#Fife apologist

[fromageinterrupted]

I say this about Fife all the time: I think he’s sneaky. But in a good way. He has a reputation for “ruining” “good” girls, but instead it ruins matches they didn’t want in the first place, and then the deb is free to go marry the farm hand or Footman. Meanwhile, Fife lives for the hot gos and realizes Penelope has LOADS of it. He may actually be into her legitimately. I kind of want them to be good friends at the end of all this.

Fife: Are you courting the girl, Bridgerton?

Colin: Are you mad? I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington, not in your wild fantasies, Fife

Fife: Good to know (smiley face, hinting that he wants to woo her)

Colin: (immediately regretting saying what he said and getting jealous)

Thought: I'm so excited thinking that Fife could be a suitor for Pen, a bad suitor like using her or wanting to make fun of Polin or the Bridgertons for their popularity and reputation and Colin knows his true intentions and wants to protect and take care of Pen.

[dollypopup]

thinking about the 'I would never court Penelope Featherington' scene again and how angry our fandom has been at Colin for it for the last two years and wondering. . .what exactly was he meant to say?

Lord Fife and his friends are *slimy*. They are gross. They have 0 respect for women. Fife isn't *Colin's* friend. Fife is *Anthony's* friend. Fife runs in Anthony's circles. Misogynistic circles with misogynistic language. Fife and Co. are out here saying the debutantes are only good for being 'wed, bed, and bred'. Fife is the one out here, well into his 30s and with an established title, fucking an 18 year woman raw on her first year out in the marriage mart with 0 intention to marry her. That is 10000% an act of violence in this society. And you *know* he's bragging about it. Hell, he was probably bragging about it right before he asked Colin about Penelope.

Colin's not in those circles. Colin has female friends. Colin respects his mother. Colin cares for his sisters. The worst thing Colin has EVER said about a woman was to call her 'cruel'.

So. . .what is Colin meant to say? "No, we're just friends" isn't going to fly for people like Fife. As IF he wouldn't reply with 'Yeah, suuuuuure, wink wink nudge nudge'. Thus ruining Penelope and fucking over her future completely. A lesser man than Colin would have let them think what they wanted, and that would have still ruined Penelope in their eyes. Silence? Incriminating.

And he doesn't want FIFE of all people to know about his close friendship with Penelope. Fife who has never once been seen respecting a woman. Fife who has never once viewed a woman as a person and not a sexual conquest. Penelope is a safe place for Colin. Is precious to him. He KNOWS that conversation could have destroyed her reputation.

People talk about how he 'ruined her prospects', but in actuality, Colin responding the way he did. . .likely SAVED her prospects. There was NOTHING he could have said except for a vehement refusal, completely shutting down the conversation, that would have spared her from their judgement and cruelty. Sure, they laughed, and maybe it was at Pen. Maybe it was at Colin. (frankly, how good of a twist would it be if they WERE laughing at Colin? Colin the 'green' boy back from his travels after being oh so gullible and getting lied to by his ex fiance? Anthony made fun of Colin for being a virgin, we think these men, all 10+ years older than him, wouldn't do the same?) But at least they didn't go 'yeah, I guess she's a ruined woman' about it, because that *would* have destroyed her reputation

We talk about how Colin could have worded it differently, but honestly?

I think he said the exact right thing in those circumstances

[lizardtracks]

April 19, 1775

248 years ago today, April 19, 1775, a transatlantic tyrant sent an expeditionary detachment of his professional army to disarm his rebel colonies. The militia that met them, though doubtless not as well regulated, bested those British regulars in a running battle from Lexington to Concord and back to the Roxbury Neck. History can land on many reasons for this repulsion, but rest assured that among those reasons was the fact that those everyday people were carrying the very same weapons of war their opponents used.

Fast forward to June 1788. New Hampshire ratified this emerging nation’s Constitution officially creating our new government. Ratification was hardly a forgone conclusion. We think of our Founding Fathers as all being on the same page, and perhaps aligning the country behind them. But not so. John Hancock, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams were famously anti-federalists. In their view the Constitution elevated federal power too far above state and individual power. What defeated anti-federalism—or better worded, perhaps, what overcame the objections to federalism—was the inclusion of a Bill of Rights.

