#i wish they had given the doctor better period costumes

[strawberryysage]

The dance they should've had

[shorkbrian]

I’ve noticed a shortage of yan! Shoto :0 Whilst Kiri is my absolute fave, Todoroki needs some love too! Could I request some Yan! Shoto being absolutely touch starved and obsessed with a sweet, loving, motherly and smol reader? (it can be nsfw if you so wish!) Thank you!! (Btw, I love reading your stories, it’s a blessing in my day, even just looking at your shitposts/memes. And if you ever want to talk, jus say so. I hope you have a good day!! 🥺💞) - Sugar Anon 🧚‍♀️

Sugar anon! That is such a cute identifier and I hope to see you in my asks again!! Hopefully this is along the lines of what you were thinking!!!

It’s a very good concept btw cause like mhm him getting completely overwhelmed and overstimulated during diddly times cause he’s never had anyone be intimate with him.

Like moaning and his cheeks are flushed and oh

(Y/N) is a new doctor  at Shouto’s agency in charge of patching him up between missions and basically being his doctor. Shouto likes her gentle hands and soft touches, lets himself get a bit more scraped up then he would normally.  He’s just so touch starved and she’s so motherly and its such an intimate setting and he’s never had feelings like this before and he doesn’t know what to do.

Has yandere tendencies but tries to squash them down or hide them, tries to be normal.

One day gets hit with an aphrodisiac quirk, stumbles into her office and she’s immediately worried, once she figures out what’s up she tries to get out, lock him in there until someone stronger than he can come escort him home but he grabs her before she can get to the door. 

He’s crying cause he’s so horny it hurts (he’s never been this aroused in his LIFE) and he wanted everything to be perfect and he wanted to woo her but now he’s forcing himself on her and he can’t stop his hips from moving and he’s confessing all the bad things he’s done while he’s known her and she’s absolutely horrified, traumatized.

Warnings - NSFW, noncon, very hard noncon. Aphrodisiacs (spelling?) and a low-key weird comment about Shouto’s mommy-issues at the end. Dude is so twisted and sad and touch starved.

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“Todoroki-san, I have had to patch you up six different times in two days.”

Shouto cocked his head, staring at you with his bi-colored eyes, studying your face as you tended to the wound on his shoulder. The lilt to your voice suggested you were teasing, making small talk to distract the man as you swiped a disinfectant pad over the cut. You knew what you would be expected to do when you applied for this job, knew that heros were often injured. 

He had overseen the hiring process himself, his last doctor had left the agency for a job in a different country. Shouto held no hard feelings for the doctor, knew that as a hero he often got himself into trouble, needed a lot of attention and care. Not everyone could be expected to spend so much time with him, attending to his health - even if he was paying them a more-than adequate salary.

Most of the candidates had bored him when they came in for their scheduled interviews. Too many of them were looking at this position as a way to launch them into a nice comfortable position in a prestigious hospital. They seemed… uninterested, or too interested, some of the candidates invading his space when they came for a handshake, babbling about how much of a fan they were.

  You weren’t like that. There was a professional distance when you shook his hand, smiling at him pleasantly as you introduced himself. Then you sat down, waited for him and his team to begin asking you questions. Shouto couldn’t keep his eyes from straying to your hands, letting himself wonder whether those hands would be the right ones for the job. You looked so delicate, at least to him, a pro-hero.

But he already liked you better than any of the other candidates.

So you were hired, on the condition that you would be on a trial period for the first two months, with halved pay. It was still far above minimum wage, but Shouto was weary of hiring seemingly-normal employees only for them to turn out to just be trying to get to know him, whatever their reasons. The trial period was for his own sanity.

Currently he was sitting in your office, perched on the edge of the exam table tucked into the corner. Today he had managed to escape his most recent fight with only a few mild scrapes and bruises, but as his doctor, you needed to make sure he was okay, clean his wounds and patch him up before letting him go home for the day. It wouldn’t do anybody any good if one of the top pro heros collapsed on the job because of a lack of medical care. 

Your office was stocked with everything a doctor of your caliber could possibly need. Your “office” was really a mock hospital room, in a medium sized room located at the back of the agency. Having you on site meant that Shouto never had to bother with trips to the hospital, being swarmed by fans when he wasn’t feeling good or having someone who didn’t understand the capabilities of his quirk try to treat him.

It also meant he could relax, know that he was being taken care of. With you being so new, Shouto still had his guard up, ready for any-and-everything. So far you had been nothing but gentle.

You had hardly talked to him, other than the expected “This might sting” or “Deep breath in”. You warned him before you touched him,  but otherwise were very quiet, working diligently and professionally.  Shouto enjoyed it honestly, being able to step away from the buzz and hubbub of his agency and into his doctor’s office, where it was quiet and calm and peaceful.

Being with his mother had felt like this. Felt safe and refreshing and like a secret haven tucked away from the rest of the world.  

Clicking you tongue, you gave the pro hero a thumbs up as you stepped back. “Alright, you’re good to go! Please be safe on your way home Todoroki-san.” Shouto nodded, a stiff smile passing his lips as he rose to his feet. You were a good doctor, always took the best care of him.

“You as well Y/N.”

——

The next visit to your office revealed that you had added a few personal touches. 

A cheesy poster on the wall, directly across from the exam table, a single plant on your desk, A bowl of mini lollipops on the shelf by the door.

Cute.

Today was a short visit, just a quick once-over to make sure there weren’t any cuts or wounds that he hadn’t felt, the normal questions any quirks used against him during the day.  Shouto found himself wishing the visit had been longer as you gave him the all-clear,  moving away from the exam table so he could stand up. Before he walked out the door, you stopped him, silently handed him a lollipop. He took it,  noticing how soft your hand felt against his as he withdrew.

Shouto didn’t like sweets, but he didn’t mind accepting a lollipop from you. He could just offer it to his secretary when he passed her desk, no biggie. It was easier to do that than hurt your feelings by refusing.

Well, he knew it probably wouldn’t hurt your feelings.  He just liked seeing the little twinkle in your eye when he accepted it. He assumed the lollipops were a gag, something usually given to small children for being brave at their checkups.

He wasn’t your only patient, much as he would’ve liked. His agency had several other up-and-coming heroes, and several sidekicks, and you tended to all of them. Shouto liked to think that you saved the majority of your tenderness for him.

One time he had come in while you were setting one of the sidekick’s shoulders. You had asked him to sit down in your office chair, to give you a minute so you could finish up with his coworker. Shouto had done exactly that, watching as your soft hands gripped the sidekick hard, fingers digging in. 

“One, two, three.” You gave a countdown, forcefully jerking the shoulder back in place on “three”. The sidekick groaned at the pain, head shaking as if to clear his head from the intense sensation. You went over to your lollipop bowl, ignoring Shouto as he sat in your chair, returning to the sidekick to give him the sugary treat.

The sidekick sucked on the lollipop while you bandaged his arm into a sling, immobilizing it so it could heal. When you were done, you sent him on his way with a soft smile, before turning to Shouto.

“Todoroki-san, thank you for waiting.  How are you feeling today?”

Todoroki moved to the exam table when you motioned for him, immediately stripping off one of the boots of his hero costume.

“Hello (Y/N), it’s good to see you. I’m feeling good, got nicked by a spike during a fight today. Luckily it hit my ankle, and it’s not very painful.”

“Mm, let’s have a look.”

You kneeled down,  giving him a small warning before pulling his foot towards you, examining the tiny cut gracing his ankle. Shouto paused, closing his eyes as he relaxed at your touch. He didn’t remember the last time he felt this at-ease with another human. He didn’t know what it was about you; maybe your gentle, soft demeanor? Perhaps it was your kind touch, how you never pressed too hard and always respecting his personal space.  

Even as your fingers prodded at the cut, feeling the bone underneath, Shouto felt relaxed, content. He liked being around you, being with you. Even if the two of you hardly conversed. Maybe he could change that?

“(Y/N), how have you been finding working here?”

You looked up at him, bright eyes warm and kind. Shouto felt his chest tighten. “Oh, it’s very nice Todoroki-san! I hope I’m doing a good job attending to everyone.” With a smile, you returned to his ankle, producing an alcohol wipe from seemingly nowhere.

Shouto nodded, hands gripping the edge of the exam table. “I certainly appreciate your service. You have very tender hands.”  Just like his mom.  When he was younger, before his scare… Shouto remembered the care his mother would give to a scraped knee or a bump on his head. The soft touch, the kindness, the gentle hands - Shouto didn’t want to insult you by comparing you to his mother, so he stayed silent.

With a start, the man realized you were beaming up at him, wrapping a bandage around his ankle. He smiled back, felt his cheeks flush a little. What was this?

“Thank you! I know how important my patient is to the world.”

Ah, yes, his job. 

His job that he should probably getting back to.

Reluctantly, Shouto accepted the usual lollipop from your hands, wishing you would linger so he could feel the brush of your skin against his own.

Was he developing feelings for you?

——

It was a startling idea. Shouto never thought himself the type to have /feelings/ for someone else. When he thought of his future, it never involved another person. He didn’t want a family, didn’t want the opportunity to make the same mistakes as his father.

But as he gave the idea more thought, Shouto realized that he was feeling… something towards you. It was different to what he felt for Izuku, for Bakugou and Kirishima. He didn’t crave their touch like he did yours. Had physical contact always had such an appeal?

His last doctor had touched him, it was necessary of course to patch up his various wounds from fights. But somehow it wasn’t the same as when you touched him. 

Shouto spent each exam studying you, your features, the way you moved, how you almost skipped over to the lollipop bowl to retrieve him one at the end of the exam.  He felt drawn to you, wanted to touch your hair, hold onto your hand when you handed him the lollipop. Would you touch him if he asked? A hug maybe?

In his penthouse, Shouto mulled over his feelings, his wants and needs and how you fit in. Would it be prudent for him to start a relationship at this point in his life? Would you even consider him as a partner? No, probably not. You were much too professional, wouldn’t even think of starting a relationship with your boss. 

Maybe he could fire you.

No, no, Shouto couldn’t do that, it would make you hate him. Plus, he wouldn’t be able to see you as often. And Shouto was quickly becoming of the opinion that he wouldn’t mind seeing you more often than he did now.

He wanted more from you. He didn’t know what he wanted, but… maybe he could learn. 

——

If you noticed how frequently Shouto seemed to be visiting you, compared to his usual once-daily check up, you didn’t say anything.

Tabloids were beginning to comment on how eager the pro hero seemed to engage in hand-to-hand with villains. His usual strategy involved using his quirk, only getting his hands dirty if absolutely necessary. But now? He was constantly looking to get hit, kicked, clawed, wounded.

He had to come see you after every over-dramatic scrap with a villain.  You didn’t seem to notice, nor mind seeing his face pop around the door 3-4 times a day, sheepishly asking if you could patch up a new cut, check out a new bruise, make sure his nose wasn’t broken.

Shouto could feel himself falling, further and further into the rigid embrace of love, or at least, his version of it. Did other people experience attraction this vividly? 

He had come to terms with the fact that he was attracted to you, not just your body but your mind, your personality, your very existence.  He wanted to stay in your office, lingering after every visit and awkwardly attempting small talk just so you would interact with him, just so he could be with you a little longer. 

In the privacy of his own apartment, Shouto found himself researching on his laptop. “How to get the girl” “Ways to let her know you like her” “What does love feel like”. He felt so juvenile,  but the man was genuinely at a loss for how to deal with his feelings for you. Telling you outright wouldn’t be appropriate. You would never enter a relationship with your boss, Shouto knew this, you were too good of an employee. Flirting was not his forte, and was completely out of the question. 

So he stuck to what he knew how to do - keep his mouth shut and watch. You never turned him away from your office, never showed irritation when he showed up, never gave any sign that you were becoming tired of his presence. Shouto took this as an invitation, a sign that maybe, just maybe, you had feelings for him too. He found himself bringing his lunch down to your office, asking if he could eat there, just to get away from everyone for a little bit. You always let him, nonchalantly scrolling through your phone as you ate during your lunch break. 

Shouto was a bit embarrassed of himself when he pulled your file from the employee records. If anyone asked why, he would just tell them that he was considering giving you a raise, but wasn’t sure. That’s a valid reason to bring out an employee’s file, right? He just wanted to know where you live, if it was far from the agency. The man couldn’t stomach the thought of you, gentle, little (Y/N)  having to walk home alone at night, or take the train with all the creeps that could be there. 

When he came upon your address, Shouto made a note to ask if you’d like him to drive you home. It was at least a thirty minute drive, he didn’t want to think about how you usually got home. What if something happened to his doctor? When he broached the subject, Shouto thought he did pretty well at acting nonchalant.

“The weather’s getting colder, isn’t it?”

You nodded, wrapping gauze around a nasty gash on his calf.

“I feel bad for anyone who has to walk during the evenings.” He stated.

“Aw, it’s not that bad in my opinion.” You took the bait “I walk home from the train station every night and the weather isn’t awful. It’ll probably get nasty as winter comes though.”

“You have to take the metro to get home? Where do you live.” As if he didn’t know. But you’d recoil if he offered just yet, probably be weirded out that he knew your address.

“Yeah, I live over in the Shikuyu district. It’s a really pretty walk in the fall though, all those trees turning different colors.”

Shouto wrung his hands, taking a deep breath. “Let me drive you home tonight, there’s been some criminal activity going down over there and it’s not one of my sectors. I need my doctor safe.”

You tried to protest, and Shouto let you, but ultimately pulled the boss card, insisting that he needed to take care of his employees, especially one that he bothered so much.

“You never bother me Todoroki-san.” You laughed, dropping a lollipop into Shouto’s lap.

Shouto kept his face from souring, missing the usual contact of your gentle, silky-soft hands as you handed the treat to him. But it was fine, he would get more time with you. In his car, just the two of you, outside of work.

Then he registered what you said, and his head snapped up, eyes wide and roving over you as you turned away, cleaning up the exam table and messy supplies. 

It was all the confirmation he needed.

——

After the first time Shouto drove you home, you refused to let him go out of his way to help you out. Still, he was your boss and he could insist that you at least call an uber, or a cab. He didn’t feel comfortable sending his little doctor off onto the train every night after work. Shouto even upped your pay so you could afford it easier, saying there was no reason to be unsafe.

It was hard for him to know if he was being too suffocating.  He didn’t want for you to regret your statement about him never bothering you.

So he had his agency install new security cameras. 

One was placed in your office, where there hadn’t been one before. You weren’t too pressed when Shouto asked you what you thought of the upgrades, said you could see the sense in making sure the building was safe, especially the doctor’s office, where the heroes would be at their most vulnerable. 

Shouto agreed - he was always at his most vulnerable when he was around you.

But now he could stop letting his body take a beating in order to see you. He could sit in his office, busy himself with paperwork and have the security feed from your office pulled up on his laptop. Half the time Shouto got distracted, abandoning the paperwork in order to watch you work, treating sidekicks and heroes-in-training and anyone else the agency had hired. 

He tried to ignore the bitter pang of jealousy that reared it’s head.

Shouto knew jealousy, knew anger and negative emotions very well. His childhood had been littered with nothing but bad memories and negative moments. The only time he felt at peace was when he was curled in his mom’s lap, the woman running slender fingers through his bi-colored hair. Sometimes, when he was still very small, she would have the time to read him a story before bedtime. 

She was such an amazing woman. 

Shouto saw her in you.

The way you tended to him so gently, delicately treating his wounds. How you carded through his hair, just like his mom used to, when you were checking for head wounds. The way your lovely hands pressed against his back when you felt to see if a rib was cracked, rubbing each rib slow and soft, pressing. It was just like how his mom would rub his back.

The man swore your touch was addictive. He wanted more and more and more and he didn’t have a clue as how to get it.  Shouto had to be satisfied with fleeting brushes when he moved before you were ready, accidentally jostling you against his body. Or telling you (lying) that his body was hurting, sore, it didn’t quite feel right. You would do your best to check for any injuries, asking where it hurt (usually his torso “hurt”) and then skimming your hands very carefully over the skin there.

Shouto imagined how nice it would be to fall asleep with your hands on him. He wasn’t stupid.  He was getting too attached, too invested, was practically stalking your at this point. He shouldn’t be doing this, lying to you, watching you. But he didn’t know what else to do.

Guilt was beginning to take root in his mind.

One day he knew he would have to tell you, confess his feelings and deal with the outcome. You would accept him, hopefully. Shouto felt afraid for what he would do if you didn’t.

——

Shouto felt hot, disoriented, thirsty. He was pretty sure he was in your office, had gotten hit with a villains quirk during a fight. Apparently it had knocked him out, as he didn’t remember even coming into the agency.

Muffled voices could be heard past the closed door, and Shouto winced at the noise, at the light, at the feelings of his clothes against his skin. Everything felt  too much.  He stumbled off the exam table, yup, your office, and moved towards the light switch, stripping off his shirt as he did so. 

The voices outside were still making noise, but with the light off Shouto felt a little better. His remaining clothes were still bothering him. His head felt fuzzy. His boots came off, followed by his pants. He wanted to take off his boxers, but his rational mind supplied how bad of an idea that would be. What if you came in?

