#a nice gay couple with a kid and a picket fence and one person does the masculine and one person does the feminine role in the relationship

[teeny-tiny-revenge]

What bugs me about the discussion is that so many people seem to think being gnc is only a matter of clothes (plus maybe hairstyle and/or makeup), entirely ignoring that behaviour is definitely also a big part of it, and that gender presentation is so much more diverse than masculine and feminine (seriously, a lot of people are reinventing the gender binary; there's two genders, and they're masc and femme - I hate it here).

When people from his old life treat Stede as being gnc, they aren't only mocking his clothes. The Badmintons mock him for crying a lot and picking flowers, aka for being emotionally expressive, aka for behaving not masculinely enough. Which is btw also one of the things that makes Izzy snap at Ed in episode ten: it's not just the silk robe, the final straw is the way Ed expresses his emotions openly with the crew, the way he's pining and crying. These are direct parallels. The homophobic peers in both Ed's and Stede's lives punish their gender-nonconformity, and they punish non-conforming behaviour at least as much as non-conforming fashion choices.

Talking fashion choices, not all of Stede's fashion choices in season two are entirely his own. He has only one shirt to begin his journey with. Then he's given a uniform on Zheng's ship. I feel like the cursed suit is a very important bit to look at when talking about Stede's clothes, because it's the first item of clothing he chooses to wear, and it's flashy, flamboyant, a real statement piece. And he shines in it! Look at him making his coat tails swish. Is the coat feminine? Whatever. Don't care; I'm not the gender police, but what it definitely is is very Stede. Because regardless of where on the gender spectrum he swings with a given outfit, Stede loves a showy look. Stede likes his clothes to stand out. Also the extremely piratey look he dreams up for himself for his dream reunion with dream Ed is showy and flashy, with the sash and all. The least Stede outfits we see him wear in the entire show are the bland and dull outfits he wears back in Barbados, trying to make himself fit back in.

Also Stede wearing more masculine looks in season two have a flavour of trying to fit in to them. He wants to become a part of pirate society, and he's bending himself out of shape to do so. We see it in his behaviour in episode seven, and it might be worth considering if some of his presentation isn't part of an attempt to conform, yeah, but that's not where he is at all times, and it's not where he ends up by the time the plot has concluded. (And the conclusion is important, because that's where he ends up after all.)

Stede is experimenting with his presentation, in a variety of ways. He tries to find his middle ground. The way I see it, his more flashy and colourful, and yes, gnc look in season one is him trying to be true to himself at least this one way. He has little control over his own life. He is married off to a woman he doesn't love. He is forced into a family life he didn't want. He follows a career he doesn't enjoy. None of the big things in his life are him, at all. Fashion is his one way to express his own personality in his restricted, repressed life. That's his one bit of freedom. Then he leaves this life behind, and doesn't need that anymore, because he's a pirate now, he's free, and that includes being free to live his queer identity outside of choosing his own clothes. He can now express other queer parts of himself openly. He's in love with Ed, and he can say that, and live that. And I think for a while he is so focused on the goal of reuniting with Ed that he doesn't really pay much thought to himself and his own identity and what he wants outside of Ed. He has other priorities! It's only when he and Ed are together again and they are beginning to mend things between them that Stede really starts exploring his identity again. I think it's no coincidence that the captain voice and pirate training with Izzy bits and the red suit of looking absolutely fabulous happen in the same episode.

An interesting thing about Stede (and Ed!) and gender expression in the entire show is that they lose when they try to conform. Things go bad for them when they try to conform to gender norms. The whole Kraken arc is Ed violently throwing himself back into conformity, and it makes him hurt everyone around him as well as himself and it nearly kills him. Stede tries to be the man that society wants him to be after returning to Bridgetown, and it makes him hurt everyone around him and it ends with him getting nearly stabbed. Then Stede tries to conform to pirate society gender standards, with the drinking and the setting people on fire, and it hurts Ed, the crew, Stede himself, and nearly makes Zheng kill him. Conformity is punished by the narrative.

Both Ed and Stede win when they find ways to be true to themselves and live their queer identities and find their own balance. Stede, after his attempt at being not gnc, goes back to talking about feelings (instead of drinking too much and setting people on fire). He goes back to being a captain in his original way - talking it through and offering kindness to the people around him (which are mockable traits if you think being a manly man who survives by stabbing all his enemies before they stab him is the way to be).