Included in the finally accepted ten amendments is the now infamous Second Amendment. With a quarter of a millennium passing since 1775 it's easy for us to fudge the meaning of its words. But barely half a score had passed between Concord and ratification. The men who insisted on the wording of the Second Amendment were not students of our revolutionary history. They had lived it. Their names were on documents which, in our defeat, would have ensured they were hanged. Patrick Henry knew that the Minutemen mustered on April 19, 1775 with weapons of war. These were not weapons bestowed on them by a nation grateful to outsource the coming violence. These were weapons brave men had taken down from their own mantles. It might puzzle him that our current students of history, and even our president himself, could insist that the Second Amendment has a meaning other than the one he himself intended. It is there because Americans have an inalienable right to defend their life, liberty and property.

The slippage from this original meaning is gradual. If our current disarmament were to come marching in red coats on a bright April morning, we might resist it—as our brothers in arms did in 1775. But it dribbles in one law, or lawsuit, at a time. We have already had actual weapons of war essentially removed from the hands of America's citizens. It's known as the the National Firearms Act of 1934. Since its passage a total of 20,000 laws at the federal, state and local levels have chipped away at both the value and meaning of the Second Amendment.

Emboldened, even our very president would now join King George in disarming America. You can picture him standing on the sidelines two months later at Breeds Hill deriding the patriots as “sick.” This is not supposition. This is not conjecture. He has already used that very word to describe armed Americans. And he is not done. Given the opportunity, he has sworn to do what the Redcoats who marched inland from Boston Harbor failed to do: disarm us.

Will he succeed? No. He is too old to see that day. But his successors will not relent. And given enough time they will get their wish. You see, this time they are not coming for your guns with fifes and drums. We will not be meeting them in an open field on a beautiful New England spring day. Armed citizens at Breeds Hill stood on the high ground. But today it feels more like the frozen winter of Valley Forge. Every gun owner is viewed as a maniac; every gun purchase is viewed as a potential crime. And, yes, the Bruen decision was far reaching. But Breyer, in his dissenting opinion, sounds less like a student of the English Bill of Rights or Declaration of Independence and more like an an apologist for Big Brother. His dissenting opinion lays a carefully crafted groundwork for later courts whose 5-4 goes the other direction.

They will just keep chipping away. They will keep adding to Title 18 United States Code Sections blah blah blah, until it collapses under its own weight. They will pile act upon act and lawsuit upon lawsuit. Until we are all safe.

Except that we won’t be. No citizenry unprepared to defend itself will ever be safe. We will just be timorous mice watching hobnail boots stomping past our mouse holes.

[mellometal]

Hiyo!

For everyone new here, welcome! Glad to have you here. Hope you enjoy your stay!

For everyone who's been here for a while, Y'ALL ALREADY KNOW WHAT'S ABOUT TO GO DOWN.

Yep, this is part two of why I hate Glee so much.

Let's get it. (If there's anything I forgot to mention, go ahead and add them on in the comments or reblogs.)

Obligatory TW: This contains subject matter that may be triggering for some audiences. The following post contains homophobia, biphobia, ableism, underage drinking, faking a pregnancy to manipulate a partner into staying with them, teachers being creepy towards students, mentioned past child m0l3stati0n and invalidation of the victim's trauma, statutory r@pe (between teachers and students), pr3datory behavior....you get the picture.

If anything mentioned above is triggering for you in any way, again, feel free to scroll past this and consume media that's safe for you.

Gentle reminder: This is all my opinion. This is my take on specific moments in the show, plus evidence to back everything up. Not asking for anyone to agree with me or anything.

***If you like the show, good for you. I couldn't care less. As long as you're not out hurting people, I don't care. Live your life.***

Sit back, relax, grab some snacks and drinks, and let's get to this thing.

How about I talk about Artie for a few minutes? He's a character I have a ton of issues with. Not because he as a character is disabled. That has nothing to do with why I have issues with Artie. The issues there have to do with his actor, who I'll get to in a minute. It's because everything Artie says that's considered problematic is excused and/or ignored simply because of his disability. They only focus on the fact that Artie requires a wheelchair to get around and nothing else. Honestly, it feels like they pity him and praise him just for being in a wheelchair. While he has had some rough times in the show, it doesn't change that he's no better than anyone and he's just as bad.