At the thought of his little doctor, Shouto’s stomach jolted in arousal. Confused, the man peered down, surprised to find himself completely hard in his boxer briefs. He knew he considered you very attractive, but it usually took a fair bit of stimulus before he found himself aroused. 

Shouto gulped as he climbed back onto the exam table, immediately curling onto his side towards the wall. He was practically panting with the heat of the room, sweating and drooling. Wait, drooling?

The door opened.

“Todoroki-san, I have bad news.”

Your voice was so sweet, like warm honey. Shouto shivered when he heard it, his cock twitching between his legs. He wanted to turn to you, stand up, pull you close. But he… he shouldn’t.

“You got hit by an aphrodisiac quirk. It’s going to take a bit to leave your system, and will probably be uncomfortable until then. I’m going to leave some supplies in case you would like to use them, but I will be taking my leave after getting you settled. The rest of your team and I have decided it’s safer for you to remain in this room than attempt to move you back home. We will be locking the door so no one can come in.”

And you can’t get out.

You didn’t have to say it,. Shouto heard you shuffling around the room behind him, he was so hot, sweat was beading all over his body.

“(Y/N), Why am I so warm?” Shouto groaned out, trembling. It felt like he was sick but with… arousal.

Objects were set down on your desk, before Shouto heard you step towards him.

“The quirk is going to make your libido hyperactive for the next twelve hours or so. It’s very likely that you will be aroused and craving stimulation.”

You sounded so clinical, so robotic, none of the usual warmth in your tone when you talked to Shouto. He wanted to whine, cry that you weren’t treating him the way you usually did.  And when he needed your help too! His rational brain was telling him that you were trying to be professional, give your mostly-naked boss privacy. 

HIs rational brain told him to stay still, wait until you left the room to grab whatever you had left for him on the desk.  It was entirely possible that he wouldn’t be able to hold himself back from grabbing your hands if he turned. He wanted to feel your hands on him, running over his torso, rubbing his back, cupping his cheek. He wanted your touch, so, so bad. 

Shouto decided it was time for his rational brain to shut up.

When he turned over, sitting up, you looked like a deer caught in the headlights, already halfway to the door.

“(Y/N)” Shouto rasped, rising to his feet unsteadily. The arousal pooling in his gut was overwhelming - he couldn’t remember a time when he’d been so hard.  His penis was so rigid that it hurt, throbbing in his boxers.

You took a step back, eyes trained firmly on Shouto’s face, determined to not let them stray below the belt.  

Shouto didn’t know what was happening, couldn’t rationalize any of it. The man wasn’t even in control of himself, feeling as if some demon from hell had invaded his body, taken his dirty thoughts and insisted that he act upon them right now.

The pro hero didn’t even know when he had grabbed you, but then he was pressing you up against his body and it felt so good that the man whimpered. A low, needy sound, softer than the spluttering and shocked noises tumbling from your mouth as you pushed against your boss, trapped in his grip.

“Todoroki-san! Please let go! The quirk-!”

Shouto didn’t listen, didn’t want to. He started grinding his hips against yours, breathing hard through his nose at the pleasure roaring into his veins at the simple contact, his dick pressing into your stomach. 

It wasn’t enough though, he needed more.

Shouto dragged you to the exam table, manhandled you up against the flat surface and bent you over despite your struggling, the shouts of “No! Stop!”. Should he stop? Probably. But he wanted this. Had ever since he realized that he loved you, although it hadn’t been this intense before. With one quick movement, Shouto pulled off your scrubs, discarding your underwear in the same movement. He wasn’t concerned about foreplay - he needed, he needed all of you right now.

But the man couldn’t resist falling to his knees behind you, hands moving their iron grip from your palms to your thighs. His fingertip dug into your flesh, dimpling up your skin as he leaned forward, your pussy exposed oh so prettily for him.

Shouto didn’t know if you were screaming or crying or begging for more. He was too focused on the juicy flesh in front of him, leaning forward quickly to greedily slurp at the pink slit. He felt you jump, try to straighten your back but he let his hold on his quirk weaken, simultaneously heating and freezing each thigh held in his grasp. 

You quickly resumed the position he had put you in.

The pro hero couldn’t get enough, licking and sucking with fervent desperation at your folds, no rhythm or technique whatsoever. He couldn’t think, not with his face buried between your legs, your thighs shaking in his hold, your sweet little cries (“Todoroki-san /please/! Stop!”) filling the air. 

It could have been seconds, or minutes, Shouto had no concept of what was happening, only that you were the best fucking thing he had ever tasted in his life, and he needed everything you had to give him. He couldn’t stop himself from trying to burying his face closer, trying to spread your thighs further and further so he could reach deeper into your puffy pussy.

Your cum gushed onto his tongue, and the man slurped it up, reveling in the stick, wet sensation. 

He couldn’t ignore his dick any longer.

Letting go of your thighs, Shouto stood, pushing his boxer briefs down his legs as fast as he could, desperate to sheath himself inside your cunt. He could barely breathe, was so aroused he was light-headed with need.

With his boxers off, the man pressed close to you again, lifting one of your legs to brace it on the table, forcing you to go on tiptoe. When the head of his dick met your folds, Shouto felt his cock jump, the strange sensation making butterflies rise in his stomach. 

“Mmhm, (Y/N) I don’t know-I don’t know what’s happening.” Shouto confessed, one hand on your hip, the other guiding his thick cock into your pussy. “You just-oh, you look so good, always - always do. I need to feel - need to feel you so bad.”

He could feel your body trembling, and it briefly crossed his mind that you were probably crying. But his arousal slammed into him like a truck the moment he let his hips twitch forward, sliding his length into your wet pussy. “Oh god, oh-oh god, oh!”

Shouto came, crying into your neck, saliva dripping from his mouth and onto your heated flesh.

To his surprise, his dick was still hard, and the arousal was still pushing, urging, needy.

“(Y/N), I don’t - I’m so sorry.” Shouto stuttered, pulling back just to have his hips plunge forward again. You were so warm, so wet from your own orgasm and from his cum sliding inside you. It was heaven. 

Shouto had never touched, nor been touched this much in his entire  life. He didn’t know what to do, how to feel; it felt like his brain was on fire, and with each desperate snap of his hips, he was throwing on more and more gasoline. He had longer stamina this time, pounding you into the edge of the table for what felt like forever until his hips stuttered, his legs shaking as he orgasmed inside you.

When Shouto felt himself steady, he was horrified to find himself /still/ aroused. “I’m sorry (Y/N), This isn’t - I didn’t want to do it like this.” He was crying as he rutted against you, tears dripping hot onto your back. “I’ve been trying to be perfect, plan - plan dates, a relationship, anything, as long as it’s you.”

The man buried his head into the crook of your neck, inhaling raggedly. “It can only ever be you.”

His clarity was returning, each orgasm making him feel less and less feverish. At this point, his cock hurt, and he was too sensitive, but still, his hips wouldn’t stop. 

“I was going - going to ask if we could go out.” A lie, but it felt like the right thing to say. You were definitely crying underneath him, Shouto would be lower than trash if he didn’t try to comfort you. You didn’t need to know that the pro hero would rather have made you his home-doctor than ask you out. That way you’d be at his house, waiting for him, just like a pretty little wife, like a mother.

“I love you… think I always have.”

It felt good for Shouto to admit it out loud.

[comradesummers]

3, 17, 27?

Hi, thank you for asking!

Top 5 underrated TV shows

Idk what really qualifies as underrated, but I’ll try my best.

1. Legends of Tomorrow

Like, outside of the cult following, people don’t give it credit for being one of the most creative and batshit crazy shows on TV. I think what really gets missed in the conversation about Legends, even when the show is brought up, is that it’s not just a weird, kooky show. I genuinely believe LoT is doing something that no other show on TV is doing rn. Like it may be silly, and not take itself too seriously, but it’s actually super creative, it tries new things, it takes risks that shows that take themselves more seriously don’t have the luxury of taking. It’s out there doing something genuinely different from the regular serialized drama format that’s overtaking television, and that’s unique and important and we should appreciate it more.  

2. Every show for or about women that’s ever been referred to as a “guilty pleasure” by men, including but not limited to: BtVS, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Jane the Virgin, Sex and the City (I haven’t even seen it, but I know that it changed television as we know it, and men still dismiss it as meaningless fluff), Gilmore Girls, and too many other shows to list here. All of them are underrated by assholes who think they’re too good for girl things.

3. Blackadder

Y’know, the concept of something being underrated is super weird, because like the question becomes: underrated by who? I mean, if you’re in the know about British comedies or whatever, then of course you know that Blackadder is one of the funniest and most innovative shows ever. But with everyone else I’ve talked to in real life, I’ve had to explain that Mr. Bean and Dr. House dress up in period costumes, and hang out with different important historical figures in British history, and it’s really funny and great (except for maybe the first season).  

4. Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23

And then on the other hand, I’m pretty sure a lot of people on Tumblr know what this show is, and know it’s hilarious, but I would still probably consider it underrated and pretty unknown outside of certain circles.

5. Sense8

Again, I’m not sure it’s underrated on Tumblr but more people need to see it, so I’m counting it. I like Sense8 for the same reason I like Legends: it took risks, and did things other shows weren’t doing, albeit on a much larger and more unruly budget, which is probably why it got cancelled. But it really was a great, if short lived show, and I wish it had gone on for longer.

Top 5 “deserved better” characters

1. Kendra Young

Yeah, so I think there are two reasons that Kendra’s death makes me so angry. The first being just how much potential was wasted with her death. Yeah, they made her do a goofy accent, but she was still a really interesting character. Her worldview was completely entrenched in that of the Council. She was raised by them, and had never rebelled like Giles had. She would have made an amazing contrast to Buffy and the gang, but I also think there’s a really great story there about her coming to terms with just how exploited by those assholes she had been. Also, her dynamic with Buffy was already fascinating, and I think they had really good chemistry (I ship it).

The other reason her death makes me so angry is that she is the most obvious example of the horrendous treatment of people of color on BtVS. It really is unacceptable how white that show is, and once the writers finally did create an interesting and powerful (if admittedly pretty stereotypical) woman of color, they killed her off after three episodes. Kendra deserved better just like every other non-white character on BtVS deserved better.

2. Meg Manning and Paker Lee

(Yeah, I’m cheating, it’s a tie.) So one of the main issues that I have with Veronica Mars is that there just aren’t that many women on the show. With the exception of Veronica herself, most of the main characters are men, and most of Veronica’s important relationships, be they romantic, familial, or platonic, are with men.

The female characters we do have either have very little screentime, in spite of their considerable awesomeness (Mac and Jackie). Or, in the case of Meg and Parker, are used and disposed of according to the needs of the plot, often to create drama in Veronica’s love life. Meg surviving the bus crash, only to be killed off once she’d given birth, basically because she was no longer relevant to the Duncan/Veronica story is super icky and gross. And Parker getting dismissed as nothing more than road bump in LoVe’s story by both the show and the fandom drives me a little crazy, especially considering how she was introduced to the show.

Also, while we’re at it, every single ‘feminist’ character in season 3 deserved better from Rob Thomas.

3. Tara Maclay

She deserved to live, and we the viewers deserved better than Bury Your Gays.

4. Martha Jones

I mean, Martha Jones deserved better from the fandom more than anything else. And I’m adding her to the list because I’m one of the many people who owes Martha and Freema Agyeman an apology. I was like 12 when I watched Doctor Who for the first time, and I totally bought into the racist sexist bullshit (she’s boring, why is she in love with the Doctor, etc.). To be fair, I also bought into a lot of sexist bullshit when it came to Rose, so I hated her too, but obviously Martha got the shorter end of the stick, because of racism, and she deserved so, so much better.

5. Donna Noble

Fuck the amnesia bullshit and erasing her character development. Why did they have to do this to her? What possible purpose did it serve? Why not just give her a reason to leave and go home like every other companion? Wtf was the point? Was it just so that the doctor would have manpain about it?

Nevermind, I think I just answered my own question.

Top 5 brotps

Ok, not including any relationships I view as purely familial (Dawn and Buffy, Giles and Buffy, Tara and Dawn, Holt and anybody, etc.). Friendships only.

1. Buffy and Willow

Buffy and Willow love each other so much, and they hurt each other a lot too. This relationship isn’t simple and sweet, it starts out that way, but it becomes difficult, and they both do things to one another that I don’t think either one of them ever fully forgives the other for. But even still, at their worst, they love each other so deeply and so completely. This relationship is at the core of the show, I think. It’s arguably the first relationship the show establishes, and the one it spends most time on. The ups and downs are painful, but they feel real (even when they involve things like bringing someone back from the dead without their consent or whatever). And through it all, they never stop loving each other. As flawed as it may be, I think it’s also one of the most complex, interesting, and important relationships between two women ever on television. And that’s worth celebrating.

2. Jane and Petra

So I’ve been on a bit of a Jane the Virgin kick lately, and I’ll be honest, I can’t decide if this is a brotp or an otp. But I love Petramos too, so let’s go with brotp.

In any case, these two were pretty much my endgame for the show. I really didn’t care who Jane ended up with (unless it was Petra, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen), and I got sick of her love triangle real quick (to be fair, I just really can’t stand love triangles, which is why I didn’t give the show a shot for a long time). As for Petra, I just really wanted her to have a healthy relationship with someone, and Jane seemed to be the only person who seemed interested in having a healthy relationship with her.

Plus their dynamic is just amazing and hilarious. My favorite scenes in the show are always when they’re on screen together. The way they grudgingly grow to care about and love each other is genuinely sweet and well developed. And I love how even when they do become friends, their basic moral divide never changes. They still disagree very strongly about certain things, but they love each other regardless. And btw, the scene where they say “I love you” to each other for the first time might be my favorite “I love you” scene ever, platonic or otherwise.

I just love them so much.

3. Gurl Group (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend)

This is another show about romance where I’m far more invested in the female friendship than I am in any of the romances, but to be fair, I think CxG kind of wants you to do that anyway.

Regardless, I love everyone in this Gurl Group, individually and together. And their individual relationships are already fascinating. Like, Rebecca and Valencia’s frienship is pure enemies to lovers friends bliss and I love it. Rebecca and Paula’s relationship is the heart of the show, and like Buffy and Willow, this relationship is often difficult and complicated, but the love is always there. And we never had enough scenes of Heather and Valencia interacting. Every scene where they were together was pure comedic gold. And the group together as a whole was just so powerful and amazing to behold.

4. Amy and Rosa

They do not have enough scenes together. This relationship deserves the same amount of care and development as Jake and Charles get. Melissa and Stephanie have great chemistry. And like, their characters are so different, so the contrast is always so funny. But they also love each other, and support each other, and it’s so much fun to watch. I need 10000% more Amy/Rosa content.

5. Buffy and Veronica

This one’s probably also cheating because it’s a crossover and all, but I’m just kind of obsessed with the idea of them meeting, sparks flying, enemies to lovers friends, the works. They would just have such a fantastic dynamic. Like, think of all the verbal sparring that we would be blessed with. Think of all the drama and angst of them coming to understand and respect each other. If there is one crossover that I would will into existence if I could, it would definitely be this one.

[glorioustidalwavedefendor]

(NOT MINE)

Source:

https://9gag.com/gag/aNYBqbK

“I know that so many of you trust me, you listen to me and you probably feel deceived and lied to — and you’re in your whole right to feel that,” she said. “I’m human, I made a mistake, and I was not planning on hiding this for you. I was planning on telling you but on my terms and my time.” 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/22/vegan-youtube-star-rawvana-gets-caught-eating-meat-camera/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.7bbb39ed8647

What was she planing to tell them?

Maybe that:

She said she became a raw vegan six years ago — eating only uncooked plant-based foods — but started experiencing problems after a 25-day fast in 2014. She stopped getting her period, and doctors found after a series of tests that her “hormones were out of wack,” — comparable to a premenopausal woman, even though she was in her mid-20s, she said.

(...)

A doctor told her she needed to eat more fat, she said, and she added cooked food back into her diet. Her period returned, only to disappear again in 2017 — for five months this time. Again she was told that her hormones were not good.

“I wasn’t ovulating,” she said in the video. “I was basically anemic and my thyroid levels were low. It was really bad, but it was borderline.”

(...)

But in 2018 she came down with a yeast infection and started to get what she described as serious digestive issues. She was no longer feeling good and was struggling to find a way to feel better, trying various cleanses or more fasting.

“I felt really good, because I wasn’t eating anything,” she said. “I got to the point that I just preferred not to eat because I was afraid anything I would eat, I’d get sick off it.”

She said the catalyst for her dietary shift came this past January, when she was diagnosed with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), an amount of excessive bacteria in the small intestine that can cause malnourishment.

(...)

She tried eating vegan again but her stomach symptoms became even worse. Still she hasn’t given up on the vegan lifestyle, and hopes to go back to a completely vegan diet

I somehow doupt that she would have told THAT to her costumers. Yes, I am calling them costumers, not followers, because that’s what they are. She was willing to kill herself, just to protect her brand. What do you think, she is willing to do to THEIR health?

So ... did she learn anithing?

Nope:

(...)

