#literally i just need an idea involving a couple at a renaissance fair

[watcher-wilds]

I desperately need pose/prompt ideas for this renaissance zine im doing bc I dint like my original idea and I want to put my two gayboys in a situation but idkkkkk

[copperpieceharlot]

Bud I’m sorry to swing into your inbox uninvited like this but my soul is having an OOTS renaissance thanks to your content in the tag and did you say Leverage AU

haha holy SHIT this got Long. but yes. i’ve been. Thinking. (also literally Never feel like you have to apologize for sending me messages. i was Hoping someone would ask me about this. now i have an Excuse to share EVERYTHING ive written abt it :3)

Obviously, Roy is the leader/brains of the outfit. He grew up having some Strong Opinions abt what’s Legal versus what’s Right due to tragic backstory involving the death of his little brother which was definitely SOMEONE’S fault for negligence but since there technically wasn’t any illegal behavior, there were no consequences for it. Also he’s still angry at his dad bc he thinks his dad is also partly culpable (and also also just a dick). He’s the Moral Backbone of the team (alongside Durkon, more on that later) in basically the same way Nate was in og Leverage. He’s actually not the best at figuring out what people want (that’s Haley and, shockingly, occasionally Elan), but once he has that info, he is the absolute best at figuring out the ideal plan of attack to use in any given case.

Haley is still a thief. I mean she maps to Parker almost PERFECTLY. Her dad was a thief & a conman, her mom wasn’t but knew about it and mostly accepted it, but she died tragically in a mugging gone wrong or smth, which made Ian crank the paranoia WAY up and taught Haley to do the same in the name of “safety”. Let’s keep the “Ian is in Trouble and Haley needs money, Fast” which is why she signs on to the first job in the first place. She’s less acrobatic than Parker, tending towards finding (or making) weak spots in security, but she can still make a tumble check when she needs to.

Elan is the grifter who is somehow an Idiot but also not???? It baffles everyone. When he’s playing a part for a con, he’s FLAWLESS, but then the rest of the time he’s just. No Thoughts Head Empty. He probably gets lured in initially because he’s decided to try his hand at being part of a full team, rather than the two-man cons he’s been running that invariably end w his partner conning him as well and stealing half of his take. Also he likes the idea of being Crime Friends. He’s that tweet where it’s like, Roy: “after the heist is over, we split up and never communicate again” / Elan: [about to unveil his Crime Buddies Forever Friendship Quilt Puppets]: “never?”

Vaarsuvius is the hacker/gadget person. They have a Vaguely Snobby Yet Unidentifiable accent, dyed(?) purple hair (nobody has ever seen their roots) and nobody knows who they “really” are or where they came from, but they’re good at what they do so everyone just accepts the mystery. They probably got suckered into the team by their initial employer (who I’ll get to Eventually, lol) framing it as a challenge to their intellect, like, “oh, I see, you’re not smart enough to make this team work for you...” to which they were like Fucking Watch Me and also melted his computer. Anyways. They are joined (digitally) by their Intrepid Friend And Co-Conspirator (his words, not theirs), a fellow hacker known only as Blackwing, or, on certain forums, Blackwing_Bird. (In the first season, V only occasionally references him when saying they’re “calling in extra help” or smth for a particularly complex hack job. He starts showing up a little more in s2 and eventually by the start of s4 is a regular & established presence, but only appears as actions in a computer interface or output.) Elan is convinced he’s an AI, Belkar doesn’t think he actually exists, Haley pretends she doesn’t think he exists, and Durkon and Roy try not to think about it too hard, as long as B and V still get the job done.

Belkar is the hitter. He is on the team bc their initial employer got him out of jail for it. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory, he just likes doing violent crimes. As the series progresses, he grows some empathy & stuff, but really only for people who actually deserve it. Assholes still get decked. It’s all very touching. (Also he has dwarfism caused by achondroplasia. It doesn’t actually bother him and is useful in fights bc his opponents frequently have no fucking clue how to approach him, but he likes Pretending to take offense at stupid things just to see how far he can go with it.)

