#@show writers: sullivan is so gay why are you like this | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

3rdbogwitch2theleft · 1 year ago

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We're currently in season 2 of our Smallville rewatch (or first in my partner's case) so, largely from memory, here is my ranking of Smallville characters who should have been canonically queer listed on a scale from "Dude it was right there! I cannot fathom why you fumbled the ball here!" to "I mean I get why you didn't, but the subtext was loud". I might change my ranking after we finish the show.

1. First and most egregious we have Tess Mercer.

This woman is a lesbian.

Her second scene in the entire series is a square off with Lois in which Tess waits maybe 15 seconds before asking if Lois is into role play (to be fair, Lois is in a Spirit Halloween style french maid outfit at the time). Their tension remains severely homoerotic throughout the her time on the show.

They pair Tess with Oliver. They pair her with Zod. They give her the hots for Clark and none of it feels the least bit authentic. She is gay. Let this woman be gay.

2. Coming in at a close second is Chloe Sullivan.

Comp het is the only narrative explanation I can think of for why Chloe spent so much time pining for the obviously disinterested Clark when Pete was right there!

(Yes, I know that the actual reason is network demanded the love triangle, but I want an in-universe explanation, damn it)

Don't get me wrong, I remember her relationship to Jimmy being delightful, but "spent my teen years wanting someone who I knew didn't want me" is giving big "closeted and not ready to deal with my sexuality yet" energy.

Also her jacket choices in the early years feel distinctly sapphic to me, a sapphic who lived through this era.

Bonus: she and Lana could have ended up together and driven a stake right through that love triangle from hell.

3. Lois!

Lois is bi. Fight me.

Am I saying this just because I'm in love with her? No, but I'm gonna be real with you, it is a factor. It's just so obvious to me.

Let bygones be bygones and bi gals be bi gals

4. Clark Kent

Am I saying this just because I'm in love with him? No, but I'm gonna be real with you, it is a factor.

As the show went on, they dipped more and more heavily into the "super powers and kryptonite poisoning as queerness allegory" and it's... it's not great. But that's a whole other post. I just think that if you make listen to a character earnestly describe herself as her bestie's "krypto hag" when talking him through an issue he's having with his sex life AND you make your first on screen lesbian a homicidal shape shifter the least you can do is make your allegorically queer main guy actually bisexual.

Let bygones be bygones and bi guys be bi guys

Also it would kinda explain why he looked the other way about Lex's deeeeeply creepy behaviors for so long. He had the same blind loyalty to Lex that he had to Lana. While I do not ship them especially in the early seasons (Clark is a teen and Lex is in early 20s for the first 4 years of the friendship, that's a big nope for me) Clark having a crush on his morally dubious older friend would explain a lot.

Clark, that grown man is bribing a government agent for your mom's medical records. He is not you friend!

5. Lana Lang

I just think it would have been neat. As I mentioned under the Chloe section I would have really liked it if she and Chloe had ended up together.

Also Lana's journey from damsel in distress (that poor kid is in so. much. distress.) to morally complex love interest to superhero in her own right could also have been a really cool exploration of gender identity.

While I know the average TV writer in the 2000s first association the the word "binary" was likely "code" rather than "gender", non-binary Lana Lang would have slapped.

6. Lex Luthor

Lex is the official recipient of the "I completely get why they didn't make this canon, but the subtext was loud" award.

Lex is manipulative, duplicitous, obsessive, and predatory. (In other words, just another billionaire amiright) Making him canonically gay or bi would have reinforced some extremely harmful stereotypes and given how popular the show was in its time, I am very glad they didn't do this.

That said, he's just so obsessed with Clark and he loooves to compare himself to Alexander the Great.

And a season 6 (when everyone is adults) toxic, chaotic Clark/Lana/Lex throuple would have been amazing. The secrets! The betrayals! Certainly beats the canonical Lex/Lana doomed abusive marriage and ride on the ever present Clark/Lana merry-go-round.

Lex also made a clone combining his DNA with Clark's. Fellas....

Honorable mention: Oliver Queen

I don't have a narrative reason.

Maybe the fact that he was paired with first 3 people on this list at different points in the series just gives him a bit of bi/pan 4 bi/pan energy.

I also just think it would have been fun. And I like fun.

#smallville rewatch #the image function was giving me grief so here's a long ass text post for your wednesday night enjoyment #characters that should have been queer #long post

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mindibindi · 2 years ago

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I like the ep. Good acting, writing etc. A good villain, Skinner is good and there are some good M/S fights, intermixed with their usual disregard for e/o's personal space. I love the "I wouldn't change a day" scene (Scully's last line in particular) but obviously disagree intensely with that ^^^ aspect of it. I think most MSR fans do. Certainly the show went on to prove that Mulder's indisputable soulmate is Scully (in this life and any other). At this stage, the writers were still denying the importance of that central relationship though.

More importantly, there are major holes in Mulder's past life regression session, even if Melissa's IS real which is not necessarily established either. Scully makes some pretty good points as to her unreliability but Mulder's supposed pastlife narrative is even more unreliable. His session comes only AFTER he's listened to Melissa's, indicating he may have been prompted by hearing all of her stories and just *wanting* to believe. Interview 101, as Scully points out in "Syzygy", is to interview subjects separately so you can tell if there are any inconsistencies. Someone pointed out years ago that Mulder mentions CSM appearing in a pastlife in WW2 but that character would actually have been alive at the time, even if he was a baby sucking on his first smoke. Also if he's a German woman why is he talking in English, in an American accent? People criticised DD's acting at the time, which is fair. But ALSO the lack of change in Mulder's voice and mannerisms can be taken as a sign that his testimony is unreliable. Melissa's voice and mannerisms change dramatically with each life/personality she inhabits. All we get from Mulder is a slight Southern twang towards the end. The out of universe answer to this discrepancy is that Kristen Kloke (?? actress playing Melissa) is a better actor than DD, but the in universe answer is that Mulder is weaving a tale of lost but enduring love that he wants to believe. This is very much consistent with Mulder's character and the source of his quest (the loss of Samantha). He is a man in search of that ONE person who will provide meaning, healing and completion. BUT keep in mind that "The Red and the Black" also later questions the legitimacy of Mulder's, Scully's and Jeffrey Spender's regression memories, and they are from THIS lifetime so.

Last of all, let's say there is some legitimacy to Mulder's regression memories. (He couldn't tell them where the bunkers were any more than Melissa/Sarah could, which also speaks to their unreliability, but whatevs). Scully was still present in all of Mulder's past lives, whether they were real or fabricated, so she is definitely in his circle of most loved ones. Maybe she was his sister sometimes or his mother sometimes (she sort of acts as both in their current lifetime). My personal headcanon for the Civil War lifetime is that Sarah and Sullivan grew up together. They were childhood sweethearts, even tho he was a little strange and sensitive. He was quiet and brooding and she sort of protected him from society a bit. They got engaged in their late teens because that's what you did. She might have known he was gay or maybe she just thought he was different. When the war starts up, Sullivan enlists like every other good southern boy, even if part of him really just wants to run away from society, from convention, from his engagement to Sarah. He loves her but he knows that love doesn't fulfill him the way it seems to do other men. He starts to understand why when he meets his sergeant. He admires him from afar for a while, distinguishes himself in battle, even as he starts to lose faith in the South's cause. Sullivan and his sergeant share intense experiences, save each other's lives, build a silent trust. In time, they become lovers. Sullivan wants to desert because he knows he's fighting on the wrong side but he can't leave his sergeant who feels bound by his duty to his men. They spend the night before that final battle together in the sergeant's tent. The South is on its knees and they both know they may die the next day. In the heat of battle, Sullivan sees his soulmate go down first. He knows they have lost the battle, the South has/will lose the war and he has nothing left to live for. He commits suicide via Yankee, his childhood friend Sarah finding him wounded before he dies in that bloody field. She tells him she loves him because she does (altho who knows, maybe she's started to fall in love with a hot nurse...). Point is, the white het dudes on TXF writing staff tried to imply that, in that lifetime, Mulder and Scully were fellow soldiers and nothing more because what more could *possibly* exist between two MEN?? Bullshit. Sullivan Biddle was super gay, he ran off to a sucky war cos he was in a gay panic, he fell in love with his brave and gorgeous compatriot, they had lots of gay tent sex then died together, hoping that in the future they'd be able to live their love out in the open, ideally in a slavery-free world. (We're not there yet but 🤞).

THE END.

“The field where I died” was a good episode, but one thing bugged me . Which was that it eluded to Mulder and Melissa (not Scully’s sister) being eternal soulmates and that Scully always was there to but as other people.

Now maybe it’s the romantic in me but I just think Scully and Mulder are the real soulmates and that if there was really such thing as past lives, they would be together forever.

Did anybody else have this issue? Just curious.

#txf #the x files #the field where i died #david duchovny #fox mulder #dana scully #msr #mulder x scully #forever #i've said it before and i'll say it again #sullivan biddle was super gay and in love with his sargeant #if i still wrote fic i would fix this ep thusly

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glitterypinkconverse · 2 years ago

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a “quick” volume 2 rant!!

why did they HAVE to kill off eddie? killing him off had literally no affect on the show, and even when dying the town still hates him. and is his body still in the upside down? like what

did they just forget about the road RIPPING APART? and there’s STILL people in hawkins? girl bye i would have packed my bags and left

“two days later” two days later my ass. that was so rushed and so poor. what literally happened those two days that was so unimportant?

i thought the upside down air was toxic. so how did they survive in the upside down ( apart from eddie, we love you man )? makes no sense

HOW THEIR TEETH ARE STILL WHITE AFTER NOT BRUSHING

why did no one apart from eddie’s uncle or dustin care about eddie’s death? or where eddie was? did the whole hellfire club and his band just forget about it or did dustin fill them in on it? same with robin, nancy, and steve

the correlation of “you are never going on vacation again” and hawkins being SPLIT apart. if anything mike’s mom should be GLAD that mike was gone and not there for it all to happen

vickie and robin. i would have loved their relationship if vickie didn’t have a bf and break robin’s heart.

steve and nancy. sure, they have unfinished romance but who gaf at a time where the world is about to end. the writers obv put that scene of steve and nancy in the upside down to get them somewhere, but it just makes no sense. they KNOW robin is a klutz and they would NEVER let robin run ahead of them, in fact they would be stressing out over the fact that their first child is running away when the world is ending and she would very easily step on a hive mind.

i was hoping there would be more backstory for henry, we barely know what dr. brenner did to him and el’s all like “brenners the monster, he made you who you are now”

MURRAY, ANTONOV, AND YURI. where are they?? did anotonov and yuri go back to russia all of a sudden or did they get caught by the americans? who knows

the upside down air filling hawkins and everyone thinking it’s snow. does it look like snow to you 🤨🤨

how the russians even got the demogorgon and the demodogs. i was hoping there would be more intel on it or at least explain how they got it.