“My heart is with the vegan community and I want to reiterate that the plant-based diet is not what made me sick,” she said in a statement she sent to The Post. “Anyone can get SIBO. My passion for this lifestyle is so important to me." 

(...)

Trust me, she would have sold you starvation for the rest of her life.

I really wish she would have lost all her costumers ... but she didn’t ... hardly suprising, due to malnutrition the higher faculties of vegans don’t work properly, so their reasoning skills are way off.

Oh, fun fact?

Wome, more often loos a leg to hyperthermia while men more often die.

Why, well, male bodies try to keep the temperature up in the whole body, while female bodies just keep up the core temperature.

Just in case, while you’r dying a man comes around an nocks you up.

So for the body to stop the whole, reproduction programm, that means, shit hit the fan a while ago and now it’s about half PAST twelfe ...

I don’t think she realises that

Also, fun fact, Babys that where born in the horribal hunger winter during WW II, or around it, developed serious problems later in live.

Heart deseases, dementia .... they also suffered from obestity.

And while siblings of them, even those that lifed through the winter had normal offspring, the stavation babys had in turn children that suffered from the same problems

That’s because hunger does shit to our DNA, it activates and deactivates certain allels, to make your offspring better adapted to a world where starvation is a thing.

(That’s called epigenetic, and wil give you a whole new reason not to have children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944%E2%80%9345

So, if she keeps up that bulshit diet, she’ll fuck up ALL her desentants ...

Btw. I could have told her that she’d eventually develope anemia.

Guess what you need to make blood cells, guess ...

Vitamin B12 (it is called a Vitamin, because your body can’t make it, and has to get it through food or suplements, in the case of Vitamin B12, no animal is abel to produce it, But herbivors have their own little farms of mikroarganisms that do that for them. Humans don’t ... because they are omnivors and therefor get it through eating other animal .... )

Where do we find Vitamin B12?

Anithing and everithing that is considered an animal.

(And please don’t tell me that there is an algea, that also suplies Vitamin B12, yes, but the human body can’t use that, and don’t tell me, that it occurs in plants through symbionts. Yes, but unless you are in the habbit of eating your vegetables with all the dirt still on, that doesen’t matter)

Vitami B3 ... also a thing that while it occurs in plants, your body has trouble getting enough of it ...

Same thing with Zinc, while plentifull in plants, raughage (which just so happens to be also plentyfull in plants), makes it difficult for your body to absorb it.

And so on and so forth ... I could go on and on until the bats come home. The long and short of it is, Humans are omnivors, if you want to life vegan, you have to do a ton of reserch and then eat a shitload of suplements every day.

I feel like that’s a lot of unnecessary work ...

But hey, you do you, but the second you SELL that insanity I get realy fucking angry.

If you notice  that the water is poissoned, you tell the fucking comunity, and don’t wait for the right moment to protect your fucking brand ...

If  they still go to the well ... that’s up to them, free will and all ... but you have to give them the oportunety to choose!

[edgeofthedales]

darrowbyeightfive in response to this reblog (wouldn’t an alternate cricket outfit been lovely for the Fifth Doctor)

I’m not sure whether the trousers represent something that was popular at some time in the past. I always assumed that they had just made them up because they thought the stripes and colours looked nice. I believe that he cut of the trousers, with the high waist (as seen on Planet of Fire) is typical of Victorian or early 20th Century men’s fashion, although I don’t know enough about fashion history to be able to say this for sure. It seems a flattering sort of cut. I do remember when I was a kid, there were still elderly gentlemen around who wore high-waisted trousers and braces (suspenders). Most of them were considerably rounder in figure than Peter Davison!

I also like the trousers and the general colour scheme of Davison’s costume. I agree that there needs to be at least some element of eccentricity to make it Doctorish. Since he’s a gentler, less forceful Doctor who sometimes struggles to impose himself on the people they meet, he does need something with a bit more impact than just the cricket whites, now I come to think of it.  I did like the way that there just happened to be a cricket pavilion (with notices and what looks like other people’s gear) in the TARDIS. It’s so typically Doctor Who because (a) it’s totally way-out in the context of the story - who were all these other cricketers anyway, and what were all their notices about? and (b) the scene was probably filmed at the cricket club that one of the production team belonged to and cost next to nothing!

They do seem to have picked colours that suited him, and he probably was lucky to take the job not long after Brideshead Revisited had been really popular, because, as you say, he got a nice costume rather than some of the over-the-top 80s gear. Maybe the over-the-top stuff came later in the 80s. I do feel sorry for Colin Baker and his companions having to wear such garish outfits. I find Sylvester McCoy’s costume nicer, although I think the question marks on all three of their costumes are a bit silly. I much prefer it when the Doctor’s clothes look like an eccentric combination of human clothes, rather than a ‘costume’. It’s nice that they have gone back to this in the new series. My favourite Doctor costume is Jon Pertwee’s, with those fantastic velvet jackets and shirts.

Davison’s costume was better than the next two Doctors’ in this respect apart from the question marks and the fact that he and his companions never seemed to change for the first season! There is the inevitable “when did they (the characters) wash their clothes/didn’t they get smelly?” question, and I wonder whether the actors had multiple identical outfits, because they too might have got a bit smelly after spending several hours recording and running around under studio lights! I saw on a Sherlock making-of that Benedict Cumberbatch had three identical copies of his long coat, one of which was used for stunts, but I think the Sherlock budget must be a lot higher than the Doctor Who one in the 80s. So overall I do like Davison’s costume a lot but I just wish there had been a little more variation because it would have been fun to see him in other outfits too. I particularly like his coat and was really happy to see that it was authentic-ish. I would happily wear a coat like that myself and do actually have a winter coat that’s just a little bit like it and has red piping around the pockets and cuffs, although it’s dark blue rather than beige. It does have a lovely ‘swish’ (I realised some time after writing it that the ‘Tristan strutting around the TARDIS in the Doctor’s coat’ scene was based on me and how happy I was when I got my new coat!)  I even like the clown costume from Black Orchid that everyone else apparently hates, because Peter looked so cute as a kind of ‘Pierrot’ (was that deliberate, I wonder? Maybe there is a whole level of symbolism in Black Orchid!) and I thought it was amazing that they put pockets in it (what would have have done with his hands otherwise?).

I do wonder at times if part of the reason why he ended up with a more straightforward historical outfit was because he had been on some historical shows (the lesser known, Love For Lydia and the very well known ACGaS) and thus there was this subconscious decision to continue with that trend. Ok, that might not have been the driving reason behind the cricket costume, but I also doubt that it escaped anyone’s notice that Davison does look good in period dress.

I guess I would lump the Doctor having a cricket club in the TARDIS under the same file as the swimming pool. XD You never know when you might need alternate forms of exercise besides running down corridors....

But yes, I agree that the softer color palette suited him well (much like how the cream colored Fair Isle sweater is so lovely on Tristan) and those extra “dramatic” touches ensured that it remained Doctorish and not “the Doctor is on a weird cricket kick”. I mean, that seems strange to say, but I honestly think that making it a more bizarre cricket costume made it so that you didn’t always think of it as specifically a cricket costume....if that makes sense. XD

And yes, I always regret the costume they gave Colin especially for his Doctor. The Sixth Doctor is one of my two favorites (the other spot belonging to Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor) and I get a little sad when people focus on that outfit first...and to the point of distraction from the depth of Colin’s Doctor.  McCoy’s outfit wasn’t at that level of eye-pain, but I still don’t know if his outfit “suited him” as much as Davison’s did for Five.

I guess I’ve always thought that the TARDIS made extras of everyone’s outfits. XD And that the laundry machine was going at all times.....

And I agree that the costume Five was given to wear in Black Orchid was great. I mean, it was the same muted colors as his normal outfit and were still flattering for Davison. 

And of course, they had to put in pockets for Davison’s hands. It’s an absolute must for his signature acting quirk. Although, the more I watch (and re-watch) ACGaS, the more I’m convinced that he might have gotten some inspiration for his trademark “hands-in-pockets acting” from elsewhere....

[seasaltpaper]

Bite Me – Vampire-ish Harry

So a while back my dear lovely talented incredibly funny and adorable @honeyskins threw a random halloween idea on our gc and i was like “that sounds cool, can i write it? i’ll write it” and i did (and in time for halloween mind you, that’s a first, me actually completing a deadline) but i never posted it back then so i guess its here now? If you’ll have it. So yeah... 

       It was cold outside, the autumn temperature dropping drastically in harsh contrast from the summer that quickly died out. The leaves were turning orange and falling quietly to the equally orange and crunchy ground, leaving naked trees behind, only making nights spookier and giving every single human in the village more reason to be scared of whatever was out there in the world. You never cared much for the myths and legends that seemed to go around. That didn’t make them any less real and you knew and had living proof of that, because not caring for anything mystical didn’t really put a bubble around you to stop you from stumbling face first into it, or rather him.

“Boo!” you were startled when the familiar voice scared you from behind, turning to find Harry, your boyfriend of a year, right there behind you in your kitchen, with a grin on his face and a very faint uncharacteristic blush to his cheeks. Rolling your eyes, you pushed him away. “Ha ha, real funny” “I startled you, Miss ‘I’m not scared of Halloween season’ ” he air-quoted. “I’m not! I love a good spooktober” Harry gave you a pointed look as if he didn’t believe a word you said “I do! Wouldn’t be dating a vampire if I didn’t” you finished in a whisper while stirring some pasta sauce and his eyes widened, moving his hand to cover your mouth. “Not so loud” He shushed as you giggled. You were home alone, no one would hear anything.

How you and Harry met the year prior was very unusual, given it was bright outside and sunny and very against the pop culture surrounding his species. It was spring and very cheerful, and to this day you still laugh at the fact that only you could stumble into a vampire in the middle of April. Only you could stumble into the most human vampire ever, Harry Styles. His skin had some warm glow despite being white as a sheet of paper, and his hands made you fuzzy inside despite always being cold to the touch. You were sure he was the most alive looking vampire there was. You were good friends for a somewhat short time, soon realising there was something there and now, as cliché as it sounded, you were dating a vampire. And for almost a year and a half that is.

You removed his hand from your mouth and concentrated on the task at hand, not burning your lunch.

“You need to stop waltzing into my house just whenever” “Regretting letting me in?” he smirked smoothly as he cockily leaned against the fridge. “I told you vampires are irresistible” he wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

“Oh shush before I pull out the garlic.” “Hey hey” he put his hands up as defence “No need to get aggressive just cause you forgot you gave me a key” he winked and you remembered that, duh, he had a key. “Was just passing by, stopped to ask what we’re going as t’Niall’s party tomorrow.”

Being a vampire and trying to keep it as hidden as he could meant Harry often dabbled in “human” activities such as the typical Halloween Costume Party. He really liked doing the whole Vampire thing then without a care in the world but last year he got too close to being found out. Last year you were just starting to date so he didn’t want to coordinate outfits either. “Uh, I was going to be a nurse, do you want to be doctor or a patient?” you ask him genuinely, distracted with plating your food. “Depends…” he starts with a sultry hum, coming to you and taking the plate from your hands so he can back you up against the counter. His hands grab your waist and he pushes chest impossibly close to yours. At the proximity, your heart races and your mouth dries out. “Are you gonna be a sexy nurse?” He slurs against your year, prepping kisses to your lobe and neck. “Harry!” you giggle and push him away with all your might, and it takes a lot from you to do so, as you’re suddenly out of breath thanks to him. He laughs before letting you go, he knows you need to have lunch before you’re late for work. “I’ll be a nurse too. Scrubs seem easier of a costume to take off” he winks once more as he picks up his keys and you roll your eyes at him. His tall body comes to lay a big kiss on your mouth before he leaves. He can taste the sauce you’ve prepared on your lips from the times you took testing spoonfuls while cooking. “Mhmmm, tasty… Y’know… I am kind of hungry” he smirks one of his big smirks, letting you see the slowly growing fangs as he opens and closes his mouth mimicking taking a bite. “Harry…” you give with a warning tone and he sighs with a small laugh catching the drift.  As his strong long legs back him away from your kitchen and out to the street he quickly states that he’ll see you tomorrow at his place so you can leave for the party together and hollering a cheerful “Love you” as he locks your door after himself.

In the almost two years you’ve known Harry and that he was a vampire, you’ve expressed thoroughly your wish to not be bitten by him –or any other vampire for that matter– neglecting him of feeding off you. The idea made you somewhat uncomfortable and it sounded painful, and you just didn’t want anything to do with it. The irony was strong for you were indeed dating a vampire, and you had learned so much about his kind and you accepted all of it, even him feeding… Off animals or even other humans – which gave you the shivers to be honest – but getting bit yourself? That’s the one thing you couldn’t fully come to terms with. Sure, at times it can get annoying for him, specially when he’s extremely hungry and you smell ‘Deliciously tempting’ as he often says, but he’s respected that since day one. He knows not everyone has this weird fantasy or interest towards being bitten by a vampire and even though he would love to have a taste of his girlfriend to get him through the day, he gets it.

Doesn’t stop him from joking about it or asking you to leave when you’re on your period or he’s craving human blood very, very much, but that’s just the way you’ve learned to function as a couple, and it’s been great so far. He knows to try his hardest whenever you’re getting intimate with each other, and it’s more often than not caused him to experience the most pleasurable of orgasms. Being deprived that way. Wanting to nibble hard enough to pierce the skin on your neck, but knowing that he can’t. He just has to do with imagining your taste and sometimes the thought alone gets him flustered and ready. He can’t control when he gets hungry. And he can’t help it that he’s hungry for you.

Which is exactly what is happening to him the next day. He’s woken up hungry, his nose tingling and fangs out of control. Everything he smells gives him the scent of a next meal, and he wants to eat. And then he can tell. He doesn’t want the typical human food he’s learned to somewhat live off from. The way his stomach growls, more than just something slightly human or in his system, it’s like his soul is growling of thirst, it’s what lets him know exactly what he’s hungry for. Blood. Red, gooey, delicious blood.

His day has consisted of trying his hardest to keep his fangs hidden as he goes about town with his business, and then through the woods for meals. His hands are itching to get a human neck on them and when the evening falls and he’s just getting home to get ready for the costume party, he’s rushing to his kitchen in his quaint flat, stumbling in desperation, reaching for the human blood packs he keeps stored in the fridge. He hasn’t been this hungry in years. There’s stains on his nurse costume which he thinks only make it more gore-y and halloween-y.

As he’s finishing another pack, you’re knocking on his door. He stops his suckling in the middle of his kitchen. He probably looks so pathetic, he thinks, hunched over the sink, making a mess of blood cause he can’t control his urges. “It’s open!” he doesn’t bother to go open the door for you he’s so busy trying to calm his thirst before you see him this way, but you’re walking in the kitchen and he can smell you before he’s done swallowing. “Is everything ok Harry?” your soft voice is like honey to his ears. “I’m sorry. God, been hungry all day” the words he speaks are muffled and cut off because of the mouthfuls of red he seems to be downing. “It’s ok” you reassure him, knowing it gets hard for him sometimes.

Then Harry’s done with it. He rinses his mouth under the faucet and prays his fangs calm down as he seems to have no control over them today. Sure he’s still craving something else, but he knows you have to leave for this party and he can’t just stay at home and drink his whole blood supply in one stormy full moon night, so he pulls himself together and turns around to face you and greet you properly after he’s gotten rid of any remnants of nasty blood he knows you hate. “Ready- Ohh, fuck” the moment the words leave his mouth and he sees you in his kitchen, he knows he’s everything but ready.

You are indeed wearing a sexy nurse outfit that couldn’t look any better if you tried. It was the perfect length, showing off your legs he’s very fond of gripping whenever you’re underneath or on top of him, and the costume is also very tight in all the right places, so much that he’s sure he could feel every dip and rise of your body if he were to touch you over the fabric. You thought it would be a nice surprise not to tell him you actually got a sexy nurse outfit for the night, and by the look on his face you were right. His jaw is dropped open and his chest is heaving up and down with lack of air, as his stands in his kitchen with a cute nurse costume splattered with blood, dishevelled hair and face mask hanging around his neck.

And Harry knows he’s in trouble right then and there, because now he’s hungry for you as well, and in a new completely different way. It doesn’t help that he’s been craving human blood all day long, in a hunger that seemed too unreal even for himself. “You’re kidding me.” he mutters under his breath noticing how suddenly the pastel green nurse scrubs felt a size too small and like something inside him, very unvampire-like, felt quite literally set ablaze. He’s frozen on his spot as you come closer and closer to him and he just takes in the figure of you walking his way. Swaying hips and flowing hair, exposed legs he’s itching to pinch and warm blushed cheeks. “This is so unfair” he whines as he’s finally got you close enough for his body to react and reach a hand out to squeeze at your sides. The impeccably white outfit has some give, it’s soft to the touch and very well made, which is a shame, he thinks, cause he just wants to rip it, and he knows that with the right amount of convincing you’d enjoy him tearing the fabric apart so he’d be able to take you over his counter.

“Hello” you mutter cheekily laying a red kiss on the edge of his jaw and his breath gets caught in his throat.