Aaaand last but not least, Durkon is the least involved member of the team. He’s actually a career criminal and Roy’s mentor, and wasn’t a member of the initial team that [redacted, I’ll tell you later, PROMISE] put together for a couple of reasons, the main one being that he’s Officially retired in order to spend more time with his family, which consists of his mom, his friend (not girlfriend) Hilgya, baby Kudzu, and a truly stunning number of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Roy frequently calls or visits him for advice and he Occasionally shows up to help out on local jobs, but generally he avoids doing crime if he can (as part of a deal with Hilgya, who is also a career criminal; basically, they’ve both cut back on the crime in order to provide a more stable home environment for Kudzu. But sometimes, you gotta do a little crime, and in those cases, Sigdi enjoys spending time w her grandson.)

NOW. THE BIG REVEAL YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. Who got the team together in the first place?!

The answer: Lord Shojo (or whatever Normal Person Name you want to assign him). Now this is where it gets tricky: he had them do a thing that they thought was good, THEN they thought it was BAD, but then when they confronted him he revealed that it Appearing to be bad was actually a test of character and would they consider working as basically internal investigators for him? But then he had a heart attack, so, rip. But THEN it turned out that he’d left them a bunch of money anyway and they were all feeling kind of Inspired so they formed the Order of the Stick, LLC (which, no, i am not coming up with a new name, actually, because I just don’t care. someone else can come up w a justification for that name, tho, i’m sure it’s possible). Also Miko was there and was unhappy abt their actions, and also their general existence.

Moving on. Villains!

Redcloak is the Sterling replacement, because that DEEPLY amuses me.

Xykon is a season-long main villain, probably one that Redcloak finds himself working for but then “teams up with” (read: blackmails) the Order to bring him down bc even Redcloak finds Xykon distasteful. That’s season 3, let’s say.

Tarquin is another season villain, say season 2. Nale probably shows up pretty early in s1, actually, as another recurring antagonist like Sterling but uh. Less good at it. Anyways the s2 final 3 eps deal with them (accidentally) discovering that Tarquin runs some Evil Empire Company, then trying to outplay him and take him down. Idk if Nale still dies in this version tbh.

Tsukiko is a one-off s1 villain who returns briefly in s4 alongside Miko, who has gone well and truly off the rails.

Season 1 finale has to do w Roy finally getting Vengeance for his little brother.

The vampire squad is the s4 finale villain who do smth terrible to Durkon and then get the Mother Of All Revenge served up to them by the Order.

I envision the show as being 5 seasons (like og Leverage) but I’m not going to sketch out s5 because I think it should be based off whatever happens in the current story arc, possibly involving some legacy of the OotSquiggle.

Other stuff!

The Order of the Squiggle is a legendary criminal team from the 60s who stole a BUNCH of famous shit & then proceeded to legendarily implode. This has no bearing on the plot I’ve sketched out, I just think it’s fun.

The Sapphire Guard members should probably be reworked as FBI. I don’t care about most of them but I do think that Lien and O-Chul could be like, FBI agents who Choose to look the other way while the Order does their very-much-not-legal-but-still-fair Justice Crime, and maybe even help them out on occasion.

So, the Final season-by-season outline, based on everything I’ve written so far:

s1 e1: getting the team together, doing a con for Shojo, then at the end he dies and the gang is like “dang what now?" and intend to split up except then they Don’t.

mid-s1: Nale shows up and tries to trick the Order, but then gets beat like a drum.

late s1: Tsukiko is an underling of the Villain Of The Week, winds up in police custody. But She’ll Be Back.

s1 finale: Roy’s Vengeance: The Vengeaning. also we meet Redcloak as an antagonist.

s2 e1: the truth abt Haley’s father comes out

early s2: The Two Live Crews Job but it’s the Order vs the Linear Guild and the Linear Guild ARE all bad guys.