So, is Stede less gnc in season two? I don't think so. I think it just shows in different ways, and some of it is down to circumstance rather than choice, and he abandons his most extreme attempt at confirming to masculinity after it turns out to be harmful. I feel like if (when) we get season three, we'll see both Stede and Ed being gnc in their own ways, neither actually masculine or feminine, but just picking things that work for them as individuals, because that's clearly where both their arcs have been heading across both seasons IMO.

Throwing my hat into the "is Stede really gender-noncomforming" ring because I've seen some discussion around it recently.

I think it's true that we can see in the show that Stede's style of dress in s1 isn't that different from other men of his class. He likes to wear much brighter colors, though, and I'd argue that he wears these clothes differently. Stede likes clothes, he likes dressing up, and he's often noticably more showy and flamboyant with them than others who wear similar suits (his all-white suit is a nice example). But sure, I'll concede that his clothing style isn't especially gnc if we're just talking about the style of clothes he wears in s1.

However, I think we're still supposed to understand that Stede is gnc, and that's because other characters treat him like he is. Multiple times in s1, we get other characters pretending to mistake him for a woman to mock him. This happens first in the pilot, by someone on Nigel's ship saying he "appears to be a heavyset woman in a dressing gown," so it's not just people from outside Stede's social class saying these things.

Maybe it's because I'm also a feminine gay man, but the fact that Stede wears more "masculine" clothing in s2 doesn't stop me from seeing him as gnc, either. It's about the way he wears the clothes, in a way that's kind of difficult to explain. I don't think he stops being a gnc gay man just because he's not wearing frills anymore. I think he's a gnc gay man throughout the show because that's just who he is, and it's less about what he wears and more about how he wears it.

[sssrha]

transcription of slides under the cut:

[SLIDE 1] the vibes ao3’s top 9 mdzs ships give me (a really stupid thing i made on a lazy saturday)

[SLIDE 2] wangxian: the wholesome canon relationship (with a hint of spice)

ok maybe calling the union between a demonic cultivator and a secret sex fiend “wholesome” isnt exactly accurate…but that’s where the “hint of spice” comes in

other than that tho? i remember seeing a meme somewhere about wangxian and sangcheng and wangxian was described as “domestic gays with a house and a white picket fence and two kids” and honestly? yes 

not that they cant be freaky. id say their particular brand of freakiness is vaguely surrealist suburban horror. make of that what you will

[SLIDE 3] xicheng: either its “pair the spares” or just about trauma

their dynamic is 500% “karen/enabling husband” but like in a good way

objectively the best-dressed couple you will ever meet. like seriously why are you even trying? theyve got you beat

jc would own a flower shop and punch you in the face for saying a single bad thing about his flowers. lxc would own a tattoo parlor and hand you a lollipop and tell you how proud he is of you for not crying while he gave you a tattoo

they dont strike me as a “every evening we relax and watch the sunset” type of relationship B U T every other week they go stargazing with a detailed map of the night sky

[SLIDE 4] xiyao: either a) the angst of betraying/being betrayed or b) the angst of killing/being killed

high society gays. they would both unironically wear tuxedos to a mcdonalds. lxc would see it as a fun couples thing and jgy would do it to assert his dominance

i swear they would be among the smiliest of the major couples. only one of them would give you a happy smile

dont mess with them. no like dont mess with any of the couples but so far jgy is the first one who would make your life living hell and keep you around long enough to suffer the consequences

[SLIDE 5] sangcheng: being simultaneously over- and underestimated

i saw a meme about sangcheng and wangxian where sangcheng was described as something along the lines of “wine aunt and vodka uncle” and honestly? yes

they’re both human disasters. nhs would have various splotches of color on his clothes and you cant tell if it was intentional or if theyre actually stains. jc is very neat and organized but will have a mental breakdown at the slightest inconvenience

sometimes they just sit down across from each other and. cry. its how they bond

idk why it popped into my head but they’re both ace Because I Said So

[SLIDE 6] xuexiao: cute domesticity but also murder

i refuse to believe that xy is anything but unhinged in every universe. whether or not thats a good thing is up to you

xy could and would murder you in your sleep and not feel bad about it until xxc told him off. even then he might still decide it was worth it

xxc doesnt exactly know about The Murder Stuff(TM) but he knows some shit is off but he trusts xy enough to not comment on it

they would meet and hook up in a bar and mutually decide that they may as well stay together for the rest of their lives the next morning

[SLIDE 7] xuanli: the token straights (but also? theyre really cute???)

i did not expect them to be as cute as they were but here i am

anyway jyl has jzxuan wrapped around her little finger and shes just too nice to use that to her advantage

if jyl asked jzxuan for some chocolate jzxuan would just buy her the entire hershey company and forget to give her an actual chocolate bar and jyl is too sweet to actually say anything about it

they would definitely have like 20 children. theyd fucking love being parents. the moment having another child became dangerous theyd start adopting left and right. theyre rich they can afford it and their hearts are big enough for all their kids so why would they not?