There’s not much he can think of saying. The scent in the air clogs his nostrils in the most delicious way. He likes it, it’s so you. With his raging hunger and this newfound emotion coursing through his veins making his paper-sheet white skin warm and red, his senses are extremely attentive, and he’s able to catch just how good your perfume smells, and how, right under it, there’s this very distinct aroma he can only call “you”.  

He places a hot kiss on your lips, not able to give any warning or to properly align your lips. He’s just pressing on, searching for you, for whatever of you he can have. His hands move freely, grasping here and there to his pleasure, edging moans to come bubbling out of you and get lost on the tip of his tongue. His needy body is pushing yours against his counter, searching, craving, as much contact as he can get but none of this is enough. That same feeling he’d woken up with, the shivers down his spine, the trembling fingers and desperate thoughts, were now tenfold with just the taste of you.

Without much thought you tugged at his shirt, signalling him to continue, to do something, anything. It took him a small fraction of a second to carry you to his room and lay you on his bed comfortably. He was done with being careful with your outfit and tugged at the short skirt with such force he was sure it should have torn to pieces by now. Your shaky fingers worked their way up his back and to his curls as he lowered his body down your frame. Removing your fishnets slowly, taking in the air around both of you right now. He had you just like that, so perfect and laid out for him like he wanted, legs opening slightly in reaction to his warm hands.

Romantic and sultry as always, Harry took his sweet time coming back down your legs on his mission to take off your lacy underwear. It was his favourite kind, and you knew it as he had told you countless times before while in the middle of rumbling climaxes, and he always tried to make the whole view and experience last, so he moved like honey down your legs, leaving small bites on them, a risky decision given his fangs were fully blown out and his fingers tingled with hunger.

The feeling of his teeth running down your legs mixed with how incredibly dizzy you were for him were the recipe for a completely new experience. You didn’t know exactly what it was but there was something similar to his craving for blood bubbling inside you as the temperature rose in the small room and Harry touched all the right spots. Suddenly you couldn’t form words other than his name, or elicit sounds other than mewls for him to continue his path to your centre. And just like that as you laid on his mattress and he inched closer and closer to where you needed him most, that was the night you surprised Harry with a peculiar request.

“Harry,” your voice trembled as you arched your back feeling his hot breath on your inner thighs, “bite me, please.” His face lifted, pupils blown and even rosier cheeks than he had before, at the sound of those words.

His breath got caught in his throat as he croaked a short “What?” in disbelief. But he had heard you. Loud and clear. He thought he knew what you were requesting but wanted to make extra sure, after all he knew he had to be very, very careful if he actually bit into you how he wanted.

“Bite me” you said and moved your thigh closer to his face, signalling where you wanted him to sink his fangs in. Your head lifted over your shoulders, looking down at him as he tried to keep a smirk at bay, excitement and thirst swirling in his eyes. This was an opportunity he was going to savour, pun intended, for as long as he could.

His warm and long digits pushed at your womanhood with precision, folding them over to remove your underwear, while his mouth laid kisses and soft suckles on your thigh. Your hands took hold of the sheets on top of his mattress, squeezing them in anticipation, head lifted as high as you could take it. You wanted to see the interaction, you wanted him to bite you and take you to another world and the giddy butterflies in your tummy made you alert, ready to see how Harry feasted on you in two different ways.

Your skin was warm, as he had always known, soft and somewhat sweet, which was something he couldn’t quite explain but had him reeling nonetheless. As his heart pounded with desire all he could think about was just how wonderful it will be to taste you. Opening his mouth wide enough he was ready for that thought to stop being just a thought, and he took a small bite, far from piercing the skin yet, hooded eyes directed at your face to take note of your reaction. There you were, ready and willing, and there he was, about to melt into a puddle of want.

The sting was clear, if you had to describe it, it was somewhere between getting your ear pierced and having someone take blood samples. The small pain didn’t stop with just the break of tissue, it stayed there along with his fangs, and the faster he tried to suck blood out of your thigh the more lightheaded and rushed you felt, somewhat of in a trance, or like you were suddenly very dazed… And hot. It was very hot. Your head fell back to his pillow with a long moan that matched the one leaving his lips at your taste.

His fangs left purplish marks on the edges of the small hole they created, similar to hickeys but, oh so much more than hickeys. His fingers in one hand played with your folds as he sighed in delight taking sip after sip of your blood. He was right all this time, you had a very sweet blood, or maybe it was just that he was so head over heels for you that this had become his favourite taste. He wasn’t sure what made you decide today you’d let him have this miraculous moment, but he was afraid it was a one time deal which meant he’d have to try his damnedest to forget this taste, or better yet, try his harder to keep the memory alive if this was to be the first and last time he’d get to have this feeling, this flavour. The one time he’d get to have you in his system this way.

But wether this was a one time thing or not, you continued to beg him for more, the feeling of his digits playing with your womanhood and his lips over the bite gave a combination that had you panting for air. “Fuck, Harry” you tried to spew out however you could between yelps of pleasure, as he turned his head pressing kisses around your other thigh before leaving another bite, levelling the field.

“I love you” he let out in his raspy but smooth voice before piercing the skin once more, making your body shiver. He took his time leaving purplish bite marks over your thighs and later on red-ish hickeys on his way up your body as he positioned himself on top of you ready to take the whole thing to the next level and share moans of pleasure as you both climaxed in desperate mewls and needy grabs.

Harry’s breath was on your neck as you both laid on his soft mattress, a mess of sweaty limbs tangled together, noses touching and breaths hitched. A post-orgasm cloud filled Harry’s room, the both of you spent, clothes long forgotten and too deep in cuddles to care. Your head still felt like it was dancing around due to the loss of blood and making coherent thoughts seemed like a hard job at the time, so you didn’t really care for anything other than laying next to Harry’s surprisingly warm frame.

“You know…” He starts pushing you a bit closer to his body “you were as delicious as I imagined”

You arch an eyebrow at him in mockery, as if saying ‘you’ve imagined this? Lame’. Rolling his eyes he moves in to press a short kiss to your lips. He wanted to ask, if you’d enjoyed it half as much as he did, but he was afraid you were still too hazy to form an actual review of the experience or that you’ll say you want more and not really mean it. Upon seeing the frown slowly build in his features you knew exactly what was going through his head, and with semi open eyes and heavy body you tsked at him grabbing his attention. “That was good” you wanted to say a bit more elaborate to really ingrain it in his mind that he shouldn't be beating himself up over something that had already passed and that you clearly enjoyed. But thanks to your heavy head, Harry didn’t fully buy that line, mouth twisting in disbelief. “Come on!” you whined. “I don’t have strength to talk. That’s good” “How’s that good?” He asks with a chuckle. Somewhere in the mess of clothes both your phones beep and he untangles himself from you to go search for his, thinking maybe it’s important if both devices seemed to be in sync. “Left me speechless” is all you can muster before slowly falling in and out of sleep as Harry searches deep in the pockets of his costume for the cold piece of metal. When he finds it and the light shines on his face, another chuckle leaves his mouth. “Niall wants to know if we’re going to the party or not” but you’re already fast asleep which he turns around to find out. With a soft smile he returns to bed pressing his thumb and typing a quick ‘sorry mate’ to Niall before tossing his phone on the bedside table and snuggling up to you, covering your cold body with his sheets. As usual Harry never really got cold through the night but you shivered, but the small warmth his vampire body exhumed wasn’t enough to keep you warm so he kept the sheets ready for you to cover your frame with.

Harry decides he will too, try to sleep a bit. Maybe if you wake up later and it’s still ok to go out you could try to stop by Niall’s place for a bit, but he doubts it. He did take quite a bit of blood from you in his devastating thirst, and he would apologise profusely for it in the morning.

What he doesn’t know is that in the morning, when you’re back being yourself and have regained your senses and the ache in your thighs has calmed down, you will explain just how much you enjoyed him biting your skin and sucking your blood, and just how much you really want him to do it again and again and again.

xoxoxoxo  me :)

[colitisandme]

Firstly Hi again. I am sorry I have been absent for the past few months. Truth is, I have been feeling rougher than a badgers arse and keeping myself away from people with eyes for their own good. The last few months have been particularly tricky to navigate after my last surprising hospital stay. It did not go well. But I wanted to start this year off by doing a year in review... looking back at what’s happened and try to find a Kum by ya moment in a sea of well of just waaaaaaaaaaaah and arrrrrrrgh! So journey with me through the past 12 months of life, love and quite literally the pursuit of toilet roll.

I greeted January with a hi five and with eternal optimism of what this year could bring, “ This was going to be our year” we said with proud and happy voices, only later sadly discovering my optimism had clearly been marinading in all the new years alcohol, and so drunk, incorreherent and nearly blind stumbled into a ravine where it bobbed about helplessly in a sea of tears before plunging into the abyss. Ideal.

In February, Phyllis Fibro barged her way past my defence system, and squeezed her fat behind into my life and with no warning announced she was going to be here for the duration, turned my limbs to jelly, gave me chronic insomnia, ate all my happy snacks, and let her cats scoot in the trifle of my life. Phyllis is like the relative who turns up for a ‘short surprise visit’ sets up camp in your spare bedroom, deletes all your favourite shows off your tv planner, eats your food out of the fridge, steals your favourite clothes then proceeds to stretch them out and give them back to you when they look like overstretched scrotum... all the time finding new and inventive ways of irritating you on a daily basis. That short stay turns into you finding a truck has turned up at your house bulging at the seems of boxes, clothes 13 clothes horses, giant ball of string, bag of costumes for cats and a yearly subscription to ‘football hooligans and where to find them in your neighbourhood’ in your name. We are not friends, I do not like her and wish she would vacate my body as there is simply no room for her and I think her merely being there is catapulting useful stuff out of my ears and filling the space they used to be with goo. I am sure she takes great delight when I try and blindly grasp for the correct word in a sentence and sweating and stammering exclaim ‘ it’s very nice to meet your umbrella/ sandwich/ watering can’ when I meant to say BROTHER. I am sure she cackles heartily whilst they back away with panic on their faces ... it’s an ideal way to make friends and influence people.

Due to the fact Phyllis was turning my brain, legs and general well being into jelly, I was given medication.... have you ever heard your own heart beat? I have. I have also had the pleasure of replaying the lyrics to a Mcfly song in my head for 8 hours straight.... (am 35 years old and so teen pop should not be the automatic thing my drug induced brain turns too) and had a continuous plot line to ‘How I met your Mother on’ repeat.... These are not brilliant side effects to have at 2 in the morning whilst your husband is blissfully slumbering away in the background and your so tired that you want to chew the pillow and cry. So after several weeks of this, it was decided by everyone within a global radius that that particular medication was not for me. Probably for the best as it felt like my heart was going to explode out of my ears and my pupils were the size of saucers. But after they removed it I realised was just going to be little me vs Phyllis, a battle still going on to this day.

March/April brought the beginning of Lockdown and that endless pursuit of well-being, equilibrium, sanity and toilet roll. A shopping trip was like witnessing snarling animals over a territory dispute...strangers with eyes staring, yelling, barging, arguments over who had the bigger trolley every time we want to a supermarket... People scrabbling to get that last pack of baked beans, bowling grandmas down the isles, sending shoppers flying like bowling pins, climbing over children, ripping open packs of spaghetti then proceeding to stab people’s eyes with it, just to get the last bag of cheesy snacks on the shelf... incoherently grunting at the cowering till workers. Like a scene from Shaun of the Dead. I hoped that a crisis would bring out the best in us, that we would all come together and support and look out for our fellow man but no such luck there. And when you are already battling several illnesses all trying to set up a commune inside your body, the thought of going out into the madness that was unfolding all around us was terrifying.

June/July/August was the summer of isolation. Now I deal with isolation on a daily basis but even when your illnesses do a fabulous job of isolating, you find things, tiny things to focus on, enjoy and look forward to. First good thing in this period of isolation, was that I found out I was nominated for an award FOR MY LITTLE BLOG!!! (Victory cookies, trumpets sounded, woo hoo noises) This was a huge surprise and completely awesome. I was so blessed and felt incredibly honoured to even be considered. I truly think that this was one of the proudest moments and achievements in my life and it’s something I remain hugely proud of. Secondly early during this time myself and my dear friend who runs a hugely successful FB group supporting those who have Microscopic Colitis, decided we were going to come together and write a book about living with Microscopic Colitis including my blogs and stories. This makes me go eeeeeeeeeeeeeeep and almost wee myself with excitement. We can’t wait to put it all together for you all. And thirdly my very clever, very awesome husband had passed his last ACCA exam (Yaaaay) and our bubble was holding strong, Me and my husband were adapting to lockdown life and enjoying our time together. All was good.

For a few months, I ignored my raging body, put my fingers in my ears and loudly sang ‘la la la la’ everytime one threatened to ruin my day... ‘I will just try harder’ I would say or ‘it’s not effecting me’ or ‘it’s not beating me’ ... blindly ignoring the fact that my body was screaming at me... because I am stupidly stubborn. I refuse to let anything beat me... especially illness. However an unfortunate event happened around this time, and after it happened, my illnesses must of all had a pow wow, came together by torchlight and all decided that with no warning they were going to barge past my defences, clobber my Arsenal, scratch their eyes out tromp up and down my body yelling “Na na na na na we told you so” in my ears, whist Phyllis stomped on my limbs. She then got out her mallet, whacked my hands so they blew up, and then proceeded to harness her artistic side and paint my hands blue just coz she thought regular skin colour was ‘so last season’ and using a giant straw sucked all the colour out of my face. Miss Anxiety who was usually fairly quiet in her zen garden of peace, decided now was the perfect time to start learning Death Metal music without wearing earphones, whilst reading me my favourite novel ‘100 reasons why you failed’ at in oppertune hours of the morning. Slowly Colin the colon began blowing himself up like a balloon, and built a giant wall so I couldn’t poop and I shook like a vibrator on setting 4. And I couldn’t stop it... it completely swamped me. All that ‘it doesn’t matter it’s not beating me’ was hogwash all the ‘you’re defying what you should be doing’ from my doctors went out of the window.... I was struggling and I knew it and so did my body and once more I had nothing outside my little bubble to distract me from it.

Which leads me to the worst 3 months since I first had the symptoms of Microscopic Colitis and Colin the Colon began behaving like an uncooperative toddler hyped up on sweeties. I kid you not. Brace yourself.

Now firstly I want to firmly state I am used to pain. I am aware that It’s better to be used to daisies or marshmallows, or stroking puppies but sadly I am used to pain. Phyllis gives me a lot of it on a daily and nightly basis. I also have a high pain threshold. No honestly I do. I can be stoic when in pain. Which is useful. You won’t often know I am in crippling pain unless I tell you. So when I say September was the month we refer to as ‘agonising pain month’ you can be sure it really was. A niggle in mid September, which naturally I ignored, turned into ‘HOLY CRAP WHY IS THE DEVIL DOING A CAN CAN ON MY BACK WHIST INSERTING HOT POKERS THROUGH MY SIDE??’ (Insert 39 creative swear words) I tried to go to my happy place which was replaced by fire and knives, deep breathing techniques, which when applied felt like I was breathing in acid’ and positive thoughts were replaced with demons in a conga line singing a rousing rendition of “boiled and roasted, lightly toasted, fricase and lit and flambéd” in unison. Cue paramedics, more swearing, being sent to hospital via ambulance, sucking gas and air, been given a plethora of drugs, poking, needles, and my right hand side feeling like all my nerves were being forcibly twanged like the strings in a guitar. The pain would not go, it did not change, it didn’t ease, it led to 5 days in 3 different wards where it was too painful to touch my skin, mind numbing exhaustion where it felt like my legs were encased in lead and taking a few steps felt like I had run up a mountain, and showers where I would be huddled over in tears trying to wash myself, keep balance and not shout obscenities at my wash cloth.

When you have on your notes that you have a chronic illness resulting in widespread pain, and you end up in hospital trying to explain your body is trying to leave its self forcibly and quickly through a firery tunnel of woe, guess what happens? They assume it’s the chronic illness. Yep. You are immediately bundled into that catorgory without a second thought. Doesn’t matter the pain was on my right hand side, felt like I was being stabbed through my lung, and have never had anything like it before. Nope. And throughout my whole stay I felt like an imposter. Like I shouldn’t be there. Even though I was in so much pain I couldn’t stand and even lying down made me go cross eyed it felt like I was being judged. Scruitinised. They knew I needed to be there. But somehow made me feel like it was all part of my condition. It wasn’t. The stay was also traumatic. There were some very very poorly people on my ward, having incredibly tough conversations with drs, family, hospice and my heart broke more than once during my stay. And my pain team who I have been under since I was introduced to Phyllis, did not come and see me once. Not cocking once, despite being asked to several times. I was not impressed to say the least.

