#you can’t say that about a lot of stories that explicitly show homophobia

[witchofanguish]

A story about two girls towards gay sex while maintaining the whole time that they have no interest in women is pretty much the best way you can tell a story about homophobia

[heterophobicdyke]

What’s the beef between you and kittyit?

This is the last time I’ll address this.

I used to have a radblr blog with like 20k followers on it back around 2009-2016 called mcdyke. Back then it was just common knowledge that kittyit was a political lesbian - she came on tumblr expecting more people to be down with it than people were. It was a whole thing for years. I can’t remember us arguing at the time, I just blocked everyone who was polilez but there was often drama about her political lesbianism that I was obviously around.

There was no beef directly between the two of us, from memory. But anyone who has spent one second around me knows I hold female homophobia to the same standard I hold male homophobia. Probably more today than even back then - I had a lot more faith in non-lesbian women back then. Political lesbianism is not just an opinion/belief I must tolerate but something that *needs to be called out*.

For anyone who doesn’t know what political lesbianism is, it’s the theory that you can/should “choose lesbianism” for feminist/political reasons if you’re male-attracted. It’s not the same as a lesbian who’s never been attracted to a man but has tried to fit in and pretend to be straight in the past (in whatever ways that looks). Political lesbianism is the knowledge you are not a lesbian, “choosing it” for feminism. It desexualises lesbianism by being more about “living lesbian” (meaning female-centred, separatist) as opposed to being a female homosexual.

Back to the story: I took many years off tumblr. Was out in the wild for a while just living as a regular human. Sometimes I’d start a new blog but I’d post very sporadically - I wasn’t fully in the community.

Heterophobicdyke got popular and I found myself back amongst it on radblr. I stumbled upon kittyit’s url which was a throwback. I saw her getting reblogged a few times before I clicked on her blog, wondering “do people know she’s a political lesbian? These young ones seem more anti-polilez than we used to be so it’s wild she’s still around unbothered. What does she say about it in 2024?” I searched “political lesbian” (or something of the sort) and came across a few things. Firstly, was this quote posted or reblogged many times over the years:

This is explicitly political lesbianism. Jeffreys is probably THE most well known political lesbian and, here, she’s defending/promoting political lesbianism. Again, if anyone tolerates political lesbianism as some “difference of beliefs” then they’re a homophobe. The very same people who point out the misogyny in men identifying as women think I’m mean for calling out male-attracted women for identifying as lesbians. So, I reblogged, pointing out the political lesbianism in the quote. I hit a nerve.

I started getting questions about the row. I told them what I’ve written above. But people justifiably wanted proof I knew kittyit was polilez and she refused/refuses to give a straight answer on it. I’m not some creep who has screenshots from decades ago. Like I said, it was seriously just radblr knowledge she was polilez and many avoided her because of it. Because people saw me as some bully for bringing political lesbainism up to Kitty, I felt pressured to find evidence in order to justify something I (and radblr years ago) knew to be true. When I returned to search her blog, a lot of other polilez shit under my original search terms had been deleted since our argument over the Jeffreys quote. Some people who remember pre-2016 kitty and knew what I was saying to be true sent me some screenshots they could find. I shared them. I was “mean” for it.

What this experience showed me is that radblr still has a polilez issue and therefore a homophobia issue. If she’d been a known misogynist or ableist or racist, if polilez was seen as the homophobia it is, would I have been wrong for bringing it up again?

A part of me does regret feeding into people requiring “evidence” of what I was saying, by feeling the need to go searching for screenshots to Prove It. I should have just said “don’t believe me then,” like I did with radicalstoner/milo/macroclit, until I was proven right. But I realised with the Kittyit situation that I’d made the grave error of thinking radblr hadn’t changed as much as it has. I thought there’d be more than enough people who knew exactly what I was saying. Those who did remember didn’t want to get involved publicly because kittyit clearly has a following, being on radblr constantly for like 14 years or whatever.

That’s the story. I take polilez shit seriously and I treated it like any other example of homophobia. I don’t regret that.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

You in your post about Step by Step and homelessness: “and boy do I have more thoughts on when and where and how the connection between Jeng and Pat deepens over the last couple episodes in relation to the workplace and homophobia”. And you have touched on and delved into this issue in other posts as well. Could I ask you to elaborate on some of your thoughts on how homophobia and ignorance are at play in this series and Jeng and Pat’s relationship? Mostly because I really want to hear them, and also because I have to do a presentation at uni next week about diversity and differences in culture in the workplace and I want to use it to talk specifically about queer people in the workplace. I’m even considering bringing in this series explicitly to give some examples, because who am I if I can’t use a space where people are forced to listen to me to connect the topic to one I’m fervently passionate about? And so your insights on this general issue (and also @bengiyo’s and @shortpplfedup’s if they’re up for it, since they do seem to have thoughts on this as well—or anyone else who wants to talk about it), whether directly related to the series or not, would be greatly appreciated. I honestly should just drop the link to that post of yours in the class and let that speak for itself, because it is fantastic.

(Please don’t see this as a way for you to do my work, I am generally really interested in this topic and would like to hear other people’s thoughts on it. And you always bring so much big brain energy.)

Hello! Thank you for your ask! Warning: This is going to be LONG, (long long) 

Workplace and Homophobia

Relationship Development and The Workplace in Step By Step

My thoughts on homophobia in the Jian Group workplace and the way that influences where and how Pat and Jeng make progress in their relationship I think, would best be played out by showing a timeline based on episode and location. 

I will give you some explanations along the way, but since this is for a school assignment (and I have a separate Super Top Secret Agenda to get more people to write show analyses, I’m also going to make you draw some connections yourself). 

Episode 1:

We start in the office, establishing that Pat is a new hire, and that everyone is exploiting his labor → he is asked by Ying to go buy glass jelly → He spills it on Jeng’s shoes (Setting: in the workplace lobby but not when they have actually entered the office) → They stand together in the elevator and Jeng helps Pat hold some of the drinks, and tells Pat it’s fine when Pat apologizes for dropping the glass jelly → When the doors to the elevator open and Pat and Jeng are no longer alone and enclosed in a private space, Pat takes the drinks back, exits the elevator, steps on to his office floor, and then freaks when he sees the elevator go up to the executive’s suite.

Pat goes to a bakery after work (Setting: outside the workplace) → He sees Jeng through the window → He enters and starts flirting with Jeng

Pat goes to a restaurant (*cough* *cough* Pearl & Oliver) with his friends (Setting: outside workplace at Jeng’s restaurant) where he drunkenly starts openly thirsting after Jeng (Read: being openly, loudly queer) → Pat doesn’t want to get his hopes up: “maybe he’s straight”* \\ Ae: “many people are gay or bi these days, you must be brave” → Pat returns from the bathroom to a milk ice cream and glass jelly dessert that was given to the table by the restaurant owner, Jeng (Pat doesn’t know this last part). 

Pat goes back to the bakery (Setting: outside the office) and asks the cashier about Jeng → Pat runs in to Jaab and is introduced to Jen for the first time (Read: growing his queer network)

Cut to Pat at work sitting at a table with his coworkers (Setting: inside the office)…Ying…Ying rips a fruit in half and Prem says “Jeng makes us do a lot of work and he lacks humanity” → They keep telling Pat stories about Jeng and Pat asks about him casually → Prem says “Why are you asking, Pat? Or are you interested in Jeng?” and elbows him jokingly (Read: Pat has not told the office he is queer, but he is clockable) → The rest of the table continues to list complaint after complaint after complaint about Jeng, the only person who is questioning their abject hatred of Jeng before he has even arrived is Pat (and there are other considerations to be made here, Pat is young, Pat doesn’t know Jeng, there are probably some legitimate and valid critiques of Jeng’s management style here, but it is worth noting) → [This is for your project: Ying says “This is Thailand. In Thailand, older people should always be respected, although his father owns the company. He’s so young, but he doesn’t respect older workers.]

Pat goes to the bakery (Setting: outside work) and Jeng queues up behind him → Jeng initiates the interaction this time: “Are you cutting me in line to get that croissant?” → Pat responds back “I thought I would buy you a coffee” \\ Jeng: “It’s probably too late in the day for that” \\ Pat: “How about chocolate?” \\ Jeng: “I’ll take a hot one,” → They sit together at the bakery and Pat starts talking about the ideas he has to improve the bakery’s workflow → Jeng is already falling for Pat, he is trying not to smile too hard, he says Pat’s ideas are interesting, and he asks if he is in Digital Marketing, pointing to Pat’s ID, he checks Pat out when Pat rushes to take his lanyard off → Pat, not knowing that Jeng is his manager, confides in him: “Everyone in the office, especially the old employees, are really afraid of this manager”, Jeng asks if Pat believes all the things that his coworkers told him about the manager, and Pat responds: “I think it’s normal, it shows he’s concerned with the workflow, I don’t think he is fit for the WORK CULTURE AT JIAN GROUP and Jeng SMILES (to himself of course) 

That night Pat calls Ae (Setting: outside workplace) and gushes about the tall, gentlemanly guy he had an afternoon snack with → His straight friends all try to convince him to go for it when he tells them he’s scared. 

We flashback to Pat and Jeng in the bathroom (Setting: inside workplace, but again, not in the office itself) → Pat accidentally holds Jeng’s hand for a second trying to take the napkin and drinks from him → Pat apologizes \\ Jeng: “For what?” \\ Pat: “Nothing,” 

Karaoke Bar to celebrate a coworker’s retirement (Setting: outside workplace, but surrounded by coworkers and at work function), Pat is sitting by himself away from everyone else → Ae texts Pat and tells him to come to Pearl & Oliver → Pat leaves the retirement party just to sit outside the venue and figure out how to sneak off → Ying comes over and begs on her knees for Pat to help her re-format her slides before tomorrow: “You don’t seem to be enjoying the party I think you should go back and finish the work for me” → Pat stops by Pearl & Oliver, his friends have already gone home, he sees Jeng (Setting: outside workplace, and away from work function)

Pat goes home, (Setting: outside workplace) starts editing the slides, and just rants about the treatment he is receiving from Ying (it is at this point I would like to mention that part of Pat’s job is translating for his coworkers), Ying calls him (his home has now been tied to his work. See @colourme-feral’s posts about Pat’s desk being in his room)

Pat learned Jeng is his new manager (Setting: inside workplace) 

Questions: What patterns are you seeing emerge in Episode 1 around where Jeng and Pat interact? Are those patterns related to how Jeng and Pat interact? Are you seeing any themes popping up in the workplace? In how Pat’s coworkers interact with him? In how Pat’s coworkers talk about Jeng? If so, note them.

My Conclusions From Episode 1:

At all moments in this episode where Jeng and Pat exhibit romantic interest in each other they are somewhere outside of work.

Supporting Evidence: Their first meeting is in the lobby, somewhat of a liminal space between personal life and work life, the bathroom where Jeng cleans his shoes is in the lobby because his shoe was clean by the time they got in the elevator, Jeng is nice when in the elevator (the thing you take coming to and from work), Pat openly simps for Jeng to his friends outside of work, Jeng gives Pat’s table a milk ice cream and glass jelly dessert at his other job, sure, but Pat is not an employee at Pearl & Oliver so for our purposes this counts as “outside the workplace”, all other semi-blatant acts of flirting between Pat and Jeng happen at a bakery, where they have equal footing [Jeng is the manager of Pat’s Department, Jeng is the owner of Pearl & Oliver, Pat’s house is Pat’s space, Jeng’s house is Jeng’s space]

Pat is the only queer person (that we know of) in the office and on top of that he’s young and exploited, and that leaves him a) unable to relate to his coworkers and b) isolating himself

The adult employees are being homophobic. 

Supporting Evidence: literally Ying takes out her anger on a fruit, Prem says Jeng lacks humanity (despite not having seen him in at least a few years if at all?), they have decided they are already going to hate Jeng when he arrives because he is replacing their former (straight) manager [I am almost certain he references a wife and kids in his retirement speech] based off stories they have heard. Pat, the only queer person (we know of) in the office is the only one going up to bat for mysterious manager #1 

Possible Symbolism: Pat saying that Jeng might not fit in with the work culture at Jian Group is metaphor for Jeng’s queerness not being compatible with the homophobic corporate culture. 

Cheating Evidence: *having seen most of the show so far I can confidently say that there are far more overt portrayals of homophobia in the workplace in this show, some of which occur in the second episode. 

*Pat has been having people call him on thinking Jeng is straight since Episode 1. 

Episode 2

We open Episode 2 with Jeng and his Dad talking about the department Jeng started in the company (Setting: Inside the workplace). There is a veiled threat in there with Jeng’s Dad saying: “I’ll give you another chance to prove yourself again, on how this department is important to the company” (Read: prove you deserve to stay or I will punish you). 

Next scene Pat has Jeng on one side and Ying on the other (Setting: inside the workplace) while Pat rushes to meet a deadline that was given to him by Ying fo her mistakes → Jeng tries to help Pat → Pat pushes him away, realizes that he has just been rude to someone trying to help him → Ying tries to throw Pat under the bus for her mistake

Jeng, Pat, and Ying are in a meeting (Setting: inside the workplace) → Ying gets feedback about the professionalism of the slides → Ying looks straight at Pat and then starts apologizing saying there was a rush → Jeng looks down, puts his hand in front of his mouth, hides his reaction. 

Ying: “My coordinator” gestures to Pat \\ Jeng: *looks at Ying* \\ Ying: “He did it like that” \\ Jeng: *looks at Pat*. Pat stands up for himself, and Jeng’s head snaps up and stays trained on him, and he does not react, Prem reacts though

Pat is in the making coffee (Setting: in the workplace) and dissociating (this is the first time, but not the last time we will see Pat dissociating) and Prem comes up to Pat and starts questioning why Pat threw Ying under the bus the way he did by speaking up for himself: “You didn’t finish her work” is literally a line he says to Pat when he is telling Pat it is his fault that the slides were bad and belittling the work that Pat does, saying that it is simple and then questioning Pat’s intelligence. 

