#because people kept assuming that he was gay because of stereotypes

[thepalmofyourfreezinghand]

But why is it so difficult for some people to separate the weird rumors from the “okay” ones?

I’m sure (and I hope) that Taylor’s fine with people thinking she’s gay. Because unless it’s done with malicious intentions or it relies on stupid stereotypes, it’s not offensive to think that someone’s gay.

BUT thinking she’s gay is one thing. Saying that her relationship with Joe is fake, that Joe’s her beard, that she bought him a Grammy to pay off his silence, that he’s a talentless nobody who could never really date Taylor Swift, that all the songs she’s explicitly linked to him are in fact about other people, or that he’s an ab*ser (because yeah, let’s all remember that THAT happened), are another thing altogether. And she’s 100% valid if she’s weirder out by people making up THESE kinds of rumors.

[satanfemme]

[ID in alt]

ok meee :-) this is my slasher sona. he's a ~late 70s / early 80s low-budget slasher with slightly gothic vibes, and maybe leaning a little bit giallo in genre?

his name is Mutt and his "gimmick" is that he's a gay dog man (and wears a lot of leather. obviously)

hypothetical horror movie plot for him under the cut (warning for genre typical violence and tropes and such) (also some weird kink stuff cause this is my horror movie fantasy and I get to decide the level of strange eroticism)

I'm gonna summarize the story in chronological order but if it were a real movie there'd be more mystery than this ftr lol.

mutt's backstory is that he was in an intense relationship with a guy who kept him as a human pet. he tortured mutt, kept him in a shock collar, and required him to wear a muzzle most of the time. he also didn't let mutt leave the house ever (which was isolated in the woods). years of this treatment warped mutt's mind until he was both deeply devoted to his lover in a self-destructive loyal dog way, and also "insane" in the stereotypical slasher way.

one day while in a nearby town running errands, mutt's lover is killed in a homophobic hate crime. mutt knows something is wrong when his lover doesn't come home that night, so he leaves the house to investigate, and (from the shadows a distance away) he sees the police cleaning up the crime scene and his lover's body. mutt returns to his house, fashions a leather slasher mask out of his muzzle and his lover's clothes, and decides to get revenge on the people of the town.

he begins to kill a new gay guy every night in very homoerotic ways (since this is really the only way mutt knows how to exist). the homophobic cops don't take any of this seriously ofc, so it's up to a few members of the lgbt community to solve the series of murders and put of a stop to it, before they get killed themselves.

they actually wrongfully assume at first that mutt's lover was also part of the same pattern of gay murders, but eventually the homophobe who murdered mutt's lover is identified and (reluctantly) arrested by the police. so, the next time mutt kills someone, it becomes clear that there were two (2) killers on the loose, and the community member protags use that info to finally piece together the various clues they'd gathered, leading them to the correct conclusion that the first murder (of mutt's lover) was a single incident, and the serial murders after the fact are being done by someone motivated by a broken heart (ie. by this point the backstory would be fully revealed).

while all this investigating and shit was going on, mutt learned that the guy who killed his lover was arrested, and plans to go kill him inside his jail cell that night. the protags attempt to stop mutt before he gets there (to end the circle of violence and restore "peace" and all that), but in the process he kills them all one by one until just the token Final Girl is left. he then breaks inside the jail and successfully kills the homophobe, getting closure. the final girl thinks she has him, as he's "cornered" inside the small jail. but when she follows him inside, he's vanished and all that's left is the homophobe's body.

the movie ends all mysteriously like "he's still out there... and he might come back" but he's my character so I can tell u what he does after the movie. and he does NOT come back.

he still has a broken heart, but he's had his revenge and decides to leave town. he travels on his own, living like a stray dog for a long time (he doesn't take off his mask unless he really has to, so it's hard for him to interact with society. that said, when he does take off his mask to go into a town or city for something, he's completely safe from being recognized because no one ever saw his face in the town he killed people in. he's just a bit off-putting to people)

after traveling for a while, he happens upon the haddonfield illinois area, some time after the michael myers' murders took place (original halloween canon, but don't ask me for an exact timeline, I don't know or care)

michael would also be hiding out in the woods (cause it's not halloween yet. it's his off-season :-) ) and the two would run into each other, instantly clicking. two neurodivergent guys... in freaky masks... in the woods... hiding from society because they're wanted for countless murders. a real meet cute <3. they would grow closer over time.... and although michael would originally like mutt for how "empty inside" and inhuman he is (the same canonical motivation as to why he likes corpses), as time goes on and michael really gets to know mutt, their bond would become stronger and more genuine, and michael would love mutt for the person he is too :'-). and then they'd take off their masks and embrace and kiss each other sloppy style and- [comically long bleep sound effect].

and then I think the next halloween, mutt would join michael in the senseless killing :-) and they would live happily ever after and also mutt would take michael to the dang club! the end. that's my story thx for reading.

[ohwell-itsme-but-danganronpa]

Shuichi's broken gaydar (Saiouma prompt)

Shuichi's gaydar only works if he's not involved

like he can look at strangers and know, if he sees his friend look at someone that isn't him he can immediately tell, but as for himself or people liking him - no, nothing

and if he was right about someone at first but starts catching feelings he's going to backtrack on his judgement like "what if I'm just imagining things, what if this was just wishful thinking?"

so when he realizes he has feelings for Kokichi he's like "oh my god, I've been stereotyping him all this time, just because he's… like that, doesn't mean he's gay, I've been so rude for assuming"

and when people try to help him he gives them an educational speech about how straight men can and should be comfortable with platonic physical affection and being a little gnc, so they shouldn't be assuming anything about Kokichi's sexuality as that might discourage him

Kokichi in the background banging his head against the wall bc Shuichi actually convinced some of the more naive of their classmates that he's hetero

Hina: Bro tried so hard And yet still got assigned heterosexual (Personally a fan of he technically has no labels but he's definitely not cishet)

Dra: Ask him his gender and he'll give a different answer every time (none being a gender)

Beez: pulls out a wheel and lets it determine his gender for the day

and me again: this is because when you become a Kokichi liker he takes your gender and puts it in this lottery sorting machine and he runs it every day picking genders for all of us including himself in a randomized order, hope that helps once you're a part of this organization this is OUR gender

bonus because we kept talking about v3 gaydars:

Maki only makes it seem like she has a good one bc she's always minding her business and doesn't act surprised when she finds out, so people think she could tell, but she probably didn't

Kaede's actually good, for the most part, but people can't figure her out, is she being nice or is she being flirty? meanwhile it's her figuring u out by seeing your reactions and then acting accordingly

can Kiibo get "didn't know not everyone is mspec" moment? He could only be an encyclopedia or oblivious and I think it's more likely he's oblivious

Beez: itd be funny if mius worked like shuichis but in the opposite direction if someone isnt instantly attracted to her she assumes their sexuality is the opposite [sentence that lead to me making the next AU in the queue, possibly my biggest banger this far, if I say so myself]

"All those titless straight girls, like I care, they're unfuckable anyway"

[leonardalphachurch]

Hey, found your recent ace donut post and wanted to share my thoughts on it. First as an ace person, it comes off acephobic, I know that was definitely not the intent but it still comes across that way. Especially in your remark about “ace tumblr user”.

Secondly I think my only real issue with the post was how seriously you took donut being gay as canon. Perhaps it’s just my perspective, but Donut to me has always been a big gay joke by the writers. So much so that it took me awhile to start to like him as a character because a lot of the time it felt like he was just there to be a cruel caricature of a gay person. A lot of the jokes felt hurtful, as some who has seen people irl say similar jokes about gay people, and the way other characters treated him upset me a lot. Overtime I learned to like Donut a lot but I really kept in mind how the writers saw him and treated him. He never seemed like an earnest representation, he felt like the punchline of a bigoted joke. Finally asexuality is a spectrum and many ace people make alot of sex/innuendos so it’s not completely out of left field to assume maybe that’s just how he expresses being ace. While I know that was not and never was the writers intent it does seem possible to assume that he could just be a flirty ace.

tldr: the writers are both ace and homophobic, I think the “gotcha” of making him ace was bad but he wasn’t great representation before. And if this is too much feel free to delete it, from your bio you’ve been in this community much longer than I have, and o like a lot of your posts !

1) i think you are a little bit reading me in bad faith here. when i say “ace tumblr user” i mean an asexual person who uses tumblr. nothing more, nothing less. i’m talking about how some random fandom member who makes a post about donut being ace isn’t really causing any material harm and therefore i don’t really care very much about it. when i say “ace tumblr user” i am making it clear that i’m critiquing the showrunners (and the fandom’s response to the showrunners) rather than any individual member of the fandom headcanoning donut as ace.

2) i think you are misunderstanding my point about donut being canonically gay (which is fair enough, that post doesn’t really go into it). i do not consider donut to be good representation (or really representation at all?). i think he is a pretty offensive homophobic caricature. i ALSO think, however, that taking your offensive homophobic caricature and having the culmination of 20 years of jokes about his sexuality be this:

is. homophobic. the joke here is “what, you thought the character that we constantly made gay jokes about was actually gay? you thought the guy who consistently expressed interest in sexual acts with men was gay for real? well he’s not, and actually if you thought that he was you’re just perpetuating stereotypes” and that’s. that sucks. i think taking a character that’s offensive representation and trying to cover it up by saying he was never what he was representing in the first place is NOT the way to handle this. and. to be clear. as a bisexual man i would be making these exact same posts if the punchline here was that he was bi. the joke of “you thought the gay stereotype was gay but he really wasn’t!” is a common homophobic joke and the punchline being another queer identity doesn’t make it any less homophobic.