Once I returned home, (still in sodding pain I might add) I had multiple attacks. One attack was so bad my wonderful best friend had to come and rescue me as I had dropped to the floor and couldn’t get up again... and I was completely on my own at the time so thank Christ she did, or Kyle would have come home to me lying on the floor surrounded by a puddle of wee and tears with chew marks in the carpet, where I have tried to propel myself across the room by my teeth. And the thing about consuming more meds than a pharmaceutical trade convention, is that it effected Colin. He declined to let anything pass, like a hulky bouncer at a club... He denied ANYTHING to go through, for 9 days... after 9 days sweating, cramping, hobbling due to back spasms, red faced eyes bulging and dizzy I presented again in casualty .... so off balance in fact I dropped my phone down the loo in a&e and then panicked trying to scoop out the urine sodden device attempting to drying it out under a dryer... sigh. And would they help with Colin, even though I have a bowel disease? NO! “Wait until you reach 11 days, and if no movement then, then we will intervene” I was told. 11 COCKING DAYS!!!! If there was no movement by 11 days they would not have had to intervene, they would have found me on day 11 swearing, full of a combination of laxatives, prunes and other such things scooting on their bloody floor shouting obscenities at the toilet bowl, trying to get my colon out with a spoon. This bout of constipation led to tearing so much i lost so much blood I filled a toilet bowl and consequently 3 more weeks of hydrocortisone suppositories, laxtatives and pain killers and it’s still effecting me now. Colin is most certainly not my friend at the moment. During this time feeling thoroughly abandoned I sought advice in private health care who discovered during a scan that I had a new resident in my right lung... I call him Filbert the lung goblin. He is a small undertiminable mass and is also not bloody welcome. There is no room. I have made it clear to him that he is not staying long but he ignores me and likes to find ways of stomping on my lung in his big Goblin boots at various times of the day causing me to yell out in surprise and pain.

So fast forward to the present day, complete with Phyllis, Colin, Filbert and god knows who else. I have been to physio for my back, (my right side of my back is rigid) where each session she either gives me exercises through zoom or she bends me like a pretzel and pulls me in different directions in person, (after making sure I have consumed enough painkillers to take down a fully grown Rhino) making my eyes bulge. I have been having regular sessions with a Psychologist who is helping me work on ... well me, and it’s not easy. This new back complication makes it doubly difficult, as even the smallest movement in my right hand side can set off hours of hell and spasms so I have had to have found other ways of moving, writing, working holding things and generally coping. I lost my dear friend a little while ago so I am also grieving in my own way for her. But I am also acutely aware that we and our family are safe when thousands have not been, We and our families are without COVID and allthogh isolation makes things harder, we are blessed we have what we have. It’s difficult to focus on the positive in a sea of crap, but I try to keep looking on what’s there rather than what’s missing. I try to find joy in the small things and am finally realising that I have to slow down. The realisation that I am ill has been a long time coming, and the further acceptance that comes with that is even more difficult. It’s definitely been a journey and even though it’s still one step in front of another, it’s still steps forward in the right direction, and even if I lose the map and veer off course, that’s okay too. It’s okay not to be okay and it’s okay to adjust to your new normal whatever that might be. It’s just another chapter and I think I am going to try and be more kind and accepting of my new normal moving forwards. So I start my year with a new found appreciation of myself, trying to be kinder to myself and trying to open up more to my loved ones. It’s been one hell of a year, but it’s a year of difficulties we have all shared in our own way. And by sharing we support each other. After all no matter what last year threw at us all and no matter what this year brings. We are all in this together. ❤️

[anotherwhorewatch]

Marco Polo

This is a first for this ‘rewatch’: not only is it the first reconstructed story I’m watching (I’m going for the black-and-white Loose Cannon recon, if anyone cares), but it’s also the first story I’ve never watched before in full. I’ve previously only seen the half-hour version on the Edge of Destruction DVD – and this is a seven-parter, so that version had to cut one or two things out.

Having given us seven weeks of hard science fiction and a two-act character play, we’ve circled back round to Doctor Who’s educational remit for a purely historical tale based around the real-life figure of Marco Polo. We do learn a bit about Polo, his relationships and his journey, but mostly he’s there as a friendly antagonist for the TARDIS crew to play against. Mark Eden does a sterling job as the charismatic Polo, who is charming enough that you can almost accept how readily the regulars accept their situation for much of the story.

Polo is widely regarded as one of Doctor Who’s great lost epics, and in some ways it’s easy to see why; in terrestrial terms the story covers a vast distance, and we’re periodically reminded of the amount of ground being traversed with the help of Indiana Jones-style maps and excerpts from Polo’s diaries. The existing photos suggest that this was a lavish production, with sets and costumes befitting the delay in this serial’s production. The BBC has always been good at producing period dramas, and this serial plays to those strengths.

The flip side of this is that not an awful lot actually happens in the story, and by the midpoint it starts to feel quite formulaic - arrive somewhere, have the TARDIS crew bicker with Marco and fail to get their key back, show Tegana looking a bit shifty and move to the next location. And it’s another anticlimax of an ending, as Marco eventually just shrugs and gives the Doctor his key back.

But what Marco Polo lacks in plot, it makes up for in character. The regulars may not have much to do in the story, but we get to spend a lot of time with them, and Susan in particular benefits as she befriends young servant Ping Cho - after the running with scissors incident in the last story, it’s a welcome change to see her just being a teenager for a while. Marco Polo may not quite live up to its reputation, but it’s a solid tale whose absence from the archives is a great shame.

Memorable Moments:

Ian and Barbara’s joy at being back on Earth at the start of the story is a nice moment after some pretty unrelenting misery for the unwitting travellers. The script spends just enough time touching on this arc before launching the pair into inquisitive adventure mode.

The Doctor’s absence from all but a single scene of episode two sticks out like a sore thumb, with the explanation that the old man is simply in his room having a sulk for the whole episode struggling to ring true. Certainly if any Doctor is going to have a sulk it’s Hartnell, but for him not to emerge during the raging sandstorm - especially when they learn his granddaughter is caught up in it - just feels wrong.

Speaking of the sandstorm, it’s a pretty horrible experience - both for the characters, in an already oppressive episode, and for the viewer; I have no idea what a sandstorm sounds like, but here the Radiophonic Workshop somehow manage to tap into the sound of hell.

The scenes between Tegana and Marco, particularly in episode two, are among the story’s most engaging; two charismatic antagonists trading double-edged barbs under the guise of civility, with a lot more being said between the two than it first appears.

Ping-Cho’s story in Part Three may bring proceedings to a grinding halt (Almost as much as when she decides to stop and look at some pretty fishies in Part Five), but it does inspire the first - and presumably the only - mention of hashish in Doctor Who. Purely medicinal, I’m sure.

A scene that doesn’t get served well by the reconstruction is the end of Part 3, in which Susan enters the cave which she’s been told contains hundreds of stone masks - and screams because she sees a stone mask. The recon contains a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot of human eyes behind the mask - but I blinked, I missed it, and the whole thing seemed pretty ridiculous until the start of the next episode, in which we’re reliably informed that the mask moved. Yeah, if you say so.

Either the sixties were a different time or the Doctor Who production team were massive racists, because Part Four introduces us to several ‘comedy characters’ with names like Ling Tau and Wang Lo - all played by Caucasian men in yellowface. It might be one of the few times that Doctor Who has actually made me want to hide behind the sofa.

On the plus side, Ian Chesterton pretending to be drunk is probably one of the greatest moments from Doctor Who’s history that are missing from the archives. If only we could see him staggering around while listening to him slur his words, I think the world would be a better place.

Something I’m glad we don’t have to see is William Hartnell exaggerating his aches and pains in Kublai Khan’s court - just listening to him over-egging it is bad enough. But I really like that they gave the Doctor a friend to bond over being past it with; it makes me wish Marco’s caravan had one fewer stop along the way and arrived at Khan’s palace much sooner.

And lastly, having spent two whole episodes building it up, Ping Cho’s arranged marriage subplot is waved away with a comment that her intended has died off screen. Granted, it was one of the less important storylines that needed wrapping up, but you have to wonder why they bothered to introduce it at all if they were going to throw it away in such an offhand manner.

Lingering Questions:

I’m sure many of us have been guilty of letting people take advantage of our good nature at some point in our lives, but it’s hard not to wonder about Marco Polo here. He extends the hand of friendship to the Doctor and friends, and in return they spend seven episodes bickering with him and then plotting and scheming behind his back. They’re also a considerable drain on Polo’s already stretched resources, and yet Marco remains kind to them throughout, through some sort of misplaced code of ethics. Why, particularly after the Doctor calls him a ‘poor, pathetic, stupid savage’, doesn’t Marco just leave these idiots in the desert to rot?

This question might be a bit of a cheat, given that we now know plenty of things about the TARDIS that neither the viewers nor writers were aware of back in 1964, but exactly how had the TARDIS, whose dimensions are practically infinite, run out of water? Had the Doctor drained the swimming pool? Had Ian gone in and swiped the last of the orange juice from the cricket pavilion? Were the TARDIS gardens experiencing a particularly dry winter?

One that seems less forgiveable is the notion of condensation gathering in the TARDIS because of the temperature differential. Though we’ve not seen it put to the test in any extreme way, the interior and exterior dimensions of the ship are clearly separate; it’s a central conceit of the series. You can heat the exterior up as much as you like, but the interior shouldn’t be affected - certainly not by such a piffling difference. Doctor Who should have ended with the Doctor and friends dying a slow and painful death in the desert, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

The biggest question of all, though; after Marco explicitly tells Ian that he would happily give them the TARDIS key back if they could prove that they were from another place and time, why in the name of all that is holy does Ian not immediately show him the inside of the TARDIS? Job done, we can spend an extra week on Marinus instead. Actually, when I put it like that...

[studentsofshield]

Pick of the Week and Comics Reviews for the Week of 4/26/17

By Vincent Faust

This was originally published on the date in the title derp

It’s new comics day, everyone! For those totally unaware, the majority of comics come out in a serial format. A single comic is usually called an issue, though there are other weird nicknames like singles, floppies, etc. Major publishers put out their several series once a month. Though the different series are spread out so that product is coming out every week. Special issues called annuals even come out to cover that “13th month” of uneven weeks.

Today I will be reviewing some of the major releases of this week. After reading and reviewing all of them, I will also select a “pick of the week” as the standout issue. At the end I will also make some recommendations about new collected editions that have come out this week.

Pick of the Week: Flash 21 Writer: Josh Williamson, Artist: Howard Porter

5/5

This is how you do a fantastic comic book. Rebirth, baby, let’s go! The DC Universe that everyone knows and loves is on its way back to us. There are so many things to discuss here and I also don’t want to spoil much.

Howard Porter’s art is gorgeous. His representation of Barry’s super speed is gorgeous, though we already know that from his run on the title with Geoff Johns over 10 years ago. We also get a shot of the gruesome corpse of Eobard Thawne, the Reverse Flash. A bruised and bandaged Bruce Wayne also highlights Porter’s versatility. He also admirably handles some flashback peeks in a time travel sequence.

A Watchtower “lost and found” scene shows off so many Easter eggs. What to think of some of these? Meaningless background art or a hint at what is to come? These are clearly the costumes of Hourman, Star-Spangled Kid, and Doctor Midnite. A Rocket Red #7 suit is also seen, which specifically refers back to the 1980s JLI iteration of the character. As opposed to the Generation Lost/New 52 version. The issue also opens with another Johnny Thunder scene.

The final page reveal is insane. Reading this issue makes me realize how much I love these darn characters and how giddy I am that DC is finally taking steps after seven years to make things right again. Perfect.

Action Comics 978 Writer: Dan Jurgens, Artist: Carlo Barberi

5/5

This is continuing Dan Jurgens’ aftermath story following the Reborn crossover saga. Clark is checking through Fortress of Solitude memories to determine what all has changed in his past thanks to the merging with the Superman of Earth-Prime. He basically has phantom memories. This allows Jurgens to do some refreshing on the origin and clarify what is in continuity and what isn’t.

Readers get a jaw dropping splash on page 6 showcasing many of his villains and eras. Electric Blue Superman is notably shown. Darkseid is drawn in his Jack Kirby style. Manchester Black is even here (obviously specifically nodding to What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way from Action Comics #775). We even get to see the trunks on for a second.

Jurgens basically runs us through the major emotional moments of his original 1990s tenure on the Superman books. From his proposal to Lois, revealing his secret identity, to his death at the hands of Doomsday, to the marriage.

The book ends with Mr. Oz teasing something for Clark and Hank Henshaw forming his Superman Revenge Squad with Eradicator, Metallo, Blanque, and soon to be Mongul.

The Superman books are going through a really exciting period right now. Just like many of DC’s characters. But Supes is at his best he’s been for probably a decade. Truly magical work.

Blue Beetle 8 Writer: Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, Artist: Scott Kollins

3/5

This has been the lowest selling Rebirth title from its debut to its most recent issue. It’s really a shame that it isn’t clicking with readers considering the all-star classic creative team. Though maybe it’s precisely that traditional feel that is holding the book back.

One thing the old school style has going for it is a meaty feeling. I don’t get the same feeling reading this issue that I did from the X-Men books. Not much decompression here. Lots of dialogue and action is packed into this little package.

The title page describes “the reunion of one of the greatest teams in comic book history.” I got really excited and thought it was going to be the return of Booster Gold. But it was referring to DeMatteis joining the creative team as scripter. I haven’t read enough of the previous issues to determine if this marks an improvement.

The final page of Jaime Reyes putting on Ted’s classic Blue Beetle suit is giving me more of those great Rebirth feelings. Check out my post on Rebirth dream books to hear what I think could save this book (it’s Booster Gold).

Justice League of America 5 Writer: Steve Orlando, Artist: Andy MacDonald

2/5

Nothing offensive about this issue. Nothing to write home about either. I still don’t totally understand why this specific lineup has been assembled as the splinter Justice League team. Seems like they’d be better off called the Outsiders. Ryan Choi gets so little attention. As do pretty much everyone on this team. Characterization is completely lacking. As a Philadelphian, I was annoyed that Ray’s home city was teased but the change was not actually acknowledged. Not much else to say about this book. Doesn’t pique my interest much.

Suicide Squad 16 Writer: Rob Williams, Artist: Tony S. Daniel

2/5

First of all, I have not read most of this series. I admit complete bias before cracking this issue open. I don’t think the Suicide Squad has been interesting since John Ostrander left it in 1992. There have been worthy successors like Gail Simone’s Secret Six and Greg Rucka’s Checkmate as far as DC Universe political intrigue and bad guys turned sorta good stories go.

I also think that DC completely ruined the franchise with the New 52. Presenting the book as a core flagship and making Harley Quinn a featured character deflates all of the tension and entire premise of the book. DC considers Harley their “fourth pillar” after Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. So the entire point of the Suicide Squad – that a member could die at any minute – is made moot.

DC tapped Jim Lee to initially draw the Rebirth iteration of Suicide Squad. Which obviously indicates they see it as a blockbuster title. Which makes sense from a business perspective given the recent (crappy) film adaptation. But Lee is not a good fit for this title. I also think he tries to return to something close to his 1990s X-Men/Wildcats aesthetic when on major books nowadays. Something has happened and that style of his has been rough on everything since All-Star Batman and Robin.

Enough rambling and onto the actual book at hand. Right off the bat on the cover I spy atrocious costumes for Harley and Deadshot. Katana has some obnoxious TnA perspective going on. On the interiors, Tony Daniel is at least a step up from the misplaced Lee.

The most interesting character here is Lex Luthor in his new status quo. The Squad infiltrate his complex while Amanda Waller talks him up. All to receive some Kryptonite so that General Zod can join the Squad. Because that is sure to work out.

X-Men Blue 2 Writer: Cullen Bunn, Artist: Jorge Molina

3/5

I still don’t care about these versions of the Original Five. Across Bendis and Hopeless, I was never given a reason to care about this time-displaced Wonder Bread. They’re just boring versions of their older selves. Which of course makes me upset seeing as how Cyclops is my favorite Marvel superhero.

Bunn was clearly born to write Magneto. He’s done fantastic work with the character previously in the Marvel Now era solo series and then in the All-New All-Different Uncanny X-Men. I just wish that he was more of a central character in this book. Jean goes into his mind and Bunn effectively pulls the heartstrings with a Holocaust flashback that was not done in an exploitative way.

Some of the dialogue between the teenagers is iffy. I am not a fan of Jorge Molina’s Jean Grey design. Otherwise, this book felt pretty decompressed. Nothing actually happens, there is no complete story within these pages.

A beginning flashback scene has Jean Grey arguing with Magneto over cooperating. She states that he had battled them over and over again, with his response being “that was a long time ago.” It was for most readers as well. Which is why we don’t care about these characters. But maybe there is a silver lining, with a tasty final page tease.

Though this will likely just turn Magneto into a stock villain again. Here’s hoping Bunn has interesting plans.

X-Men Gold 2 Writer: Marc Guggenheim, Artist: Ardian Syaf

3/5

I’m not going to get too into the Ardian Syaf controversy here. His art is meh in this issue, with some bright spots and some sequences that look really lazy.

We an incredibly abridged fight with the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Who we learn are joined by Mesmero. Kitty has an awkward exposition scene with Steve Rogers. Are other books not addressing his H.Y.D.R.A. stuff at all yet?

Nightcrawler gets injured, Old Man Logan gets captured. A generic faceless mutant gets shot. Guggenheim is already going overboard with the race metaphor. The new Avalanche and Pyro aren’t explained yet either.