Jeng calls Pat into his office (Setting: inside workplace with no witnesses) → Pat does not make eye-contact with Jeng, he looks guilty, like a kicked puppy → Jeng starts the conversation off by telling Pat that he has spoken with Ying about her behavior → Pat looks up, smiles, and says “Mr. Jeng you understand me, right?” → Jeng says yes but then leads in to a conversation about how Pat needs to “learn how to control his emotions like people with maturity do” telling Pat “you still don’t understand the image and credibility of the team” → Jeng tells Pat this department (that Jeng started) is separate from the rest of the company → Jeng tells Pat honestly his concerns about the possible consequences of Pat not being in control of himself: “I’m afraid that someday the board will decide they don’t need this department” 

Pat cries in the bathroom and his coworker calls him for an urgent meeting

Jeng has the urgent meeting (Setting: inside workplace) where Jeng gives out project assignments → Pat is left off the assignments → Jeng tells Pat to speak to him after the meeting → Pat looks nervous and sad like he’s about to get in trouble, Prem and Ying seem…very happy

Jeng speaks with Pat after the meeting (Setting: inside the workplace, no witnesses) → Jeng tells Pat if he can handle a research and strategy assignment he will give Pat a brand to manage → Nan is introduced

Pat’s coworkers sit down at lunch together → They complain about Pat: “one rotten fish spoils the whole barrel” → Pat walks by, they stop talking → Prem invites Pat to sit down → Ying leans over and whispers “Don’t ask him to join us! Just ask him to be polite” → They start intentionally, and loudly quoting clients that complained about the chart’s professionalism, etc., making fun of Nan, “she’s like a female Mr. Jeng” (Question: Why do they do this?) → They ask Pat to join them again 

Nan checks on Pat → Nan identifies Pat’s obvious talent and enthusiasm → Nan spends a lot of time helping Pat

Jeng meets with Pat in his office → Jeng nitpicks many details of Pat’s presentation → Jeng stops Pat before he leaves to say “This might be a personal matter, but it seems like you have gotten close to Nan. People might get the wrong idea” \\ “She’s like a sister I can talk to” \\ “Still, keep your distance I don’t want people getting the wrong idea because she’s in a higher position of power than you” 

Nan comes over to Pat, puts her hands on his shoulders → Pat looks around and sees the entire office watching them

Pat goes to get food (setting: outside office) he runs in to Put

Pat gets a “flower delivery” that Ying hands him with a note that says “Happy One Month Anniversary” that Pat ordered himself so people would stop speculating about his relationships in the office (Setting: inside the workplace) → Nan: “Why don’t you tell people you’re gay? It’s easier,” (I don’t think we’ve established that he told Nan this information, but either he’s clockable or he felt comfortable enough to tell her that) \\ Pat: “I don’t want to come out yet”

Jeng and Pat attend an event where Put is speaking (Setting: outside office) → Pat gets in his head about it → Put freezes on stage briefly → Jeng looks over at Pat and sees him like that → Jeng and Put talk after the event while Pat excuses himself → Jeng learns that Put knows Pat (Read: JENG CLOCKS THAT SHIT IMMEDIATELY these men do not react with that level of awkwardness around each other without knowing each other deeper than “i knew him when he was a student intern”)

Pat goes to a bar with Ae and Beam (Setting: outside office) → Ae and Beam dunk on his coworkers → Jeng appears at the bar → Pat flees before Jeng can notice him but Jeng picks up on what’s happening 

Jeng appears inside the actual workspace for the first time, walking up to Pat’s cubicle to call him in to a meeting → Jeng sees Pat has flowers (we know they’re from Put but he wouldn’t necessarily) → Jeng tells Pat he took the liberty of correcting Pat’s slides → Pat gets feedback that his slides are too boring → Pat pulls a similar stunt he did with Ying where he presents his original slide without informing Jeng → Pat gets positive feedback

Pat runs off to go stress drink a bunch of water (Setting: inside workplace) → Prem starts harassing Pat about having a girlfriend → Pat comes out to Prem → Prem commits microaggressions, borderline harassment, and full on agression in rapid succession:  “Nan is your girl bestie?” \\ “Looking at your body and butt” (reaches out and pretends to squeeze Pat’s butt) “Are you a bottom?” → Pat prepares to throw hands in the middle of the work day

Pat gets called in to Jeng’s office (Setting: inside workplace, no witnesses) → Pat asks if they can speak later if Jeng wants to talk about the presentation → Jeng gives Pat feedback that he needs to present stuff to him first so he is able to answer questions about it → Jeng tells Pat he needs to get his emotions in check → Pat bursts out sobbing → Jeng looks surprised, then slightly miffed, then hands Pat tissues and asks him why he’s crying → Jeng: “If you cry at work like this, do you know how people will see you?” \\ Pat: “How?” \\ Jeng: “Like you’re not an adult, you’ll lose credibility” \\ Pat; “You’re afraid you won’t look very good” (Question: What, if any, additional interpretations of the bolded lines could there be?) → Jeng looks like Pat just struck a nerve

Pat gets an email for a performance review for Jeng → Pat gets drunk → Pat rants about Jeng at length in English (Remember: Part of Pat’s job is to act as a translator for his coworkers, which means the majority of the rest of the office does not speak or understand English with proficiency…everyone except for Jeng. Question: What, if any, immediate thoughts come to you about Jeng and Pat being the only people who speak the same foreign language in the workplace?) → Pat submits the review → Pat freaks out because the Q1 review is written in English and therefore identifiable → Pat is assured that Jeng will most likely not read it until morning so Pat has time to intervene → Jeng opens the email. 

Questions: What patterns are you seeing emerge in Episode 2 around where (and how) Jeng and Pat interact? Are you seeing any themes popping up in the workplace? Are you making any observations about how Pat’s coworkers interact with him? What do we notice about Jeng in the last clip of the episode that is different from what we’ve seen of Jeng before?

My Conclusions For Episode 2:

Jeng and Pat’s personal relationship grows in those moments of safety where the two queer people in the office (that we know of) are able to share space without straight people around to scrutinize. 

Explicit and subtle homophobia continues to exist in the workplace 

Supporting Evidence: What evidence do you think would support the conclusions above from the complete list of scenes involving Pat, Jeng, and/or Jian Group employees from episode 2? 

(This is already very long, sorry) 

Episode 3:

Pat approaches Jeng after a work meeting (Setting: inside workplace, after meeting so- no witnesses) → Jeng lies to Pat and says he hasn’t read the feedback form → Jeng has a fun little reaction when Pat asks to resend it, because Jeng is a freak who both deeply values valid criticisms of himself (Questions to keep in mind throughout the episode: What is ultimately Jeng’s reaction to the criticism he gets from the established employees? What is Jeng’s reaction to the criticism he gets from Pat? What if any differences exist between the established workers’ issues with Jeng and Pat’s issues with Jeng?)

Jeng is at his condo drinking wine (Setting: outside workplace) → We learned Jaab is Jeng’s brother → Jeng asks Jaab for advice, wanting to know the kind of person he is, asking anxiously about micromanagement, narcissism, and lack of empathy → Jaab is like “haha that person is correct” and Jeng is like “!!!!!!” about it → they change conversations to Jaab’s new crush on a guy → Jeng gives the worst advice “crushes will pass, spend more time with them so you will be able to identify the things you don’t like about that person and focus on those to get over the crush”...is this the strategy you are about to employ against Pat, Jeng? Cause uh…… → Jeng catches Jaab banging his head against his *ahem* closet door over a boy

In case their brotherhood was ever called in to question, I present you two absolute losers.

Pat goes to Pearl & Oliver with his friends (Setting: outside the workplace) → Pat learns Jeng is a partner in the restaurant → Jeng sees Pat with his friends and does not acknowledge Pat as if they know each other → Jeng is amused at Pat’s interactions with Ae → The trivia game asks the question: “What is a must have at this restaurant?” Pat looks right at Jeng and says milk ice cream with glass jelly → Jeng is smiling → Pat gets drunk, strips off his jacket, Jeng cannot stop looking at Pat from where he stands near their table → host asks “who was the chef that made the signature dishes?” → “Jeng was the chef” Pat says looking directly at Jeng, pointing back and forth between them, Pat wracks his brain trying to think of Jeng’s full name → Jeng once again smiles, takes the last shot, and answers the question → Pat collapses drunk and Jeng is the first one to kneel down to help him 

Pat wakes up in an unfamiliar bed in unfamiliar clothes (Setting: Outside the workplace) → Pat realizes he is at Jeng’s house, has some flashes to the previous night, and freaks out → we cut to Jeng embracing the #hygge lifestyle with that cozy as fuck sweater → Cut to the previous evening, Jeng helps Pat into a car with the intention of bringing Pat to his condo where he and Jaab would normally stay, but he gets a text from Jaab that Jaab is going back to the condo with Jen → Jeng gives them respectful space to #dogayshit and takes Pat to his home (where his parents live) instead → Pat starts drunk rambling about how he is not wrong and he will not resign → Cut back to the current moment and Pat is exploring the house and sees Jeng’s computer open to a webpage on micromanagement → Pat realizes that jeng did in fact get his original review, and is trying to learn more about the criticism he was given → Pat sees Jeng, Jeng invites Pat to eat breakfast with him in his cozy fucking sweater (Read: Pat, a queer man, is allowed to bear witness to the real Jeng, to show Pat who he is when he is not at the office, comfortable, warm, not suffocating under the suit and tie that he has to hide behind at the office to make him more respectable) → Jeng runs in to his parents, introduces Pat as his employee and says that he called him here for a meeting and Jeng’s Dad the CEO of the company Pat works for eyes Pat up and down, making a mental note that Pat is wearing Jeng’s clothing (Setting: outside workplace, in front of employer) → Jeng makes an excuse about Pat borrowing his clothes because he stained his other ones and his father walks away without a word. He knows. 

Pat and Jeng are in the car together on the way to drop Pat off at the Skytrain (Setting: outside workplace, with a witness [car driver]) → Pat texts his friends → Jeng starts talking about work → Pat fakes being asleep → Pat opens his eyes right as Jeng has made a fist in front of his face to catch a mosquito → Pat thinks Jeng is ready to punch him → Jeng makes sure Pat knows that he was just trying to catch a bug → Jeng asks Pat to hand him a wipe → Pat instead cleans Jeng’s hand for him with a wipe and Jeng is having a hard time taking his eyes off Pat as a result → Pat gets dropped off and Jeng rubs his hand, having his own take on the Pride and Prejudice 2005 hand flex (this is the one and only time I will reference P&P because this show is not a P&P adaptation)

Jeng stops by Pearl & Oliver, and overhears a conversation between employees “whenever [Jeng] is here, I always feel so messed up” \\ “How I wish I could only see a guy like that in the office” and Jeng just hides and listens, and there is of course some more valid criticism sprinkled in there (re: micromanaging) → Jeng’s friend and co-owner steps forward and cuts the conversation short when he notices his employees talking shit about Jeng (Read: Jeng’s office employees don’t want him in the office, and his restaurant employees don’t want him at the restaurant) → Jeng: “I thought I was going to take care of a sick guy, he didn’t need me, and I decided to come to work because if I am home alone I will be lost in my thoughts” → Jeng gets called out on being nervous the previous day and fucking up the kitchen 

Flash back to the previous day where Jeng sees Pat as he’s walking in to work → “As my partner, you make me feel at ease and that everything must be perfect, but if you were my boss I would say no” (Read: even his straight friend would have issues with Jeng if he was in charge of him rather than them being friends and having equal power. Some of this, again is valid criticism, but remember we are investigating scenes for potential homophobia)

Jeng returns to the condo (Setting: outside the workplace) → Jaab complains about a stomachache and blames the food → Jeng said Pat was fine (Read: Jeng is admitting in front of his queer brother that he has seen Pat this very day) → Jaab says “[Pat] must be really afraid of you” → Jeng tosses and turns at night and then thinks back to the drunken conversation Pat has with him in the car: “Mr. Jeng, you’re my hero! You’re handsome and smart. You’re so different from how people see you” (Read: Pat, a queer person, is drunk and therefore does not have the wherewithal to keep his thoughts to himself, so this is his most unrestrained and honest about his feelings for Jeng that he could possibly be) → Jeng: “I thought you’d hate me” \\ “No, I don’t. I’m just confused. The Mr. Jeng I spilled glass jelly on and the Mr. Jeng who is my boss, are so different” \\ Jeng nods \\ “I don’t know which one is the real you (Read: Pat has already contemplated the idea that Jeng is straight, Jeng as the manager of a corporate office that is rife with homophobia would seem to demonstrate that Jeng is straight. And if Pat and Jeng had met in the office for the first time, and not in the lobby, if Pat had known who Jeng was from the get go, this would have been a complete non-starter. But because Pat met Jeng when he wasn’t quite associated with the office, Pat's first exposure to Jeng was Queer!Jeng and he is confused now that he is exposed to the Corporate!Jeng)

Pat discusses the benefits of resigning versus getting fired (Setting: inside workplace) → Pat; “What if he read my assessment and is avoiding me at all costs?” \\ Nan: “Well, it’s possible he would be playing a mind game with you,” and then Nan continues to thread the anxiety needle further

Jeng in his office (Setting: inside workplace, no witnesses) practicing how he is going to talk to Pat → Jeng practices his speech, he practices his vocal tone, he practices his body language, he is struggling to figure out how to present because Pat does not fit into the standard mindset of Jeng’s other employees → Pat beats him to it, offers him his washed clothes and says “I know you are dissatisfied with my review” \\ “I’m not,” … “By talking about this I don’t mean to make you feel bad” … “I will give consequences to Prem,” “I will tell you to control your emotions,” “I intend to improve myself and I hope someday you can see the real me better” (Question: Was this the reaction Pat was expecting? Why is it different?) → Prem gets consequences for his blatant homophobia and Pat is like *twirls braids* about it → The episode ends with Pat thinking about what Jeng has just said to him, he smiles 

Questions: Where do we see Jeng and Pat’s relationship to one another improving? Forgetting that we are already aware this man has a crush on Pat, what, if any, hints/indicators are you seeing that Jeng is queer? Out of work? At work? Do we see any potential areas where homophobia may be playing a role? Whose opinions does Jeng value? Whose opinions does Pat value? 

Your Conclusions: What conclusions can you draw from this episode? What evidence do you have to support your conclusions? 

Episode 4:

Open on badminton, Ying already questioning Jeng “He’s overreacting closing the entire badminton court for his underlings…Don’t you think Mr. Jeng is kind of weird?” Ying asks, Pat responds “Is it because he’s not wearing his suit?” “It’s his clothes? NO! It’s not that. It’s how Mr. Jeng is acting”

Cut to flashback where Jeng apologizes for his behavior: “I’m sorry if I did or said anything that made people feel uncomfortable” 

WE ARE INTRODUCED TO CHOT! Who is a Senior Marketing Executive and Jeng’s personal assistant who are coming to help the team (Read: Jeng has just added at least a third queer person to the office [him, Pat, Chot] and placed Chot in a consulting position that puts that queer man in a position of power and influence over the team dynamics for the whole department) → Jeng suggests golfing → Pat suggests badminton and Jeng defers to the younger queer man that he totally doesn’t have a crush on 

Cut back to badminton → Ying “what would make somebody change?” → Chot exits the badminton game and comes over to the rest of the group → Ying tells Chot “You’re new so you probably don’t know, the real Mr. Jeng is not like this” → Chot face journey (Read: Chot thinking ‘what in the homophobia is this?’) 

→ Chot: “So what is he really like?” \\ Ying: “He’s strict! Intense! Precise! He’s very straightforward. He’s not considerate of anyone. He’s not the type to come in a good mood like this” … “maybe he’s buying prostitutes” \\ Chot: “But he’s never been known for being a ladies man,” (Read: Chot: “Ma’am that is a homosexual”) \\ Ying: “What? Are you interested in gossip too? Someone like you?”

(Body language analysis time! What emotion is Chot feeling right now? What signs might indicate he is feeling a certain way?) 

Chot: “Maybe Jeng’s dying, like in the movies” (Read: let me give as ridiculous of an accusation as you just did”) \\ Pat: “Maybe he feels bad towards us and wants to treat us better” \\ “It’s a trap. Don’t you know that, people who keep secrets to themselves like that?” (Read: double entendre here, Ying is talking about Jeng keeping secrets as to why he’s treating the employees better [even though he has already explicitly said he was trying to improve] and Jeng is not out in the office, he is keeping his queerness secret)

Teams badminton game (Setting: Outside workplace, but at work function), Jeng and Pat on the same team → Pat gets in his head and falls, Jeng asks if he is okay then tells Jeng to focus

Jeng reminds Pat that they have a work function to get to, the shower at the gym is broken, and Jeng suggests they both get ready at his condo because Pat won’t have time to go home and come back → They arrive at Jeng’s condo (Setting: outside workplace) → Pat gets ready and snoops around, thinks that Jeng has a girlfriend → Descends the stairs while Jeng vacuums (to show that he would make a great house husband) → Jeng looks starstruck seeing Pat.

Chot introduces himself to Pat and Pat is like “oh, I too- “ “am gay, yeah” \\ “Even though I am very femme you are the only one that knows…Prem is always trying to get me to hit up girls, Can’t he see that I’m a tootsie” (now, this is a term I was not familiar with before this show, but it is also used in 180 Degrees Longitude Passes Through Us and was translated as “faggot” so consider “tootsie” in general a slur) → Chot asks about the gala Pat says “It was like I got to see another side to Mr. Jeng” \\ Chot: *kermit the frog tea meme* → Jeng appears, Chot asks how long he’s been there, Jeng says since Chot started singing, and Chot is like  “you are the second person who knows” (ie Jeng heard him say he was gay, and therefore Chot is out at the office to two people. Which two people? The gays.) 

Jeng offers snack to Pat in his car (Setting: outside work) → Pat says the snack is delicious (this is a surprise tool that will help us later) → They discuss work-life balance → They bicker and Jeng says: “I think you should stand your ground, or people will see you as weak. I think you should speak up for yourself more than this. 