3) i know asexuality is a spectrum. i talked in the post about how it’s possible to write donut as ace without erasing his sexual and romantic interest in men. i don’t mean to sound rude here but i genuinely don’t know how to make it clearer than me literally saying “it’s not the act of making him ace that’s homophobic” and “if you maintain [his interest in men] while making him ace […] that’s not homophobic.” my favorite interpretation of donut literally has him as aroace. i’m not talking about the way people want to interpret the writing. i’m critiquing the writing itself.

and like. man. i just feel like asexual people deserve better than to have their identity be the punchline of a 20 year long gay joke?? like i am overstepping my boundaries here but. like. i don’t know! i think you deserve more than this! i think you deserve rep that’s more caring than “wouldn’t it be funny if the guy who talked a lot about sex… DIDN’T LIKE SEX???”

also please don’t feel like me being in the fandom for a long time means that you can’t critique me. like, i disagree with your analysis of what i’m saying here but i have absolutely no authority and if i say something you disagree with you are always welcome to discuss it with me

[thegeekyartist]

I finally saw the new genderbent version of Company and I have some thoughts... (the Let Bobbie Be a Lesbian essay)

I want to preface all of this by saying that I love this musical and there was so so much of it that I enjoyed (which I'll get to). I LOVE the move to make Bobby/ie a woman. I think that it opens the door to a lot of incredible interpretations of an already fairly open-ended text.

However, so much was lost because of the other changes made to the text to force it to work.

The new lyrics felt so clunky. ("Bobbie really ought to have a fella"???? Why not "husband"?? Just ugh.) There are also new nicknames for her in the Company motif that I still can't figure out. I also find it odd that they chose to have the husbands sing Poor Baby and the wives sing Have I Got a Guy for You. Not that I necessarily think it was bad, just that I didn't think it was necessary. The lyric changes in those were strange as well (for example, why can't the husbands be "the only tenderness she's ever known"? Why change that to "comfort"?). I can't remember all of them but there were plenty of moments like that that just felt disjointed with the change.

They also removed the implications that Peter was gay - which I totally forgot about until my partner reminded me. If memory serves there's a little bit of flirting with Bobby in the original (?), but they could have mostly kept those lines and implied that he and Susan had divorced to form a more queerplatonic union, a look into a different type of lifestyle for Bobbie to consider - which leads me to my main point.

So much of this clunkiness could have been avoided if they just let Bobbie be interested in women. Assuming that this version of the musical is set in the present, Bobbie is a late millenial who grew up in a time when casual homophobia was *everywhere* and being out and proud was still very taboo, with possibly the only exposure to queer living being some very imperfect queer representation in media. She watched gay marriage become legalized. It's still NEW. She has so much internalized homophobia to work through, and I think that could play a lot into her avoidance of committing to someone and settling down.

This also brings life back into the girl/boyfriends, and how each of them gives Bobbie a different look into what her life could be. Look at Martha/P.J! Martha would be an excellent bit of lesbian representation -- a way for Bobbie to experience a world in which she's allowed to be loudly queer and part of the pulse of the city. Kathy is an example of a queer woman happily falling into a traditional lifestyle, one who just wants to act like and be treated like people in heterosexual couples. April is a little tricky (I actually loved turning her into a self-aware himbo vs. ditzy and naive woman). But! Given April's wounded butterfly story, she could be interpreted as another baby gay trying to accept who she is and heal from previous relationships that didn't treat her the way she deserved. She's someone who already decided she wants something more, someone who IS ready to dive in, which is why she's so clingy at the end of their scene (Barcelona).

I also HATED that Joanne's come-on to Bobbie at the end of the play was changed to her offering up Larry instead. If Bobbie has spent the whole play struggling to come to terms with her sexuality as well as a desire for more than just physical intimacy ("Who will I take care of?") I think this makes Joanne's "I just did someone a huge favor" line even more poignant. Bobbie has fully accepted not only herself, but that she wants love and companionship for real.

So why not just make Bobbie bisexual? Keep some of the changes but allow for some of the original text to return? I appreciate the forethought to avoid Bobbie falling into the indecisive bisexual stereotype, however! I think a major part of Bobbie's character is that she is terrified of making the wrong decision, and what those decisions mean for the life she's currently living and (mostly) content with. There's such a huge level of biphobia in our society (yes, including lgbtqia spaces) that we insist that if a bisexual woman marries a woman, she's actually just a lesbian. And if a bisexual woman marries a man, well then obviously she's just straight and saying she's bi for the attention. This could be a huge barrier for Bobbie to settle down, that fear that an entire part of her identity will disappear with it. While I don't necessarily think this is a better reading than a fully lesbian Bobbie, I do think there could be interesting changes to explore there, as well.

What I will say!!!!!!! Is that there were plenty of things that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I think changing "Tick-Tock" from a ballet while Bobbie and April/Andy have sex into a fun nightmare of Bobbies speed-running a traditional marriage while our Bobbie was forced to watch was *awesome*. I almost wanted even more Bobbies running around to make her feel even more suffocated.

I also loved swapping Jenny and David's lines, making David the doting, nervous husband while Jenny is this woman who has lost her individuality to being nothing but wife/mother. Watching him get stoned and climb over the set and struggle to say "bitch" was hilarious.

AND ABOUT THAT SET!

One of my favorite things about Company is that it's a concept musical -- there's no set timeline, the plot is entirely comprised of unrelated vignettes. I think they could have played WAY more into this using the set, but let me start by saying I LOVED the grayscale. I loved that it gave everything this manufactured, fake feeling. And seeing Bobbie's bright red outfit in contrast was so nice and striking. Plus, seeing how small and crowded Bobbie's apartment was on such a large stage was an incredible visual (when the whole cast squeezed in for the first "Company"?? awesome)

I was GAGGED in the very beginning when Bobbie was pulling on all the doors of her apartment and couldn't escape, only for the set to shift and move so that when she could finally open a door, it led right into Harry and Sarah's apartment. Why didn't they do more of that??? I wanted so badly for them to always have Bobbie in this forced unreality of "how did I get here? Have I always been here?". Then each time she does finally escape a scene she'd find herself stuck in another one. I feel like that tension could have built beautifully throughout until the final "Company" motif when she finally breaks and interrupts them (Being Alive). It's not like they *didn't* do this (for example, the Peter and Susan's balcony lowers on her in a way that shows she wasn't expecting it), but it could have been a much, much bigger part of the overall theme had they really pushed it.

I did also really like the repeating 35's in the background of all the scenes, like it was a constant reminder for Bobbie that she couldn't escape. I wish there was even more of that, too (the balloons getting bigger was a vv nice touch, for example).

I also appreciated that in the scenes where the songs are sung as asides (Poor Baby, The Little Things You Do Together), Bobbie gets to interact with the singers while the rest of the cast is frozen. That's a great change, and once again plays into that idea that Bobbie feels stuck and is trying to escape/work through all these issues in her head throughout the play.

*************************

I know this got long, I guess my point is that with all the fun, incredible changes they made (The Amy/Jaime scene was hilarious. And I didn't even TALK ABOUT all the hidden passages in that set!!), they fell short of making the choices that would have really caused this interpretation to shine. An issue I always have with Company is that I never *really* root for Bobby. Every time he makes a poor decision it's like "well, there he goes again". I think keeping a lot of the changes, changing Bobby into Bobbie, and allowing her to be a lesbian trying to come to grips with her sexuality while also giving herself permission to open up her heart to what a serious relationship could be, would make this a perfect re-imagining of the original text.

[innytoes]

21 for the A/B/O thing with Caleb/Willie/Alex ;D (dealer's choice on who the new guy is)

People were often surprised when they learned Caleb was a Beta. Not that it was a secret, or anything. But people just looked at this tall, muscly, sparkly showman, with his big gestures and his stage presence and his, for lack of a better term, Big Knot Energy, and assumed. Not that Willie blamed them. He’d thought Caleb was an Alpha too, when they first met.

That hadn’t stopped him from basically flirting his socks off when they met at that gay bar, though. He didn’t care about people’s secondary gender. Caleb, on the other hand, had taken one look at his long hair, his sluttiest mesh crop top, and the liberal amount of glitter highlight on his cheekbones, and gently rebuffed him after buying him a drink. He’d told Willie wasn’t an Alpha, and while Willie was lovely, he wasn’t looking for an Omega.

They’d surprised each other a lot, in the beginning. It had been fun, exhilarating, finding all the ways they didn’t fit into the little boxes society had, all the ways they checked the boxes of exactly what the other was into. Caleb was delighted to learn that Willie both topped, and bottomed, and that he had no problem with a Beta telling him what to do. Willie loved that Caleb didn’t expect him to take control, that he was willing to take care of him and let Willie be soft when he needed it.

Of course, there were also parts where they just didn’t get each other. Caleb didn’t understand what was so great about ‘hurtling down a hill on a plank with four wheels with only a helmet for protection’ and Willie would rather stab his eye with a fork than go to one more cocktail party where there wasn’t even dancing.

And then of course, there were Willie’s ruts.

Listen, Caleb was great about them. He also didn’t mind bottoming with the right amount of prep, but keeping up with Willie for five days straight without, pardon the language, a self-lubricating asshole, well, it was a lot. He got Willie the best toys, even kept them between his thighs to Willie could trick his stupid brain into still giving the same rush of endorphins.

He let Willie cuddle him for as long as he needed, let Willie boss him around when he was out of his mind with hormones. Okay, so the bossing was mostly him insisting Caleb needed to drink something to keep his strength up, and to let Willie wrap him in a blanket so he didn’t get cold. And he knew Caleb found it endearing, he’d said as much, but it wasn’t exactly the same as an Omega in heat would respond.

Also, Caleb was a very busy man, so taking five days out of his schedule every three months was getting stressful. But they didn’t want to break up. They liked what they had together.

Caleb had been the one to suggest adding a third. It wasn’t uncommon, especially not with couples who were missing one part of the secondary gender triangle. But Willie didn’t exactly fit into the standard role of an Alpha, and Caleb wasn’t exactly a stereotypical Beta. Trying to find an Omega that would fit in with them would be quite a feat.