[SLIDE 8] songxiao: childhood friends to lovers AND perfect power couple

i know they have more nuance than this but i cant help but think of them as The Perfect Couple(TM)

not shipping-wise!! i mean like. theyre both law-abiding citizens. their house looks like a model house. theyre dressed super neat and handsomely. they both know cpr and first aid and one of them is a lawyer and the other is an award winning writer. idk who is who but yk.

they are who people call to deal with problems instead of the police and they delight in that fact. that is what i mean by them being The Perfect Couple(TM)

[SLIDE 9] chengxian: disasters through and through

uhh i am going to be spending the entirety of this slide ignoring the fact that i personally consider them siblings

they would live in a dingy studio apartment in the heart of a city and theyd both never be home

theyre both super fucking rich but theyd never have any money on hand so dont be surprised if they just starve out on the street one day because theyre just that stupid

they collectively have the self esteem of rotting cabbage but theyre keeping themselves and each other alive purely out of spite and sheer force of will

[SLIDES 10] nielan: childhood friends to lovers AND himbo power couple

psst heres a secret: neither of them are actually himbos

H O W E V E R they both 500% pretend they are. they intentionally act as stupid as possible just for the fun of it

the best part is when they stop acting stupid when something important happens. crouching-moron-hidden-badass at its finest

also the older brother energy is overflowing. it does not matter who you are or how old you are. if you meet them then youre going to walk away with two new big brothers

[SLIDES 11] the end (unless i gather the willpower to make a part 2)

[deripmaver]

y’all read that tor.com article right??? the one that was just another “yaoi/omegaverse/whatever is just putting mlm couples into cishet roles”??? this one here. well maybe not but im bored and its annoying me so im gonna make a long post on it

nice ratio did ur MOM pick it out for u??? jk ok

the biggest flaw in this article is, imo, assuming that this is a new, untapped topic of discussion, and not a debate that’s existed since time immemorial - or at least as long as fandom has been a thing. every point the author brings up has been hashed out and rehashed to absolute death, and it brings absolutely nothing new to the table beyond the same bland platitudes and critiques i’ve heard dozens of times. 

this article doesn’t even bring up the boogeyman of the “cishet white girl fetishizing mlm” it’s about queer people writing fanfic, which imo makes it all the more egregious. 

how?????????????? is this not queer???????????????? a lot of this makes me think of the discussion about how gay marriage was less important than other forms of queer liberation bc it just allowed queer folks to assimilate into a cisheteronormative lifestyle. 

the article then goes into how people change the physical attributes of the two men to have them better fit into a “male” and “female” esque role. i think the above sentence was meant more as a lead in to how the two men will be shoehorned into roles based on their physical attributes, which is them being shoehorned into a male/female dynamic, but still. two men In Love is very much queer. actually, lol, tangent but there’s this song “two men in love” that latvian figure skater deniss vasiljevs skated to as an exhibition, and tv channels kept censoring its name, so....

as folks will point out, the Large Top/Small Bottom dynamic is one that actually does exist among some irl queer men. i’m very firmly of the opinion that the only thing queer folks can do to to express cishet norms is by actively working to undermine queer rights and gay lib, anything else a queer couple does is outside cishet norms by virtue of the couple being queer. a queer couple wants a white picket fence suburban life and 2.5 kids??? still queer.

there are two points about this: changing the physical characteristics of two male characters to get them to fit into a large/small top/bottom dynamic is annoying. it’s bad characterization. i still am not 100% sure i’d say it’s forcing mlm couples into cishet norms, bc of what i mentioned earlier. 

i also don’t know if this is something i’ve seen much of recently? maybe i’m just more discerning in what fanfic i choose to read now, and i’m much more likely to go based on recs and not just pick a fanfic and start reading it. the “yaoi hands” debate was old by the time i got online (just about 20 years ago now lmao). 

i think that omegaverse existed to codify a lot of the trashy fandom tropes that existed prior to its inception into one universe. mpreg, self lubricating buttholes (lol), sex pollen, found family/pack dynamics... it started out as a dubcon-y porn trope. idk also queer people wanting babies isn’t cis heteronormative.

not the first person to point this out but this is a significant double standard. why is this an example of positive queer representation but alpha/omega with men is imposing cishet norms on queer relationships? is it just that m/m is more represented in fanfiction while f/f is still relatively rare?  

ok lol i got bored part way through that’s enough of that

i think discussions of representation, as well as just changing attitudes, have meant people try hard to avoid tropes like making all the women screaming banshees, or shoehorning male characters into top/bottom roles, or having the relationship start out.... kind of rapey lol. but individual queer people writing fanfic arent corporations, queer ppl don’t exist to perform activism 24/7, and queer people by definition cannot be cishet

ok thats it

[jgroffdaily]

[This article appears in the September 16, 2019, issue of New York Magazine.]

