#contextualizing

Can we talk about Angel being bothered by Sir Pentious being praised by Charlie? Because I don't think that's been talked about enough if at all.

Angel up to this point and well past episode two puts up a front. His persona empowers him, gives him a shield against his abuser, critics and even himself. Angel's self-imposed egocentrism gives him the opportunity to gain attention whether that be positive or negative. He wants to play the part of a self-assured, overly-sexual porn star because he knows that's how he has to be.

All of this we know already after episode four.

This skepticism and refusal to change is a byproduct of his negative self-image caused by his circumstances. Valentino has ruined Angel up to this point. He allows Angel to continue his self-destructive tendencies and isolated him to the point where his only friend was Cherri Bomb - someone who also enables him. Valentino does this all for his own benefit. Angel is a toy to him - one that makes him money. To Valentino, his feelings are non-existent, what matters is what he can get out of him, how much use Angel is to him.

Whether that be through physicality or being an entertaining plaything, Valentino doesn't care.

When Angel uses his persona, that pleases the person he spends the most time around. Valentino considers him worthy of the little bit of praise he will give before taking it away at the first opportunity. The inconsistent treatment Angel receives from Valentino is traumatic in itself, couple that with sexual and physical abuse and Angel is barely hanging on. Nobody can remain sane from that without having some way to cope.

After all of that mistreatment that solidified Angel's thought process, his fears and insecurities, he finds someone else who gives him attention with zero strings attached through Charlie. Angel is obviously skeptical at first, considering the things Valentino did to him. He knows Hell is unforgiving, that he had already made a mistake trusting a ruthless overlord, so it was a no brainer that he wouldn't trust Charlie, at least not right away.

So Angel emulates Valentino's behavior, he uses Charlie for a free place to stay with minimal intentions of trying to be redeemed. At any opportunity where Charlie doesn't have Angel under watch, he took the chance to do drugs, start fights, and simply revert back to the way he was when he was on his own. Angel does show some kind of remorse, unlike Valentino, before reigning himself back in to pretend he doesn't care.

Even in the pilot you could see the beginnings of character development in Angel. Not everything was as it seemed.

At this point, Angel has no reason to stop this behavior. This is Angel's rationalization: It's Hell, nobody else is going to try Charlie's plan, redemption doesn't exist, why try?

In this endeavor, Angel can't be considered a failure or disappointment. There aren't grave actions for falling short in the Hotel like there would be if he failed Valentino. There is no threat of physical harm, verbal or emotional abuse and manipulation. He may get yelled at by Vaggie and Charlie, but he had just met them, he doesn't care about their opinions or feelings to the point that it would viscerally affect him.

However, Charlie did whittle him down by being genuine. She cares for the hotel’s patrons and her plan for redemption. Charlie stays consistent in a way that Valentino doesn’t.

After a long night of filming, Angel gets to return to the hotel. Charlie and Vaggie are there and Angel stays unbelieving of her plans for redemption. After Alastor joins, Angel also has Nifty and Husk.

He doesn’t have to stew in his misery within the same vicinity as his abuser. He gets to have a distraction and a support system no matter how dysfunctional they may seem.

When Sir Pentious joins the hotel as a spy for the Vees, Angel has to compete for attention where he never had to. Sir Pentious is the patron of Charlie’s dreams. He appeals to her notion of instant conversion by obediently following her orders no matter how nonsensical or small.

Angel continues to put up the same front since it hasn't stopped working for him before. Charlie starts a group activity, Sir Pentious succeeds, and Angel says it's stupid.

Charlie has them act out a scene, Angel is critical of it and Sir Pentious plays the part perfectly.

Charlie freely gives him praise.

Angel has never received praise from Charlie up to this point. At least, nothing direct. Charlie would placate him, use language that wasn't insulting, but those comments weren't compliments.

They were meant to redirect, produce a productive conversation and ultimately help Charlie achieve her goal. She never checked in on Angel's well-being. With everything going on, she was so concerned with her plan that she didn't focus on anything else.

Angel doesn't make an event out of it. He states that he's leaving and when the attention is off him he doesn't try to bring it back.

There is simply defeat.

