A Diva that's Difficult!!

I specifically remember my mom sitting me down to talk about it. Now my parents both supported Gore and were very upset that Bush was declared a winner, but that wasn’t what my mom talked to me about.

She told me that for days we didn’t know who our next president is, and everything was fine. No one rioted, there was no coup, everyone continued to get up and go to work and calmly wait for the results. And when they came in, close as it was, Gore conceded. And again, no rioting, no coups, just business as usual. She told me I needed to think about how lucky I was, and that in a lot of other places in the world that kind of uncertainty can be crippling to the stability of a country.

I don’t want to sound naive, there’s a lot of shit wrong with our government. But that talk from my mom really made an impression on me, and the importance of having some kind of stability and some element of trust in the process.

And it’s all I could think of tonight when Donald Trump stated that he may not concede the election if (when) he loses. I literally got chills. This shit is not a fucking joke, and we should all be terrified. We are less than a month out, please please please, if you are able to vote in US election please do it. Please protect our country from this disgusting and democracy-threatening man.

Looking: The Movie comes to Digital HD on August 22, 2016. The release will also feature a “Farewell to Looking” piece as well as a “Looking: The Movie Cast Featurette.”

Looking: The Complete Series and The Movie on Blu-ray™ Digital HD and DVD with Digital HD will hit store shelves on November 15, 2016. Both sets come with 16 Audio Commentaries from cast and crew including Jonathan Groff, Frankie J. Alvarez, executive producers Michael Lannan and Andrew Haigh and many more.

[NOTE: the below discussion assumes that you have watched LOOKING. If not, it will not make any sense. Go watch it. I will probably blog more about it among other things.]

Though many focused on the sex and politics within it, LOOKING is in essence a simple story of a man searching for a soulmate. The central relationship is an homage to Jane Austen: the characters are as perfectly suited to each other as yin and yang, and despite some initial friction and bickering due to personal flaws and differences of background, they are in love, but there’s one obstacle that ruins everything – money.

Richie and Patrick are PRIDE & PREJUDICE, but with the financial situation of the main characters reversed. This time, Mr. Darcy, the sensitive, dignified character who only rarely expresses his deep and powerful emotions, is working-class. Elizabeth Bennett, the flighty flibbertigibbet who speaks too rashly and rushes too quickly to impulsive actions and judgments, comes from an upper-middle-class background. They also happen to be of different ethnicities, and though they are intrigued by each other’s cultural differences, there are inherent problems that arise from them.

While Patrick does not himself personally care about whether Richie has money or not, and is interested to date someone whom he can learn something new and different from, his lingering self-loathing and resentment about his parents’ lack of acceptance of his gayness cause him to cling to a certain aspect of his class privilege. He feels that if he brings a rich man home to Mother, one similar to the one his sister marries, he’ll be accepted as “just like everybody else”. The problem is that Patrick does not actually LIKE this type of man, which is the root of all his romantic failures. His one previous boyfriend is a WASP-y clone of him who he labeled “boring” (you can feel that they achieved bed death one month into their relationship). He goes on a date with a douche-y doctor who is dull as dishwater and laughs at none of his jokes. He pursues what looks right on paper, but which is entirely wrong for him.

As Patrick is the protagonist, we do not get as much of Richie’s perspective, but we do learn that he tends to date men of a certain “type” (not just white men, but particularly preppy and/or nerdy hipster white men). How this relates to Richie’s feelings of rejection from his family and community due to his sexuality is something that should have been explored further, and is one of the biggest losses of the LOOKING cancellation.

Both characters, at various times, wonder if they are a token for the other. Richie initially rejects Patrick when he feels he’s being sexually fetishized; Patrick is driven mad when he realizes that Richie is dating a man who is exactly like him in a number of superficial ways – white, educated, a little bitchy, etc. Richie has been through this kind of relationship before, has had his heart broken before, and his fear that Patrick is like all the others leaves him with little patience for Patrick’s mistakes. Patrick is clumsy and inexperienced at love, and in his desire to prove to Richie how much he wants him, ends up forcing everything too fast, panicking, and driving him away.

During the second season of LOOKING, after having been dumped by Richie, Patrick falls into an affair and then a relationship with his partnered boss, another man whom he idealizes as being “right on paper”: rich, good-looking, confident, powerful. He fails to see or even try to learn who this man actually is: someone with deep insecurities from growing up working-class himself, abandoned by his mother, raised by a neglectful and possibly abusive single father. Kevin is driven to not only pursue money, but to marry up into the higher class. He has his Ivy League doctor boyfriend, but it is not enough. He wants a wife, a kept man, one whose very livelihood he controls. He wants a fancy apartment with a high-tech security system, a fancy cocktail, and a pretty WASP prince to show off.