This Brotherhood arc doesn’t have me jazzed to keep reading. It offers nothing new but is also not effectively pulling at my nostalgia for X-eras past.

Reprints

Marvel has a publishing initiative that they call True Believers. It reprints certain classic single issues for a dollar cover price. There are two really cool ones out this week.

One is True Believers: Generation X which collects the debut issue of that titular 1990s X-title. Everyone likes to dig on the 90s era in comics, and especially the X-Men. However, Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo did some wonderful work on this underrated title. Bachalo’s art is on a whole other level of innovative and unique. The characterization of these young mutants under the pen (or rather keyboard) of Lobdell was unparalleled for years. This is obviously being released to coincide with the upcoming Generation X series with limited connections to the originals. I am hoping that this new book does well and motivates someone at Marvel to give fans a comprehensive reprint of this classic.

Another is being labeled as True Believers: X-Men Gold. There actually was previously an X-Men Gold book prior to the ongoing one. It was a one-shot released in late 2013. However, this is not that. This reprints Uncanny X-Men #281. Which is the first issue of the next major status quo after Chris Claremont left the X-Men. This is the origins of the Blue and Gold era which the current X-books are trying to recapture. Beautiful (though very 90s) art by Whilce Portacio. A little less impressive script by some concoction of Jim Lee, John Byrne, and Whilce Portacio. This is before Scott Lobdell came on to give an actual direction to Uncanny X-Men.

Avengers: Masters of Evil Epic Collection

This is the third epic collection of Silver Age Avengers from Marvel. It collects issues 41-56, Annual 1-2. The beginning of this is the tail end of the Kooky Quartet era of Avengers history (though at this point joined by Hank Pym as Goliath). This period then proceeds with classic Avengers like Hercules and Black Panther jumping on. Roy Thomas picked up writing the book in the last epic at #35. He will do lots of character development for Black Panther across his run. This ends right before the debut of Vision. One can actually buy four Avengers epic collections from the very beginning. That’s almost 2,000 pages of classic Marvel action.

Flash by Waid Vol 2

The greatest Flash run of all time. In fact, this specific collection collects The Return of Barry Allen. Which is almost universally considered the best Flash story of all time. A Flash fan would have to be insane to not instantly be on the lookout for this.

Saga Deluxe Vol 2

Everyone loves Saga. I think? Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ smash hit Image title wows most who read it. With its emotional drama and wacky characters. What is there not to love? If you don’t already rabidly pick it up in issues or paperbacks, here’s a sexy hardcover. Or just upgrade. This collects issues 19-36. Which is equivalent to the fourth through sixth trades.

Young Justice Vol 1

Do you like the animated TV show of the same name? With characters like Connor Kent, Tim Drake, Bart Allen, and Cassie Sandsmark. This is the origin of that title and much of its roster of teenage superpowered heroes. This is also a comic written by Peter David. Which means, as long as DC continues printing them, you will have a solid chunk to read and digest. It also means that the characterization and relationships are on point. I’ve been looking forward to checking this out.

Let me know in the comments below what comics you enjoyed this week or intend to pick up.

[theflowergirl]

As tagged by @evil-writer​!

If you could change one thing about one drama, what would it be? Give Choi Won Shin and Choi Hye Won a redeeming arc in Joseon Gunman. Here are two people who were victims and raised themselves to the top. There are many sketchy things about his business, especially with how Choi Won Shin treated his slaves, but I really, really kept waiting for the redemption to come, for something to come out, for either character to show loyalty to something other than power. Choi Won Shin wasn’t even the “big bad”, and he was complex enough to deserve his role as main antagonist; both characters were used and struggled to the max to live their own lives. But then Hye Won, a strong-willed, take-no-shit female character in a period drama and we make her attempt suicide twice? Choi Won Shin spent literal episodes just shouting PARK YOON KAAAAANG into the camera? These characters deserved more. They deserved to pay for their crimes, but I also think they deserved to do better, to honor their humble beginnings, that they got to be proud of themselves but in a healthy way. They shouldn’t have gotten the ending they got.

Who is a popular actor that you can’t seem to get into? Lee Min Ho. 100% don’t understand the hype. Legend of the Blue Sea was supposed to be my gateway into Min Ho land but I got bored 1/4 through it. I think Faith/The Good Doctor might be the way for me, but I don’t hold any expectations.

What’s a popular drama that you didn’t like/dropped? My Love From Another Star. How you guys got to watch past the episodes where the female lead was humiliating herself after a rejection shows you have more tolerance than me.

Underrated favourite drama? SCARLET HEART RYEO Signal. I’ve yet to find anyone to scream with me about the open ending, about the clever use of “time-traveling”, and how we all deserve a second season.

An actor/actress you wish would do dramas more often? IT’S ABOUT TIME Kim Go Eun comes back into my life. Not ONE news about her next drama. (This seems like a pointless complaint since she had two successful dramas last year, but I honestly love her?) Alternatively, Kim Seul Gi needs the main role she deserves.

A guilty pleasure drama? Subete ga F ni Naru (The Perfect Insider). How ridiculous it is, and how I adore it so. I’ve been thirsty for the novels since the anime ended and the drama made me CRAVE THEM, and yet...

What drama would you say has the best ending? Another Miss Oh/Another Oh Hae Young. This drama knew exactly what I wanted, it didn’t play with me; it knew when to pull and when to give, it hit hard with every struggle felt by the characters, and we walked a long, long way to get exactly where I wanted it to get. No character was forgotten, no character was treated badly by the writing. It was simply beautifully executed.

If you could crossover two (or more) dramas, what would they be? Back when W was airing, there was a tumblr post about how Kang Chul  (W) needed two honest lawyers to defend his case to the end (I Hear Your Voice) and a group of reporters to uncover the truth (Pinocchio). It still makes me smile! I haven’t thought about any other crossover.

Who is a female character that the fandom hated, but you loved? I don’t follow a lot of fandoms for the dramas I’ve watched, so I’m going to be a bit on the obvious side here: I’ve seen a lot of hate for my baby Hae Soo (Scarlet Heart Ryeo) in these past few months. While it isn’t true that she’s hated, I still think she gets more hate than she deserves; she tried her best with what she was given, and if she was weak, then it’s only proof that she was flawed, and those flaws, along with So’s, is what made the drama so memorable despite its bad execution.

What’s your favourite fictional found family? THE ENTIRE WEIGHTLIFTING FAIRY KIM BOK JOO CAST

I tag @letsflytoasiarenata​ @wyndrider​ @syolen​ and @krysyuy​ with these questions:

1) What’s the drama with your favorite aesthetic (scenery, costumes, cinematography, soundtrack)? 2) What drama would you say had a strong beginning, but terrible end? 3) What’s your favorite trait about your favorite character? 4) What western series would you want to see adapted as kdrama (a current trend given The Good Wife, Criminal Minds, etc.)? 5) If you could trade places with one character, which one would it be? And what would you do different from them? 6) Whose actor/actress comeback are you looking forward to the most? 7) What drama would you recommend to absolutely anyone? 8) Is there a book/manga/manhwa you’d like to see adapted as a drama? Would you period-swap it (like Bride of the Water God set in a modern setting)? 9) What trope would you erase from kdrama? 10) What kind of character would you wish your favorite actor/actress to play?

Well that was hard, appreciate me.

[alexfbaum-blog]

Final - Homosexual Relationships; Stigma to Acceptance Represented in Films

Homosexual relationships have progressed over time; I believe for the better. On the other hand, as outsiders to this issue such as those that engage in solely heterosexual relationships, it is difficult to find relations between the struggles that homosexual men have endured. Of course, location and time period is a huge component in the determination of the evolution of change. I will evaluate three movies that display the struggles that those included in the homosexual community specifically have gone through, and how it lead to change. The three chosen movies which are I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Dallas Buyers Club, and Brokeback Mountain show the relationships of gay men on screen as portrayed by heterosexual actors. All of the three movies are very different in plot, actors, characters, and time periods. The efforts that have been made in attempt to display the struggles that members in the LGBTQ community have gone through does not always provide the best interpretation. If anything, stereotypes regarding the community have shown to be more abundant in these films rather than a wake-up call to viewers. Since the media industry is delayed when it comes to keeping up on societal viewpoints of the LGBTQ community, the time period of these movies is extremely important to be taken into consideration because times have advanced so greatly within a short amount of time. There are specific reasons as to why I chose the movies I did, and it will be described in relation to the plot of the stories and choice in actors below.

The first movie I have chosen to evaluate is I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, a comedy starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James because it provides a comical twist on a serious and debatable topic to society. Larry who is a widower struggling to get back on his feet after his wife’s death comes up with the idea that if he married his best friend, all the marital benefits would apply to help him and his two children. Chuck, who works with Larry as a firefighter in New York, is a womanizer who changed his ways to the world to help his best friend. Throughout this journey, the audience views the various encounters that they experience regarding harassment from society for being ‘gay’ and go on to bash the homosexuals and transsexuals that they were surrounded with. They both get a lawyer named Alex McDonough, played by Jessica Biel, to help them fight their case to prove to their community that they are truly in love. Coincidentally, Alex went into that line of work specifically because her brother is gay (actually a homosexual, not pretending to be one). Alex invites her two clients, Chuck and Larry, to a gay benefit costume party that her brother was attending, where they are all faced with cruelty from homophobic protesters. The two friends soon realize how much society still frowns upon those in the LGBTQ community even at their place of work, where everyone made fun of them for being homosexual. Eventually, Chuck’s past women came out confessing he was not who he claimed he was got him caught and eventually arrested with Larry along with the rest of the firefighters after they defended their honor to Chuck and Larry. With these current issues in mind, they were soon released after negotiating a deal with the judge. Their deal entailed providing photos for a firefighter’s calendar specifically geared towards benefiting the AIDS research benefit. Although there were many critics of this film, it was released for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which claims the movie showed stereotypes, equality, and the importance of respect.

           A debate that is sometimes brought up when it comes to the idea of gay marriage is because two people are being married for the benefits that marriage has to offer, and they are not getting married because they love one another. At the same time, this can be applied to heterosexual couples as well, but people like to make the main focus on the minorities. Jeanette Roan goes into detail about the topic of ‘fake weddings’ by stating that this movie “effectively highlights what more conventional narratives of true love obscure: marriage is as much about race, gender, nation, sexuality, and family as it is about celebrating true love between two private individuals” (2014, p. 746). Of course, marriage fraud is possible in any aspect including marriages to immigrants to allow them to get access into the United States, or two people trying to milk the benefits that marriage offers. Just because these events sometimes appear, does not mean it should limit the decisions of two people that love each other to question if they should get married or not. What I find most interesting about the relation of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, is that they receive backlash from their decision to get married. Whether it was because they were in love or even if they weren’t, they still experienced a slice of the pain that those in the LGBTQ community need to face, and how it is unfair to treat someone differently because of their sexuality alone. Roan and I share the same belief when she explains, “I believe that anyone who wishes to access this narrative should be able to have it; the personal, cultural, legal, and political validation that marriage represents is deeply meaningful and significant for many couples, none more so than those who relationships have been unrecognized, stigmatized, or worse” (2014, p. 746). Unfortunately, Hollywood has not positively contributed to showing the world the realness behind the struggles that homosexual relationships face. Until recently, the expectation was that two people, a male and a female, fell in love, got married, then lived happily ever after. Although Hollywood has made some advances over the past two decades or so, it isn’t enough to change some viewpoints of the audience who are homophobic. I found specifically interesting that in October 2010, the Pew Research Center conducted a research study that concluded approximately 42% of the surveyed individuals favored same-sex marriage while 48% were opposed (2014, p. 747). I was truly shocked when I read these statistics because I didn’t realize that less than one decade ago, the country was split into two. I believe that the location that the survey was conducted also contributed to the outcome of the study, but regardless; it is still equally as unsettling no matter where in the United States this study was done.

On the other hand, the film does go on to draw a boundary between friendship and romance, neglecting any type of body language that may show that they have interest in one another. “However, as a fake wedding film, it poses the question of why certain benefits are tied to marriage, and more significantly, it demonstrates that the bonds of friendship should be recognized as among the most significant of social affiliations, equivalent to the bond between a married couple. Thus, despite its contradictory and often offensive representations of homosexuality, the film ends up affirming the value of male friendship over heterosexual pairing” (2014, p. 748).

The second movie to be analyzed is the Dallas Buyers Club, a nonfiction biographical drama that takes place in the mid 1980s; a time when HIV and AIDS research were extremely under-researched. The main character name is Ron Woodroof is performed by Matthew McConaughey, a straight male that begins as a homophobic womanizer that transforms into an open and accepting individual that strives to help those included in the LGBTQ community. Keeping in mind that Matthew McConaughey is heterosexual in reality, there is a lot of significance that follows having a straight main character displaying the struggles and backlash of homophobia (Rizov, 2014). In the movie, Woodroof contracts AIDS from a woman who was an intravenous drug user. Although he wasn’t gay, he experienced the repercussions that a homosexual man would be faced with since AIDS was seen as a ‘gay’ disease due to lack of education and harsh stigmatization. He also was in denial about his diagnoses and refused to accept it. Woodroof ended up getting fired from his job, eviced from his home, and rejected by his family and friends because they assumed he was gay due to his disease. As AIDS treatment began becoming available (not so much accessible), Woodroof was given the opportunity to be a part of a research study to show how these drugs worked. He begged the doctor in charge, Dr. Eve Saks, to be a part of the experimental group instead of the placebo. His health continued to worsen with the use of the drug, AZT, but he still had some hope. He met a transgendered woman named Rayon, who’s relationship with one another began aggressive and slowly progressed into a caring relationship with one another. Once he realized that AZT is prolonging his life and decreasing the intensity of his symptoms, Woodroof decides to team up with Rayon to smuggle these drugs into Texas to treat his own symptoms. He eventually goes on to distribute them to other people that has AIDS, resulting in the Dallas Buyers Club. The clients he has gained through this process lead him to be more sympathetic to those in the LGBTQ community, especially when his new best friend Rayon passed away while he was attempting to acquire more of the beneficial drug. Woodruff goes on to seek justice and goes against the FDA for not allowing the drug to be able to be distributed when it is confirmed to be non-toxic. He ends up winning the case, but the disease still took over and killed Woodroof. Although, the drug prolonged his life from the estimated 30 days to 7 years, and his efforts payed off to the rest of the community (Gant, 2014).

Asher Mullard (2014) goes into detail about the subject of the experimental drug when he states “The film underplays the side-effects of Woodroof's experimental offerings, and neglects to mention that clinical trials eventually showed that many of the drugs he pushed were ineffective as treatments for HIV/AIDS. The film also comes down hard on the medical establishment and the FDA for accepting zidovudine, suggesting that its side-effects outweighed its benefits. Only at the very end does it acknowledge that zidovudine became a key component in the early antiretroviral cocktails that have turned HIV/AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic disease.”

The third movie I chose is Brokeback Mountain, a romantic drama that is set back to the 1960s through the 1980s. Both of the main characters, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, are/were heterosexual in real life, but play homosexual men that are hiding their intimate relationship from the lives that they portray to the rest of society. The audience follows these two men as their normal, daily lives and secret lives are presented. Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are both hired by a man named Joe Aguirre, whom lives in Wyoming, to herd his sheep for him throughout the summer. They had a night where they both had too much to drink, and Jack subtly attempts to show interest in Ennis. Ennis began hesitant, but eventually decided to become intimate with Jack. Ennis was resistant to the incident happening again, but it didn’t stop them from forming a sexual and emotional relationship with one another. When they are informed by Joe that their summer was being cut short, they got into a fist-fight ending with Ennis and Jack bloody. After this summer, Ennis marries a woman named Alma Beers and has two children with her, and Jack met, married, and had a son with a woman named Lureen Newsome. Jack attempted to get his job back in Wyoming, but Joe witnessed him and Ennis on the mountain, leading to Joe refusing to rehire him due to the circumstances. Jack and Ennis end up rekindling their relationship with one another. So, they decided to take fishing trips where they would be able to see one another without suspicion. At this time is when Ennis expresses a childhood memory that has left him traumatized. The memory included the torturing and murdering two men suspected of homosexual behavior. Both of their marriages ended in divorce, but Jack found interest in male prostitutes and went on to having an affair with another married man while Ennis began a relationship with a female. They attempt to rekindle their relationship once more, but it ends up in an argument. Unfortunately, Ennis finds out that Jack passed away in an accident. His final wishes were that he wanted his ashes to be scattered on Brokeback Mountain.

