#i didn't go into different plot structures because i was trying to boil them all down into the very basic building block of question-answer

[lazuliquetzal]

I keep on telling people you're the only one who knows how to plot. Can you teach all of us how to plot, please? I love you.

I AM SUMMONED? PLOT BRAIN SUMMONED?

I love plotting. It's my favorite part of the writing process. Plot is "things that happen" and the best part of writing is imagining things that happen. I'm going to assume that whoever may be reading this knows how to imagine The Happenings, so I'm gonna be talking more about structure, but in like, a kinda abstract sense.

A good plot is a little bit more than a string of events. Plot is like music: there's variation in rhythm and sound and melody, but ultimately there's cohesion, because it's all one song. You can have a bunch of wild things happening, but no matter how strange, there should be something that links them all together, because you're telling one story.

Plot structures are patterns in stories. I'm pretty sure most of them were developed as analysis tools (as in, story already exists > look! it follows this pattern) rather than as writing tools, but people use them as writing tools because it's a neat little way to organize the chaos that is "shit happens." Stories follow patterns for the same reasons music follows patterns: we enjoy the certainty of hitting certain beats. But we also like being surprised. A good pop song doesn't sound like a random collection of sounds, but it also doesn't sound like the middle slider of other songs.

There is this shared concept in both music and writing: the idea of tension and release. Basically, you're playing with reader expectation: there's an imbalance in the experience (tension), and we want to see that imbalance resolved (release). All the common plot structures deal with this basic pattern:

You set an expectation

There are complications to the expectation

You meet the expectation

And this rhythm is happening on multiple levels in writing. Scenes follow this structure (we're gonna get past that door, we're gonna find the murder weapon, we're gonna collaborate and come up with a plan) and all those scenes feed into the overarching expectation (we're gonna solve this murder!). I usually think of chapters as their own mini-story, part of the larger whole. And I think of scenes as their own mini-story, part of the larger chapter. I have engineer brain. I see the gears spinning in the clock. That's why all my chapters have at least One Important Thing happening, because that's that particular chapter's Step #3.

And One Last Important Thing:

In music, a delayed resolution is almost always more interesting than the standard resolution. In writing, that means you wanna drag out Step #2 for as long as you can. That's where the bulk of the story is happening, that's how you build tension, that's how you get people to turn the page.

So when you write a fake dating fic, those bitches better not get together until the very end. I came here for fake dating, not for real dating, damn it. If you resolve that expectation early on, you better replace it with a different expectation that's just as engaging.

But also don't drag it out for too long. Sorry. The hard part of writing is learning the difference between too short and too long. Writing is unfortunately a nuanced skill which is why my advice is like "do this but not too much teehee." But tension and resolution is just rhythm, you can build a sense for it if you engage with enough stories.

#asks #yellowocaballero #writing #writing advice #THANKS FOR ASKING ME THIS MEG I LOVE PLOT I WILL TALK ABOUT HER ALL DAY AND I LOVE YOU TOO #i haven't read a fake dating fic in a long time i just brought it up because it was the first Trope Thing that came to mind #i didn't go into different plot structures because i was trying to boil them all down into the very basic building block of question-answer #but if anyone's curious i usually favor a circular plot structure #the ending reflects the beginning. the song loops: the same beats but with new perspective. cycles. #and by that i mean 'story starts with dink being mean to time' and 'story ends with dink being mean to time (but now it's affectionate) #lazuli talks

[jadethest0ne]

So I finished going through your 03 reaction thread (again, thank you for the link!), and was a little bit confused about your final thoughts after finishing S5. You seemed to really enjoy most of the series, but then at the end your final takeaway seemed to be "meh. was a'ight." Which! Is fine! The beauty of having so many competent adaptations of the same source material is that people are able to pick and choose their favorite continuity according to their own preferences and what they personally like in their media. But you seemed to have a lot of good things to say about the 03 show, but then your opinion suddenly seemed to shift somewhat near the end. And if it's due to S5, I get it, I did not like that season when it aired either (I think Rise is overall a way better take on the mystic concept in general), but the first 4 seasons are still some of my favorite TV ever put to screen. Absolutely not perfect, they have things they could have improved upon for sure, but definitely solid stuff. But of course, all that is personal preference, and everyone's personal preference is different. So what about the series fell flat compared to others that you'd seen? Did it do anything well or even excellently, in your opinion? Did you have any favorite arcs or characters or anything that you wish other series had also done because you liked them so much? How would you rank the 4 animated series in terms of preference (assuming you've seen all 4)?

