torment nexus-ing myself over ‘don’t tell me you don’t like it’ in at least three different directions that if i just fixate on it enough i can make it all make sense at the same time
okay making general elaborations on this because i’ve really been struggling with having the energy and motivation to finish much at the moment but things i have put a lot of thought into and want to talk about so sorry if you hear any of this again if/when i write that episode three post *but*
1) the most obvious i think is it being said from the place of performance, the ángel of before, the one who holds such confidence and bravado and being comfortable in his sexuality which he takes into sexual or could be sexual encounters with other men. and so bringing that here after he and krester have already had their past couple interactions, to ángel all of those lines and what this is is already clear to him and in turn would see no reason to keep up any of that pretense, for himself or for krester. though because he is only perceiving their interactions through his own experience/expectations he fails to understand the disconnect and true reason he is led to say that (said disconnect being a larger point of the ep3 post)
2) i don’t think this is explicitly meant this way however i think it is interesting to read that as being a continuation of what he was saying just before about how people pretend about who they are and how krester can’t. because for a while now part of me has wondered if ángel was in a way envious of that fact? that krester being so obviously marked as other - in such a public facing way that ángel is not - is something ángel could be jealous. especially since we see and understand that ángel isn’t ashamed of his sexuality and doesn’t seem to care much for the idea of having to hide it but at the same time it is a choice that was taken away from him, that he was punished for being that way and those punishments assumedly had to be kept quiet, kept away from public eye and attention. that wouldn’t it be easier if that were taken away and he didn’t have to be forced to pretend or to be perceived to be something he’s not?
3) this is the most just saying things/probably least based in as much objective text as the last two *that being said* there has always been something about that line or maybe the general vibes/delivery of it that struck me a little oddly - which i mean is the whole point of me picking it apart in these ways to begin with but specifically examining it in a way that i have only more recently thought about. because sure some of that feeling might just be the performance i mention in the first point but what if it’s not? or what if it’s not just that? because something about it hits me in a similar way that his “You cannot change the nature of things. I am who I am. And you are who you are. Nothing will change that.” from later on in this same episode does; that it is actually coming from somewhere beyond that moment, something internalized from some other time, regardless of if that’s verbatim or only an idea of the sentiment. not to open the specifics re:the can of worms of ángel’s abuse but clearly he was not treated well and it’s not much of a reach to say at least some of that is in response/is related to his sexuality (which some of said abuse i’m choosing to imply a possibility of it being sexual). now quickly cutting ahead of the thought but i don’t think if this is the place he is pulling any of it from that he is doing so with the same intentions that were used against him, just that he might have a way of turning out what he has internalized about his own actions (especially when something is “wrong”) and that he might in a way be doing so here (in this subconscious filtering through his behavior of point 1)