“What, are we just going to pop into Omegas’R’US and pick one out?” he asked, jokingly. Only when Caleb didn’t respond right away, he popped up from where he was sprawled on the man’s chest. “Please tell me there’s not some kind of creepy rich people place where you can just get an Omega.”

Caleb huffed a laugh. “I mean, there’s matchmaking services,” he said. “Or online dating. Or we could go back to the club where we met and see if anyone catches our eye.”

Willie and Caleb being Willie and Caleb, of course, decided to do all three at once. Because why not. They made a dating profile together, and while it did lead to some pretty steamy sexting, nothing ever came of it. The bar scene was okay, but again, besides a few make-out sessions in the booths, and even some disappointed faces when they realised who the Alpha and who the Omega was, nothing changed.

Hell, they even let Dante and Fuego set them up on some blind dates, but that just proved to be absolutely disastrous. They did not talk about what happened at karaoke night. (They also did not talk to Dante and Fuego until the insurance had paid back what happened to Caleb’s car.)

In the end, the stupidest rich-people option was the one that was successful. Kind of. Because nothing they did could ever just be normal.

When they matched with Reggie, things had been great. He was cute and sweet and he liked both music and the idea of careening down a hill on a plank with four wheels. Willie liked the way Caleb could make him blush, and Caleb liked the way Willie and Reggie could talk for hours. His heats seemed to fit well with Willie’s ruts, in terms of intensity.

Except before they got to either of those events, it became pretty clear that while they really liked each other, they were better off as friends. Reggie also admitted he felt kind of weird about being scouted by the matchmaker to begin with, but that he’d been too flattered to say no, especially not when the scout showed him Caleb and Willie’s picture.  

“I mean, I hope we can still be friends,” he said, after a very awkward conversation.

“Of course, dude,” Willie said. “Who else is going to laugh at my meme references?” Not Caleb, that was for sure.

“We still have a dinner reservation for three on Friday,” Caleb reminded him. “I do hope you can make it.”

Reggie’s face did something complicated, and for a moment, Willie feared that the whole ‘let’s be friends’ thing was Reggie trying to let them off easy. “Actually, and hear me out because I know your last blind date went terribly…” And yeah, a few months and a new car removed from it, it had just been a funny story, one that Caleb told extremely well (Willie miming out things dramatically next to him until Reggie was howling with laughter). “I have this friend named Alex. He’s an Omega, and I just… I think he’d be perfect for you. And I don’t say that lightly.”

Yeah, Reggie had talked about Alex a lot. And Luke. They hadn’t met yet, they’d agreed to hold off on meeting each other’s social circles until they’d spent a heat or rut together, to see if they really were compatible.

It took some convincing, but in the end, Willie and Caleb agreed to meet Alex, and Alex agreed to meet them.

And they just… clicked. The way Willie had clicked with Caleb. Alex was an Omega, yeah, and he liked soft pinks and dance. But he was also very sarcastic, with a sharp tongue that delighted Caleb but had probably been a turn-off for more traditional-minded people. He was down for all of Willie’s chaotic schemes, but also not afraid to reign him, or give his own opinion.

In short, Reggie was right. Alex was perfect for them. They just weren’t sure if Alex thought the same about them. Until Willie’s rut started looming on the calendar. Alex was also acting a little shifty on their date, which had just been lunch and a walk on the beach. Willie was silently rehearsing ‘okay, no hard feelings’ in his mind, willing himself not to cry. Another fun and not-stereotypical reaction to his rut.

When Alex untangles his hands from both of them, Willie grabs Caleb’s instead, squeezing hard. Maybe Caleb can do the talking. He knows how Willie gets right before his ruts.

“So um, my heat is coming up,” Alex said, shoving his hands deep in the pocket of his hoodie for comfort. “And- and I was wondering, I mean, I really like both of you, and I thought- if you’d be willing…”

“We’d love to help you with your heat,” Caleb interrupted, putting Alex out of his misery. He looked relieved and thankful, before looking at Willie, who could only nod. “When is it?”

“Next week.”

Caleb shot him a look, and Willie grinned. Proof that Alex really was perfect for them. “Same,” he said, holding his free hand out for Alex to take. “Guess we can help each other out, huh?” He waggled his eyebrows at Alex, who blushed and laughed, taking his hand. There was still a lot to discuss, but Willie had a really good feeling about this.

[victoriadallonfan]

ok, last ask before I go to bed.

I don't really care about wildbow's intentions? I know that sounds kinda uncharitable, and I do agree he probably had good ones, but that didn't stop him from accidentally writing something homophobic, or arguing with people when they tried to point it out. Again, I can see how you think his intentions are important, but I don't really thing it is?

I don't see "Tristan was being an asshole and crossed a line" as something separate from his desire for sex- they are irrevocably interconnected. The book conflates Tristan violating Byron's bodily autonomy with his sexuality, and as something motivated by his (again, whether wildbow intended this or not isn't really relevant? I'm talking about what the book does, not what wb wanted to do).

To be clear, I do understand your point. It's possible for a real life person to be an asshole, to cross lines, and to violate people's bodily autonomy without it being motivated by their sexuality. It is possible for a gay teenager to do all these things in real life, without it being because they're gay.

(I could also sort-of see this happening in fiction, even if "gay person violating a straight person's bodily autonomy" is a well established trope/stereotype.)

However, Ward doesn't seem to know this:

The only times when Tristan is an asshole, the only times he crosses the line and violates Byron's bodily autonomy, is when he is trying to access gay sex. He's an upstanding guy 90% percent of the time, it's only when he's acting on his gay attraction does the story swerve to him being an asshole in a clear, obvious way.

When you look at other characters, there's a clear correlation between gay main characters trying to be gay with people, and those characters violating other people's bodily autonomy and crossing lines. Amy, March, even Kenzie threatens to blackmail Candy. The message (intentional or not) is that these things are connected.

If these things aren't connected, Ward doesn't show recognition of it.

Like I said, I would agree with you if there was a strong counter example, or a character who was gay, who was allowed to chase gay sex and stuff like that, without acting like Tristan, Amy, March, etc.

Victoria isn't a strong example, as much as I also like that headcanon/interpretation. She has sex with Anelace, and the story frames this as something good, something that is ok for her to want, but the story never frames a protagonist's gay sex in the same positive way. Victoria's speculative bisexuality is never more than subtext.

Anyway, I'm sorry for blowing up your askbox, this whole thing has just been incredibly frustrating. I know this is a contentious topic, but it just doesn't feel like you were really listening to me? Or it feels like your mind it too set for this to be a real conversation, and it doesn't feel like if I presented my arguments well enough, or mentioned something you hadn't considered, that you would be open to changing your mind on this. It's just really upsetting.

It would be nice if you at least apologised to melancholy-jouissance or lakelesbian at least? You were really rude to them.

I have a lot of things I would disagree with in this post, but I think you are giving me the vibe of wanting to make this final? So I’ll address the part about the apologies:

Firstly, I already did apologize to Melancholy for being hostile to them (and honestly they kept a cooler head than I ever could), even though I think they were wrong in their argument. I even said they had the right take on Byron being homophobic (subconsciously).

I won’t apologize to lakelesbian because quite frankly, they were just an arrogant asshole who didn’t like the fact that I pointed out the flaw of them A.) Admitting to having no context or knowledge of Ward and B.) Ignoring when I did give them context for a snide remark.

I may feel bad about being a dick sometimes, but never about mocking people who just assume things without any context. They should learn to read instead.

[the-ace-with-spades]

This is a personal rant just so I can get it out of me before I talk to my manager so feel free to ignore if I do post it

Working in healthcare and being a trans guy that doesn't completely pass sucks. And not because of the patients, the patients are sweethearts about it 9 out of 10 times -- I had a 100 yo lady who asked me if I'm a boy or a girl more politely than most of my co-workers and then who tried to respect it harder than most of them too, and a gent that was absolutely the rudest 60 yo guy ever but still asked me what my pronouns were so he could cuss me out using correct insults.

My real name is stereotypically masc. I didn't really pass at all when I started working where I work but now I pass about 60% and then the number keeps on going up because what always throws people off is either my hips or my voice --- which, both are changing now. Before I told everyone to go by a gender neutral nickname to not confuse patients or their family and let them think what they want (because I don't care what they think my gender is, I care about helping them to the best of my ability and arguing with them is not going to help anyone) -- which was talked about with my very supportive manager when I started working where I work -- everyone knew me only by my full masc name for like a month.

I don't like to assume malice from people so if someone kept on misgendering me despite that, I'd first assume they misheard my name and took away two letters from it and shuffled one (as unlikely as it was) or that they thought my parents were doing the new age thing and named their 'daughter' with a masc name because they could. So I take the person who misgenders me to the side and clarify 'hey, I'm transgender, so a guy who uses he/him, please try to use the correct pronouns. It's okay if patients misgender me, just go with the flow, but try to not misgender me first if you can help it. Thank you'. Always add that if they have questions, just ask me, I'll be your transgender encyclopedia because I don't mind educating people on the basics.

Currently, out of team of 70, I get gendered correctly by maybe 10 despite everyone knowing. One lady is absolutely brilliant about it and no wonder because she has a enby kid herself. There's a gay guy who likes to ask millions of questions and some of them are TMI but he always takes a 'I'm not replying to that' as a solid answer and apologizes for overstepping -- he even now understands the concept of deadnames and dysphoria and how HRT is helping. There's another guy who was thrown aback a bit but went along with everything fine after like two more explanations because it was new to him. There are some coworkers who will use the wrong pronouns and correct themselves and it isn't ideal but those are mostly people who don't have English as their first language and misgender everyone because their first language isn't gendered, patients and other co-workers included. Senior personnel are mostly okay, too, with the exception of one guy - aside from him, all band 6s and band 7s use proper pronouns and nouns when talking about me.

