as well as papers you can just google and read, that have analyzed how much anti-Native racism is steeped into the series, which I would highly recommend looking out for. Actually I may possibly go back and find a few that I read myself.

As for the JKR thing, she wrote lycanthropy as a metaphor for HIV/AIDS. Also, take notice to how the majority of the werewolves in HP were bad guys and sided with Lord Voldemort. These werewolves embraced their nature, eating (I'm pretty sure, it's been years since I've read it) and infecting ppl gleefully, which was basically a parallel to the idea that gay men were infecting ppl with AIDS, because Joanne is not only a transphobic bitch, she's homophobic as well. You wouldn't immediately think so because she made Dumbledore gay, but that was more for the ~drama~ rather than legitimate representation. (See: she released that detail after the books were published so that it wouldn't hurt sales/PR, she had him crush on the man he would have to defeat in battle for the ~drama~ b/c if there's one thing bigots love, it's inflicting pain on minority characters.)

Compare these violent werewolves in the Wizarding World vs. Remus Lupin, the werewolf who was forcefully turned by Fenrir Greyback, one of the pack leaders who sided with Voldermort, and is ~ashamed~ of his sickness.

Anyways, I think you may be onto something here, and I encourage everyone to add any other examples that are relevant and continue this conversation. I'm sure there are plenty that either have to do with Anon's point or with Stephenie Meyer being a racist.

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watching-pictures-move · 3 years

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Movie Review | The Decline of Western Civilization series (Spheeris, 1981-98)

Many years ago, before I sold out to the man, I have to admit I felt a certain attraction to punk music. No, I was never anywhere close to a full on punk (I was, and still am, extremely lame), but I have to admit the anti-establishment streak definitely resonated with me at a certain point of time. (Not that it still doesn’t, but in addition to selling out, I’ve softened with old age.) Like many people I’ve found appealing the political conscience and mix of influences of the Clash, or the boneheaded energy of the Ramones, but I also found my interest straying to hardcore punk. I remember the first time I listened to “Damaged II” by Black Flag and finding it unbelievably abrasive and foreign to my ears, yet it was something I couldn’t get out of my head, and returned to the song and the album it was from a few years later and appreciated it as one of the most forceful expressions of angst ever recorded. I remember first learning of bands like X and Fear, and seeing performance footage on YouTube and being thrilled by the rawness and danger, especially when they had to fight off their fans. This footage was from Penelope Spheeris’ cult classic documentary, The Decline of Western Civlization, which for years was not easily available but I have now finally seen in its entirety.

The movie is structured simply, moving from one band in the L.A. punk scene to another, interviewing them in their natural habitats and punctuating this with footage of their performances. Songs are presented in full so we can get the complete experience. The first band we see is Black Flag, then with frontman Ron Reyes. They are lively on stage but it’s interesting to note how different the energy was prior to the arrival of Henry Rollins, who brought a certain discipline and muscularity to their music. (One of the songs featured here, “Depression”, pops up again in Damaged, and the impact in the latter is noticeably more forceful.) The guys here come across as aimless and destitute, living in a decrepit church where they’ve turned the closets into makeshift bedrooms, seemingly losing money with every gig. But they are also quite affable (you can tell the lyrics of “TV Party” sprang from these minds) and do not have illusions about their situation, especially their difficulty in getting gags thanks to their rowdy fans. These scenes play like a moment frozen in time, right before the band’s most significant period would begin. We move next to the Germs, and these scenes play like a car accident in slow motion, with Darby Crash’s self-destructive tendencies on full display. This was a short time before his death, which occurred between completion of filming and the theatrical release (his image was featured heavily on the promotional materials), once again giving this a lost in time quality.

Next we go to the headquarters of Slash Magazine, the staff of which moonlights as a band called Catholic Discipline. The frontman complains about New Wave, claiming it doesn’t actually exist, yet they come across as downmarket New Wavers who are slumming it in the punk scene. Yet their love of music and their work is obvious and the frontman does possess a certain charisma. Much of what we see of the punk lifestyle is squalid and dismal, yet the music of X manages to poeticize this condition. Their unassuming demeanours during their interview contrast sharply with their vigour in their performances, during which they do their share of batting off overeager fans. We get a burst of political conviction when the Circle Jerks launch into the libertarian anthem “Red Tape”, but this dissipates by the time they start playing “I Just Want a Skank”. We spend some time with the Alice Bag Band and then are treated to a montage of interviews with punk fans. These are shot in monochrome with stark backgrounds and a single bulb providing the lighting, which has the effect of bringing them and their words into sharp relief. We hear similar stories again and again, of aimlessness and aggression, the subjects using the music both as an outlet for their frustrations and inspiration for violence.

Spheeris’ camera has been largely nonjudgmental, yet there’s an undeniable sadness in this sequence. But lest I make it sound that the movie makes punk seem uniformly depressing, the closing sequence provides a potent antidote. The electrifying final minutes of the film feature a performance by Fear (who are not interviewed). The atmosphere here is hostile, with the band riling up the audience with homophobic and misogynistic taunting and having to physically fight them off throughout their set list. It might be tempting to liken their shtick to cheap alt-rightish provocation, but I think that robs their music of the proper context. When almost all their peers and fans adopt an attitude of “everything sucks”, Fear’s ability to find the humour in that mentality is kind of refreshing. It also would ignore the sheer muscularity of the delivery, which almost turns the music into a form of violence. The film is undeniably a fascinating document, but while Spheeris may have had the good fortune of turning on her camera in the right place and right time (even if she had to pay to rent soundstages to film some of the performances), it’s moments like this of pure exhilaration that cement the film’s greatness.

Part II: The Metal Years takes place almost a decade later, with a drastically new context and perspective. This time the focus is on the L.A. metal scene, which was a dominant cultural force unlike hardcore punk ever was. And this time around Spheeris’ POV is less of impartial observation and more satirical condescension. Taken journalistically, the movie is obviously compromised, particularly in an interview of Ozzy Osbourne that’s misleadingly edited to make it look like he has the shakes. I wish the movie hadn’t done this, as Ozzy is a flamboyant enough presence that he’s already funny without needing to frame him into gags, something Spheeris acknowledged in an interview years after the fact. Ozzy and a few other veterans of the scene are not immune to metal culture’s innate ridiculousness (the movie’s biggest laugh for me was Spheeris’ deadpan reaction to Steven Tyler’s extended masturbation metaphor to describe the rock’n’roll lifestyle). It’s worth noting that Spheeris asked her subjects how they wanted to be filmed, leading to such choice setups as Gene Simmons in a lingerie store and Paul Stanley in a bed full of scantily clad models. (Lemmy allegedly took offense to how he was portrayed, claiming Spheeris shot him from afar to make him look stupid, but I don’t think he comes across badly. He’s low key and unassuming in a way that contrasts him from the other participants, at the very least in terms of appearance).

The structure of this entry is tighter, using snippets of different interviews to flesh out different ideas, exploring the decadence and excess of the music and the surrounding culture. We even hear from the anti-metal folks, particularly in one amusing scene where a woman describes the dangerous potential of metal fashion with the solemnity of a cop or anti-gun advocate describing illegal firearms. Performance footage is limited to brief excerpts, usually for comic relief (assless chaps and a limp attempt to set fire to a Soviet flag are highlights), although we do get an extended look at a sleazy stripping context. (The club owners featured seem as much into the metal lifestyle as some of the musicians and fans, in sharp contrast to the genial working class types featured in the first and third entries.) The most notorious segment of the film is the interview with Chris Holmes from W.A.S.P., who lounges in a pool in alcoholic self loathing, which probably went farther in deflating the excitement around the metal scene than any single moment. Yet like the first film, this one refuses to lock into too narrow view of its subject and rebounds with a Megadeth performance that goes a long way in showing that yes, this music can in fact be good. (I should say that I enjoy my share of hair metal, which Megadeth is decidedly not, but the songs earlier in the film don’t do the best job of selling the genre. Although anything would look lame with assless chaps.) This movie is more obviously flawed than the original, but I can’t help but kind of love it. The fact is that the metal musicians and fans, despite being somewhat boneheaded, are also full of good vibes and fun to hang around (more so than the self-serious punk fans in the original), and the movie is quite slick and stylish by documentary standards, which makes the film true to its subject matter in a a way. I mean, you open the movie with Motorhead and I’m half won over already, and I haven’t stopped thinking (and smiling) about it since I’ve seen it.

The good vibes don’t carry over to Part III, which follows a group of homeless gutter punks in L.A. around another decade later. Once again there’s a change in context and perspective, with Spheeris coming across as more compassionate and maternal. The musicians here offer a more sobering, grounded presence. The veterans here, Keith Morris and Rick Wilder, come across as survivors more than anything, particularly the latter with his skeletal, emaciated appearance. The music this time around is almost beside the point, although we do get the sense that it offers the main subjects one of their only sources of relief. Their stories are similar. Broken homes. Forced onto the streets. Substance abuse. The movie feels like extended versions of the Darby Crash scenes and the interviews from the original, but with the grim consequences covered in the final moments, and the film’s sense of despair is alleviated only by the compassion Spheeris brings to the material. I can’t see myself returning to this as readily as it’s more downbeat and less dynamic than the previous movies, but it is undeniably moving, and had a profound effect on Spheeris as well, who decided to become a foster parent after her experience making this movie.

#film #movie review #the decline of western civilization #the decline of western civilization part ii: the metal years #the decline of western civilization part iii #penelope spheeris

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eurosong · 4 years

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Undo my ESC

Good evening, folks! If you saw my first instalment of “Undo my ESC”, the annual feature where I make a year’s Eurovision better for me by making alterations in each country, you might have thought that ESC getting cancelled had dulled my edge, since, comparing to usual standards, I hardly changed much at all there. Well, that’s because, once again, we have seriously uneven semis, and Semi #1 would have been killer, whilst Semi #2 would have been dead. Here is what Í would have done to even those semis up! 🇦🇱 Albania: The Albanian delegation had seemingly done all it could to wash its hands of, well, two years of comparatively excellent results with authentic, melancholically poëtic and qualitative tracks, namely Malland Ktheju tokës. They brought in Byuckman, in whose interest it is for the contest to become as generically “radio-friendly” as possible, and the genius who brought us lyrics like “this is love/rain falls from above”. As judges. Of a serious musical festival. The foreign jurors did as expected, and voted for the appointed “bop”, but were foiled, however, by one of the minority Albanian jurors on the panel who put it low in her ranks. An actual renowned music professor who got called all the names under the sun for doing so. And so, to an ensuing shitstorm, the classical and powerful Shaj prevailed instead. Unfortunately, the battle was won but the war was lost, because the representative herself took the lessons of 2018-9, threw them down the aeroplane toilet on the way to LA, and ripped the spirit out of the song, reverting back to the previous Albanian trend of terrible “revamps” and laboured translations into English. The result, Fall from the sky, is but a husk of the original. In my ESC, I’d probably simply keeping the original version of Shaj, which was my uncontested #1 of all songs, but part of me would opt for Ajër, which I love almost as well but which doesn’t carry the baggage of hanging over my head like the sword of Democles this entire season. 🇦🇲 Armenia: I’ve more often than not loved the entries of Hayastan, from the joyous Jan Jan to the soaring Fly with me and defiant Walking out. To say they took a step back this year is kind – it was more like a powerful jump backwards that landed them in the nearest ocean, where they sank like a stone. It was one of the most singularly unpalatable NFs that I have ever watched in this era. Rather than retraumatise myself by going into detail about it, I’ll just say, I would have sent Srbuk or Artsvik again to get the top 10 that I feel both warranted!

🇦🇹 Austria: What a journey for Österreich. From Conchita to this guy, a perky homophobe who explicitly said he wished his kids would not turn out to be gay. He comes up with a third-rate impersonator of a third-rate Benjamin Ingrosso impersonator’s third-rate impersonation of a Timberlake b-side. I would throw that in the bin and invite Pænda back from last year for a shot at redemption after her gorgeous Limits got slept on in 2019.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria: Some people had the neck to say to me “who needs Hungary when Bulgaria is coming back?” Well, I do. Hungary were constantly in the top of my rankings, and just quietly and consistently brought quality. Bulgaria has brought me one good thing – Poli Genova’s œuvre – and a tonne of hype. Their song this year was one of the favourites, and I still can’t wrap my head around how other than the force of PR. It’s a bizarre, unsettling combination of passive-aggressive “look how much you’re making me hurt myself” lyrics with Disneyish saccharine accompaniment, topped off with a key change?! For want yet again of a national final, I would bring Poli back – third time even luckier? 🇨🇿 Czechia: The Bohemians (and Moravians) keep it contemporary but superficial for a third year running, although, thankfully, for the first time since they began doing national finals, we finally have a song without a dubious attitude towards women in the lyrics. Not that there is much to analyse in those lyrics. It’s a merely ok song for me, no better, no worse: a superior alternative would have been Barbara Mochowa’s lush and contemplative second effort, White and black holes, or the glorious 90s British indie-influenced All the blood. 🇩🇰 Denmark: Did Denmark confound international monitors into calling it the world’s happiest country by exposing them to the relentlessly cheery songs that they pick for Eurovision lately? And yet – I really do say yes to Yes, To a certain extent, to a limited amount of exposure, and despite the fact that it leans a little too hard into the territory of sounding like a second Little talks. It was one of the few good songs from DMGP – I also liked the 80s shoegaze-ish Den eneste goth– and I feel so mad at DR that they won’t give Ben and Tan a guaranteed second shot to represent their country after they won in front of an empty crowd. 🇪🇪 Estonia: The days of Eesti being Beesti seem like from a distant memory to me, but there was some quality and quirkiness in Eesti Laul, buried under mountains of beigedom, like the rich-voiced Egert Miller’s soulful Georgia, the jazzy Write about me, or the feisty earworm that was Ping pong. Instead, we got a dreary dirge with sub-Hallmark lines about wot luv is, which would have sounded dated in a contest 30 years ago, sung by a repugnant guy who tried to get people to vote for him last year by leaning on the idea that he was the “only true Estonian.” I’d have Egert get his rightful place as Jüri Pootsmann’s spiritual successor. 🇫🇮 Finland: I was one of the few to be jubilant when a bizarre ode to an Italian porn star with a backing track sounding like a violated version of Eläköön elämä came second in the polls to its spiritual opposite: a shy and rather awkward guy singing a quietly moving song about the passing of time. I love Looking back and wouldn’t change a thing. 🇬🇪 Georgia: You never know what to expect from Georgia, except the unexpected, and yet even I was surprised by what they came up with: a close-shaven guy with veins popping in his head screaming “why don’t you love meeeee?” to a rocky, electronic backdrop. Me being me, I actually do like it a lot. “Take me as I am” sounds like a veiled potshot at the big 5 and a vindication of Georgia’s “keep it weird, send what we want” philosophy. I could suggest that the lyrics, that sound like those of a spurned angsty teen, change a bit, but that would be defeating the purpose of Georgia: one takes them as they are. 🇬🇪 Greece: So, somehow, despite S!STERS coming dead last with 0 pts in the televote last year, using exclamation marks to substitute the letter I is now a thing in Eurovision with the advent of Superg!rl. I spent an hour watching folk waffle on in Greek in its reveal show only for them to reveal the song literally at the very end, so after that, it was a little underwhelming, and nowhere near as good as Better love in 2019. I don’t hate it – and the music video’s concept of her being an amazing superhero who can change the world, but instead she’s stopping people slipping over bananas and rescuing cats from trees is weirdly endearing, so it can stay, but I’d improve the lyrics, particularly in the chorus. “I’m a supergirl, supergirl, in a crazy world, crazy world” is not much higher than “this is love, rain falls from above” in historically bad Greek lyrics at ESC. 🇮🇸 Iceland: Daði Freyr came back from near-victory with the delightful Is this love, added a lovely inspiration in his newborn daughter to a similarly funky and playful track, and came out with Think about things. Unlike what usually happens with songs that are a little bit odd, I was positively surprised to see it walk the NF, and become a phenomenon even outside the ESC fandom. This was perfect and joyous from beginning to end. I hope Iceland will not be like the other Nordics, and will invite Daði directly back .🇱🇻 Latvia: I have come to enjoy the bizarre chaötic energy of Still breathing, It’s a hot mess, but I take weird over dull any day. It wasn’t my favourite in Supernova – that would be the effortlessly cool Polyester, an earworm with a social conscience, written about the cost of fast fashion but dismissed by many people as “she luvs t-shirts song lol”. Given that Samanta Tina tried over half a dozen times to go to ESC, finally won and then had the chance ripped out of her hands by the cancellation, I don’t have the heart to remove her from my ideal ESC 2020 though. She stays, but maybe the staging changes? It’s odd to have what you believe is a feminist anthem but then relegate your backing singers to in the distance, their faces shielded away. 🇲🇩 Moldova: Life is too short to follow Moldovan national finals, especially when you know, lately, that whoever is backed by the hilariously inaptly named Dream team will win there. They are like a parasite, sucking out the colour and fun out of a country that once had plenty of both – cross-reference Hora din Moldova or Lăutar to name just two examples. I guess out of an uninspiring lineüp, I’d go for Moldoviţa for having at least a hint of the brassy folk that used to be their calling card. 🇵🇱 Poland: Speaking of calling cards, after a one year hiatus with an arresting combo of white voice and rocky instrumentation, Poland has returned to what it has most often done in recent years – presented us with an absolute dirge, Empires, which seems like it was written by an unenthusiastic English student whose homework assignment (for which they received a generous C-) was to write a poëm with a bunch of metaphors “we’re moths to a flame, birds to a pane of glass, gasoline and a match”. Despite having a big music industry from which to choose many gems, Poland offers me little alternative choice given that there were only three songs in their grand final – one by the Czech representative last year who, as you might guess from what I said literally a sentence up, isn’t even Polish!Horny Elf, who’s contractually obliged to write only creepy lyrics for songs, tried to represent Polska with a song inspired by a true-life situation where he went around Tel Aviv with a cardboard cutout of one of the hostesses of the show. It’s a love song inspired by gallivanting around with a piece of cardboard. Addressed to that actual hostess. And it’s an almighty earworm that hasn’t escaped my mind since. Amazingly, his Lucy would be my Polish representative. 🇵🇹 Portugal: Portugal is another country beloved by me by for dancing to the beat of its own drummer, or perhaps, rather shedding tears to the strumming of its own fado guitar. They struggled being different, they won being different, and for the last few years they’ve struggled again, despite having a lot of support for both O jardim and Telemóveis amongst fans. This year, the televote went for one interesting song, the charmingly Gallic, accordion-drenched Passe-partout, a song about a cultured girl shaking off her boorish ex who could “never even get into Piaf”, whilst the jury got behind another interesting song, Gerbera, an entrancing, arresting and poëtic song laden with metaphor about the idea of music competing itself. This let Medo de sentir,second in both polls, turn silver into gold. It’s a lovely, heart-felt track, but rather unexceptional - I would have had one of the other more singular songs win. 🇸🇲 San Marino: The weird boil on the face of ESC that somehow never pops, SM is back after its bewildering qualification with a tone-deaf dentist wailing to a microwaved disco song… with something actually palatable, sort of. The aptly named Freaky is dated, odd, overly busy, but Senhit has a lot of charisma, and the idea of “break[ing] all the rules, mak[ing] up some new [ones] and destroy[ing] all of them too” and “life goes by too quickly not to be freaking it up”, well, maybe we do get on board. 🇷🇸 Serbia: Serbia is usually a byword for quality at the contest – they won with one of the best 21st century winners hands down in Molitva, and also sent some of the most beautiful compositions in the contest’s history at the hands of Željko. This year, they decided to join in the leitmotif of reliable countries sucking by sending a group that sound like a third-rate mid-2000s girl band from Transnistria when beautiful songs like Cvet sa Prokletija were right there. 🇨🇭 Switzerland: Fair play to the Swiss for not doing a Cyprus and leaning in on their success with their male Fuego, She gat me, and instead going in a completely different direction with this moody effort. I’m not entirely convinced by the teenage emo-ish lyrics or the unnecessary falsetto, but Répondez-moi is a refreshing effort, and has the bonus of being in French too! And the automatic qualifiers: 🇫🇷 France: You’ve heard of France, right? You know, that wee country south of Belgium, north of Andorra, not much of a music industry… or so you’d think, given that the troolee jeenyuss new delegation, who abandoned their brilliant national final which showcased how diverse and qualitative their music scene is despite it being a huge success in the fandom, and instead reached out to the writer of last year’s last place song for the UK and a few other rentaswedes and they produced something that sounds like a b-side that not even Westlife would have recorded, replete with a stock key change. About as French as IKEA köttbullar. A real shame for one of Europe’s most highly esteemed cultural hotbeds. If they wanted to pick Tom Leeb, who seems like a nice guy and has written some lovely music, he could have made his own song and it would have indubitably been scores better than this. 🇪🇸 Spain: I’m going to apply this to all the automatic qualifiers voting on this semi-final: they scrapped a national final for this? OT was not an ideal format as last year demonstrated with its shit show of contestants sabotaging themselves so as not to get picked for ESC – but still. There’s not much I can say about this other than I don’t like it much and I’d rather Spain return to a proper NF. You don’t spend time trapped on a bus where this song with its torturous falsetto was on replay and emerge with fond feelings. 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Usually, in this space, I can point to a song that the UK should have sent and that I fell in love with – like I wish I loved you more or You. Once again, though, another big 6 nation scrapped their NF after tanking it with a bizarre format last year. The BBC said nothing for months, then were unwilling to spend tv time on ESC this year so just blurted out an announcement of an announcement in about 40 seconds after some dance show. And then they dropped this song. It’s… passable at best, with an annoying chorus (especially that beat in “my last… breath”) and a staggering amount of repetition in a song that clocks in at only around 80% of the standard Eurovision song length. James Newman surely could have come up with something better. It’s a baby step in the right direction, but one taken at the shore where you need to start running to avoid getting pulled away in a rip.