Pat is told by Jeng’s friend that Jeng is not on good terms with his father. (Read: CEO of company does not have a good relationship with his queer son)

Pat asks for gossip about Jeng from Ying → the weirdest thing she knows about Jeng is that he left the company two years ago (Read: Jeng keeps his shit locked down, he will not be clockable to any straight employee, and possibly to some queer ones too [Pat]) → Chot takes Pat to the bathroom to berate Pat for asking Ying for gossip, and then Bruce gives us a number of spectacular faces that indicate that Chot is like “jfc that guy is also gay” → CHOT ASKS PAT IF HE HAS A CRUSH ON JENG (Setting: In the workplace, but somewhere with no witnesses, just two queer people talking about crushes) → Pat and Chot hide in the bathroom stall when Jeng enters the restroom (now all three queer people are in the same space) just in time for Pat to sneeze and jeng to recognize it’s him → Jeng asks Pat to work on some stuff at his condo on Sunday

Pat goes to the condo (setting: outside workplace) → Pat and Jeng work on presentations → Pat gets excited when Jeng approves of the slides → Jeng asks Pat to stay for a meal → Jeng’s niece arrives → Jeng weaponizes the cute factor of his niece to get Pat to stay for a meal → Pat arrives home and gets a follow request from Jeng (Question: What, if anything, does this demonstrate about where and how Pat and Jeng’s relationship progresses)

Pat sends a message about Jeng leaving with a woman’s handbag that is not his nieces accidentally to the group chat → Jeng responds to the message → Jeng has Pat come talk to him one on one in the office in the evening (Setting: inside the workplace, no witnesses) → Jeng and Pat are honest with each other, Jeng tells Pat “I am so tired of having to wear a mask for the sake of society”  

Meeting room with: Jeng, Pat, and Chot- all three of them can speak English. 

Jeng fucks up his knees and embarasses himself at karaoke (Setting; outside office at work function) → Pat is once again not participating, and does not see Jeng embarass himself → Jeng finds Pat, Pat asks why he was chosen to lead the Forge project “I’m the teams weakness” \\ “You have to trust yourself like I trust you” 

Forge project gets approved → Pat is PUMPED → Pat texts Jeng (after hours) thanking him → Jeng, in his pjs and relaxed, reading in the evening gets the text message and  BEAMS 

The office staff watch the video of Chot singing karaoke and one of them comments “my gaydar is so broken” (baby, there are at least two other gay boys in the room with you right now, we know it’s broken) → Jeng teases Pat about thinking he has a girlfriend → Jeng confirms he does not, in fact, have a girlfriend → Pat smiles  

Pat is with Jaab, smells the lotion he smelled at Jeng’s condo, sees Jeng and Jaab interact → Jeng leaves saying “thanks bro” and references their mother, because he is trying to make sure that Pat knows that Jeng and Jaab are related, not dating. (Setting: in office but not in typical work station, alone except for the three queer people)

Questions: What pattern, if any, are you seeing in where and how Pat and Jeng’s relationship to one another changes in this episode? Who is in the room when there are discussions about crushes? Who are the people spreading rumors and who are the ones questioning them?

Your Conclusions: What conclusions do you draw from the scenes in this episode? What evidence do you have to support it? 

Episode 5

Work meeting to discuss casting in the commercial → Put is proposed as an option → Pat is not reacting well to it → Jeng notices 

Pat begs Jen to go easy on him for his first day on the Forge project → Jen: “We’re here to help you” \\ Pat: “Can we change the plan?’ \\ Jen: “Sure” 

Jeng has meeting with his father → “the weather is easier to order around than you” → Jeng’s dad talks about the image of the company being an old man: “People think I’ve monopolized the whole country” \\ “Isn’t that true?” 

Jeng is nervous about Pat and calls Chot for advice (interrupts a kiss between Chot and Krit which, #homophobicworkcalls) → Chot is like “dude calm down you said you trusted him you have to trust him” → Jeng hangs up the phone and Chot BECOMES A FIANCE 

Pat, Jaab, and Jen propose a filming location → they are met with pushback → they finesse a client in to doing what they want

Hotel AC is broken → Jeng suggests Pat stay in his suite for the evening so they don’t have to try to locate another hotel last minute  → Pat looks at Jen for approval and then agrees 

In the hotel room Pat recently showered, Jeng hard at work (Setting: a limbo between work and not work, they are at the hotel because they are scouting locations, they are doing work inside the hotel room, but they aren’t in the office, and they are about to head to bed) → Pat suggests he sleep on the couch and Jeng could take the bed → Jeng says they can share the bed because the couch is going to be uncomfortable → Pat agrees to share the bed → Pat and Jeng remain a respectful and professional distance from one another in the bed → Pat looks over his shoulder at Jeng’s back → Pat tries to apologize to Jeng for bothering him, Jeng does not allow it and shuts that shit down by telling him to go to sleep → Pat dreams of Put

Pat wakes up to an empty bed, Jeng is up, Jeng has prepared breakfast, and Jeng is dressed far far more queer than we’ve ever seen him. White tank up, open beige hawaiian shirt, chain around his goddamn neck. → Pat fixes his hair, smoothes his shirt, and checks his breath before joining Jeng for breakfast → Jeng starts a convo with work and then transitions to that ambiguous area of conversation where he suggests Pat drive with him to a get together, and asks Pat to find a seafood restaurant.

Pat gets roped in to shooting sample photos with Put —> Jeng gets the pictures → Jeng gets a little mopey about seeing them together

Jeng texts Pat right around the time everyone files out the door, and suggests everyone go to the aquarium (or something, I don’t feel like pulling up Gaga for translated writing subs) the point is Pat sends the following emoji: 

(Setting: Outside the office, (but not completely out of work)

Aquarium conversation between Put and Jeng occurs where there is a polite, yet passive aggressive dick measuring contest → Pat interrupts with coffee → Jeng very obviously checks Pat out in front of Put → Put drags Pat off (Setting: Outside the office, outside the workplace, with only queer coworkers)

At dinner Jeng sees Pat eyeing a particular dish offers to give some to him → Jaab is like “aren’t you also going to give some to your brother?” → Jeng says yes, and then to not play favorites offers to give everyone at the table some, including Put. 

After dinner Put,  Jeng, and Pat walk out together → Put offers Pat a ride home → Jeng says he will drive Pat home → Put leaves, getting the message from Jeng and leaves (Question for you: what message is he getting from Jeng?) → Pat and Jeng are now alone (Setting: outside the usual office, outside the hotel, after their work trip has technically ended) a Pat; “You’re acting weird today Mr. Jeng,” \\ “I’m just saying goodbye, it’s nothing” → Jeng: “Where do you want to go before we head back? The weather is nice today?” → They head to the bridge → Jeng tells Pat to treat him to some boba as he promised (in episode 1 after spilling glass jelly on his shoe, before he knew that Jeng was his manager) (What does this mean? Jeng is trying to set a tone for him and Pat hanging out together that calls back to the easy, flirty, chemistry they had with one another when they first met. Jeng is intentionally trying to distance himself as much as possible from the Corporate!Jeng image in Pat’s mind and place himself squarely, obviously, overtly back in the Queer!Jeng image that he thinks Pat first saw him in. Hence, why he ditched the suit and tie this episode, why he brings up the owed drink, etc)

On the bridge (Setting: outside the workplace, outside the hotel, in the middle of a bridge [aka in a space between two sides]) Pat apologizes to Jeng for having Pat take pictures for the Forge project → They talk work, Jeng praises Pat “You did well. You were really good. You did really good.” → Prolonged eye contact → Fireworks → “It’s so pretty” \\ “Very beautiful” → Look at each other immediately after saying that → SUBTITLES LIE AND SAY THAT PAT SAID MR. JENG WHEN IN FACT HE SAYS “JENG look at that one!” → They look at each other way too many times → Cheers their drinks, and end the episode staring out at the fireworks together. 

Your Questions: What questions are coming up in your mind throughout this episode? What questions would you want to try to answer going forward? 

Your Conclusions: What conclusions are you drawing from this episode? What evidence do you have to support it? 

Episode 6

Pat is home from the work trip, watches the fireworks on his instagram story → Pat gets a message from Kong (aka Mr. MLM and not the gay kind) 

Jeng makes shrimp nuggets for the office → Jeng is way too attentive to Pat when he eats the shrimp nuggets (again, Jeng wants to be a house husband → Jeng is on the phone with his father and pauses when Pat eats and then does not like, the shrimp nuggets (Setting: inside office, Jeng is completely separated from the rest of the office and looking at Pat in a crowd) → Jeng’s personal assistant comes over and asks for the recipe and jeng isn’t paying attention because he is still looking at Pat

Jeng makes three versions of the shrimp nugget (Setting: outside workplace at his condo) → force-feeds his brother 

Pat and Chot spend the entire work day together in Chot’s cubicle (remember at the party, Pat only interacts with Chot and Nan) → Pat’s “date” gets canceled

Late at night, no one in the office, Pat goes to leave work and Jeng runs in to him at the elevator looking sad → Jeng learns Pat just had a date canceled → Jeng invites Pat to eat instead (Setting: inside workplace, after hours when no other witnesses are there) → They eat dinner together, Jeng asks about the shrimp donut over dinner

On set Put pulls some shit with Pat (Setting: outside office, though still in workplace. All employees on set that Pat interacts with are queer + Kanoon who is an old friend) → Pat gets mad and tells Put ‘this is my job, what will other people think of me if you do this?” 

Pat goes on “date” with Kong → Kong tries to rope him in to an MLM scheme → Pat says “haha fuck no” → Put calls Pat and Pat uses put’s call as an excuse to get out of the area → Put asks Pat on a date

Chot and Pat run an ad by Jeng → He’s okay with it if they are both okay with it (Question: who is Jeng putting his trust in now?) → Jeng suggests Pat go with him to buy furniture since Jeng needs new stuff for his restaurant and Pat needs a new desk chair

Kong comes to Pat’s work → Kong starts peddling products and asks Pat about Ying (Ying has been a pain in Pat’s ass from the beginning so this is an opportunity for a little revenge) → Pat is nice and does not send Kong after her → Chot gets Pat out of there → Jeng appears to watch the scene unfold (Read: straight and homophobic employee makes Pat sacrifice himself to the MLM scheme, queer employee saves him) 

Pat and Jeng go to Ikea (setting:  outside workplace) → Jeng and Pat have a lot of fun, they play together, Pat fake cooks and Jeng pretends like the food is hot → The chair scene happens

Pat and Jeng go to Pat’s apartment (Setting: outside workplace, in Pat’s domain) → Jeng and Pat cook for real together → Chef hat scene happens (with even more intense eye contact) → Eat together at the dining room table → Jeng starts getting to know Pat better, and is engaged in conversation the whole time 

Pat sinks his chair down and laughs, remembering the Ikea trip (Setting: outside workplace at home) → Put calls and asks Pat on a date while Pat is looking at the stuffed tiger he got with Jeng → Put and Pat go on their date → Put asks Pat to get back together telling Pat that he was just coming to terms with his sexuality when he left and getting in to showbusiness and that wasn’t a place he could really be out. → Put asks again if Pat would consider getting back together 

Your Questions: What questions are coming up in your mind throughout this episode? What questions would you want to try to answer going forward? 

Your Conclusions: What conclusions are you drawing from this episode? What evidence do you have to support it? 

Episode 7

Jaab calls Jeng and is like “dude did you take Pat out on a nice dinner? I saw your wallet?” (Read: Jaab knows that Jeng likes Pat) → Jeng learns Pat may be seeing someone 

Pat and Put flirt with each other on set (Setting: outside typical corporate office, technically at work, with all the queer people in the office) → Jeng clocks the relationship almost immediately and gets salty about it 

Pat cooks for Put → Put ignores Pat the entire dinner (Direct parallel to Jeng and the attention that he gave to Pat when they ate together in Episode 6) 

Film Set (Setting: Outside traditional workspace, still at work (film set, with all the queer employees on the team)) → Pat gets yelled at by Cris’ mother → Chot defends Pat, Put does nothing → Pat walks away and starts crying → Jeng appears when Pat is crying and talks to him → Jeng wants to give physical comfort and stops himself → Pat collapses sobbing in to Jeng’s chest → Jeng gives in and comforts him → Put sees this happen and apologizes to Pat for not doing anything to help (because he can’t be seen having that connection to Pat) → Put gives physical comfort to Pat and then returns to set. (Question: Is this a progression on Pat and Jeng’s relationship? Pat seeks out comfort from Jeng. If so, what about this setting is similar to the other times we have seen their relationship progress?) 

Cris’ mother is shocked to learn that Jeng and Jaab are blood brothers working in such different fields, Jaab responds “I’m too lazy to wear a suit and tie and be in the office all day” (Question: What does this say about Jaab, his queerness, and his relationship to the homophobia we’ve seen in the corporate office?) 

Jeng and Put have a private conversation → Jeng tells Put to separate work and personal matters → Put: “Seeing the person you love being taken advantage of, I don’t know how to feel about that. You understand what I mean, right?” (Read: Put is 200% aware that Jeng has feelings for Pat and is calling Jeng on them)

Put and Pat go back to their hotel room in the evening (Setting: outside work) → They make out → Pat asks Put “Do you like me?”, Put asks Pat “do you like me?” → Pat realizes part-way through them making out that he is not really interested in Put → Pat leaves to go to the after-party and leaves Put alone

Pat appears at the party (Setting: outside work, at work function) → Jeng immediately sits forward → Pat joins the table of employees (Jeng is sitting off in a corner) → Pat joins him → Jeng gets drunk → Pat gets drunker → Jeng is unable to hold-back his giggles, his smiles, his heart eyes, his touches linger a little too long when he grabs Pat’s wrist to stop him drinking → Pat gets drunk enough to need help walking back to the hotel room → Jeng helps get Pat where he needs to go → Pat starts being handsy and clingy with Jeng (SHIRT PULLING SCENE MY BELOVED) → Jeng helps walk Pat to the room he and Chot are sharing. 

Chot watches Jeng take Pat’s shoes off and hesitate to leave → “Men are just swarming at you” (Read: Chot knows Jeng has a crush on Pat) → Put appears and Chot asks “are you here to see Pat?” →  Chot asks if anyone saw Put coming over to Pat and Chot’s hotel room (Read: what read are you taking from this? → Put says “Has Pat told you?” \\ Chot: “Oh, he didn’t tell me. I noticed it from the day of the fitting \\ Put: “It’s that obvious, isn’t it?” (Read: “Am I being that noticeably queer?”) \\ Chot: “Actually, it takes a little bit of observation and experience to see” (Question: How do you interpret this line?) → Put takes care of Pat and hears Pat asking about glass jelly 

They are leaving the hotel to return back to Bangkok (Setting: outside work, after work events are over) → Put checks in on Pat → Put leaves → Pat walks away and Jeng comes to say good morning to Pat → Jeng shows Pat the video he took of Pat (with Pat’s permission) of him being drunk the other night → Jeng offers to delete it, Pat says it’s fine → Jeng calls drunk!Pat cute 

Pat returns home (Setting: outside work) → Pat thinks about the dinner with Put and the fact Put doesn’t respond to the question “Do you like me?” → Pat calls Put. 

Your Questions: What questions are coming up in your mind throughout this episode? What questions would you want to try to answer going forward? 

Your Conclusions: What conclusions are you drawing from this episode? What evidence do you have to support it?

Episode 8

Here are 4 scenes that I feel are important to either a) the theme of homophobia in the workplace or b) the theme of where and how Jeng and Pat’s relationship progresses. 

Pat breaks up with Put (Time-stamp 8 (¼): 0:46 on YouTube)

Question: Where is this scene happening? How is that related to one or both of the themes listed above? 

Question: What details, if any, do you notice about what happens in this scene that may help provide support/evidence to? 

Question: What else do you notice? How is that related to one or both of the themes listed above? 

Put and Jeng speak with each other about Put’s break up with Pat. (Time-stamp 8(¼): 11:48)

Question: Where is this scene happening? How is that related to one or both of the themes listed above? 

Question: What details, if any, do you notice about what happens in this scene that may help provide support/evidence to? 

Question: What else do you notice? How is that related to one or both of the themes listed above? 

Pat and Jeng eat at the first restaurant (Time-Stamp 8(2/4): 7:39)

Question: Where is this scene happening? How is that related to one or both of the themes listed above? 

Question: What details, if any, do you notice about what happens in this scene that may help provide support/evidence to? 

Question: What else do you notice? How is that related to one or both of the themes listed above? 

Jeng takes Pat to the speakeasy (Time-Stamp 8(4/4): 2:26) 

Question: Where is this scene happening? How is that related to one or both of the themes listed above? 