Within minutes of my meeting Jonathan Groff, he asks if I would like a slice of cherry pie, and then, only a short time later, if I would like to be eaten by a giant plant. The first I readily accept because Groff and the rest of the cast of Little Shop of Horrors have thoroughly analyzed the desserts they picked up for a bus ride down from New York to the suburban Philadelphia puppet studio where they’re rehearsing for the day, and they’ve all concluded it’s the best option. The idea of being eaten by a plant seems a little less palatable, considering the contortions involved in entering the hippopotamus-esque maw of the man-eating Audrey II, which is operated by several puppeteers, and because I’m not sure if Groff is making a serious offer. I learn quickly that he is always offering you things, and those offers are always serious.

The puppet in question represents the largest form of Audrey II, a sassy carnivorous horticultural oddity that convinces Seymour, an awkward flower-shop assistant, to commit murder in the pursuit of fame, fortune, and a suburban life with the original Audrey, a human who works with him. The day I visit, Groff, playing the misfit Seymour (despite good looks that actor Christian Borle, who plays the maniacal dentist, Orin, describes as “scrumptious”), and his castmates are climbing inside Audrey II one by one, figuring out how each of them will die. Wearing a hat from Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s “On the Run II” tour, Groff jumps inside wielding a floppy machete, which is so un-aerodynamic it keeps getting stuck in Audrey II’s lips. Groff suggests a real machete prop would be sturdier, and they try substituting an umbrella, which flies out more cleanly. Michael Mayer, the director, says with satisfaction, “It’s a belch!”

Staging this revival of Little Shop is “illegal fun,” as Groff puts it. The original ran from 1982 to 1987 but never transferred to Broadway, at the insistence of writer-lyricist Howard Ashman, who wanted to preserve the show’s off-kilter spirit in a smaller space. Ashman and composer Alan Menken would go on to fill the Disney Renaissance — which consisted of films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast — with the Marie’s Crisis–ready melodies and queer subversions you can already hear in Little Shop (Ashman died of aids-related complications in 1991). Despite a Broadway staging that kicked off in 2003, this version is staying put at the Westside Theatre Off Broadway in hopes of preserving the quirky spirit of the original. There’s a lot of laughter in rehearsal as well as dress codes like a “kimono Wednesday,” which Mayer enforces by handing me a spare kimono when I drop in that day.

I can’t imagine anyone who is consistently involved in or adjacent to homicide having a better time. In addition to playing a murderously nice guy in Little Shop, Groff stars in Netflix’s David Fincher–produced drama Mindhunter, playing an FBI agent who interviews serial killers; the show is based on the real work of John Douglas, who was one of the first criminal profilers. Considering he’s no big fan of true crime, Groff is somewhat confused about how he became a poster boy for gore and mutilation, though he’s enjoying the texts from friends who point out that even when he does musical comedy, there’s a dark edge involved. A few days after we meet in Philadelphia, we’re talking over breakfast at the cozy Grey Dog in Chelsea, where he insists on paying for everything, picking up all the water and utensils, and getting up from the table to refill my coffee cup when it’s empty.

Groff signed up to star in Little Shop this spring after careful consideration, by which I mean he got the offer and then listened to the original cast recording on repeat for a whole weekend. He’d never played Seymour before, unlike the majority of white male theater actors, but he had positive memories of seeing the first performance of the 2003 Broadway version just after high school, when he was rehearsing the role of Rolf in a non-Equity tour of The Sound of Music. “I wanted to make sure that I’m bleeding for it eight times a week,” he says, which is his measure for doing musicals; he wants to make sure he won’t get bored with the material. Even now, when I assume he might want a break from it during rehearsals, Groff still has the album on repeat. “I never went to college, and I’m not educated, really, so I couldn’t say, like, intellectually why that is,” he says. “When I listened to it, it shot through my heart.”