#eurovision #eurovision song contest #opinion #esc 2020 #eurovision 2020

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gay-dragon · 5 years

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On the iconic Skam elevator scene

Not that anyone asked but I think Skam and some of its remakes are really well crafted shows, and I have a lot of thoughts about a lot of clips. So I’m going to go ahead and have a little rant about some of them and why I think they work so well. Might make a little series of this, but right now I want to talk about the final clip of episode 8 of Skam season 3 (in which Isak and Even go to a hotel), and why I think it’s one of the strongest clips in the whole show. Specifically, I’d like to unpack the metaphor of the elevator, and what it means for the season overall.

So let’s jump right in: this scene, and Isak and Even’s kiss in the elevator, has often been talked about as a metaphor for Even’s manic episode, which I think is incredibly interesting. However I’d like to propose the theory that it also represents a major turning point in Isak’s attitude towards his relationship with Even.

It’s important to note that this clip is the first time we see Isak and Even properly spend time together as a couple outside of the domestic, intimate space of their bedrooms/apartments. And Isak is very clearly made uncomfortable by this: we see him pull away when Even tries to kiss him in front of the café, for example, and he is awkward during the interaction with the receptionist to whom Even introduces him as his boyfriend.

This is very consistent with Isak’s behaviour throughout the season up to this point: when he is alone with Even he is more relaxed than we have ever seen him, but as soon as his relationship is taken into the public, he panics. We see this when he comes out to Jonas and doesn’t know how to respond to Jonas calling Even good looking, when he kicks out the boys at the end of episode 7 to be alone with Even, and in his visible awkwardness when Even first meets the boys at school, to name a few examples.

However something I noticed is that I can’t think of a single moment after episode 8 where we see this discomfort in Isak. Even when things are going badly and he thinks Even doesn’t love him, he’s very open with the boys about how upset he is, and after the O Helga Natt reunion we see him be much more open about and comfortable with his relationship.

It’s true that when he talks to his father on the phone in episode 9 he does try to lie by saying he was joking when he said he had a boyfriend, and although he admits it was real before hanging up he does maintain that he’s okay even though he’s not. But to me, his lie about being okay has less to do with his relationship with Even and more to do with the difficulty Isak experiences in letting his father in and being vulnerable. What matters is that he is unwilling to lie about having been in a relationship with Even.

This means that the last time we see him be uncomfortable with being public about his relationship is in the interaction with the receptionist. So, what changed? This bit of dialogue with her may seem quite casual and random (and I read somewhere that part of the reason it was there was to give a shout-out to the Danish fans, which is amazing), but I think it’s actually absolutely crucial to the plot of the season. So far, the only people that Isak has been open to about his relationship have been people he was very close to (his friends, his parents, his flatmate…). These have all be positive, but all of the interactions he’s had with strangers (or people he wasn’t close to) on this subject have been awkward at best and incredibly distressing at worst. I’m thinking for example of his disastrous Grindr attempt, of the casual homophobic comments he’s heard throughout the seasons, of Vilde’s awkward (if well intentioned) ‘I love gays’ text, or even of Emma’s ‘it’s 2016 get out of the closet’ speech, among others.

This woman, then, is the very first stranger not only who Isak is open about his relationship to, but also who has a positive reaction. And not just positive: it’s completely casual. Isak needs this so much, at this point. He’s desperate to be with Even, and he’s out to everyone who matters to him, but when it comes to outsiders it’s been the source of a lot of distress. So this very normal, very casual interaction with this woman is a huge deal for him. And despite his slightly awkward attitude throughout this interaction, you can clearly see on his face the joy, giddiness and even the relief that being introduced as Even’s boyfriend (and this being met with “how nice”) brings him.

This interaction is so crucial, therefore, because at this point he’s still afraid of what his relationship with Even will mean for the outside world, and this interaction is what allows Isak to finally let go of that fear. He’s been getting closer, he’s been making efforts to be more open, but this is the confirmation he needed that, yes, he can be with Even and have a normal life (and we all know how much being normal is important to Isak).

So to me, the elevator scene marks a major turning point in Isak’s relationship to his relationship with Even. When you think about it, a hotel is simultaneously a public and a very intimate place. Therefore Isak and Even’s kiss in the glass elevator that is rising up to their hotel room is a beautiful visual metaphor for Isak’s acceptance of his relationship, and the passage/rise of it in his mind from something he feels the need to keep to the private sphere, into something that can be both public and private.

They are having an intimate moment, but unlike their other kisses (underwater, in Isak’s room, etc.) the glass wall of the elevator which permits this beautiful backdrop of the city is also a reminder of the outside world, a reminder that they are a part of that world, that their relationship and their intimacy have a place in it. The motion of the elevator is therefore a visual representation of the moment where in Isak’s mind his relationship with Even transitions from a ‘thing’ (he doesn’t seem to find a better word for it when he talks about it to his friends a few clips ago) and ascends into a proper relationship.

I think this transition is absolutely essential, at this point in the show. It serves to escalate the stakes of their relationship (and by extension of the story), and is what allows the impact of the heartbreaking scene we see at the end of the clip to be so much stronger. It’s one thing to be sad because the ‘thing’ you were starting to have with someone is complicated or even ending. It’s entirely something else to deal with (what you view as) the end of a real relationship. But this also means that after this heartbreak, where previously Isak would probably have given up, he is now more willing than ever to fight for his relationship.

This ties in nicely with something that @evakuality has gone into in her series of posts about the difference between Isak and Matteo, in which she unpicks Isak’s very passive approach to his relationship with Even. You can read this analysis here (and you definitely should if you haven’t already, it’s brilliant!) so I won’t go into it, but I will say that I think this scene marks the moment when Even stops being mythical and enchanting and instead their relationship becomes real, thus allowing Isak to be much more active in it. Again, this is essential to escalating the stakes of the season, because if Even had remained a mythical figure the heartbreak in this scene would have been redundant after the heartbreak pre-episode 7.

I also think that the image of the elevator being simultaneously representative of this shift for Isak and of Even’s manic episode is incredibly interesting, but I’m not going to go into this now as this post has already gotten very long. (Also just to be clear, the reason I’m not going into more detail about the manic episode metaphor is because I am no expert on mental illness and am not bipolar myself, and also because many people far more qualified than me have gone into detail about this aspect already.)

But there you have it, this is why in my opinion the elevator metaphor is one of the strongest in this show. Like I said, I may or may not make this into a series (do I miss writing essays? Quite possibly!), because there’s loads of scenes in Skam and in some of the remakes that I think have this kind of traction too. Not sure if I will, but I also wanted to talk about the build-up of tension throughout this clip, so if I do make a series of this I will probably talk about that too, in a later post!

#skam #evak #isak valtersen #even bech næsheim #skam meta #skam analysis #mine #my skam meta #txt #long post #my metas

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solange-lol · 5 years

Text

not so typical love song - ch. 1/13

Chapter Title: Rollarcoaster

Words: 3,050

Note: my piece for the @pjo-hoo-bigbang !!! special thanks to @shelbychild and @wisdom-walks-alone for editing and helping me develop this story! it wouldnt exist w/o y’all!

Art by @lizzybizzyo! <3

read on ao3

—

Nico is staring at his computer, wordless. This isn't writer's block or surprise; it’s just the unknown reality of what this situation could lead to.

Another gay kid in his school. Another gay kid that isn’t Mitchell—who’s been out since 8th grade, and the only one to be out since then. Another kid at their school who’s hiding a secret.

Nico doesn’t even know if this kid is a boy or a girl or what, and frankly, he doesn’t care. There’s another kid like him. And he has no idea how to respond to the post.

The post is a submission from their school’s gossip blog on Tumblr, the notorious ‘hb-secrets.’ Piper had called him an hour ago, asking if he’d seen it yet.

“Seen what?” he had responded.

“The post on hb-secrets? About the closeted gay kid?” It hit Nico like a wall of bricks as he quickly went to pull up the website. Did somebody know? It was a relief when he saw the clipart Ferris wheel and a few short lines submitted by a blog called blue0919.

“I bet it’s that Brazilian sophomore. Paolo or whatever? Or maybe it’s Connor Stoll! I swear he’s been flirting with Mitchell, but Annabeth keeps telling me that he’s into Lacy or someone,” Piper continued as he read, but it was going in one ear and out the other as he processed the words on the screen

Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck on a Ferris wheel. One minute I’m on top of the world, and the next minute I’m at rock bottom. Over and over all day long, because a lot of my life is great. But nobody knows I’m gay.

“Gotta go. I’ll talk later,” Nico said quickly, switching off his phone. He knew it would raise suspicion, but it felt like time was turning in on itself. Nobody knew about Nico. In fact, nobody ever even suspected. He’s never been called names besides “Death Boy.” And yet, there were the exact words that described his life, written out in front of him like they were a second thought.

And now, he was staring at his computer with an empty Gmail draft open. The original poster had left their email at the end of the post, so Nico after glancing quickly at his Panic! at the Disco poster still proudly hanging on his wall, typed out a new address. He was stuck, though, unsure of what to say from here.

So, he started from the beginning.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Oct 2 at 6:48 PM

Subject: Hey

Somehow you’ve managed to type exactly what I feel. Sorta scary, as if you’re inside my head or something. Maybe it’s just a gay thing to be speaking in metaphors about the pressure of everyday society.

That’s what I am. Gay. I don’t know if I’ve ever really said it out loud to myself.

It’s weird because I never really had a perfectly normal life. My mom died when I was young, so I never really got to meet her. My sister and I have always been super close until she went away to college. Now, not as much. I guess that’s just what happens when you live a million miles away.

And I’ve known my stepmom longer than I knew my real mom, but it was only a few years ago when I met my half-sister when she came to live with us because her mom died as well. Meaning, she isn’t the daughter of my stepmom. It’s a long story, and not really one I want to get into.

She’s super nice though. It’s funny, but despite being polar opposites with my older sister, they’re both mushy inside. Same with my stepmom. And my dad… he tries his best. We’re like exactly what you expect from a slightly broken family. Plus my dog who my cousin gave to me during a rough time. Honestly, she’s probably my favorite sibling out of them all. (Both my sisters would kill me if they knew I wrote that.)

And then there are my friends. I have some that are closer than others; Two of them I’ve known for a while now, and one who I only met recently but treats me better than some of the people I’ve known my whole life. While I admit, I’m not the most social person in the world, they’re pretty amazing as far as friends go.

So there it is. My perfectly normal life. Except for that huge ass secret.

He typed and retyped each line what felt like a thousand times, deleting word after word. He didn't know what was too much. It all felt like too much, really. He didn’t even know if he could trust this person.

Signing it was the worst part; he didn’t have any good pseudonyms. Eventually, he decided to leave it blank.

Without a second thought, Nico hit ‘send’ before leaning back in his chair and putting his hands over his head. Only a second later, a light knock came from the door, causing him to quickly sit up as Hazel popped her head in.

“Dinner’s ready if you wanna eat,” she smiled. She left just as quickly as she came, curls bouncing as she walked away. They had gotten over the awkwardness of having a new sibling only months after Hazel moved in, but there was still some strangeness. To this day, Nico was still a lot closer to her than Bianca was. Either way, Nico knew he would do anything for her. (Not that he would admit that. He didn't even need to, Hazel already knew.)

Nico glanced back at his computer, but there was nothing in his inbox besides the Gmail “Welcome” email. It was stupid to think this person would respond that quickly, seeing as Nico didn't even know if they would respond at all. Heaving a sigh, he got up to join his family for dinner. Maybe he could even convince them to watch Steven Universe instead of The Bachelor.

---

Dinner went as expected. It’d been a while, actually, since they were all together for a meal. Hazel talked about her psycho geometry teacher and a boy she talked in the class named Frank, who seemed sweet but apparently had a shared hatred for math just like her. Nico didn’t say much, although chimed in at the latter, saying he better be the flower boy at their wedding. That even got a short scoff out of his father, which tended to be the closest Nico ever got him laughing. So, that was a win.

However, he was a little more distant than usual. The pending email response was in the back of his mind during the entire meal.

Even afterward, as they watched reruns of Glee (a compromise made between Hazel and Nico, much to their father’s dismay), Nico couldn’t focus. It felt like a weight was burning through his back pocket. After the second episode (and laughing his ass off at his father’s reaction to Kurt’s ‘Single Ladies’ dance) he finally excused himself.

