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thinking about crichton and agency and violation and why that hookup with the assassin lady in “look at the princess” actually always really worked for me. people complain about it because like, isn’t he supposed to be pining after aeryn? oh she won’t put out so he’s going to someone else? but it isn’t about that to me at all. it’s about how this trilogy totally takes his sexual and romantic agency away (in a show that is constantly taking his agency away, sexual and otherwise). people want to force him to give up his genetic material, his life, his hope, his body, the possibility of loving the person he wants to love (and meanwhile scorpius is slowly taking over his brain). and of course, he’s a good man who wouldn’t force the issue with the person he actually wants. so as trite as it might look on the surface, in context for him to get laid--to just have sex with an attractive woman because he wants to--really does feel like an attempt at sexual agency. it’s why i always react like, “yeah sure, give this man a break.” (also with the context of how hard browder apparently resisted the “hooking up with an alien of the week” trope during the rest of the show, it just has more of the feel of a deliberate choice than a random thing)

#this was in my drafts #may as well post

it’s about the farscape season 4

i love how the first fakeout kind of lulls you into a state of false superiority. a lot of people could guess the “still in the game” bit. but that was never the real fakeout in the episode, just another layer of narrative constructs to distract you. the real fakeout was the princess one, and i don’t think many people guess that at all, even they think it’s off that stark would make aeryn the princess. and it’s like, the little fakeouts weren’t some stupid game--in a pejorative, self-indulgent sense--the episode was playing with you. the episode was doing a reality game all along, where the point is expectations about perspective, and who is the hero and the villain and the author and the victim of a story.

god the levels of agency and fiction shit in this episode. scorpius with his “neural harness” talking about being master and slave. who’s in control of the perspective, the characterization. who’s in control of whose behavior. who has your own behavior controlled (“what happens to him happens to everybody he controls”). this constant looking for ways out. but all you get is a false chiana on a false moya offering a game through a grate like it’ll be private or free.

someone write an essay that compares “john quixote” (but also “a human reaction”, “revenging angel”, “won’t get fooled again”, “dog with two bones”, any time he’s in an altered mental reality) and how star trek uses the holodeck and what it is that the difference between them is doing.

#it's been too long since i've seen trek to do it myself #but i feel like even though the holodeck breaks it's like #this controlled chaos #this reminder that you've caged this wild animal (fiction) but it's still wild #whereas in farscape it's like there is no cage at all #if anything fiction is the cage you use to protect your vulnerable self #but it doesn't work at best #and at worst turns itself on you to eat you alive

thinking about john telling chiana she’s “completely vulnerable.” because that’s their shared language this season, isn’t it? well, it’s been their language all along, but especially this season. the horror in vulnerability. really basic, physical vulnerability.

(thinking also about how it was always aeryn who was afraid of vulnerability for so long, and john who insisted on the strength in it. this season reverses their roles a lot with that, but it goes deep, it’s been building since the day a wormhole took his agency away. it has reasons.)

thinking about the fact that the game is a “reality game.” a game, but real. this blurring between fiction and non-fiction, consequence and inconsequence. (“i’m sure the aeryn in your head can wait”). it’s a game that twists perspective, puts you in another’s reality. thinking about how “unrealized reality” is called that, and the way it twists reality the same way. how when john and scorpius will visit a reality in “prayer” he’ll fulfill the prophecy, validate the perspective, that “john quixote” embodies. he’ll be a villain showing up to wreak havoc on someone else’s love.

thinking about “press the flesh”, the fact that the thing that mediates this whole experience is an “organic matrix.” again with this blurring of the material and abstract. it’s flesh that takes you to a game, a game that shows you something real. (thinking about the show itself as an organic matrix, this twisting, living, transportive thing. thinking about all art as that. you manipulate the material to access the abstract. thinking about existence as that).

#no coherence yet i am simply talking

been feeling out of touch with my profundity for a while now. some ability to feel and excavate deeply.

it’s silly how i forgot that farscape almost effortlessly puts me in that place, this like, expansive and emotional altered state.

so long story short, i’m watching “john quixote”

#(@ophelia-thinks if you see this i'm backreading your blog and wish i could like it from this account)

acecroft

FARSCAPE, 1.16

#that episode where aliens ask crichton's brain whether earth would be a good place to live #and crichton's brain goes 'no they're a bunch of xenophobic morons #who would probably kill my friends #along with me for being their friend'#it's a nightmare of cynicism #except for this one single moment #that captures the joy of knowing the alien #from aeryn's end--the joy of experiencing something new and unfamiliar #and from john's end--the joy of experiencing something through the eyes of someone who finds it unfamiliar #though of course it's also sad because crichton is too wrapped up in his fear re: earth to actually experience that joy #the show is so fucking good at these shots of grace #this balance between hope and horrorshow that won't leave me alone #because the thing is--what's the point of saying that humans are hidebound and violently paranoid #if you don't also show what is lost by being that way #if you don't also show the guileless fantasy of enjoying the rain

