Kazu-kun & Chizuru

I don’t think I am physically able to put, A Little Life, Jude St. Francis, into words of how he makes me feel.

I’m reading a lot of people who are angry at Jude for k-lling himself in the end: and then there are people who are angry the way he was written, which was Jude’s belief of “I deserve this pain” and “no, I won’t go to someone who will help me.” And let me just cast in my 12 cents.

Jude believed that he deserved to be hurt and should pay for his “badness” by punishing himself. He was told at a young child that he was wrong, bad, wicked, over and over by people he believed where good and were their to take care of him, example? Brother Luke.

But why didn’t Jude stop? Even after he was hold he was good and kind, why did Jude believe he would keep hurting himself? Simple, he believed that it was just who he was and how he was to be treated. I’ll explain, when someone is raised to believe that they are the best, and that they should get everything they want and everyone should do everything in their power to get them what they want. And when you tell that person they need to be humble, they are going to tell you off and continue in there ways and thinking. Jude is the same way, he was told he was wrong, and everyone else who was trying to tell him he was good, he wouldn’t believe them. He couldn’t allow himself to believe it because he saw love as a lie.

He believed that hurting himself was just part of him, something he had to do. Like brushing your teeth and taking out the trash, he had to hurt himself because it was who he believed he was. It was his identity. And he was afraid that if he took away that self loathing and self hatred, he wouldn’t know who he was.

And that’s where William comes in. William helped him understand who Jude was. Something to be loved, and cared for, something to want to come home too. Sure Harold also showed him this, but it wasn’t the same relationship. William loved Jude without reason, but Jude believed that Harold loved him like one would love a puppy. You bought the puppy, therefore you must take care of it. But this does not mean that Jude didn’t see Harold love for him, he couldn’t see why or how he could be loved from a Father relationship.

William proved to Jude that no matter what he did, William would be there. William wanted Jude to be better, William took steps to making sure Jude was getting better, William set up healthy walls to tell Jude to fix himself, seek help and to take care of himself. And with William help, Jude gave himself a new identity. He was not completely whole, but he was seeing himself of something deserving of love, and to be cared for. And when William died, Jude lost that part of himself. Jude couldn’t see himself of someone deserving of love because that one person who he believed could loved him with all his scars and walls down was gone.

Even with everyone around Jude telling him that he is loved, he couldn’t believe it, or had a hard time believing it because it was all words to him. He saw their actions as something he should be angry at because they were made out of sympathy and not out of love. And even at the end of the book where we see Jude get better and start taking the necessary steps to getting better he still died in the end.

And that is what is the biggest pill to swallow in the end. At the end of the book, we all fell in love with Jude. Each of us grieved for him, I cried harder over his death and mourned for Jude harder than I have ever wept for someone I knew personally. In the end, Jude still died. And for this reason, I can’t put what this book makes me feel into words. This book makes me feel that I need to go in a room all alone and just stare into the stars and wait till my body is ready to keep on breathing.

As a person who chronically wants to end their own existence I saw myself in Jude. I saw his pain, his sufferings and understood why he believed he was “made for pain” or “made to suffer.” And this is the same lie I was telling myself for years, I said it so much that it never accorded to me that I deserved anything else until someone showed me the reason why I should be loved. But Jude died believing that people saw him as a burden. And I don’t have a response for that. Other than just unending tears.

The Quiet Girl ‘An Cailín Ciúin’ (2022) dir. Colm Bairéad

THOMAS SHELBY + smoking

i just saw perfect days and i don't want a smartphone anymore. like, i genuinely don't want this thing anymore. i'm starting to think about all the times i've missed something beautiful existing in front of me because i felt the need to look down at my screen. how much time have i wasted getting quick hits of dopamine instead of getting true enjoyment from something as simple as the sunshine rippling through the trees? i'm wondering when my appreciation for real beauty met its death by way of an addiction to artificial blue light. there's no surprises or moments of amazement when you're constantly attached to the interwebs.

but i want to be surprised. i want to be amazed. i want to feel life again through my own skin, not another mindless swipe or tap.

I can't stop thinking about this part of a review left for Threads (1984). It's been in my head for days

The casual intimacy of being single, living by yourself, and drinking in the bath. Unparalleled.

As much as Koisenu Futari is a show about love, or the lack thereof, it also does show how it can show up in many ways.

The focus is aromanticism and asexuality, yes, but also, we see the different points of view of the people around and how they relate to those types of love.

We have the junior, who thought that there was a spark between them and instead of dealing with the rejection and misunderstanding like a man he just... took some time off work and asked to change departments.

We have Minori (the sister) who seems to live the perfect romantic life and is following what society (and her parents) ask of her, and at the end, despite her love and her dutiful follow of those rules, she's being cheated on and breaks from what society demands (the divorce).

We have Kazu, who sees romantic love in a very weird lense (in my opinion) but slowly, while still holding his ideals, he understands that others are not necessarily like him and not only he ends up by respecting them and more or less understanding them, but he also is a (somewhat) good ally.

We have Chizuru, who does love but is lesbian. She is bound (through her love for Sakuko) to suffer because of a love that cannot be reciprocated. We see her deeply love and feel, and yet we do not see this love being satisfied.

A good point here is that the blame is not brought to Sakuko. Chizuru clearly says that she, herself, is the one to love and the one to get away because she rather have a friend live her life without having to worry about something she doesn't care about than forcing an unwanted love on her (Sakuko).

We have Sakuko's parents too, who seem to live the perfect traditional life. The mother doesn't seem too old, which would suggest that she followed the advice she gave to her daughters: marry and have children young. And through the series, she shows rejection, because aromanticism doesn't fit her understanding of life, then a slight acceptation: she still doesn't get it and wishes for Sakuko to marry and have children, but she also understands that cutting ties with her daughter for not accepting her making her own choices is stupid at worse, foolish at best, especially since at the end she just wants her daughter to be happy.

Last but not least, we have Takahashi. He is the textbook of "older queer" as in he knows where he stands, he understands how he feels about what, he has a way to show and share his experience to others (the blog), he clearly is used (and bored/annoyed) by the world's romanticism etc and he had cut ties with his parents. We don't have much on the parents' thing, but, or he left them because he couldn't be bothered with them being such a pain, or his parents rejected him because he's aroace. Either way, he is a pillar for Sakuko while she goes through her own aroace journey.

So at the end, we not only have a show about aromanticism and asexuality, but we also see how this pressure, this allocisheteronormativity of society, makes it hard on everyone and not just those who do not fit/do not follow those invisible rules.

The aroace narrative is wholesome and very well done, but it would be foolish to turn a blind eye on those other details (and growth) of the characters, which makes this series punch you in the gut so hard.

Will regards Hannibal with something approaching a smile.

BEEF (2023) EP 10 | “Figures of Light” 

Roma (2018), dir. by Alfonso Cuarón