He tapped the Gmail app on his phone as soon as he had reached his room. It felt like his heart skipped a beat when he noticed the new notification, a response from the original poster. With slightly shaky hands, he tapped the response, and a message opened up.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Oct 2 at 8:12 PM

Subject: I’ve never done this before

Dear anonymous person on the internet,

I really don’t know where to begin. I’m also not sure if you're a real person. For all I know you could be some random pedophile like one of those cases they warned us about in health class for the past 5 years, even though it’s never happened within the last decade.

But in case you are real, hello! I’m the original poster from that hb-secrets thread about life being a Ferris wheel. I’m rereading what I wrote there and I can’t stop cringing, so I’ll start by apologizing for that. I’m not usually one for metaphors, even the bad ones.

Anyway, it sounds like you identify with what I wrote. I’m glad you emailed me; I didn’t think anyone would actually do anything with the email that I left. Except maybe be extremely homophobic. But it made me feel less like I was shouting into the void, so thanks for that. And I assume you’re okay with me writing back since you sent me the first email. Though, I can’t believe I’m actually writing to you. I really didn’t think I would.

I guess I’m thinking it could be nice to talk with someone who can relate to how I’m feeling. No pressure, of course, but feel free to write back if you want to. I don’t want to use my real name, but you can call me Blue.

It was surreal. Someone who was like Nico. Someone who wanted to talk to Nico because they were like him.

He started to type again, with more excitement than he’s ever felt. He’s never been able to express this part of him before. It was almost like first date jitters-type feeling.

(Not that he really knew what that was like.)

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Oct 2 at 8:23 PM

Subject: Re: I’ve never done this before

Hi, Blue

Wow, I’m actually kind of flipping out right now, because I seriously didn’t think I’d hear from you, especially so quickly. Wow. Okay. First of all, thanks for your email and also for your Tumblr post. I really liked it, Blue, and it wasn’t cringy at all, I promise.

So do you go here (here meaning HBHS)? I do, I’m a junior. And I’m a guy (are you a guy?) Anyway, I could relate a lot to your post, Like, pretty much all of it, but especially the part about being gay. You probably figured that out already though. And I’m not out yet either, which you probably figured that part out too.

I guess a part of me wants to be out, but a part of me’s like… no. It’s hard to explain. I don’t know. Maybe you get it.

So yeah, it’s really nice to meet you! This is kind of cool, right? Even writing this email makes me feel eleven times less alone.

-Angel (not my real name either, two can play at this game. It’s not like a pet-name type thing. If you ever find out who I am, you’ll understand why.)

He was worried about the whole name-signing thing. ‘Angel’ was just the easiest thing; it was a direct translation of his last name. He was really hoping Blue still didn’t take it in a weird way, even with that last note.

Relief flooded through him when he read the first sentence of Blue’s next email.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Oct 2 at 8:41 PM

Subject: Re: I’ve never done this before

Angel, huh? Maybe like guardian angel perhaps.

Also, eleven times less alone? That’s oddly specific. :) But I know exactly what you mean.

Anyway, wow. Hi. You wrote back, and quickly too. I’m really glad you liked my post. Now I’m actually happy I put it out there. I have to admit, it’s strange to be writing a somewhat personal email to you when we don’t know each other’s identities. Though, in a way, I guess that makes it easier. Sorta like a therapist, except we’re both blindfolded and have the same problem. So not really a therapist, I guess.

Do you think therapists have therapists? Like, if the problems get to be too much for them? Is there an Almighty Therapist who just absorbs everyone's issues and feels nothing?

Anyway, I am a guy, and I’m also a junior at HB. I think you’re actually the first other gay guy I’ve met here. It’s pretty surreal to be talking to you. (In a good way though.) I wonder if we know each other in real life.

And I think I understand what you mean. I feel like I’m constantly going back and forth about wanting to come out. I have these moments where I’m almost bursting to tell people. Of course, that’s where I was when I posted the thing on Tumblr. But I always feel so weird about it a few hours later, and sometimes I’m intensely relieved no one knows yet. What about you?

-Blue

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Oct 2 at 9:12 PM

Subject: Re: I’ve never done this before

I mean, let’s be real, eleven is the best number, which is perfect because we’re both in eleventh grade. And I can't believe we’re both juniors. The class is pretty small compared to the others, so I bet we do know each other, which is weird to think about. What if we’re actually enemies in real life? Do you have enemies? I don’t think I do, not really. Various people tend to annoy me a lot. It’s not even their fault; some people just have really punchable faces.

(I’m usually a really nonviolent person. I’m more like a violent person who at the same doesn’t really want to hurt anyone, so I have to resort to fantasizing about punching people, which just ends in eating my feelings in large quantities of McDonald’s.)

It’s funny for me, it’s actually not so much that go back and forth about wanting to come out. It’s like I simultaneously do and don’t want to be out. Which is pretty freaking exhausting, honestly. Like I’m in this constant state of JUST SAY IT and NO NEVER. Do you think that ever ends? I don’t know, maybe I’m just a really indecisive person. I think part of me is also just holding out until college when I’m away from anyone I know and can just reinvent myself.

So what kind of stuff do you like to do after school and everything?

-Angel

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Oct 2 at 9:34 PM

Subject: Re: I’ve never done this before

I don’t think I have any enemies, but now I’m definitely wondering if I’m the guy with the punchable face. How do you know if you have a punchable face? I’ve never been punched, so hopefully, that’s a good sign.

I will say, I’m definitely with you on the issue of eating your feelings. I’m the person who has never smoked a cigarette or gotten drunk or anything like that, and I'm usually relatively healthy. However, I once ate five jars of Nutella in one sitting. I do not recommend,

I’m indecisive, too, in some ways. Okay, full disclosure: I was really conflicted when you sent me that email. I kept going back and forth about whether I should email you. I was (and am) definitely intrigued, but I guess I was also a little bit paranoid. It’s just that you could have been anyone, and it’s hard to know sometimes if someone’s being a jerk or if they’re being sincere. Plus my cousin sort of actually outed me. Not to anyone else, he’s the only one who knows, but now I’m super paranoid about coming out. (Exactly what you said about holding out until college. I’m thinking I can move to LA or somewhere where nobody really cares. Although I wouldn’t want to reinvent myself. And I don’t want you to reinvent yourself either, you’re pretty cool as you are I think.) Anyway, I’m really glad I decided to email you, though.

So, you’re probably going to think I’m ridiculous, but I’d rather not answer your last question. It’s just… I think I like being anonymous for now. Is that okay?

-Blue

Okay, that last part was fair. Nico understood the wanting-to-be-anonymous thing. Sure, they go to the same school. But Blue had no reason to entirely trust him; Nico didn’t really trust Blue at all. This could entirely be some random asshole anywhere in the world trying to find him and beat him up, or worse. It sucked that homophobia was still a thing in their day and age.

But Blue said he liked talking to Nico, and it was thrilling to talk to him. It was another secret of his, but not one he entirely minded keeping. So, he chose to believe that Blue was actually who he said he was.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Oct 2 at 9:57 PM

Subject: Punchability

Blue, you have so much to learn about the rules of punchability, starting with the fact that it is completely impossible for you to have a punchable face. Rule number one: guys who make metaphors about Ferris wheels are automatically unpunchable. Rule number two: There isn’t one. Just rule number one, so memorize it. Everyone else can catch these fists. (Catch these fists? These hands? This would probably be more intimidating if I knew the correct phrasing)

Also, five jars of Nutella in one sitting is the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life. Challenge accepted.

I don’t think you’re ridiculous, Blue. I totally understand why you don't want to tell me about your extracurricular activities (I’m guessing interpretive dance, though, you seem like the type.) But seriously, I get it. It’s this weird contradiction, right? It’s so much easier to be open with someone who doesn't know you at all. We’ll be each other's Ultimate Therapists.

(Except I don’t think I could ever be a therapist.)

Anyway, I’m really glad you decided to email me back, too :)

-Angel

That smiley face was really unlike him.

Nico sent the email, but after nearly an hour, he didn’t get on back, which meant Blue was probably asleep. Which was different from what Nico was used to; he tended to stay awake until the early hours of the morning most nights. But it wasn’t anything he minded. He had a conversation with Blue, and even if that was the last one they would ever have (which, he was hoping it wouldn’t be), it was good to know that there was somewhere out there like him.

#solangelo #heros of olympus #pjo #will solace #nico di angelo #pjo hoo big bang 2019 #im willing to make a tag list for this but i didnt want to use my general solangelo taglist #so if you would like a taglist for this fic lmk!#nstls

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sparklebitch · 5 years

Text

Dan and Phil’s Impact

Okay this is going to be long and rambling because I’m trying to type it on my phone in the car and my thoughts are all over the freaking place and I don’t blame you if you don’t want to read the whole thing I’ll put a tldr at the end lmao.

So first of all I’ve been watching Dan and Phil since like? 2014~ And for a while there wasn’t a minute that went by where I didn’t think about them. Their videos got me through so much shit in my life. Even dumb video game videos were like my reprieve from real life. And yeah a lot of stuff was super cringy and I was definitely borderline one of those creepy people that wanted to know everything about their lives (obvs not anymore lol) but that aside they were such good freaking influences on me? I looked up to them so much and, sure, I have a lot of role-model-worthy people in my life, but no one like them.

Everyone around me is so aggressively religious (although a lot of them are totally cool about it and not bad peoples !! But the rest of them are total dicks) and I felt like I couldn’t... question myself I guess? About literally anything. I felt like I couldn’t question religion, sexuality, the things I liked, what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. It was like everyone’s lives revolved around church stuff and people were basically born knowing what they were going to do? And there I was, an awkward, sexually confused, homeschooler who had 2 friends that she wasn’t even that close to. I felt like I was the only one in the world like this. Everyone seemed to have a place in the world, except me. I often thought that maybe it was a mistake that I was in this world, that there was some cosmic screw up and that I was never meant to be born. I felt incomplete and it was so confusing and horrible. I was sure that that feeling was never going to go away. I had no one to talk to, no one to explain to me that it was okay to screw up. It wasn’t the end of the world to question things or yourself, everything was going to be okay. All I wanted in my life was for someone to tell me that.

Then I found Dan and Phil. And yeah, they’re two British boys on the internet that will never know who I am. But that’s okay. They don’t need to know me to have an impact on my life. I mean, who’s ever been impacted by a song? A movie, a book, an actor, an artist? The human race is always searching for someone or something to look up to. Religion, famous people, a father figure, a friend. Someone. And that’s what they were to me.

People didn’t understand what it was that I liked about them. And, if I’m being 100% honest, I guess I didn’t really know either. Sure, they’re funny, and the chemistry between the two is very compelling but there was just something about them that spoke to me. I loved them. More than I had loved anything in my life. I looked up to them, and listened to the things they said, listened to the things they believed it. Through them I discovered so many of the things that I love in my life. I started writing and drawing because of them! It’s crazy to think that I am the person that I am today because of them. I can’t imagine what I would be like if I hadn’t watched their videos.

There’s a lot of uncertainty in my life right now as I’m finishing up getting my General Associates and I’m in the process of starting a daycare with my older sister. It’s a lot for me to process because for the longest time all I wanted to do was get away from here. I wanted to go somewhere and be someone new. And it wasn’t until recently that I realized that’s not what I actually wanted. I love my family and my friends, I love living here (aside from the bigots but they’re everywhere so there’s no escaping them). What I really, truly wanted was to be myself. It wasn’t my family and this town that I wanted to get away from, it was the me that I was pretending to be. I just wanted to be myself, that was all. I didn’t care if it was in a big town with new people, i just wanted people to know me. I wish I knew this back then, then maybe I wouldn’t have gone into a tailspin when I was getting ready for college but hindsight I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When I finished high school it was like I was paralyzed. I didn’t know how to make decisions for myself or do anything on my own. All I knew was that I was not straight, seemingly surrounded by homophobes, and I was very very tired. So, toward the end of summer my mom pushed me enrolled me at a community college near home (which I am grateful for lol) and then I was going to transfer to a university after 2 years. Things started to feel better after that. Around that time I also started taking medication for depression and anxiety and it has only completely changed my life. No longer am I the super quiet painfully awkward person who’s so afraid to say something wrong that she instead stays silent, not telling anyone about my interests or passions in fear that I would be ridiculed, hiding core parts of me while the whole world passes by. I was talking and making jokes, I wasn’t constantly terrified to talk to people or to even simply leave my house to go places. Things were better. I was happier!

But as the time for me to transfer to a university drew near that paralyzing feeling crept back into my skin. I hated my classes. I hated college. I was suddenly plunged back into the world of endlessly scrolling through social media and watching the same shows on tv over and over, isolating myself from everyone and everything trying to ignore the world around me. I felt like everything was hopeless again. I was only occasionally watching dan and Phil videos at this time, having very reluctantly grown away from them (it was a sad day when I realized that I didn’t care if I skipped a video or two. I literally cried that day). But I was bored then, so I started watching their videos again. This was around the time that dan posted his video on depression (that’s a while other long ass post I could make but probably won’t because I’m already tired of typing) and i damn near called my mom (even though she was just downstairs) on the spot to tell her what I was feeling. Hearing that there was someone else out there that felt like I was was enough. But not only that, he explained that recovery is not a straight road. There are twists and turns, there are setbacks. It’s not like I was going to get better and everything was going to magically be awesome all the time. Some stuff was going to suck. I was going to go through shitty times and that was okay.

Because of him, I ended up going back to the doctor and explaining that my meds weren’t working anymore, and I got it taken care of. I feel so much fucking better now than I did before, and I know that it’s okay if I don’t always feel this way. I told my parents that I didn’t want to go to a university and they were okay with it, provided that I finished my 2 year degree at the community college. And while some things still suck, and I’m still worried about my future and whether or not I’m going to meet someone and fall in love, things are absolutely positively 1000% better than they have ever been. And a lot of it is thanks to them. Obviously it was me who actually took the steps I needed to to get here, but it was because of their being my role model that I had the courage to get where I am today.

Dan and Phil have such a unique platform and following. They could say jump and so many people would (metaphorically ofc) jump off the cliff, me included. But they don’t do that. They use their fame to positively impact people. They use their platform to encourage people and talk about important things in life. They share things about their lives in the hopes that it will help even 1 person out there... and I’m not the only one who they’ve positively impacted. The number of people that owe everything to them is crazy.

Okay so now I’m going to go a little bit into labels. (Not too much tho I’m seriously tired of typing lol). Dan talked about them a lot in his video. An entire freaking chapter of it was dedicated to labels. When I was younger I knew that I liked girls. I liked boys too though, so I just shrugged it off as Really wanting to be friends with girls. I didn’t know what the word gay meant until I was like 12 because I was a very sheltered child. My parents never talked about it and the only time I ever remember hearing the word before then was when one of my siblings called another sibling “gay” at the dinner table. The only thing I knew about the word was that my parents Did Not Like it. While I eventually stumbled onto the internet and learned a Lot of things, and a lot about labels, I became overwhelmed. There were so many words with so many meanings, and lot of times people didn’t agree on what the literal definition was. (Like bisexual meaning Only men+women vs. just like.. more than just 2+ genders) So for a long time I identified as pansexual because.. I didn’t know what to do. And based on my experiences on the internet, being bi was basically saying that you were excluding people. Idk it was fucked. The label ‘pan’ didn’t really feel like it fit me either, but it worked for the time being.

Dan’s comments on labels really got me thinking. I don’t think I’m a lesbian, but I don’t really know about bisexual either. When he said that he loved to use the word queer it just.. fucking hit me in the chest like a ton of bricks. I literally couldn’t breath. And it’s not like I’ve never heard people use the word queer. Tons of people identify as queer. But it was just something about the way he explained it? And maybe it was just the fact that it was him explaining it because, as I said before, I look up to him. He has a huge impact on my life. Saying queer gives me comfort. It feels less... restrictive I guess, for a lack of better words. I don’t know if this will be /the/ label for me, but that’s not the point. There doesn’t have to be a label for me. I, no one, should have to be pressured into finding a label so that other people have something to call you?? Fuck labels. Fuck people who pressure you into picking one. You be you.

So, in conclusion (honestly I feel like this has all been so incoherent I apologize) I don’t want to hide forever. I don’t. I hope that some day I can have even a fraction of the courage that Dan has to tell the people that I care about who I truly am. And the first step is telling someone.

So, to everyone who sees it here, most of which probably know or don’t care,

I’m bisexual, bitch. And I use the word queer.

It took so much fucking courage for dan to post that video and I have crazy amounts of respect for that man. I’ve said it a thousand times already, but I’m going to say it again. I’m so. Fucking. Proud of him. And I know he’s probably going to get thousands of stories like this one (if he hasn’t gotten that many already) but I’m going to tag him anyway. @danielhowell , you’ve changed my life. You’ve changed millions of people’s of lives for the better. Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done.

Tldr; dnp mean everything to me, even though I’ve grown away from them, they have been and always be a big part of who I am and i am so fucking proud of Dan.