mid-s2: Redcloak returns. ugh.

late s2: the sapphire guard FBI makes its first appearance, hello O-Chul and Lien.

s2 pre-finale: once again they’re in conflict w Nale over smth, he spends the whole episodes making Cryptic Remarks, they basically beat him (like a drum!) but then the stinger at the end is that Tarquin reveals himself and Elan is like “Dad?!”, roll credits.

s2 finale, part 1: Elan is hanging out w Tarquin bc he’s DEEP in Denial, the Rest of the team tries to take Tarquin down, but it doesn’t work.

s2 finale, part 2: Elan finally gets a clue and they manage to beat Tarquin. still haven’t decided if Nale dies or not, but I’m leaning towards yes. also they rescue Haley’s dad.

s3 e1: fuck dude idk.

early s3: Redcloak shows up, AGAIN, everyone groans. he has blackmail on them, he wants them to take Xykon down.

mid s3: The Rashomon Job but it’s about stealing the Talisman of Dorukan and it turns out that Nale was there too (“oh!” Elan says. “I was wondering why I looked so weird in all those mirrors! But it wasn’t my reflection, it was Nale’s!” “Sweetie, that wasn’t Nale’s reflection,” says Haley. “Huh,” says Elan, “so the mirrors were broken?”, cue eye rolling from everyone else.), and the Successful thief was Hilgya, who’d nabbed it from the owner before it even went on display.

s3 finale: they beat Xykon, actually factually, because he deserves to get his ass Thoroughly kicked, even if only in AU form. Lien and O-Chul are there, so are some other less helpful FBI people. There’s a bit where O-Chul Exact Wordses his way out of telling his superiors about the Order’s less legal activities without technically lying. King shit.

s4 e1: doesn’t really matter. maybe smth to do w some legacy of Tarquin’s company to set up the drama w Malack & Durkon later.

early s4: Durkon gets SENT TO PRISON. Malack approaches the Order abt this because sure they have Different Ethics but they’re still Friends. (Roy is surprised and a little hurt that he’s never heard of Malack, but he ignores that in favor of Let’s Get Whatever Fuckers Did This To Our Friend.)

immediately after that: Miko and Tsukiko return as a Team, preventing the Order from working on the Durkon situation

mid s4: Redcloak makes another unexpected & unwelcome appearance but he’s maybe a little less of a dick? the Order collaborates with Malack & his Crime Buddies (hello, Vector Legion) to pull one over on him tho, because “less of a dick” does not mean “a pleasant or decent person”, and also he was mean abt Durkon being in jail, so he totally deserved it. he still gets whatever he wanted tho, just takes a blow to his pride. also prevents the Order from helping Durkon. they’re having a LOT of setbacks wonder why that could be, not to make sure the season fills its whole length or anything, no sirree

s4 finale: something something taking down the organization, headed by Hel (yes that’s her real name), which framed Durkon for their Big Crime. Durkon goes free and Extra Firmly retires, For Good, He Swears, but says he “met someone new” who might be an asset.

s5 e1: minrah joins the team! and the episode is set in like, somewhere really snowy. that’s all i got.

the rest of s5: don’t know, don’t care, it’s open-ended until the comic finishes up.

[kythed]

💕Hello! If it's all right was could I ask for a matchup? I'm a straight gal, 5'2" tall gal with pale skin and a thin form. I also have long brown hair, blue eyes and glasses.

As for personality, I'm kind, reliable and hardworking, though a little awkward in large social groups. I enjoy joking around and prefer looking at the bright side of things. My mbti is infj (and ennegram 9w1). I prefer my friends to be considerate and open-minded, someone who doesn't judge anyone by their first impression. I make a lot of bad jokes, so they need to have a sense of humour as well, or at least tolerance for mine😅

My biggest hobby is writing, which I think about almost around the clock. Fantasy and horror are my favourite genres to write, and for character inspiration I often do people-watching. I also sing, mostly in a choir, and go out for hikes in the nature because I love the fresh air and beautiful sceneries. My worst fear is letting people dear to me down and not being there for them in their time of need. I try my best to check up on them but sometimes I wonder if I'm doing enough . . .