There’s a clue, however, in the way he remembers obsessing over the film version of the show as a seventh-grader, standing in his kitchen with the song “Skid Row” on repeat — specifically when Seymour sings, “Someone show me a way to get outta here.” It was an appealing message to a closeted kid whom Groff describes as just “a sweaty, uncomfortable person with a secret that was so deep-rooted I wasn’t even flirting with the idea of being myself.” With a little distance from that version of himself (the child of a phys-ed teacher and a horse trainer, growing up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and occasionally having to clean stables on the weekends), Groff recalls the kinds of tells that seem obvious in retrospect, like, say, listening to “Skid Row” on repeat. Or developing an obsession with I Love Lucy, which he still watches before going to bed. Or dancing along to the Donna Reed’s Dinner Party album when his parents weren’t home. There’s a similar longing in Little Shop, which has the queerest kind of perspective on its central couple, as Audrey and Seymour imagine an unreachable, heteronormative life away from skid row and where she looks “like Donna Reed.”

If there’s a murderous kinship between Little Shop and Mindhunter, it extends to the shows’ shared skepticism about that white-picket-fence-style normalcy. Holden, Groff’s profiler character, is a cardboard cutout of a man with a girlfriend who introduces him to 1970s-style sexual liberation, but he is ultimately more fascinated with the deviancy of the killers he’s interviewing. To play him, Groff shuts down his charisma, amassing such emptiness between his angular jaw and his eyebrows that you wonder if he’ll slip into deviancy himself. It’s a performance of square, even sinister straightness that feels close to the best-little-boy performances of closeted queer men, though what seems to thrill Holden most in the show are his interviews with killers. “Sexuality is so complicated, and the people I’ve ended up working with who have cast me in straight parts are interested in looking at things in a complicated way,” Groff says, noting that he feels the argument about whether gay actors can play straight, or vice versa, has gotten “sillier” as time goes on. “Being out and gay and being myself, it allowed me to find people that weren’t closed-minded.”

Groff came out when he was 23, without directly consulting his agent, after he’d become an idol to the nation’s theater teens of Facebook by starring as the sexy, rebellious, tousle-haired Melchior in Spring Awakening. “I was so compartmentalized,” he says, “singing about sex but then not talking about it.” He remains thankful for the way Mayer, who also directed that show, choreographed the explicit sex between himself and Lea Michele’s Wendla clinically, without asking them about their own experiences. He hadn’t spent too much time worrying about the aftereffects of coming out on his career, which were more limiting in 2009 than they are now. “I did think I might not be seen as a romantic lead, but ultimately I was okay with that,” he says, explaining that he was in love at the time and didn’t want to hide it. “At 23, I’d rather just have a real romantic relationship than pretend to have one with a girl.”

Several years after coming out, Groff booked a leading role in HBO’s Looking, a comedy-drama about gay men in San Francisco, which he calls one of the most fulfilling roles he’s had. The series ran for two seasons and got a wrap-up movie but never quite found a viewership, even among queer audiences, instead receiving, as he puts it, “a total mixed bag of very extreme reactions.” Some of that was because people just didn’t like the show — which was often slower, more interior, and whiter and fitter than people may have wanted — and some of it was because it was “carrying a lot of weight; there wasn’t a lot of specifically gay content on a major cable network.” To Groff, making the show opened him up to the possibility of using material from his own experience in his work. Among the cast and crew, “we would talk about stories about PrEP and uncut dicks and monogamy,” he recalls, among “so many stories about anal douching,” and those anecdotes would make their way into the scripts. He was used to a sort of “closeted training of the mind” to abstract himself from his own experience. Looking taught him he could use it.

Recently, Groff has developed an ability to end up near the center of cultural sensations. He stepped in for Brian d’Arcy James as Hamilton’s fey Britpop version of King George III midway through the show’s Off Broadway run. It was a somewhat ideal gig, given that he was onstage for only about nine minutes a night, performed crowd-pleasing kiss-off songs, met Beyoncé, earned a Tony nomination, and got a lot of reading done backstage. This fall, he’s in Disney’s sequel to Frozen, where he returns to play Princess Anna’s rugged (at a Disney-appropriate level) love interest, Kristoff. In the first movie, while Idina Menzel’s Elsa got the vocal-cord shattering “Let It Go,” Groff sang only a few lines of melody between Kristoff and his reindeer, Sven. This time around, he’s putting his Broadway training to use with a full-length solo. It’s the second one he recorded for the movie, since the writers had one idea for a Kristoff piece (“a jam”) but then canned that song while promising Groff they’d write something different, which he didn’t quite believe. “Then they fucking wrote that other song,” he says, characteristically effusive. “I was like, Wow, and the animation of the song is so brilliant.”