#daniel howell #dan #dan howell #dnp #danisnotonfire #lgbt #queer #bi #bisexual #personal

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lightsandlostbells · 5 years

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Skam France season 3, episode 6 reaction

I have a Jerome theory and I’m sticking to it

Episode 6

Clip 1 - Lucas gets his turn in the hoodie of despair

Lucas is at school Monday. We get a shot of his bandaged hand that’s a parallel to the trailer for the season, where we also start with a shot of Eliott’s hand. In both situations, Lucas/Eliott is about to walk into the school in a tense, uncertain situation, Eliott facing a new school and new people after his episode at his old one, Lucas facing his old school and old friends after alienating or angering the people he cares about.

Also, the bandaged hand is representative of his emotional ~wounds but that’s ... really obvious, I feel silly saying it.

The angsty piano music, a hallmark of this season, plays as Lucas crosses the yard. The boy squad laughs at him, and if that wasn’t obviously fake, then Raptor Alex miming a blowjob at him while standing with Eliott should be a dead giveaway, because like hell Eliott would tolerate homophobic bullying of Lucas, no matter their relationship status. (Though it’s kinda amusing to think about this scene as an Alex/Eliott AU where Alex is bragging about his BJ game and Eliott is smirking like “damn right.”)

Daphne comes up and kisses him on the cheeks. She’s so effusive and affectionate that at first I thought she already knew Lucas was gay and was trying to jump to the front of the queue to make him her gay BFF. It’s not that, though. She touches his arm and is like HOW BUFF which is hilarious because Lucas is, how do you say, wispy. No offense at all, but I would never be like yeah, that guy looks like he works out. Lucas doesn’t seem to buy it either. Of course Daphne wants him to help move a couch, lmao. Protect the five vulnerable girls going to pick up the secondhand sofa from a potentially shady dealer? I guess Daphne got over her fear that Lucas would be taking over as head of the common room once she realized he was another pair of arms to carry that couch.

Of course when Lucas looks over, it’s not the boy squad, but some random dudes. Not Alex and Eliott but some random dudes. Not Maria and Chloe, but some random girls. All of them seemingly minding their own business and not caring about Lucas one way or another. This puts a different focus on the scene than with Isak, because with Isak he actually was walking into the lion’s den. He saw Emma and Even in the courtyard and psyched himself up to walk between them with his Nas song playing in his ears to psych himself up. Isak was miserable, but in a way it felt like an act of courage; he saw his worst fears on both sides of him, literally, and pushed himself forward. With Lucas, I’m not saying he isn’t brave, but with all those people turning out to not really be there and not really laughing and talking about him, the emphasis is more on his paranoia and fear. It’s a much drearier take on a scene that was already depressing (and I feel like the lighting/coloring reinforces that, too, but err, that’s Skam France’s usual aesthetic so I’m not sure how intentional that was.)

Clip 2 - Yann the voice of reason

Gym class, not for Lucas, but for Chloe. After class ends, Lucas comes into the gym and wants to talk to her. Chloe is not having it. Lucas tries to say she said on Friday is nonsense. He’s not a (homophobic slur) and he asks her not to spread it around. Ohhh boy, this is. Uncomfortable. Completely understandable that he doesn’t want the rumors to get out, and I get why he’d say he wasn’t really gay in order to protect himself, but him using a slur? That’s really sad. That makes this not just a strategic move or an attempt to handle the situation before it gets worse, but something self-hating. There was no reason for him to use homophobic language except to distance himself from being gay, like in episode 3, the advice he took to keep people from guessing.

She’s pissed that he didn’t even come to apologize or talk, just to ask her not to spread it around, so you know she’s not really listening and making this about her own feelings. And look, we can say over and over again that Chloe has a right to be mad, and of course she does. But she also just doesn’t get the seriousness of outing someone. Lucas is begging her not to spread the rumor, very upset, but Chloe says he can’t tell her what to do. Man, so they made Chloe even worse than Emma, despite having Lucas treat Chloe worse than Isak did with Emma. Isak didn’t plead with Emma to not out him while Emma was like, “Whatevs, I do what I want.”

Lucas is clearly unraveling. He bursts out of the gym and runs into Yann. Lucas tries to use his family as an excuse again and Yann cuts him off, saying not to play him. He knows whatever’s happening with Lucas is more than just his parents. Yann is a lot more blunt about it than Jonas; Jonas knew that Isak was bluffing but let it slide without calling him on it. He’s also more blunt about Lucas refusing to talk about his problems. The guys all just want Lucas to get better, and are here to talk to him, but if he doesn’t want to do that, then he needs to fix his problems and come back when he’s better. Completely fair, tbh. I can see how the more straightforward approach works with Lucas; Isak felt more defeated at this stage, like he barely had energy to get through the day let alone put up his usual act, so chill Jonas could get through to him, whereas Lucas is like brimming with anger and fear and seems more defensive, so he needed Yann to just cut through his bullshit directly.

Clip 3 - Pasta is Deep

I feel like a recurring issue with Skam France is that it skips establishing the mood of a clip, often just jumping into whatever needs to happen without a lot of grace, which probably has a lot to do with their time limitations (although this episode is several minutes shorter than average so...) This scene isn’t one that I expected them to recreate so closely, with Isak just ordering a sandwich for like a minute and a half, but it did remind me of how that completely mundane action was so much more than the damn cheese sandwich, because it was about putting us directly into Isak’s headspace and letting us feel how blank and distracted he was, and then what a jolt it was when Even appeared - exactly what Isak must have felt. I think Skam France could benefit from being more careful with staging moments like that, more showing, less telling. Like there’s nothing wrong with the start of this clip but it skips establishing Lucas’ mood entirely, and Eliott comes around the corner so we the audience see him before Lucas does, so there isn’t as much of a reaction.

Anyway, the important observation: Eliott cut that girl in line, what a dick.

There are two plates of pasta on the counter before them, and Eliott says if he were Lucas he’d take both of them. Lucas says sometimes you have to choose. I get that this is ~symbolic and it’s about Eliott trying to have it both ways and Lucas not having that but it’s one of those moments that takes me out because ... why would Eliott say Lucas should take both huge-ass plates of pasta ... except so Lucas can be metaphorical in response ... is that normal? It feels like a very writerly setup to be Deep so the dialogue can have a double meaning, except it doesn’t actually make sense on the first/surface meaning, if you get what I mean. Or else Eliott thinks Lucas is capable of eating two plates of pasta.

Eliott tries to make conversation but Lucas just grabs a plate and storms off. That was some good timing with the angry plate grab. Eliott looks sad and the angsty piano music starts again.

Lucas walks into the cafeteria and sees the table with the boy squad and the table with Chloe and Maria, while Eliott is walking behind him. This time Chloe is looking at him for real. Lucas just leaves his tray without eating and walks off as Eliott notices.

It was kind of odd that they needed both moments of Eliott reacting to Lucas’ distress, like ... we got it the first time when they were in line, we didn’t really need the second time to tell us the same thing we just saw thirty seconds ago. Was that supposed to be Eliott noticing Lucas didn’t want to sit with his friends so it wasn’t just him causing Lucas stress? IDK. Even if that were the case, it felt redundant. (Sometimes with this show I want to be like “have confidence that the audience will understand!”)

Clip 4 - Someone’s gonna catch a disease or a demon from that sofa

The girls and Lucas walk to a secondhand store. The store is like where they keep the props for The Conjuring movies. For some reason this thrift shop has multiple dolls that are missing body parts just hanging out, which is objectively the creepiest thing you could encounter. There are also jars of yellow ... something. I’m not gonna say it’s definitely pee, but it could be pee.

Daphne is once again the MVP of the show for how she screams and runs away when she gets freaked out. She’s so entertaining.

A dude shows up and the scene dramatically cuts to black with the sound of a sharp blade, as if in a slasher movie, but of course then we cut to this guy pouring tea for everyone. Total tangent but you know, a horror series could be pretty fun if it followed the real-time format of Skam. They played with the concept in the cabin episode, as a parody of course, but I would love to see more genre series in this mode of story-telling. A really well-written suspense or horror story could be so effective in real time!

Also, the guy looks like the school psychologist from Skam Italia. And the gym teacher from Skam Italia. Or maybe I just think all older men with beards look alike.

It was the guy’s brother’s shop. He was a compulsive hoarder, which is not a surprise in the slightest. The brother died recently. “Of what?” “I don’t know, I haven’t found him yet.” Lmao, this is a funny scene. They guy is joking and says his brother had cancer, but let’s be real, that’s also a lie. The guy was obviously murdered by those dolls.

The gang gets some additional goodies from their visit. So Lucas has to carry the couch back with Manon and Daphne, Imane and Alex carry the football table, and Emma trails behind with her lava lamp. LMAO. It’s a great image. (I have no idea if Daphne was actually carrying the couch at all, or if she was just supervising. I think Lucas and Manon were doing the heavy lifting, literally.)

They take a break and Lucas rubs his injured hand. Lucas, get help for that! Go to the doctor! I’m sure she has some eccentric yet helpful life advice in addition to her medical expertise.

Daphne comes up to him and asks whether he’s heard from Basile since Friday. NO GOD WHY.

Lucas smiles and says a bit, why? Daphne is like… just for news. The girls tease her by saying she’s actually into him, Daphne says no, he’s so annoying. WHY GOD. WHY MUST WE GO HERE. It’s so aggravating that the best character on this show is going to be paired off with the worst character on the show (and one of the worst characters in the entire Skam universe).

The girls talk about how much their men suck. Daphne says guys are worst than girls. LESBIAN. DAPHNE. PLEASE. I’m begging you.

Daphne says no offense to Lucas, and Imane says he’s not a real guy. Whoa! Hold on a moment there. Lucas’ expression is all WTF, Imane tells him to take a joke. This is one of those casual comments that can cut deep; Imane doesn’t know Lucas is gay at this point, so it’s not quite her assuming that gay guys are honorary girls or something like that. But one of Lucas’ fears is how being gay will separate him from his male friends, and at this very moment he is separated from them. So this is not a reassuring thing to hear. Calling someone a “real guy” can sting for someone who’s struggling to find out just where they fit in with the guys, and now hears that they don’t really belong there. Interesting that they made Imane throw out this comment since it’s more careless than we often hear from her. Not that she’s perfect or anything, just that we more often hear remarks like this from someone like Daphne. But it goes to show that everyone’s capable of these microaggressions.

Daphne says Lucas is so lucky, girls are so much simpler (I guess she means with dating). Irony! Lucas does not say L M A O in response. How lucky can he be when a raccoon man broke his heart? Manon says that’s inaccurate and not true. Daphne thinks it’s easy for Manon to say that when she’s dating the perfect guy. Irony! Manon hops off that couch and says it’s time to go again. I wonder how long they’re going to string along the hints that all is not well with Marles. Noora came back and immediately told everyone that she and William had relationship issues, but Manon is hiding the truth.

I thought this clip was a lot of fun but it’s one that doesn’t really fit with the mood or atmosphere that Lucas is going through right now. I saw people defending it as like a break from the misery and tension, and I couldn’t help but be like ... no! That’s not a good thing! I get that Lucas doesn’t need the same emotional journey as Isak, but speaking as someone who watched Skam S3, episode 6 in real time, the constant pain was a good thing. Sure, it was draining. Sure, it was stressful. But it got you into Isak’s head. It made you feel what he was suffering. It captured his isolation and loneliness. It made the final clip of the week with Jonas such a huge relief (and to be fair, they sure took a different tone with Yann...) Narratively, it was expertly crafted and paced. With scenes like this, it does chip away at some of the tension. I wouldn’t say it’s pointless (and again, on its own there were a lot of funny moments) but again I wish Skam France was better at establishing and holding a mood. Because there are ways they could have shot this scene with similar content, but with more of a consistent emphasis on Lucas’ POV, filtering through his lens. Focus on his detachment, have something in the shop remind him of Eliott, etc. The dead guy’s brother talks about how isolated and lonely the brother was and how he didn’t open up to anyone. Something like that. Except for a few brief moments like the shot of his hand or the response to Imane’s comment, the scene doesn’t have much to do with him, really, and this is a very crucial time in the story to be making us feel what Lucas feels.

There’s also that I feel like a girl squad scene is like a requirement of each episode, and listen, I enjoy them as much as anyone, but I also think that these scenes can feel like they don’t fit with the narrative as a whole. Both the cake clip and now this clip had little to do with Lucas’ POV (compared to something like the Kinsey Scale discussion which was relevant to him). There are some bits contributing to other subplots, like a hint at the end about Manon and Charles, which is probably meant to lead into the next clip where Manon cries, but tbh they’ve dropped quite a few hints about her not being OK by now so IDK this particular one was necessary? And to be fair, other seasons of Skam spread their focus beyond the POV character. But part of why Isak’s season is so good, IMO, is that every single clip contributes to the main story. It’s very tightly written. I guess I can’t help but wish that every clip had a clear tie to Lucas’ character arc even if there are other subplots happening, and not just that other storylines are taking place and Lucas happened to be there.

Clip 5 - Not talking is good

Lucas is up at almost 2:00 watching TV. A late night clip, wow! Glad to see one of these. It’s something that does establish mood and get us into Lucas’ mindset. Timing is one of the most useful tools the Skam format has, compared to traditional TV series.

Manon comes in and he asks if he woke her. She sits next to him and climbs under the blanket. Manon is clearly distressed. Lucas notices she has tears in her eyes. She seems on the brink of saying something, but he suggests they don’t talk about it. He puts an arm around her and she leans into him as the piano music starts again. We’re getting a hell of a lot of that this episode. She cries, he starts to get teary as well.

Lucas and Manon have the most familial relationship in the flat. In Skam it was Isak and Eskild, here it’s definitely Lucas and Manon. They feel like each other’s family. I do really like this scene for showing their bond and demonstrating that they’re both going through something they can’t talk about, it’s really lovely. Neither of them can say what’s troubling out loud. Manon has been needling Lucas to talk to her about his problems, but Lucas doesn’t pressure Manon to talk about what’s making her cry. There’s probably a balance they need to achieve to get to the emotionally healthiest place.

One effect of moments like this is that the Lucas/Manon relationship feels so much more developed than some of Lucas’ other relationships, like they can cry with each other and show emotional vulnerability with each other in a way that Lucas can’t with other people. Like I was rooting for Lucas and Yann’s friendship, and there is a ton to be said about Lucas being accepted by his best friend and what that means in terms of depicting supportive male friendships, but I also completely get why people thought he should come out to Manon instead, because story-wise, this relationship feels different from others. Lucas does feel comfortable with her, even if they’re not talking about their problems, and making the progression to voicing their problems to each other seems like a logical progression.

Clip 6 - Find your Jerome

Lucas has gone to the school doctor from the first season, who tries to guess his name. The final one she guesses is Isak, lmao. Awww. I’m going to be a total sap and say that my heart got all mushy and emotional hearing that name. I miss my boy! I need Julie Andem to deliver that reunion special ASAP. But I do like Skam France’s nods to the original show, they’re not that subtle but they’re sweet gestures.

Lucas says he has trouble sleeping. To their credit, they did show him and Manon up late at night this week, so it doesn’t come totally out of nowhere. I do think perhaps they missed a chance for him to go to the doctor because of his hand. And maybe lie to her about how it happened, but she kinda guesses he punched something and gives him a little speech about not bottling up emotions and taking out his anger by punching stuff? IDK. I think that would’ve fit Lucas’ characterization and his particular struggles, but this is fine.

I love how satisfied the doctor seems when she tells him to avoid blue light. Nailed it!

I feel like this scene could’ve been built up a a bit clearer, because Lucas is all, “IDK why I can’t sleep” and that seems a little ridiculous, like obviously he knows why he can’t sleep all of a sudden. If he didn’t, he’d be like, “Oh, blue light is the problem? That settles that.” He’s got big personal problems. It’s just that he’s not going to tell this doctor what they are. With Isak, he had a clear motive for going to the doctor - there was a text where Linn mentioned her sleeping pills and Isak came in asking for some of those, except the doc gave him some advice to talk to people instead. Like I’m not sure what Lucas wanted from going in here? Because he knows he’s thinking too much at night, but he doesn’t want to tell the doctor the specifics. So I’m not sure what he was hoping for by going here since I’m sure he wasn’t planning on using this appointment as a therapy session. I guess he could’ve been intending to ask for some sleeping pills or something else to help him sleep, but never got around to it because the doctor started to talk about her lover and thoughts of murder. Just a small observation.

The nurse starts telling him about how she also has problems talking about herself due to shyness or modesty (lol, this doctor being shy or modest). But she can talk to Jerome, the man she’s apparently cheating on her spouse with? Or engaging in some mutually agreed polyamorous arrangement, looking at it in a more positive light. (Or Jerome is a mannequin. Somehow that seems like the most plausible option.)

She mentions that her days are filled with teenagers who think they’re pregnant, nice nod to S1, and tells Lucas she can confide in Jerome about her murderous fantasies when her brother wants her to visit. LMAO. Well it’s nice that she can talk to someone about that? Tell me that this tidbit isn’t made dramatically more interesting if Jerome is indeed a mannequin, though. Anyway, she encourages Lucas to find his Jerome, someone he can trust.

