change the pear vol. 16 19 Aug 2023
hello! can you believe august is almost over? i once saw someone describe august as âthe sunday of monthsâ and thatâs how iâve felt these past weeks. somewhat adrift, a slight sense of dread at whatâs on the horizon, panic that iâm not making the most of the light warm days. the reminder that everything is temporary, and the seasons always change. sometimes thatâs comforting, sometimes itâs not. but it happens all the same.
listening
ME: siyang can you make me a carly rae jepsen playlist?
SIYANG: sure, let me know what your favourite songs are!
ME: want you in my room , the loneliest time, talking to yourself
SIYANG: desperation we love to hear it
scalped, etc.
currently watching
new thai BL alert! i started watching only friends, a show which has been driving the girls crazy literally since it was announced, because itâs got a cast of seasoned BL actors and the plot is, as far as i can tell, about being gay and messy as fuck. all the characters exist somewhere on the venn diagram of slut-princess-loser, one of them is literally called âtopâ, and iâm having a fantastic time. when ray (who is currently lying bang in the middle of the aforementioned diagram) gets sand (princess-slut) to light his cigaretteâŚspiral-eyes emoji. honestly, though, these actors GET it. the chemistry is off the charts; boston (slut-loser) and nick (loser) especially had me screaming. that scene in the phone shop, whew! and the expressiveness of the acting is just so good. masterclasses in dropping subtle hints that are immediately recognisable when you are familiar with the general behaviours that go on in a messy friend group: rayâs painfully obvious crush on mew, boston clearly having slept with top already, etc. so excited to see where this one goes.
last seen
god. i guess itâs time to talk about good omens.
iâve been sat here for five minutes trying to think of how to explain what is going on inside of my brain right now. did i have a good time watching the show? yes. was it a bad show with a plot that made little to no sense? also yes. is it on constant rotation in my mind since i watched the final episode of season 2? you guessed it: yes. in many ways iâm at a point in my life where i am regressing in order to cope, so watching the entirety of an otherwise terrible tv show because i am deeply compelled by the interactions of two old men makes a lot of sense for my character arc right now.
anyway. david tennant is utterly mesmerising and somehow also deeply attractive as crowley. listen i donât like it any more than you do but i have to speak my truth. and michael sheen as aziraphale is delivering the acting performance of the YEAR with his every gesture and look absolutely loaded with feeling, nuance and homosexual implications. the dialogue is straight out of every homoerotically-charged queerbaited television show from the 2010s but bass boosted. (CROWLEY: when gabriel smites you youâve been smited? smut? smote? AZIRAPHALE: smitten, i believe.) and the dynamic is totally nuts. itâs âwe might be on opposite sides but youâve been my most consistent companion for the last 6000 years and over that time weâve come to understand each other deeply and, more than that, change for one another. become a little bit nicer and a little bit more of a bastard for each otherâbecome more human. weâve learned to love the world and the people in it wholly and fully, togetherâ. i mean, jesus christ.
and then, after all that, suddenly itâs real? thereâs a tragic gay love confession and half-unrequited kiss that ends in heartbreak? are you fucking kidding me right now?
if it was just the show, i think iâd still be insane, but good omens has always meant so much more to me than the adaptation. which is why this entire thing is a particularly insane journey to be on right now. i donât know how to explain it other than this summary:
if you donât get it you simply donât get it. i donât know what else to say. aziraphale/crowley forever! thanks! bye!
##reading
sometimes you just need to sit down and reread your favourite books for the fifth time. the thing about the locked tomb series by tamsyn muir is that no matter how many times i read each one, there are always new pieces of information to pick up on, word choices to pay attention to, lines of dialogue that take on entirely different dimensions when you look at them with fresh eyes. the plots are so intricate, the prose is so deliberate, that you can always find something new to pick apart or theorise about. on this reread alone iâve made a list of about fifteen questions i have on various details and plot points. and i know that somewhere tamsyn has the answers! thatâs the most satisfying part! every bit of these books has been thought through entirely and i canât wait to see how it all links together in the end.
on the whole iâm a person who is given to hyperbole, as iâm sure you all know by now. but you have to trust me when i say that harrow the ninth is a work of genius. even when i know whatâs coming, the adrenaline rush this book gives me is absolutely unparalleled. although i do believe it has to be read in conjunction with gideon the ninth in order to truly comprehend how brilliant it is. in fact, i donât think iâll ever come across a better book-sequel pairing than gideon the ninth and harrow the ninth. a masterclass in how to write a complementary and yet also entirely different follow-up to a novel. reading harrow enables you to fully understand the events of gideon, both by giving you new information and, at the same time, by turning old information on its head by literally recontextualising the entire universe and your assumptions about it. it answers your questions but then says, hey, consider this: were those the right questions to be asking in the first place?? donât even get me started on the canaan house sectionsâretelling the original story of gideon the ninth but with a cast of characters who were sidelined in the first book, whom you might not have paid attention to or who died before they could make much of an impact on the story. i couldnât care less about ortus when i first read gideon the ninth and now i want to cry every time i think about him. everybody is given the chance to shape the narrative; nobody is left behind.
thereâs a lot to admire in this novel, the way it writes about grief and delusion and desire; about lies and forgiveness; about loving someone so much and still misunderstanding them completely. the sections from gideonâs point of view will never fail to undo me (âHarrowhark, I gave you my whole life and you didnât even want it.â OKAY!!! GOD!!!)
but i think my favourite part is how the book plays with form and structure to address one of its key themes: storytelling. a shift in perspective gives you access to a completely different understanding of events. showing that who is in control shapes the stories we tell and are told, and therefore also changes our understanding of the world and our place in it in a very real sense.
the final fight scenes between the sleeper and the ghosts in canaan house and harrowhark are such a good example of this. initially weâre in harrowâs story: the necromancers use their powers to try and exorcise the sleeper; but as the sleeper exercises her willpower to take control of the narrative, her hatred of necromancy means she can fight anything the necromancers do with ease. then, when ortus calls the ghost of matthias nonius, suddenly we step into an entirely different story, an epic ancient poem where the sleeperâs guns no longer work. itâs so smart and so satisfying when you look at the book as a whole and realise: thatâs the whole point. itâs a novel entirely about the difference between the narratives we construct and those that are constructed for us. about the multi-faceted reality we all inhabit; and how our perception of it can materially affect our actions and choices.
miscellaneous
cooking with marisa in bristol and blasting one direction. doing a hyperfixation exchange (watching ateez videos and heartstopper). finding astonishment in the quotidian together! running across clifton down in the mornings. swimming in london fields lido with abeera and akua. boat drinks with elete. reading poems with agnes. dim sum with siyang. noodles with lucy. alfie laughing at me when i said âUGHHHâ every time michael sheen did anything with his face while we watched good omens. reuniting with holly. the collective realisation of saskia, lydia, dorothy, alex and i at the pub that weâve known each other for almost nine years now. talking to a new friend at climbing about how his life drawing classes encourage people to be âbrave and boldâ. abeeraâs carrot salad. climbing my first ever v6! planning a peak district trip with chloe. working with hayley on mute call on discord like itâs 2021 again. watching not me with audrey. introducing ceci to ateez. brandon taylorâs latest newsletter. the many different translations of ânot to me, not if itâs youâ. this piece by devon geyelin. this ursula le guin quote. this alex dimitrov poem. elements by bob hicok.
thank you for reading, as always. see you soon!