But our team's LGBT champion, another gay guy who has worked in healthcare for over 10 years, decided to tell me a story about Jamie, who worked with the team for a short while and was also a trans guy and he decided to tell me about him by saying, "His name used to be deadname tho and he was a she for a chunk of time he worked with us." The LGBT champion, the liaison who is supposed to be the hearing ear, the whistleblower for homophobia and transphobia on our team. Then he proceeded to talk about Jamie using he and she interchangeably. The LGBT champion.

I don't like to assume malice from people so I explained, once again, that calling someone by their past name they no longer use, telling it to someone who is virtually a stranger, is a no-no, like to a child. Then I got asked if I'm planning to do The Surgery. And what the fuck that means? There's so many different surgeries you can have as transmasc and even the bottom surgery isn't even a surgery -- it's more like 5 surgeries stacked on itself. So I explained again. And then a few days later you know what I heard when he talked to a pt's doctor mentioning me? 'She saw the xxx not me." I feel like a broken record.

And you know what happened? We got a transgender lady as our patient. Transitioned in her thirties, passing a bit better than me -- I was able to tell but most people probably wouldn't. She was getting gendered correctly until someone looked at her records where she admitted she is transgender for the sake of transparency --- our records have trans women as male but identifying female, which to me just sounds awful too but apparently was chosen by a group of LGBT champions from our region's trusts. And then boom, everyone changed their fucking tale -- he needs a different catheter, he is on bed rest, you don't have to bring him a bedpan, he can use bottles, etc. The poor woman was not only in distress because of her health but close to crying when the personnel that was supposed to be helping her, kept on misgendering her in front of other people. When I tried to calm her down, she said she hadn't felt so humiliated in years and that she wishes she never sought out help. I could only apologise to her and tell her I'm trans too and I'm sorry this is happening when she should only be focusing on her health.

By the time she was leaving our care, she told me I and one of the mentioned supportive guys are the only reason she's not making a formal complaint. I told her to make a formal complaint. I told her to mention me in it and I'll confirm it all.

The majority of those people worked in healthcare for over 10+ years. The majority of them have healthcare-related degrees that took 2-4 years to get.

I'm fed up with it. Doctors have training about transgender people in med school now and you can see that with the juniors and the younger ones. But the rest of the personnel just don't care or don't think it's real or whatever else. There's this kind of numbness in those healthcare professions, which are supposed to be caring, toward treating transgender people with respect and it seems like it's pushed away to the sidelines because transgender patients are so rare.

And the worst thing is, I don't know what can be done about it. If they don't care to educate themselves when they've got a living, breathing examples working with them, explaining stuff and willing to answer question, proving that trans people are real people with lives and stories and families, then how do you make them care?

[worthless-weight-in-gold]

Pride Headcanons!!

Jim: extremely very certain he's gay, 100%. getting crushed under mountains of internalized homophobia that presents in wild ways, and also sitting on top of being bigoted to the whole entire rest of the community this man is a piece of shit--

Thew: she's in the "probably bi, might be a lesbian" category. she's gone on dates with men, she's gone on dates with women. she only has one proper ex which is a woman. she's not 100% sure what her sexuality is but kinda just lets things happen and doesn't worry about it too much

Min-Jee: 100% knows she's bi, 100% knows she's trans. she's known both since she was very young and kept her mouth shut to all but her closest friends about both until she felt she was in a safe and stable enough place to come out publicly

Porter: hey, he's literally just sitting. just chilling. he does not even have the desire to look for a label. he likes people. he sleeps around with all genders. he feels fine with he/him pronouns, but also feels fine when other pronouns are used. vibes only

Sanjit: he only feels romantic attraction to men, or the closest of what he feels that could be considered romantic attraction is only to men. he's also like, neither cis nor trans. his species dont really have a concept of gender but he did actively chose to be a man when making his human form, and now would be uncomfortable if he got misgendered in either form

Riah: genderfluid, bisexual, actively identifies confidently as both although doesn't talk about either unless directly asked. she has a preference for men, though, when it comes to hookups. she is very, VERY slow to and honestly just unlikely to develop romantic feelings for someone, but when she does its equally likely to be for a man or a woman or nonbinary

Bruce: gay! he also knew from very young that he was gay, and he was one of the "there's a lot of signs here that stereotypically point to a child being gay..." types. he never officially really came out, because he just went on dates with men and those who hadn't already assumed he was gay got the hint then

Noa: queer of some kind. she sometimes gets stressed about finding a more specific label but isn't always the best at telling what she's feeling, and also she's kinda a bit too busy for romance anyway which makes it harder. honestly she has a freakout about what her sexuality is every year like clockwork

Eun Yoo: she thinks she's straight and she's never really considered otherwise because pretty much everyone she's been close with has been straight and all the characters in the shows she watched or comics she read or games she played were straight and she's gotten crushes on boys before. it is totally normal to be a little in love with female friends, anyway. like, if you were a man, obviously you'd confess to them immediately and settle down together and get married and have a beautiful family but she's a woman so she doesn't ask out women so she's straight. (she's bi. she hasn't worked that out yet)

Thespian: thespian does not understand human conceptualizations of either sexuality or gender. thespian has a fringe angel sexuality and a normal angel gender. aka, thespian likes more than just those who it is appropriate to like (can develop feelings for people in different societal status than them), and their gender is mostly neutral but slightly feminine because they are the eldest (more on that here if u wanna know more)

[your-local-uwu-artist]

(i could be wrong since its been forever since ive watched the movie), but it think that was the point of the metaphor. if you peel off the layers of an onion, you'd still find more onion--it doesn't change no matter how deep you look into it. Shrek was saying that no matter how much you try and look deep into an ogre, they'd still be the same. he was saying that he doesn't have any sort of specialness deep down inside of him; that he is exactly like how he is, both inside and out. if you kept peeling him, you'd still find the same ogre-ness to him, just like how if you kept peeling an onion, you'd still only have the same onion, nothing new or special different

First of all anon, thankyu for casually spashing in actually intelligent insight as a response to my comedically toned shitpost /gen /pos (being able to take silly things seriously is like, one of the first steps to a good media analysis) also sharing your thoughts can make some people feel all shy so I feel you deserve a thumbs up for having the courage to hit that send button >:3

Okay so I did some googling and I do think that the initial assumption of like, outer layer, inner self, is probably the intended meaning:

But I defintly think your onto something anon :o and lowkey explained it better than the articles I speed read nshdjsn

Anyway this is completely on the fly rambles so ill try to bullet point it and put it under a cut sense I'm writing off the top my mind and dont know how long it'll be

-i definitely think the way you explained the idea makes a lot more sense to Shrek's characterization, It doesn't seem like it was trying ti insinuate that there was something particularly special about whats under the layer, just that there is more to him than the outer layer

-it did seem that it was trying to express something about outer appearance and stereotypes but probably not in the manner my blunt autistic brain takes metaphors so literally

-so onion metaphors in general do exist theoretically before Shrek and in general it is used to convey multiple layers around one core, and apparently "peeling the layers of the onion" is seen as a metaphor for like, personal growth and dealing with deep buried problems in your life, not sure if the second ones relevant but idk maybe someone can find a tie in

-so I'm guessing the layers of the onion is either like, how much somebody sees of you, or the persona that you show on the outside, I'm not sure which one is more fitting or neither or both, but I guess the idea is that like, someone may seem rude and cold on the outside but behind that outer layer there's other aspects to this person, I suppose to tie in the its still the same, it could be argued that the outer layers are still a part of that person, it's just not hollow like some assume it to be, and if you peel back the layer its the fact that there is anything more than the outer layer that is signfigant

-i could see that approach to it making more sense since I think its trying to say something about stereotypes, I vaguely remember Shrek also saying that people will decide they dont like him when they barely know him

-in that case I guess you could try ti apply a similar metaphor to a real stereotyped group, like perhaps a gay man acts eccentric and fits those stereotypes and so people write him off as just the "gay best friend" and boil down his entire person to just that outer layer, it doesn't accur to them that the outer layer isn't just hollow, that there's anything underneath, and they might not think to try and peel it because they think they know the person based on only the outer layer, in which, I guess we can think of the core of the onion as that person at their purest, and by peeling back the layers your getting close to seeing that person for every aspect of who they are, so if you peel back the layers of this theoretically gay guy, yeah he still likes men but he also has this thing called a life and more than one personality trait

-i still find irony in that the idea is that by peeling back layers your seeing "more" to the person, sense peeling an actual onion makes it smaller

-but I the metaphor won't be perfect to its litteral counterpart...

-anyhow once again thanks for the message anon! I really enjoyed and appreciated hearing your thoughts and found them helpful in kinda like, how I tend to approach these kind of metaphors in general :DD I hope you have a lovely day and you deserve an apply juice box with some crackers for your contributions to society

[beetlebethwrites]

please regale us with thoughts on matts sexuality i am on my hands and knees

Thanks for doing the thing 💛 So this got long and I chopped most of it to shove it under the cut because of that...

So, Matt identifies as bisexual as I've said before but he's the youngest son in a pretty typical white middle-class British family which means he's grown up in a pretty overly masculine environment, not helped by the fact that rugby was his chosen sport as he was growing up and into university.

He knew he liked men in a different but equal way to the way he liked women from a pretty young age, perhaps 8 or 9, but also he understood that men weren't really where he was 'supposed' to find his attention resting. Because of his age, it also means that section 28 was only just being repealed as he started school and means that his and his brother's schooling wasn't exactly positive or even neutral on people who weren't in heterosexual relationships. So he learnt pretty young that he was 'meant' to be with a woman.

Because of the people he was around when he was younger, he internalised the idea that same-sex attraction is bad pretty quickly (gay as an insult was pretty pervasive in primary school when I was there), despite knowing that he isn't straight and that some guys who were also on the rugby teams he's played with haven't been either. His first boyfriend was a teammate he was very close to, but both of them kept it silent because they were scared of being outed etc.

As a result he kind of just thinks it's easier and 'right' to keep on the down-low and date women and not correct people when they assume he's straight. There's a lot of stigma around bisexual people and bisexual men in general and the idea that they are somehow more feminine than heterosexual men in combination with his upbringing means that he does have an unconscious bias against bisexuality in general, despite knowing and loving many bisexual people.