Question: What details, if any, do you notice about what happens in this scene that may help provide support/evidence to? 

Question: What else do you notice? How is that related to one or both of the themes listed above? 

Other scenes of interest: Are there any other scenes you can find from this episode that would give support to or context for the topic of homophobia in the workplace or where and how Jeng and Pat’s relationship progresses? 

Your Questions: What questions are coming up in your mind throughout this episode? What questions would you want to try to answer going forward? 

Your Conclusions: What conclusions are you drawing from this episode? What evidence do you have to support it? 

Episode 9: 

Scenes of Interest: 

https://youtu.be/qkLwvHaJanU?t=444 (Time-Stamp: 7:24-9:54)

Hint: this is not a gratuitous appreciation for Man’s body. There are actually some really important themes we can pick up on from scenes like this one. I know @shortpplfedup had some great observations about scenes like this one and how they relate to Jeng’s character

https://youtu.be/ffWytF3rUvg?t=19 (Time-Stamp: 0:19-2:23)

https://youtu.be/ffWytF3rUvg?t=373 (Time-Stamp: 6:13-7:20)

https://youtu.be/ffWytF3rUvg?t=475 (Time-Stamp: 7:55 - 11:04)

https://youtu.be/ffWytF3rUvg?t=741 (Time-Stamp: 12:21-14:40)

https://youtu.be/fB8DDGMoDsM?t=51 (Time-Stamp: 0:51 - 5:12)

https://youtu.be/fB8DDGMoDsM?t=336 (Time-Stamp: 5:36-7:08)

https://youtu.be/fB8DDGMoDsM?t=437 (Time-Stamp: 7:08-15:18)

https://youtu.be/lf14HaNlM64?t=894 (Time-Stamp: 14:54 - 18:40)

I would love to hear your thoughts on why I might find these scenes important as they relate to Jeng and Pat’s relationship progression and/or homophobia in the workplace!

Episode 10

Try Episode 10 for yourself! What scenes stand out to you in terms of portraying homophobia in the workplace? What settings and contexts do you see contributing to the progressions of Pat and Jeng’s relationship in this episode? What settings and contexts do you see the regressions of Pat and Jeng’s relationship in this episode? What, if anything, is causing the disconnect between Pat and Jeng as the episode plays out? 

Let me know!

Other Questions: Do these themes, do these patterns continue for other queer characters in the show?

As an aside: I don’t know what the stipulations of your presentation are, but if you want to talk about workplace culture in Thailand, especially around queerness, I would be careful not to use Step By Step as like, definitive proof of how Thai workplaces function (just like I wouldn’t use A Boss and a Babe as a way to demonstrate how Thai workplaces function). However, it would certainly be interesting to use something like SBS as a way to compare, and be like “here are elements of actual Thai workplace culture from research that I see playing out in SBS.” I am sure you know what you are doing, I’m not trying to do your work for you either, but I feel a general responsibility to say that, not being Thai myself I can only read this show from a Queer Western lens and I don’t want to somehow be perpetuating stereotypes or harm of actual Thai culture based on my read of this show! 

Good luck on your presentation!

[dinitride-art]

This reminds me about the difference between queer representation in film and other forms of media. Like, recently When you Finish Saving the World came out and while I didn’t see it myself, I did see that people were saying Ziggy had an ex-boyfriend in the book that I don’t know whether or not it was mentioned in the film adaptation. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t. I’m thinking of how Simon vs. The Homosapiens Agenda was adapted in to Love, Simon, too. Leah’s characterization is very different in the movie than what it was in the book. It was changed to be less complex and more consumable to heteronormative audiences. Her character motivations shifted from being Simon’s best friend who was hurt that he didn’t come out to her before Abby, to her reaction to Simon being outed as a result of homophobia. Haven’t seen of read it in a hot minute but the point I’m trying to make here is that there is a lot of queer representation in media, it’s just boxed away where the average cis het person can’t find it. So, when we’re represented in places that aren’t strictly in that box (or outside of it, basically anywhere that counts as popular media) everything gets watered down.

Netflix is an important factor to consider in how Stranger Things is allowed to portray its queer characters. I don’t think that they would’ve let season four go any further than it did with queer representation because of a potential loss of viewership. It’s very probable that the Duffers have had to fight with Netflix about what they’re allowed to say and show in their story. Robin is the only explicitly queer character in Stranger Things. Every other character is up to interpretation. People can deny Will being gay, can deny Vickie being bi, because their identities aren’t stated or shown in a way that makes them undeniable to the audience. Will is heavily implied to have romantic feelings about Mike but no one ever says it. Not in the same way that Robin told Steve that she had a crush on a girl when they were high in season three. Vickie is the same. It’s implied that she might have feelings for Robin but never stated. Subtext is the main way that Stranger Things presents its queer characters. But I don’t think that it’s going to stay that way.

The subtext isn’t simple. It’s almost overwhelming complex and is telling an entire story that most people aren’t able to pick up on. The California/Road-trip plot-line in season four is probably the most extreme example of this. I think that the reason that Will is glowing whenever Mike looks at him, and why there’s a hidden confession behind a painting, and references to the rain fight in season three, and an entire plot-line dedicated to Mike and Will’s relationship development is because they weren’t allowed to explicitly tell the audience what was happening with them in season four. But they’re still telling the story they want to tell, just in a different way. I don’t think anyone puts that much effort into something for a plot twist. I think it might be because someone told them no. Robin and Vickie are already pushing what is generally allowed in popular media. They’re two queer characters with very human experiences. That people can relate to whether or not they’re queer themselves. Vickie isn’t as well developed as Robin, but Robin- even though she’s often used as comic relief- is a complex character. She’s a queer character with a potential romantic plot-line and has important relationships with other characters. She’s also heavily implied to be neurodivergent. And she’s not dead.

Stranger Things isn’t perceived as a queer story. It’s at a point where it has complex queer characters but not to the point where it’s been labeled as queer media. If Mike and Will were both explicitly shown to be queer in season four, that would have pushed Stranger Things over the edge. Mike, Will and El are three of the most important characters in Stranger Things. That’s why they had two out of the four plot lines in season four. If Mike and El’s romantic relationship ended, Stranger Things would potentially have more people thinking about whether or not Mike and Will are an actual option, and whether or not Stranger Things is made for a heteronormative audience. This has already started to happen even with Mike and El’s ending the season with the future of their relationship being ambiguous. Even though Robin has a romantic subplot, and Vickie has been introduced, and Will is heavily implied to have romantic feelings for Miek, Stranger Things has not yet been labeled as queer media. I think that has more to do with Netflix than the Duffer brothers.

Queer people aren’t found in film or popular media a whole lot. And more often than not people have to push to be able to have queer characters and representation and relevance to the story. It’s also not uncommon for queer stories to be hidden behind an allegory or in subtext. The story that Stranger Things wants to tell is a queer story, which automatically makes Stranger Things queer media. Being labeled as queer media shoves it away into a hidden box away from anyone who doesn’t want to see it. But, at this point, Stranger Things has become too popular to be shoved into the dark. From the way that everything has been handled with Mike and Will, and Robin and Vickie, it’s clear that they’re trying to tell a queer story. The effort put into Mike and Will in every season shows that while this story is currently still subtextual, it’s something they want to explore and something that they’re not allowed to fully show, but they want to. I remember thinking, who would put this much effort into lighting Will like this? Why would anyone spend this much time on subtext that most people would never notice? And now, I think it’s possible, that they’re trying to tell this story in whatever way they can. And while its still not enough, I don’t think it’s by choice. But I also think that they’re going to tell this story no matter what.

we have 3 queer characters that haven't even kissed anyone of the same gender but the show is full of straight ships that have whole scenes of them making out and holding hands and like I know we will get explicit queerness in s5 but it still feels like I can't expect too much and like I shouldn't hope to have Elmax or Elumax too even if it has semi-romantic subtext in the show but I should be glad if I get the ones we already have even if we will have one season against 4 of straight people being straight and like I just think it's fucked up that I feel like this and I feel like that if the show is not made explicitly queer from the beginning then we should be happy if we get even one queer character... plus all the other queer shows are getting canceled or end up killing one in the couple or they have depressing storylines... it's so fucked up

[starrylayle]

Soman’s failed POC and Queer rep in the SGE saga — And why criticism is essential to the movie (franchise)

[repost]

Before I start though, I’d like to say that if you have any argument about forced representation, dni. I don’t give a shit that ur faves aren’t white anymore — and please stop fucking harassing Soman and the cast about this non-issue.

Now onto the racial criticism of Soman’s work, which I don’t see talked enough about.

Being a person of colour does not mean you are exempt from racial criticism. I’m sure this is known by now, but in the books, literally everyone is white. Like EVERYONE. And not only that, the beauty standards he portrays and tries to critique (but then fails miserably at unfortunately) are so Eurocentric it’s quite disheartening actually - pale skin, small noses, coloured eyes, etc. The themes are also quite Eurocentric as well — if you had told me that the books were written by a white author, I would believe you.

Now, I’ve always given him the benefit of the doubt here, considering he was writing a middle grade series as a marginalised author, which was a lot more difficult at the time, and because he does genuinely try to improve his POC rep in the later books (even if that does include retconning character’s previous descriptions lol). In that same vein, the cast is also noticeably more diverse, and I truly applaud Soman for that. However, he has not said anything in regards to the racism the cast have been getting, which considering his influence on the fandom, would have been much appreciated. (The only casting choice he actually spent some time defending was brunette Tedros 💀💀 — like mate, get your priorities together!). Also, since whiteness is quite intrinsic to the core themes of the story (I’ll make a separate post on that later), I worry that the movie will unintentionally be pushing it. And if that’s the case, people should be allowed to critique this (hypothetical) poor depiction of race, without it being considered racist. (As previously mentioned — this excludes those fucking weirdos who just hate on the cast coz their faves aren’t white anymore 🙄🙄)

Ok so, in regards to the queer-coding/queer-baiting:

Just like being a POC doesn’t mean u can’t have internalised racism, being queer doesn’t mean u can’t have internalised homophobia, especially to other members of the community. I don’t know why exactly Soman struggles with writing queer rep so much (I mean I can understand in 2013 — but now plenty of middle grade books include queer characters), but he barely has any canon gay rep.

Tristan/Yara, who is not even specified whether they are gay or trans, is one of the first characters to die, with absolutely no resolution to their arc whatsoever - and their queerness is never mentioned again. The next confirmed queer couple are two backgrounder guys who barely have any significance to the story. The couple after that are two evil white boys, who are only confirmed to be queer after they both die. They are are the only relevant gay characters at this point — yet ofc they’re dead, white and evil. This wouldn’t be a problem if there were other (good) queer characters, but since that is not the case, it just comes off as rather… icky.

Now notice how all these couples, as poorly written as they are, are all (white) gay men? There are hints that Hester and anadil might be in a relationship, but it’s never explicitly confirmed.

In addition, sophie and Agatha are explicitly queer coded — (I made a post about it on my acc for anyone’s interested) — they even kiss!! Of course people are going to be mad that they were baited into a relationship that ended up being incesteous! Especially, ESP, considering that Agatha is now a Black girl in this adaptation. We barely see any white canon wlw couples in media — Black sapphics are almost unheard of in the mainstream, especially as leads. first kill, one show that featured a Lesbian Black girl lead (a Dark-skinned one at that!)— got cancelled. And this happens all the time. Lesbians/sapphics, esp sapphics of colour, ESP Balck sapphics are barely given any time of day in our media in favour of centring gay white men in queer narratives, and thus they have every right to be upset at the queer baiting.

I’m not Black, but as a queer woman of colour, Agatha’s character has always been very special to me. I’ve always thought she should be a POC considering how different her and her mum are from the rest of her cookie-cutter village, and queer because she did not fit into conventional notions of femininity. It would be so awesome to see Agatha, a queer woman of colour, as the lead in a high-budget fantasy series. But alas, that is too many marginalised identities for the general audience.

Not only that, the twin reveal was just plain bad writing. It had absolutely no bearing at the story whatsoever and is never mentioned again. It was just done purely for shock value, and for that, I will absolutely critique Soman.

I know that this discourse is tired and worn out — and understandably so, it’s been years. However, now that this movie is approaching mainstream — At worst, this queer baiting can already add to the whole ‘lesbian relationships aren’t serious’ and other terrible stereotypes. At best, it deprives sapphics of much needed representation in mainstream fantasy films.

Remember, unlike with the books, we as fans have the power to influence the story. If the creators see how unpopular the twist is with the public, they can probably change it. We can make a difference! Btw, this doesn’t mean sophie and Agatha should be endgame — I’d like for them to be in a short term relationship and be confirmed as canonically queer — Tagatha can still be the end couple! (Not hophie tho, coz sophie is a lesbian and I despise Hort lol).

[handsmotif]

The Queercoding of Pinky and the Brain

This originally was just me infodumping to my friends on discord, but I decided it might be interesting to some people on here, so I polished it up and made it an actual essay lmao

To start, we’re going to break this into 2 sections -- the relationship between the mice, and Pinky’s relationship with gender, because queercoding doesn’t just mean gay!

For a 90′s show, Pinky and the Brain (and its mother show, Animaniacs) was very progressive for its time! But there were still lots of things that they couldn’t slip by censors, and thus, that’s where we have to read between the lines. And that is something I wanted to clarify here before we dive in, the actual meaning of queercoding. It’s NOT the same as queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is when the people producing certain media purposefully dangle the possibility of queer representation to lure in audiences (most prominent examples are BBC Sherlock, Riverdale, and Supernatural I GUESS? who knows abt that last one anymore), but never follow through, purely for profit. Queercoding is when media producers WANT to write in queer representation, but can’t, usually because the censors won’t let them. So, they must resort to subtext. (example: the policemen from Gravity Falls) It could also be unintentional, simply assigning certain characteristics associated with the LGBT community to characters. (example: Bugs Bunny, many Disney villains) Either way, it heavily relies on the audience picking up subtext, but whether it’s malicious or not varies, depending on the media. Bugs Bunny is an example of positive accidental queercoding, while a lot of Disney villains are negative examples.

Now, to actually discuss the gay little mice! Pinky and the Brain, whether it be intentional or not (based off comments from Maurice LaMarche, Rob Paulsen, and Tom Ruegger, signs strongly point to intentional, but it’s never been explicitly confirmed), is an example of positive queercoding.

There are many moments that I could pick out to discuss here, but we’ll start with some VERY on the nose gay metaphors. 

Remember Romy? If you don’t, that’s their actual biological son! Romy came about due to a cloning accident, where their DNA got combined and spat him out. 

There’s SO many things I could say about Romy. Every appearance he makes has an overarching gay metaphor as the plot. His first appearance in the episode Brinky (yeah it’s literally titled their ship name), it deals with his dads (WHICH I ALSO WANT TO POINT OUT, he DOES call them both dad, and they do both call him their son) disapproving of the fact that he wants to leave home and not follow in their footsteps of taking over the world. Brain even goes as far as disowning him whenever he tells him, which is certainly something a lot of queer people can unfortunately relate to. Also seen a lot in this episode is Pinky and Brain arguing even more than a married couple than usual, which pushes Romy away even further. Later, when Romy eventually does leave, and Brain starts to regret chasing him away, he tries desperately to reach out to him, but Romy doesn’t want anything to do with him. They end up tracking him down to an apartment building, where Romy is now living with his human girlfriend. When questioned about their relationship, the girlfriend, named Bunny, goes off on a tangent about how people shouldn’t judge others based on labels or relationships (hello?), and that Brain needs to be more tolerant. Brain apologizes and Romy forgives him. Happy ending.

Romy’s only other appearance is in the comics. Essentially, the plot of this one is that Brain wants to become the president of the local high school’s PTA, but he needs Romy’s help to make it look like he has a normal home life. He also enlists the help of Billie, the obligatory Woman introduced to make sure Brain doesn’t look as gay as he actually is, that he has a crush on. She pretends to be his girlfriend, and Pinky pretends to be Romy’s uncle, while they make up the story that Romy’s actual mother was lost at sea. Because if the organization found out that Brain has a son with a MAN??? THINK of the controversy! Anyway, the plan works, and Brain actually manages to get elected as president. Throughout this though, Pinky gets WEIRDLY jealous that Brain keeps brushing him aside for Billie. To the point where during Brain’s inauguration, Pinky actually dresses up as the wife/mother lost at sea and storms into the room.