byler. that scene in the car where will was talking about himself but saying it was all el broke me. all they’re doing is using will to get mileven somewhere. and i have a strong feeling jonathan knows that will is gay/queer/wtv he is atp

is dr. owens dead or alive? i’m assuming dead but it’s not confirmed

and the military plot. the whole sullivan thing got left unfilled and leads us with questions as to what happened there

max “dying” and el reviving her. poor girl is now stuck with broken limbs and can’t see. but when it happened to el she was fine??? because she had powers and was little??? so confused

NOW DONT GET ME STARTED ON THE FACT THAT LUCAS AND MAX WERE TALKING TO EACH OTHER VIA NOTES. that was the cutest fucking thing ever and they could have had EVERYTHING. they never got to see their movie on friday :(

i’m so glad jason died, respectfully. if jason left lucas and max alone max wouldn’t have died, the 4th gate wouldn’t have opened, and hawkins wouldn’t be covered with the upside down. i blame it all on jason. so glad his body got disintegrated 😊😊😊

DUSTINS LIMPING. GET THAT BOY SOME MEDICAL TREATMENT.

what was even funnier to me was how they all knew about the warfare place, and that scene with nancy and jason, GOD SHE SHOULD HAVE BEAT HIS ASS

there’s so much they could have improved in s4, but they truly did let us on with a heartbreak and questions to be answered. was screaming and crying at my tv with my mom the whole time. volume 2 absolutely BROKE me

#stranger things volume 2 #stranger things #stranger things vol 2 spoilers #stranger things vol 1 #stranger things 4 #duffers fix your show #i will never be over it #i will never recover #i needed to get this out #rant #i hate this show so much but i love it so much #literally fml

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popchoc · 3 years ago

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If they are making the redemption ark story for Sullivan in order to get him back to the Chief job position imma be pissed.

He’s selfish and he thinks he’s the righteous one, the savior, he’s just a self absorbed ahole and also a bit misogynist if I may so myself.

It’s clear that he’s only thinking about himself and his career, he doesn’t give a sh*t about Maya or the team, or who he crashes on his path to the top (like Ben said to him on the first episode, he encapsulated Sullivan essence perfectly)

He’s the one that took advantage of Maya and the situation she was in, he’s a shark, and she didn’t broke all the rules as he claimed, she saved a life while disobey an order, but Sullivan broke so many protocols while endangering himself and others, a probi and the whole Fire department.

Maya did what she did in order to save a life and support her friends and the black firemen (the protest and so on…)

If Sullivan become the hero I’m gonna vomit, but thing is, in the real world, it would probably happen cause he’s a man.

But the writers need to make a choice that I don’t think it’s been very clear yet from the first 3 episodes, but they already made him look like the hero twice, too forced imo…

Do they want Sullivan to be the hero or the villain?

In my eyes he’s the villain.

I loved what Maya said to Carina, that she should not blame him for her not wanting children, I think it was the rage speaking, but Sullivan thinks it’s all about that and the breaking the rules, he’s missing the bigger picture, he broke trust, friendship and respect of them all, especially Maya Carina and Andy.

Dean last season was spot on about Sullivan selfish behavior and he was pissed about Him, but once again the writers made it all go away with one episode…

It’s a clear pattern of behavior for Sullivan.

It’s more than that, he almost destroyed Station 19 twice and he always had the back up from 19, if it wasn’t for Maya he wouldn’t even be a firefighter any longer, but he seems to have forgotten that…interesting…

For the love of God please don’t do an episode where Sullivan and Carina are trapped together somewhere and he plays the hero once again,in order to be forgiven, I just can’t, I think if the writers want to redeem him, the journey must be longer and he needs to stop with his abrasive behavior and commanding attitude.

But I’d rather him be the villain than the hero, even if I hate when writers do so to a black character, but this is also one of the reason why i think the writers are leaning towards making him the hero and everything is gonna be forgotten, cause he’s a man and that’s what happens…

I think this season main team is “sexism and misogyny” as many ppl said and if they go with that route than Sullivan is totally one of the bad guys, masked as a hero, but I also never really liked how he treated and talked to Andy, he’s just so unlikable and self centered and psychologically and emotionally aggressive.

I hope Maya and Carina completely get rid of him and his shadow and can be happy in their own gay bubble!

Aaaaah remember when asks could only be like 200 characters long?! ;)

I'm not disagreeing with you though. I just don't think Shondaland really is about heroes and villains, they're about the grey in the middle. Good people make mistakes, bad people can do good. It's been like that for 18 years, and it probably will be so for the next 18. Who knows, if this show is gonna be as endless as Grey's, five or ten years from now, Maya might be about to marry Sullivan, after just giving birth to his twins. I'm just kidding of course, but also, you know, not really. Just be prepared. Always be prepared... ;)

#ask #station 19 #robert sullivan #maya bishop

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ncruuk · 3 years ago

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Shondaland = Babyland

My quick thoughts under a cut for those already seen enough:

- for a brilliant stereotype challenging, doing things differently, representation shake-up storyteller/showrunner like Shonda was when she broke into network land....Shondaland seems to have misplaced the memo, as I’m struggling to see character treatments that have female characters with storylines other than toxic male relationship (father/partner) or have babies.

- there’s rather too much telling us the character arc development, not enough showing us the character arc development.

- re point 1 - jury is out on whether having a baby increases or decreases risk of ‘bury your gays’ trope bingo. I’m a sufficiently cynical and jaded visitor to TV land that I’ll cross my fingers and hope it’s a step away from that inevitable narrative disaster. Tiny plus point - this is shondaland not the BBC, so that evens the odds a little.

- Thank heavens for an episode that had a bit more random fun in it (the cast have good talent in that area, nice to see it used, even if the episode as a whole was...strange)

- Keeping the rescues/patients outside of the Station is best unless they’re exceptional (Pru’s delivery for example) - Ingrid wasn’t and makes me realise it was probably a production costs led piece of plot to balance the books after the massive scene set up last episode

- If we’re doing the baby story for Maya and Carina, could we remember Maya has a brother? Finding Mason should at least be thought about...assuming he’s remembered by the writer’s room at some point soon (he seems to get about 1 moment a series, so fingers crossed)

- Miranda is a great character, with lots of great layers and history to draw on....IN HER OWN SODDING SHOW. If she’s not getting enough moments and stories, fix that in her own show please. Or at least show the same courtesy to Carina DeLuca and let her turn up in the doctors show to do some, you know, actual doctoring.

- Holiday/festival themed episodes are lovely, it’s nice to get them occasionally, makes why we needed to wait to season 5 an even more jarring reminder as to how off-balance Station 19 seasons are.

- Station 19. The clue is in the title. Station 19. Not Station 19 and 23, or even ‘Seattle Fire’.

- Sullivan. Appears to be straight-woman-kryptonite. Which I find strange. And dull. Also, see point 1.

- I came for the fires, I stayed for the Maya story-arc. Hopefully the investigation finally being remembered helps that remain true.

- As always, there’s also always fanfic (small plug!) and I shall continue to enjoy that - at least s4 and s5 are giving me plenty of ‘oh, that was almost a good idea, let’s do it a bit differently’ material!

#station 19 thoughts #station 19 #maya x carina

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lovecanbesostrange · 4 years ago

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There was no reason for Station 19 to go that hard on all fronts, but wow they did. I honestly watched S1+2 mostly out of habit, but S3 was like cleaning house, setting everybody up as a character with their personal flashback gave them far more layers and now I truly care. Thanks. Well, and then Grey’s happened and I cried for like half the episode...........

Maya and Jack have definitely profitted the most from the shift in tone and the character development overhaul. And I liked both their storylines. Maya dealing with all that crap from her father and coming to terms with why she maybe isn’t 100% ready for this very steady relationship and sharing all her emotions was great. Can she tell Carina everything she told Andy? In almost exactly this way, please? Because being afraid of slipping and finding these moments and naming what she has trouble with adjusting to - that is all good. And Carina is one of the most compassionate and patient people (from the limited scenes we have had with her over the years). Dear Maya, if you communicate, she will be there for you.

And wow, Carina than talking about her home and her own fears. Magnificent. Early days of covid? All the horrible, horrible news from Italy come to mind. So thanks writers for building that international bridge. (I wonder how any Italian tv shows that will incorporate the pandemic will deal with this. Every country has their very unique story in this.)

Of course we will see nice side characters getting covid and probably die. Gonna keep my fingers crossed for Marsha nonetheless. Jack having this make-shift family did wonders for his character and I don’t want him to take a blow. It’s a found family on the side, not bound by trade and I like it. I love that thanks to Marcus the masks with plastic windows were mentioned (even tying back to Dr. Riley’s visit to Grey-Sloan. Good job.

Well, Miller and Sullivan. That all happened. And I am exactly 0% qualified to discuss the issues raised. I do empathise with Sullivan a bit more (not that I dismiss Miller’s points, because like Sullivan and Warren say, he is right). Because I absolutely hate this thing were being part of a (minority) group makes you the spokesperson and you get judged far more harshly. And then also taking in-group crap about it. Yes, it is how the world is. But it’s unfair. (And tbh luckily Sullivan hurt mostly himself and he did stand up and face any consequence coming his way. And yes, he was the kind of person to always tell everybody else to better not make mistakes *blablabla* and look, he fell down that high horse... I do think that is something Miller pointed out very rightfully.)

Glad Travis talked to his dad. And I do like the way he did. Just letting him know he knows and leaving that door open. His breakdown about how the church/religion is letting gay people down, while so many sins are just forgiven... damn. Hard to watch. And if just one viewer watching suddenly went like “huh, fucked up”, it was worth it.

Vic is the unsung hero of this episode. I loved how she kept defending that drugged up dude. Yes, he is stupid and it’s horrifying that he stays with his obviously abusive wife, but also keeps drugs around and just... lives like this. But she kept talking about how he didn’t mean to hurt anybody else and that he needed help far more than punishment. Travis and Vic are both good people, but in that situation I think most of us would react more like Travis. Being annoyed, mouthing back and wanting those two shut the fuck up. It’s a normal reaction. What Vic said is the harder choice. And it felt like there was an untold story there.

Okay, wow, much to say about Station 19 for once. But oh boy, Grey’s...........

I remember the “early” episodes we met Bailey’s father. And then we barely talked about her parents. They were somewhere in the background. Until in “(Don’t) Fear the Reaper” we met her mom, got that whole thing with her dead sister and got this picture of her early home life. It was really good. And last week her parents get mentioned again, because hey, elderly people. AND NOW THEY TELL US HER MOM HAD ALZHEIMER’S AND THEN SHE DIED............................................................... it was so fucking heartbreaking start to finish.

And I love all the quiet scenes we got out of this that are just so human. Sad and human. Bailey talking to Meredith, saying she misses her and relating to the whole seeing your mom withering away (so dying twice in a way). I like the use of the beach, because Meredith is semi-conscious, she hears it all, but she just can’t wake up long enough. And then Maggie and Bailey on that bench.

