Scott Hunter's thousand yard stare of despair (Fannish Fifty #14)

[verushka70]

I posted this pic (or a gif just like it) on Tumblr, but thought I'd also post it here. And between then and now, I think I figured something out about myself, which should've been obvious (duh).* Minor spoilers for Heated Rivalry S1E03!

Here's Scott Hunter's thousand yard stare of despair, after he's lost Kip:

[Image]

I love the angst of this character and the Scott/Kip relationship (and the way that François Arnaud plays Scott). There's no right/wrong/good/bad person, no hero/villain here. They both do what is right for them as individuals - it just doesn't jive together within their relationship because they are at such different stages of 'out'. 

That conflict between their different stages - and Scott's understandable terror at being outed - drives the angst between them. And it is simply delicious like the finest wine. What I figured out between posting on Tumblr and posting on DW is: my love of angst is most likely rooted in growing up with opera. My dad taught music and humanities at the junior colleges and was really into classical music (it was the only thing we were allowed to listen to as kids and teens - 'til my parents split up). He started taking me and my siblings to the opera as kids.

And, well, though there are many great comic operas (Rossini's, for example)... it's generally the tragic operas of Verdi and Puccini (even Bizet's Carmen) that are often considered to have the most beautiful music and arias, which is WHY they're so widely performed - even today.

So, yeah: I was literally raised to find beauty in tragedy. (Or, as Steven King might say, "I like it darker.")

But my favorite kind of angst is "angst with a happy ending", so I'm not solely into dark stuff. (Yay.) It definitely rings my inner bell, though (to quote Fraser).