It was ordered as commission, but the customer deceived me, didn’t pay me for the second half and muted me, so PLEASE feel free to use this commission as you want, make prints, post it online (with credit), anything!
We all know about the inclusion of rock throwing/stoning is Hunter and Ryan’s relationship, but I’m honestly more interested about the role it plays in Naim and Ryan’s relationship instead
Rocks come up between them twice in the movie. Once in the mill scene and once in the forest scene. I still don’t know whether I believe that it actually was Ryan in the forest scene (unreliable narrator naim thank you) but this theory is going to work off of that, so if that pisses you off just skip that part.
The first thing Naim does when he gets to the mill is he throws a rock at the shelf to knock things off of it. At this point in the movie, Naim has no clue about Ryan and Hunter, so when Ryan turns back to Naim with that expression of shock on his face, it’s probably because of that.
Does he know about me and Hunter? Was he trying to hurt me?
But Ryan, my favourite toxic masculine, ends up deciding to top Naim, and pick up an even larger rock to throw. But the thing is, Naim and Ryan aren’t throwing the rocks at each other. They’re throwing them elsewhere in the mill. So with the consideration of Hunter and Ryan throwing them at each other, Naim and Ryan throwing them away feels like a deflection of some kind. The punchline to something that hasn’t even happened yet. It’s a second-watch representation of the way Naim and Ryan’s relationship works.
Naim and Ryan would never willingly actually hurt each other, under any context. But their relationship is one that can’t be devoid of violence, not just because of the Entities, but because of Bandee and the way it views queerness. Ryan and Naim throwing the rocks away is a symbol of defiance, and a symbol of their care for each other.
The other notable scene with rocks as an inclusion between them is the one during the climax of the film, right after the gas station, when Naim runs into Ryan in the forest. Like I said, I’m having trouble fully trusting that that’s actually the Entity. Maybe it’s getting really good at tricking me too, but whether it’s real Ryan or not, my feelings about this scene still stand.
Naim seems to think this is the real Ryan too, because unlike the Entity he’s already encountered, this Ryan looks terrified. He’s just as scared of getting close to Naim. Naim tries to tell him “it’s me,” but Ryan can’t trust that either. Ryan picks up the nearest rock and throws it at Naim.
Knowing Entity Naim is mirroring Hunter in a more gentle light (for example, meeting Ryan in his backyard like Hunter did) I wouldn’t say it’s ridiculous to assume that Entity Naim was throwing rocks at Ryan to hurt him. Ryan throwing the rock back at Naim during this scene was a retaliation.
Stoning is very often a punishment for queerness in most religious spaces, and Ryan throwing the rock fits with this. But instead of the rock being the punishment, Entity Naim himself is. The thing is, that was the real Naim.
And if we’re working off the idea that the Ryan in the forest that night was the Entity, that means that it decided the best way to hurt Naim was to harken back to Hunter, a reminder of the severity of his and Ryan’s relationship. One wrong move and they’ll end up dead. One wrong move and they’ll be stoning each other too.
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