claudiablacks

#aeryn's relationship to john's craziness is so great #because there's this level of--as evidenced by these gifs--john is alien to her no matter what #everything he ever did seemed 'insane' to her because her definition of 'sane' behavior was based on entirely different cultural rules #and so as crichton becomes 'insane' to himself according to his own cultural rules (read: becomes ALIEN to himself)#aeryn is able to love it and accept it...i mean just look at how earnest and understanding she tries to be all through season two #because the work to understand his 'crazy' behavior is part of the work she's already doing to understand him as an alien #understand him as HIM #so when talks so fondly about him behind crazy what she's really talking fondly about is everything that was so strange about him #that she fell in love with #which is in contrast to crichton who has to make peace with a version of himself that is alien to him #the same way he comes to love and accept all of these creatures that are alien to him #which of course parallels the way that aeryn must accept the parts of herself that would be considered 'insane' in peacekeeper society #and which crichton also loves #but i just love what a good joke this 'crazy' motif is about how one's language for one's own behavior is so bounded by context #and without that context all of these things that terrify you about yourself #might just be 'you'#you're just 'you' to people that don't have that context #and what if you saw yourself that way?#what if you got to treat yourself like an alien that you were just discovering?#what if you got to be loved by someone who knew you like that?

sersi

FARSCAPE 1x2: I, E.T.

themetamorphic

But guess what John and Aeryn are up to? It's an episode of Farscape, so I'm sure you already guessed that they found the one niche in the wall that's just a titch two small for grown adults, and have managed to get themselves tossed in there with her arms around his neck and his hands at her waist. I don't know how probable that is, because I don't know about all of Moya's crevices, but I do know that John and Aeryn have an eerie way of landing in one of them and getting smooshed together about twice a week. They land, lots of staring, John and Aeryn standing in their little niche as though they haven't noticed but simply just don't feel like stepping out of there. Both of these -- the not noticing and the not doing anything about it -- are also central parts of the ongoing grab-ass tableau. - [ x ]

#lmao this was in my drafts #he has another great quote about this phenomenon but i forget what episode it's in #the john and aeryn physicality just gets to me man

zavuya

#this is such a perfect encapsulation of the john and aeryn dynamic i cannot stand it #aeryn with the masculine barricading posture #(which john will echo at the beginning of 'look at the princess' and since those episodes are major touchstones #in the John Crichton Impotence Saga of course it doesn't work. and then he goes for the more feminine feelings approach #and that doesn't work either. and then he goes for the chiana approach and that ALSO doesn't work. etc.)#and crichton with the gentle hand on her arm #with that open and slightly unhinged expression #there's more to say about crichton being petulant and obtuse in this scene/episode and aeryn being calm and emotionally wise #and the reversal of that #but just body-language-wise #that arm and his hand on her arm fascinates me #there's a lot of sexual tension in the scene and they're all close up in each other #but there's always something unusual and unpracticed and 'off' from conventional human man/woman dynamics #in how they stand around each other and how that tension happens #it's not utterly alien but still somehow not-quite-familiar

every time i remember that rygel literally gestated john and aeryn’s unborn fetus because he accidentally ate a piece of their disintegrated bodies off of the bottom of the ocean, i just lose my shit. if that isn’t the absolute most farscape thing you’ve ever heard. and so damn telling of the show’s relationship to bodies, aliens, reproduction and love.

acecroft

FARSCAPE, 1.17

#john!!#chiana!!#how does crichton make this kind of sardonicism feel like The Mood instead of annoying #and why is chiana's delight so delightful #idk man

i-amarobot

#key moments in farscape history #there's something that just kills me about the way that even in the tail end of season four #and he's a leather-wearing bomb-toting space-weary wanted criminal #he still keeps losing ever more pieces of innocence

aniquotes

“People don’t understand the word ruthless. They think it means ‘mean.’ It’s not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It’s about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it.”

- Marco, Book #30: The Reunion, pg. 71 (by K.A. Applegate)

#Formative Childhood Quotes

pigeonsandnonsense

And oh, god, how could so much regret and so much sweetness and so much sadness all be present in that single moment. I was already dead and missing my unlived life. I was already dead and Tobias was mourning.

Rachel, The Beginning (via pigeonsandnonsense)

#this got to me

asdfayeiouvwxyzup

I cannot say that I love you, my son, because I do not know you. But know that I wanted to love you. Know that, at least.

Elfangor, #23 Animorphs: The Pretender (via asdfayeiouvwxyzup)

#this line was SO interesting to me #it's so much more subtle and true and brutal to have elfangor say that he can't say he loves tobias #than to impart a human platitude #it's a great example of the way the books refuse to be romantic #on a pretty granular level

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