The seeds of doom for Kevin & Patrick’s relationship are planted before they even argue over the issue of fidelity. During the fight that dissolves their relationship, one of them is continually trying to get to a benefit for a homeless trans teen shelter, and the other would prefer to drink bourbon with his rich white neighbors and hang up his soccer posters. Patrick realizes, over the course of this night, that they have nothing real in common, and that he has been reacting against his desire to be with someone else. Kevin remains in denial, lying to himself about who he is and what he wants, a theme that continues into the movie.

This being a show dedicated to realism, the Kevin & Patrick relationship never could continue past this point. Yet, some fans continued to ship it. I understand this. Not everyone watches a show with acceptance of what the writing intends. If you think a particular actor is more attractive than another, or has more chemistry with the protagonist, it’s perfectly fine to root for it, as long as you accept that you are choosing to ignore what the characters are actually saying and doing.

It is, however, bizarre that some fans respond to this storyline by EMBRACING the very classism that the show denounces.

“HMPF. I suppose Patrick would rather have a $4 charm necklace than a guy who buys him a condo”, I have heard some ‘fans’ say. Precisely the fucking point. Yes, Patrick would rather have a meaningful gift that costs nothing and was given with love, than an expensive present that was bought with no regards for his actual tastes or interests. He kept that escapulario in his Valuables box for a reason. It was priceless to him.

Also, the racism of calling an escapulario a “charm necklace” sums up the irony of racism/classism within the LOOKING fandom in a nutshell: that someone can actually quote Agustin (“hideous charm necklaces”) directly without realizing that they are being an asshole.

If you do not think Patrick should prefer a man with no money to a rich guy, SOLELY FOR THAT REASON, that is your set of values and perspective, not the show’s. Patrick never needed or wanted a man to provide for him, or provoke his ambitions. You cannot say that the writers misled you or betrayed you on this account. Their message was clear at every step: if you are racist and/or classist you will make poor decisions and miss out on opportunities for true relationships and friendships between human beings.

And beyond that, it is fine to ship what you ship, even if you choose to ignore the actual storyline and theme: that is what shipping is for. It is NOT fine to be unable to distinguish between actor and character. It is unacceptable to attack an actor for his ethnicity or sexuality because you don’t like his character and hate the fact that he was portrayed as the romantic ideal.

Bear in mind that when you go around screaming at other fans that, in your opinion, a straight actor cannot perform gay love scenes, you are also implying that a gay actor cannot play a straight character. This is simply inverted homophobia, and it is unacceptable in people who claim to be fans of a gay show.

You’re not fooling anybody by using coded racism along the lines of “I can’t understand his accent” either (especially when you have no problem understanding a white actor with an Essex accent so thick I’ve had to ask Brits to interpret his interviews for me before).

As a result, I’m disappointed in some – not most, but a vicious and virulent few – LOOKING fans. This show had enough attacks from the outside: gay shows always do. They had to face homophobic trolls, as well as expectations of portraying 10-20% of the population that they (like every other gay show, book, movie, etc.) could not possibly live up to. The last thing they needed on top of that was people who claimed to love the show attacking the actors for who they are or the writers for their intentions. It’s not their fault if you don’t understand the story you’re watching or what it’s trying to say.

Also, I have never in any previous post or in any of my fanfic writing denigrated Richie’s character or discussed the fact that Raul is a straight actor playing a gay role, so I am not really addressing those points, because if other people in the fandom are, they do not represent my point of view.

I respect and admire Richie. He is a good guy. Flawed as everyone is. And for me, the reason I was and am Team Kevin is not because he was poor or Mexican but because I found his character as written a little boring, lacking a sense of humor, and lacking chemistry with Patrick.

Let me be clear, these characters are fictional, and every viewer’s opinion/read of the situation is valid, and there is and should be room for multiple interpretations.

I am only expressing my own. And I’m expressing them only because I feel Team Kevin is somewhat maligned as being anti-Richie for reasons that are a little reprehensible to me, such as racism and classicism, rather than for more specific plot and character-driven reasons.

I was a loyal viewer of the show from when it first aired on television, and was settled in and excited to buy the Richie storyline all the way through the beautiful and soulful s1e5… but it fizzled. I didn’t interpret that final s1e8 scene as Richie dumping Patrick. He was giving Patrick a chance to step in and reassure him he was ready, and Patrick didn’t take it. Because he didn’t want to. Nothing standing in his way, except his own feelings that a relationship with Richie was not comfortable. I felt like he’d been trying to persuade himself to want a relationship with Richie precisely because it would be daring and different form his rather limited past, something to prove to his friends that he was growing up, something to force in the face of his parents so that he could confront them about the way he’d felt about their tepid acceptance…but that ultimately there just wasn’t the romantic feeling and connection there to carry the relationship beyond bumps in the road. 