Yeah... I figured someone would notice that about the Twitter thread...

To be honest, my reaction thread, well, wasn't honest.

Or at least, the thread was heavily influenced by my attempts to remain positive due to a lot of people, including folks whose opinions I hold in high regard, liking that version a lot. I didn't want to weigh people down with a lot of negativity. But as a result, my frustrations with the show started boiling over towards the end of the thread. That's why at first I seem to be very excited about it, and then suddenly started pointing out negatives.

Like I did for Rise and the 1987 TMNT, I plan to write a video essay on TMNT 2003 with a much more honest and critical take on it. So I guess stay tuned for that.

I'll give more detailed answers to your questions in my eventual essay, but in short:

It was the emotional and familial moments that fell flat for me.

Positives included the intricate plot and varied fight scenes.

Favorite arcs were Leo's character arc in Season 4, and the Battle Nexus episodes.

Favorite character is probably Leo for once. It would've been Mikey if the narrative didn't keep shitting on him all the time

I wish other versions of TMNT had just as solid a plot/overall arc and flow from one season to another (other versions were either disjointed, episodic, or cancelled too early to achieve the same kind of plot structure)

While I don't dislike this version, there are numerous things about it that bug me, and in terms of preference, this is my least favorite version I have seen so far

Sorry if my thread gave you the wrong idea of my opinion. That is totally on me for not being upfront, and trying to write more of what I thought folks wanted to hear rather than some of my actual thoughts. The positive things I said in the thread are still truthful and include things I liked. There were just lots of other things that I didn't like that I didn't include in the thread ^^;

Thanks for asking and allowing me to clear some stuff up!

I'll be trying to post the video essay about TMNT 2003 within the next month, so I can elaborate more on my thoughts there ;3

#tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2003 #media analysis #jade thoughts #ask #jadethest0ne

[phoenixyfriend]

The second AU inspired by this dream is less simple:

It's time for a Jessica Jones AU of Miraculous Ladybug. (This means things are... dark.)

@firebirdeternal and I initially joked around with this

Firebirdeternal: JJ flavored older Marinette who is, in fact, a huge hot mess, being time-travelled to Spunky Teen Superhero canon-adjacent Paris Something something wearing the miraculous for so long gave her Passive Superpowers so she literally just jumps through Gabe's Fancy Villain Skylight and punches him in the dick

phoenixyfriend: Chugs a beer (ugh, so American, what did you DO in New York?), crushes the can, skips the Akuma issue to punch Gabe in the facehole

but eventually knuckled down and drew up an actual AU structure.

Let's go! This will meander. Bear with me.

So we have Hot Mess Marinette, whose traumas are very different from those of Jessica Jones, but resulted in a similar air of 'just give me a drink and something to punch so I can stop feeling like trash for a bit.' I like Birdie's comment about the passive superpowers, so we're keeping that.

A JJ AU needs a competent mean lesbian to be a sharky lawyer, and I've decided that's Lila. She's giving PI Marinette jobs for court stuff (find evidence of an affair, serve a subpoena, etc), as her Jeri Hogarth.

Lila would make a good politician. She's got great hair and loves lying.

We're setting this in Chicago. Both of them moved out of Paris for different but similar reasons, boiling down to 'holy shit, trauma' and 'I don't want anyone who knew me as a teenager to know me now.'

Birdie:

They both sass each other constantly, and everybody who sees them interact for five minutes would swear that they hate each other, but low-key they're extremely close and can always count on the other to come pick them up when they're wasted (And make fun of their outfit) while dragging them home Lila + Marinette friendship based on the fact that Marinette is the only person Lila doesn't feel any compulsion to be liked by so she can actually express herself honestly with her and vice-versa

Marinette is such a mess these days that she's almost ashamed of being seen by her old friends BUT she's never cared what Lila thinks, and Lila pays her to serve subpoenas, so.

Yes, that's it exactly! "You don't expect me to be anything other than a Fucking Mess so I don't have to feel guilty about being a fucking mess"

I'm imagining that like, years post canon, everybody from the old Miraculous Crew has done remarkably well for themselves (on paper) and Marinette feels like a fucking wreck because Never-fully-processed PTSD from being a Child Superhero and her only social connections are either people who Didn't Know Her or people she can be comfortable being a mess around (Lila)

(Lila is having an affair with her secretary. Just. That part of the Jeri thing is very important to me.)