[ID: Comic panels of Pinky, Brain, and Romy on stage at the inauguration ceremony. Pinky busts into room wearing drag, saying, “Yoo hoo! I’m back from years lost at sea to be with my son and ungrateful husband! Narf!” He then hugs Romy, while glaring at Brain. He goes on to say, “I’ll stand by your side, even though you left me behind!” The people in the audience begin to question this, saying, “Oh great fuzzy bangs!”, “What’d she say?!”, “He deserted her to be with that other woman!”, “What kind of monster is he?!”. Brain then rips off Pinky’s wig and says, “This isn’t my wife! This isn’t even a woman! It’s my roommate, Pinky.” Pinky replies, “Well, yes... But Romy really is my son! Poit!” And Brain responds, “N-Nonsense! He’s my son!” More people in the audience angrily speak up, saying, “What’s that?”, “He lives with a guy who likes to dress up in women’s clothing and the both claim to be that kid’s father!”, “Grumble! Mutter!” /END ID]

Needless to say, this doesn’t end well for them. What we can conclude from this is that homophobia exists in the Pinky and the Brain universe, and our characters are directly affected by it.

Moving on, And-There-Was-Only-One-Bed is a pretty common occurrence with these two. Their cage is big, they have plenty of room for two beds, but? They choose to sleep together? Even in some times where this has been inconsistent and they DO have separate beds, they’re always RIGHT next to each other. (what if we put our minecraft beds together ❤😳)

I would like to mention the episode, You’ll Never Eat Food Pellets In This Town Again! This episode is interesting to say the least. Deals with a lot of the meta of the show. Anyway. In this episode, Brain has a nightmare that he’s in a loveless marriage with Billie. You know, the woman he’s supposed to have a crush on. In the end, he wakes up from the nightmare in the same bed as Pinky.

Speaking of female love interests, Pinky is seen having multiple relationships with characters of different species. Any time this is brought up by Brain, Pinky counters with Brain being too intolerant. An honorable mention with this is in Wakko’s Wish, when Pinky is with Pharfignewton, and Brain’s constant pestering about their relationship could be read as jealousy. Pinky needs a mousy date, after all!

Something else I would like to mention is in one episode (I forget what it’s called, I’ll try to look it up later and edit this), Brain is applying for a job. The employer asks Brain if he’s married, and Brain hesitates before saying he “has a roommate,” but that he’s occupied with his own things, which then cuts to a shot of Pinky applying lipstick.

Leading into part two of this essay, Pinky’s relationship with gender! Pinky has always been very gender nonconforming, and loves to wear dresses, do his makeup, and make himself look pretty. For the most part, this is played pretty straight, and not as a gag, like a lot of shows tend to do! It’s just a casual fact about him that he likes to present femininely sometimes.

This does play into their taking over the world plans pretty often, where Pinky wears drag, usually either to sneak into somewhere. Like in one of their earliest appearances on Animaniacs, Noah’s Lark, where they pose as a couple to board Noah’s, and I quote, “love boat.” After boarding, Noah says to himself, “Who am I to judge?” Okay. Yeah. Alright. Anyway.

I actually had less to say on this than I thought I did, but I wanted to make sure to emphasize that Pinky at the very least is coded as being Not Quite Cis, and that he’s played a key part in helping a lot of people watching the show figure out that they’re also Not Quite Cis. 

Wrapping this up because I’m hungry, but I want to throw in some more honorable mentions that I really do not see any type of cishet explanations for:

They literally go on a romantic date at a very fancy restaurant in Brain’s Night Off. This is played extremely casually, and the only remark from anyone that they receive is that they are “much smaller than the usual clients.”

Pinky, on at least one occasion, daydreams about him and Brain being a married couple, and wanting to be a housewife (the original malewife ❤)

There’s an issue in the comics where Pinky has a crush on another male mouse, and when Brain gets annoyed, Pinky reassures him that he thinks Brain is cute and quite the catch too

Brain attempting to kiss Pinky in the reboot??????

Brain actually did conquer the world once in the Halloween special, because Pinky made a deal with the devil for it, and thus Pinky got sent to hell! Brain actually went to hell and gave up the world to bring him back

Brain was extremely close to conquering the world once more in the Christmas special, but after reading what Pinky’s feelings for him were (nothing romantic, just Pinky basically just praising Brain for being so hardworking and an amazing mouse, and lamenting that he never gets anything for it), he gets so emotional that he sabotages himself and wishes everyone a Merry Christmas instead

TLDR; these mice are very queer and need therapy, and are probably the most heavily queercoded characters that I can think of in children’s media.

[loisinherlane]

Bobby first appears in the Uncanny X-Men series, as one of the original five members. Throughout this run, he has a number of moments that come off a little... shippable, especially considering that he later comes out as gay. Reading all of Bobby’s scenes under this lens explains a lot about his relationships with Hank McCoy/Beast and Warren Worthington III/Angel. Of course, back then, Bobby’s main role was playing an icy Johnny Storm (which is a whole nother layer of mutual queer-coding I won’t get into yet), so he didn’t have a solid character arc.

(Uncanny X-Men (1963) #1)

(Uncanny X-Men (1963) #8--This issue is notable for being the issue IMMEDIATELY preceding the O5′s later travel to the future.)

(Uncanny X-Men (1963) #14--Note that Bobby, at this point in time, does not seem to have made an active choice to be a mutant over being gay. However, this scene is recounted in Marvel’s Voices: Pride with a different aftermath. Make of that what you will. Also note Warren’s trans-coding with his binder.)

At this time, the X-Men title had stopped releasing new O5 stories and gone into reruns before Claremont took over and revamped the X-Men into what most people think of. In universe, the X-Men were more or less in hiding, save for Hank, who had transformed himself from his more or less human form into the big blue furry we’re more familiar with. When Bobby and Warren leave the X-Men, they’re shuffled off to found a (short-lived) new team in Los Angeles. Bobby’s character becomes more careful now, as Warren notes that Bobby often hides any feelings under acting goofy.

(Champions (1975) #3)

(I put this here because I felt like this post was the best to be first because it addresses Bobby’s earliest appearances. However, for more information on Bobby’s queercoding and characterization that doesn’t relate directly to other characters, see this post.)

This continues with the other non-X-titles Bobby appears, including his solo and Defenders (1972). At this point, you could easily argue that all of these moments are deliberately written to queercode.

(Defenders (1972) #122)

(Defenders (1972) #125)

This scene may be a little homophobic, as per the time, but it reads massively different knowing Bobby actually is gay--Is he trying to sabotage Hank’s flirting attempts? Is this intentional or subconscious?

(Defenders (1972) #131)

More explicit queercoding comes a little later, with Bobby’s relationship with Cloud. Cloud is introduced as a woman, but due to various circumstances leading to an attraction to Moondragon, a fellow Defender (also a woman), Cloud begins to transition between male and female forms, explicitly stating that they (presenting as a woman at that moment) feels like both. Bobby has very complicated emotions about this situation. (Note: Cloud’s reaction has a degree of homophobia in which they feel like they can’t love Moondragon as a woman, but when they’re a man, it’s okay. Bobby’s reaction has more than a little transphobia AND homophobia.)

(Defenders (1972) #136)

(Defenders (1972) #137)

(Note: In the most faded panel, what Cloud says: --HOLD MY HAND?)

(Defenders (1972) #138)

It’s important to note that Bobby shows no attraction to Cloud until after they begin fluctuating between being a man and a woman. However, Bobby also acts like it’s an affront to his feelings for Cloud when they present as a man.

(Defenders (1972) #142)

(Defenders (1972) #150)

Though Cloud leaves the Defenders (and Bobby) once they remember they’re actually a nebula destined to become a star (and they and Bobby were never in a proper relationship), you can consider this Bobby’s first queer relationship.

Because this is really long and I still need to finish reading X-Factor (1986), I’m going to skip ahead to the next section I’m more familiar with--aka, back to the main X-titles.

In the 90s, Bobby had a LOT of queercoding which is unpacked in my other post. But his old feelings for Hank and Warren continue to surface.

(X-Men (1991) #38--I won’t admit how long it took me to realize Bobby was making a pun on “girl of my dreams.”)

(Uncanny X-Men (1963) #331--Emma distracting Bobby with Hank, after distracting him with his father and ex-girlfriend Opal. Implications?)

One plot of note is that at one point, Jean-Paul Beaubier/Northstar has a crush on Bobby.

(Uncanny X-Men (1963) #415)

Despite Bobby’s later admission that he didn’t know Jean-Paul was gay (baffling, considering how long he’d been out), he does seem to return these feelings... or at least flirt with him. As he does all of his friends?

(Uncanny X-Men (1963) #415)

The amount of subtext for Bobby’s sexuality prior to his coming out is just... fascinating, and it’s a big part of why I love him so much. Check out the other side of this, where I discuss Bobby’s queercoding outside of his relationships with men or nonbinary characters.

[veliseraptor]

Hi, Lise......I can't help but want to ask (if you don't mind), what are your favorite (that you personally like) books or movies/ tv series that contains lesbias and gays? Thanks if you want to answer.....

wow I completely forgot this ask was sitting in my inbox and has been for a long while. and uhhhh the thing is here that I actually...feel like I don't have a separate category in my head, so much, for "media that has queer people in it" and "media that doesn't"? which like. feels weird to say, but when I get questions like this, or requests for recommendations, I always...struggle to parse these things out. and also to parse out, for instance, "books that read as having queer elements" from "books with explicitly queer characters."

but I guess if I'm gonna try...most of these are going to be books, with a few exceptions.

BOOKS

Doctrine of Labyrinths is a four book series that comes stamped with a whole list of content warnings (rape and child abuse chief among them, probably) but is also one of my favorite series of all time, so, you know.

The Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson also comes with a big "IT'S SAD. IT'S SAD AND DARK" warning, along with content warnings for serious societal homophobia, but is another one of my favorite series of all time. it's not that I hate happy queer stories or anything, I just tend to like stories that aren't happy

The Locked Tomb Trilogy by Tasmyn Muir which you've probably heard about by now, but honestly I think the common tagline of "lesbian necromancers in space" really doesn't...cover it? It's funny, it's weird, it's unique in terms of setting, story, and magic system, it's doing some very interesting things and I can't wait to find out where Muir is going with it. it's very much stylistically not something that's going to work for everyone, but I would recommend giving it a go and finding out if it works for you.

I loved the series by Lara Elena Donnelly that starts with Amberlough, but that one's definitely Rise of a Fascist State and therefore might not be everyone's cuppa right at the moment.

Oh, Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie is very queer, not in terms of, like, "these characters are explicitly gay" but more in terms of what she's doing with gender. I don't know that I'd say it's a central part of the book but it's an important enough piece of the worldbuilding at least that I'd put it here. I don't actually remember, textually, but Machineries of Empire also feels very queer to me in a similar sort of way. A queer theory sort of way, maybe? idk.

this one's a sort of...not for me exactly but it was cool rec, but The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon was very classic fantasy in a lot of ways, but gay, and with some fresh twists on old tropes.

COMICS

The Wicked and the Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. look, it's just really good and not just for the queer. I need to do a reread from the top.

TV

I am really enjoying Motherland: Fort Salem actually, which I feel like people either aren't aware of or watch the first couple episodes and get turned off, but. one of the three main characters is lesbian, and sticks her hand down another girl's pants in like. the second episode? maybe even the first one, I don't remember.

Person of Interest doesn't introduce its gay until later in the series, but if you're anything like me as far as what you want in relationship dynamics you're in for a treat.

Yes, it is an animated children's show, but She-Ra and the Princesses of Power gave me such a gift it still makes me emotional because I'm going like. is this what it feels like to get what I want, canonically, in a piece of media? wow.

look, I'm putting The Untamed on here because (a) it is based on a gay webnovel and is pretty fucking gay considering the limits of censorship, everybody in the cast knows it and is playing it, and (b) some of the secondary relationships come off, I would argue, even gayer in the live action, probably because there are actor people putting them right in front of your face. (because the discourse is what it is: censorship isn't progressive, etc., but this is my list and I'm putting MDZS on here too.)

THOSE CHINESE WEBNOVELS I WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT

like, seriously. I mean, look, they take some work getting into because reading works in translation that come from a culture that you (general Anglophone you) may or may not be familiar with on one level or another actually does come with having to learn some shit and get used to some new things about genre and style, and reading webnovels maybe even more so, but as far as I'm concerned it's worth it.

so far the ones I've read are (titles in English, with common abbreviation, mostly from the Chinese) Heaven Official's Blessing (TGCF), Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS), Scum Villain's Self Saving System (SVSSS), The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (erha or 2HA), and (still finishing but at this point feel pretty comfy recommending) Clear and Muddy Loss of Love (JWQS).

there are several others on my list that I've had recommended and just haven't gotten to yet. my favorites personally are probably TGCF and 2HA, but I'm pending a reread of MDZS with a different translation to do my final assessment there and JWQS is giving me a lot of very good shit.

(I feel like I have to mention, because I'd be remiss if I didn't while I'm talking about ~personal preferences~, that the Coldfire Trilogy is astonishingly queer in my memory for one of the central relationships although it's been years since I read it, admittedly, and the Lymond Chronicles which is a series I love dearly is also incredibly queer, particularly for a series written in the 60s, and is like. juuuuust barely shy of having a canonically bisexual protagonist. and does have an explicitly lesbian secondary character, though fair warning, she, uh, does have it pretty rough.)

there's also some books that didn't make it on here even though they have queer characters because I felt like the queerness of those characters was not really key to the story, for instance the Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin, which is fantastic in its own right and I would recommend to everyone, but didn't quite feel like it fit this post.

I'm almost certainly forgetting stuff, but I did my best.

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

The Laura snapes tweet made me had a range of reactions. The first was, why assume they’re straight and not think they’re queer and that’s why there’s queer subtext? Then I thought well I probably wouldn’t say that as a journalist with access to celebrities. Then I thought, but is it right to not acknowledge the existence of the closet? Then, but should this conversation not happen at all then, that feels wrong.

I was just watching the Longpond Sessions the other day, which brought me back to this ask.

Laura Snapes has deleted her twitter, so I can’t find the original tweet, but I’ve thought about it loads.  It was something like: ‘With so many mainstream pop artists putting queer subtext in their work, does that reinforce the idea to young fans that queerness is something that should be hidden and obscured’.

The first reply was: ‘She’s gay your honour’ (The timing made the connection with Taylor obvious, although I can’t remember why).  And in general the discussion was very good (Harry was also explicitly mentioned), but I found that my thoughts were kind of going off in completely different angles.

Because my first thought was - perhaps it’s the hiddenness of queerness that people are responding to.

More than anything else it made me think of a Happiest Season review that really bothered me.  I haven’t seen Happiest Season (I’m now watching whole series of half hour shows, but I’m still not up to movies), but one of the reviews really stuck with me. It opened by covering the promo that Kristen Stewart and Clea Duvall had done in the lead up to the film.  In particular, how they both talked about identifying with MacKenzie Davis’s character and having felt like that was role they’d had to play because of their careers.  The writer then proceeded to absolutely trash the movie and particularly how terribly MacKenzie Davis’s character had navigaged the closet and treated Kristen Stewart’s character.

I’m not suggesting the reviewers assessment was wrong or unreasonable.  But it seemed to me a pretty horrific thing to do to take quotes where the creative team making a movie talked about how much they identified with this particular way of navigating oppression, and then tear into the fictionalised version.  I think if you’re going to write about what people have said about the way they navigate oppression in the context of art they’ve made, you don’t have to like the art, but you do need to treat their lives with compassion.

I think there’s something more going on.  I think there is an experiential gulf, between queer people who write about culture, and queer people who make certain types of culture.  The way homophobia operates in many places is changing, most notable the closet is not a necessity to navigate many workplaces now.  While queer people writing about culture will have a whole range of experiences of homophobia - it’s not necessarily a common experience to be told that being open about your sexuality will do a huge amount of harm to your career.  Whereas actors and singers (and directors and writers who were actors or singers), that is still an incredibly central part of their experience of their sexuality.