Outside, Lucas is sitting and thinking and brooding. He reaches his hand into his pocket and finds a note from Eliott. The tinkly piano music starts again, damn, they’re going for a record in this episode. I think it’s the same tune as when Lucas first saw Eliott. The note is a very cute cartoon of his raccoon fursona, “Eliott 25473” looking at a hedgehog and not approaching him, but “Eliott 34512″ runs towards his fate and talks to the hedgehog. Hedgehog looks super happy to see this raccoon. The animal cartoons continue to be one of my favorite parts of this season.

Lucas sees Eliott walking across the courtyard. That seems to make up his mind, so he puts the drawing in his pocket and gets up. He walks up to someone and asks if they can talk later. The view of the person is obscured just to give you a misdirect that Lucas is talking to Eliott, but of course it’s actually Yann. Yay, Yann! And we’re all so excited for this beloved scene to happen next!

Clip 7 - Coming out to Yann

Ahahahaha.

After school, Lucas and Yann are sitting on a bench in the schoolyard, and Lucas is saying how he has been acting weird lately. There’s the complicated situation with his parents, there’s school, there’s the rent he can’t pay … and he thinks he fell in love. Not with Chloe. It’s not a girl. Yann seems a little surprised, which Lucas observes, but mostly Yann just seems to be listening. Yann is like, but it’s not me? Lucas says no, but there was a time last year … he trails off as Yann seems to be thinking wait, what? So Lucas just holds off elaborating on that confession and tells Yann about Eliott. Yann seems to understand, he’s just nodding and listening, asking a few questions. All is well.

Lucas says he wanted to tell Yann the truth, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He went to see the nurse because he hasn’t been sleeping. She told him to talk to someone he trusts. Lucas talked to Mika and it bit him in the ass. Chloe got mad. Yann asks if anyone else knows. Lucas thinks Manon, Emma, and Alex are suspicious and have guessed, and when he talks to Imane about it, they fight. Lucas asks Yann what he thinks. Yann is turning over something in his head. Lucas wants to know what Yann is thinking.

And Yann says, he can’t do this right now. He needs time. And he gets up and walks off. Lucas sits there in shock and misery after Yann leaves as dramatic music plays.

I feel like I need a drink before discussing this scene.

I do not think this was the right narrative choice, for multiple reasons. The clip has already been debated and discoursed, so I might not be saying anything new, but let’s unpack it from several angles. I will say upfront that after this scene, even before we got confirmation, I thought it was most likely Yann was upset about not being trusted, or other people finding out before he did, than because he was a big homophobe. But I still don’t think this makes the scene much better or justifiable.

From a basic writing standpoint: I think this was sloppy. I don’t think it was meant for anything other than throwing more shit at Lucas and some quick shock value. They wanted to surprise the viewers of the original show or throw in a plot twist. But none of this fits Yann’s character. The guy has been encouraging Lucas to confide in him during the season, so for this to happen when Lucas does finally confide? Feels wrong. Keep in mind that Lucas is not just confessing about being gay/falling in love with a guy: he mentions his family situation, his rent, school. Yann may not realize that Lucas was outed, but Lucas does mention the stress he’s felt from other people finding out about him and Eliott. So Yann hears all of this and decides to walk away, because of his own wounded feelings. Yann, after being supportive of Lucas and his family situation for ages. Okay. I get that characters aren’t perfect. But this doesn’t even feel like a choice Yann would make. Earlier in the episode he was like “either talk to us or sort your shit out”? He makes it clear that they’re not going to wait around for him if Lucas doesn’t want to talk, it’s caring but very no-nonsense, which is part of why it feels like his reaction doesn’t fit - he takes it personally that Lucas didn’t come to him. It just seems at odds, and I get that people don’t necessarily react consistently, but in a scripted TV show I do expect characters to react in a way that feels organic to their prior behavior.

Without a doubt it would have been worse to make Yann walk away because he’s genuinely homophobic, but in a way it feels even more contrived that he did so for other reasons? I’m trying to word this properly, but while making Yann homophobic would have been a horrible choice and I’m glad they didn’t go that far, the fact that he’s not makes this scene feel extremely petty in the overall narrative. Like when Yann explains himself in the next episode, it becomes abundantly clear that this was a fake-out, this was meant to throw the viewers off for a few days. It was just cheap. It doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of the narrative.

There’s the racial aspect. You cannot ignore that in this scene. We have two non-black Jonases in OG Jonas and Giovanni reacting amazingly to this confession, and the Skam France writers chose to make their black Jonas react poorly. I doubt their thought process was “he’s black so he’s gonna be more homophobic.” But I do think they should’ve thought the implications through. Because as much as people wanted to say race didn’t matter in this scene - it did. People already had an irrational dislike of Yann for doing the same things that Jonas and Giovanni did, and this clip just confirmed their worst biases. We had people hating the black character because of this change. People being like “I told you Yann was the worst and that he wouldn’t support Lucas!!!” when there wasn’t any reason to think Yann wouldn’t support Lucas prior to this scene. It was uncomfortable to watch this play out in parts of the fandom. And you had one of the character’s best, most shining moments taken away from him. Sure, the scene with Yann in the next episode is great. But the coming out scene is beloved and iconic, it made Skam fans love Jonas when many people had still been on the fence about him due to S1, and it could have been an equally powerful moment for Yann, a character who is already marginalized and dismissed by parts of fandom for being black. He didn’t get that.

Also, when Basile and Arthur ended up being OTT LGBT allies to the point of comedy, and Yann is the one with a bad reaction ... not great that the white guys were overly awesome and the black character is the one who ditched his friend. I’m not saying Yann has to be perfect and that’s the only way he can be great representation. But they had a precedent of this character reacting well and they actively changed that to be worse, and they changed these other two characters to be even more enthusiastic about their friend being gay. Then we also have two other white characters, Manon and Mika, supporting and comforting Lucas when he’s breaking down, in part because Yann rejected him. It’s a pile of unfortunate implications.

Then we have prioritizing the straight character’s feelings. Yann’s reasons for walking away were about Yann, not Lucas. Yann being upset that Lucas didn’t trust him. Yann being upset he wasn’t the first one to know. It’s self-centered. And we’re supposed to assign narrative weight to how a straight character feels about a gay character coming out. This is one of the biggest moments of Lucas’ life, for any gay person’s life. It should not be about the straight character’s feelings. That was something that was so important about the original scene. Jonas showed empathy and understanding that this was Isak’s moment, not Jonas’. Jonas listened. He let Isak talk at his own pace. He asked about Isak, he asked about Even, he didn’t make it about how he, Jonas, should’ve noticed a long time ago or how he felt about it. By making Yann walk away, the scene doesn’t become about the relief Lucas feels, it doesn’t become his affirming moment. In fact, it doesn’t even feel totally like his miserable, shitty moment? Because now everyone is thinking why the fuck Yann did that, what’s wrong with Yann, is Yann going to come back and apologize, etc. The ~mystery takes the emphasis away from Lucas.

In conjunction with the doctor scene… the actual fuck were they thinking? The advice given to Lucas was “find someone who you can trust” with the message that it’s such a relief to open up to someone. And this lesson as it actually plays out? Leads to rejection. Showing that if you talk to people, it won’t be any better, it might actually be worse because then your friend will leave you. What a great message. It’s not like talking to people and not bottling up your feelings is one of the most important lessons of the show. For a show that is aimed at helping teenagers through stress and shame, teaching them valuable lessons to deal with their problems, it’s thoughtless bordering on irresponsible to juxtapose these clips.

And that leads into my final point, which is not just about this scene, but about how criticism can be received in this fandom. We gotta talk about “realism” and its use as a defense in the Skam remakes.

Some people might ask, well, why does there need to be a great message in Skam? Why do there need to be life lessons in these clips? Can’t it just be an entertaining show? Or, the other popular argument: It’s realistic, therefore it’s beyond critique. (Usually not worded like that, but that’s the sum of the argument.)

Yes, Skam is a show built on realism. It is a show that captures teenage acne and awkward pauses and the mundane experience of lying on your bed texting someone, trying to think of the right things to say, in a way that is often glossed over by other TV series. But Skam is not just a realistic show. Skam is an idealistic show and it always has been. The show has always been about trying to give teenagers hope, to present positive models of behavior, to show the best of what we could be.

Here are some things that could be considered “realistic” in S3:

Isak rejecting Even due to his mental illness

Isak getting bullied and beaten up after being outed

Isak’s religious mom telling him he’s going to hell for being gay

Isak shoving himself back in the closet and continuing to date girls

Even killing himself due to depression

These are all extreme examples, for sure. But they’re things that have happened in real life. They’re stories that have been told in media before. Why didn’t Skam go there? Why did S3 end with Isak and Even in a happy, loving relationship, and not both of them dead from reenacting Romeo + Juliet, or Isak crying over Even’s grave, or Isak forever alone and miserable and suffering for being gay? Because that’s not the point of the fucking show.

Skam is not perfect. The characters are not perfect. But you have to ignore a core value of the series if you want to claim that Skam is about realism but not idealism. There is a reason so many characters resolve their problems by talking about their feelings. There is a reason we get so many quotes about how we should have empathy for others. Are there many true villains in this series? The only one who feels completely irredeemable is William’s brother, the sexual predator, and even he got a moment of sympathy when Mari acknowledged how messed up his childhood was. Everyone else, even the ones who act as antagonists, eventually gets some kind of compassion and forgiveness. Isak ends S3 on good terms with basically everyone: his friends, his parents, his roommates, Even, even people like Sonja and Emma. Because the show wants to give you some goddamn hope. Skam wants to demonstrate how good we can be to each other when we try.

I watched this episode of Skam in real time. I was going through Isak’s misery day after day. I was there when the original clip of Isak and Jonas dropped. When Isak came to Jonas and Jonas reacted so wonderfully, it was a tremendous relief for both Isak and the audience. I remember when the regular hearts on the Skam website (the like button) turned into rainbow hearts - it was for that clip, and it was such a meaningful moment. Isak was out, the hearts had changed, Isak had changed, there was no going back, but it was a triumphant change. And it wasn’t Disneyland. The clip was healing. It inspired other fans to come out to their friends and loved ones.

Circling back to Yann’s reaction here: I certainly get why it would resonate with viewers who’ve had similar experiences coming out to people and don’t want to invalidate their responses. It’s not that I think it’s completely out of line with Skam’s idealism for him to walk away. That he comes back in a few days and apologizes is a positive moment with good messages. It’s more that this moment was changed to be worse - I can’t help but feel it betrays that sense of optimism and hope that was built into Isak’s story. Because the fact that they went for the more dramatic shock value moment, rather than the healing moment, feels deeply cynical about what they want for the viewers. As I said above, the change didn’t feel well thought-out, it felt cheap. It’s pretty meaningless in the whole narrative, it’s just a quick gut punch to make you (and Lucas) feel bad. There are other bad things that happen to Lucas that matter in the overall story, because they influence his character or push the plot forward. This felt like angst for the sake of angst. "Realism” should not be a shield for every writing choice on the show, or else we can let all sorts of shitty tropes (and just plain lazy writing) happen in the name of realism.

Also, can we get rid of the idea that Norway is some homophobia-free paradise and Jonas’ reaction makes sense only in an LGBT wonderland? Homophobia is everywhere. Some places more than others, for sure, but nowhere is perfect. Isak’s story was full of homophobia even if he wasn’t getting gay bashed. How do you think he developed internalized homophobia in the first place? If Isak’s culture is devoid of homophobia, then why is he so nervous about coming out to people at all?

And I gotta say, after events in episode 7, it is totally ridiculous to defend this scene as realism and “not Disneyland” when Basile and Arthur are basically wearing Mickey Mouse ears when they learn Lucas is gay. Not that I think it’s wrong for them to be supportive, just that their scene is clearly grounded in idealism.

The original clip with Jonas reacting well to Isak coming out? Was based on a true story. It’s just as realistic as Yann walking away.

Social Media/General Comments

Lmao, Daphne’s inspiration deco for the common room. Dream big, girl. I like Alex’s response of pretty pink and elegant toilet paper decorations. Emma suggests a big box of condoms, which is the most practical suggestion.

Eliott posted a picture of his raccoon fursona throwing out many notes, so probably him struggling to come up with the right thing to say/draw to Lucas.

Daphne and Lucas have a friendly conversation. She really wanted him to go lift that couch.

Eliott posts another picture with a Virginia Woolf quote, saying “In case you ever foolishly forget, I am never not thinking of you.” Should be obvious that he’s thinking about Lucas. Virginia Woolf is a good choice for Eliott to quote since she was supposed to be bipolar, as well as bisexual (not pansexual, as Eliott may identify like Even did, but still relatable as they’re both into more than one gender).

Here’s a post about the Pygmalion reference with the picture Eliott posted. I feel like there’s something to be said about Polaris, too, and Lucas embodying one of the characters in Eliott’s movie, so that it feels like Lucas is lifted right out of Eliott’s art.

Eliott deleted the cartoons of him and Lucille cat after the cafeteria conversation with Lucas about having to choose. He CHOSE.

There’s a very sweet text from Manon and Lucas where she thanks him for last night, it was nice to not talk with him. Awww. They do have a nice relationship.

Emma seems done with Raptor Alex judging by her post “when he’s a fuckboy but he’s cute as hell” which goes along with the conversation when they’re moving the couch. Do we think Emma and Yann will end up getting back together, next season perhaps? Will she and Alex continue to be FWB? Or will Emma find someone else? Or be single for a while?

Super depressing post from Lucas after he comes out to Yann, a cartoon saying “God needs your boat to use as an ash tray” showing that he’s really slipping and feels like he’s drowning. When Yann walked away, he took Lucas’ last shred of hope with him. JFC.

I’m not French so feel free to explain or clarify something I missed.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

#skamfr reactions #skam france reactions

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theinkstainsblog · 6 years

Note

Do you mind if I ask how you feel about J. K. Rowlings? You mentioned you don't like her personally, I'm just curious why :)

no i don’t mind although the last time I talked about this it sparked off a lot of debate so we’ll have to see how this goes.

This is gonna be long sorry about that…

Like I said I admire her very much as a writer and the Harry Potter books were a huge part of my childhood that I’ll always treasure but she’s done an awful lot of things that mean I just don’t feel I can support her anymore. And it’s mostly not problematic stuff within the text (they’re all very straight and very white but so are a lot of books) it’s problematic stuff outside of it. And while everyone is problematic to a degree my issue with Rowling is that she doesn’t listen to marginalised fans when they try and tell her she’s been hurtful, she blocks them and goes “la, la la la, i can’t hear you, i’m too perfect.” Which… don’t become an author if you can’t take any criticism.

So first off she’s homophobic and transphobic.

1). There’s the Dumbledore thing. She lists him as being gay in the books on twitter but its not canon cause its never even hinted in the text. However, she does act like that’s proper representation and LGBT fans should adore her for it (wants the adoration without doing the work).

2). This has then got worse recently because the next Fantastic Beasts film is supposed to build on Dumbledore and Grindelwald when Grindelwald is coming to power. We know that supposedly Dumbledore was in love with Grindelwald as a kid and that’s why it takes him so long to bring Grindelwald down. So its massively relevant to this film’s plot then right?? And she’s already said he’s gay so it will be made canon now right?? Wrong. She’s stated she’s not doing anything to do with it at all. Because she loves getting fake ally points but hates actually doing anything.

(This is the part where someone tries to tell me something about how Hollywood won’t allow gay characters and its nothing to do with Rowling.. and I’m sorry but no. a). she writes the damn scripts for these films but chose not to put it in there b). she’s rich and powerful and popular enough that if she threatened to pull it if they didn’t do it right they’d listen. No way they’re going to lose the moneymaker that is the next Fantastic Beasts)

3). Everytime queer fans tried to bring this up, even very politely, she blocks them and accuses them of bullying. Is that really anyway to treat lifelong fans just because they raise an issue they’re worried about? Especially when its her books that helped teach a lot of us to speak up when we see something wrong.

4). The queerbaiting in Cursed Child. Now she didn’t write this one so she’s not directly involved I guess. I haven’t read Cursed Child so I can’t talk on it much but if you just google queerbaiting in Cursed Child you should be able to find out more.

5). She recently stated that the werewolves are a metaphor for the AIDs crisis. Now a). personally, I think there are certain narratives that belong to the people they happened to and the AIDs crisis would be one of them so she needs to get her dirty straight fingers the hell off of that. b). besides Lupin one of the main werewolves is Fenrir, a guy who literally just goes around biting children to turn them. That sounds massively like the stereotype from that era that gay men were just predators and paedophiles and were out to infect your kids.

6). She liked a bunch of tweets where terfs were saying vile things about trans women. She claims this was an accident but you tell me how easy it is to like multiple tweets on the same topic by accident (especially when they shouldn’t even come up on your feed unless you followed people with those views or searched for them). So yeah make of that one what you will but I’m adding transphobia to the list.

Next up we have racism and cultural appropriation. Now I’m white so I can’t talk about this in as much detail as others can and I apologise if I miss something!

1). Cho Chang.. So she’s one of very very few non-white characters in the books and it’s patently obvious that Rowling didn’t do even the slightest bit of research on how to represent her (you can tell because both Cho and Chang are actually surnames so… what the fuck).