(Lila and Marinette messed around a bit, before Marinette dropped out of college for the aforementioned trauma-and-burnout reasons, when she was still trying to keep it together and thought Maybe It's Just A Sexuality Crisis I Can Kiss My Way Out Of.)

also, idea for general/vague plot points: Marinette "I can't bother my friends they're all well adjusted and successful within their field and I'm a wreck"

Alya "I can't shake the horrible feeling that all my success as a blogger/reporter is based on the fact that as a teenager I hit the Popularity Lottery by randomly being best friends with a superhero and everything I've built from that point on feels like a huge lie that I don't deserve"

Nino "I'm a touring musician with success and notoriety but I've lost touch with all my friends from highschool which makes me feel like a sellout bastard and I'd trade it all away to have them back except I'm terrified they wouldn't have me so I can't let go of material gains"

Adrien "I have exactly three neurons remaining that aren't drowning in stress and guilt about the fact that my Fashion Empire was built by my supervillain father and I never had the chance to figure out who Ladybug was before it all came tumbling down and I have no way to contact her or any of my other friends because I've convinced myself they'd all resent me for my father's actions anyways"

Chloe "Is actually remarkably well adjusted because she went to therapy and ditched her abusive family and is living her best life in her own lane and is probably the one Marinette runs into first"

Kagami is Marinette's Matt. The blindness was hereditary and hit in their twenties. Mostly I want Lawyer Kagami, and in regards to her and Lila being in the same field, I think they're unrelated lawyers who do different work? Lila does mostly civil suits.

I am also just like, deeply into "Lila is a lawyer because it lets her weaponize her Worst Traits to do Good in the world" and also "Lila does not by any measure actually stop being a huge bitch or actively problematic in her personal life" she's just like, actively trying to shovel garbage out of the world in order to personally make up for the share she put into it. Does a lot of divorce cases for abused spouses pro-bono, still definitely cheats on her fiance with her secretary.

"I am committed to making the world a better, safer place" "Do you want to examine any of your personal actions in the face of that statement?" "No"

A mess, but a shiny one. Chloe got therapy, Lila got a law degree.

Chloe got therapy and a motorcycle and a punk undercut and the only member of her family she regularly talks to is her half-sister. (And her dad on his birthday. He was incompetent but not Evil.) (Also shoutout to the Crimson Vision version of Chloe for being my ideal Headcanon for Adult Chloe)

I LOVE CV CHLOE SO MUCH

I feel like Kagami visits Lila for Law Reasons and runs into Marinette in the lobby, and it's deeply awkward for everyone (except Lila, who thrives on drama), because this is the first time anyone's seen Marinette in years.

Alya, after the gossip reaches her with Marinette's new contact info: SERIOUSLY? ILLINOIS? YOU LEFT PARIS FOR ILLINOIS?

Marinette and Lila both wanted a fresh start and NYC wasn't an option because Chloe.

Kagami and Chloe bullied their way into staying friends with Adrien and Nino still makes the effort so Adrien does in fact have a girl gang. (Per Birdie, it lessens the "Everyone's a hot mess bitch let's get you some fruite" vibes, but it's also still good.)

Lila seems like the kind of overachiever that would have a license to practice law in both the US and France. She makes her big fancy return to Paris for something insane like "Ivan was framed for triple homicide" and she's decided to take the case Pro Bono (and dragged Marinette along with her).

Marinette just bulldozes her way through the investigation and it scares the shit out of everyone. She has a "Talks about their city like they kind of want to have sex with it" monologue in Paris.

Lila gets Complaints about Marinette and just laughs it off. This has been happening for years, people. She's not concerned. This is the new normal, friends!