My motto would be "If you're going to do it, make sure you don't have regrets later." as I strongly dislike leaving what I start unfinished. It makes me anxious.

My love languages are quality time, acts of service and words of affirmation. I'd like my s/o to know that I overthink often, that my silence doesn't mean I'm angry on uninterested but that I'm stuck in my own thoughts. A deal-breaker is definitely narcissism. Confidence is great but I don't like anyone who thinks the world envolves around them.

Thank you for taking time to read this! I hope it was all righ. Have a great day😊

——————————————————————————

thanks for the request ! i hope you enjoy :-)

- this was an incredibly easy choice for me; it just makes all around perfect sense-- I match you with kuroo tetsurou

- you need someone to keep you moving in the right direction because you burden yourself with way too much shit that shouldn’t even be your responsibility

- he helps you to identify what you really want in life and makes you pick n choose a couple of goals to focus on at once rather than doing everything and anything (something tells me you have a hard time prioritizing and saying no to people)

- you help him stop n smell the roses every once in a while because that man doesn’t know when to take a break

- you both share this incredible attention to detail and you both highly value and love getting to know other people

- he’s the one who booked you your first appointment with a publishing house once you finished your first novel and he used his death glare to scare the poor publisher into giving you a higher percentage of royalties on each sale

- SCRABBLE. y’all play a highly competitive game of scrabble every friday night and you always win. this typically culminates in kuroo throwing a tantrum and tickling you mercilessly until you agree it was “practically a tie” (nevermind the fact that you literally won twice the points he did)

- you love fantasy, kuroo loves sci-fi so your conversations are constantly peppered with ridiculous rants and arguments (e.g. “who would win in a fight, a dragon or a tie fighter?” “definitely a dragon babe, i mean it has fire and--” “okay but what if the tie fighter was piloted by a jedi?”)

- physical touch may not be one of your love languages but it sure is one of his-- he’s constantly got his chin resting on your head, or he’s slipping his hand around yours, or putting it on your lower back-- he also really loves giving you these crazy bear hugs (like picking you up and swinging you around type shit) because he likes to feel all big n protective

- I mean the man is literally almost a foot taller than you so can you blame him?

- you guys have literally the worst inside jokes that no one else understands but they send you into hysterics each times until you’re both crying with laughter (lots of terrible puns, yo mama and knock knock jokes that don’t even make sense)

- like once y’all were on a trip to rome and caught a cab to your hotel from the airport but then it took a wrong turn and it ended up that it actually wasn’t a cab and you had just climbed into the back of some little old italian man’s car

- so now whenever y’all are driving somewhere and accidentally go the wrong direction one of you says “mama mia!” in a terrible italian accent and you start screaming with laughter ITS LITERALLY SO OBNOXIOUS LMAOOO

- because you’re both so intuitive that the relationship is like being two halves of a whole-- you can instantly tell when the other is even the slightest bit down and adjust your behavior accordingly

- AND y’all remember the most random shit about each other

- like he once absentmindedly mentioned he loved this particular brand of orange juice and then you started buying only that brand to stock the fridge and he absolutely loves you for it

- and on your first date when you went hiking you pointed out a clump of flowers on the side of the path you thought were pretty so on the way back he secretly picked one and dried it in the pages of a heavy dictionary and got it framed for your birthday

- honestly it’s just little considerate things like this that make the whole relationship

- he always makes sure to involve you in group conversations because he knows it’s your tendency to be shy and hang back

- good conversation is a big deal for you guys but so is quiet time-- you frequently cook dinner together without exchanging a single word, just kinda doing your own thing (like you’ll chop the salad and he’ll make the pasta) and listening to your playlist