2). Her narrative is incredibly stereotypical and harmful. Here’s a poem by Rachel Rostad that explains that much better than I ever could.

3). The Pavartis… they’re small side characters but their biggest moment is probably going to the Ball with Harry and Ron. Where they’re promptly ignored and sidelined. Because who cares about brown girls right?

4). Rowling keeps taking concepts like the thunderbirds to use in her world-building that Native American people have asked not to be used in fantasy because it’s of cultural importance to them. Ignoring that request is… well, cultural appropriation no matter how you look at it.

Then there’s the abuse apologism…

1). She allows Depp to be in her films despite what he’s done (abused his partner) and how many fans of expressed discomfort with that. Even if it was the studio pushing for that, she could have spoken out against it (something that’s at the core of her book's message - speak out when bad stuff happens) but instead she wrote some bs about being in full support of him.

So yeah… I still love and always will love the Harry Potter books despite their flaws. My issue with JK Rowling isn’t in her writing itself but in the fact that she is unable to let it die. Every time someone tries to criticise her she makes up something to make herself look like a great ally when in reality she has no intention of caring for marginalised fans e.g. rather than accepting that her books have no gay characters and she should do better, she randomly decides Dumbledore is gay.

Because of this, I can no longer feel comfortable supporting her and I won’t be going to see the new film or giving her any more of my money. It’s fanfiction and headcanons only for me!

#harry potter #hp discourse #jk rowling

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that-curly-haired-lesbian · 6 years

Note

Can you do an analysis on Haunted and You’re not sorry?

Hello and welcome tothis week on Theo The Taymily Trash!Yes friends, that time has come again, apologies for it now being almost Tuesdaywhen Sunday was promised; thesis times sure are crazy, huh? #plzkillme

Anyway today’s songthat anon asked for and will of course receive is Haunted (promptlyfollowed by You’re Not Sorry whichwill go up later today.)

As you may haveguessed from my little alliteration game above I’m under the impression that Haunted is yet another song for Taylor’steenage love Emily Poe (here’s a refresher on that relationship for those whoneed it although I’ve talked about Taymily so much on here and linked this veryhelpful post to such a degree that I doubt there’s anyone in my audience stillconfused)

I also however believeit can be seen as a metaphor for Taylor’s wishful compulsory heterosexualityclashing with her homosexual reality. This is something that the wonderful @all-my-possessionspoints out here and if you’reinterested in that perspective please go read that post as I won’t touch toomuch on that here.

What’s written inthis analysis is built on my own theories and speculations and thus what isstated here is in no way meant to be taken as factual. I’m just trying to putan interesting queer spin on a TS song, after all that’s what I do over here.

Credit for the lyricsdisplayed here goes to AZLyrics as always.

–

You and I walk a fragile line

I have known it all this time

But I never thought I’d live to see it break

–

In the opening lines Taylor introduces us to “You” whois traditionally the conveniently gender-neutral love interest in her songs. Forthe sake of this analysis we’re going to assume that “You” in this case isEmily while “I” of course is Taylor herself.

What she’s establishing here in these first few linesis that on some level she always knew her relationship with Emily was fragile andthat it wouldn’t last forever. Working together and being in love in such aheteronormative environment (country music industry) both ladies likely knewthat outside forces (aka Team Taylor and the homophobic industry in general) werelikely to tear them apart sooner or later. As we all know by now though Taylor isn’texactly a realist when it comes to love, she’s a dreamer and a romantic and assuch she likely didn’t exactly enjoy thinking about the day her blissful relationshipwould eventually come to an end. She pretended that day was somewhere far offin a distant future and that her and her girlfriend would be able to push itforward even further with the sheer power of their love. Taylor wanted them tobe together forever so she made herself believe that they could be. (“The line”that symbolized their relationship wouldn’t break within Taylor’s lifetime becausethey’d be together forever and keep their balance on that fragile line throughany storm.)

–

It’s getting dark and it’s all too quiet

And I can’t trust anything now

And it’s coming over you like it’s all a big mistake

–

This may very well just be Taylor trying to give ussome eerie imagery for a song called Haunted,I mean it does fit with the aesthetic wouldn’t you say. Girl alone in acold and dark, quiet graveyard can’t trust what she’s seeing or hearing, she’shaunted. What this truly makes me think of though is “the rest of the world was black and white but we were in screamingcolor” in my opinion Out Of The Woodsdoes have a lot of parallels to Haunted.In OOTW the screaming-color-line as Isee it is clearly a metaphor for Pride and rainbow colors typically associatedwith the gay community. She’s saying “the rest of the world was straight andboring, but we deviated from the norm and our pride colors shone bright incontrast.” In Haunted when she says “it’sgetting dark” I almost picture all of the colors draining from a rainbow prideflag (or you know, from the world in general) leaving it grey and boring, blackand white if you will. Of course this is a bit of a reach and the line likelyjust symbolizes how the color and happiness seem to drain from the world whenyour heart is broken as you’re too sad to see any joy such as pretty colors. Whenyou’re in love the whole world shines bright and when it’s over it’s grey andmeaningless and boring. Just thought the pride/”screaming colors” thing was aninteresting reading given the community’s strong association with colorfulrainbows. 🌈🌈🌈

She then says it’s “all too quiet” maybe this refersto the “zero contact rule” Taymily was put under after Emily was fired? It’sassumed they weren’t to interact anymore on orders from Team Taylor due toEmily’s “damaging influence on Taylor’s image”

So basically Emily had disappearedfrom Taylor’s life (at least “officially”) they were no longer working togetherand Team Taylor had made sure of it, I wouldn’t blame Taylor if she felt likeshe couldn’t trust anything being told to her. After all the people who’d “gottenrid of” (god, that sounds sinister, sorry) Emily were the once who was supposedto look out for Taylor and now they’d done this, also keep in mind that Taylorwas underage at the time so she likely didn’t have much of a say either.Horrible situation, really! 😞

Then she says “it’s coming over you like it’s all abig mistake” in previous analyses I’ve done around the Taymily narrative I’vesort of tended to assume Emily was the one that insisted they could still betogether post-firing while Taylor opted to walk away in favor of her careerlike the people in charge were “advising her” but this song almost seems toimply it was the other way around.

I think the line can either refer to “it” coming for(or “over”) Emily in the sense that she got in trouble due to her relationshipwith Tay and got fired for her “mistake” (defined that way by Team Taylor.)

OR that Emily herself actually personally thought the wholething had been a mistake after being fired. Maybe losing her job made her realizebeing in a relationship with Taylor was unwise for several reasons (age gap, professionalism,the fact that no longer working together would prevent them from seeing eachother as often and thus from working out in the long-run, maybe?) and she endedit and hurt Taylor in the process causingher to question if Emily was hit with doubt of some sort (or a good old “I’mnot gay, this was a fluke”-panic) and viewed their entire relationship as “justsome big mistake.”

–

Oh, I’m holding my breath

Won’t lose you again

Something’s made your eyes go cold

–

What’s causing me to relate this song to Emily is the continuousreferences to breathing and breathe (y’all may be familiar with Taylor’s song Breathe largely assumed to be aboutEmily?) In Breathe Taylor says shecan’t breathe without Emily but she has to, here she seems to go back on thatstatement. She’s only holding her breath temporarily, suggesting she hasn’t yetfully lost Emily and doesn’t have to breathe without her just yet. In my BackTo December analysis (x) I speculate that Breathewas written pretty much directly after Emily was fired, I further theorize thatmaybe they hadn’t even broken up yet at the time that song was written, or atleast Taylor was holding onto hope that the breakup was temporary.

“Won’t lose you again” indicates that she’s alreadylost the girl once and I don’t think that’s referring to a breakup actually, I thinkthat’s referring to the firing. When Emily was fired her and Taylor lost animportant aspect of their relationship (after all they did spend most of theirtime together on the road) so them not working together anymore must’ve feltlike they were losing each other in a sense. Even though they weren’t professionallyseen together in any sense they could’ve still been dating post-firing thoughand Taylor didn’t want to lose Emily “again” in the sense that she didn’t wantthe romantic relationship to end. She’d already lost Emily professionally and didn’twanna do it again by going through a loss of their personal relationship aswell. However the next line seems to indicate that despite their best effortthe love (at least on Emily’s side) seems to have faltered pretty soon, perhapsdue to having more limited time together or just not being able to get over thefiring or feeling like Taylor picked her career over her girl? (I won’t pretendI know why they broke up) somehow though Emily’s eyes “went cold” she wasn’t inlove anymore and Taylor noticed in the way she was suddenly looked at by thoseeyes who used to adore her, but no longer did. This is so upsetting and I wannahug baby Tay!! 😭

–

Come on, come on, don’t leave me like this

I thought I had you figured out

Something’s gone terribly wrong

You’re all I wanted

Come on, come on, don’t leave me like this

I thought I had you figured out

Can’t breathe whenever you’re gone

Can’t turn back now, I’m haunted

–

We’re into the chorus and Taylor’s begging for hergirl to stay, to give them another shot, to no avail though it seems. She’ssaying she thought she knew Emily and that she could trust any promises offorever she might’ve been given, but now something’s gone wrong in the relationshipand Taylor’s desperately clinging to hope that it won’t end like this, it can’t.There’s another Breathe referencehere, even more obvious than the first. The last line of the chorus seems topoint to the interpretation that Taylor is the one to walk away in the enddespite all her begging she does pick the career in the end and that decision, thatlittle voice whispering “what if you’d pickeddifferently or done more to fight for her?” will always haunt the singer. Maybeespecially at the point when she wrote this song, she was a little older andhad presumably had time to reflect on how things turned out, she’d had time tounderstand the industry more and been given more of a say in PR decisionsperhaps. What if she was faced with the choice today, knowing and understandingall that she knows now, would she’d picked differently? The possibility thatshe might have will always haunt her.

–

Stood there and watched you walk away

From everything we had

But I still mean every word I said to you

–

Now it seems Emily is the one to have made that finalchoice to walk away after all and that Taylor tried to persuade her not to. Sheclaims she still meant every word she said in her attempt to get Emily to stay,but what exactly did she say?

–

He will try to take away my pain

And he just might make me smile

But the whole time I’m wishing he was you instead

–

I think this may show us what it was that Taylor said(that she meant every word of) you see I don’t think “he” is a person (or evenTaylor’s compulsory heterosexuality) at least not if we’re to stick with ourTaymily-centric narrative. I think “he” is the music, maybe the art itself ormaybe the industry. Taylor’s saying that getting to practice her art will takeaway some of the pain of picking her career over the girl she (at least at thetime) thinks the love of her life. The music will make her smile and make thepain of staying closeted worth it, but deep down she will still always wonderwhat it’d be like if she was able to be openly gay, what would it be like ifshe’d been married to the girl and not to her work? As much as Taylor lovesmusic and preforming I can’t imagine that thought not crossing her mind fromtime to time, especially in her pre-glass closeting days.

–

Oh, I’m holding my breath

Won’t see you again

Something keeps me holding on to nothing

–

Taylor’s starting to realize she won’t get to seeEmily as often if they’re not working together, but she’s still hoping they canstay together so she doesn’t have to try and breathe without Emily. Despite therelationship seemingly heading towards the end Taylor holds onto their love andhopes that is enough to keep them together even through trying times.

–

(Chorus)

–

I know, I know, I just know

You’re not gone. You can’t be gone. No.

–

This is pure agonizing denial and the way she singsthis part always makes me want to cry and breaks my heart, she doesn’t want tobelieve that Emily has broken up with her and simply won’t be in her lifeanymore. How can that be when the thought of what Taylor could’ve donedifferent will always haunt her? Emily will always haunt her so how could shebe gone? 💔💔💔💔

–

(Chorus)

–

Hope you all enjoyedreading that, You’re Not Sorry willbe up later today (it’s 1AM here now)for now I need to get some sleep 🌙 Thanks for reading and don’t hesitate to sendme requests for future analyses 😊

#gaylor swift #kaylor #taymily #songs #queer analysis #asks

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ileolai · 7 years

Text

rambling thoughts on Bill

I kind of wish we had more scenes with Moira + Bill, or at least Missy + Bill, bc really... that stuff is the actual core of Bill’s story. All the focus on Heather in the first episode seems to set up the series as a love story/journey to find Heather, when overall, as a series, it’s actually about Bill’s fundamental anxiety about her identity and being ignored.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very relevant and important to the story arc, but that’s probably a whole different meta analysis.

So anyway... Moira and Bill. Moira isn’t necessarily a bad foster-parent, but her relationship with Bill is rather cold for someone who should be taking care of her on that level. She doesn’t seem to hear anything Bill says, she doesn’t really see Bill for who she actually is. You don’t really get the sense that Moira has a whole lot of parent-y instincts for Bill, right? She’s more like a room-mate who happens to live with her. I actually assumed that’s what she was, for a moment, when we very first meet her.

Bill keeps blatantly signalling stuff like ‘’uh btw I’m a lesbian’’, and Moira just doesn’t hear it. It goes right over her head, not because she’s a terrible homophobe or doesn’t care about Bill or anything like that, but because she doesn’t seem to actually listen. She didn’t even know there were pictures of Bill’s biological mother around in the house [I mean yes, the Doctor altered the timeline by putting them there, but on a metaphorical level, that says something about how wrapped up she is in her own stuff, to miss these details about Bill’s life] and she doesn’t seem to grasp how important they are to Bill? She just like, ‘’oh yeah, we have photos of your dead mom btw.’’ and Bill has to deal with that by herself.

Moira is not alone in this issue however. The Doctor doesn’t really hear Bill either. He loves her, he’s fascinated by her intelligence and wants to see the potential of that, but he also just sort of walks all over her emotions, and Bill has no real defenses against that. He’s dismissive of Bill’s very real fears of Missy-- and I mean, he’s technically being honest in the fact that he can’t promise her eternal life, but that’s not really what Bill needs to hear at that moment. That’s not what she’s really asking for.

Now how Missy is relevant to this... Missy is like, the symbolic stand-in for Bill’s foster mom’s issues, yes? She’s the ‘’wicked stepmother, hisss’’ as the Doctor paints her in series 9, and overall she’s tied into all this imagery around [super] dysfunctional parenting. So it’s technically her doing, what happened to Bill, although she doesn’t consciously remember doing it. She seems to remember it subconsciously, because her residual guilt and fits of tears become apparent soon after she meets Bill, but she's never really seen Bill as anything more than a means to an end, or a ‘’function’’.

So these two are both responsible for how Bill ends up as a Cyberman. Both in a literal sense, because the Doctor made a series of terrible errors, and Missy actually did it, and in a metaphorical sense -- Bill’s underlying, consuming fear is that nobody sees her or listens to her, so she’s been stripped of her identity, her emotional expressions, and made mute. She has to look up her own name in the Cyberman wifi-cloud or whatever, like she doesn’t remember it. Although there’s some hope in the fact she seems to be able to override the circuit emotionally and so she retains that aspect of her self.

So Bill is like, the kid in the center of a relationship between two parents trying to patch up a divorce or something, yes? Who can’t get their shit together long enough to properly notice her, the Doctor and Missy standing in for that, as representations for that.

Sooo... the Heather stuff, although lovely in terms of queer representation and very very relevant to the overall story on a different level, isn’t really what Bill needs to resolve... she needs to make herself seen and heard, she needs both the Doctor and Missy to properly acknowledge her, to really properly empathize with her, to claim her identity back.

I’m assuming, I’m hoping, desperately, that she gets that moment, because it will be an absolute disaster if she doesn’t, on a narrative level, as well as in terms of... you know, the implications of a queer black companion being denied that triumph. Danny got his resolution over his ambivalence towards being a soldier and went out in a blaze of glory at the same time, but... Bill needs more than that, I think. She deserves more. As a companion and as a black, queer woman.

On a semi-related note: this is why I’m thoroughly fed up with all the stuff about how ‘’the companions should stay dead’’ because ‘’consequences’’. That is just bullshit, and particularly here, in this storyline. Denying Bill her self-actualization, her moment of heroism over both her real and subtextual terrors and physical predicament, would be the worst, most anti-climactic, and dishonest cop-out this storyline could possibly take, and I really hope Moffat would have more writerly integrity than that.

I’m hopeful, because this is like... the same dude that refused to punish Clara for her Doctorly aspirations, and actually gave her a TARDIS and quasi-immortality and an ending tied inextricably to Gallifrey and really sort of made her the first lady Doctor, prioritizing groundwork for an actual female Doctor over some boring pathos about death.... But... digressing now. I’m still anxious for Bill. I hope, I hope, I hope the Doctor isn’t alone and howling into the Arctic wind at the end because they decided to sacrifice the resolution Bill’s story demands, what the audience actually deserves, for his moment of angst.

#doctor who #bill potts #doctor who meta #dr whomst #series 10 #steven moffat

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lightsandlostbells · 5 years

Text

Skam France season 3, episode 2 reaction

Skam France is really leveling up

Eliott Demaury, raccoon enthusiast is the best creative decision they’ve ever made

Episode 2

Clip 1 - surejan.gif

Is the B-roll or w/e at the start of the clip the same place Lucas was brooding in the first clip of the season? It’s probably reading too much into it but I like that those two dudes on the bench are there for a reason, like mirroring Lucas and Eliott at the end of the last episode, sitting with space between them (no Chloé in the middle, though).