Despite knowing that it's not actually the case, the idea that queer men are feminine is very pervasive and the media rarely helped that; if you know the portrayal of the LGBTQIA+ community in the early 00s you'll know this well. Because of these stereotypes, people also assume that he is straight and he really does find it easier to not come up against that assumption, despite his otherwise brash nature. An important thing about Matt is that he's brash and loud when he's confident, but he doesn't feel as confident about his sexuality as he does filming or fun nature facts.

He also knows it'll always be easier to bring a woman home to his family despite his mother seemingly knowing about some of the boyfriends that he's had in the past. His father and brothers have rarely ever entertained the idea of him being anything other than straight as a possibility and as the youngest, he definitely didn't question the overt or thinly veiled homophobia he was hearing.

So basically, a melting pot of toxic masculinity and media portrayal of queer men made non-straight men to be something less than desirable in Matt's mind when he was too young to have critical thinking about it. So although he is working through it, he will likely always have a level of internalised biphobia and a desire to not be 'that kind of gay' which makes it easier to date women. He's never really going to feel like he's represented by a rainbow flag and pride parade no matter who his partner is.

Sorry, this was pretty rambly but I have a lot of thoughts as to why Matt is like he is.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Well, last night was amazing. Went to Montreal, saw two comedy shows, kept both my parents up well past their bedtimes. The timing worked out perfectly, as the first show ended about half hour before the second one started, enough time to get to the other venue across the street and get good seats. It was my first experience at a comedy festival and I certainly recommend it.

Here are the people I saw at the first show, which was like what you’d see at a comedy club, except that they were all famous and very exciting British people who had flown in for the occasion, rather than what I’d normally see at a comedy club, which is, like, my brother and his friends:

Tom Allen: Hosted the show, and was everything we want in a host. That is the niche where Tom Allen has found himself comfortable; I get the impression that he does a lot of hosting jobs. Everything about his comedy style is geared toward being the perfect MC. At one point he told us that sometimes people ask why he always does the bitchy gay stereotype instead of something deeper, and he replied “You say stereotype, I say career.” Which, I have to say, fair enough. It’s worked well for him. Bitchy gay stereotype makes a great host.

He was mostly doing crowd work in his role as the show’s connective tissue, and was suitably baffled and unimpressed by all the Montreal-based people with their Montreal-based jobs. At one point he said there’s no point in listing the comedians’ credentials because us in Canada won’t know the shows they’ve been on, to which they audience immediately disagreed. So Tom, clearly knowing that anyone turning up to see Dara O’Briain will have seen some Mock the Week YouTube clips or whatever but it’s not like they’ll know the more everyday British television, asked if we’d heard of The One Show. The audience immediately began cheering for The One Show, and Tom sounded genuinely surprised to hear they knew that. My mother whispered to me that even she knows about The One Show, because she’s really into WILTY and Alex Jones (the Welsh one, not, you know, the other one) has been on there. I, of course, know The One Show as the thing Jason Manford got fired from after cheating on his wife via a sexting scandal. So there, Tom, don’t be so quick to assume that Canadians aren’t familiar with your refined British culture.

He told a couple of stories that I’ve heard on panel shows before but were still funny. He told the guy who shone a red light in his face that he knew time was ending but he wanted to finish this bit, and then he did, and then for the rest of the show he had to rush through his segments because they were behind schedule, and at the end they had to tell us to get out of the venue quickly because they’d overrun. But to be fair, it was quite an amusing story about buying a mattress and misunderstanding what “queen sized” meant, so I’d say that was worth it.

Fern Brady: Obviously, she was great. They were all great, I’ll say that right now. I did not stop smiling the entire time I was there. I was slightly nervous about seeing a Fern Brady set while sitting with both my parents, as I’ve seen her specials Male Comedienne and Love and Chaos, and both of them contain a fair amount of material about fingering. But in the end her set was relatively clean; the only bit that was awkward with parents actually came from Phil Wang discussing nipples in pornography.

You can see that Fern Brady is getting slightly less young, as a bunch of her jokes were about turning 35 and how that changes things (and how it means you won’t get invited to the good orgies anymore, so “clean” is a relative term when it comes to her). It was a bit of a move toward the mundane (not that the jokes were mundane, just the subjects), with less of the stuff about being a former stripper and psychiatric patient, and more about fighting with her long-term boyfriend during lockdown. It was funny. I enjoyed this version of Fern Brady. I mean, I enjoyed the other version too, but it was fun to see her in more casual clothes than she wears on TV telling funny stories about everyday life.

Phil Wang: First of all, I love how proud Phil Wang is of his “knock on wood” joke. He has this joke with a bunch of buildup about how he’s going to do some racial observational “Asians are like this and white people are like this” stuff, and then the joke is just that white people freak out if they say “knock on wood” and there’s no wood around to knock on. It was his in his previous special Philly Philly Wang Wang, I’ve heard him tell it on TV a couple of times, and when he told it last night he looked so happy about it. I feel like Phil came up with that joke one day and decided he had done very well as a comedian and could have an ice cream or something.

He also had a nice good local joke, in which he said “I’m not from around here”… pause while we think he’s going to say “I’m from Britain, you racists, who thought I’d say I’m from Asia”… but instead said “I’m from Laval.” Which is a suburb of Montreal that’s different from the bit of Montreal where the Just For Laughs festival was taking place. Such a ridiculously silly joke, the sort of thing that feels like it should be a reference to something, but it isn’t, it’s just Phil Wang pretending to be from a suburb of Montreal. But it worked really well in context; he should keep it in for the performances of his solo show that he’s doing later in the week, which I know wish I were going to see because he was good in the club show.

He was, of course, also funny. Seemed a bit jetlagged and disoriented, as they all did a bit – this was the first of a four-night run for this show, and most of them had just arrived. Phil had a whole routine about his encounter with the Franophone man behind the desk at the Montreal hotel where he’d checked in the night before, and if that story really did happen that way, then I’m genuinely impressed. It was quite a funny joke, so good job to Phil Wang if he wrote that in one day.

Sindhu Vee: Sindhu Vee was the comedian I knew least well going into this show, and the only one besides Dara from whom I haven’t seen at least one full stand-up special. And I’ve seen every episode of Mock the Week and plenty of clips of Dara’s stand-up on YouTube, so really Sindhu Vee was the only one I didn’t know well as a stand-up comedian. Actually I haven’t seen a special by Tom Allen either, but I have seen panel shows, and he is on all of those, so I think I know all his jokes by now.

Anyway. I mainly know Sindhu Vee for acting (Starstruck, Feel Good, she does all the sitcoms written by younger comedians to figure out their own lives) and sporadic appearances on a few panel shows. But I really enjoyed her set last night, enough to make me interested in finding more of her stand-up. I said the other day that there’s a level of polish in a stand-up show by someone with a lot of experience, and I can sometimes forget how good that is when I mostly watch stuff by younger people. I also realize that putting it that way is a backhanded compliment (Jo Brand once complained that people calling her a “national treasure” is just a polite way of calling her old), but I feel like Sindhu Vee would not object to me acknowledging her age. Which is not ancient by any means, at 53, but it does mean her subject matter is more “life with the man who’s been my husband for twenty-four years and raising teenagers”, than “dating/getting married/becoming a parent for the first time” that you get from comedians in their thirties. I could hear my parents laughing extra hard at her set, pleased to hear someone discuss experiences they found more relatable than the contemplation of nipples in pornography.

The polish was definitely there in Sindhu’s set. She knew exactly what points she was making, and you could see every little mannerism and tone of voice change was planned and executed well. Even her hesitations and pauses seemed confident because they were part of the plan. Like a person who had raised more than one child into adolescence, and knew exactly how to do and say things to get people to respond how she wants.

Aside from all the rest of that, her material was intelligent and funny, covering a range of topics in a short time and even including some connectivity and callbacks, which is something I always like in stand-up but is hard to get into a ten-minute club set. The whole thing felt like a well made neatly wrapped parcel, and I really enjoyed it.

Nish Kumar: So, Nish got on stage and immediately informed us that he’d just gotten off the plane two hours previously. The rest of them had stories about arriving at the hotel the previous night, but I guess Nish got caught by some flight delays or something, and it sounds like he barely made it to the show at all (I know I’m seeing his full show in two days, but I would still have not forgiven Air Canada if they’d been even later and had deprived me of Nish Kumar last night). Last week I saw a $7 Zoom show in which Nish did about ten minutes while sitting at his computer wearing a Simpsons t-shirt and covered in sweat and borderline delirious from the heat wave, and I thought that would be the least polished I’d ever see Nish Kumar. I think he beat that record last night. You know what I said about everything from Sindhu Vee being carefully planned and executed? This was the opposite of that, and it reminded me that both ends of that spectrum are great fun.

I’d heard most of Nish’s jokes before, as they were taken from his full Your Power Your Control show, which I saw live a couple of months ago. And which I’ll be seeing live again in two days, so that should tell you something about how happy I am to hear Nish Kumar tell the same jokes multiple times. However, what I hadn’t heard before was these jokes told while jetlagged as hell and barely managed to arrive from the airport in a foreign country. He repeatedly forgot what he was saying. He suggested that we should have our phones out and be ready to record, because given the state of his rattled brain there was a chance that he might just have a breakdown and that would be the sort of thing we’d want to have on video.

He was great. The only time all night that I heard my mother absolutely break down laughing was when he did his bit about national anthems and flags, which is also how he closes his full show. He did his bit about calling climate change “climate immigration” to scare conservatives into trying to stop it, and said we should warn them about foreign weather coming over here, raining down on Montreal’s Place Des Arts. Which made me realize I think he literally didn’t know where he was, because Place Des Arts is the venue where he’s performing his solo show on Thursday and Saturday, but last night he was in a different venue, and I think he just got driven to that venue and knew he was performing at Place Des Arts so that’s where he thought he was and why he put that name in the joke.