Two people sitting on a bench, talking. Nothing special happens. They don’t need to distract by having them in a busy hallway or somethng. It’s a whole ass conversation with no shorthand. Showing all the emotions. Having Maggie go back to that time her mother died and how she views it all in a different light now. Talking about dying with dignity. Chandra Wilson was so good in this scene. (Her best performance to me will probably always be when Charles died in front of those elevators, I can cry just thinking about that.) And she was allowed such a variety of feelings. And the pain of it all brings up joyful memories. Thanks so much for that hilarity that her scholarship came from the fucking Daughters of the Revolution. HA!

I don’t get people who still watch Grey’s and the relationship drama is the thing they care most about. This is what I’m here for first - the personal lives and relating to all these emotions (and also the mistakes and the way to do better next time).

Well, at least Tom got better quick, I guess. Nice way to give Amelia a reason to get to work for a day and thus have her confronting Teddy. Look, I am done with storylines involving cheating and all. Teddy as a character is often hard to like. But the way she is isolated and like the most contact she has is with DeLuca when he updates her on Meredith’s vitals... it’s harsh. And I liked that Amelia can talk to her without making her feel more terrible. And then I did like Teddy talking to Tom, who was his charming self in the end. Bonuspoints for mentioning that the kids are with Owen’s mom. And hey, I give this to Owen, I believe this must be hard for him, because being a dad is the biggest deal for him. Actually something to make him more likeable - if handled correctly - and this situation sucks for him as well.

Which brings me to Link. Who was left at the Grey home. With Zola, Bailey, Ellis and Scout. Wow. Who would have thought? Amelia’s pregnancy was a good thing, I guess, to give them the excuse of baby time and also Link sorta moving in to deal with all the kids. (Shipping all of them off to their own living Grandma isn’t an option. lol ) Link is a good dude. So please, okay, it was news to him, no need to hate on Tom, push through the irritation, Link! Ahahahahaha.

Jackson being so nervous about his mom being a bit too proud to always keep her mask on - wonderful. Sure, she’s a doctor, she’s also stubborn and he was so scared of losing her not that long ago. Family drama everywhere! I always like seeing Jackson and Webber together. And then they had another big talk, hammering home the fact that people are affected differently. That it’s worse for poor people and not by accident, but systemic problems, most of them are PoCs. So many black and brown patients dying left and right, and it’s clear where the problem starts... I do believe for some viewers this is actually news, because the “news media” they consume won’t talk about that.

So, well, and then there is the Jo of it all. OMG where do I even start? Now, first off, Levi and Jo living together is still hilarious and thanks so much for getting two scenes at the loft. Especially that first one with Levi pretty much pushing her out of bed. Now, I do want Levi to talk to his mom, I desperately need to know how things are. I’m sure the pandemic has shed some new light on what’s important. Second I’m also glad Levi is with Jo, so she is not alone, which makes it harder for her to fall into really bad habits and down that depression hole.

I kinda freaked out seeing Val again and was sure she’s gonna die (might still happen aaaaah). They have a tendency to kill the nice ladies. Still haven’t forgiven Grey’s for killing CeCe. So it was cool that the surgery was a success and wow, did I love when Jo sent Levi out to just listen to Val and connect. And then the baby delivery happened and....... what is going on? Jo even just casually thinking about switching specialties? TO OB?????????? WHAT?????? Dear writers, you dropped the ball on her entire medical journey so often, giving her a bonkers fellowship, having her residency take way too long and shoving her into general, because oops no mentor or anything. And now you give me this? Please, so this is how I would accept this as a set-up for an actual carthartic moment:

Let Jo stalk Carina, play out this thought “what if this thing that made me happy for a day is the thing I am supposed to do longer”. And then let her have joyous moments, but also something complicated, and finally a very distressed woman in labor. And Jo feels for the woman, is compassionate and all and when the baby is there, the woman struggles to connect. And this joyous second is withheld from Jo. And boom, full circle, this woman feels like shit for not loving that baby instantly, for the feeling of resentment and being out of her mind. And finally Jo can forvige Vicki. And that’s the end of that particular journey.

I mean we all pretend that we have forgotten that time Jo stole a baby, right? Because that was the S16 hiatus and there was a storyline set in motion that blew up with Justin leaving like that. And we have had Jo interacting with babies and new moms so often over the course of the show. While also staiting that Jo’s self-worth is tied to being in an OR, which is also her safe space. So this whole thing...

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Addison was the attending OB/GYN once upon a time. (”I’m being stalked by pregnant women!” “You are an obstetrician.”) She was also a fetal surgeon, which was what Arizona eventually became. So it’s not like when Meredith wore pink scrubs for a few weeks and got made fun of. There could be a long interesting road that eventually does include surgeries. But it’s just so....... dumb. In a way. Especially with Jo having so many issues. And the writers - who give out pregnancies and babies like halloween candy - constantly skipping a potential Jolex-as-parents-storyline.... which kinda bites them in the ass now. ugh F R U S T R A T I O N......... I could write a five page essay just about Jo so far this season, I’m sorry. (Also if I ever have to see Jo in pink scrubs, a part of my brain will explode thinking back to Jason for sure.............)

Oh, and then there was Ben Warren. Just existing. Being a good man. Thanks. :3

#Station 19 #Grey's Anatomy #ramblings

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jupitermelichios · 4 years ago

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S3E2: Phoenix

Oh Jesus it’s been a whole 2 months since I last watched any Smallville and in that time I somehow managed to forget about Lex living on a desert island with his imaginary boyfriend, so that recap section hit me like a sack of angry ferrets to the face

I think this episode opened with Clark murdering Jonathan, which I am so here for

Oh no, apparently Jor-El gave Jonathan superpowers off screen. Because that’s the sort of thing you shouldn’t show on screen obviously

Time to dramatic shirt rip, under 2 minutes, excellent

“If I could raise a son who could kill, I’d rather be dead” boy do I have some news for you about S1E1 Jonathan my dude

“Oh honey we never blamed you for me loosing the baby!” Hey Martha maybe you should check with Jonathan before saying something like that, given he very much did exactly that, or was gaslighting your son your whole plan?

Say what you like about Buffy, at least there were consequences for her running away from home at the end of season 2. Clark can apparently dose himself up on PCP, become a professional bank robber, and then try and murder his own father, and just waltz back into his life without consequences

God I love tiny gay Lex Luthor. I do have to ask how the fuck he got back from Jamaica though, given he’s got no money, no ID, and HE’S LEGALLY DEAD! How the fuck did he pay for flights?!

I do admire Jonathan’s consistency when it comes to anything being morally okay as long as it’s Lionel who’s the victim. “You can’t steal, Clark, that’s wrong!” “But it was from Lionel.” “Oh, lmao that’s totally cool then”

If a suicide is a real cocktail no one tell me because Lionel and Rutger Hauer apparently used to drink them when they were young and based on how it looks, I’m guessing the main ingredients are advocat and tango

Also I’m pretty sure Lionel and Rutger used to fuck, I’m getting strong Giles and Ethan Rayne vibes from this conversation

How do we tell people this is a flashback? Oh I know, lets cover everything with so much bloom it looks like a 360 launch title and no one can see what’s going on, you know, like the past looks

Angry-cupboard-sex-doctor (who is getting abbreviated cos she’s in this episode a lot) is serving strong season 3 Morganna energy and I love it. She’s like the straight woman’s Katie McGrath, I really hope she sticks around as a season villain

Oh Chloe’s hair is so much worse now! Given who the actress turned out to be as a person she deserves it, but it’s still phenomenally terrible. Hands up who remembers Balamory?

“We all do things we regret” yes but being a massive bitch generally has less consequences than TAKING PCP AND BECOMING A BANK ROBBER. He’s not running from himself he’s running from the law

Literally the first thing Lex says to Clark after 3 months of being legally dead is a pick up line. I appreciate your dedication to your brand tiny gay Lex Luthor

Holy shit actual confirmation that Lana doesn’t got to school any more. Go to school Lana! You can’t keep running an ancient Egypt themed coffee shop for the rest of your life!

Okay, I know she’s an objectively terrible love interest given the whole murder thing, but Lex just implied he killed his dad and ACSD was definitely into that, and damnit I just want them to be happy! She’s so much better than Clark, why the fuck is he still into this dickhead when he’s got this homocidal queen as an option?

I love that Rutger Hauer just takes it on trust that the thing Lionel is hunting for is a mason jar full of this random farm boy’s blood, he’s just like ‘yeah, that seems like a thing Lionel would be into’

Lana arrives at the Kent farm, walks up to the most gangster looking gangster to ever be a ganster, who is literally holding a gun and leaning against a black SUV, and is just like ‘hey didn’t know the kent’s had visitors’ and fucking immediately gets taken hostage

But then immediately fucking murders a guy, holy shit, Lana actually did something that contributed to the plot and it’s really sad that the closest thing to agency Lana has is when she stabs a guy to death with a pitchfork, what the fuck

I’m pretty sure Lex is about to kill ACSD, but fuck if I’m not enjoying the two of them standing on a private plane drinking champage and sniping at each other like they’re in a tenessee williams play

Oh my god they shot the fucking pilot. Lex has literally been back from the dead a day, and he’s in another fucking crashing plane, what the actual fuck????

Aaaand there goes ACSD right out the crashing plane. Goodnight sweet bitch, you were the only good love interest lex has ever had, may a flight of angels sing thee to thy rest

You’ve heard of day for night shooting, now get ready for we can only use this set at night as we’re just going to adjust the brightness and hope you don’t notice! (Spoiler, we noticed)

Clark’s jeans and plaid shirt are fireproof. They’re literally fucking fireproof. Which I guess makes sense given he sets shit on fire every time he gets horny but even so. Does explain where all the Kent’s money goes not they’re not going to the feed store every epsiode.

Oh to be Lionel, sitting in the dark drinking scotch and listening to opera, waiting for my son to get back from murdering his wife, so I can congratulate him on becoming a true Luthor

Credit to the makeup artists for giving lex scars and sunburn, and then remembering that they did it. That’s not the kind of consistency I expect from this show but I appreciate it

LEX GETTING FATHER FIGURES LEX GETTING FATHER FIGURES the only thing I want more than that is for them to bring back Lex’s long lost brother and for chloe sullivan to get possessed or something so I don’t have to deal with her. Where’s Joey Wilson when you need him?

I love how they managed to turn superman of all the fucking characters into a YA supernatural love triangle story

Lana has a new horse. She’s never owned a paint horse before. WHAT IS SHE DOING TO HER HORSES?????????????????? I need to know!

Clark just conclusively told Lana he’s not interested. Who wants to bet the writers have forgotten that by the start of next episode?

#smallville recaps #jupiter watches a thing #i'm going to miss helen the angry cupboard sex doctor #first of her name #queen of my heart specifically

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calamity-bean · 4 years ago

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Barkskins (2020)

Lately I’ve been posting some gifs and such from a new show based (loosely, my impression is) on the Annie Proulx novel of the same name. I haven’t read the novel and knew very little about the show before I started, but I thought I’d post a bit about my impressions thus far, as of episode 1.04.