Angel doesn't process these feelings well. He momentarily considers the hotel just as bad as any place in Hell. He considers returning to Valentino. At least in the studio he's the center of attention, he is good at what he does. There is no need to think of ways to be better or earn redemption, he can be a degenerate and a sleazeball all he wants.

While he is certainly being used at least he is of use. He has a purpose and he isn't disregarded because he doesn't measure up. Angel has his part and he plays it well.

So there is that choice to return back to the studio until he is snapped out of his stupor by remembering his reality. There were good moments with Valentino, but those would never outweigh the bad and the downright horrible. The voicemails Valentino left him highlighted that too well.

Angel had no choice but to stay.

But where did that leave him? He felt like a disappointment. Charlie wouldn't see someone as broken as him worthy for redemption. Sir Pentious had that role and he was better in that department. Angel firmly believed that he couldn't change.

Valentino's hold on him remained strong in the earlier months of his departure. Angel struggled with this mindset of self-destruction. He continued to ruin opportunities for himself, but it was so deeply ingrained in him he couldn't stop himself.

So, he goes to cope. He wants to drown his misery away.

And through that he discovers Sir Pentious's true intentions. He wasn't this perfect patron taking Charlie's attention. Angel's skepticism was justified. He didn't have to be perfect nor did he have to try because Sir Pentious was in the same boat as him.

He prioritized his interests over redemption.

And I wish we could have seen the change with a few more episodes because there is no way this distrust faded in a day.

Knowing that there were months of development in between these moments clears up a few things, but it wasn't on screen so we're left to speculate.

Now, instead of being spiteful, Angel is back to acting as he would with anyone in the Hotel. Sir Pentious has been brought down off his pedestal, he didn't have pure intentions, his dreams of becoming a powerful overlord were crushed and he was cluelessly following an untested path to redemption because he had nowhere else to go.

Angel's attitude persists until Loser, Baby. This is the second moment where he realizes that Hell is shit and nobody is better than anyone, especially if they ended up here. Husk is there for Anthony, a guy who isn't putting on a front and just made a few shit decisions.

As the months go on and Angel only has to interact with Valentino in a business capacity, he gains confidence. There's a system in place that's benefitting him, he has friends and a reason for being.

He even goes as far as to defend his new friends - his faux family - against the biggest threat to his wellbeing.

He has hope for the future and I love that all of it was revealed in Season 1. All you have to do is pay attention.

In the far recesses of my mind, kept out of sight, resides a creature. It is in no way human, brought into existence solely for the purpose of causing suffering. But the worst part of this creature, is that it looks exactly like me. It embodies everything I hate about myself; my appearance, my self-loathing, self-sabotage, my fear of how others might see me, my fear of becoming anything like... him... But it is not me. I refuse to accept it as a part of myself, despite how often it claims to be. It has no place in my mind, and must be killed.

But I cannot kill it, as it has become far too integrated with my mind. I have used many weapons against it, only to have them all deflect uselessly off of its thick scaly hide. Only one weapon can harm it; a sword I have forged and reforged time and time again. With this sword, I could finally fight back, and deal out everything it gave me. But still, I could not kill it. I don't think it can be killed. I could only run it through, keeping it pinned between the hilt and the floor beneath it. While still very much alive, it is weakened by the sword, unable to leave where it lays in the recesses of my mind... unless I let it go.

I am not the only one fighting such a creature. I have seen the creatures that dwell in the minds of others, and the damage that they have caused. Their victims do not fight back, refusing to forge their weapon to stop them. I have felt compelled to help them fight back, only to find that nothing I throw at their beast affects it. It is in these moments that I remember my sword, the tool that successfully sealed away my own beast. I retrieve the sword once more, taking aim to strike their beast down. I will conquer their beast!

by Syed Abdul Ahad Waseem After decades of partnership, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have officially signed a “strategic mutual defense agreement.” The joint statement, issued on September 17, identified “shared strategic interests,” among other factors, as providing the impetus for the agreement, which aims to develop “aspects of defense cooperation” between the two countries and “strengthen joint…