I thought about this more when I learned that Robbie Rogers, Greg Berlanti’s partner and one of the producers on My Policeman, had been an out football player. I’ve seen the idea that we’ve had ‘enough’ sad queer stories, mentioned over and over again.  Robbie Rogers called My Policeman a passion project; Harry Styles seems to have put quite a lot on the line to play Tom.  It seems like My Policeman is story that resonates with people who have experienced the idea that their ability to do what they loved would be destroyed by being open with their sexuality.  And I think there’s something slightly obscene about people who are unlikely to have experienced that, to somehow call enough of sadness or depictions of oppression. (To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with not liking particular kind of stories, but lots of people go beyond that and suggest that therefore those stories should not exist - and I think that’s very loaded).

Clea DuVall and Kristen Stewart acted professionally before they were 20. All professional football players have to be serious in their teen years.  Harry Styles, became a public figure when he was 16. Their experience of their sexuality is going to be very different from their peers. In some ways easier, money always helps.  But that specific dynamic of being very successful at doing something you love, and being surrounded by people who tell you everything would be at risk if you came out - that’s a different set of threats than those a lot of other queer people experience.

In this context, I think there’s something quite grotesque at looking at artists who have been teen celebrities and saying ‘make happier queer art’.  

For those of us who want more queer joy in popular culture - I think there are two choices. Make it ourselves, or fight for a better world where nobody feels like they have to make it. As long as there's queer pain in the world, there must be space for it in art.

[cafffine]

Hey guys, I’ve decided to stop publishing Saltcoats for a number of reasons. I'm aware that many of you are going to initially be let down or confused, but hopefully once you’ve read through this post you’ll understand why this had to stop. I’ll try to hit all my points, but of course if you have any questions pls feel free to dm me or reply to this post.

DISCLAIMER: Ending this fic was a decision I came to by myself! No one asked me to do this, though many did help, and if you have something to add please do not bring other tumblr or ao3 users into the conversation unless they’ve explicitly said they’re ok with that. It’s a draining and heavy topic (not to me, but for those affected) and I don’t want to cause anymore unneeded distress.

Also, I’m the only author, all the problems with this story were created by me, and were biases I should have recognized and acted on much sooner. I’m very thankful to all the people that have reached out to me about the negative impacts on this fic, but it really does come down to: I wrote and published a story that was fundamentally ignorant of its setting and racist. So now I have to do my part to apologize and educate myself/take accountability.

First off, this was a flawed concept to begin with because I was trying to do a low fantasy setting with aliens in period clothes and a work of historical fiction at the same time, and those are not things you can go halfway on.

Historical fiction that centers around people of color has a long history of simply going race-blind and faking diversity by giving poc the roles of white people in Eurocentric stories and erasing their identities. (This article about Bridgerton explains the problem better than I could.) And it was something I tried to avoid by still having the Fetts written as immigrants from Aotearoa (NZ), but completely missed the execution on because I didn’t commit to full historical accuracy in all characters and aspects of the story. Meaning, I might as well have gone race-blind because you can’t pick and choose what to include, it’s just as racist.

This creates situations like the Fetts being immigrants facing real life oppression while the Organas, also people of color, are unaffected by the social climate and living as members of the British upper class. That’s not accurate to any version of history and ends up wiping clean any point I was trying to make about race and oppression. That also extends beyond the Fetts, I was not addressing how the american characters come from a country that still allows for the ownership of slaves, the British oppression of Scottish people and their culture, or even an in-depth look at real Queer communities of that era. (and more)

Given the real life historical climate in the 1850s, a multi-racial story like this one is not successful, and is racist in its ignorance of the struggles of poc, immigrants, and the intersectionality that had with class and crime.

In addition, the Fetts being written as criminals, even if it is framed as a morally correct choice*, is still playing into negative racial stereotypes that shouldn’t have been ignored.

* I should add, I don’t mean to make it sound like i’m creating excuses for myself when I give explanations for some of these choices such as “but it was framed as morally correct”, that doesn’t lessen the damage being done, it’s still racist, I guess I'm just trying to show why so many of these things went overlooked for as long as they did, and how easy it is for white/privileged people to find mental loopholes around racism when you’re not being sufficiently critical of yourself.

On another note, the Fetts being indigenous immigrants to Britain in the 1800s is not something I should have tried to tackle in fanfiction - a medium that often lacks nuance and can easily end up romanticizing or glossing over most heavy topics. This goes for period typical homophobia, addiction, and class struggles as well.

That being said! I’m not implying that any of those things should be completely ignored in fanfiction. Addiction, for example, is something very close to me that I do still want to explore in fanfic for the purposes of education and normalization, I’m not telling anyone what not to write, just checking myself. Because in a story like this where literally everything is so heavily dramatized and also applied to characters of color by me, a white person? It’s only going to end up being out of place, lacking in historical accuracy, and wholly disrespectful.

Another major problem I wanted to address is the relationship between a rich white person and a poverty stricken poc. That's a bad stereotype to begin with, but then I tried and failed to frame Obi-Wan as ignorant and biased to a point where his social status plays into the theme of class critique. But, if he’s still being written as Cody’s love interest, all his negative characteristics are ultimately going to be ignored and excused by the narrative (by me).

I’m not trying to end this conversation, I’ll always be willing to talk about this to anyone who’d want to say/hear more, but I don’t want run the point into the ground with over-explanation.

So, in conclusion, this fic had to stop and be broken down into the problem that it was. All white authors who write for the clones need to be hyper-vigilant about the fact that we are creating narratives for poc, and that our inherent racism is always in threat of being baked into in the stories we publish and spread to an audience. I was in the wrong when I wrote this story, and it should never have gone on for this long. I apologize for both my actions, and to anyone I may have hurt along the way.

This is getting posted on ao3 in the fic, and then, for now anyway, the fic is going to be deleted after a week. I’ll leave this post up and answer everyone unless it's someone trying to change my mind. Also, if I ignore an ask please send it again, tumblr might just have deleted it. I don’t want to try and bury this or run from my mistakes, I just don’t think that leaving the fic up where it can still find an audience will do anyone any good. Thank you for reading

If you're interested here's some resources I've been using to educate myself further:

What caused the New Zealand Wars? - An excerpt of the book by Vincent O'Malley of the same title. It gives a good summary of the violent colonization and oppression of Māori people and their culture by the British empire.

NZ Wars: Stories of Waitara (video) - Very educational documentary about the NZ wars and British colonialism. There are some historical recreations that get violent so pls watch with caution.

Historical American Fiction without the Racism - Tumblr post by @/writingwithcolor that talks specifically about Black people in the 1920's, but makes a good point about race and historical fiction in general. I'd recommend any post from this blog, especially their navigation page just a lot of great resources

Who Gave You the Right to Tell That Story? - An article about writing outside of your race that includes a diverse series of testimonials

History of Scottish Independence - Details the colonization of Scotland by the British empire, sort of long, can cntrl + f to "The Acts of Union" for a more direct explanation.

The best books on Racism and How to Write History - A list of well written and diverse works of historical fiction and why they are good examples of representation

I have a lot more that I can share if you're interested (x x x x) but this post is getting a bit too long.

[aeondeug]

So while I was reading GtN and HtN I occasionally stopped to be like “Wow, it’s great how these can be just so gay!” And like. That is really great. Super great. I love that about them. But I also remember at least once stopping and going “Wow, it’s great that there’s no homophobia here!” And like at the time I just kind of nodded along to myself. Around when I just finished GtN, I remember being very fond of the bit after the book with like the guy explaining like. The deal with necro/cav relationships in The Media and throughout history and how actually none of these things have ever been romance. This is just a pure relationship, unaffected by naughty things like ROMANCE. WHY DOES EVERYTHING NEED TO BE ROMANCE?! shouts the author of this paper. And I laughed at this. Because it reminded me a lot of people who do this shit with queer love. They do it with history and just go “Why does Sappho have to be gay, why can’t she just have passionate feelings for her BFFs”. Which is mindbogglingly stupid to me and anyone who has so much as LOOKED at some of the poem fragments. But like people do say that shit. And they do this a lot over like queer anything in fiction unless it like punches you in the face with rainbows immediately. “Why do Bubblegum and Marceline have to be gay? They’re just friends!” is a take that I legitimately saw on the day of the finale. And not just once. I saw it a few times. And I’ve seen that happen over so many ships in so many things, whether or not the ships end up canon. “Why does it have to be gay?” and the specific sort of outrage over it I’ve seen in essay length posts is just common, and that sort of outrage reads very similar to the argument that dude made about necro/cav relationships. It reads like that and close enough so that I made a joke about it even. I didn’t think too, too much on this at first though because I mean. We have Abigail and Magnus. They’re right there. A man and a woman, a husband and a wife. So like I was able to simultaneously go “omg it’s just like those why can’t they just be friends WHY DOES IT NEED TO BE GAY people” and also “wow it’s nice that there are spooky negative queer experiences of SADNESS here”. Which has got me thinking. Ok. So we have that essay. Now what else do we have in the books? I suppose could point at the entirety of Gideon and Harrow’s just furious refusal to admit that they might actually be in love with one another. Even though it appears to be obvious to literally everyone else in the galaxy. And is obvious to the readers. Hell, Gideon even has a moment of feeling like she needs to tell Harrow something the day before she dies. Something which is heavily romance coded, I don’t know the word for it. But like a “Wow I feel a need to tell them something and it’ll be my last shot” before a death just kind of always reads “It was an ‘I love you’. They needed to say it and didn’t get a chance”. So we’ve got that and, specifically, we’ve got their outrage at the suggestions. Gideon stresses that she’s JUST Harrow’s cav. And she’s very fucking insistent on that. Part of the why is that she knows Harrow is in love with a fucking dead girl in a casket but like. It just hits a certain way. There’s also Harrow’s just repeated disgust she expresses towards the concept of necro/cav relationships. She needs to explain away to herself that like, well, Abigail and Magnus were ALREADY married before he was named her cavalier primary so maybe that makes it fine. And even then she’s not like super duper comfy with the idea. A taboo has been broken, Harrow feels, and she needs to get really rules lawery to find any comfort with that. Other small things that feel of note to me here are the nature of the ways we know that these two are gay outside of like. Their weird thing for one another. With Gideon we’re introduced to it basically immediately with her joke about titty mags. Harrow specifically makes a comment at some point that some of the magazines Gideon gets are very gross, yes. Her interest in women is explicitly made sexual from the get go, and the idea that The Gays are just weird sex fiends and there is no love there is a frequent one. With Harrow meanwhile we know because she says she’s in love with the girl in the Locked Tomb. Who is very much dead. A thing that is fucky enough that like there is an entire song and dance about “GIDEON THE FIRST IS MAKING OUT WITH A CORPSE??????” and how Harrow is a hypocrite for being so offended by that all. Also the girl is behind the door. She is something that isn’t supposed to be seen or known about or, heaven forbid, woken up. That is all the ultimate taboo and Harrow not only fucking broke that but she looked at the girl and went “Wow I’m in love” on the spot. So we have this collection of things that could be read as some sort of metaphor for like...The taboo nature of queer love. “Why can’t they just be friends?” and issues of purity and the lack thereof. And we have characters who are very clearly in love but who can’t just admit that because they think there’s something fucking wrong with that. Gideon’s JUST her cav and Harrow is also in love with a dead chick. We also have Magnus and Abigail around who are just like. Happily married and fine with things regarding their whole necro/cav aesthetic. Ianthe doesn’t seem to give a shit that Gideon’s into Harrow at all. There’s a fondness for necro/cav relationships enough that there’s an entire romance genre centered on them and like characters in the cast are fond of those, some of them. Things appear to be Fine, at least as far as their friends are concerned. Maybe the asshole writing the essay that kicked this pondering off would have an issue and a stuffy old grandma would pitch a fit. But like their friends don’t have a problem with necro/cav shit. But we still very much have Gideon and Harrow being “Well no. We’re just a necromancer and their cavalier. GOD.” Now part of what got me thinking about this is that I recently decided to start watching Bly Manor. Because fuck it we haven’t yet. And specifically part of why is I remember seeing an analysis of it done by Rowan Ellis which had this bit where like the argument that “Bly Manor proves you can do queer stories without homophobia being a part of it!” is brought up and like...Ellis is like “Ok but we very much do just lock a queer woman in a literal closet while she screams to be let out”. And lo and behold in the first episode we very much do just lock a queer woman in a literal closet while she screams to be let out. In an episode showing that she’s like just unable to go back home for...some reason. And that she has some sort of difficulty with her relationship with her mother. No, the show is not having the character literally go “Wow I sure am in the closet and I kind of fucking hate that woe is me I am so gay”. But figuratively? It’s all over the place in that first episode. I’m not sure about the others because I haven’t watched them, but it is there in the very first one. And that’s something horror does very well. It takes things that are scary and uncomfortable and bundles them up in shades of metaphor. It hides them from  you by showing you the thing cleverly disguised. Maybe you do not notice it the first time through perhaps. Maybe you felt that a certain thing like the closet scene resonated very hard with you and you’re not sure why. But you perhaps don’t consciously go “Aha! It is the horror of being closeted!” Upon looking back on it or back through it though you might notice it. And be like “Oh that was there. Holy fuck.” Now maybe you’re also someone who isn’t like. Comfortable. With straightforward depictions of specifically queer suffering. Maybe it’s just too scary. But with this show hiding it in a metaphor you got to sit through that. You got to be brave enough to sit through a very, very scary thing. And afterwords you go to think about it. This is the power of metaphor and it’s something horror has been very, very good at doing for ages. Maybe racism or homophobia or whatever else is too nerve wracking for you to look at face on in media, but maybe you can watch a movie or a show where the horror of those things are very much there but cloaked in metaphor. And so maybe we are getting that with Gideon and Harrow’s weird issues around how “taboo” their feelings are. Two people who are just unwilling to believe that it might be that thing, in part because that thing is “taboo”. Except instead of the taboo being literally “They’re lesbians, Harold,” it’s instead cloaked in a comforting metaphor of necro/cav relationships and some dude who is really fucking offended at people’s space ao3 fanfictions about his historical favs. Which is important because every fucking scrap of anything one gets is an argument. It can’t just be that they’re in love. It’s that you must PROVE it and some asshole with a degree or just a bone to pick is going to come by and be like “WHY CAN’T THEY JUST BE A NECRO AND A CAV” about it all. And like I’m someone who’s known they’re into other women for a long while now. At least half my life. We have conquered that hurdle. But we haven’t entirely unpacked all the weird little societal bullshit that is still in there. Hiding. Lurking. And that societal bullshit specifically frames that sort of love as something gross and taboo and “Why Can’t They Just Be Friends?”. With that last thing hurting a lot. I’ve constantly run across people going “Why can’t they just be friends?” or going “They just have a sisterly relationship!” about things I shipped. Even when those things involved shit like the characters kissing on screen or mentioning that they’ve been dating in a sequel series. I can’t simply like my ships. I can’t simply see myself in romance. Because my sort of love is so taboo that it is, in itself, a debate. Maybe being shown the thing cleverly disguised as another thing might help me unpack that. At the very least it helps me look at it. When it’s something that hurts a lot to this day.

[possiblyimbiassed]

Ships and Cars - The Sign of Code

There have been lots of discussions about code in BBC Sherlock, and the possible metaphorical meaning of different things that appear frequently in the show, such as coffee/tea, water/fire, dogs/cats and many more. This show indeed seems filled with ciphers, code and secret messages. In this meta (X) I tried to decipher the encrypted name of the fishing boat that Sherlock and John hijacked in TFP, when it was called upon from Sherrinford: “Golf-Whisky-X-ray”. 

The Ship coding

At first I thought this was referring to the international spelling alphabet for wireless communication (X, X) where there’s a word for each letter. “GWX” didn’t make much sense to me, though, until I stumbled upon something deeper: ‘Golf’, ‘Whisky’ and ‘X-ray’ are also part of the marine Code of Signals (X) that was established in Britain around 1850. It’s still used by water vessels to communicate important messages regarding safety of navigation and such, and the signals can be sent by, for example, flaghoist, signal lamp or flag semaphore. Conan Doyle worked on a ship at least in 1880 and 1881, so the signals could totally have been known to him already in Victorian times. And since Sherlock and John are on board a boat in TFP, 

I think it’s reasonable to assume that the marine code is the relevant one here. In this signal code, the flags for “Golf”, Whisky” and “Xray” mean the following:

Golf = “I require a pilot.” 