So! Barkskins is a period drama set in the late 17th century in what is now Quebec, centered around a remote little French settlement called Wobik. There are multiple plot threads at work, but the initial hook driving the narrative is the suspicious massacre of another nearby settlement. This mystery wraps around the lives of the varied people competing to survive and thrive in this corner of New France.

Short and spoiler-free opinion: I'm enjoying it so far! The tone is fairly dark and gritty, always with an edge of danger and even some hints of a sort of religious/folk horror element at work (we’ll see if that comes to anything meaningful, I suppose). The cast has a lot of talent, and based on what I’ve read, there does appear to have been a serious effort to value and involve indigenous voices throughout the creative process. Moreover, it’s a historical setting that interests me, and I like some of the characters a lot. I suspect that one of the biggest dangers this show runs, giving its fairly wide scope and limited number of episodes, is that it may fail to deliver on / fully develop everything it’s hinting at or touching upon... but we’ll see.

Longer description and opinions, potentially with vague/general spoilers, under the cut.

(there is a lot of focus on trees in this show. you may not have expected that from the name.)

Anyone who follows me would be forgiven for thinking that there are only two characters in this show, because I’ve only been posting the same two over and over. Shockingly, there are, in fact, more. Prominent ones so far include:

A traumatized young girl (Lola Reid) who is apparently one of the only survivors of the aforementioned massacre, yet no one recognizes her as being one of the people at that settlement.

Rene Sel and Charles Duquet (Christian Cooke and James Bloor), indentured servants newly arrived from France.

Claude Trepagnay (David Thewlis), an eccentric but ambitious French settler, and Mari (Kaniehtiio Horn), the underappreciated Wendat woman who lives with him.

Hamish Goames and Yvon Kirkpatrick (Aneurin Barnard and Zahn McClarnon) of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who are investigating the disappearance of a colleague. Goames is British, Yvon Anishinaabe.

Melissande and Delphine (Tallulah Haddon and Lily Sullivan), filles du roi brought from France to become wives of settlers.

Mathilde Geffard (Marcia Gay Harden), a no-nonsense and very observant French innkeeper, along with other townspeople of Wobik.

As you can see, most of the lead characters are white Europeans. Given the history of this era and the premise of the show, colonialism (and the conflicts/violence thereof) is naturally a major and inescapable part of the narrative. I was unsure, going in, how the show was going to handle the portrayal of Native characters and cultures. It’s not a topic I can offer personal insight into, as I’m white and not very educated in the irl history/cultures of this setting anyway, but it is a topic I care about. So I looked online to see what better informed people had to say.

This article by The 1491s’ Migizi Pensoneau discusses his involvement with the show (including his initial skepticism) and highlights the indigenous voices who contributed to Barkskins — including writers, actors, historians, and community leaders and advisors, both in the writing room and on location. In Pensoneau’s words:

“Barkskins” is still historical fiction told for television, involving multiple stakeholders and stories, and made within the studio world. In other words, it’s not perfect. But the Native spaces and Native people depicted were handled with just as much care, time, and investment as every other aspect of the show. Instead of a Hollywood producer shorting Native representation based on profitability, we placed as much control as possible into the hands of the communities depicted. The integrity with which we approached this task tells a better story, and I’m excited for everyone to see indigenous characters and communities portrayed on television in a new way.

Steeve Gros-Louis, director of the Huron-Wendat Sandokwa dance troupe, has also spoken positively about his experience of the show’s approach to his culture. Overall, I would definitely say that the story thus far has been told primarily through the lens of colonists. But there are characters from multiple indigenous cultures of the region, two of whom are leads, and general reactions to the portrayal of these characters/cultures seem positive.

(this shot was SO sepia before i adjusted it, like i did a lot and yet it is still very sepia, fair warning that this show’s indoor scenes often suffer from a chronic case of Everything In History Was Sepia.)

Most of the lead characters are also male, though there are about five prominent women so far. (...Honestly, I’ve watched period dramas with fewer.) Among these, I think an interesting phenomenon the show’s chosen to explore is the filles du roi — young women who’ve traveled from France at the king’s expense specifically to provide wives for the overwhelmingly male population of early settlers. These young women differ in personalities and motives but all seem to be very much alone in the world, and it seems clear that they have chosen this path in hope of better opportunities but are also anxious about how their lives in this “new world” will turn out. The show is closely following the journeys of two of them in particular (ambitious Melissande and shy Delphine, both of whom have secrets), and while it is a bit tiring that women in historical fiction are so often defined by their relation to a man, I appreciate that this storyline is about the wives themselves.

Personally, my two favorite characters so far are the Company men: Goames and Yvon. Goames is very much the sort of character I’m often drawn to, in terms of his manner and apparent worldview: “the implacable sort, rigid in his thoughts and actions,” serious and decent and imo with hints of a storyline challenging his loyalty to his institution, which has in the past been the sort of storyline I very much enjoy. (I uh, would be lying if I said I wasn’t also simply... drawn to Mr. Barnard in general.) Yvon stands out for his dry snark and eloquence and for the bigotry he runs into as a Native man operating within white spheres, which casts a pall over his generally unflappable demeanor, and I have a lot of curiosity about his background. Their partnership is a highlight of the show, imo, and I’m quite interested in where their storyline will go re: their individual character arcs as well as the overall narrative. I’m also particularly fond of Mari and Delphine.

(my BOYS! this is not an actual still from the show but look at Aneurin. look at his silly pose.)

As far as the content goes, I don’t think it’s been too egregious so far, but be advised:

Primary warning is for violence. It’s not overly gory, but there is fighting, blood, bodies, etc. One act of violence I will warn for specifically: in the first episode, a group of Iroquois men are killed (offscreen), and their bodies are displayed hanged and impaled. This is clearly presented as an atrocity, and the bodies are mostly shown from a distance so that they’re small and indistinct, but there are a couple close-up shots.

Also, as I’ve mentioned, characters such as Yvon and Mari do face racist treatment/remarks from white characters.

There has been a nongraphic instance of attempted sexual assault, which was successfully rebuffed.

So... yeah! At time of writing, half the season has aired — it airs Monday evenings on Nat Geo and goes up on Hulu Tuesday afternoon, and they seem to be airing two episodes a week, which is frankly annoying, I’d rather get either a proper savor or a proper binge. The reviews I’m seeing online are mostly positive (I’ve seen at least one trot out the dreaded “It’s the next GoT!” line, which I think is inaccurate re: its tone/focus and also, like, why are people still trying to say that as though it’s a good thing), and there seems to be a small little fandom getting started here on Tumblr. (Not that I’ve really met many of y’all yet. If you’re reading this, hi!) And while Proulx’s novel covers some 300 years — it’s one of those generational sagas, I gather, following characters and their distant descendants — thus far I’ve seen no indication that the show is going to be set up that way. I recall reading something that said they’d basically taken a small part of the novel and massively expanded the characters, etc., so for now, at least, I’m going to assume the show is staying within this one slice of history.

Anyway, though. I’ll admit I’ve not been devoting 100% of my attention to any given ep, as I gotta work on other things while I watch, but so far, it’s intriguing, it’s got a number of actors and characters I like in it, and I appreciate learning that it had input from a variety of indigenous contributors. Overall, I intend to continue seeing where it goes!

#barkskins #period drama #aneurin barnard #david thewlis #zahn mcclarnon #kaniehtiio horn #marcia gay harden #tallulah haddon #lily sullivan #christian cooke #james bloor #my meta #op

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mayasdeluca · 3 years ago

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So let me get this gay:

Maya breaks a rule ONCE to save a kid and she’s never gonna be captain again

BUT

Sullimanpain steals drugs from his workplace, become addict, OD during work hours, lies, and with his behavior endanger both firefighters and civilian but it’s all nice and cool cause the “chain of command” wasn’t broken?

What a bunch of crap, couldn’t find a worst excuse even if they tried.

So Andy is gonna be Cap of S19 clearly

I think at the end of the season Maya either get injured badly because of someone mistake possibly Sullimanpain or the actual Chief so they may have to apologize and reach a deal of some kind or, or… she quits!

Stefania talent is so wasted in this show but it’s amazing how she can say much more with a simple look at Maya than 3/4 of the S19 actors can do with all the screen time they have, maybe they are scared she’ll steal the show, sorry to break it to your guys but pretty much 80% of viewers are here for Marina and Travis/Vic and they managed to ruin both… 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼

More than pissed I’m sad

Hahahaha I love how you said "so let me get this gay"...that was the laugh I needed tonight.

But yes...the sexism is just so clear and I really wanted to like the Chief but I'm done with her annoying ass. Like how are you going to compare Maya's situation to your situation at war (which I'm sorry but I didn't need to see those flashbacks, waste of time) where you didn't listen to your chain of command and people died whereas Maya didn't listen to chain of command and saved a life?!?!? How the hell is that the same thing? And don't get me started on how she's acting like she's this squeaky clean superior while she's having a sexual relationship with her lieutenant right under their damn noses.

And the way Beckett and Sullivan and even Ben and any other man can screw up a million times and get a slap on the wrist, if that, and then it's off you go and Maya can't catch one damn break and was the best captain the station had since Pruitt. I mean how the hell are they gonna justify Andy getting this job over Maya...just because she has a "cleaner" record? Even though the chief praised her bill of work and her ambition to continue to climb up the ranks? It's stupidity.

Yes something is gonna have to happen with Maya because otherwise she's just gonna stay stagnant at lieutenant now and that's boring. I mean it works for Travis and Vic and Ben who have no desire to move up and even Jack who I'm starting to wonder how the hell he even became lieutenant since he doesn't even really do much at all?? But Maya isn't going to want to stay in one position for long so either they're gonna torture her by getting her seriously injured or yeah, they might play with the idea of her quitting or transferring which makes me slightly nervous but I'm not gonna stress about that yet when there's a million other things to be mad about at the moment.

Stefania & Danielle both do so much with so little and these writers really need to realize that. You'd think they would since they caught onto their chemistry/magic right away but right now they're wasting it on sperm talk or 30 second convos and I don't get why. They really need to maximize the better relationships on the show (Marina, Travic, etc.) and stop spending time on stuff that literally doesn't matter (Sullivan/Chief, Station23, etc.) before they run this show into the damn ground.

#asks #anon #station 19 #station 19 spoilers #the tagline of this show is oh the potential that is constantly wasted

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lunasspecto · 7 years ago

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Journalist Sarah Schulman delivered this speech at an AIDS memorial in New York on 22 June 2017 and later shared the text on Facebook:

“LET THE RECORD SHOW” LOSING THE TRUE HISTORY OF AIDS

By Sarah Schulman June 2017

I could stand here and tell you about friends of mine who are lost. But I would be abdicating my responsibility as a long-term witness to the AIDS calamity if I focused on Stan Leventhal or Asotto Saint today. As a journalist and novelist who has covered the entirety of the AIDS crisis, and (unlike many people who covered AIDS from the beginning, I am still alive) I have to say honestly that the thing we are really losing is an accurate HISTORY of AIDS, and consequentially, we are losing an accurate assessment of where we are today. The AIDS Story has been distorted from the beginning, in part because of the chaos of figuring out what the hell was going on, in part because of bias, but now these distortions are being entrenched. I want to take this time to give some very key examples.