- speaking of music, you used to refuse to sing for him until one day he heard you singing in the shower so he crept right up next to the door and recorded it on his phone, and then when you opened the door he shrieked “AHA! CAUGHT YOU!” which nearly scared the shit outta you and made you drop your towel

- but, ya know, you don’t even need to be self-conscious about your singing around this man because he doesn’t have a musical bone in his body and will think that every single note coming out of your mouth sounds like an angel chorus

- overall you guys are that couple that is just so clearly in tune with each other, you know each other like you know yourselves and it’s such a delight to see (hanging out with you is a third wheel’s nightmare tho)

your song: first date by blink-182 (he loves punk pop and you think it’s dorky as hell but he’s adorable when he’s playing the imaginary drums and head banging-- he actually got you to accompany him on the air guitar eventually and it’s lit asf) plus the song perfectly captures the easy, eager way you guys love each other

your favorite movie to watch together: the fellowship of the ring. he wasn’t really into the idea at first (he wanted to watch terminator) but now he’s as big a tolkien fanatic as there is. once you brought him to one of those fantasy renaissance fairs and y’all had the time of your lives.

your relationship in one quote: “In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. / In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.” - maya angelou

[spnbaby-67]

A love worth fighting for

A/N: guess what y'all? After two years of writer's block and no words coming to my stupid head, I am back! That's right, I am back with a story idea that I think and I hope you will like. I haven't been on here awhile so I dunno who all my tags are and let me know of you want to be tagged. Please keep in mind this is a fanfiction, not real life and anything that happens in this story is purely for enjoyment and not real. Let's assume for story sake that everyone is single. It is a rpf alternate universe. I respect there wives just as much as I do the boys, so please no hate on the wives. Also, keep in mind I don't have a beta so all mistakes are solely on me, if I have some, please be kind to tell me. No hate will be tolerated, I have had my full share of it lately. It has been two years since I wrote anything and I'm kind of excited about it and nervous at the same time. I don't own the photos I have collected for this story line so thank you to those who post them. This is a Supernatural RPF and OFC and not a reader insert this time around. Thank you jen @grnsorrow helping me decide the aesthetic for this and helping me pick out photos to use. On a side note, please don't copy and post on other sights without my consent please thanks ... Ok let's say we post.

Warnings : cussing (each chapter will have a list as it grows.

Pairing Jensen Ackles and Samantha McKenzie, (none in particular I pictured)

I was currently sitting  on the floor at the opryland hotel, i couldn't even muster up the want to move. I was exhausted to the point of nearly breaking down and let the water works take over. It had been an uneventful day, one that I will never ever forget, and the day that changed my life. 

Let me back up a bit, so you can get the full story.  Hi, my name is Samantha McKenzie. I am a 23 year old, and well now unemployed.  I am from Texas, Houston to be exact, and my life is, or has not been a great life full of magic and unicorns dreams. I have had my fair share of ups and downs since I can remember, and I will gladly take the ups over the downs any day. I know those come in spurts, and when I do get them, I take em by the horns and savor the moment.  Only because I never know when it will happen again. 

My parents both have passed on when I was younger and I have no brothers or sisters, which at times I'm thankful for, but at other times I miss the sibling connections that I see with most families. I was abused when I was a kid, from the time I was 5 to about 15 when I discovered that I could escape the house and not return. 

Actually, back up. When my mom helped us escape the house that we lived with my father who was mentally, physically and emotionally abusive. He and my mom would always yell and fight, cursing words at each other, then he would make it out to be my mom's fault when he knew he started the whole thing.  They never knew this, but I would sneak out of my room through my upstairs window and sit on the roof side that was attached giving me space to sit and stare up at the stars. It cleared my head, and if I shut the window just a bit, but enough to reopen it and go back in later, I could drown out their arguing.  But sitting out there even on nights they didn't argue or yell, I would slip into my own world and imagine me someplace safe and sound. I am a huge reader of books, and I would read a period of time back to the renaissance era and imagine myself there, experiencing the costumes, and conflicts they had when a problem arose. Or I would sit there and dream of my own future if what I would be when I grew up, which as I sit here now laugh back at my thoughts because it didn't end up the way I wanted it to.  Life is funny, and it's strange how you dream up how you want it to be, even going far as mapping out a timeline and have it all turned upside in a snap, because if one mistake.  