Alya: Girl I haven't heard from you in three years and NOW you come back with Lila of all people, smelling like a distillery and punching information out of people?

everyone expects her to be the Clever Inspiring Leader and instead she's just. The Tank. Plows through obstacles and drags people out of bars into the alley to have a Talk with them.

segue but Chloe is the Kristen Stewart of this reality in the "Is incredibly, visibly gay, just short of Actively Having Sex with her Girlfriend in Public, and all the tabloids call them Pals and speculate on whether she and Adrien are in a relationship" sense Chloe: Okay so maybe I was carrying a bit of a torch for Little Miss Perfect in high school so what" Lila: Bitch you were carrying a roadside emergency flare and repressing so hard you tried to drown it in a lake"

Marinette, pretending to not be in the hotel room when Alya comes by: Lila you have to cover for me make up an excuse you're good at that Lila: Hey Alya, yeah no Marinette's not here right now, do you want me to tell her you dropped by? Alya: uh... yeah that would be good. Sure. Lila: [turns her head] Alya dropped by. Anyways I'm gonna go get some coffee you two sort your shit out before I get back [opens the door wide open as she leaves]

Bitch Love her

helpful bitch! Ain't nobody got time for this shit, get the messy crying stuff over with she already knows you're going to be fine afterwards!

"You shacked up with LILA?" "Hell no, she's already got a fiancee AND a mistress, I'm not getting involved with that." "Oh. So you didn't sleep with Lila then." "... I didn't say THAT."

Alya, certified Flannel Wearer, looking at Lila walk down the hallway in heels and a nice suit ".... okay yeah fuck I can't throw stones here"

what if all the Miraculous Kids kept some measure of power after Whatever Happened Happened? So there's an element of like "How are you so sure that Ivan didn't murder those people?" "Because he didn't level a city block in the process, Lila. We'd know if something made him lose his temper." to that angle of the plot.

hmmmmm no Kwamis, because however the final nonsense with Gabemoth went down they all had to go dormant for a while to recover? (no Trauma related to it other than "Wait what do you mean my emotional support Cute Magical Mentor isn't going to be around to give me advice any more" but isn't that enough when you're also a Teen Superhero who never got therapy?) And that's part of why Marinette is spiraling so hard?

Marinette "Why didn't I keep the good luck powers my life is a mess" Tikki, in the Great Beyond "Because I am trying to use coincidence magic to make you confront your trauma in a healthy way and reconnect with your friends but you keep turning LEFT and getting DRUNK you IDIOT MORTAL CHILD WHOM I LOVE" [banging her head into the fabric of reality]

#Marinette Dupain Cheng #Lila Rossi #Chloe Bourgeois #crossovers #The Defenders #MCU #AKA Jessica Jones #miraculous ladybug #MariLila #Lilanette #phoenix posts #alcoholism mention #alcohol mention

[book-o-scams]

'Sorry Wrong Ed' Alternate Ending Storyboard Sequence

Check out Al Kang's Ed, Edd n Eddy portfolio!

Al Kang worked on the show during seasons 3-4 and had roles on the storyboard and prop teams apparently. (IMDb says he was credited as Al Choi at the time, but it also says he worked on season 1 episodes, which doesn't line up with the timeline he mentioned.. anyway.)

I discovered his portfolio a few months ago after seeing fandom discussion of the alternate 'Sorry Wrong Ed' ending. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few other treats as well! But yes, I even sorta liked what I learned about 'Sorry Wrong Ed' in the process... (I threw in a little analysis comparing the two endings at the bottom)

I noticed Al seemed to mix up the order on these, so I thought I'd try my best to figure out the right order. This was the most confusing one for me to try and figure out the order of since almost all 8 pages were out of order. I think I finally figured out what's going on in the original ending.

So this alternate ending starts at an unknown point with Eddy flat on the ground, presumably injured, picking himself back up. At this point in the final cut of the episode, Eddy has just been squashed by a tree, but this seems more like a different injury, and he's not even retaining his injuries from the truck scene... The scenes with Jonny and Plank from the final cut of the episode seem to not exist at all here, Jonny and Plank don't appear in this sequence.

Anyway, Eddy picks himself up in the middle of an on-going scene, sees Jimmy drop a coin in a jar for Ed, who has inexplicably turned the cursed phone into a scam on his own. Edd is glaring at the off-screen kids, who have somehow learned about this phone and are excited to kill Eddy with it.

Eddy: "Jimmy! No!"

Jimmy answers the phone: "Hello?"

Ed: "HA HA HA"

Edd: "You people don't seriously believe--"

Then we sync up with gags that did happen in the ending of Sorry Wrong Ed, with context that makes its tone a little more sadistic than random. Jimmy's paid phonecall drops the sandbox on Eddy.

This page has the most skeletal dialogue...

Kev: "Yes." (I think he's meant to be fist pumping because Eddy got hurt, more of a "Yes!")