There are physically disabled actors who play roles of physically disabled characters and they never make it about how they require a wheelchair, a walker, or any other equipment to get around. An example of a physically disabled actor off the top of my head would be Michael Patrick Thornton. He plays Dr. Gabriel Fife on a show called Private Practice, which nobody mentions the chair and his character is a lot more than his disability.

Kevin McHale, Artie's actor, is an able-bodied actor who was cast as a physically disabled character who requires a wheelchair to get around. The way that Glee portrayed disabled characters in general was inaccurate, extremely unrealistic (i.e., Artie joining the football team and then being told that his wheelchair would be a safety risk....like, don't you have sports made for disabled people at that school? Because disabled sports teams do exist.), the storylines with Artie made no sense (i.e., his whole backstory, how he was the lead dancer in one episode and was never mentioned again), and it was offensive. There is a term for this that I didn't even know, and it's called "cr1pface". Basically, that's when able-bodied actors are cast as physically disabled characters. This is a reoccurring theme in live-action media and it's gross.

Glee could cast a Down's Syndrome girl JUST FINE. That's great. Love that. YET THEY COULDN'T BOTHER TO CAST A PHYSICALLY DISABLED ACTOR FOR THE ROLE OF A PHYSICALLY DISABLED CHARACTER. SPECIFICALLY A YOUNG PHYSICALLY DISABLED ACTOR. Because I very rarely see them in live-action media, if at all.

There are more physically disabled characters in cartoons than in live-action media. At least younger physically disabled characters. My point about how younger physically disabled characters need more representation in live-action media still stands. Just in GENERAL, y'all.

Artie isn't all innocent. Here are some screenshots of him sex-shaming Mary Sue and Blaine (a.k.a., Diet Br3nd0n Ur!3) for them not being close in their rendition of West Side Story:

Hey, ummm....news flash, this isn't what directors would actually require their actors to do, let alone request them to do. Unless a director is putting together an on-stage production that has anything to do with sex, they wouldn't do this. (I'm mainly talking about stage productions here, not movie productions. Movie productions are a little different in that aspect.) Also....why would a director who's supposed to be Mary Sue's and Diet Br3nd0n Ur!3's friend ASK FOR THIS? YOUR PLAY WILL NOT SUFFER IF THERE'S NO SEX WHATSOEVER. YOUR PLAY WILL BE FINE.

(I mean it this time. This is your last chance to scroll past this post, click off, whatever you gotta do. This next scene contains mentioned child m0l3stati0n and invalidation of the victim's trauma.)

I want to bring your attention to this scene:

This is the nail in the coffin for me to lose any respect I had for Artie left...which I didn't have much of, to begin with.

Ryder confides in the Glee Club about he was m0l3st3d by an older woman as a child. The older woman was HIS BABYSITTER. A person who was being paid to watch over him by his parents. An eleven year old child...just children in general CANNOT CONSENT to s3x.

(By the way, pedos, this is your daily, unfriendly reminder that your attraction to children is disgusting. Pedo apologists, the fact that you justify pedos being attracted to children is also disgusting. Get professional help. NOTHING can justify grown adults being romantically and/or sexually attracted to children. Stay the fuck away from kids. Pedos and pedo apologists will NEVER be welcome here.)

He didn't ask to be m0l3st3d as an eleven year old boy by a babysitter. When it's an eleven year old girl who gets m0l3st3d by her babysitter who just so happens to be an older man, people are more sympathetic towards the girl and condemn the man. Rightfully so. On the contrary, if it's an eleven year old boy who gets m0l3st3d by his babysitter who happens to be an older woman (like Ryder), people congratulate the boy, tell him he's "lucky", and they don't take what he went through seriously. Why? Because men are expected to ALWAYS want to have s3x, women are pretty much always assumed to be asexual and s3x-repulsed....you get my point. Men don't always want to have s3x. Women actually have s3x drives! SHOCKER.