Felipe Leandro de Jesus analyzed a study that focused on the representation of gender roles and queer sexuality in the film Brokeback Mountain (2016, p. 33). Six scenes specifically are used for analysis. 1-depiction of Ennis and Jack’s first conversation after they had sexual intercourse for the first time; 2-a conversation between Jack Twist and Mr. Aguirre where Jack learns someone else besides Ennis knows about the sexual encounter; 3-depiction of Ennis and Jack’s first kiss after years of not seeing one another, witnessed by Ennis’ wife, Alma; 4-a conversation between Jack and Ennis where they discuss advancing their relationship together; 5-the confrontation between Ennis and Alma after their divorce; 6-the last conversation held between Jack and Ennis. Going against what was depicted in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Brokeback Mountain critics point out how body language is used in the movie’s advantage instead of neglecting it. It has been noted that Jack displayed a more feminine approach by being open about his feelings, outwardly flirting with other men, and does not do what a man ‘should’ be doing during this time period while Ennis takes charge of a more masculinized role, keeping his feelings in and uses violence as his way of expression. The reason why I included these six scenes that were being examined is because it provides examples from the summary I have given above that show why Jack was seen as more feminine and why Ennis was viewed as masculine. Specifically, in the first scene that was analyzed, Jack displays feminine mannerisms because he acts on his feelings for Ennis first and deeply expresses how he is feeling while Ennis is kept more reserved. Jesus concludes his analysis explaining that “Brokeback Mountain is known for being the first blockbuster in film history in which the story revolved around a homoaffective couple and their relationship… The film holds great importance for being a discussion opener for the LGBT cause in many places (such as discussions on gay rights) and for placing LGBT issues on top of the news at the time of its release. However, it is not devoid of some prejudice and stereotypical representations in relation to the ways the characters are conceived in terms of masculinity and femininity, according to their sexual roles in the relationship and either penetrator or penetrated” (2016, p. 51). I wonder if these roles were given a feminine versus masculine feature to show the stigma associated with ‘the man vs who’s the woman’ in a homosexual relationship, or simply because the producers believe that is how homosexual relationships normally are.

Dallas Buyers Club and Brokeback Mountain represent the darker sides to homosexual stigma that relates to the comedy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry in the sense of heterosexuals being rejected and ridiculed because of society’s beliefs about the main characters. I wanted to include the most drastically different movies that shared the same foundation, to show that there is more than one way that media can portray a statement. The most ironic common ground that is shared between these movies is that they all begin somewhat homophobic until the main characters’ experience what those included in the LGBTQ community experience on a daily basis to this day. Rizov explains, “Dallas Buyers Club can be slotted alongside 2005's Brokeback Mountain and 2008's Milk, two of the relatively few films with marquee-value straight actors enacting gay men. It's reasonable to complain that Dallas takes a story about a straight man's experience and places it at the centre of a larger Aids narrative in which homophobia, social ostracism et al are primarily his problem” (2014). It represents the extent of someone’s views can shift once they begin to understand the reality of it all versus basing their beliefs on prior ‘knowledge’ about the subject. It is rare when a situation is brought to the table when heterosexual men experience the negativity that homosexual men have faced for years, yet it is also revolutionary in broadening the world’s perceptions. It demonstrates that even those that are not directly a part of the LGBTQ community can still make a difference and a broad statement to others that may not know otherwise. It is difficult for someone to judge what someone is going through until they get a taste of it for themselves.

           Indeed, while stereotypes may be the easiest way for viewers to understand the situation from an outside point of view, the efforts have been made in attempt to display the struggles that members in the LGBTQ community have gone through do indeed shine through within these films. One of the most notable elements of all of the films is that they show how difficult it is to be a part of the LGBTQ community, and spend very little time showing embracing it. Although, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry does show the comical side of the issue, it spends some time portraying the importance of the community itself while the other two movies did not. With this in mind, the reason why Dallas Buyers Club and Brokeback Mountain did not include the positivity of the community itself is because it simply has not been fully constructed during the time periods portrayed in the films. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry was set in a modern day early 2000s era while Dallas Buyers Club and Brokeback Mountain were set between the 1960s to the 1990s. Personally, I felt like the reason behind having heterosexual men starring in these films is because they are very well-known in the media industry, and people are more likely to see a movie with someone they know compared to someone they haven’t heard of. Although it may seem difficult to view a heterosexual face the issues that homosexuals have encountered, the movies do a fantastic job of sucking the audience into the story as if they were there. In conclusion, it is extremely important that the film industry has come on board with the portrayal of homosexuals, it is still a little behind with the times. It is most definitely a great start, but I believe that it is equally important for the movies to emphasize the importance of the construction of the LGBTQ community.

Resources:

**Resources that are bolded are peer-reviewed** 

Babuscio, Jack. (2004). “Camp and the Gay Sensibility” in Queer cinema: The film reader, pp. 121-136

Benshoff, Henry. M., & Griffin, Sean. (2006). Queer images: A history of gay and lesbian film in America, Chapter 12, pp. 267-289

Gant, C. (2014). Dallas Buyers Club. Sight And Sound, 24(2), 14-15.

Gross, Larry. (2001). Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America, Chapter 2, pp. 21-109.

Jesus, F. L. D., Figueiredo, D. D. C., & Nascimento, F. S. (2016). Screening the unspeakable: The representation of gender/sex roles and same-sex love in Brokeback Mountain. International Journal of Language Studies, 10(2), 33-56.

Mullard, A. (2014). Underground drug networks in the early days of AIDS. The Lancet, 383(9917), 592. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(14)60208-7.

Norton, S. (2009). What's Sex Got to Do With It? Cinematic Critique on the Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage. Hastings Communications & Entertainment Law Journal (Comm/Ent), 31(2), 321-338.

Pedersen, Lyn. (1954) “The Importance of Being Different.”

Rizov, V. (2014). Dallas Buyers Club. Sight & Sound, 24(2), 66-67. 

Roan, J. (2014). Fake Weddings and the Critique of Marriage: The Wedding Banquet(1993),I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry(2007), and the Marriage Equality Debate. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 31(8), 746-763. doi:10.1080/10509208.2012.757530.

Roughton, R. (2014). The Significance of Brokeback Mountain. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, 18(1), 83-94. doi:10.1080/19359705.2013.792128

[abaum1994]

Final Rough Draft - Homosexual Relationships; Stigma to Acceptance Represented in Films

Homosexual relationships have progressed over time; I believe for the better. On the other hand, as outsiders to this issue such as those that engage in solely heterosexual relationships, it is difficult to find relations between the struggles that homosexual men have endured. Of course, location and time period is a huge component in the determination of the evolution of change. I will evaluate three movies that display the struggles that those included in the homosexual community specifically have gone through, and how it lead to change. All of the following movies are very different in plot, actors, characters, and time periods. There are specific reasons as to why I chose the movies I did, and it will be described in relation to the plot of the stories and choice in actors below.

The first movie I have chosen to evaluate is I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, a comedy starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James because it provides a comical twist on a serious and debatable topic to society. Larry who is a widower struggling to get back on his feet after his wife’s death comes up with the idea that if he married his best friend, all the marital benefits would apply to help him and his two children. Chuck, who works with Larry as a firefighter in New York, is a womanizer who changed his ways to the world to help his best friend. Throughout this journey, the audience views the various encounters that they experience regarding harassment from society for being ‘gay’ and go on to bash the homosexuals and transsexuals that they were surrounded with. They both get a lawyer named Alex McDonough, played by Jessica Biel, to help them fight their case to prove to their community that they are truly in love. Coincidentally, Alex went into that line of work specifically because her brother is gay (actually a homosexual, not pretending to be one). Alex invites her two clients, Chuck and Larry, to a gay benefit costume party that her brother was attending, where they are all faced with cruelty from homophobic protesters. The two friends soon realize how much society still frowns upon those in the LGBTQ community even at their place of work, where everyone made fun of them for being homosexual. Eventually, Chuck’s past women came out confessing he was not who he claimed he was got him caught and eventually arrested with Larry along with the rest of the firefighters after they defended their honor to Chuck and Larry. With these current issues in mind, they were soon released after negotiating a deal with the judge. Their deal entailed providing photos for a firefighter’s calendar specifically geared towards benefiting the AIDS research benefit. Although there were many critics of this film, it was released for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which claims the movie showed stereotypes, equality, and the importance of respect.

           A debate that is sometimes brought up when it comes to the idea of gay marriage is because two people are being married for the benefits that marriage has to offer, and they are not getting married because they love one another. At the same time, this can be applied to heterosexual couples as well, but people like to make the main focus on the minorities. Jeanette Roan goes into detail about the topic of ‘fake weddings’ by stating that this movie “effectively highlights what more conventional narratives of true love obscure: marriage is as much about race, gender, nation, sexuality, and family as it is about celebrating true love between two private individuals” (2014, p. 746). Of course, marriage fraud is possible in any aspect including marriages to immigrants to allow them to get access into the United States, or two people trying to milk the benefits that marriage offers. Just because these events sometimes appear, does not mean it should limit the decisions of two people that love each other to question if they should get married or not. What I find most interesting about the relation of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, is that they receive backlash from their decision to get married. Whether it was because they were in love or even if they weren’t, they still experienced a slice of the pain that those in the LGBTQ community need to face, and how it is unfair to treat someone differently because of their sexuality alone. Roan and I share the same belief when she explains, “I believe that anyone who wishes to access this narrative should be able to have it; the personal, cultural, legal, and political validation that marriage represents is deeply meaningful and significant for many couples, none more so than those who relationships have been unrecognized, stigmatized, or worse” (2014, p. 746). Unfortunately, Hollywood has not positively contributed to showing the world the realness behind the struggles that homosexual relationships face. Until recently, the expectation was that two people, a male and a female, fell in love, got married, then lived happily ever after. Although Hollywood has made some advances over the past two decades or so, it isn’t enough to change some viewpoints of the audience who are homophobic. I found specifically interesting that in October 2010, the Pew Research Center conducted a research study that concluded approximately 42% of the surveyed individuals favored same-sex marriage while 48% were opposed (2014, p. 747). I was truly shocked when I read these statistics because I didn’t realize that less than one decade ago, the country was split into two. I believe that the location that the survey was conducted also contributed to the outcome of the study, but regardless; it is still equally as unsettling no matter where in the United States this study was done.

On the other hand, the film does go on to draw a boundary between friendship and romance, neglecting any type of body language that may show that they have interest in one another. “However, as a fake wedding film, it poses the question of why certain benefits are tied to marriage, and more significantly, it demonstrates that the bonds of friendship should be recognized as among the most significant of social affiliations, equivalent to the bond between a married couple. Thus, despite its contradictory and often offensive representations of homosexuality, the film ends up affirming the value of male friendship over heterosexual pairing” (2014, p. 748).

 The second movie to be analyzed is the Dallas Buyers Club, a nonfiction biographical drama that takes place in the mid 1980s; a time when HIV and AIDS research were extremely under-researched. The main character name is Ron Woodroof is performed by Matthew McConaughey, a straight male that begins as a homophobic womanizer that transforms into an open and accepting individual that strives to help those included in the LGBTQ community. Keeping in mind that Matthew McConaughey is heterosexual in reality, there is a lot of significance that follows having a straight main character displaying the struggles and backlash of homophobia (Rizov, 2014). In the movie, Woodroof contracts AIDS from a woman who was an intravenous drug user. Although he wasn’t gay, he experienced the repercussions that a homosexual man would be faced with since AIDS was seen as a ‘gay’ disease due to lack of education and harsh stigmatization. He also was in denial about his diagnoses and refused to accept it. Woodroof ended up getting fired from his job, eviced from his home, and rejected by his family and friends because they assumed he was gay due to his disease. As AIDS treatment began becoming available (not so much accessible), Woodroof was given the opportunity to be a part of a research study to show how these drugs worked. He begged the doctor in charge, Dr. Eve Saks, to be a part of the experimental group instead of the placebo. His health continued to worsen with the use of the drug, AZT, but he still had some hope. He met a transgendered woman named Rayon, who’s relationship with one another began aggressive and slowly progressed into a caring relationship with one another. Once he realized that AZT is prolonging his life and decreasing the intensity of his symptoms, Woodroof decides to team up with Rayon to smuggle these drugs into Texas to treat his own symptoms. He eventually goes on to distribute them to other people that has AIDS, resulting in the Dallas Buyers Club. The clients he has gained through this process lead him to be more sympathetic to those in the LGBTQ community, especially when his new best friend Rayon passed away while he was attempting to acquire more of the beneficial drug. Woodruff goes on to seek justice and goes against the FDA for not allowing the drug to be able to be distributed when it is confirmed to be non-toxic. He ends up winning the case, but the disease still took over and killed Woodroof. Although, the drug prolonged his life from the estimated 30 days to 7 years, and his efforts payed off to the rest of the community (Gant, 2014).

Asher Mullard (2014) goes into detail about the subject of the experimental drug when he states “The film underplays the side-effects of Woodroof's experimental offerings, and neglects to mention that clinical trials eventually showed that many of the drugs he pushed were ineffective as treatments for HIV/AIDS. The film also comes down hard on the medical establishment and the FDA for accepting zidovudine, suggesting that its side-effects outweighed its benefits. Only at the very end does it acknowledge that zidovudine became a key component in the early antiretroviral cocktails that have turned HIV/AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic disease.”

The third movie I chose is Brokeback Mountain, a romantic drama that is set back to the 1960s through the 1980s. Both of the main characters, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, are/were heterosexual in real life, but play homosexual men that are hiding their intimate relationship from the lives that they portray to the rest of society. The audience follows these two men as their normal, daily lives and secret lives are presented. Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are both hired by a man named Joe Aguirre, whom lives in Wyoming, to herd his sheep for him throughout the summer. They had a night where they both had too much to drink, and Jack subtly attempts to show interest in Ennis. Ennis began hesitant, but eventually decided to become intimate with Jack. Ennis was resistant to the incident happening again, but it didn’t stop them from forming a sexual and emotional relationship with one another. When they are informed by Joe that their summer was being cut short, they got into a fist-fight ending with Ennis and Jack bloody. After this summer, Ennis marries a woman named Alma Beers and has two children with her, and Jack met, married, and had a son with a woman named Lureen Newsome. Jack attempted to get his job back in Wyoming, but Joe witnessed him and Ennis on the mountain, leading to Joe refusing to rehire him due to the circumstances. Jack and Ennis end up rekindling their relationship with one another. So, they decided to take fishing trips where they would be able to see one another without suspicion. At this time is when Ennis expresses a childhood memory that has left him traumatized. The memory included the torturing and murdering two men suspected of homosexual behavior. Both of their marriages ended in divorce, but Jack found interest in male prostitutes and went on to having an affair with another married man while Ennis began a relationship with a female. They attempt to rekindle their relationship once more, but it ends up in an argument. Unfortunately, Ennis finds out that Jack passed away in an accident. His final wishes were that he wanted his ashes to be scattered on Brokeback Mountain.

Felipe Leandro de Jesus analyzed a study that focused on the representation of gender roles and queer sexuality in the film Brokeback Mountain (2016, p. 33). Six scenes specifically are used for analysis. 1-depiction of Ennis and Jack’s first conversation after they had sexual intercourse for the first time; 2-a conversation between Jack Twist and Mr. Aguirre where Jack learns someone else besides Ennis knows about the sexual encounter; 3-depiction of Ennis and Jack’s first kiss after years of not seeing one another, witnessed by Ennis’ wife, Alma; 4-a conversation between Jack and Ennis where they discuss advancing their relationship together; 5-the confrontation between Ennis and Alma after their divorce; 6-the last conversation held between Jack and Ennis. Going against what was depicted in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Brokeback Mountain critics point out how body language is used in the movie’s advantage instead of neglecting it. It has been noted that Jack displayed a more feminine approach by being open about his feelings, outwardly flirting with other men, and does not do what a man ‘should’ be doing during this time period while Ennis takes charge of a more masculinized role, keeping his feelings in and uses violence as his way of expression. The reason why I included these six scenes that were being examined is because it provides examples from the summary I have given above that show why Jack was seen as more feminine and why Ennis was viewed as masculine. Specifically, in the first scene that was analyzed, Jack displays feminine mannerisms because he acts on his feelings for Ennis first and deeply expresses how he is feeling while Ennis is kept more reserved. Jesus concludes his analysis explaining that “Brokeback Mountain is known for being the first blockbuster in film history in which the story revolved around a homoaffective couple and their relationship… The film holds great importance for being a discussion opener for the LGBT cause in many places (such as discussions on gay rights) and for placing LGBT issues on top of the news at the time of its release. However, it is not devoid of some prejudice and stereotypical representations in relation to the ways the characters are conceived in terms of masculinity and femininity, according to their sexual roles in the relationship and either penetrator or penetrated” (2016, p. 51). I wonder if these roles were given a feminine versus masculine feature to show the stigma associated with ‘the man vs who’s the woman’ in a homosexual relationship, or simply because the producers believe that is how homosexual relationships normally are.

Dallas Buyers Club and Brokeback Mountain represent the darker sides to homosexual stigma that relates to the comedy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry in the sense of heterosexuals being rejected and ridiculed because of society’s beliefs about the main characters. I wanted to include the most drastically different movies that shared the same foundation, to show that there is more than one way that media can portray a statement. The most ironic common ground that is shared between these movies is that they all begin somewhat homophobic until the main characters’ experience what those included in the LGBTQ community experience on a daily basis to this day. Rizov explains, “Dallas Buyers Club can be slotted alongside 2005's Brokeback Mountain and 2008's Milk, two of the relatively few films with marquee-value straight actors enacting gay men. It's reasonable to complain that Dallas takes a story about a straight man's experience and places it at the centre of a larger Aids narrative in which homophobia, social ostracism et al are primarily his problem” (2014). It represents the extent of someone’s views can shift once they begin to understand the reality of it all versus basing their beliefs on prior ‘knowledge’ about the subject. It is rare when a situation is brought to the table when heterosexual men experience the negativity that homosexual men have faced for years, yet it is also revolutionary in broadening the world’s perceptions. It demonstrates that even those that are not directly a part of the LGBTQ community can still make a difference and a broad statement to others that may not know otherwise. It is difficult for someone to judge what someone is going through until they get a taste of it for themselves.