Lucas scrolls through his phone looking for Eliott. He doesn’t find him, but he does find a friend request from Chloé, which he accepts after a moment’s hesitation. Son, she’s going to take that as a marriage proposal.

Mika plops down beside him and nags Lucas about the rent. Now that Manon’s parents are no longer financing Lucas’ rent, seems like he’s behind. Can I just mention that Mika and Lucas look like they could be related? I know it is a running Skam fandom joke that the Evak couples look related (sometimes said with underlying homophobia IMO BUT I’m not going to go into that rant now) and I’ve seen people say Lucas and Eliott look similar, but Lucas and Mika are the ones who stick out the most to me. Actually, Lisa too. If you told me that this was an apartment of like ... three siblings being gay and cranky at each other, I would buy it.

Notifications are going off on Mika’s phone. It’s because Mika changed his profile pic, which he helpfully shows to Lucas/the viewers - I mean, I can get why his phone is blowing up, not gonna lie. No dick from what I can see, but you know. Suggestive. Pubes are clearly visible.

Lucas is like, I don’t want to see that! Well, I don’t think Lucas objects to naked men but I believe him in this instance because Mika is fulfilling the big brother role. Mika teases him about seeing what a man’s body looks like. Don’t worry Mika, in like a month Lucas is going to have very thorough knowledge of what a man’s body looks like.

Mika then asks for Lucas’ advice on a straight dude who wants a blowjob. Does he want it for himself or to do it to Mika? He helpfully imitates a blowjob that freaks out Lucas. I mean, it kinda freaks me out, I had war flashbacks to that grapefruit technique video. (If you have not seen that video, all I’m going to say that it is highly NSFW, not to be watched in public or if you have a heart condition, and I’m sorry.)

Mika is like, if you want to suck dick, you’re not that straight. Lucas is like, well, maybe he wants to try. Maybe that guy is just curious! HMMM Lucas, interesting train of thought. I’m sure you have no personal investment in this debate whatsoever. Mika helpfully shows Lucas’ a picture of the “curious” guy’s butthole. That Mika, being so helpful today.

Lucas gets up because he doesn’t want to spend his weekend looking at naked guys. Well, maybe not guys, plural. Again, in about a month you’re going to look back on that comment and laugh, bro.

Mika and Lisa agree that Manon was funnier. Lmao, I kinda love how they’re so unimpressed with Lucas.

Clip 2 - Light and dark

Lucas walks into school on Monday morning and … goes through an attendance book? He didn’t even hesitate, this guy does not give a single shit, does he? He’s just going to grab love by the balls. The camera puts us in Lucas’ POV by focusing from top to bottom like it’s imitating Lucas scanning the list, which is a good detail. Skam France had some POV issues I didn’t care for in previous seasons so this feels more carefully thought out.

Just as I’m noticing Raptor Alex’s name above Eliott’s, the man himself appears. Oh yeah, they’re supposed to be pals now. They have a short conversation where Lucas is like, WHOOPS, silly me taking the wrong book! When Alex asks for the register, Lucas snakes out and distracts him by congratulating Alex on him and Emma. Alex is like, “Huh? Did Emma tell you that?” Well, they were obviously making out at the party and hanging out together in their IG stories, so while it’s maybe an assumption that they are 100% a couple, there’s obviously something going on between them.

I’ve never really been like ... dying for Isak/P-Chris friendship or interaction post-S2, although I think it could have been interesting. Plus, Chris had graduated by S3 so there weren’t as many opportunities for them to interact. But it’s a nice follow-up here since Raptor Alex is still in school with them. (Was he supposed to graduate along with Charles last year, though? I totally forgot. It feels like those seasons aired forever ago.)

Bell rings, Lucas scampers off with the register. I was like, “Wait, did he even put it back?” until Alex calls after him for it, lmao. I like to imagine that it’s just gone forever, a casualty of love.

In the classroom, Lucas looks up Eliott on his phone. Unlike Isak, he has the wisdom to plug in earbuds before listening to anything.

He’s looking at a crowdfunding page for a project of Eliott’s. It’s noted that the project closed and that the funding was not reached, and that detail punched a hole in my heart. Instant poignancy, instant affection for Eliott. We don’t know the circumstances yet of why he didn’t meet his goal, and if it was at all related to his manic/depressive episodes - perhaps a nice bit of foreshadowing if it turns out they are related - but it’s automatically sympathetic to learn someone had a dream that went unfulfilled.

In a video, Eliott is talking about his project - a film called Polaris, about two characters and a tunnel. One is a boy, and one is not specified, (a boy, a girl, a creature) which I think is hinting at Elliott’s pansexuality, that he’s okay with any gender, it doesn’t matter to him. The second character does not leave the tunnel, because they are afraid of the light, and they meet the boy, who’s afraid of the dark. They can’t live in each other’s worlds so they chat at the border without ever seeing each other. They talk and fall in love but never meet until one of them decides to conquer their fears and go to the other’s world.

So there’s a lot of obvious symbolism here. Tbh, it’s pretty on the nose and I wish they’d toned it down just a smidge, since this is like … probably exactly what is going to happen with them for either their first kiss or their version of O Helga Natt (or both), but I still appreciate the effort a lot and am eager to see it in action. This is what I wanted from S3 remakes, for each of them to develop their own symbolism that fits their characters, because Isak and Even’s symbolism is so specific to them, their names and their story, that you inherently lose something when you transplant it to other versions of them. The concept of rebirth is really beautiful in a gay love story about coming out and being born as one’s authentic self; I think the idea of light and darkness being used in a similar way - especially in terms of a coming out narrative, being in darkness, coming into the light - could also be beautiful, and of course there are the ideas of having to be brave in order to live with each other, very relevant for an m/m couple in a homophobic society and for someone like Eliott who would be afraid to get close to someone due to his mental illness. It also works in the sense that neither of the characters in the film see each other until they get over their fears - both Lucas and Eliott have baggage and neither will really “see” or understand each other truly until they confront their respective issues.

Right now it seems like Eliott would be the one in the tunnel and Lucas is the one who’s afraid of the dark, and Lucas is going to have to leave his world to be with Eliott. Because well, this is supposed to be Lucas’ story, and the name “Lucas” is associated with light, or meaning “light-giver” or something similar. We know that one episode is called “the boy who was afraid of the dark” and that’s probably referring to Lucas since it’s his POV. At this point in the story, too, we aren’t supposed to know that Eliott is mentally ill, we don’t know he’s struggling, so we might also think that it’ll all be on Lucas to change in order for them to be together. But I think it’s also plausible that maybe they’ll switch roles over the course of the season, they both take turns in the light and in the dark. Maybe Lucas steps into the dark for the first kiss, conquering what he’s afraid of, then he steps into the light for the O Helga Natt equivalent. Or Lucas steps into the dark for the kiss, Eliott must step into the light for O Helga Natt. There are many ways it could go. But this is also what I like about them changing the symbolism, it leads to this kind of speculation.

I’d like to see Lucas and Eliott being a little more strongly contrasted, too, sort of like they’re ... polar opposites, eh? OK, not that corny and not that they need to be so different that they can’t get along. I just think it’d be interesting with the light and dark metaphor to have them be clearly different in some ways, personality-wise, arc-wise. I want to see their separate worlds highlighted at some point.

Also want to mention that you could perhaps apply this imagery to certain scenes already, like in the first clip of the season you had Lucas in the daytime, light reflecting off the water and through the trees, but he’s not really comfortable there, he’s alone and detached. Later that night, Lucas making out with Chloé in the hallway sort of put him in shadow (or that might be Skam France’s lighting in general, IDK). Might be a reach but it’d be interesting if those choices stacked up throughout the season and reflected the larger metaphor, when we see who’s playing what role.

Polaris itself is “the brightest star in the constellation of Ursa Minor” so that’s another nice allusion to light in itself.

Imane shows up and scares the bejesus out of Lucas. She was going to give him the weed, but he ruined it by being a weenie. However, he redeems himself by expressing interest in the common room project and saying he’ll be at the next meeting. I wonder what changed his mind? Daphne’s enthusiasm? No matter, Imane must see some progress in Lucas, like he needs a reward for good behavior, because she decides to give him back the weed.

He’s grateful, but the teacher sees their drug exchange and wants to know what’s going on. When she asks to see what’s under the table, Imane whips out some tampons and says Lucas brought them to her. LMAO, that’s pretty funny.

She calls out the teacher for humiliating her in front of everyone, which is also funny, although I kind of feel bad for that teacher, lol. We haven’t seen her be a racist yet like Isak and Sana’s teacher, and I mean ... her students were passing drugs under the table, she wasn’t wrong about them being shady.

Arthur and Alexia laugh at them in the background. I want to know what’s going on over at that table! We can have two pairs of classroom buddies!

Lucas and Imane both laugh so that’s really the kickoff to their friendship. Tampons: saving the day, bringing people together. Tampax should make it into a commercial.

Clip 3 - Questionnaires

It’s the common room meeting, just the girl squad and Lucas, and they’re going over the questionnaires that people filled out. The consensus is that the common room sucks, and people make dirty comments when anonymous (literally the least surprising thing ever if you have ever seen a bathroom stall or any comments section on the Internet).

Daphne kicks out Emma when she gets a phone call and Lucas laughs along with the others. He seems way happier and more comfortable with the girl squad than with anyone else so far, and I think a lot of that is because there isn’t the pressure to maintain a typical hetero fuckboy persona with them as with the boy squad. They’re just girls engaging on a dorky project, so he can just relax.

Alex reads another questionnaire and the answers are all about Daphne. Lucas confirms that the phone number on the page is Basile’s. Daphne looks done with it, she’s caught him staring and drooling, she doesn’t get why he’s into her all of a sudden. Man, I’m already sick of Basile, he’s like Magnus from hell. Especially because Daphne is so not into it, and the fact that she’s noticed him salivating him over her makes it worse. I think it’s for comic relief but it quickly went to creepy territory, and I hate that they’ll likely hook up at some point. Please please don’t go there.

A lot of the questionnaires mention they dislike the mural, so I bet they’ll paint another one at some point, and I bet Eliott will have an idea that they use, being the artsy guy he is. Also, everyone wants them to throw a party so I’m sure that’ll be the setup for either the neon party or the Christmas party (whatever takes the place of those scenes).

Lucas reads another questionnaire that requests a vending machine (reasonable) and a nudist day once a month (not so reasonable) and I was gonna say it was Eliott’s form, because of the vending machine connection and probably some painful foreshadowing toward the hotel naked incident, but actually it’s Alexia’s form, LMAO. She wants the eye candy of naked guys and girls. A nice way to integrate her bisexuality since she’s into naked guys and girls.

I notice that Alexia has a little rainbow patch on her jeans, so I’m hoping that they’ve taken feedback from earlier seasons and will more directly address her sexuality. I know her ex Clara has been listed in the credits, so that’s very promising. I hope they keep it up and maybe Lucas can connect with her over being LGBT, well, G and B, respectively.

Emma comes back and complains that Alex thinks she’s been telling people they’ve been going out when they’re just hooking up, but Lucas does not care (even though he is responsible for giving Alex that impression) because Eliott walks by the window. Lucas hauls ass out of there and goes out to find him - give him some credit, Lucas is being pretty upfront about approaching Eliott, or going after what he wants so far. What is that gonna end up meaning to his overall character arc? I’m fine with that approach to Lucas’ character, I’m just curious how it will affect his overall characterization from beginning to end. Because Isak wasn’t a total wallflower, he did pursue Even in his own way, but I felt like because he also could be reserved and shy about Even, it was narratively significant when he took certain steps for clear reasons to his personal growth. (I think Lucas and Isak are maybe not all that different about their approaches so far, just slight ways that make it seem Lucas is bolder - like going up to Eliott at the vending machine himself, grabbing the register instead of walking by a list, running after Eliott instead of standing still and locking eyes with him).

Before Lucas can go stalking, he runs into the boy squad. Yann is like, were you in the common room? Spending a lot of time with the girls, eh? Like is he just being a dick about that, because Lucas is choosing the girls over the boy squad, or does he think Lucas wants to hook up with one of those girls? Or is this more about the common room project seeming stupid to him?

Of course Basile has to ask about whether Daphne is thinking about him, GOD please shut him up. Arthur tells him Daphne doesn’t care about him. The hero we need.

Lucas looks around the courtyard but no Eliott in sight. ur boys cockblocked u, bro

Chloé and Maria come up and invite the boys to their party on Friday. Maria’s fucking cute when she’s not puking, she does a little dance with the invitation. Lucas tries to say they have plans but Arthur’s like, no we don’t! We’re coming! No, Arthur, don’t say that, you know Basile is going to be a creep about it.

The squad gangs up on Lucas for saying no, because you’re always supposed to say yes to partying with girls, and it’s played for laughs with their reactions and stuff but really it is shitty how these guys don’t want to listen to their friend. I mean, let’s say situations were reversed and Lucas was a girl who said “this guy is stalking me.” We’d all be like, get away from that dude, you don’t have to spend time with him, right? Or we’d hope that girl’s friends would say so.

Lucas says Chloé has been clinging to him and it’s stressing him out, and Arthur’s like, I don’t get you, she’s into you, but you’re stressing out? Lucas is clearly stressed by this conversation and that he can’t tell the boys what’s up. All that pressure to like girls is draining him.

I think it is important to keep in mind that Isak also felt isolated from the boy squad at this point in the story, for similar reasons: he had a big secret that he couldn’t tell them, and he felt like he had to like girls to fit in with them, and they put pressure on him to hook up with girls, talk about girls, go to parties with girls. What I think is the big difference, and why it feels perhaps more noticeable with Lucas, is that Isak didn’t have the interaction with the girl squad other than Sana blackmailing him and Vilde annoying him, so we didn’t see him have this friendly outlet where he’s relaxed. In fact, the first time in his season we see him really start to relax and be himself is with Even. I think that contrast was valuable toward establishing Isak’s connection with Even, showing Even as someone who brings Isak out of his shell. But with Lucas, first he is able to laugh together with Imane - Isak and Sana had a moment but they weren’t like giggling together after Isak told off the racist teacher - and second he seems to be having a good time at the common room meeting. Then he goes to the boy squad and it immediately becomes tense. However, I don’t have a huge problem with Lucas laughing a bit with the girl squad here. It makes him seem somewhat less socially isolated, since he seems relaxed with them (even if this isn’t the deepest or most intimate interaction), but it still provides contrast to his interaction with his male friends. It would be nice if the story highlighted this a little more later on, as to why Lucas might feel more comfortable with the girl squad and not the boys when he’s closeted.

Clip 4 - Polaris

At home, Lucas watches the animated storyboard for Eliott’s Polaris video. A guy and another person of ambiguous gender meet just outside the tunnel in the rain and finally kiss.

I like that Lucas got to watch the project itself (or a storyboard of it) and be invested in it. That’s something I loved about Isak watching Even’s video and then watching R+J - he got to fall for Even watching him be funny and strange talking about his Cap/Putin video, and then he got to watch a movie that Even loved and that awakened these very emotional parts of himself. He got to see a great love in action and wish for that for himself, he got a glimpse of Even’s soul from the art Even loves. Lucas does something similar here in that he gets a glimpse of Eliott’s creative mind, something very personal, and fall for him further, and Eliott’s video is also about great love that Lucas feels that he wants in his own life, it chips away at that facade he’s put up, the lie he’s living. Good adaptation.

The only thing is I suspect that their first kiss or O Helga Natt is probably going to go heavily like that storyboard, if not exactly, which will likely be beautiful, but again, slightly on the nose for me. To be fair, obviously Isak and Even’s first kiss imitated Romeo + Juliet closely; I guess this being Eliott’s own creation/vision vs Even’s fanboying a film by his favorite director makes it a little more OTT, like if a scene from a novel I’d written came into my life, I’d feel weird and self-conscious about it. But that’s just me! I can also see why it’d matter to Eliott, to take this longing and make it a reality. But I think I’d rather just see him make his actual film, accomplish his passion project, than to recreate it in his own life. Maybe because, filming a beautiful love story and falling in love in real life fulfill two different parts of one’s self - one’s artistic creations are not substitutes for one’s social connections and vice versa - and Eliott’s unfunded film is a thing on its own that’s very poignant and begs to be carried to completion. Does that make sense? IDK, I’d like those big scenes to have similar themes and imagery but not like his storyboard come exactly to life. We’ll see how it goes.

I think it’s a little murky why Lucas searches for the “gay chat” - like is he trying to find Eliott there, or is he looking for any type of connection? Think it’s the former since that was shown more explicitly with Isak, but I guess you can say he’s just testing the gay waters.

The gay app that Lucas downloads features the picture of Skam France director David Hourrègue, much like Skam Italia had their male director in the gay app. (The directors look a tad similar, or is that just me?)