One stupid fucked up mistake that sent my ass to jail for nearly being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I sighed thinking back that fateful night, if I had stayed home just 15 minutes longer, I would have been ok. But no, I had to have some ice cream because I was out and my boyfriend dumped me for someone else, only because I would not have sex with him. Hell I was 17 years old, I wasn't sure of what I wanted in life at that time, but I could tell you, it wasn't sex. So, what the hell do I do? I grabbed my purse and keys to the house I was sharing with a friend and headed to the store down the street to get ice cream. 

For the love of God, I wished I would have stayed home. Walking in, I knew, no i felt something off and i should have turned away and backed out never going in, but at the same time my head was saying get ice cream.  I was hurting and my heart was not connecting with my head, so my head over ruled that decision and I went in.  

Walking to where I knew the ocean cream was, I saw an old friend of mine and they were standing by the pharmacy side where they had rows of  condoms and other items related to sex and such. I saw her literally put something in her purse and grab other things in her hand.  

"Seriously?" I whispered to myself as I continued to watch her.  My head was saying go stop her, and my heart was saying no don't get involved. But remember my head was not connecting with my heart so I walked over to her.

"Sarah," I tapped her shoulder from behind her and she must have jumped a mile high when I did. 

"What the fuck, Sam?" She said as she turned around to face me, "Trying to give someone a damn heart attack or something?"

"Or something, what the hell are you doing?"  I looked at her like a mother would when they know you have done something wrong. 

She pulled me over to the side and placed her hand on my shoulder, "Jake and I had sex two weeks ago, and I think I'm pregnant.  I am late with my period, and my parents are going to kill me." Her breathing was staggered and erratic. 

I saw her swallow a couple of times like she was trying to swallow a lump that had formed in her throat.  I know the feeling of getting caught, been one to many times myself in her position and its one i don't want to repeat. I have gotten lucky at times and none had placed charges on me, but when your a runaway and trying to live with what you have, you do what you need to, to survive. 

"Just think about what your doing Sarah,"  she looked at me confusingly. I sighed, "I saw you out stuff in your purse. If you need money, I can help you."  I was doing everything I can to help her make the right decision. 

She looked at me, then put everything back on the shelf. "You don't know what it's like to be in my shoes, Sam. Just forget it, stay away from me. Don't bother helping me, my life is over anyways." She gave me a look then left the store. 

What the fuck just happened? 

I shrugged my head out of the state it was in and concentrated on getting my ice cream. I really needed it now, and fuck, that really pissed me off. See if I ever help anyone again.  I proceeded to the frozen section and grabbed my ice cream and a few other things, then went to check out. Little did I know, my life changed that night for the worse because I wanted to help a friend.  Shaking my head. Why do I always fuck up when things were going good? God save me. 

@deans-baby-momma @mirandaaustin93

[jennaschererwrites]

How TV Is Putting the ‘B’ in LGBTQ — And Why It Matters – Rolling Stone

“Mom. Dad. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I do. I might get married to a man, like you so clearly want. And I might not. Because this is not a phase, and I need you to understand that. I’m bisexual.” That’s Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s resident no-nonsense detective, pouring out her heart to her parents in the show’s landmark 100th episode. To which her dad (Danny Trejo) stoically replies, “There’s no such thing as being bisexual.”

Beatriz, who is bisexual herself, wrote in GQ: “When does it end? When do you get to stop telling people you’re bi? When do people start to grasp that this is your truth? …When do you start seeing yourself reflected positively in all (hey, even any?) of the media you consume?”