Jimmy: "BAD LUCK EDDY PHONE." (this dialogue must have been a placeholder)

Edd: "HA HA" (sarcastic ha-ha or did Al mean to write "Ed" for this?)

Jimmy seems to offer the phone to Edd.

We sync up again with Edd's denial from the final cut of this episode, except now it actually makes sense that he's so one-track-minded, because there are people actively arguing with him and keeping him disengaged from the victim.

Edd: "There must be a cargo plane overfilled with playground supplies..."

Sarah interrupts him.

RING RING

Sarah: "Oh, that's for me."

Eddy at this point holds Ed responsible, as he should, and starts running to stop Ed or Sarah. Ed offers no explanation for his betrayal.

Eddy: "Ed! What are you doing!?"

Sarah: "Hello?"

Sarah's paid phonecall summons the hippos, the most random moment in the final cut of the episode. Note how both of these slapstick gags were storyboarded on the same generic background, seems like the lane or an empty lot, but clearly a different location than Eddy's front yard from the aired ending.

And that's all we have to go off of!

I'll put my updated opinions below the cut, but suffice it to say, I like the episode a little better now! Knowing what the ending was going to be and trying to figure out the choices that led to the ending we got, I feel more appreciative that it didn't end up a lost episode or something and less annoyed that it was 11 minutes of one joke.

I know I have a reputation for not finding slapstick funny and disliking this episode, but violence was never my only issue. Lots of episodes have lackluster slapstick that I just let wash over me. My point that never gets as much focus is that this episode never felt FINISHED to begin with. It's just a slapstick vacuum with no ending and no point, and it used to be frustrating to me not knowing for sure if my hunch was right or not that it felt like the episode just wasn't working and they had to cobble it together from the scenes that almost worked.

I am surprised to say I like the episode more now that I know that is pretty close to the truth. Judging from this peek into the episode's development, this episode seems to have reached Danny Antonucci's and/or Wootie's (the episode's lead board artist) limit for being mean-spirited with the characters without a reason. I'll still probably avoid rewatching it, but knowing the episode has no ending specifically because it's been trimmed to bare bones is somehow reassuring.

The most obvious flaw to this original ending is the lack of motivation for Ed's or the kids' actions. The kids presumably still weren't in the rest of the episode, so there's really no reason for them to be here other than reiterating the same idea from 'Your Ed Here' and 'The Good Ole Ed' that the neighborhood kids are always looking for a reason to gang up on Eddy, something that isn't really true of those characters in earlier seasons.

I think I can imagine how, on paper (in the writers' outline), this episode sounded funnier. Trying to imagine this ending as part of the whole episode, I think the script's idea of the final joke is that Ed is not satisfied with ending the tests at the point where they tried to return the phone to Rolf. I think Ed converts the curse-testing process to a scam at that point, building off of how Ed already wasn't processing Eddy's safety in anything so far, and is probably more focused on proving to Edd that curses are real (as Ed was previously in league with Evil Tim). The addition of Ed running his own tests and the kids arguing Eddy's point against Edd's while Eddy's busy, does sound more like a complete manic cartoon boiling point than the way the finished episode just petered out with Edd as the sole antagonist. But unfortunately, in visual execution, suddenly piling in so many aggressive characters and so much random violence at once, would only really result in it petering out at a higher volume.

Meanwhile Edd's characterization is made much more structurally sound in the original ending. He's annoyed FOR Eddy's sake, and the only reason he's not actively helping Eddy is because like 3 other characters were supposed to be arguing with him while this was happening. It seems extremely apparent to me that the cuts made to this ending were for the sake of mitigating Ed's reputation in the fandom, as well as the kids', and I think it's really unfortunate that Edd's characterization was the cost for salvaging everyone else's. I'm glad I already considered his behavior in 'Sorry Wrong Ed' non-canon, because now it feels like the reason the aired ending is so out-of-character is just because Edd is basically arguing with the ghost of the original scene. I formally forgive 'Sorry Wrong Ed'. Production turnarounds are tough and AKA did their best to not turn this into another forgotten 'Special Ed' episode that simply wasn't working.