Nish did get a bit of area-specific stuff, which made me realize how much I’m looking forward to hearing him do more of that in his full show on the weekend. Last time I saw him was in New York, but this time it’s in Canada and he’ll have to come up with some shit to say about us, and I think that’ll be fun. Last night he mentioned how fucking weird it is that the queen of England is still our head of state, which, fair cop. I actually find it a bit weird that British comedians, when making jokes about their dwindling empire still having Gibraltar or whatever, don’t spend more time making fun of the fact that on a weird technically they still sort of have Canada. Please, Nish, come over here and satirize that some more until our government gets shamed into finally doing the irritating and much-procrastinated work of opening our constitution and doing something about that.

Dara O’Briain: Okay, so first of all, you should know that Dara O’Briain and I now have a relationship. That was initially described in this post, which I wrote on my phone while standing around with my mother and losing my mind about what had happened. It was so fucking exciting. I was just sitting outside watching the street, and then suddenly, a large man from the television appeared! Just two nights before, I’d been sitting at home on the would-have-been birthday of a friend of mine who died last year, drinking beer and watching Dara O’Briain and Frankie Boyle and Hugh Dennis and Andy Parsons and Russell Howard shout at each other, and thinking “This is nice, these fictional characters sure are helping me get through a tough day.” And the next day, there he is! A fictional character just walking across the street!

I suppose I did already know those Mock the Week people were real, because I saw Russell Howard live a few months ago. That was the first time I’d seen any of these Britcom people in real life, so basically, when he first walked onto the stage, that was the first time that I had actual confirmation that these are definitely real people and not just cleverly rendered images on a screen. It was very cool, and also fucking weird and took a while to get used to. Well, seeing Russell Howard live was the first time I saw the flesh and blood version of any of these people. That weird moment with Dara O’Briain on the street crossed a new threshold – the first time that one of them became aware, in any tiny way, of my existence. And I cannot emphasise enough how much it was definitely a weird moment. When he looked my way and I realized he saw me, I didn’t know what to do, so I just covered my face with both hands and started laughing. And kept staring at him, because I wasn’t going to look away, but he was too far away to talk to, and I wasn’t about to interrupt his day by going over to him, so I just sat there and stared for a number of awkward seconds, like he was some sort of novelty, a zebra in the middle of the city or something. He started back for a bit, then smiled at me, then walked off. Then my mother told me I should hope I see him after the show to get his autograph or something, and I said, “Are you joking? I never, ever wanted to see that man again.” And then my mother informed me that while my hands were over my face, my nail had nicked a small cut and it had opened up, and she gave me a tissue for the blood. It was a hell of an experience.

So. As I said, Dara O’Briain and I now have a relationship. Dara is the only one of these Britcom people to be aware in any way of my existence, and that is a very strange fact of life. Also, if there’s one thing that might put Dara off from me as a person even more than someone just sitting outside a café staring at him, it would be me referring to him as a “Britcom person”. Dara was the first name that was announced for this show, several months ago when Just For Laughs first released their shows. I remember saying at the time that it’s weird that the only person who’s been announced as part of a show called “Brit(ish)” is not in fact British. I also said I bet Dara will mention that during the show, and I was right. He came out and immediately complained about his grandfather who fought a war to make sure none of his descendants would have been part of a “British” show, and look how that’s gone.

His set was really good, as I expected it to be. He definitely had that “polish of experience” that Sindhu had as well, though while her style was subdued restraint, he was very much the opposite of that. He took up a lot of his stage just for being a gigantic man, but took up even more by moving around and being metaphorically everywhere. Gregarious and charismatic and the air of a man who has spent a lot of time hosting a television show. Held everyone’s attention, easily controlled the flow of the room, with the air of a man who has spent a lot of time babysitting younger and new-to-TV comedians on a competitive panel show.

He moved easily from one topic to the next, going from stuff about parenting to stuff about English colonization of Ireland so smoothly that we barely noticed a tone change. Finished with his story of the time he tried to get an actual massage and realized he’d accidentally wandered into a place that offers sexy massages, which he’s told on Mock the Week and I love how much he loves that story.

Overall, it was a hell of a night. I went from there to see James Acaster’s Hecklers Welcome, which was an amazing experience, I enjoyed it so much, James is out here pushing the limits of the genre in a completely different way than he did last time, and it’s very cool. But also, I have to do some work now, so I’m going to write about that second show later. For now, I hope everyone has enjoyed the story of part 1 of my evening. I’ll leave part 2 as still to come.

[coralillough]

I've known a certain gay man since we were kids-- He was a neighborhood friend of my first girlfriend-- and I don't think I've ever experienced more overt, shallow sexism from anyone else other than him. I have endured more damaging manifestations of misogyny at the hands of boyfriends, family, and authority figures, but none of those people dared to look me in the eye, call me a "filthy whore," and expected me to praise them for it.

In truth, my first girlfriend and I never viewed this one man very closely, and we held a disdain for him that we had trouble addressing-- Were we homophobic for disliking the way he treated us? The reality is that he simply awarded himself the authority to comment on our bodies, our clothing, and our sexuality. He assumed that this was the role we wanted him to play, and he felt powerful when he could act that way. If we didn't like it, there must have been something wrong with us, right?

I spent an agonizing couple of hours with him this weekend at an event. I was wearing jeans and a tee, no bra underneath, as I don't even own any real ones anymore. As I walked up to his table and introduced myself to his other friends, he didn't even address me before turning to them and saying, "God, it's a little nipply out here, isn't it? Does anyone else think it's nipply? You know, like, nipple-y?" He repeatedly and un-subtley gestured towards me. Once his friends each gave a silent, realizing "Ohhh," he turned to me and said, "I haven't seen you in years, bitch. Looking a little wild and free, aren't we?" Over the course of the evening, he kept making these uncomfortable, sexualizing jabs whenever he was near me, no matter how much I tried to dismiss him and distance myself.

Even before he came to terms with his own sexuality, he was very comfortable playing media-driven role of the "gay best friend": A flamboyant gay man who keeps the close company of women. These female friends of this character are supposed to view him as an authority on femininity, fashion, attractiveness, confidence, and sexuality. This op-ed does a phenomenal job of addressing the sexist attitudes unique to gay men, which thrive with in the man who accepts the role of the stereotypical "gay best friend." In actuality, this character encourages and enables barefaced, sexist bullying.

When we were teenagers, he would start every interaction with a comment on our outfits. He would never fail to ask if we were "feeling slutty today" when he noticed a stray bra strap or a low-cut top. When he found us in the hallway, he would announce his presence by running his hands through our hair and fishing out split ends or stray frizz. We tried to avoid him because he made us feel self-conscious and violated, and this happened from the time we were twelve years old until we were sixteen, when he graduated high school. He embodied the worst of the objectifying behaviors of both sexes: He would look us up and down, scrutinizing and sexualizing our bodies, like boys would do; and he would nitpick our outfits or our physical imperfections, like girls would do. The difference between him and everyone else is that he could voice every single thought that came from this, and we felt pressured to celebrate him for it: We were gay, he was gay, and that was supposed to be the culture of our community.

Gay men are not free of misogynistic actions and attitudes simply because they aren't attracted to women. The "gay best friend" character that flamboyant, feminine gay men are offered upholds sexism to a great degree. He is a man who is designated as an expert on performing femininity, who is degrading and callous in his approach, and revered for all of it. He is a marriage of traditional sexism and "queer" theory: By the femininity that is tied to his sexuality, he is rewarded for treading on women as men are destined to do.

[attiredpan]

Nobody asked for this but here’s some rouGh ANOES OC headcanons

•outwardly functioning pansexual disaster. Terrible with receiving compliments because it causes her to stop breathing and she never fully believes them.

•”Chaotic Gay dumbass parents and equally chaotic child” type of relationship with OG and RE. No one knows what caused them to look at her and go “this is our child now, if you so much aS BREATHE AT HER THE WRONG WAY-“. OG gives her tips on how to mess with people and RE gives her gardening advice and helps where he can with homework,like actually helps.

•mix of historical and stereotypical Irish luck. She lives but not without some new bs to deal with.

•ends up finding Badham and decides on fixing the garden since her mother had been constantly talking about her doing something in relation to gardening for god knows how long. And she actually ends up really enjoying it, in a “let me get to this on my own” sort of way.

•Loves camping.Hates the bugs.

•The Therapist/Mom Friend™️

•Raised in a semi-strict Catholic household. Her mother would often drag her to church events when she was younger(4-10 years old). She only went for the food.

•always has some sort of snack on her. Ranges from lemon bars to trail mix granola.

•Either talks like a Renaissance poet or a New York sailor,there’s no in between. Throws in a couple of New England phrases for shits and giggles.

•got ADHD from her father and inherited a medically undiagnosed panic disorder from her mother. But we can’t forget the Disaster-Gremlin Disorder.

•has fallen asleep in the garden at Badham in the evening a couple of times. RE had a heart attack and OG ended up having to deal with most of it. Though she didn’t go without getting a stern talking to about getting enough sleep from RE.

•Combined Mommy and Daddy issues,she never fully felt like she could talk to them and it led to her bottling things up and it festered until it slipped out; though she cleaned it up as fast as she could to keep them from worrying.Trusts her father much more than her mother.

•She had to grow up way too quick due to never really being able to stay in on place for long,because her older brother was in the military and kept on getting re-stationed at different forts across the country.That is until he disappeared when she was 12 and her family later moved to Springwood.

•RE affectionately ruffled her hair once and she went blank,gave him a heart attack in the process cause he immediately assumed the worst. After explaining, they went and watched The Blues Brothers cause RE was somewhere in his thirties’s when it came out and Axel was raised by a dad who grew up and was raised on the 80’s and it’s both of their comfort movie. They both have the full dance choreography memorized.

•both OG and RE call her “Kid” as a nickname.