Artie's response to Ryder telling him that he was literally m0l3st3d AS A FUCKING CHILD makes me SO angry, and I'm about to tell you WHY. They play it off as Artie being naïve and not knowing any better...ALL BECAUSE HE'S PHYSICALLY DISABLED. THEY TREAT IT AS IF HE'S MENTALLY DISABLED TOO, WHICH I CAN'T RECALL IF THEY HAVE EVER DISCUSSED THIS ANYWHERE IN THE SHOW. Seriously? Can you stop pitying and infantilizing disabled people who use wheelchairs to get around all because they use a fucking wheelchair? Naïveté is one thing (this is ONLY IF Artie GENUINELY DIDN'T KNOW anything about m0l3stati0n), but you know, they could've used this moment to teach him about m0l3stati0n and how it fucking affects people. Someone could have CALLED ARTIE OUT because he said something extremely fucked up DIRECTLY TO A VICTIM OF CHILD M0L3STATI0N! But nooooo! Apparently boys can't be victims of m0l3stati0n, according to the dumbasses plaguing the fucking planet, so I guess fuck the THOUSANDS of Boy Scouts who were m0l3st3d by their scout masters since 1944, right? /s

ENOUGH SAID. Let's move on.

The second character in this part I really wanted to get to is Mr. William Schuester, or Mr. Schue for short. Good GOD, this teacher...if I can even call him one at this point, is a terrible person and creepy as all hell. I will call Mr. Schue "Mr. Pr3dat0r" because he's a disgusting waste of splooge who should be in jail.

We can talk about how Mr. Pr3dat0r doesn't have any friends his own age (except for his fiancée, who faked a pregnancy to get him to stay with her), he was literally in the boys' locker room spying on Gary Stu (Finn) WHILE HE WAS IN THE FUCKING SHOWER because he was singing, blackmailed Gary Stu into joining the Glee Club™️ by planting drugs, he has put on racist costumes on quite a few occasions in the show, encouraged his students to twerk to the song "Blurred Lines", and got off on two of his students shaking their asses to the song "River Deep, Mountain High". He's fucking gross. I'll put down the screenshots as evidence so you can see what I'm talking about.

Mr. Pr3dat0r shouldn't be a teacher. I don't think I need to elaborate more. These pictures say enough.

[dollypopup]

sorry, still on this soapbox but

we have really, REALLY done Colin a disservice in this fandom. we spent so long viewing him primarily as a Love Interest and not as a Character. But when we see and analyze him as a character, so many of his actions make sense, and it becomes almost ridiculous, the dynamics we've imposed on this couple (yes, I'm talking about the 'Colin fucked up and needs to prove himself to Penelope' narrative) when there's so much more nuance and beauty to their pairing than we give them credit for

we as the audience focus so much on Penelope's perspective in their relationship, of course, because we have so much of her perspective in the show, and so our frustrations with Colin stem from that, but we get more insight into him than Penelope does. The 'I would never court her' scene that we've been livid over for years is considerably softened when we actually look at Colin as a character, and the circumstances around his actions.

Colin spends season 2 SAD. He is straight up not okay. We leave Colin in Season 1 freshly heartbroken and running away to Greece to heal. In Season 2, we meet him again, considerably more somber. Colin doesn't participate in the dances. He even says 'I'm just a spectator'. Colin talks about how he started a conversation with himself, tried to understand what he wants and how he feels. Colin offers Benedict shroom tea, and for a moment, JUST A MOMENT, we see the facade slip. His mask cracks. 'Are you quite alright, brother?' and then it's gone. Then he's cheerful again. Calm Colin. Nice Colin.

Colin who is okay.

But Colin is *not* okay. Colin completely isolates himself from women. Colin doesn't flirt, doesn't entertain female attention. Colin is heartbroken, trying to be better. But he views Penelope as a friend, a sacred relationship, a worthwhile relationship, and he can't bear to lose her. To him, Penelope is arguably his closest friendship. His best friend. And in an entire town full of people who don't listen to him, he thinks Penelope does. Unlike the typical dynamic of the ton, in which men are ONLY speaking to women by viewing them as potential sexual partners, Colin views Penelope as a whole person. She doesn't just exist as a romantic option to him, but as a vital connection in his life. That's why the 'I am a woman' 'You are. . .Pen' is so important to view as an act of love- Penelope is NOT just a woman as the ton sees her, good for marriage prospects and little else, Penelope is a complete person. Yes, she's a woman, but more importantly, she's PEN. She's a full human being. And he values her as such. We cannot say the same for the grand majority of men in his society. Tell me any other male-female friendships like that in the ton where that level of respect is given?