Whiskey = “I require medical assistance.”

”Xray = “Stop carrying out your intentions and watch for my signals.”

Which in other words could be read as:

I need a pilot (a maritime pilot to help me navigate)

I need a doctor

Pay attention to code

But is this use of marine signals something that only appears in BBC Sherlock? Is it Mofftiss’ own idea to use them, or could there possibly be any canon references to them? In the discussion that followed my meta (X)  @frailtyofgenius​ pointed out to me that ACD’s canon actually does mention “Naval signals” in His Last Bow (LAST), which I think might be very significant. And the one who uses the naval signals is Holmes himself.

Continued under the cut, because this is reeeally a long ‘transport’... ;)

So I took to read LAST and realized that there are several ’naval’ references (my bolding) in this story by Conan Doyle. In the beginning, as a romantic landscape framework, we’re told about the surroundings of the German spy Von Bork’s house:

Above, the stars were shining brightly, and below, the lights of the shipping glimmered in the bay.

LAST takes place on the English east cost, near the port of Harwich. The spy Von Bork is chatting with Baron Von Herling, a German diplomat, bragging about the intelligence he’s gathered for his country, and then he shows the Baron the contents of his safe:

And all in four years, Baron. Not such a bad show for the hard-drinking, hard-riding country squire. But the gem of my collection is coming and there is the setting all ready for it.” He pointed to a space over which “Naval Signals” was printed.

But apparently the naval authorities have changed the code: 

“But you have a good dossier there already.” “Out of date and waste paper. The Admiralty in some way got the alarm and every code has been changed.”

So Holmes, posing as the Irish-American spy Altamont, is supposed to bring new ones. I think the real ‘feature of interest’ in this story, however, is the coding that Holmes/Altamont uses in his telegram to the German spy:

“Will come without fail to-night and bring new sparking plugs. ALTAMONT.”

And the conversation between Van Bork and the Baron continues:

“Sparking plugs, eh?” “You see he poses as a motor expert and I keep a full garage. In our code everything likely to come up is named after some spare part. If he talks of a radiator it is a battleship, of an oil pump a cruiser, and so on. Sparking plugs are naval signals.”

So here in ACD canon we’re explicitly told that the spark plugs, the ignition of the car’s engine (which generates an explosion in the engine’s combustion chamber) actually represents code - marine code. And other car references, according to Van Bork, are also marine code. I can’t help wondering if water was actually meant to represent emotions already in canon? ACD canon is packed with references to water: sea, coast, lakes, ponds, rivers and waterfalls but also ships, steamers, boats, submarines and such. Some of the criminals in canon are seamen and the navy is mentioned in some cases. And in two stories (NAVA and BRUC) the ‘naval’ issues contain secrets of national importance. 

I’d love to try to analyse all the water and boat references in ACD canon and see if/how they tie into emotions, but that’s for another meta. :) But what if something similar is done in BBC Sherlock; what if Mofftiss have used not only canon’s water metaphors for emotions but also the same general secret cipher as Holmes used in LAST? But maybe Mofftiss also took the cipher one step further, interpreting anything car-related not as general metaphors for emotions, but specifically as code for sexuality.

In TFP there’s a great explosion at 221B, and next thing we know, Sherlock and John are aboard a fishing boat, which is called upon with naval signals. But there’s actually very few ships in BBC Sherlock (while canon, as mentioned, is full of them); the fishing boat in TFP is one of very few boats in the show. As for seamen, there’s also very few in the show. Except for the fishing father and son in TFP, there’a also Sherlock’s deductions about the unemployed fisherman and his mother in THoB. @sagestreet​ has written an excellent meta suggesting a significant symbolic meaning of ‘fishing’ in this case (X).

In this self-censored post on John’s blog, however, there’s a cruiser mentioned in the title: Tilly Briggs Cruise of Terror. But we never get to know anything about this case; the post is taken down entirely since, according to John, “the ship’s owners are launching an appeal”. 

Why is this post even there, if no one is allowed to read it? Every other blog post from John has some kind of content in it - at least since he met Sherlock. But this one only has a title (and a teaser in the post before: “I'm going to tell you about a couple of the smaller cases we've been involved in. What really happened on the Tilly Briggs pleasure cruise.” (X))  

So the supposed ‘pleasure cruise’ was turned into a ‘cruise of terror’ and then deleted. Maybe it’s just me, but I strongly suspect this is a clue from the show makers telling us that a certain ‘ship’ is not allowed in BBC Sherlock, for ‘legal’ reasons having to do with the ‘owners of the ship’ (ACD Estate). 

Actually, there’s more info than this about the ship even in ACD canon, although it’s scarce. In The Sussex Vampire (SUSS) “Matilda Briggs” is mentioned in a letter to Holmes from the company Morrison, Morrison, and Dodd: 

“As our firm specializes entirely upon the assessment of machinery the matter hardly comes within our purview, and we have therefore recommended Mr. Ferguson to call upon you and lay the matter before you. We have not forgotten your successful action in the case of Matilda Briggs.” 

After Watson has read it, Holmes explains to him (my bolding): 

“Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson,” said Holmes in a reminiscent voice. “It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.” 

If this is an allusion to a possible relationship between Holmes and Watson, indeed the world would not have been ‘prepared’ in Victorian times, since homophobia was prevalent and same-sex couples illegal. 

Source: (X)

Directly after this, while perusing his lexicon for ‘Vampires’ (the actual topic of the letter), Holmes also mentions another ship that was associated with Victor Trevor’s father’s secret past as a mutinous convict:

“Voyage of the Gloria Scott,” he read. “That was a bad business. I have some recollection that you made a record of it, Watson, though I was unable to congratulate you upon the result.”

Indeed this voyage in GLOR was a ‘bad business’; it ended in mutiny and disaster. The ship Gloria Scott exploded and sunk in the Atlantic, and most of the crew and passengers died.

So, not many ships appear in BBC Sherlock. But instead, there’s plenty of cars in the show. What if all these car references actually somehow actually refer to a ship - a very particular ‘shipping’? ;)

The Cars

So, might these cars code for some hidden secrets? And/or is it possible to tie the car references to ’naval code’, as Holmes claims to do in LAST, assuming that naval = water = emotions but also sexuality? 

Returning to canon, please note that Holmes and Watson (both in disguise) arrive in a car to the scene of this story in LAST. This is one of the very few cars that appear in canon, since they weren’t yet very commonly in use by those times. Holmes’ and Watson’s car is modestly described as “a small car” and “a little Ford” (as opposed to Baron Von Herling’s car, which is a huge limo). But at the end of the story, Holmes says about the little Ford: “Start her up, Watson, for it’s time that we were on our way.” And there they go, happily together, with the criminal tied up in the back seat, heading for Scotland Yard. Sweet, isn’t it? :) This is the very last we see of Holmes and Watson in canon. (Unfortunately, I can’t find any illustration of it).

BBC Sherlock, however, is full of cars. So, if we apply this analogy to BBC Sherlock, what car references can we find that could be translated into marine (= emotional) terms? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is the cab, the taxi, which is Sherlock’s preferred means of transport. 

A taxi has a driver, which is the word that the little girl on the plane in TFP uses instead of ‘pilot’. But we don’t see any taxi boats in the show, do we? In the Unaired Pilot, however, the cabbie drives Sherlock home to Baker Street (not to Roland Kerr’s), and there he tries to ‘kill’ him. One could even assume he makes a kind of sexual innuendo when Sherlock is sprawled face-down on the floor and the cabbie says “I could do anything I wanted to you right now, Mr ’olmes.” 

As I explained in my other meta about marine code (X), a marine pilot is someone who leads a ship through dangerous waters. Mofftiss haven’t included any marine pilots in their show, but they do use aircraft pilots, even if they’re not labelled as such: 

But if ‘driver’ should be read as ‘pilot’, then Jeff Hope - a John mirror - in the Unaired Pilot, the ‘driver’ of the show, guides Sherlock home emotionally and sexually, doesn’t he? ;) 

But there’s more about the signals in LAST. This is what the counter-agent Sherlock ‘Altamont’ Holmes says when he arrives at Von Bork’s place:

“You can give me the glad hand to-night, mister,” he cried. “I’m bringing home the bacon at last.” “The signals?” “Same as I said in my cable. Every last one of them, semaphore, lamp code, Marconi – a copy, mind you, not the original. That was too dangerous.”

This seems very similar to Wikipedia’s explanation of the Marine Code of Signals, as I quoted above: apart from flag hoist, the signals can also be transmitted by, for example, flag semaphores, radio communication or signal lamps. We do have radio communication in TFP, when Sherrinford receives the message from the boat ‘golf-whisky-x-ray’. But are there any signal lamps in BBC Sherlock? Yes, in fact there are - and they’re tied to a car! 

A blinking, grinning Peugeot, no less, in THoB. And it’s definitely connected to sex, because that’s what’s happening inside. ;) Even if we’re lead to believe that this isn’t actually code, John does try (unsuccessfully) to decipher the blinking lights from this car as Morse signals and gets “U M Q R A”.

Apparently this code is not referring to the Marine Code of Signals. But @bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest​ has written an excellent meta (X) deciphering the possible code “UMQRA” as meaning “TORCH”, using the Ceasar cipher, which Sherlock refers to on his website (X) in combination with another cipher. In my opinion this does make a lot of sense. John does indeed use a torch to try to decipher this message, and there are also lots of other possible metaphorical meanings of ‘torch’ in the show. 

So I think it would still be wise to pay attention to code, wouldn’t it?

As for Holmes’ quote from LAST above, “a copy, mind you, not the original”, I’d interpret this at Holmes pointing out that these signals can be copied (’mirrored’?) and also that they can vary in type (I imagine that ‘Marconi’ stands for radio transmission (X)). All in all, these naval signals are of national importance in canon, just like the Bruce Partington Plans and the Naval Treaty. And these are all military top-secrets clearly connected to the British navy. At some point in LAST, believing he has won the spy game, the Baron says:“There may be other lights within the week, and the English coast a less tranquil place!” Seems like the East Wind is coming. ;)

But back to the marine codes and cars: in canon (LAST) the car references hide secrets of national importance, connected to Britain’s naval defense, and some of those secrets, in turn, are encrypted with naval signals. That’s double coding, right? Also: the navy defend British waters and water = emotions.

As for cars, there’s a lot more of them in the show, while canon has very few; cars weren’t in use during most of Holmes’ career. I think LAST is the first time that cars appear in ACD canon? And the spare parts that Holmes/Altamont talks about as code in LAST never actually appear in the story, only the Baron’s limo and Holmes’ little Ford, where Watson is the driver.

But in the modern show there’s plenty of cars, of course; they’re literally everywhere. Many people have long ago pointed out that cars represent transport metaphorically, which is how Sherlock views his bodily needs in the unaired Pilot. Which ties in well with the assumption above that cars also represents sexuality, which is related to emotions even if it’s not the same thing.

But let’s also try to decipher the car references with Holmes’s code in LAST in mind, shall we? Where can we find water and/or possible hints about emotions and/or sexuality?

Apart from the taxis, which run like a red thread through the episodes (ASiP, TBB, TGG, ASiB, TRF, HLV, TST), and the abundance of police cars and ambulances, I can think of the following:

Mycroft’s black governmental car which is used to kidnap John in ASiP (and other episodes).

If Mycroft represents Sherlock’s brain, this might be about Sherlock trying to examine and test John with his intellect, to get an idea of who John is and what to expect from him. But this task is driven by his car - bodily needs - and behind them there’s still emotions, if we apply Sherlock’s code in LAST.

The first hostage’s car in TGG, where she is wrapped up in semtex.

This woman is literally trapped inside her car and metaphorically trapped inside her bodily needs, which are threatening to explode (remember Holmes’ ’sparking plugs’ in LAST?) if Sherlock doesn’t solve the puzzle about Carl Powers. And in this screen cap she is literally juxtaposed to Sherlock:

So it seems like Sherlock is now trapped inside his ‘transport’, yes? Still driven by emotions rather than intellect. And he probably sees this as very dangerous.

The finding of The ’dead’ man’s car with (fake) blood in TGG.

This ill-treated transport device (John calls it ”an abandoned sports car” on his blog X) leeds to more cars - Janus cars - and it turns out that the driver - Ian Monkford - isn’t dead; he’s just on ’vacation’ in Colombia (with the real purpose of cashing in his life insurance money). Sherlock figures this puzzle out and the poor fellow wrapped in semtex can breathe out; he’s not going to explode, either physically or emotionally. And no-one is dead in this case, but the driver faked his own death to avoid exposure and get his ‘security’.

The car with a dead body in the boot in ASiB

Licence plate: PYO3 HYN. The dead man in this car was destined for Germany according to his tickets - another ‘vacation’? But he never reached there; his plane crashed but he wasn’t in it, because he was already dead - trapped in his transport a car. Now, this case seems intimately connected with Sherlock in the boot of Mrs Hudson’s Aston Martin in TLD (see below). Except that Sherlock was being transported alive in that boot, but this guy is dead.

The client’s back-firing old SAAB in ASiB

The client stops near a wetland area and a stream because of problems with his engine. The driver - a John mirror? - tries to fix his ‘engine’, but the old car just won’t start. Sherlock analyses this case in his (drugged) Mind Palace together with his libido Irene Adler.

People have pointed out long ago (sorry for not remembering who - was it LSiT?) that the back-firing SAAB engine in the hiker case in ASiB might represent John’s dysfunctional sexlife with women; Sarah in specific and probably their trip to New Zeeland after TGG. (Maybe this is also why Sherlock in TSoT, when John has just been married to Mary, deduces that one of the wedding guests - a doctor - has ‘erectile dysfunction’?)

Irene’s black car in ASiB

Licence plate: SKO8 ZYL. This black car, which has a private driver, is used to transport John to the Battersea station on New Year’s Eve in ASiB. In spite of being in midwinter, Battersea seems to be flooded with water. And this is the place where Irene exposes John’s sexual relationship with (or at least interest in) Sherlock while Sherlock is listening to the conversation from another room, but John declares that “I’m not actually gay”. This car is so similar to Mycroft’s black car (see above) that John thinks this is Mycroft who kidnaps him again. If Irene represents Sherlock’s libido, what does her black car stand for?

Sherlock’s and John’s hired Land Rover in THoB

Licence plate: OEI0 HFK. The Land Rover is a British car, known for its four-wheel drive and vast off-road capacity. Sherlock drives this car to “deepest, darkest Devon” with John in the passenger seat, so it seems like they were prepared for a ‘bumpy ride’. And this car actually has a visible spare part; an extra wheel in case of emergency:

And their journey really became ‘bumpy’ - at least on an emotional level, since they were both dosed with a fear-inducing gas, had a quarrel, and the gay couple who were running the Inn where they were staying took for granted that they were indeed a couple too.

John’s and Mary’s car in HLV and in TST

Licence plate: SP56 LJY, black Audi. Mary is the driver in HLV. (By the way, why has this car the steering wheel to the left, in a country with left-hand traffic?). Here we’re presented with the interesting idea from the billboard that “Information is the power to change 1895″. In HLV we actually do see something like a spare part for this car; John’s tyre lever. ;) (which looks more like some sort of pipe key, if you ask me, but whatever; it’s still a spare part - or at least a ‘tool’ - associated with John’s transport car):

So this would be consistent with Holmes’ cipher in LAST. And this spare part is treated with very sexual overtones in HLV, so I think the influence of Sentiment and Sex is pretty clear here.

Mrs Hudson’s red Aston Martin in TLD

License plate: APIS CXJ. Now, this is a really interesting and beautiful car I think, and it shows its capacity when it goes speeding in TLD. Mrs Hudson has more resources than some people might believe. But John is only allowed to use her sports car - the ultimate symbol of male virility - when he’s off to rescue Sherlock. ;) 

The license plate reads APIS, which I’m sure is a reference to bees and bee keeping, because Apis mellifera is the scientific name of the honey bee. Holmes’ main occupation as retired in ACD canon is bee keeping, which is shown in LAST, where his secret ‘sparking plugs’ turn out to be the Practical Handbook of Bee Culture. ;)) So Holmes stood by his words in his telegram to Van Bork; he did “come without fail to-night” (he came together with Watson) and he did “bring new sparking plugs”. It’s just that the ‘spark’ wasn’t maybe of the sort that Van Bork had expected... 