I think ditching the original ending was ultimately the right call. It was not an exemplary episode, but I can admit it's less out of place to have a pure "vacuum of violence" story than it would've been to essentially give the kids a supernatural revenge plot like this. That would've been really weird to have to accept-- Eddy definitely wouldn't want to be friends with anyone at the end of the movie if THIS was their past. Changing it to an unaware Jonny and a questionably aware Plank being responsible, indeed, was a vibe that landed much more like standard EEnE fare. It was weird enough that the kids all saw Santa in JJJ, can you imagine if they all knew curses were real AND participated in attacking a neighbor with one??

If there was a silver lining for me the first time I saw this episode, it was that none of the kids were directly involved in Eddy's suffering. It made the questionable reality of the cursed device slightly more acceptable that only the Eds and Rolf know about the curse. If this ending had happened, I would've reacted the same, but I would've rejected its continuity even more than I do now, because it would just feel like they animated one of the DC Comics (where the kids can blow the Eds up with fireworks at the end or the Eds can randomly be crushed under an avalanche of anvils)-- the art could end up gorgeous but the characterizations don't exactly land as real human beings, the balance this show strives for typically.

And I think that's all I wanted to say! In the end, I found myself liking 'Sorry Wrong Ed' slightly more than I used to, all thanks to this glimpse into how the animation production system morphs the outcome of a cartoon. Thanks so much to Al Kang, for sharing your art and this insight into the industry! I don't know whether he did both the gesture drawings and the revised art, but judging from his other boards I think the cleaned up art is his, and I liked seeing the poses that almost were!

#ed edd n eddy #sorry wrong ed #al kang #storyboard #concept art #alternate ending #deleted ending #alternate sequence #analysis

[nunonabun]

I did love Trixie admitting she'd dated a gay man as cover once in that dismissive way she did. Because to her his sexuality didn't mean anything to her, but she didn't want him to be hurt. I know that episode had many other things to take out of it but that stood out to me, along with her saying that what would bother her wouldn't be her partners sexuality, but that they cheated. All that was important was their faithfulness.

This got quite long so I’ll put it under a cut.

This is a heck of an episode, and I think how everyone comes off in it is quite complex. There was a lot I liked about Trixie in that episode, especially her speaking up at the dinner table and saying “Well quite frankly I thought we’d fought a war over facism, and that’s what this is, telling people who they can and can’t love.” But there are also the ways in which she’s still viewing things from a heternormative POV and participating in the “othering” of gay people, as are pretty much all the straight characters in the episode (I am going with Trixie at least self-identifying as straight, in this analysis.)  

When she says she couldn’t forgive Tony Amos’s actions if she were in Marie Amos’ shoes “because [Tony] cheated, I couldn’t care less who with,” that equates him acting on his sexuality outside of his straight marriage, with a straight person in a straight marriage having an affair. It puts the blame for Tony’s affair fully on Tony as opposed to largely on the way heteronormativity and homophobia have forced him into that situation. It’s kind of like an “I don’t see colour,” but with sexuality; a disregard of how the oppression a person faces factors into their actions. That’s not to say it doesn’t truly harm his wife as well, and it’s absolutely fine to empathize with her, but to just say it’s cheating and he’s fully wrong for cheating misunderstands the situation. Phyllis does this too, when Sister Monica Joan says crime implies someone was harmed, and nobody was in that case, Phyllis says “try putting yourself in Mrs. Amos’s shoes,” as though that somehow justifies the punishment Tony is receiving even a bit. It’s a horribly difficult situation and of course it’s valid for someone Marie’s position to feel hurt and deceived, but it’s also important not to ignore how Tony entering that marriage and breaking his vows is not a malicious deception. It’s a situation where he is under immense pressure to conform to a social norm that he would be severely punished if he broke. He’s also very likely to have gotten the message implicitly and/or explicitly that getting married to a woman would “fix” him... and then finding out he can’t repress a natural and important part of himself.  