As personable as Groff is and as successful as he has become — and as beloved, especially among theater fans and people like my mother — there’s a point at which he maintains a certain distance, in what feels like a way to stem his own impulses. He doesn’t use any social media, though he did consider it when Looking was struggling, before he realized “I’d have to be good at it and want to do it, and I don’t.” He has never thrown himself a birthday party, because the impulse to make sure everyone’s having a good time would stress him out too much. In behavior that reminds me of both a secret agent and Kim Kardashian, he regularly goes through and deletes all his texts after responding to each of them. “I want to make sure I get back to everyone,” he says, holding his iPhone up in front of me to reveal the remarkably few surviving messages.

Before Groff gets up to leave breakfast and travel to rehearsal by way of the single-speed bicycle he rides around Manhattan, we end up talking about the larger trajectory of his career. Considering that he’s scaling down for a revival run of a musical Off Broadway, was he ever the kind of actor who thought of his work as building up to something? A big film? A franchise? “I think I gave that up when I came out of the closet,” he says. “I gave up the idea that there was an end goal or ideal or some kind of dream to work toward.” An image appears in my mind of the life Audrey sings about in Little Shop, a place that’s comfortable, traditional, and expected, somewhere that’s green. “When I moved to New York, what I wanted was to be on Broadway. That happened and then I came out, and it’s sort of been anybody’s guess since then,” Groff says. “I like when something makes me cry or I can’t stop listening to it. Okay, I want to do that.”

Little Shop of Horrors is in previews and opens October 17 at Westside Theatre Upstairs. Buy tickets here.

[artificialqueens]

Cause I give you all -Pt1- (Trixya) - Pichitinha

A/N: hi i am back with another fic bc i have no self control whatsoever! this is a three part story that was originally a one-shot but it made more sense to split. it’ll be finished soon bc the last part is almost done so! i will now go back to owl to see if ch4 accepts it has to be written. this is a very casual story, i hope you enjoy it! as always i am @pichitinha on this hell site and I have posted this on AO3.

It isn’t often that they get the night off when touring. Thinking about how tired and lacking months of proper sleep Trixie is, she strongly considers staying in the five star hotel they’re in and sleeping the best sleep she knows she’s had in months, but at the end of the day she knows she gets a good amount of free time on the tour bus, even if sparse and uncomfortable, and she hasn’t had fun in a long time. So she showers away her laziness, gets dressed in nice clothes and her own make-up, and goes in search of a bar.

It’s apparently the only bar in town and it’s really crowded with the most redneck crowd Trixie’s ever seen. There are large bearded men and strong women and as soon as she enters she can spot at least five people arm wrestling on tables filled with empty gigantic glasses. The smell of beer is strong and so is the smell of bacon and she turns her nose.

She finds an empty stool by the end of the counter in the middle of two couples heavily making out and she sits down with her eyes fixed on the bottles in front of her, tries to tune out the sexual noises coming from each of her sides. She truly found the most heterosexual bar in the state.

Maybe she should have chosen her sleep.

She orders herself a beer - when in Rome, right? - and sips at it slowly, lets her eyes unfocus as they stare at the bottles and her mind wonder.

She’s so tired. She hasn’t picked up her guitar in three months. She washes her hair once a week only and it’s starting to show. Her favorite clothes are now all worn out. Her make-up kit is getting way too close to being empty.

But she loves it. Touring with a country legend as a backup singer is something Trixie never thought would be so satisfying, but it is. She’s friends with her which is something she couldn’t even dream of when she was a kid, and she gets to experience the ups and down of the famous life up close. She’s doing what she loves, earning good money with it, and she’s at the best point of her life so far.

She just lets herself wonder, sometimes, when it will end. Not in a bad way but not in a good way either. Is this how it’s going to be, forever? Always on busses, from city to city, hotel to hotel, in the shadows of someone else’s spotlight? Will she ever stop somewhere long enough to find someone to build a life with? Does she even want to settle down?

She doesn’t, particularly, not in the white picket fence with 2.5 kids kind of way. But she does in the having a loving wife who cares for her and wants to share a life together kind of way. Trixie’s in love with the idea of being in love, and she knows she’ll always be.

She finishes her beer and asks for another one. There’s no point in going back to the hotel, even if she’s not mingling in any way. She might as well drink as much as she hasn’t been able to while touring, and sleep in until noon or later since they have a show in that same town the next evening so they have no plans for a few hours.

And then she takes one more look around, tries to figure out if there’s anyway at all she could fit in with anyone, and she spots a blonde woman at the other end of the long counter, sipping on a beer alone, her posture similar to Trixie’s. She might be projecting or reading what she wants to read, but everyone else is very ingrained in the place’s vibe and the two of them are the only ones completely isolated.