Anyway, in this scene in TLD, Sherlock is being kidnapped and handcuffed by Mrs Hudson and transported in the boot of that sports car; he’s literally trapped inside the rear end of his transport, which has John as its direct destination. 

Sadly for all of us, however, John refuses to ‘examine this body’, and this is instead done by the John mirror Molly (inside an ambulance), who tells Sherlock that he’s dying and that “it’s not a game”. 

The next time we see this red sports car, however, John is the driver, and he’s using its great capacity as it should be used: to come to Sherlock’s rescue. ;)

Come to think of it, there’s actually at least one more car spare part mentioned in the show, even if it might not be meant as this specific part:

This car has a steering wheel nevertheless, and Sherlock is sitting in the car while saying this. And yes; this show is indeed repetitive when it comes to certain topics. Like ‘transport’, emotions and bodily needs. But I do hope we’ll finally see some new turns on this topic in the next series. ;)

Thanks for your patience in following this marathon meta to its end! Tagging some people who might be interested (please alert me if you don’t want to be tagged):

@raggedyblue​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @gosherlocked​ @sarahthecoat​ @lukessense​ @therealsaintscully​ @thewatsonbeekeepers​ @sagestreet​ @tjlcisthenewsexy​ @thepersianslipper​ @loveismyrevolution​ @shylockgnomes​ @frailtyofgenius​

Screencaps in this meta are in some cases borrowed from this site (X). 

[castielcommunism]

On top of being uninteresting and unpleasant to watch, the way the writers went with dean & jack’s relationship always seemed like just. A really weird writing choice to me. Like, you have cas, whose conflict with his father figure became largely irrelevant as the show went on (even though by all means it SHOULD have been more relevant considering Chuck is lichrally the final villain), but who was allowed to become a good father to jack despite his (lack of) upbringing. But then you have dean (and sam), whose conflict with their father echoes throughout literally the entire show, but who wasn’t allowed to work through those issues and develop as a character in the same way. (Which is of course not to say I think cas shouldn’t have had that development—I just think it’s weird that they gave that to cas *but not also* to dean)

And I think a lot of it boils down to the same reason cas was allowed to confess but dean wasn’t: it’s like, yeah, sure, you can heal from your trauma, as long as we never really focused on it in the first place. Sure, you can have this character development, as long as it wouldn’t fundamentally change the trajectory of the story.

(Plus, if they were allowed to go down that route together as a unit instead of just cas, it would have been more explicitly romantic. And we can’t have that now can we)

The dropped conflict between Chuck and Cas is CRIMINAL I tell you

And yeah like idk how much homophobia played a role in their 3-dad-combo, because s13 is marketresearchnatural and everything, but still. And honestly I can’t even work up the energy to think about anything past s12 all that much because it’s bad in a very dull and uncomfortable way that isn’t pleasant to think about, even critically, so I’m just like. Yeah wow the dean & jack stuff is bad I’m gonna ignore that and move on

[deanismysavior]

I think y’all are confusing headcanons for canon. CANON: Mike and Eleven are dating and are madly in love. He’s loved her since he first saw her in the woods. They have difficult moments like all couples do but they have been together since season 1. Will has a crush on Mike but knows it’s likely unrequited. He is sad. Mike can be awkward around will sometimes. He is a teenage boy.

HEADCANON: Mike Wheeler is actually madly in love with Will and repressing his homosexuality or whatever. I know this because I got drunk on kaypeace theories and theories from beepbobop and Hawkins school counselor or whatever. He doesn’t love El, he only kissed her because she looked like a boy. Don’t you see how he gazes into Will’s eyes?

Like. Guys. ‘cmon. I get wanting more queer rep (even though y’all already have Robin but whatever), but you can’t write essays and make up theories and then get upset when the show doesn’t follow the headcanon you literally made up. Mike and El are CANON. Mike and Will are a theory.

Watch the show.

Okay sure, let's entertain this frankly homophobic take for a minute.

1. Mike and El are not madly in love. Mike literally could not say it or write it after having dated El for over a year. The only time he's been able to say he loves El is when she's about to die, both in s3 and in s4. He loves El, for sure. He cares about her and doesn't want her to die. Is he in love with her though? Look at the context clues here.

2. That boy did NOT love her at first sight. Like we've said to death at this point, he literally wanted to send her away upon meeting her. This is a fact. This happened in the text of the show. This is not me stretching or manipulating the evidence. This is apparent in the story.

3. Yeah, El and Mike do have couple troubles, troubles that they have not come back from. That have not been sorted through. They keep lying to one another and none of that has really been resolved. Their trust is still shaky at best after the confession. Also not me stretching, since we explicitly see Will and Mike talking about how El hasn't really spoken to him about anything that's been going on with their relationship post-confession.

4. Yeah, Will has a crush on Mike. But why is it "most likely unrequited" just because we haven't seen Mike date another guy? It was the 80s. Homophobia was rampant and his parents are Republicans. They live in a conservative town. Of course if Mike's interested in men he's not going to be out and proud about it.

5. Okay, sure, maybe repressed gay Mike is a headcanon, but there's a lot of context clues that point to this being a strong possibility. What's not explicitly said in media can sometimes be more important than what is. If you've ever taken a film class, you know the importance of symbolism and imagery, tone, narrative dissonance, parallels, allusions, metaphors, etc. so treating this specific "headcanon" as if it's just us making stuff up is to not be taking a critical read of the information the show is giving us.

6. Robin is a great character. Nothing about my love for Will and Mike's dynamic changes or overshadows how I feel about Robin. But you can't seriously tell queer people that we should just be happy and satisfied with the only queer character to get a real relationship and a happy ending to be a side character.

7. Mike and El are canon, but why am I not allowed to be mad about perpetuating an unhealthy relationship dynamic and romanticizing that? Why am I not allowed to be mad if they used Will as a plot device and didn't follow through on the narrative they set up all season? Pretty sure anyone would get mad about poor writing and a poor ending to a t.v. show they liked. Why is it only somehow a problem when people are frustrated about something that is narratively hinted at and supported when it has to do with queer people?

Anyway, I'm not going to answer any more of these anons coming to me with the same tired takes. I've backed up all of my takes with plenty of evidence from the show's canon, and you can look at them all here.

Anyway, have fun watching the show. Argue with the wall.

[novelconcepts]

yesterday i saw the discourse about the “queerbaiting” or “bury your gay” you had with some anons and yes, if i may say people — especially who’re watching bly now — don’t catch the metaphors behind the ghosts in the show. i mean, maybe i didn’t see myself people calling it a queerbaiting (mostly I’ve seen them talking about the bury your gay) but i sure saw people saying that dani and jamie were just a privileged couple, and they are bad representation .. and believe me this so hilarious, the proposal scene hint us how the 80s/90s where legal marriage wasn’t a thing were difficult ages for many gay/lesbians, or the scene in the flower shop where dani look outside the window for being sure no one watch them kissing, and mostly important: i think people don’t understand the role eddie’s, especially in his ghost form, has as the dani’s comphet that still haunt her, aside the guilty for his death. some people maybe watch it and didn’t catch how jamie in her monologue explain very well how her life was hard, it’s true we didn’t get many of her life before bly but because the whole show is around the “open to interpretation” we can assume some things, put aside that Amelia in cosycon gave us other “behind the scenes” of her character’s life before the manor. So people either saw them as queerbaiting because they don’t see the metaphor, also i think they think too much about the fact they doesn’t say explicitly they are lesbians, but in this show metaphors are something that are enough for understanding the plot, also mike and his crew tried to not focus too much into this things, trying to give characters that they have a personality aside their sexuality.

I really think people nowadays talk about in too easy way about the queerbaiting or the bury your gays, we have to be more careful about it and try to not see bad representation just because the characters don’t hate everyone around them <\3

Yeah, I think people slide too easily toward lumping everything that doesn’t personally work for them into toxic tropes, and that’s...more than a little disheartening, particularly for queer creators who want to tell complex human stories that don’t always come out shiny. I haven’t seen nearly this level of discourse with Bly, because I tend to stick to my corner of the internet, but I find myself thinking primarily of Happiest Season--a queer movie made by a huge number of queer people that was then torn to shreds by the community because it wasn’t what they expected/wanted to see. Not every piece of media is going to work for everyone, certainly, but the inclination to say “this didn’t do what I would have done, and therefore it is Bad” is really upsetting. And I think it’s dissuading a lot of creators from telling the stories they need to tell, because they just don’t have the energy to deal with the fallout. 

But the idea that Dani and Jamie are a privileged couple is...interesting. Privileged in terms of being two white women, and therefore benefitting from that element, absolutely--the most viable critiques I’ve seen of the show are all based around its treatment of POC, and that’s very fair. But I think there’s also a difference between “privileged” and “more privileged than they could be”, and they fall into the latter camp. They’re still queer women in 1987, they’re still not safe shouting their love from the rooftops, and though the show was really kind in its refusal to give bigots a voice within its framework...the timeframe is still very intentional. Plus, Jamie is a child of trauma and abuse, Dani spends much of the show incredibly caged by comphet and societal expectation, and both are working more blue collar jobs taking care of wealthy kids. I really fail to see how they’d qualify as bad rep just because the show wasn’t willing to give a megaphone to homophobia--it feels to me like the perspective of people who think you can’t tell a gay story without a traumatic coming-out lens. Which, personally, I’m over. I want more stories that prioritize queerness and the normalizing of such in various genres. I’m not interested in a constant swell of “well, now I’m gonna get disowned or abused on-camera, and that’s how you know this isn’t easy.” I want more shows that don’t feel the need to write an essay on what it means to be gay, that just...show it as a normal, human part of living. That feels like the definition of good rep, from where I’m standing. 

[dontbesoevil]

Let’s talk about the dinner scene (and the entire latter half of ep 9)

Can we talk about That Scene? The dinner scene? (and the aftermath) When I started watching this show, I knew there would be meta, but I didn’t expect for it to be so real! Man I haven’t felt so attacked in my core by how real a storyline was since watching Gaya sa Pelikula (I don’t think I’ll talk about it more here, but if you feel like reading my thoughts on this show, I wrote a 1900-word review on MDL about it). I think every single queer person has experienced or fears that they will experience a scene such as the one that Gene and Nubsib experience. It is something that shakes you to your core even if you know it is coming.

I’m putting a readmore because this got a bit too long

It is so important to me that Gene and Nubsib talked about it before and that Nubsib said to Gene that he would 100% support him, that he did not have to do it, and that regardless of what happened, he would continue to support him all the way. Because they both knew that the battle would be difficult and I think they might not have gone with it if they hadn’t had that talk before. But they did. And then That Scene started.

Not gonna lie, I had to stop watching that scene and I had to take a break because I was shaking and it triggered me and brought me some bad memories. I am lucky that I have the most accepting mum ever, but I have been in situations where I felt like I had to hide and was just a shell reacting and observing every single details of everyone’s behaviour because if I were to step outside the lines they would know and I would be thrown to the lions. If anyone had to go through this, especially for an extended period of time, they know how traumatising an experience it can be (i.e. as opposed to remarks which is also traumatising, but more in a micro-aggression type of way). The incident I am talking about was 6 years ago and although I am mostly over it, it has scarred my relationship with some people and groups probably forever.

This scene was so powerful because of how well it was done. @jiminisverynofun said it better than I would when it comes to the mothers in that scene and the next, but I am so glad they are tackling the fetishisation of mlm relationships by straight women and the very real impact it has when it is only objectification and not any kind of real support.

Something else that I also see in the reactions of the others around the table is the brothers. In the previous episodes, we have seen them be somewhat supportive of the whole thing (although not necessarily in the best way) and here when seeing their parents act in such homophobic ways, they not only not say anything and go along, but they even go further and say really homophobic words, all the while knowing about their brothers. They redeemed themselves (at least Jab, but I’m assuming Sib’s brother’s too) afterwards by defending their brothers when it was just them. But the fact is that they also played along with the homophobia. They did the reverse of what the mothers did. The mothers were okay as long as it was a fiction and then were distraught when it turned out to be real. But the brothers both said homophobic things about gay people in general even if they support their brothers individually. It felt a bit too much like those people who shout against immigrants being the worst, but telling their immigrant neighbour: “oh but not you because you are a good one.” I get that it is hard to get in front of your parents, truly I get it, but I feel like they still went too far the other way, either because of fear or because they truly think that (in which case, boys, start working on your homophobia because you are the only allies your brothers have in the family and they don’t deserve shitty allies).

And then the dads. I am mainly going to be talking about Gene’s dad because we haven’t seen too much of Nubsib’s dad and the preview made it seem like we’ll see more of his pov next time (but I feel like a lot of the same things are applicable to him). I spent the entire scene (and the ones after) wanting to deck him and I wrote so many “fuck you” and other sentences where I was not very polite towards him in the chat because he made me absolutely furious. I was like *surprised Pikachu* when Gene said that he’d dated guys before he dated his mum. I don’t whether he’s gay or bi and honestly at this point I do not give a single shit because he went too far and his internalised homophobia is no excuse for the constant abuse and homophobia he has thrown at his son for years. Nothing could excuse it and even if he comes to realise the error of his ways, he’ll need to do way more than just say sorry for me to be okay with him coming anywhere close to Gene (I need someone to make me a Gene protection squad banner). I am so glad that Gene, soft spoken Gene, confronted him and did not let him go. That scene was directed like a theatre scene. When I started the scene, it jumped at me! The mum at the window, the brother at the table, and the dad on the couch. And Gene just kept talking at the dad who was cornered on all sides. Regardless of the other two characters who still have (more or less) atoning to do, I’m expecting the brother to be helpful by next episode and the mum by the end of the show, the one who needs to be worked upon is the dad. I know it, you know it, Gene knows it. And this is why he is not letting go. His dad has always been treating him as a child (I think it is him who says they are just children when at dinner, but I cannot remember and I am not strong enough to go and rewatch it) and he doesn’t want to have this conversation so he just tells his son to “go to his room” (i can’t remember exactly how old he is, but it’s something like 27, so his son who’s been an adult for 10 years and presumably was already pretty autonomous before because his dad had sent him to boarding school because of the GayTM). I am so happy for Gene standing up for himself. I am so happy for Gene telling him that he is gay and using those words when you could see only a few scenes before that he wasn’t completely there yet (did I pause at that point to cry? Yes, yes I did). Gosh I am so proud of Gene!

But going back to the dinner scene proper and what I was talking about re: Nubsib and Gene talking before and knowing what the other wants (they both want to come out and Gene says explicitly to Nubsib that he doesn’t want to hide anymore (and he knows his dad so he knows that he will probably react as he reacted). And then you have That conversation and you can see the two of them looking at each other (gosh the number of silent conversations they’ve had this episode, I want what they have!). And like as hard as it is, they have each other. And then you have Gene starting to come out by asking a question “and what if it’s true?” (this feels way too real and I relate way too much because talking explicitly about things like that is way too hard so you find a way around it, you wait for the others to say something that you can react to while not saying explicitly what you want to say) And then Nubsib sees this, understands it for what it is and goes for it because he is way more sure of himself and secure in his identity. And they have each other, they look at each other, they hold hand (talking about Gaya sa Pelikula, this very much reminded me of the hand holding between Vlad and Karl duing That dinner scene too). I am so happy that they have each other and that Gene can use Nubsib to help. I relate a lot to Gene and it is easier to talk about your relationship to someone than what it means, but once you’ve talked about the one, it’s easier to talk about the other.

This scene was given all of the space that it needed. I am so glad that they decided that time didn’t matter and that they could give us a 1h27 episode because I did not feel like something was missing, but I also did not feel like something was unnecessary about that whole section (or any of the ones before because you can really see the development of their relationship (not that I don’t have any gripes with some of the lines and story choices, but this is not the place). I’ll probably finish this and be like “oh no, I forgot to talk about this”, but I’ve already gone and written 1500 words so I should probably stop.