To the anecdote about the doctor she was a beard for again, it’s complicated. Trixie recounts: ”I certainly don’t mind fraulines. In fact, I provided diversionary cover for one during my training. Young doctor, melting to look at, but the other way inclined. Perfect gentleman, sadly. Without me on his arm, he would have lost his position.” One the one hand, she cared about him and helped him. On the other hand, the way she helped him was by providing the image that he did fit the norm. She helped dress up the closet door to make it look like he wasn’t in there. He probably wouldn’t have wanted her to do anything else. Society forced him into a position where, if he was out, he’d be out of a job. But it is still helping him to cover up and fit the norm as opposed to fighting the norm (Again, I know, he may not have wanted her to do that and certainly outing him to fight against it would likely have been hugely harmful, that’s not where I’m going with this. I’ll get to that in the last section of this little essay thing.) There was also something about how she told the story that was quite othering. The way she told it was as though it were an exciting anecdote, a titillating, somewhat shocking story of complicity with an Other. It wasn’t in a tone of ‘someone I knew experienced a scary, horrible encounter with bigotry and I tried to help.’ That lack of empathetic tone is kind of in line with the use of othering terms like “frauline” and “one [of them],” as well as her response to the same situation existing in nursing (”No dark secrets girls, not if you value your life. *giggles*”). I’m sure other people have other views on that conversation, but that’s how it came across to me. There’s also her conversation with Patsy where Patsy asks if she’s “the only one who doesn’t hate them, the queers,” and Trixie says “I just don’t think it’s our battle to fight,” and then changes the subject to her (straight) relationship and how to get the community to accept the straight wife of a gay man. Essentially, overall her perspective ends up being ‘yes it’s wrong that gay people are treated like that, it’s fascist to punish them for being gay, but they can conform, there’s no need to rock the boat.’ Those things I’ve discussed above are actually elements of the episode I really liked. The words and actions of each of the characters are entirely believable and consistent with who they are in the time and place they’re in. What I enjoy about these things is that I think they demonstrate how, in a homophobic & heteronormative society, even good people, even people who are against homophobia, can perpetuate it, be complicit in it, and participate in othering. Here I’m moving on to a broader reflection. I think the examination with Trixie holds, but a clearer example - and one where much more harm is done - is Patrick. Patrick expresses that “we ought to live and let live,” in his conversation with Shelagh, and he goes to court to speak in Tony’s defence, yet he prescribes chemical castration for Tony. He’s clearly very against punishing Tony for his sexuality, and the laws pressuring him to do so, but that doesn’t erase that he’s complicit in that punishment, in that horrible thing that is being done to Tony. He doesn’t stand up to it. Taking it up many notches from Trixie being a beard, Patrick expresses chemical castration being preferable as it is “more private,” again, providing a way to make a gay person conform. Also, in some ways, he buys into the established medical view of homosexuality at the time, seeming to accept that though it’s unfair Tony is being medically altered, his sexuality boils down to “urges”. He recommends that Tony focus on the joy of his child and basically just try his best to conform, and that will be enough. Another example of that is of course with Fred, looking reluctant and expressing apology for kick Tony out of the Civic Defense Corps but still doing it. I wouldn’t count Peter exactly because he set up the honeytrap and is more than just complicit, though he is also an example of how ingrained social hatred can lead to otherwise good people being cruel and utterly shutting off their compassion and empathy. There are also subtler ways like Shelagh, who seems to sit on the fence about accepting gay people, and others Tony in her language (asking how Tony can be “that way”, and if Patrick has met “many others”). And there’s Sister Julienne steadfastly not offering support and deferring to social views of the time (”a judge will try Mr. Amos, not us”). I’d argue those are forms of participation in homophobia, because not challenging bigotry when it’s presented to you is a form of tacit acceptance. The negative side of the refusal to judge that Sister Julienne is so often lauded for is pretty clear here. As Patsy communicates when she asks “who will [fight the battle for gay equality] then?” in her conversation with Trixie, if people chose to be bystanders to bigotry, how will we truly, meaningfully change society? This episode highlights not only how explicit enforcement of structures of oppression is deeply harmful, but how insidious those views are, present to some degree even in good people and even in those who explicitly reject it; how its subtler forms are still harmful, and how “tolerance” of the group being othered is still complicity in the oppression. I mean, I think that’s quite undercut but the whole ‘rat cull’ parallel subplot that communicates ‘it’s alright not to like them for their identity so long as you acknowledge their right to exist,’ but if I disregard that and just focus on the gay plot, that’s what I get.

  Anyways, sorry, my thoughts ran away with me there, I have lots of thoughts and feelings about CtM 4x03. Not at all trying to rain on your reading of it, anon, different readings/aspects of a thing can stand out/be meaningful to different people, and I definitely agree Trixie has some strong moments. But I think it’s also interesting to look at the variety of ways homophobia & heteronormativity are present in people and are presented. And of course, those themes and messages are all too important in our present world as well.

#Call the Midwife #CtM s4e03 #Trixie Franklin #cw: homophobia #Anonymous