First, we have a false origin story. Most people who know anything trace the beginning of AIDS to that New York Times article on July 4th weekend, 1981, reporting cases of what they called “Gay Cancer” in San Francisco. I think we now know enough to understand that this highly significant marker only recorded the moment when a long standing epidemic finally reached a critical mass of gay men who had access to high quality doctors who had the time and ability to actually notice and conceptualize their condition. And so, July 4, 1981 is a monument to the cruelty of the American health care system.

There are estimates that by 1981 there were already 200,000 people in the United States who were infected with HIV. And that means that many people had already died, and been dying for a long time. And others observed their deaths. So who were they? In his 1990 book The History of AIDS by Merko Gremek, he cites a study in the 1940’s that identified a group of sailors who died of a mysterious lung disease. The enterprising doctor cultured and saved their lung cells, which were identified in the 1980’s as PCP, or AIDS related pneumonia. The men also were noted to have had “anal trauma”, which because of homophobia was a euphemism for anal sex.

In the ACT UP Oral History Project, Jim Hubbard and I interviewed 187 surviving members of ACT UP New York over seventeen years. In my interview with Betty Williams, a straight Quaker who was in ACT –Up, she reflects on her work with homeless people in the 1960’s and 70’s and recalls them using two terms to identify fatal illnesses affecting homeless people: “Junkie pneumonia” which we now understand also to be PCP, killing injection drug users, poor gay men and others who were HIV infected before anyone knew what HIV was, and “the dwindles” which we now understand to have been Wasting Syndrome, a significant cause of AIDS death. So, in the 1960’s and 70’s, homeless people observed and named AIDS related conditions, but they were so separated from adequate health care in our brutal and unjust, stratified class system, that no one else noticed.

This week I heard a piece on WNYC promoting a new book about Jeffrey Shmaltz, a gay writer at the New York Times who died of AIDS. The interview did not mention that the New York Times was a major force in maintaining social indifference and neglect towards people with AIDS, contributing to the expansion of the epidemic world-wide. The interview did not mention that there were a number of closeted gay men and women at the Times who turned their backs on the gay community and on people with AIDS for years, despite our desperate pleas. It did not mention that ACT UP called them “The New York CRIMES”, that when they got their first fax machine, we faxed them a mile of black paper because of their criminal refusal to cover AIDS. LET THE RECORD SHOW! That homophobia at the New York Times meant that out of the closet journalists who wanted to tell the truth about what was happening to our community could not work at the highest levels of our profession. That out of the closet artists who made work about the reality of our lives under the epidemic, could not get their work understood or often even acknowledged, and demonstrations and zaps and experiences of people with AIDS were rarely even mentioned at the New York Crimes.

On May 21, 1990, ACT UP organized a huge and elaborate action at the National Institute of Health, called STORM THE NIH, focused on insisting that people with AIDS be allowed on governmental boards controlling treatment development and testing. Because our people were literally NOT ALLOWED IN THE BUILDING, folks with AIDS had to stand outside the gates, including many very sick people some of whom were hauled away by police wearing yellow rubber gloves, and these brave people were then arrested.

Seventeen years later, Jim Hubbard and I were invited to the NIH, National Library of Medicine to present the beginnings of the ACT UP Oral History Project. We said that the last time we had been there, we were on the other side of the gate. A woman raised her hand and told us that she was the NIH librarian, and that after demonstrators were taken away in 1990, she went outside and collected some of the left-over signs for the Institute’s archive. And then she made the bone-chilling statement that “We here at the NIH are so grateful that Dr Fauci had the insight to understand that everyone deserved a place at the table.” Jim and I were filled with disbelief. We explained to her and the rest of the NIH staff in attendance that our dead friends fought and struggled until the day they died to FORCE the NIH, AGAINST THEIR WILL, to include people with AIDS as experts on their own disease. LET THE RECORD SHOW.

And when we look at the history of AIDS film and AIDS Theater, we see large-scale mis-representations and inventions embedded in the most rewarded and iconic works. Early on, the most highly praised works about AIDS told a false story of gay people being alone and abandoned by each other, without community or political organization, dependent on benevolent straight people to rescue them. For example, the Oscar winning film PHILADELPHIA, told the story of a gay man with AIDS (Tom Hanks) who needed a lawyer, so he went to a homophobic straight lawyer (Denzel Washington). Why didn't he go to a gay lawyer? Most people with AIDS were defended by gay and lesbian or left-wing lawyers. The actual history is that people with AIDS were NOT defended by homophobic straight lawyers. LET THE RECORD SHOW. But in the Oscar winning movie PHILADELPHIA there is no political gay community in existence for this man with AIDS to turn to. This is a completely false rendition designed to position homophobic straight people as the heroes of AIDS because they HEROICALLY overcome their predjudices to protect the alone gay man.

At the same time there were accurate depictions of upper-class white gay men like The Normal Heart or Longtime Companion that did tell true stories of race and class-based white gay male communities heroically struggling to force the government to act, while they faced mass death. But the problem is not with these stories themselves, but that they became exclusively emblematic of an epidemic, that they only partially represented, while the stories of poor people, of women with HIV, or people of color, of children with HIV were relegated to marginalized venues like underground and community newspapers, or projects like Alexandra Juhasz and Juanita Muhammed’s videos with women of color with AIDS (now showing at The Museum of the City of New York, thirty years after their creation) or Jean Carlomusto and Gregg Bordowitz’s Cable series “Surviving and Thriving With AIDS” for GMHC in the 1980’s.

What is particularly interesting about, for example, Larry Kramer’s THE NORMAL HEART, is that while it enjoyed a very successful run and revival off-Broadway at The Public Theater, it could not move to Broadway or HBO until decades after its creation because corporate entertainment was not ready for a white GAY man to be the hero of AIDS until the epicenter of the epidemic seemed to have passed. LET THE RECORD SHOW.

And while white gay men suffered, were abandoned by their society and abandoned by their families, and died because of the criminal indifference and neglect by the US government, Big Pharma, The Entertainment Industry, and – yes- The New York Crimes- some of those who survived have also contributed mightily to the creation of a false history because they are the only sectors of the community of people with HIV/AIDS who have a voice at the levels of power. We have been subjected to claims by people like Andrew Sullivan, who in 1999 announced “The End of AIDS,” because his friends had good insurance and could get medication. Yet reporters like Black lesbian hero Linda Villarosa , have documented the ongoing crisis for Black women and Black gay and bisexual men over decades. In a 2004, five years after Sullivan claimed “The End of AIDS” Villarosa wrote a two part series for the New York Times showing that the over-incarceration of Black men by white America, made Black women who wanted to have sex with Black men, more vulnerable to the virus because they faced a smaller partner pool with higher rates of infection.

For decades AIDS prevention organizations that are funded and thereby ultimately controlled by the US government and white corporations, have organized their prevention information on the false assumption that Black men who have sex with men have higher HIV rates because they don’t have safe sex, but this was revealed to be untrue when in 2015, Greg Milet (Obama’s senior policy advisor on AIDS) released a study showing that Black men are more likely than white men to have safe sex, but that – like Black women- if they want Black partners, their chances of encountering someone who is already positive are so much greater, that their risk for infection is way higher than whites. Infection rates caused by racist incarceration and racist deprivation of health care for the poor, were blamed on racist concepts of Black irresponsibility.

Just two weeks ago, Linda Villarosa published a MUST READ cover story in the Sunday Times magazine showing that in the US South, the abandonment of Black gay men is so severe, that they have HIV rates in 2017 that are higher than those of any country in the world, and yet white gay men are still producing and rewarding work that tells us that “we” as a nation have “Survived A Plague" LET THE RECORD SHOW.

And these distortions are evident, even in New York City. Just last week I was told by a social worker that she has seen Juvenile HIV deaths THIS YEAR among her client base but that some of these statistics are hidden under co-morbidity because her clients, who are homeless, may have died of other illnesses that became untreatable because of their advanced HIV disease. In New York City TODAY, half of HIV deaths are diagnosed in the emergency room because our people do not have health care. And a nurse told me last week that people with HIV dementia are being classified under “psychiatric” diagnosis, again obscuring the statistics for the poor.

And finally, what about the New York Crimes? Yes they now publish articles on gay people, gay weddings, gay parenthood. Yes, they do allow writers like Villarosa to publish their pathbreaking research. But what about their on-going coverage? Columbia graduate student Ian Bradley-Perrin did an analytical survey of the Times HIV coverage in the last four years. Any of you who know anything about how stories get into the media know that most features have advanced corporate Public Relations machinery, behind-the-scenes, propelling specific stories and perspectives into print. Almost every profile of an individual, major review of a cultural work, or coverage of a trend is the product of an elaborate backstage campaign that is privately funded. So a pharmaceutical company like Gilead would have a better chance of being covered than, for example, the global trend of HIV criminalization.

Perrin found that since 2013, the Times has had 0 articles on hiv criminalization, 0 articles on the fact that over half of Black transsexual women are HIV positive, 0 articles on adults living today who were born HIV positive 0 articles on the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose parents died of AIDS, 1 article on the specific experience of long-term survivors 3 articles on hiv and opioids, 7 articles on African Americans and HIV, and 28 articles on Prep.

What we are losing is the true history of AIDS, and for this reason, we are losing our contemporary reality. LET THE RECORD SHOW.

#hiv #aids #death cw #healthcare #racism

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whateverjeanne · 7 years ago

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“LET THE RECORD SHOW” LOSING THE TRUE HISTORY OF AIDS

By Sarah Schulman

For decades AIDS prevention organizations that are funded and thereby ultimately controlled by the US government and white corporations, have organized their prevention information on the false assumption that Black men who have sex with men have higher HIV rates because they don’t have safe sex, but this was revealed to be untrue when in 2015, Greg Millet (Obama’s senior policy advisor on AIDS) released a study showing that Black men are 3 times more likely than white men to have safe sex, but that – like Black women- if they want Black partners, their chances of encountering someone who is already positive are so much greater, that their risk for infection is way higher than whites. Infection rates caused by racist incarceration and racist deprivation of health care for the poor, were blamed on racist concepts of Black irresponsibility.

What we are losing is the true history of AIDS, and for this reason, we are losing our contemporary reality. LET THE RECORD SHOW.

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sailormurkury · 7 years ago

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IssaTag: 7 Fictional Characters You Identify With

1. Belle (Beauty & The Beast)

I’ve always loved reading, I see the best in people (or really try to).

I’m tryna find a rich man that’ll give me a big ass library wing.

2. Thomas Barrow (Downton Abbey)

Keeping your queerness secret in Edwardian English society, strangely enough, is a lot like keeping your queerness a secret in the Mainstream Evangelist/Black church.

Putting your heart on the line, and having your love thrown back in your face is a motherfucker.

3. Catherine Moreland (Northanger Abbey)

Like Catherine, I’m the oldest sibling, a writer and reader with a vivid imagination.