Trixie’s not saying the woman’s a lesbian. But Trixie isn’t saying she isn’t. There’s just that face when you know you’re the only gay person in the middle of a clearly non-accepting space and, well, that’s what Trixie’s seeing.

It’s worth trying, right?

She asks for an extra beer and moves over to where the woman is, spots an empty stool by her left side and slides swiftly into it. The woman doesn’t notice, so Trixie decides she has nothing to lose and slides the new bottle of beer in front of her. She blinks three times before coming back to her senses and looking over at Trixie.

She grins widely and Trixie melts a bit. Her teeth are displayed in the most symmetrical smile she’s ever seen and they are extremely shiny and white except for the small red mark on her front one where her lipstick probably brushed and she didn’t notice. It makes her look a bit dorky and it’s a look that definitely suits her.

“Hi,” the woman says, grabs the beer without breaking eye contact or letting her smile drop. “Is this for me?” She motions the bottle, sips at it before even getting an answer. Trixie’s half convinced her old bottle still has beer inside.

Trixie shrugs, drinks her beer as well before answering. “I was a bit lonely over there and I saw you a bit lonely over here, thought we could drink together?”

The woman smiles wider, her tooth still a bit red, and nods a little before adjusting in her seat so she’s half facing Trixie. Trixie can’t tell her intentions, isn’t fully sure if she’s just glad that she has a girl talking to her instead of a creepy guy, but whatever. At the very least she’ll share a few beers with a pretty woman before heading back to her hotel.

“I’m Katya,” she offers as she extends her hand, her short nails painted the same red shade as her lips. “Thanks for the beer.”

“Trixie,” she replies as she shakes her hand, small and pointy. “And you’re welcome.”

They cling their bottles together, cheers, they say, and take a sip together, eyes interlocked.

Maybe she’d been right in going out tonight.

*

There’s a table in the corner where a couple seemed intent on doing as much as they could without having to remove their clothes and Katya convinced Trixie to bet on when they’d leave and how far they’d go before doing so.Trixie is looking at them very attentively - probably creepy - waiting for her phone to beep indicating Katya’s time is up and she’s won. She has five minutes left and then she wins. They haven’t agreed on what the winner gets yet, but she just doesn’t like losing.

“One of them is gonna end up finishing right there in the next two minutes and then they’ll leave,” Katya says over her shoulder, pulling her attention back. Her tooth is still not clean and Trixie kind of doesn’t want to tell her at all. It’s nice to see a flaw in her, honestly.

“First of all, ew! We want that table so I truly hope they don’t.”

“When will you ever have the chance again to say that you’ve lived through an experience like this? Live life, Trixie!”

Trixie snorts, looks back at the couple and her timer - she’s two minutes away from winning.

“I am living life to the fullest, thank you very much.”

Katya’s eyes sparkle a bit. She seems interested in Trixie, in what she has to say and even what she doesn’t have to say. It’s odd to receive all that attention, but it’s thrilling too.

“Tell me about it. What are you living like?”

“I’m a singer. I mean, a backup singer at the moment. But I do sing and play guitar sometimes, on bars and stuff. Or I used to, before touring.”

Katya nods, her eyes wide as she gives Trixie her undivided attention. “That sounds fascinat- I won!”

She exclaims as she points to the couple getting up and sure enough Trixie’s timer is thirty fucking seconds away from beeping.

“Fuck me,” she whispers in frustration and Katya doesn’t miss a beat.

“Actually I get to choose what you have to do since I won the bet but I’m okay with that.”

Trixie laughs loudly, Katya’s smile is shiny and the little mark still there.

“Maybe if you learn to clean your teeth after you apply lipstick.”

Katya’s hand move to her mouth to brush against it. “Shit.”

*

She’s not sure how they ended up in a park at 2AM, both of them having had one too many bottles of beer before leaving the bar, but here they are. Trixie’s at the talkative phase of her drunkenness and she’s sure she’s shared way more than she should with a complete stranger, but this is something tomorrow her will worry about. Today her is blissfully out of her mind, giggly and in good company.

“Ok so how does one reach the ripe age of twenty-seven speaking five languages?” Trixie asks as they stumble through the empty and quiet park, their healed steps and loud voices echoing through the trees.

“I don’t speak five languages, spanish and italian are like child level knowledge at most,” Katya replies with raised eyebrows, as if that makes any difference, as if Trixie isn’t immensely impressed by that anyway.

“I get that, my english is at a child’s level as well,” Trixie retorts, thinks she’s being funny but honestly she’s far too drunk to be sure.