•did gymnastics as a child up until fourth grade and picked it back up after sixth grade.

•And to top it all off, she does end up finding a girlfriend in a girl named Allison a few months after moving to Springwood and getting fully settled with a friend group. They have a Red/Blue:Sun/Moon dynamic with a couple parallels to OG/RE for some added ✨spoice✨

[khaleesiofalicante]

Ok imma be honest, this chapter moved me to tears and not the sad sobbing but the more inspiring kind. This chapter means the world.

She had told them her dreams were about ducks – since there were the only equally horrible thing she could think of.

Uncle Magnus had given her an odd look then, as if he knew she was bullshitting them. But he hadn’t said anything.

DUCKS AREN'T THAT BAD! HAVE Y'ALL EVER BEEN CHASED BY A GOAT?? I WAS CONVINCED I WAS GONNA DIE

Lexi would be royally pissed if this turned out to be some stupid pointless dream.

YUP

Even though she was only 7 minutes older than Lexi, Selena always acted like she was 7 years older.

That's so cute though

People looked at her pastel-coloured aesthetic immediately assumed she was the soft and sweet Fairchild twin. People saw Selena in her red leather jacket and thigh high boots and assumed she was in the infamous troublesome Herondale twin.

SMH THE DAMN STEREOTYPES

Why Selena hadn’t killed her in her sleep yet, Lexi doesn’t know.

BYE THAT'S EVERY SIBLING RELATIONSHIP EVER

The meals at the Academy were to die for – quite literally. Last week two students from the warlock fraction had almost killed each other over a blueberry muffin.

Oh how times change...they will never know the dreaded soup

NO ANJALI HAS BEEN GONE FOR OVER A YEAR???

IS JAIME OK?? PLEASE BE OK! HE CAN LIVE WITH TREATMENT SO I REALLY HOPE HE'S OK

Selena’s was Idris of course. She was kind of obsessed with it.

Max loved the shadow markets. Lexi thought they were very cool too.

Rafael loved his father’s office – which was weird. There was nothing to do in that room other than ponder about shadow world problems. Besides, the place still weirdly smelled like the tangerine perfume Anjali wore, even though the girl had left New York almost a year ago.

David loved the New York Institute – especially the library.

Gigi of course loved the dining halls.

Dining halls, kitchens, food trucks, vending machines - if a place had food with it, Gigi loved it.

It's so amazing how they all have their favorite places...(same David same)

“You’re supposed to pour the syrup on the pancakes not into your mouth,” Lexi chuckled as she sat down next to her.

“It ends up in my mouth anyway,��� Gigi shrugged.

True enough.

AWW ROMAN MAKING GIGI PLAYLISTS!!

Someone make me a playlist.

“His parents fell in love in Rome when they were in Rome,” Gigi pointed out even though Lexi already knew. “I think it’s actually romantic.”

I had forgotten that-

Roman was nice. But not nice enough for Georgia. Lexi didn’t think there was anyone good enough for her parabatai – who was the most perfect person in the world.

Me @ anyone who tries to make a move at my best friend.

AWW GEORGIA LIKES HIM TOO!!

When's the wedding?

(you're telling me you didn't believe you were gonna marry your childhood crush? Liar)

“I like being his friend,” Georgia said. “I like spending time with him and all of that. But I don’t know if I like him…in that way. I feel like I need more time.”

Demiromantic??? YES GIVE US THE REP

Lexi sometimes thought life would be so much simpler if the world was full of women and everyone was a lesbian.

Ikr?? Life would be so much easier.

Lexi says Roman is too-nice-sus

Well well well

The kind of love that cheated death.

The kind of love that sustained memory spells put by princes of hell.

The kind of love that changed the world.

Trust me all of our standards are very high

Lexi successfully survived the class without falling asleep.

Me during English.

Ok who's the blond?

Lexi I thought we weren't gonna fall this soon-

Oh the girl's straight...sigh we've all been there.

which meant they had to hold hands. Kinda.

Lexi was a little scared of that.

Me.

Goddamnit, Alexandra. Get your gay together!

THAT'S SO RELATABLE LIKE?? YES

OH MY GOD IT'S EMMA AND JULIAN'S DAUGHTER GEIDIDHDOHDJSKSJSKGXJDHSODHKDGDDGDJHDJDGDJDGJDHD

Lexi knew Olivia liked boys. She hadn’t dated anyone officially of course. All the boys were kind of terrified of her father.

She could be bi or pan or omni. WE GOTTA HAVE HOPE

vegetable loaf... David I'm so sorry you had to go through this.

Lexi then decided not to do any of her homework over the weekend because she was not coming back to the academy. She was not going to survive the sleepover and whatever else Olivia had in mind.

Bestie...why is this me when I make eye contact with my crush.

“Good stuff?” Max snorted. “Rafe literally ran away from home cause shit got too intense.”

“I didn’t run away!” Rafael rolled his eyes. “Stop telling people that!”

“But you have rumours and shadowhunters getting thrown into silent city and cohort drama and all that exciting stuff!” Liv pointed out.

I-

Liv-

True though.

“Wasn’t there a serial killer when your parents were young?” David asked.

“And didn’t your uncle do necromancy?” Max said biting into a chicken wing.

True and true

“Sorry, Chouchou!” Lexi winced. “I, uh, sensed a mosquitoe on your leg.”

“Girl, your angel powers are weird as fuck,” Max laughed.

MAX LANGUAGE

“I don’t know,” the girl shrugged and threw her a wink. “I wouldn’t put anything past Lexi.”

Lexi looked at Gigi. She was one more compliment away from screaming.

But Gigi of course knew her struggle and therefore quickly stuffed a bread roll into Lexi’s mouth.

I need someone to stuff bread into my mouth when things get like this

There were rumours about David – and how Daddy had an affair. Lexi was yet to find those asshats and shove a witch light down their throats.

When you find them lemme know too.

“Or maybe it’s because you don’t need rumours be interesting,” David pointed out.

Max turned around, looking surprised at that. His cheeks turned purple. Lexi didn’t know why he was surprised. David only ever spoke fondly of Max.

JUST GET TOGETHER ALREADY OH MY GOD

“Oh. Oh! I did hear something a long time ago!” Gigi said suddenly. “Olly, is it true you were conceived at the beach?”

“Georgia, you can’t just ask people where they were conceived!” David sounded horrified.

That is very much possible.

“I heard you were conceived in hell?”

“Oh my god,” Selena looked horrified. “That’s not true! It must have been about Max!”

“Y’all I am adopted!” Max was shaking with laughter and then stopped. “Although our dads could have definitely had sex in hell. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

Oh yes. Both clace and malec.

Then they had of course continued to discuss that cursed topic until Rafael had threatened to tell the Consul about it.

LMAO

Lexi turned around and saw Liv waiting for her. Nope. She wasn’t going to talk a walk – a fucking stroll! – with Olivia all on her own.

“You are coming back to the institute with me or I will un-parabatai you.”

You know there being an un-parabatai ceremony would solve a lot of shit

What if their hands accidentally grazed or something? That shit was lethal.

RIGHT????

She is just trying to be nice. That’s what friends do. They are nice. And they give each other pretty dresses and say they would like to see them in it.

Honey that's gay.

EVERYONE ASKING HER OUT IM DEAD

Selena: Ugh boys

Selena: When I win back Idris, we are leaving all the men behind.

Lexi: Except Magnus? Lol.

Selena: Obviously.

Is that even a question Lexi? Duh.

ALEC LIGHTWOOD THOUGHT SHE WAS STRAIGHT? THE SHAME!

OH MY GOD IM CACKLING

Not everyone can kiss their partner in the Accords Hall. Some people didn’t have access to the Accords Hall.

And most important, some people didn’t have partners!

We're getting a lexi and Alec talk someone hold me

“I’m going to tell you something,” Uncle Alec said. “It might sound simple. It might sound ridiculous. But it’s the truth. So, you must believe me. Can you do that?”

Lexi gave him a small nod.

“It doesn’t matter what other people think,” Uncle Alec said. “Not when it comes to your future. Not when it comes to your identity. They don’t get to have a say in who you are and why you are the way you are.”

Lexi bit her lip.

“Alexandra, people will always tell what to do. But you shouldn’t let them. Never let anyone tell you what to do with your heart or your body. Neither belongs them. It only belongs to you.”

THIS RIGHT HERE MADE ME START CRYING BECAUSE DAMN YES!

“Yep,” she groaned and then hesitated for a moment. “Uncle Alec…Can I ask you something stupid?”

“Can I say no?”

“No.”

“Then go ahead.”

I love her so much

“I feel…I feel it’s something we have to bear, Alexandra. The fear of rejection. It’s something we have to accept as an inevitable part of our lives. Because no matter how much love we have around us, we will always be afraid of people not loving us – simply because of who we are.”

Yeah...

“Besides, they named you after me,” he pointed out. “I don’t know what else they expected.”

EXACTLY! Did they really expect a straight child after naming them after Alec?

“I do like shouting,” Lexi wondered out loud. “That’s good advice.”

“I didn’t mean it literally!” Uncle Alec looked alarmed.

“No, it makes total sense!” Lexi grinned. “Some of these people can be tone deaf. Gotta shout it out. Loud and clear. Awesome advice! Thanks, Uncle Alec!”

DO IT

“Hey, Lexi. I was wonderin-”

“MOVE, I’M GAY!” she yelled as she shoved him aside and kept on running.

ABSOLUTELY ICONIC

“I prefer she/her,” Lexi answered. "But sometimes I prefer she/they. But you can use she/her because some of y'all already shit at grammar."

That's exactly what I tell people when they ask for my pronouns. Istg people are shit at grammar.

alright girl im here to give you a lecture on how someone's dressing doesn't describe their sexuality

OH MY MY GOD THERE WAS A GENDER AND SEXUALITY CLASS IN THE ACADEMY ARE THEY RECRUITING???

One of the boys who had complimented cleared his throat. “So, uh, you don’t like boys?”