There’s a real cognitive dissonance to identity erasure. You can be standing right in front of someone telling them exactly who you are, and they can just look right through you, and intone, like a Westworld robot, “That doesn’t look like anything to me.” Nevertheless, it’s a daily reality for LGBTQ folks, and bi- and pansexual people in particular. (The term pansexuality, which has come into wider use in recent years, intends to explicitly refer to attraction to all genders, not just cisgender people — or, as self-identified pansexual Janelle Monae put it in Rolling Stone last year: “I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.” However, many in the queer community define bisexuality the same way. You can read more about that conversation here.) Until recently, sexual and gender identities that existed outside the binary have been anathema to mainstream culture — and often, even, to more traditionalist branches of gay culture.

For a long time, people who identify as bisexual or pansexual didn’t have a whole lot of visible role models — particularly on television. But as our understanding of the LGBTQ spectrum has become more diverse and nuanced over time, there’s been a blossoming of bi- and pansexual representation. In the past few years, characters such as Rosa on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, David Rose on Schitt’s Creek, Darryl Whitefeather on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Leila on The Bisexual — to name just a few — have been at the forefront of a bi- and pansexual renaissance on the small screen.

But it wasn’t always this way. Even after television began to centralize gay characters and their experiences — on shows like Ellen, Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, and The L Word — the “B” in that alphabet soup fell to the wayside. Bisexuality was seldom mentioned at all, and if it was, it existed chiefly as a punch line — an easy ba-dum-CHING moment for savvy characters to nose out someone who wasn’t as in the know as they were. On Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw called bisexuality “a layover on the way to Gaytown”; and on 30 Rock, Liz Lemon dismissed it as “something they invented in the Nineties to sell hair products.”

Even some of the earliest shows to break ground for queer representation didn’t factor bisexuality or pansexuality into their worldviews. The designation basically didn’t exist in the gay-straight binary world of Queer as Folk, and was largely seen as a phase on The L Word. Buffy the Vampire Slayer gave many TV viewers their first-ever depiction of a same-sex relationship in 1999 with the Wicca-fueled romance between Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara Maclay (Amber Benson), but the show too neatly glossed over Willow’s years-long relationship with her boyfriend Oz (Seth Green) as a fleeting step on the way to full-time lesbianism. Or, as Willow succinctly put it in Season 5: “Hello! Gay now!”

Characters who labeled themselves as bisexual were considered to be confused at best and dangerously promiscuous at worst. On The O.C. in 2004, Olivia Wilde’s bi bartender character, Alex Kelly, appeared as a destabilizing force of chaos in the lives of the show’s otherwise straight characters. On a 2011 episode of Glee — a show which, at the time, was breaking ground for gay representation on TV — Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) savagely shot down his crush, Blaine (Darren Criss), when Blaine mentioned that he might be bi: “‘Bisexual’ is a term that gay guys in high school use when they want to hold hands with girls and feel like a normal person for a change.” By the end of the episode, Blaine assures Kurt that he is, don’t you worry, “100 percent gay.”

One of TV’s first enduring portrayals of nonbinary sexual attraction came with the entrance of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) into Russell T. Davies’ 2005 Doctor Who reboot. (Davies also created the original U.K. Queer as Folk.) The time traveler swashbuckled into the series to equal-opportunity flirt with the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion Rose (Billie Piper), because, as the Doctor explains, “He’s a 51st-century guy. He’s just a bit more flexible.” Captain Jack went on to feature in his own spinoff series, Torchwood.

Then came Callie Torres on Grey’s Anatomy. Portrayed by Sara Ramirez (who came out as bisexual herself in 2016), Callie had a seasons-long arc that spanned from her burgeoning realization of her bisexuality in 2008 to her complex relationships with both men and women over the years. Callie’s drunken rant from the 11th season would make a great T-shirt to wear to Pride if it weren’t quite so long: “So I’m bisexual! So what? It’s a thing, and it’s real. I mean, it’s called LGBTQ for a reason. There’s a B in there, and it doesn’t mean ‘badass.’ OK, it kind of does. But it also means bi!”