But for Penelope, it's hurtful, because she WANTS to be seen as a romantic option in his eyes. That's a fair feeling, though we as an audience should recognize that it can be both upsetting to Pen, and also deeply beautiful as a sentiment. Because of Penelope's hopes of Colin as a romantic prospect, she does not see that he is hurting. Because of our connection as a fandom to Penelope, we do not see it, either. But he *is* hurting. In all of Season 2 he's hurting. That's why he throws himself into the Jack mess. He wants, NEEDS a distraction. He wants to find a place in his world, his society. Honestly? He needs a win. He has spent the last year losing and losing and losing. Who can blame him for being sick of it? His engagement blows up, he finds out his family pays no attention to him, that no one cares about his agency, and he's publicly humiliated. If he invests, if he makes money, he might make more male connections. Might run in more important circles. Like his brothers do. Might prove himself. But Colin isn't friends with the men of the ton. We don't see ANY evidence that he has strong friendships with any of them. Because he isn't like them.

He is 22 years old. Treated like a child in his own family. When he talks about his travels, no one listens. Everyone dismisses him. 'Remarkable, yes, in the sense that I have many remarks about it'. Colin is invisible. He is trying to slot himself in his community, but he does not fit neatly into it. He connects with Will, a man outside his community, and Penelope, a woman also outside his community, because *Colin* exists outside his community. He's the foolish boy who fell headfirst for a woman who lied to him. He's the 'green' baby walking in his older brother's footsteps and unable to fill them. He doesn't behave the way other men of the ton do. He doesn't talk like other men of the ton do. Hell, he *apologizes* to women. We have men NOW in the MODERN ERA who don't even apologize to women.

His own *mother* doesn't even notice he was dating someone for several months in season 1. Colin is a pretty, empty ghost wandering around Mayfair, and so of course he's thrown into a locker room conversation with a bunch of guys who have never once seen a woman as a person, and doesn't relate to them. Colin's not joking and having fun with these men. We very purposefully do not see his reaction after he delivers the 'I would never court her' line.

Colin is uncomfortable around them, but he needs their help to make it up to Will, someone who was kind to him and who he looks up to. He has the mask on so firmly in that scene, it's physically obvious to see. If you compare his reactions around Penelope to his reactions around Fife, it's stark. With Penelope he's open, his eyes are soft, his expression is curious and kind, his shoulders are relaxed. Around Fife he's closed off, eyes hard, muscles tense. Who can blame him? He's acting. He's acting just like he's acting around Jack.

When we look at Colin as a whole character, we get insight into his actions and they make SENSE. The things he say that hurt Penelope are things that are actually defending her- Colin saying he wouldn't court her to those men in particular, is an act of caring. He is defending her in that scene. When a debutante is only good for being 'wed, bed, and bred' in their eyes, Colin saying no, that Penelope is worth more than that, that his connection to her isn't forged on wanting to fuck her, or exploit her, or treat her as a sexual object, is radical. Because anything else, ANYTHING else that he says that isn't an outright denial, puts Penelope in danger. He can't let them believe that the woman he cherishes so deeply he cannot even ENTERTAIN the idea of not talking to her is out here being ruined by his hands.

And when we see it that way, we see that, in reality, of all the men in the series, Colin is the one who has been kindest to his love interest. Colin is the one who has defended her, the one who has stuck his neck out for her, the one who has cared for her with absolutely no expectations of sex or romance in return.

Colin's relationship to Penelope is beautiful, and sure, she can be upset that it isn't in the exact shape she wants it to be, but I think if she takes a step back and looks at it more objectively, if WE take a step back and look at it more objectively, Colin has only ever gone into it with a big, earnest heart. Not PERFECTLY, of course, he isn't perfect, but with the best intentions, and with as much honesty as he can.

And I don't know why we don't celebrate him more for it