Also like her, I also daydreamed dark, sensuous, mysterious fantasies of areas of life that I didn’t understand. Most often involving a handsome, rough, stranger coming to take me away.

4. Pearl (Steven Universe)

I have an unhealthy habit of pleasing people I look up to or love and risking forgetting myself because of it.

I fact check like nobody’s business, I don’t like inaccuracies in history, news or in people’s stories. Keep your story straight, because I got receipts for that ass, I’m not mean with it but I’ll just lovingly remind you how the deal really went down. This trait is most often used with friends who try to lie to kick it/show off.

5. Maxine Felice Shaw, Atty. at Law (Living Single)

I have adopted Max’s wit, she’s one of the smartest characters I’ve ever seen on television. No matter the emotional climate of a situation she keeps the the smart retorts on deck and when the setup is just right the words just fly effortlessly. However, I haven’t had a toe to toe person to spar with in awhile though.

While Max can be silly, when it comes to business she’s always handles it with finesse.

Max was one of the characters that had me considering becoming a lawyer in high school, but like @nikkisshadetree said “friends don’t let friends go to law school.”

6. Chloe Sullivan (Smallville)

The love I have for Chloe is just....UGGGGGHHHH so many parallels.

First of all we’re both nosy as hell and journalists. Whenever news stories take a different turn, we may not divulge all of the information we find for the safety of our sources and loved ones, but we know what’s going on.

Now, this is an observation I made after rewatching Smallville from the beginning.We both fell for our best friend, who always played us to the left. And yet, we still loved and supported them.

7. Veda Pierce (Mildred Pierce)

If you’ve read James M. Cain’s book or seen either the 1945/2011 movies you know that Veda is a cold-hearted, loveless, girl who uses her mother’s love as a weapon against her.

I was surprised that I identified with her when I read the book, but as I thought back to my years in high school I understood why. My teenaged years were tense, I was coming to terms with my racial identity, sexuality, and faith while attending a conservative Christian high school, I was paranoid trying hard to hide trying so hard not to sound too gay or too black and my mother who I was closest to at the time was the unfortunate recipient of my wrath.

Like Veda, I said and did some things things that were often cold and callous to mom. Even though she was just trying to understand me better. I can’t go any further cause it hurts so much to realize the hurt I caused her. Unlike Veda, the guilt from that time haunts me to this day, I apologize over and over again and it never seems to heal. Mom’s forgiven me, but I haven’t forgiven myself yet.

I forgot who originally tagged me and their tumblr may no longer exist, but I’m tagging @mostdontknowit @skshim @deandria-louise-13 @blackberryshawty @lifebesidethestage and @cedtalks

#About ME #Personal

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arabhusband · 8 years ago

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Sometimes I really feel like big name movie/shows/game writers just don’t realize what kind of characters they’re handling. However good a writer you are, no one can create a “new personality”, in the end all fictional characters are based off real people the writer knows, and their own personality traits (and on existing fictional characters, who, in turn... you guessed it).

And just like you can only know so many people through and through, really often, the personality traits you’ve picked up from existing people for your writing, they’re from people who, without your knowledge, could be lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people; could be neurodivergent, could be autistic, could be a number of things they didn’t disclose to you for their own safety. And yes, people belonging to the same group of ANY kind end up sharing some behaviour/personality traits specific to that group. Not every single time, of course, but it’s undeniable that it’s a real phenomenon. Especially with neurodivergence for the obvious reasons, where some symptoms are mixed in with traits. Don’t try to fight me on this. But you’ve picked up those “interesting” character traits for your character. And you’re outraged that someone who has those personality traits recognizes them and goes “they’re just like me!” and people chime in saying “you can’t know the character better than the creator!”. Anyways, here’s 3K words about GTAV, Trevor Philips and Michael De Santa, the Trevor end, disappointing character writing, and how mainstream narrative keeps failing me. Warning for the use of lots of ableist words (in reference to the vocabulary used in canon).

I was just gonna vent about Trevor and Michael and how painfully, obviously gay they are for each other but I realized I had so much more to say, especially about Trevor. Get ready for this wild ride.

I) Trevor

First off, what breaks my heart very often is the portrayal of Cluster A personality disorders in mainstream media but that’s not news. Quoted from Rockstar themselves, “Trevor was considered to embody insanity”. A lot of writers still believe widely that it’s okay (or even interesting) to make a “crazy” character, by stating that their actual mental illness is irrelevant. That they appreciate the ~concept of insanity~ dismissing that it is a caricature of very real mental illness.

Very often in this case clinical terms are not mentioned, creating some fantasy mental illness that just makes the character violent, scary, unpredictable. It’s very convenient when you’re a lazy writer to just stick the word crazy on your character and not have to do any actual character writing, apparently. The fact that the terms “mentally ill” are not used is because those writers feel better about it if they distance themself as much as possible from the reality of neurodivergence and mental illness. I’m not gonna explain the whole history of demonization of mental illness in media for the sake of a narrative... I think most of my mutuals here are aware of the reality of it, and how much it hurts and stigmatizes mentally ill and neurodivergent people. In the case of Trevor, clinical terms are used messily. Trevor is said interchangeably ingame to be a sociopath or a psychopath, and even if that is technically a word associated with an antisocial personality disorder it’s obvious that the words aren’t used in reference to it, but rather as a catch all for cr*zy, ins*ne.

A) Trevor is Not Like The Other Cr*zies :)... aka We Forgot People With Cluster A Are People Too

But here’s the irony with Trevor.

Steven Ogg, the voice actor and motion capture model said himself: [while Trevor embodies the violent, psychopathic GTA anti-hero archetype] he wanted players to sympathise with Trevor's story. "To elicit other emotions was tough, and it was the biggest challenge and it's something that meant a lot to me,"

It’s just baffling to me how...somehow, a step forward in writing a mentally ill person HUMANLY, at last, was pretty much inintentional. The focus was more on having the players root for Trevor for the sake of playabilty, since Trevor was to be a playable character, rather than just thinking, hey, mentally ill people are actually human and not entirely defined by their illness, so maybe we should give the character some relatability.

But the conflict shows, glaringly: From video game journalists only, you can tell that the two concepts (A dehumanizing first concept; A want for the character to be likable) clashed so much that a lot of people didn’t understand where the character was going. Let’s take a look at a few popular reviews.

“Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell, however, felt that Trevor undermined the other characters because he was a "shallow and unconvincing" sensationalised anti-hero, and that "his antics derail[ed] the narrative" and overshadowed the character development of Michael and Franklin.”

A lot (surprisingly, and believe me, not al!l) of Trevor’s “antics” are cringeworthy caricatural “cr*zy” behavior. It’s obvious that those scenes aren’t intentionally added for comedic relief: when you take the game as a whole, you can see that they’re there to establish Trevor’s character. But the thing is, Trevor’s character is understandable enough in the main storyline through his interactions with Michael and Trevor without all the stuff that felt superfluous. It felt superfluous because Steven Ogg’s performance, meant to humanize him in the main story line, is... well it’s good!! When you pick it apart, all the parts that “derailed from the narrative” were insulting portrayals of vague Cluster A symptomes. And I find it surprising that no thinkpieces on GTAV has mentioned that. It’s almost like people have a blind spot for ableism.

Not only that, but Trevor’s past establishes so much about his personality and behaviour... I’ll talk about this in a minute.

Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar praised Trevor for being the first character in the series that "makes sense". He stated that, upon their first playthrough of a Grand Theft Auto game, most players "carjacked some poor schlub, then started doing 90mph on the sidewalk, mowing over civilians", as opposed to playing peacefully. "Trevor's existence isn't a commentary on any group of people–he's just the first logical fit to the way people have been playing GTA games for the past decade," he said. Sullivan concluded that Trevor is one of the few protagonists in the Grand Theft Auto that would willingly execute popular player actions, such as murder and violence.

God, this review kills me. Here’s why. This review, in my opinion, says everything that is wrong with mainstream character writing. No one has ever needed a character to be a “psycho/sociopath” to feel the need for inconsequencial fictional violence. “Most players” enjoy partaking in violence in video games simply because it’s cathartic, it doesn’t (directly) hurt anyone... I’m not gonna talk about the debate on whether violence in video games makes people violent etc. But the thing is, I’m pretty sure a majority of players do this, and I’m pretty sure the majority of them aren’t psycho/sociopaths either. Moreover, previous GTA characters all willingly exectuted mindless violence, without the whole violent mental illness trope!

So what does it say about people like Lucas Sullivan, and what does it say about the game? Unfortunately, Lucas Sullivan is right about one thing, in my opinion: “ Trevor's existence isn't a commentary on any group of people”.

He could be, but he isn’t, because of that conflict I mentioned earlier. Trevor, in the end, has a major character writing flaw: he’s torn between an accurate representation of a mentally ill character, and an ableist, empty psychopath archetype that neurotypical people love to, pardon my French, jack off to. Lucas Sullivan particularly enjoys this roleplay in which he’s this weird fantasm of what a psycho/sociopath is, because that’s what’s being served up to him.

B) Writing Good???? Not at Rockstar! Not On Their Watch!

The writing in GTAV (and most mainstream media) is held back and sabotaged by their own, real fear of seeming “politically correct” or “activism driven”. Just for being accurate. And they’re very aware of it. And I mean you’ll tell me, of course, Ziyed, it’s Rockstar!!! What did you expect!! Well, I expect nothing but I’m still disappointed. I’m very aware that all big video game corporations are Terrible and Awful but hey, sue me, it makes it all the more satisfying to pick apart.

Obviously I’m sure that people who follow this blog are already aware of that, which also applies to the lack of race diversity, lgbt representation and body diversity in mainstream media. The reason I’m talking about Trevor’s mental illness in particular here is because 1. There’s a cruel lack of writing on the subject of neurodivergence and mental illness ableism even in blogging spaces 2. His “insanity” (mental illness) is, according to the writers themselves, his defining trait.

And it is disappointing particularly since the premise for Trevor is so promising when you start out, or else I wouldn’t bother criticizing it. It’s not ALL BAD, and it frustrates. His environment and past all make sense, they’re all mentioned in canon plainly, but briefly: unstable, physically and mentally abusive family that normalizes his violent impulses early on; It’s implied his family is poor (hence the dream of big heists later and getting rich), so he has no access to mental health; a failing education system that pushes him out; The detail that all of society pushes him out because of his mental illness, when it is mentioned that Trevor’s dream was crushed when he fails his mental health test to enter the military to become a pilot.

When you put it all together, Trevor is the product of a society that hates the poor and the mentally ill and drives them to a life of crime. And it kills me that all of this is thrown at you in maybe two boring long conversations that throw Trevor’s story at you, the first one in the long car ride to meet Michael for the first time, and the second one in the long first plane ride. 1.It’s lazy writing. I don’t want the game to tell me, I want the game to SHOW ME. 2. You’re really gonna cram everything that made Trevor who he is in two tutorial scenes? Really...???