  Side note: I want to finish the introduction and do the conclusion once I complete the rest of the paper to be able to summarize it in both sections. I was wondering if I should go into detail about the recent political advances that have been done for the LGBTQ community, and where it would be most beneficial to get my point across that although homosexuality has been around for decades, it has become more prevalent now than ever. I plan to innervate the reading materials from some weeks into the scholarly resources by finding differences and similarities to base my reaction and argument off of, but it would be most helpful to do it once all of the main information is filled in more if needed. I also would like to know if I should incorporate more relation between the three movies to help distinguish the point I am attempting to make that movies do not always show the realistic aspects of what people in the LGBTQ community go through, but there are some efforts that have been made to pursue a more realistic representation.

 Resources: (Including those I plan to use, if not used already):

**Resources that are bolded are peer-reviewed**

Babuscio, Jack. (2004). “Camp and the Gay Sensibility” in Queer cinema: The film reader, pp. 121-136

Benshoff, Henry. M., & Griffin, Sean. (2006). Queer images: A history of gay and lesbian film in

America, Chapter 12, pp. 267-289

Gant, C. (2014). Dallas Buyers Club. Sight And Sound, 24(2), 14-15.

Gross, Larry. (2001). Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America, Chapter 2, pp. 21-109.

Jesus, F. L. D., Figueiredo, D. D. C., & Nascimento, F. S. (2016). Screening the unspeakable: The representation of gender/sex roles and same-sex love in Brokeback Mountain. International Journal of Language Studies, 10(2), 33-56. 

Mullard, A. (2014). Underground drug networks in the early days of AIDS. The Lancet, 383(9917), 592. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(14)60208-7.

Norton, S. (2009). What's Sex Got to Do With It? Cinematic Critique on the Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage. Hastings Communications & Entertainment Law Journal (Comm/Ent), 31(2), 321-338.

Pedersen, Lyn. (1954) “The Importance of Being Different.”

Rizov, V. (2014). Dallas Buyers Club. Sight & Sound, 24(2), 66-67. 

Roan, J. (2014). Fake Weddings and the Critique of Marriage: The Wedding Banquet(1993),I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry(2007), and the Marriage Equality Debate. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 31(8), 746-763. doi:10.1080/10509208.2012.757530.

Roughton, R. (2014). The Significance of Brokeback Mountain. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, 18(1), 83-94. doi:10.1080/19359705.2013.792128

[alexfbaum-blog]

Final Rough Draft - Homosexual Relationships; Stigma to Acceptance Represented in Films

Homosexual relationships have progressed over time; I believe for the better. On the other hand, as outsiders to this issue such as those that engage in solely heterosexual relationships, it is difficult to find relations between the struggles that homosexual men have endured. Of course, location and time period is a huge component in the determination of the evolution of change. I will evaluate three movies that display the struggles that those included in the homosexual community specifically have gone through, and how it lead to change. All of the following movies are very different in plot, actors, characters, and time periods. There are specific reasons as to why I chose the movies I did, and it will be described in relation to the plot of the stories and choice in actors below.

The first movie I have chosen to evaluate is I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, a comedy starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James because it provides a comical twist on a serious and debatable topic to society. Larry who is a widower struggling to get back on his feet after his wife’s death comes up with the idea that if he married his best friend, all the marital benefits would apply to help him and his two children. Chuck, who works with Larry as a firefighter in New York, is a womanizer who changed his ways to the world to help his best friend. Throughout this journey, the audience views the various encounters that they experience regarding harassment from society for being ‘gay’ and go on to bash the homosexuals and transsexuals that they were surrounded with. They both get a lawyer named Alex McDonough, played by Jessica Biel, to help them fight their case to prove to their community that they are truly in love. Coincidentally, Alex went into that line of work specifically because her brother is gay (actually a homosexual, not pretending to be one). Alex invites her two clients, Chuck and Larry, to a gay benefit costume party that her brother was attending, where they are all faced with cruelty from homophobic protesters. The two friends soon realize how much society still frowns upon those in the LGBTQ community even at their place of work, where everyone made fun of them for being homosexual. Eventually, Chuck’s past women came out confessing he was not who he claimed he was got him caught and eventually arrested with Larry along with the rest of the firefighters after they defended their honor to Chuck and Larry. With these current issues in mind, they were soon released after negotiating a deal with the judge. Their deal entailed providing photos for a firefighter’s calendar specifically geared towards benefiting the AIDS research benefit. Although there were many critics of this film, it was released for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which claims the movie showed stereotypes, equality, and the importance of respect.

          A debate that is sometimes brought up when it comes to the idea of gay marriage is because two people are being married for the benefits that marriage has to offer, and they are not getting married because they love one another. At the same time, this can be applied to heterosexual couples as well, but people like to make the main focus on the minorities. Jeanette Roan goes into detail about the topic of ‘fake weddings’ by stating that this movie “effectively highlights what more conventional narratives of true love obscure: marriage is as much about race, gender, nation, sexuality, and family as it is about celebrating true love between two private individuals” (2014, p. 746). Of course, marriage fraud is possible in any aspect including marriages to immigrants to allow them to get access into the United States, or two people trying to milk the benefits that marriage offers. Just because these events sometimes appear, does not mean it should limit the decisions of two people that love each other to question if they should get married or not. What I find most interesting about the relation of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, is that they receive backlash from their decision to get married. Whether it was because they were in love or even if they weren’t, they still experienced a slice of the pain that those in the LGBTQ community need to face, and how it is unfair to treat someone differently because of their sexuality alone. Roan and I share the same belief when she explains, “I believe that anyone who wishes to access this narrative should be able to have it; the personal, cultural, legal, and political validation that marriage represents is deeply meaningful and significant for many couples, none more so than those who relationships have been unrecognized, stigmatized, or worse” (2014, p. 746). Unfortunately, Hollywood has not positively contributed to showing the world the realness behind the struggles that homosexual relationships face. Until recently, the expectation was that two people, a male and a female, fell in love, got married, then lived happily ever after. Although Hollywood has made some advances over the past two decades or so, it isn’t enough to change some viewpoints of the audience who are homophobic. I found specifically interesting that in October 2010, the Pew Research Center conducted a research study that concluded approximately 42% of the surveyed individuals favored same-sex marriage while 48% were opposed (2014, p. 747). I was truly shocked when I read these statistics because I didn’t realize that less than one decade ago, the country was split into two. I believe that the location that the survey was conducted also contributed to the outcome of the study, but regardless; it is still equally as unsettling no matter where in the United States this study was done.

On the other hand, the film does go on to draw a boundary between friendship and romance, neglecting any type of body language that may show that they have interest in one another. “However, as a fake wedding film, it poses the question of why certain benefits are tied to marriage, and more significantly, it demonstrates that the bonds of friendship should be recognized as among the most significant of social affiliations, equivalent to the bond between a married couple. Thus, despite its contradictory and often offensive representations of homosexuality, the film ends up affirming the value of male friendship over heterosexual pairing” (2014, p. 748).

The second movie to be analyzed is the Dallas Buyers Club, a nonfiction biographical drama that takes place in the mid 1980s; a time when HIV and AIDS research were extremely under-researched. The main character name is Ron Woodroof is performed by Matthew McConaughey, a straight male that begins as a homophobic womanizer that transforms into an open and accepting individual that strives to help those included in the LGBTQ community. Keeping in mind that Matthew McConaughey is heterosexual in reality, there is a lot of significance that follows having a straight main character displaying the struggles and backlash of homophobia (Rizov, 2014). In the movie, Woodroof contracts AIDS from a woman who was an intravenous drug user. Although he wasn’t gay, he experienced the repercussions that a homosexual man would be faced with since AIDS was seen as a ‘gay’ disease due to lack of education and harsh stigmatization. He also was in denial about his diagnoses and refused to accept it. Woodroof ended up getting fired from his job, eviced from his home, and rejected by his family and friends because they assumed he was gay due to his disease. As AIDS treatment began becoming available (not so much accessible), Woodroof was given the opportunity to be a part of a research study to show how these drugs worked. He begged the doctor in charge, Dr. Eve Saks, to be a part of the experimental group instead of the placebo. His health continued to worsen with the use of the drug, AZT, but he still had some hope. He met a transgendered woman named Rayon, who’s relationship with one another began aggressive and slowly progressed into a caring relationship with one another. Once he realized that AZT is prolonging his life and decreasing the intensity of his symptoms, Woodroof decides to team up with Rayon to smuggle these drugs into Texas to treat his own symptoms. He eventually goes on to distribute them to other people that has AIDS, resulting in the Dallas Buyers Club. The clients he has gained through this process lead him to be more sympathetic to those in the LGBTQ community, especially when his new best friend Rayon passed away while he was attempting to acquire more of the beneficial drug. Woodruff goes on to seek justice and goes against the FDA for not allowing the drug to be able to be distributed when it is confirmed to be non-toxic. He ends up winning the case, but the disease still took over and killed Woodroof. Although, the drug prolonged his life from the estimated 30 days to 7 years, and his efforts payed off to the rest of the community (Gant, 2014).

Asher Mullard (2014) goes into detail about the subject of the experimental drug when he states “The film underplays the side-effects of Woodroof’s experimental offerings, and neglects to mention that clinical trials eventually showed that many of the drugs he pushed were ineffective as treatments for HIV/AIDS. The film also comes down hard on the medical establishment and the FDA for accepting zidovudine, suggesting that its side-effects outweighed its benefits. Only at the very end does it acknowledge that zidovudine became a key component in the early antiretroviral cocktails that have turned HIV/AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic disease.”

The third movie I chose is Brokeback Mountain, a romantic drama that is set back to the 1960s through the 1980s. Both of the main characters, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, are/were heterosexual in real life, but play homosexual men that are hiding their intimate relationship from the lives that they portray to the rest of society. The audience follows these two men as their normal, daily lives and secret lives are presented. Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are both hired by a man named Joe Aguirre, whom lives in Wyoming, to herd his sheep for him throughout the summer. They had a night where they both had too much to drink, and Jack subtly attempts to show interest in Ennis. Ennis began hesitant, but eventually decided to become intimate with Jack. Ennis was resistant to the incident happening again, but it didn’t stop them from forming a sexual and emotional relationship with one another. When they are informed by Joe that their summer was being cut short, they got into a fist-fight ending with Ennis and Jack bloody. After this summer, Ennis marries a woman named Alma Beers and has two children with her, and Jack met, married, and had a son with a woman named Lureen Newsome. Jack attempted to get his job back in Wyoming, but Joe witnessed him and Ennis on the mountain, leading to Joe refusing to rehire him due to the circumstances. Jack and Ennis end up rekindling their relationship with one another. So, they decided to take fishing trips where they would be able to see one another without suspicion. At this time is when Ennis expresses a childhood memory that has left him traumatized. The memory included the torturing and murdering two men suspected of homosexual behavior. Both of their marriages ended in divorce, but Jack found interest in male prostitutes and went on to having an affair with another married man while Ennis began a relationship with a female. They attempt to rekindle their relationship once more, but it ends up in an argument. Unfortunately, Ennis finds out that Jack passed away in an accident. His final wishes were that he wanted his ashes to be scattered on Brokeback Mountain.

Felipe Leandro de Jesus analyzed a study that focused on the representation of gender roles and queer sexuality in the film Brokeback Mountain (2016, p. 33). Six scenes specifically are used for analysis. 1-depiction of Ennis and Jack’s first conversation after they had sexual intercourse for the first time; 2-a conversation between Jack Twist and Mr. Aguirre where Jack learns someone else besides Ennis knows about the sexual encounter; 3-depiction of Ennis and Jack’s first kiss after years of not seeing one another, witnessed by Ennis’ wife, Alma; 4-a conversation between Jack and Ennis where they discuss advancing their relationship together; 5-the confrontation between Ennis and Alma after their divorce; 6-the last conversation held between Jack and Ennis. Going against what was depicted in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Brokeback Mountain critics point out how body language is used in the movie’s advantage instead of neglecting it. It has been noted that Jack displayed a more feminine approach by being open about his feelings, outwardly flirting with other men, and does not do what a man ‘should’ be doing during this time period while Ennis takes charge of a more masculinized role, keeping his feelings in and uses violence as his way of expression. The reason why I included these six scenes that were being examined is because it provides examples from the summary I have given above that show why Jack was seen as more feminine and why Ennis was viewed as masculine. Specifically, in the first scene that was analyzed, Jack displays feminine mannerisms because he acts on his feelings for Ennis first and deeply expresses how he is feeling while Ennis is kept more reserved. Jesus concludes his analysis explaining that “Brokeback Mountain is known for being the first blockbuster in film history in which the story revolved around a homoaffective couple and their relationship… The film holds great importance for being a discussion opener for the LGBT cause in many places (such as discussions on gay rights) and for placing LGBT issues on top of the news at the time of its release. However, it is not devoid of some prejudice and stereotypical representations in relation to the ways the characters are conceived in terms of masculinity and femininity, according to their sexual roles in the relationship and either penetrator or penetrated” (2016, p. 51). I wonder if these roles were given a feminine versus masculine feature to show the stigma associated with ‘the man vs who’s the woman’ in a homosexual relationship, or simply because the producers believe that is how homosexual relationships normally are.

Dallas Buyers Club and Brokeback Mountain represent the darker sides to homosexual stigma that relates to the comedy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry in the sense of heterosexuals being rejected and ridiculed because of society’s beliefs about the main characters. I wanted to include the most drastically different movies that shared the same foundation, to show that there is more than one way that media can portray a statement. The most ironic common ground that is shared between these movies is that they all begin somewhat homophobic until the main characters’ experience what those included in the LGBTQ community experience on a daily basis to this day. Rizov explains, “Dallas Buyers Club can be slotted alongside 2005’s Brokeback Mountain and 2008’s Milk, two of the relatively few films with marquee-value straight actors enacting gay men. It’s reasonable to complain that Dallas takes a story about a straight man’s experience and places it at the centre of a larger Aids narrative in which homophobia, social ostracism et al are primarily his problem” (2014). It represents the extent of someone’s views can shift once they begin to understand the reality of it all versus basing their beliefs on prior ‘knowledge’ about the subject. It is rare when a situation is brought to the table when heterosexual men experience the negativity that homosexual men have faced for years, yet it is also revolutionary in broadening the world’s perceptions. It demonstrates that even those that are not directly a part of the LGBTQ community can still make a difference and a broad statement to others that may not know otherwise. It is difficult for someone to judge what someone is going through until they get a taste of it for themselves.

Side note: I want to finish the introduction and do the conclusion once I complete the rest of the paper to be able to summarize it in both sections. I was wondering if I should go into detail about the recent political advances that have been done for the LGBTQ community, and where it would be most beneficial to get my point across that although homosexuality has been around for decades, it has become more prevalent now than ever. I plan to innervate the reading materials from some weeks into the scholarly resources by finding differences and similarities to base my reaction and argument off of, but it would be most helpful to do it once all of the main information is filled in more if needed. I also would like to know if I should incorporate more relation between the three movies to help distinguish the point I am attempting to make that movies do not always show the realistic aspects of what people in the LGBTQ community go through, but there are some efforts that have been made to pursue a more realistic representation.

Resources: (Including those I plan to use, if not used already):

**Resources that are bolded are peer-reviewed**

Babuscio, Jack. (2004). “Camp and the Gay Sensibility” in Queer cinema: The film reader, pp. 121-136

Benshoff, Henry. M., & Griffin, Sean. (2006). Queer images: A history of gay and lesbian film in

America, Chapter 12, pp. 267-289

Gant, C. (2014). Dallas Buyers Club. Sight And Sound, 24(2), 14-15.

Gross, Larry. (2001). Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America, Chapter 2, pp. 21-109.

Jesus, F. L. D., Figueiredo, D. D. C., & Nascimento, F. S. (2016). Screening the unspeakable: The representation of gender/sex roles and same-sex love in Brokeback Mountain. International Journal of Language Studies, 10(2), 33-56.

Mullard, A. (2014). Underground drug networks in the early days of AIDS. The Lancet, 383(9917), 592. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(14)60208-7.

Norton, S. (2009). What’s Sex Got to Do With It? Cinematic Critique on the Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage. Hastings Communications & Entertainment Law Journal (Comm/Ent), 31(2), 321-338.

Pedersen, Lyn. (1954) “The Importance of Being Different.”

Rizov, V. (2014). Dallas Buyers Club. Sight & Sound, 24(2), 66-67.

Roan, J. (2014). Fake Weddings and the Critique of Marriage: The Wedding Banquet(1993),I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry(2007), and the Marriage Equality Debate. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 31(8), 746-763. doi:10.1080/10509208.2012.757530.

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