One Thing That Pisses Me Off Is People Seeing Fish In Aquariums (the Establishments, Not Home Aquariums)

One thing that pisses me off is people seeing fish in aquariums (the establishments, not home aquariums) and being like “It’s so sad because the ocean is so big and the tank is so small and they’ll never know freedom blah blah blah-“ I’m not talking about sharks and marine mammals here but the majority of fish are not at all bothered by being in an aquarium instead of the open ocean. Like, I personally would love to be a little clown fish in one of those big reef tanks. Fed regularly. Whole team of people monitoring my health and well-being. No predators. Medicated if I show signs of illness. Aquarium fish have cushy gigs in comparison to their wild companions.

also also- to cut so many intimacy scenes in a season where body positivity was the focus is a slap in the fucking face

The showrunners claiming that love scenes matter less after the couple has gotten together- bullshit. I call fucking bullshit. Because that scene of her riding him at the end of the season could have made up for a LOT of disappointment in the ending. That bed is symbolic. Them being TOGETHER in the bed is symbolic and meaningful and says so much and is such a perfect way to represent they are a unit again. He was on that sofa for so long in part because of a rift between them with Lady Whistledown in the storyline, but also because that was a safe place for him. That was the first place he and Pen had sex as a couple and they were happy and they were in love, and it was difficult for him to leave that.

A scene at the end where she is on top, riding him, and they are on the bed together, signifies his trust in her and them moving together into the future. It is important. And it should have gotten more than just 20 seconds on the screen. Her on top was meaningful, because in the carriage, she is a passive participant to pleasure. On the sofa, she asks him to tell her what to do, and when he says he'll do it all, she demands to be a part of it. And in riding him, she is an active party in the intimacy. He can relinquish the control, trusts her enough to do so, and she trusts him enough to be in the vulnerable position of being on top. A position women who have had concerns about their body in a fatphobic society know all too well. Why cut it so short? Why not truly lean into that?

You cannot pat yourself on the back as a body positivity season to make bank off of your plus size viewers and then cut so many intimacy scenes, Shondaland and Netflix. That's fucked. You cannot profit off of us and then do a half assed job in telling our stories.

Where are the fat writers in the room? The fat editors? To say 'actually, this love scene is important. we should cut something else'. Why is it that we don't get Colin going down on her? It was filmed, why was it cut? Why are there less intimacy scenes between Pen and Colin than there were for Benedict?

How are you going to claim over and over that this is representation, and then do our representation dirty? I would understand in part if it wasn't even filmed, for various reasons. Actors feeling uncomfortable, the scenes being unnecessary to the narrative itself- but they were filmed, and they were VITAL.

Pen and Colin are FROSTY after that Lady Whistledown reveal. To use words from a very hilarious video: he doesn't wanna dip his quill in her inkwell anymore after finding out about the lies. Because for Colin, love and intimacy and trust are all entwined. He can't have angry sex with her because he craves intimacy, not just sensation. To have one without the other isn't fulfilling for him. So they split apart and apart and apart, until they come together again. (pardon the innuendo) Them having sex at the end of the season is supposed to be the sigh of relief the viewers AND the couple get after that angst. It's the payoff. They had distance, and now they are together again. They were apart and now they are one. They are joined.

Where was the payoff?

Nicola talked about the importance of intimacy scenes, that they are not throwaways, that they mean something to the plot, and for them to be scrapped feels like an injustice. An injustice to the people who saw themselves represented in this story, (note: I'm a fat woman, and I'll say, I do NOT feel personally represented, because I'm a size 18/20 and a size 8 lead isn't my representation, but many many people do not feel as I do, and so if you DID see yourself on screen, I'm sorry: you deserved that intimacy montage), an injustice to the narrative, and an injustice to your actors, who put themselves in a very vulnerable position to deliver the most poignant love story they could, who really went for it, and who ended up on the cutting room floor.

Nic and Luke love this pairing, you can TELL they're shippers, you can tell they have so much empathy and adoration for Pen and Colin. They poured their heart into those scenes. To see them cut is a disservice and a disrespect.

We fucking deserved better.

i see your "thousand eyes and wings" biblically accurate aziraphale and raise you "biblically accurate according to weird ass medieval illuminations" aziraphale (& bonus crowley)

inspired by this illuminated manuscript page depicting the story of adam and eve:

(i'm pretty sure tumblr fucked the quality on these do please click for full size😭)

European goldfinch/steglits. Värmland, Sweden (June 19, 2023).

Buy my book about pigeons.