Once the 2010s rolled around, representation began to pick up steam. True Blood’s Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), The Legend of Korra’s titular hero (Janet Varney), Game of Thrones’ Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal), The Good Wife’s Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), and Peep Show’s Jeremy Usborne (Robert Webb) all were portrayed in romantic relationships on both sides of the binary. But these characters’ sexual orientations were seldom given a name.

In some cases, this felt quietly revolutionary. On post-apocalyptic CW drama The 100, for example, set a century and change in the future, protagonist Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) is romantically involved with both men and women with no mention of labels. Because on the show’s nuclear fallout-ravaged earth, humankind has presumably gotten over that particular prejudice. On other series, however, not putting a name to the thing seems like a calculated choice. Take Orange Is the New Black, a show that has broken a lot of barriers but steadfastly avoids using the B-word to describe its clearly bisexual central character, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling).

A few years ago, though, tectonic plates began to shift. On Pop TV sitcom Schitt’s Creek, David Rose (co-creator Dan Levy) explained his pansexuality to his friend via a now-famous metaphor: “I do drink red wine. But I also drink white wine. And I’ve been known to sample the occasional rosé. And a couple summers back, I tried a merlot that used to be a chardonnay.”

Bisexuality got its literal anthem on the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with “Gettin’ Bi,” a jubilant Huey Lewis & the News-style number sung by Darryl Whitefeather (Pete Gardner) about waking up to his latent bisexuality as a middle-aged man. “It’s not a phase, I’m not confused / Not indecisive, I don’t have the gotta-choose blues,” he croons, dancing in front of the bi pride flag. Darryl’s exuberant ode to his identity felt like someone levering a window open in a musty room — a celebration of something that, less than a decade before, TV was loathe to acknowledge.

For Hulu and the U.K.’s Channel 4, Desiree Akhavan (Appropriate Behavior, The Miseducation of Cameron Post) cowrote, directed, and starred in a series picking apart the subject, titled, aptly, The Bisexual. In it, Akhavan portrays Leila, a thirtysomething woman coming to a dawning awareness of her bisexuality after having identified as a lesbian for most of her life. The show navigates the tricky territory that bisexuals inhabit when they’re misunderstood — or sometimes outright rejected — by queer and straight communities alike. Akhavan, a bisexual Iranian-American woman, has said the idea for the show came to her after repeatedly hearing herself described as a “bisexual director.” She told Vanity Fair that “there was something about being called a bisexual publicly — even though it’s 100 percent true! — that felt totally humiliating and in bad taste, and I wanted to understand why.”

As Leila shuttles her way between sexual partners and fields tone-deaf comments from friends on both sides of the binary, The Bisexual offers no easy answers. But it also never flinches. “I’m pretty sure bisexuality is a myth. That it was created by ad executives to sell flavored vodka,” Leila remarks in the first episode, unconsciously echoing 30 Rock’s throwaway joke from a decade ago. Except this time, the stakes — and the bi person in question — are real.

The next generation — younger millennials and Gen Z kids in particular — tends to view sexualityas a spectrum rather than the distance between two poles. Akhavan neatly encompasses this evolution in an exchange between Leila and her male roommate’s twentysomething girlfriend, Francisca (Michèlle Guillot), who questions why Leila is so terrified to tell anyone that she’s started sleeping with men as well as women. When Leila tells her it’s complicated because it’s “a gay thing,” Francisca responds, “So? I’m queer.” “Everyone under 25 thinks they’re queer,” says Leila. “And you think they’re wrong?” Francisca counters. Leila considers this for a moment before answering, “No.”

Representation matters, and here’s why: Seeing who you are reflected in the entertainment you take in gives you not just validation for your identity, but also a potential road map for how you might navigate the world. For many years, bi- and pansexuals existed in a liminal place where we were often dismissed outright by not just the straight community — but the queer community as well. Onscreen representation is not just a matter of showing us something we’ve never seen before, but of making the invisible visible, of drawing a new picture over what was once erased.