“That’s literally what I said,” Lexi rolled her eyes. “I’m gay. I’m very gay. I’m gayer than the Consul. Okay fine, that’s not true. No one gayer than the Consul. But I’m still pretty gay.”

Does the boy have hearing problems?

ALSO YES NO ONE'S GAYER THAN THE CONSUL

“Sexual orientation and gender expression are two different things,” she explained now, remember what Uncle Magnus had taught them. “Sexual orientation refers to who I am sexually and romantically attracted to. Gender expression is how I want to express my gender identity. Those two are not connected. Just because a woman wears feminine clothes it doesn’t mean she is straight. Just because a man embraces femininity, it doesn’t make him gay either. Does that make sense?”

“Ohhh,” the girl nodded. “Yes, it does. Thank you!”

“What I wear does not reflect who I like. It reflects who I am and what I like to wear,” Lexi explained. “And regardless of my sexuality, I like pretty things.”

Exactly.

“This doesn’t change anything. I hope you know that,” he told her. “I mean I have to change the pronouns in my shovel talk. But that’s not a big deal.”

Awwww

Also – my good friend Raziel told me that homophobia is a sin.”

“You mean homosexuality is a sin?” an older man asked.

“No, homophobia is a sin,” Lexi repeated. “That’s what Raziel said.”

“But that’s not-”

Someone cleared their throat. When he spoke, it was in the Consul Voice.

“Are you saying know better than Raziel?” the Consul asked.

Listen to Raziel you dumb shit

“Sure. Let me just call the Lesbian Alliance,” Lexi rolled her eyes.

Ugh I wish

OH NO NO NO NOT THE FAKE DATING. JUST CONFESS AND DATE FOR REAL

“Alexandra, I have a fucking undercut and I have pink highlights and I cuff my jeans and I literally walk around with a sword and I can quote Lady Gaga to perfection! Why would you ever think I was straight??”

Lexi your gaydar is broken bestie.

Don't do this omg this is gonna be a mess

Gigi: THIS IS A BAD IDEA. ABORT! ABORT!

Lexi: Relaaaax. It’s going to be fine!

Gigi: I’ve read enough fanfiction to know the fake dating trope never ends well!

Lexi: I’ve told you to include the ‘angst with happy ending’ tag!

LMAO

Also Gigi which fanfiction do you read?

Jace omg...

That's so him though.

“How about my peeps? It sounds very hip.”

“It does not,” Lexi replied. “Please don’t refer to us as your peeps under any circumstance."

IM SCREAMING ASHSKHSIDBSHSHDH

Her father chuckled at that. “Sweetheart, you’re a Herondale. Being problematic is what we do.”

EXACTLY

Daddy opened the notebook again. “I need names.”

Grabs flamethrower names

“Besides, the Lightwoods and Blackthorns have been hogging the gay genes for too long. Now it’s our turn. I say you gay it up.”

“Gay it up?” Lexi laughed.

“Yeah,” he grinned. “Go for the highest possible level of gay.”

DO IT

He blinked for a second and then it hit him. “OH MY GOD YES! DOES EMMA KNOW??”

Lexi laughed. Yeah, he can never find out it was a fake dating situation.

Hopefully he won't have to because it won't be fake :D

“To love is a privilege and to be loved is a blessing.”

THE GROWTH OH MY GOD

This chapter literally means so much to me. I don't even know what to say. I hope I too can one day have the courage to shout it in front of everyone and not be scared. See ya on Tuesday!

It means so much to me that this chapter meant a lot to you. I hope you find all the courage, strength and support you need. You are amazing.

And here. I made you a playlist.

You can find it here on YouTube. I hope you like it :)

[femperials]

i hardly recognized you

dynasty was almost a sexy financial drama which i genuinely forget all the time until i rewatch it from the beginning of the series. i remember hearing about it pre-production because of being a liz gillies stan and i vaguely understood what the original dynasty soap opera was (but hadn’t watched it at that point) so when the first trailer was released / when i finally watched the first episode i was embarrassingly excited about it. not to be a ‘no show is improved by sex’ headass but i am still going to take a moment of silence for the business drama aspect that once was. i find myself rolling my eyes every time someone complains about how dynasty ‘used to be better’ because i still love it very much but rewatching it from the beginning is always wild because of just how different it is now. it’s touched on so many different genres and styles and moods over the last four-ish years that if you were to put, say, 1.01 and 4.22 beside one another you could probably convince me that i was watching two different shows (which makes the pilot title so much funnier).

one of my favorite things about rewatching season 1 is remembering how there was a time where the fandom was divided between shipping fallon with jeff or fallon with culhane - while i avoided shipping wars, i loved jeff. i haven’t gotten over incestgate. there were also a handful or so outliers that were like ‘i don’t know, maybe we should see what this liam guy is all about’ - by his second or third episode, that number had obviously multiplied itself over tenfold and he had already become the (majority) fan favorite. i was hardly interested in or impressed by liam and i will admit that i did not expect him to be sticking around. 

while the spy work with disguises and wigs that make appearances later in the show are fun, i love looking back on a time when fallon was actively able to hide in plain sight - and did, on purpose. the political message wasn’t nearly as subtle or clever or groundbreaking as people sometimes liked to pretend it was, but the reminder that women are underestimated and therefore effective for corporate espionage was perfect the way that it was. i sort of wish that we’d gotten a few more seasons worth of examples of that. fallon being able to stand in a room full of her business rivals and have all of them assume she can’t keep up is a superpower of hers that i wish they’d kept in the stable plot-wise. 

i miss steven so much on a daily basis if for no reason other than he and fallon are my favorite stereotypical gay son hoe daughter trope. their combined brand of bitchiness has always been so beyond, writing-wise, and there has never been a suitable replacement for steven’s half of that dynamic since. i also really love, as a sidenote, how much dynasty wanted to hammer home that since this show was more politically aware, steven would not be the victim of homophobia in his household - which ends up translating to him having a strained relationship with his father because he’s the mouthy liberal that starts an argument with grandpa at thanksgiving.

two of my favorite lines to look back on are in this episode, too:

“you’re not going to scare this one off, fallon” is such a great line from blake because it implies that there were women between alexis and cristal that we never got to see. obviously no other fiancees or wives but i would love to hear snippets about fallon terrorizing blake’s other girlfriends. 

“he pays me 200k a year, and i’m banging his daughter” is the FUNNIEST culhane line of all time, not to mention how fallon reacts to it. i still can’t believe this was the controversial sexism that i was hearing about when the episode finally aired. that line alone almost sold me on the ship over jeff.

i’ve mentioned before also that i think having one ‘good’ character in a show full of grey or bad characters does more harm than good. season one of dynasty did seem to understand that, so that is one thing i do really miss about it. characters that leaned-good without being perfect suited the world much better and also made their corruption less ‘character arc killing’ and more ‘understandable and dynamic’. cristal, steven, and even culhane were all really great examples of this. 

additionally i’m just now realizing that the matthew - cristal - claudia storyline stretched across the entire season without becoming too dull. i miss that style of plot, it would be cool to see something similar come from season five (for specifics, i mean a long running thread throughout the entire season with actual developmental focus). there was real dread and drama that had been slowly built up here; i definitely miss this show playing the long game. they have the audience, they have our focus. they don’t need to speed through 10 b-plots per season to keep us tuning in each week with something ‘fresh’. they also built up the relationship between fallon and cristal beautifully. i’ll cling to her offhandedly mentioning in season 2 that she also felt she had ‘lost cristal’ until i’m dead and buried. fallon’s mommy issues have so massively skewed her relationships with women - specifically in positions of authority - that watching that development slowburn was an absolute gift.

one of the big reasons i loved jeff and fallon so much, aside from how much i shipped them together, was that it gave us insight into fallon in high school. i loved all the little snippets of information about how she stuck up for and hung out with jeff and monica despite them being ‘low income’ was really interesting because it’s not that it shows that fallon wasn’t stuck up but it shows how smart she was. she was fine with being edgy and making bold choices (her chloë sevigny phase also comes to mind) because jeff was a genius, monica was her friend, and she didn’t care about anything else. she wanted to be an engineer, she dressed as rbg for halloween, rode horses, and hung out with the kids way below her tax bracket because she liked them. between that, then later going on to get a dui (1.02), apparently being an herb enjoyer (1.12), and also being a billionaire the entire time - that was an exceptionally dynamic character. also to tie back in to what i’d said earlier about enjoying the slow burn plots, jeff and fallon were so deeply slow burn that it set my teeth on edge in the best way. they’d interrupt their flirting to discuss business which i couldn’t even be mad about because i was also so interested in that side of the show that i couldn’t decide what i wanted more of any time they were on screen together. this first episode literally made me crazy.

this is literally the most explosive pilot of any show i’ve watched in the same genre / for this demographic. i’m obviously biased but i was really blown away the first time that i watched it, and while i don’t tend to rewatch as often as i used to, showing this show to people for the first time is one of my favorite things, and a large part of that is due to how quickly the pilot (and 1.02 as well) can suck someone in. i rarely have to even ask ‘do you want to watch the next episode?’ after showing someone the pilot before they’re rushing to hit the ‘next’ button. when i talk about the show changing so much over the years that is obviously in large part due to basic character development and plots moving along as they should, so it’s not necessarily out of a place of negativity. i do think it would be a little difficult to sell this show to people the same way if i were to show them an episode from a later season, even with a full understanding of the characters and plots ahead of time just because of how weirdly perfect 1.01 is overall. 

also before i abruptly end this post i want to say that my favorite tidbit from this episode is the bouquet toss at the end of blake and cristal’s wedding. it passes hands from cristal to fallon, who disgustedly throws it again, caught by steven; the exact order that these three characters get married in during this season. (here’s a really low quality gif from an illegal recording of said shot)

and also also, here’s a recap of 1.01 from ijusthateeverything who thought it was total dogshit. i really like their recaps even when we disagree so i want to pass it along.