I said Rockstar is aware of their fear of being viewed as politically correct, and here’s why: With all of this, you’d think Trevor would be the perfect character for social commentary, but the game skirts around it with useless antics. But when Rockstar is accused of gratuitous violence for shock value in the waterboarding scene, suddenly it’s a “political commentary on the use of torture by the United States government”. So obviously Rockstar knows to pick its topical battles.

C) Gay and Crazy, Now Made Gamer-Friendly

The same way Trevor’s mental illness is diluted down to an archetype, his gayness is played in large part for laughs and shock value, and is made part of his overall outrageous, chaotic behaviour. Trevor is (almost) everything American society views as shocking: mentally ill, addicted to drugs, a criminal, and outrageously sexual. He is so sexually offensive to a point where he’s not just a crude flirty bisexual man but the overly sexual nightmare of a cishet man. Alright, for this part, I might be missing information, because overtime I’ve heard a lot of people call Trevor a rapist, and the only scene I know people have interpreted as rape is when you spawn as Trevor in the apartment, and Floyd is laying in bed sobbing next to him, fully clothed, apologizing to his girlfriend out loud. I personally didn’t interpret it as rape (because it’s not mentioned, explained, and also because they were spooning, I honestly believed that they just had sex and Floyd was just disgusted with himself because Trevor is generally unattractive, and I thought that was the “joke”) but it’s undeniable that it was in poor taste and implied it for whomever wanted to believe that. Either way, it proves my point which is: Rockstar just couldn’t make Trevor gay without making him a sex offender with rapey undertones because... it’s Rockstar, because Gay Panic, because Rockstar is homophobic and that’s not news. In such a strongly LGBTphobic mindset that is the GTA franchise and the culture surrounding it, the kind of gamers it targets, I was surprised when I started playing to see Trevor was implied to be bisexual. I was thinking, hey, he’s violent and kills people, but so do all the characters in this game, they’re all terrible people: but Trevor was interested in men??? Then the more I played, the more I was hit with all the rape jokes... But, since I wasn’t expecting anything half decent, I would sheepishly be grateful that there was no actual rape. I mean, we obviously deserve to have higher expectations than that, but it’s GTA we’re talking about. The thing is, all the cat calling and verbal sexual harassment is mostly from Trevor, out of the three playable characters, and it was obvious that it was trying to cover up Trevor’s gayness with something that would speak to GTA’s vile average cis het gamer dude audience: rape jokes, violence and misogyny. See, Gamers? Trevor’s kinda gay, but it’s funny, because he’s just generally gross :)

So, just like Trevor is fantasy cr*zy, he is fantasy gay, where it’s a whole lgbt-phobic mess of what a cis het man imagines a gay/bi man to be. What really reinforced that feeling to me was adding up the “Trisha and Michelle” story and the spawn scene where he wakes up in the middle of nowhere wearing a dress. ((Now the dress thing in itself didn’t even have any lines or remarks: As much as it is obvious that it’s originating from a Man In A Dress transphobic joke, I’ll have to admit, there’s no actual joke happening, since he doesn’t comment on it nor does anyone else ingame. But it is still transphobic and homophobic when you take it in the context of Trevor’s terrible writing)). His identity is not discussed further, but all in all it feels as though the writers were like well, he’s Kinda Gay or whatever, (I don’t believe they’ve said the B word ingame) gay guys wear like, dresses, right?? And they’re sexual offenders??? I Mean As A Cis Het Man I Definitely Feel Offended By Gay Men Existing So This Must Be Right... So it manages to be transmisogynistic and homophobic at once

Again, this dichotomy compromises Trevor’s credibility as a character, again because Rockstar is pissing themselves at the idea of writing a well rounded character because what if people think we’re Gay

But here’s the thing!!. This very problem, GTAV’s terrible fear of seeming Gay, resonates throughout the main character arc between Trevor and Michael (I don’t think I even have to explain this to fandom: Literally everyone read Trevor and Michael as having some glaring romantic tension) and makes both characters skirt around their sexuality and personnal conflict in numerous no homo jokes. And that’s... where Rockstar’s Gay Panic backfired.

II) Michael, or how GTAV’s Gay Panic played itself and turned the video game into a metaphor for the consequences of repressed homosexuality, or The Trevor End

A little search showed me it’s widely accepted in the GTAV fandom that the Trevor End (End C) is the canon end but if you haven’t heard, here’s why quickly:

-Everyone Lives End has several plotholes and didn’t resolve all conflicts -Trevor’s death resolves most conflicts -Franklin killing Michael is widely out of character, and if you don’t do anything, Michael literally just trips and falls. It’s not a gratifying or meaningful end. -The events featuring Trevor in GTAV Online happen before the game, making it possible for Trevor to be dead. -Generally, everyone felt that the final conversation between Franklin and Michael in the Trevor end resonated most than other ends.

So, Michael and Trevor originally were written to mirror each other. And they do in many ways: Trevor does everything openly, is sincere, and he is shameless. Michael, throughout the game, is ashamed of Trevor, is ashamed of most things in his life, and tries to do things discreetly, when he isn’t overcome with rage/emotion. That is when he hates himself the most: when he’s pushed to be open about things. And it’s almost funny how caricatural it is that Michael is afraid of Trevor’s qu**rness: how he drops their partnership for the perfect nuclear family, the big house on the hills, the skinny white blonde wife, two kids and tennis on the weekends. How utterly miserable he is living that life! Until Trevor finds him again, and he’s so torn and angry about how Trevor makes him feel alive again.

God, it’s right there. It’s so obvious it’d be funny if it wasn’t frustrating and sad and making me write 3K about it.

Xav de Matos of Joystiq found [...] "though each character has a valid motivation for his journey, it's difficult to want them to succeed." He also felt that the ambivalence between Trevor and Michael was a tired device by the conclusion of the story as it became a "seemingly endless cycle" of conflict between them.

Another popular review, and evidence of another dichotomy in the writing. It’s not made truly clear what Michael’s conflict with Trevor really is, which is what should be driving the end of the story, but ends up just being blurry and confusing in the two other ends. The “seemingly endless cycle” comment is what fascinates me here. Because it’s actually something that, for me, makes the Trevor end so spectacular at how it blindly hit the mark and remarkably played itself. Yes, the Michael/Trevor narrative must be very confusing for Xav de Matos. And honestly, I’m still really confused myself as to what Rockstar thought they were writing, if not a tragic gay romance.

I’ve considered that Michael grows tired of Trevor pulling him back into crime and wants to end the conflict but it does not add up: Michael was a criminal before meeting Trevor, so he’s not the bad influence here! But there is definitely the feeling of an “endless cycle”.

I truly have no other explanation: The overall aversion to gayness starts to become a pattern, and their entire character arc strikes like one big metaphore for repressed homosexuality on Michael’s part. He says that he’s almost afraid of Trevor, but the only times he seems to be having fun is when he’s with Trevor. He pushes him away constantly, and it all culminate to the Trevor end.

The whole scene is awfully dramatic. First, it’s by chance that Michael survives crashing into Trevor at full speed like that: you clearly see and hear him speed up. It seems like a deliberate choice and adds to the drama of the scene. It’s very desperate and self destructive. As Franklin, you’re given the choice to kill Trevor. But it is out of character, since a few seconds prior, he doesn’t have the courage to shoot Trevor, he definitely has sympathy for him, lets him go and tells him they can talk it out. Eventually, Michael takes the shot (not shooting Trevor directly) and sets him on FIRE. Talk about intense. His death is very violent and dramatic. Franklin is shocked that Michael would kill his “best friend” and that starts the final conversation. Michael’s speech is erratic, he’s panting, screaming, but he says two things that struck with me.

“I’m a bad piece of work, but that guy?”

“No boundaries. No sense of... when to back off. No Nothing! 24/7 insanity ”

These two lines spoke to me. As a gay man, growing up-- and though I know my experience of it is slightly different than cis men’s- I’ve had to deal with internalized homophobia. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say pushing away behaviour that seems too “extravagant”, too “qu**er” is a frequent sign of internalized homophobia: Trying to feel like somehow you’re better than The Other Gays. Or otherwise, when completely denying one’s homosexuality, pushing away other gay people to try to feel “normal”. “No boundaries/ No sense of when to back off” is his explanation to why he kills Trevor: He was got too close to him, and Michael couldn’t deal with those feelings. That, especially in the world of GTA, like I explained earlier... added to it how both these men grew up in an especially violent environment, how they’ve both normalized murder in their lives. It all makes sense suddenly to culminate there? Michael ends the cycle, the only way he knows how to.

And it made me sad. One, because I knew that Rockstar would laugh in my face for interpreting their terrible game as anything meaningful to a gay person, and two because of, still, how much it hit home, and how that is a reality. Growing up hearing my brother saying he would beat up his friend if he had a crush on him, growing up hearing of stories of men actually killing other men rather than face their feelings. I was upset to think about how this game, filled with so many bad intentions, a game that probably hates me, still made me feel something like this.

And it’s like, sometimes I feel like writers forget that we exist, but we’re still there in the back of their minds, unknowingly? It’s like no matter how much they don’t want us to be there, we still exist.

Every ending in GTAV has a different song. The song for the Trevor End was specifically written for the game and for this end by Yeasayer. And I feel like the band understood the game better than the writers. You can give it a listen here and read the lyrics, which I feel, if you’ve managed to read all of this to the end, you won’t have trouble understanding. It’s pretty transparent.

Thanks for reading my thoughts on this terrible game!! I probably missed things, I didn’t backread much and didn’t make sense sometimes but I guess I had a lot on my mind. Hope you appreciated and didn’t feel like you wasted 20 minutes of your day.

#ziyed speaks #long text #long post

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ismael37olson · 6 years ago

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The New Regional Arts Commission

To our great surprise and horror, after 27 years of funding New Line Theatre, the Regional Arts Commission (RAC) decided not to fund us this season. We were truly baffled by the decision -- we get rave reviews for every show we produce, we have a national profile for both excellence and risk-taking, and Broadway writers periodically come see our productions of their shows, particularly when those shows were destroyed on Broadway, but brought back to life by New Line. One article about RAC's new direction said, "Among the plan’s recommendations is that arts groups work with local organizations to help solve community problems. Arts groups can play a role with efforts to build affordable housing, improve public safety and other civic initiatives, RAC executive director Felicia Shaw said." I think this is seriously misguided. You don't drive a nail with a pair of scissors. Same principle here. Theatre and other art forms often address social and political issues (at New Line, almost always), but it is not the job of an arts organization to build housing or make neighborhoods safe. We are storytellers, not the police and not construction workers. We make our communities better places already by telling important, relevant stories that make people think. Does she not understand that? Felicia is essentially telling us, though she may not realize it, that if we want to be funded by RAC again, we have to change the nature of what we do, change our mission statement (which does not currently mention affordable housing or neighborhood safety), etc. In another interview, she said, "The focus of the report is 'how can the arts play a larger role in making St. Louis a better place to live,' explained Felicia Shaw, executive director of the Regional Arts Commission." The arts already do that in spades. In every city that creates an arts district, neighborhoods around that district thrive, because the arts automatically make an area a better place to live. One person commented about all this in a St. Louis Theatre group on Facebook, "I believe though that sometimes we have to go beyond our comfort zone for what the community needs. I think that’s what RAC is trying to accomplish." But it's not about comfort zones; it's about mission statement. People don't donate money to New Line to build affordable housing; they donate to us to tell them interesting, thought-provoking stories that intersect/interact with the issues surrounding us in the real world. There's also something much more, much bigger going on here. Felicia's comments reveal something far more concerning, an underlying assumption that the arts are not "enough," that creating art and sharing it with the community, the entire point of a nonprofit arts organization, isn't sufficiently valuable in her eyes; that feeding the soul and the brain and the heart are less worthy endeavors than feeding the stomach.