Lucas looks through pictures mainly of disembodied abs and bulges, until he stumbles upon Mika’s picture, and HA, that’s a REALLY good gag, hats off to Skam France. I remember being annoyed because they recreated the Jonas cunnilingus walk of fame in their season 2, except with none of the build-up that made the Jonas scene funny and emotionally resonant (with Eva’s reaction), so it lacked the impact and was just kinda there. This actually had some setup, good job.

Clip 5 - Two bros chillin’ at a bus stop

The boys are getting ready to go to Chloé’s party later and Basile starts talking about how he’ll get with Maria and I’m already so over this, please God let them talk about anything else. I get that this girl talk is establishing the overwhelming heteronormativity and pressure to pursue girls among these teenage boys, but like, let’s hear from Arthur about his hookup techniques, or if there’s a girl Yann likes, anything but Basile being a creep yet again.

He talks about calling himself “Daddy” to Maria as if I wasn’t already thoroughly horrified out by him. FUCK no.

And the guys are like, I thought you were all up in Daphne’s business? Basile basically doesn’t care, one girl or the other will do, ughhhh GODDDDD.

They tell Lucas that he’s paying for the beer because they’ve taken their turns paying. Lucas waits at the bus stop, texts his dad for rent and grocery money, then texts Mika for money (presumably to buy the beer). MEANWHILE, a figure in a familiar brown coat sits down. I can’t quite tell from the angle, is he sitting in the next seat or is there still one between them? You’d think Eliott would learn from the past not to leave space for any Chloés who might come along. (At the end of the clip I still couldn’t tell, lmao. Feel free to clarify if you have better spatial awareness than I do.)

It’s Lucas’ turn to get startled by a dude just staring at him intensely. They have some banter, Mika texts back that he’s working, Eliott notices something is up, Lucas explains that he has no money to buy beer for a party, so it’s Eliott’s suggestion to come back to his place and get the beer he has. Not Lucas asking him for help, like Isak did. Lucas has seemed somewhat more forthright in pursuing Eliott so this is a bit of a surprise, because a noticeable example of Isak asking Even for something was switched to Eliott offering. I guess you could say it’s Eliott’s development, if he’s the one in the dark and is holding himself back? We’ll see.

Clip 6 - Eliott confirmed weirdo

They go to Eliott’s place and Lucas checks out Eliott’s drawings. They’re cute. Dude really loves raccoons. They look at the drawings together and Eliott says they’re old and that he’s better at drawing himself now. Lucas is like … that’s you? LMAO, Eliott is so fucking weird, I kind of love him. He likes that raccoons have a mask. Well, we know Eliott has his own mask, so it’s fitting, I suppose.

Okay, French fans, I have to ask - what are the perceptions of raccoons in your culture? I found this article saying that the raccoon was introduced to France in 1966 and is considered a pest. They’re considered pests in North America, too, and spread disease, and sometimes they fall through ceilings, but like ... they’ve always been here, so there’s something about them that’s normalized, I guess?

Lucas asks if Eliott had to draw him what would it be. Well, that’s fucking forward. Eliott studies him and says he doesn’t know. So Eliott basically can’t figure out Lucas yet. What are the odds his later notes to Lucas will include his and Lucas’ fursonas? I know all Isaks are snakes but Lucas reminds me of a woodpecker, personally.

Or maybe they will both be raccoons for the sole reason that I want to start calling Lucas Little King Trashmouth.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY for Lucas to say “draw me like one of your French girls” or something along those lines, though.

Clip 7 - What ... the fuck ...

Lucas and Eliott smoke and talk. While Eliott gets up to change the music, Lucas checks his phone and he’s got messages from Chloé waiting for him.

Lucas blames his absence on the other guys lacking motivation and THAT is the least believable excuse I have heard in my fucking life, come on, Lucas. As if those dudes aren’t panting after those girls. Did you even meet Basile? If you talk to him for ten seconds you’ll already know the names of five girls he wants to fuck.

And of course he types this as Yann is trying to get in touch with him about the party, very much motivated to go.

One of these days an Isak just needs to lie in a plausible way. “Sorry I’m sick, I think I have food poisoning, I’ve been shitting my guts out for the last hour.” If you overshare and make it disgusting, they’re not going to question you further AND Chloé will probably back off and stop chasing you.

Lucas guesses that Eliott will be putting on some Chopin or Dad Jazz because the turntable makes him seem like a vintage collector but ACTUALLY Eliott is one weird motherfucker and I have to say, not even Even would pull this stunt this soon in their relationship, because what he puts on is dubstep and Eliott starts banging his head and jumping around in a completely unashamed way, and like, even Lucas in all his infatuation with this guy cannot help but stare at him like “what the fuck is going on.”

When Eliott asks about it Lucas responds, “....it’s cool!” in the same way I do when an older relative asks me what I think of The Big Bang Theory or the Minions.

Eliott asks Lucas about his tastes and Lucas is more into rock, like very famous bands, Nirvana, Rolling Stones, Beatles, The Clash. Eliott offers to put on Queen and luckily for the music licensing department Lucas is like, no, I like discovering new things. By which he means “I like discovering new boys.”

Eliott blows a perfect ring of smoke so we know he has more smoke skills than Lucas, going off Lucas’ messy shotgunning in episode 1, and then Lucas also starts to rock out to the music and I’m kinda feeling secondhand embarrassment but also, I guess this means they’re meant for each other?

Clip 8 - Piano man

They’re both sitting there stoned as fuck, Eliott doesn’t want to get up to change the record, so Lucas gets up and puts the record to the side. But instead of selecting a new one, he lifts the lid the piano and asks Eliott if he plays. Eliott says he can play the Star Wars theme - so he has Star Wars fanboying in common with Even, heh.

Lucas then sits down and starts to play perhaps too well for someone who’s probably pretty stoned by now (but I’ve never tried so who knows) and Eliott sits up. We get him smiling at Lucas, eyes shining. At one point Lucas looks behind him and seems to get encouraged by Eliott’s enchanted reaction.

Mmmm ... unpopular opinion, but while this is a really lovely scene, I kiiiinda wish they’d taken it down a notch or put the focus more on Lucas? Because there’s like ... not really any ambiguity about what Eliott feels after this, with his enamored stare at Lucas, and I think in context of the larger story, it takes a little tension out. I think with Even, the attraction was conveyed more in small looks and glances, and while I definitely thought he was always into Isak, from Isak’s POV you could see how the arrival of Sonja threw that into doubt, there was room to question whether Even really had feelings for Isak. Whereas here it’s like ... girlfriend or not, Eliott is smitten with Lucas, I don’t really feel that the ending reveal carries as much weight. I guess I’d put more focus on Lucas’ expressions as he plays, showing him getting into it and letting himself put down his emotional walls and express himself, showing him more open here with Eliott than he’s been so far anywhere else - this is his POV season, after all - and cut back on Eliott’s reactions to preserve a little mystery.

What I think is good about this moment is that Eliott got to share a part of himself, with his drawings (and his questionable taste in music), and unbeknownst to him his Polaris project, and now Lucas gets to share a part of himself with his piano playing, and so they’ve both let each other in to their artistic sides, perhaps establishing them both as creative types. It’s cool that we both see their respective interests. They might even complement each other’s, like Lucas’ music might end up serving Eliott’s vision for his film or something. And this was obviously a turning point for Eliott, he may have noticed Lucas on the first point of school but this is what took his interest in Lucas to another level as he saw Lucas just unleash this piano piece, catching him off guard with something beautiful.

When Lucas is done, Eliott says it was impressive, and that Lucas is surprising, and he likes surprising people. Well they’re just being blatant as fuck, aren’t they.

Unfortunately, the night must end as Eliott has people to meet and Lucas has a party to endure. Eliott walks Lucas out and says it was great, they need to hang out again, Lucas agrees. I like this moment a lot because it is somewhat more ambiguous - like on the surface this could be a platonic conversation, just wanting to hang out as friends, but there’s just a little too much intensity, a bit too much of a pause in the delivery, to think this exchange is so casual.

Just as Lucas is going Eliott adjusts his hair? I don’t even know what he was doing because I do not notice a single change in Lucas’ hairdo but Eliott sure did it as a memorable parting gesture. Lucas is internally screaming, probably.

Lucas goes out the door and outside he checks his phone, of course Chloé is pissed, Yann asks why Lucas is lying, Chloé has been posting “men are trash” messages on IG. I repeat: just tell them that you have unstoppable explosive diarrhea and people won’t be so quick to judge.

Behind him, Eliott leaves his place and Lucas sees him greet a girl with a kiss. OK now that is actually a pretty big change because Eliott does not know that Lucas saw him with a girlfriend and like, I always thought Even was overcompensating with Sonja when he started to compliment her and make out with her, but Eliott was just casually greeting his girlfriend with a kiss, without knowing Lucas was there. He’s not going to know Lucas knows about his girlfriend the next time they meet. If Lucas is irritated with him, he’s going to be like WTF.

There’s piano music at the end, and with its inclusion in the clip itself, I’m thinking they’re going to use a lot of piano on the soundtrack this season. They already did it in episode one.

Social Media/General Comments

Lucas apparently ran away from Chloé at the bus stop, heh. She texted him to “subtly” see if he wanted to hang out and insinuated that she wanted to swing by Lucas’ flat some time. Or not subtly. Nothing about her is subtle. She’s wearing a sign that says BANG ME LUCAS.

Lol, as I mentioned above, Emma was hanging out with Raptor Alex and posting pics and stories on IG, I don’t know why they’re surprised people might think they’re an item after they also just hooked up at a party. Like not necessarily together-4ever but it’s not an unreasonable assumption they have a ~thing.

Lucas and Imane laugh over the tampon thing via text later, it’s a sweet moment. I wonder how they’re going to play the religion discussions since the two are already warming up to each other, Lucas being like, “Why are you religious?” in a confrontational way would kill the vibe.

Manon was supposed to see The Book of Mormon with Charles, then later she posted “Night in after all.” Dramaaaaa. Manon, fuck Charles and go by yourself. If some dude bailed on me that night I’d be like, whatever asshole, we paid to see these singing Mormons and I am going to goddamn see some singing Mormons. (Also, lmao at her dramatically posting that publicly, talk about a passive-aggressive swipe at Charles.)

Let’s talk about Basile, goddamn Basile, because he is by far my biggest issue with the season so far. Everything else is pretty solid, any other quibbles I have pale to my rapidly developing kneejerk GTFO when he appears on screen.

Some of the issue is that this dude is so one-note and in a really intense way, like you know when you’re a toddler and your parent hands you a pot to bang on and you hit it with a wooden spoon over and over? That’s Basile. There’s also just the element of overexposure. He tends to take over the boy squad scenes just because he wants to get laid. It feels like we’ve already had as much of Basile thirsting after Daphne and Maria in two episodes as we did Magnus crushing on Vilde spread over the whole season.

You might say Magnus was similarly desperate to hook up with a girl, and that’s true of course. And look, Magnus isn’t perfect and he said some dumbass shit during the season, but at the same time, there was a kind of weird innocence to him? Even when Vilde is complaining about the first year girls taking the older guys, and he says he’s available to fuck if she wants, it’s an outrageous statement but the way it’s played has a bizarre purity to it, like hey, this girl thinks there won’t be anyone for her to fuck, I should offer! With Basile there’s more sleaziness to his behavior, like dude has been on Reddit too long and has read too many forums about embittered men seeking to get laid.

I think some of it also is that a lot of Magnus was not actively and aggressively pursuing specific girls and bothering them for the most part - after that first offer to fuck Vilde, we don’t see him nagging her or crossing her boundaries, from what I recall? The flirtation gets mutual. He mentions stuff like the Vilde sex dream to the guys but it’s not like he’s telling that to her. With Basile he’s directly going after Daphne in a very persistent way.

One way they could redeem Basile is have his behavior act as a criticism of toxic straight boy bullshit, to go along with the heteronormative pressure. We still have a bunch of episodes to go so perhaps Basile will have character growth.

One thing I didn’t care for was them breaking up the Friday clip into multiple parts and airing them one after the other. I suspected that it was due to time restrictions and I was right, according to the screenwriter on IG. It’s too bad because I think it interrupts the flow of the story. With Skam, we got to see Isak himself change over the course of the afternoon - he went from shy and reserved to opening up and being able to laugh and joke around with Even, and the fact that it’s all one clip makes it more noticeable. The length makes it feel like the lazy afternoon Isak and Even spent getting to know each other. Not Skam France’s fault they had to break it up, just a shame because it felt choppier - watching it clip by clip meant I kept going back to what I was doing in real life and losing the mood instead of sinking into it. But I appreciate what they were trying to do when they couldn’t have a long scene and I think the ways they cut the scene were probably the best places to end/start the clips, tone-wise.

On that note, I’m trying to avoid the BTS commentary but I ended up reading it when I saw the reaction to the Skam France writer’s thoughts on Isak. I get what the guy was going for, Isak was more reserved and shy than Lucas is and Even was doing a lot of the initiating, although yeah, I think his description was worded in an oversimplified way - I don’t think Isak was entirely naive and innocent, more like inexperienced (which is a different thing) and he was certainly the hero of his own story, he was brave. Just because he wasn’t as outgoing doesn’t mean he wasn’t taking control of his own story - I’d say that’s part of what makes his character development so powerful, that because he is more repressed, his choices to kiss Even, to come out to his friends, to learn to be himself, have even more impact. But I don’t think Niels meant to bash Isak or anything, and it’s very clear from his notes that he loves and respects the original season. I think his main point was just like “Lucas is more upfront in his actions,” lol.

Though on a related note, the experience of watching the remakes has made me think that a lot of people don’t get who Isak is as a character, and especially have some extremely bad faith and unsympathetic readings of him. But that’s a rant for another time.

Tbh I think the behind-the-scenes notes about production stuff like “Axel wasn’t a trained pianist but he practiced hard for this scene” is fine and fun, it’s more the stuff that’s like “Here’s the interpretation of the scene itself” that I wish would wait until the season ends. But lmao, I’m just gonna try to avoid that stuff again.

I actually did like this episode. I’m not sure Skam France is ever going to be my favorite remake, because there’s something about the way it’s filmed that feels more slick and well, TV-like than is my preference, but I can definitely see that they’ve upgraded from last season, and that they’re trying hard to give this story its own spin. The Polaris symbolism is the biggest sign of that so far.

If there’s something I do wish we could get more of with Skam France, it’s subtlety? As a show it often feels more dramatic and this episode leaned heavier on the blatant romance, which might be a cultural thing, and I can absolutely get why people are more drawn to that. There’s plenty of TV shows and movies that I like that are not subtle in the slightest. I guess I’ve just been thinking that I wish the remakes would not be afraid to rely more on subtext for parts of this season, especially building up this relationship. Like there’s nothing blatantly “romantic” about the Evak version of this clip - everything is heavily show don’t tell, and we have to read into the littlest moments, the shared glances. How Even smiles to himself for just a brief moment after Isak compliments his drawings, or how Isak gets flustered after Even teases him for not knowing who Nas is (because he wants Even to think he’s cool) and how Even says that they’ll listen to Nas later - the implication that Isak is going to stay a while and Even will share this with him. “We can’t go back now” is in relationship to the cheese toasties, except you know, it’s not really about the cheese toasties. With Lucas and Eliott, it’s really easy to pick out that Eliott is flirting when he’s flat-out telling Lucas how special he is and how he’s intrigued by him, and sure, that’s where they’re going with Eliott’s character and making him more direct but it’s also related to the overall method and effectiveness of the storytelling. (I mean ... having Eliott be like “You are this-and-that, Lucas” is the definition of telling, not showing, lol.) And I completely get why that works for a lot of people, it doesn’t NOT work for me, but the understated stuff is what makes me watch clips a dozen times to pick up on it all, the subtext is what gets under my skin. My favorite moment was their goodbye at the door because it was a typical friendly exchange on the surface but with more going unspoken, and I felt that on the screen. So not to whine, because I did legitimately enjoy the Lucas/Eliott interaction, those are just my preferences. (The show is not made for me personally etc etc., cultural differences etc etc. I’m aware.)

I am finally warming up to Lucas, after two seasons. I really don’t think that I didn’t care for him before just because his character was closed off and snaky, because I’ve liked every other Isak in the first season of their show even though they’ve also kept secrets and done shady shit. I think they’ve just found a way to portray his character more effectively after having to copy + paste S1 and S2. They can make the character feel more organic. Also, not gonna lie, it felt like they cut back on the serial killer looks (partially because Lucas has more smiley and relaxed moments) so A+ work, Axel.

Also, knowing that they had to redo the first two seasons so closely doesn’t really change my opinion of the quality of the first two seasons, but it does make me more sympathetic toward the cast and crew for having to color inside the lines, so to speak.

Eliott is a fucking weird ass human being and I’m really feeling his character. They made his absurdly good looks more approachable by turning him into a dubstep-stanning furry, and I am here for whatever shit they tell us about him next.

I also think think the use of music was much better than in previous seasons. There were some very deliberate choices in this episode, obviously, but it felt like they’re learning to use silence more effectively and not shoehorning the soundtrack as much.

Feel free to chime in or correct me about French culture/translation/other issues.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

#skamfr reactions #skam france reactions

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