So I just got off the phone with him after like an hour and a half of talking, and of course I'm keyed up from our conversation and communicating with him in general (and okay maybe the sativa had a hand in creating this current state), and I'm just churning through and processing the shared thoughts, worldly advice, and ample support provided during and throughout our convo. But honestly, the biggest piece of the convo that I'm processing rn is this: I asked him if he was sleeping with other people--tried to play it off as like a renegade thought/curiosity/safety thing since he asked me if I was sexing elsewhere, like Oh yeah it just popped into my mind that I haven't yet asked you this, etc etc--and he said, "No." He delivered it so firmly, like it was an empirical truth, and the gravity of his response suspended for a moment as we--at least I--absorbed it. He followed up with, "I don't have time to be with anyone else," and that flimsy cover got me thinking about the hidden--or encoded, perhaps--meanings of the things we say, and the things we don't say.

So his hasty follow-up was designed to undo, or maybe mask, the depth of feeling and moment of vulnerability in which he exposed something accidentally on-purpose. He's done it before, as have I, because it is real fucking hard to be raw and open abt your feelings in general, and even harder when you don't want your person to deny you or freak out if they don't feel the same way. So we knock down a barrier, but build it back up twice as fortified bc it is less scary and allows for distance to ensure vulnerability will not be a future option. It's so easy, and maybe someone else might take the cover-ups at face value and constantly question their value to the other.

But I am v intuitive by nature, and I can easily pick up on intonation, hesitation, little indicators that he is saying more than he wants to verbalize, that he is struggling to articulate something, anything, or that he is concerned his utterance will have an effect on something abt us.

Like when he said I was his first priority after completing the outstanding obligations he has. The message there was clear, as were the implications of that statement. Or any time I played it cool and unfazed when he couldn't hang or when he said something feelings-related, when internally I was sad and disappointed or elated. I think we are both somewhat terrified of this new territory, this shifting dynamic from interested to into to invested. It's a weird limbo space that requires navigation but doesn't supply the map. Neither of us intended for this, I think, didn't expect to like each other more than we initially thought we would. More so than that, id say that neither of us considered the possibility and forging such a strong connection through matching on tinder. The moving parts make things tricky, and the complexities of his family situation only lend to that.

And of course, he loosens the veil and reveals things when he is intoxicated. These things slip out unwittingly, but they stick, and they're real. I have no doubt about that. He told me he loved me when we were rolling, expressed that there was no one else but me when we were drunk, revealed that he wanted me all to himself when we were stoned. And I've been absorbing, decoding, and processing all the pieces and peeks he's given me, bc I want to know that we are on the same page, feelings-wise. I want to verify that this is not one-sided, and I can, and I do each time we speak/interact. It isn't that I'm in the dark abt where I stand w him, it's that I still feel the need to validate my worth and have lingering beliefs that he feels the same.

What I know (culmination of decoded/gleaned insights/body language/verbalizations):

1. He likes me in both platonic and romantic capacities--and sexual, but that was a given.

2. He misses me when we are apart.

3. He chooses to make time for me--which is a tall order, given his multiple obligations.

4. He views me as his--not in a possessive ownership way, but in a dominant/territorial/committed way, like the thought of me being with someone else elicits jealousy and possibly sadness. So like....monogamous???

5. He thinks of us as a "We." During interactions with others while we are out, We are a package deal. Every decision made impacts the other in some way. In his mind, I have become a given, like he automatically includes me, where before I was a consideration. Whatever whatever that is just rly neat ok

6. I'm a good kisser. He told me this a couple nights ago, so now decoding necessary

7. He values my input and views our ~thing~ as beneficial and growth-fostering in his life, and sees positivity and importance in continuing to develop the thing.

8. He fully supports me. Again, he says this to me, so I know it's true.

9. He sees huge potential in me.

10. He isnt interested in anyone else. Fuck.

Formulating this really allowed me to digest the gravity of the underlying message: He feels it too. All this stuff. He's there with me, he has no plan to leave any time soon, and he is thinking abt us too.

Fuck. Gonna try to keep flowing with wherever we are heading and not get stuck in future possibilities. This has not, and will not, be easy, but we are in such a good place, and will continue to develop organically over time.

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