All this despite the fact that storytelling is one of the most basic, most necessary of human functions. It's how we learn, how we connect, how we cooperate, how we govern, how we record our history and our culture, how we work through problems, how we grow collectively and individually. Storytelling is one of the most basic of human needs, going back to the first pictographs on cave walls. To disrespect that long, proud, noble history, by telling us we only have value when that storytelling is augmented with "real world" service, is truly disappointing. Felicia obviously doesn't understand that, as important as building houses will always be, just as important is building empathy and understanding and connection, through the very real magic of storytelling. We shouldn't have to help build housing to prove our worth. Let's look at the IRS and nonprofit status... 1894 – The Tariff Act of 1894 provided the first statutory Federal income tax exemption for charitable organizations: “nothing herein contained shall apply to … corporations, companies, or associations organized and conducted solely for charitable, religious, or educational purposes.” 1909 – The Payne Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909 exempted from a general corporate excise tax “any corporation or association organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, or educational purposes, no part of the net income of which inures to the benefit of any private stockholder or individual.” But what counts as educational...? 1973 – Revised Ruling 73-45, 1973-1 C.B. 220, holds that an organization formed to develop a community appreciation for drama and musical arts by sponsoring professional presentations such as plays, musicals and concerts qualified for exemption under IRC 501(c)(3). In other words, the arts are inherently educational. They teach us about life, about our world, about each other, and about ourselves. Even without the express "educational programs" that funders love, the arts are inherently educational. They don't need to add activities in order to serve their communities. One of Felicia's other focuses is talking about how the arts generate economic activity. That's great, but it also buys into the notion that what we do is not sufficiently worthwhile. We also have to prove that we generate money. Again, how terribly misguided. By accepting that premise, she normalizes the idea that we should measure the arts in dollars. We shouldn't. The title of her new plan is chilling:

Arts &

A Creative Vision for St. Louis

The title tells us all we need to know -- that the arts by themselves aren't enough. We have to create "art and..." Also, I love that the "creative vision" is that the creative arts aren't worthy unless they're combined with something else. I love irony. On the first page of the Plan, it says, "That’s why we are pursuing a cultural vision to benefit and elevate not only the arts and culture in St. Louis but also to benefit and elevate St. Louis." So the art will be elevated by having to take on non-arts projects...? The Plan summary also says, "But if all people in St. Louis have access to create and engage in the arts, and if the arts are understood and assumed to be for all, not just for some, then the arts can be not only an equalizer but also a ladder to opportunity, a job creator, a bridge between communities, an educational asset, a source of civic pride, an attractor of visitors, a draw for transplants, and a true economic engine." The arts are already all those things in St. Louis, and have been for quite some time. One "Community Leader" is quoted in the report, saying "What is new [in St. Louis] is that if you want to be the creator -- a program, an event -- people aren’t asking for permission as much, they are just making it happen."

That's not new. That's been happening in St. Louis for decades. Anybody remember the St. Marcus Theatre, City Players at the shut-down Coronado Hotel, the ArtLoft, the Black Rep at the 23rd Street Theatre...? Nobody asked permission to start New Line 28 years ago. At one point, the report says, "Many artists said that they see and experience the same disparities of race, gender, and ability that are pervasive in society in both the nonprofit and commercial arts sectors. Barriers raised by racism and segregation add to the challenges they already face as working artists, further hindering their careers." That is a real problem. But it's worth noting that New Line regularly has some of the most diverse casts on St. Louis stages, and that's been true for a decade or more. But New Line got zero-funded by RAC. Felicia wants arts organizations to tackle important issues. New Line has been doing that for 28 years. Felicia wants young people and people of color to have the chance to shine. New Line has been doing that for decades. In our last show the actors playing our "royal family" were white, black, and Asian. Felicia wants local ogrniazations to hire local artists. New Line has hired only local artists for 28 years. But New Line got zero-funded by RAC. The report says, "The arts are already working at the intersection of health, community and economic development, transportation, tourism, faith, education, and other sectors. But what we heard from participants is that they want to see even more connections between the arts and other nonprofit and social sectors, because they see this as a key way that the arts can help advance positive social change." You know how the arts can best help advance positive social change, RAC? Changing the way people think, through the most powerful persuader known to humans -- storytelling.

Take for example, the very silly Zombies of Penzance, which we're about to open. I'm sure Felicia would not find our production particularly worthwhile in terms of social service. But if you look closely, Zombies is not just a silly romp; like all of Gilbert & Sullivan's shows, it's a satire. In its original form, as The Pirates of Penzance, it was about the absurdity of class distinctions. Now as The Zombies of Penzance, it's about the "Othering" of people not like us, the way we become "Us" and "Them," the way we see the Scary Other (Mexicans, Muslims, Gays, Transgender Americans, etc.) as less than human, so we can hate and even oppress them without any guilt. We are in a particularly dangerous time of "Othering" right now, and this story will be particularly potent right now. But it won't help with affordable housing. In the conclusion of the report, it says, "This process made clear that the time is right for RAC to expand its capacities beyond its role as grantmaker and consider ways to fulfill a bolder mission." RAC has always been much more than just a grantmaker. Under Jill McGuire's decades of leadership, RAC supported the arts community in so many ways, some of which Felicia has already ended. Why do new people always feel the need to trash those who've gone before? Why did this report need to imply falsely -- and classlessly -- that in the past RAC has done nothing more than disburse grants? It seems likely that New Line will never again get RAC grants, but we will apply again next year. In the meantime, please support small arts organizations in our area, particularly those several dozen that got cut off by RAC this year. We will keep soldiering on, and somehow we will make up for the $12,000 per year RAC took away from us. If you think New Line's work is already worthwhile, help us make up for the indignity of this loss by making a contribution to New Line whenever you can. New Line will continue to tackle the issues of our world, through provocative, intense, and yes, sometimes silly, adult musical theatre. The incredible praise for our work over the years, the rave reviews, the contributions that increase every year, are all the proof we need that we're on the right track. We open Zombies of Penzance next week! Ticket sales are great! Get your tickets now! Long Live the Musical! Scott from The Bad Boy of Musical Theatre http://newlinetheatre.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-new-regional-arts-commission.html

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aliciajthornton-blog · 7 years ago

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Done Trying To Win Over People’s Hearts

I've just finished season 4 of House of Cards. I took a break of a few months after Season 3 Episode 6, the one in which Michael Corrigan the gay activist hangs himself in Russia; after getting bored of watching Voyager reruns, I'm back and starting season 5.

Something's changed in me over my HoC break. I started the show quietly horrified from the very first shot: a dog, hit by a car on Frank Underwood's street, and his subsequent mercy killing. It set the scene for the entire series, that dog, and so I started watching with a sense of quiet, appalled admiration for Frank. Claire, I'm ashamed to say, I discounted. I watched that scene in the car on the way to the presidential hall when Frank is told he will not be VP, and I thought, "They're a power couple." But I didn't think much of Claire apart from that, overshadowed as she is during the first two seasons by Frank, by his machinations, by the opportunity for manipulation afforded to him by Zoe Barnes' publicity-on-demand, and - of course - by her eventual, brutal death.

My changing view of these two is partly because I took a break when I did, halfway through season 3 when the cracks are showing and Frank is in over his head and Claire is finally, finally beginning to find the thing she loves more than anything. When I came back to watching I began to see Frank in a new light: unable to control everything the way he believed he could, digging himself further into a graveyard of lies and omissions and public half-truths, and my gaze turned to the woman at his shoulder, perpetually hidden in half-shadows, and I thought: she could do it better.

A few months ago, back when I watched seasons 1-3, I found a blog post from Stilettos on Sullivan about Claire Underwood. Caitlin, the writer, said that despite the Underwoods’ collective and individual moments of savagery, brutality and corruption, we root for them. More specifically, Caitlin says, we as women root for Claire Underwood. Here’s an extract from Caitlin’s post:

“i think we find the most human, savage pieces of ourselves in these characters sometimes. You see Claire's hatred for being his shadow (most women feel this way in their relationships sometimes). You feel her rage as she calmly accepts the analysis that the public prefers her hair blonde (we all know this feeling....something about your appearance that makes you feel empowered but someone cuts it down so flippantly). [...] Claire understands the reality of their rise to power, but she doesn't always want to like it. she accepts it, she holds her head high...Claire is a fighter, she is a warrior of epic proportions. Claire has the poise all of us wish we could have, and despite her savagery, we admire her. you want so badly for Claire to come out on top, because we all see a part of ourselves in her. and you know that if she can rise, you can.”

I was intrigued. I’m known IRL for rooting for so-called ‘difficult’, ‘nasty’ women. Give me a complex, flawed female character, and within a week she’ll be gracing my facebook header. It’s why I write: because I want to see more of these kind of women, and I want to read about them.

I needed a break from House of Cards, but when I went back to watching the last two and a half seasons, I focused on Claire. in some ways she and Francis are painted as polar opposites within the series: he shows his anger at several points to mouth-frothing effect; she goes cold when she’s enraged. He grew up the poor son of a peach farmer in Gaffney, she grew up in a wealthy enclave in Dallas. He’s able to play the part of jovial, matey, one-of-the-boys politician; she’s always a bit removed, a bit distant. There’s an incredible exchange in season 4 episode 3, after Claire leaks a photo of Francis’ father in full KKK gear. Francis is beside himself with anger, and rages at her, photo in hand, saying, “You have no idea what it means to have nothing. You don't value what we have achieved! I have had to fight for everything my entire life!”

Despite her family’s wealth, Claire has never struck me as someone who has no idea what it means to fight for things. On the contrary: the part that Francis doesn’t see is that Claire knows all too well what it means to have to fight. She’s a woman. Not just that, but she’s a woman with ambitions, living and working in a male-dominated world. Of course she knows what it means to have to fight.

I’m still halfway through season 5, but Claire is rapidly becoming one of my favourite characters. Sure, she’s ruthless, brutal, uncompromising and willing to do whatever it takes to gain and hold onto power, but it’s hypocritical and deeply misogynist to excoriate a female character for those traits, while brushing them off in a male character. Women are complex and flawed, just like men; and it’s time we had characters who reflected that.

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#claire underwood #house of cards #complex female characters #character analysis #tv

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