k i k i …..!

Forget-me-nots and Euphorbia Griffithii - Louise Bradley , 2023.

British , b. 1965s

Been practising my BG skills lately! process pics under the cut

🗣️🗣️ Take him down, lay him flat 🗣️🗣️

Introducing the WangXian wrestling au of my dreams— 6 illustrations by me and a ginormous fic by @red1stockings for this year’s @mdzsrbb. It was an absolute treat working together and I’m incredibly proud of the way our collab turned out.

So fucking excited about this fic!! IT’S HERE. HORRAY.

we thought maybe you were gay.

we thought maybe you were gay as you grew up and became a professional athlete. rookie of the year. as you navigated this famously homophobic career path. as you tried to put together a public persona, as we guided you through sponsorships and brand deals. we thought maybe you were gay as we watched you, our shy and anxious and awkward son, as you grew into an isolated adult. few friends, no real romances. your mom still buys your shirts. you have always lived alone.

we thought maybe you were gay, but we didn't say anything.

i think - your mother, i - for a while now, we've thought maybe for a while now - we thought - we thought it, we didn't say it, never out loud - because that would mean we had to address it and that would mean we might be right. we kept our eyes down and our mouths shut and we know you so, so well, but we didn't ask and we didn't say anything, not even when scott hunter did all that right out there in front of god and the cup and everyone, and we let it slide off us and into history, past tense, and didn't look too closely at your reaction because we thought maybe you --

i'm sorry that i made you feel like you couldn't tell me.

because i did that. and i knew i was doing it while i was doing it. and i know that you know, now, that i knew i was doing that. i looked away so things could be easier for you because it's there's nothing to tell there's no need for a statement. no need for a plan.

and all this time, all your adult life, since your rookie season, the summer before, you've been in love - lovers - no, look at the way you look at him, you've been in love - and you've kept it secret while we made him your rival. pitted you against him. played up conflict and animosity against him. we sat together at tables with an empty chair where he should have been, where he is now, and hated him if we thought of him at all, and now you sit here and tell us you want to keep that secret another ten years, another fifteen because we made you think that this - this weight, this pressure, this fear we can see in the line of your shoulders and the way you breathe - that this is somehow easier.

you would have kept that secret another ten years, another fifteen. you aren't telling us now because you're ready, or because you want to. you're telling us because you were caught.

found out what, exactly? as if maybe your father was still going to keep that secret for you. as if he didn't tell me, not the whole of it. not everything he saw. as if you could have pretended you hadn't seen him, and he would have pretended he hadn't seen you. another ten years. another fifteen.

we thought maybe you were gay.

And that got me thinking about the overt symbolism in the styles that Sugiki and Suzuki specialise in, and that it's essentially courtship versus seduction for them. So Suzuki got a taste of being courted when he let himself be led by Sugiki for the first time, and also learned to let go, and surrender to his partner in a way he has never done before. Because in his Latin dances, he's always playing the aggressively confident male lead who's seducing and being seduced by his partner, but all of it is in his control. In the dance with Sugiki, Suzuki learns an important lesson: surrender. That's the one thing he lacked in his repertoire. Of course it rewires his brain both professionally and otherwise. His blissed out expression at the end of the "did you feel like a princess" question speaks for itself.

However I feel like it was a lost opportunity with the film (like most of it, to be honest, the narrative deserves its own meandering series adaptation where we can savour the ups and downs of the world of competitive dance like a proper sports manga adaptation but only very very gay), that they never brought it up or spoke about how Suzuki felt playing the enchantress, the woman in love, the woman who is performing a slow seduction for the man she's in love with. We never got to know whether Sugiki or Suzuki had rehearsed this at all, which makes it all the more incredible.

I was also watching the hold that Sugiki does usually and which Martha uncharitably calls a "ridiculously exaggerated hold" which is in a way shackling his partner and not in a good way, and realized that when he asks Suzuki for the dance, he lets himself be open in a way he has never been before. His hold also changes after that. Because Sugiki fears rejection and failure. So when he takes a gamble and asks Suzuki for the dance, he is opening himself up for rejection as well. And when Suzuki finally accepts, we can see the sharp pull that he makes to bring Suzuki closer, and which Suzuki matches with his confident, preening steps, and that's when I saw what was missing from Sugiki's dances: the push and pull of mutual longing. The hold is now an embrace of hands.

instead ask:

is it SINCERE

was it CATHARTIC

was it FUN TO MAKE

is it MADE BY ME