Katya laughs though, loud and clear in the night sky, enough to send the birds flying from the tree tops near them.

“Hey, it’s not your fault you’re from Wisconsin!” she finally says, and now Trixie’s the one screaming, her hand hitting Katya’s arm playfully.

“You bitch,” she says jokingly, and Katya gets it because her eyes are sparkling and they stumble closer to each other, one practically leaning on the other as their breaths mingle.

There’s a beat of silence in which Katya licks her lips, and then she murmurs, “By the way, I’m like, really really gay.”

Somewhere in the back of Trixie’s mind she knows the setting is intimate - they’re practically embracing, faces close, eyes interlocked - but the way Katya says it just makes a loud bubbly laughter leave her lips as she takes one step back to ground herself.

“Girl, me too!”

*

It’s 4AM and they’re at a 24 hour diner, most of the alcohol evaporated from their system although Trixie’s skin is still buzzing. They’re seated facing each other in a corner booth, there are quite a number of customers for the time, but everyone is talking quietly and it’s really peaceful. They each have a mug of steaming coffee in their hands and even though they’d looked at each other’s eyes all night, Trixie’s just now realizing Katya’s eyes are green.

“Your eyes are really pretty,” she says then, doesn’t really realize she’s doing so. She’s forgotten bits and pieces of everything she’s told Katya all night, but that’s more related to how dumb some of these things were and how many than to them being drunk. She likes it though, feels comfortable with her. With the pretty, beautiful lesbian with whom she spent the entire night and has yet to kiss.

Katya smiles at the compliment, and Trixie realizes she hasn’t complimented her smile all night. It’s really pretty. She’s really pretty. Trixie is still amazed that they’re hanging out.

“Thank you. All of you is really pretty,” she says back, and Trixie bites down on her lower lip. She’s not one for one night stands usually, but she is on a long tour where there aren’t really any other options and is it even a regular one night stand after they’ve spent the whole night together? Technically yes, she knows, and technically she’s not even certain Katya wants to sleep with her, but at the end of the day she knows that all she wants is to finish this day in a bed with Katya. It can be her hotel room, it can be Katya’s hotel room - she’s travelling too, she learned, she’s a photographer following some models for a project, and what astounds Trixie the most is that she’s not one of the models herself - it can be anywhere really. She’s really drawn to Katya, more so than she usually is to any strangers - are they still strangers by now? - and she knows she deserves it.

She squirms in her seat, thinks of the proper way to put this question out there, but then Katya cuts her off with a question in a completely different direction.

“So, where you heading next?”

“Somewhere close, I think. I never remember the schedule.”

Katya raises her eyebrows. “Really? And how does that work?”

Trixie shrugs. “I just get there and go to the stage and sing I guess? I recognize several of the cities and sometimes I’ll explore for a couple of hours if we can but mostly I just sleep, it’s a really tiring routine.”

Katya seems baffled and Trixie feels like she’s done something wrong for some reason.

“Seeing new places is my favorite part of touring. I’ll gladly give up sleep if I can see something I’ve never seen before.”

“I mean, after the fourth town with the same hay stacks and trees it gets old, you know,” Trixie jokes into her cup of coffee, trying to find her ground again. She’d been so comfortable seconds ago.

Katya laughs, but her heart isn’t fully in it. God, had Trixie somehow ruined this? She’s not even sure how.

“Yeah. I mean, I’m a photographer. I usually find beauty everywhere I go.”

“Oh,” Trixie says, doesn’t know what else she could say.

“Sorry, it wasn’t meant to sound pretentious like that. And I’m not judging you or anything. I’m just… I don’t know, it’s nice finding these little differences, isn’t it? We’ve been so similar all night.”

They have. Their similar sense of humor is something that made them hit it off instantly. But also realizing that they travel so much, live the same home is nowhere lifestyle had been a major point. It never occured to Trixie they might perceive it so differently.

“Yeah, of course,” she responds, although she isn’t sure it is. Meeting Katya had felt like fate, but now she isn’t so sure.

But then Katya’s hand slide across the table and holds tightly onto hers.

“My hotel is really close. Do you want to crash with me?”

Trixie knows what she means, and most of her worries disappear as she looks into her eyes. She nods and they get up together, Katya’s hand clasps onto hers and the only time she lets go is when they’re inside the room and she needs it to unzip Trixie’s dress.

*

Trixie goes back to her hotel room late in the afternoon with Katya’s number in her phone, a bite mark on her left hip, and the song I Put A Spell On You by Annie Lennox from Katya’s alarm stuck in her head.