It didn’t ring true that Patrick has to overcome feelings of racism and classism because one of his best friends is Cuban and the other a waiter who is no more than high-school educated. So why are we to believe that the barriers to Richie were purely race and class and these were things Patrick had to work through?

From that moment on I saw Richie as the ‘conscious’ of the show. The character that was supposed to make Patrick think, make him re-evaluate, make him a better person because of how comfortable he was in his own skin and how very black-and-white he was rather than getting lost in the grey. But I didn’t for a second buy that there was an underlying love that was strong enough to overcome their awkward beginnings. I felt in Patrick more of a relief that they could move on and maybe be friends, which was a more suitable relationship for them.

And the fact that Patrick was drawn to Kevin from the very beginning, physically and emotionally, with the teasing and the flirting and the longing looks…the fact that he was so willing to bottom for Kevin with practically no hesitation, that felt like real emotion and physical attraction to me, not just ‘let me hang out with someone my mom would like’. He had opportunities to walk away from that too, but didn’t. I didn’t believe in a Patrick that was so self-deluded that he would walk away from someone he supposedly loved and into something with someone he barely tolerated just because it was the ‘safer, more obvious’ choice, especially as that choice was so complicated given the presence of Jon. I gave him more credit than that. 

At the end of the day, why is it worse for Patrick to fall in love with someone who is rich and successful and good looking, NOT because of those things, but because they have so many shared passions, interests, a strong physical attraction, and a similar outlook on life? I can see if a viewer considers Kevin as a pure metaphor for a lying cheat it would be easy to disregard him, but I never saw Kevin as that. I saw him as conflicted, troubled, flawed, knocked out of his comfort zone by his growing feelings for someone, made vulnerable by his need for a man who was complicated and difficult and needy and much less comfortable than the partner he was already with, and it was a hard decision to make, but he did make it, and turned his life upside down and took a risk that Patrick would take him back. I never saw Kevin as collecting Patrick as a trophy. 

Ultimately the way it read to me was that Richie’s very grounded, very soulful and open approach to life was something that Patrick wanted to aspire to. To emulate. Like a mentor. He wanted to be more at peace with his place in life, with his homosexuality, with his choices, the way Richie seemed to be. And it was a beautiful friendship with much to offer Patrick.

Kevin offered Patrick something very different. A truly sexual relationship with a man who treated him like a fully sexual being who didn’t feel disappointment in him, didn’t need Patrick to behave a certain way, wasn’t a mentor but was starting as an equal. And had a past that would challenge Patrick and test his self-confidence and his feelings of self-worth.  

I understand that the writers had something different in mind, and that Richie was always end-game, but I think they planned to expand on that over more series, and I’m not sure that they were there yet by the end of season 2.  

I would have liked to have seen how they would have made that pivot back to Richie, but my lament about the film was that the end wasn’t earned. I didn’t buy it when Patrick said he’d been in love with him from the beginning. The evidence wasn’t there.

So…that was my read on it. I don’t feel comfortable shipping a pair that is not canon, I don’t have the strength of imagination for that, so it has been hard for me to reconcile my wishes with the film, however, I also can’t unsee what I thought I saw while watching the show, and so I will forever view Richie as the sweetest, most grounded, well adjusted character of the show who is a true mentor, and Kevin as the complicated, flawed, anti-hero who I adore with all his conflicted and messed-up actions and behaviors. 

I’ve always found your posts & fics respectful & you’re not one of the people I was referring to.

A couple of points though:

1) people like to say Kevin & Patrick had “more in common” but what exactly did they have in common other than video games & childhood love for pop dance routines? Major things they do not have in common include: every other aspect of their childhood/family experience, the type of building/community they want to live in, the type of people they like to hang out with, attitude towards monogamy/relationships

(Not saying I think it’s wrong to want a couple that DOESN’T have everything in common by the way; Richie & Patrick don’t have much in common beyond the type of relationship that they want to have & wanting to have it with each other. Just saying I never get this point.)

2) “Nothing was standing in his way” - except the fact that he’d just had sex with someone else 15 minutes before. What was he supposed to do, say, no, Richie I love you, but I’ve got to go in and take a shower?

He recognized that the fact that he’d cheated meant that he was not in fact ready for Richie’s love, that Richie was right, and that he had to simply accept that. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t in love or didn’t care. He cried like a baby!

3) Being willing to be penetrated, or any kind of sexual activity really, is not necessarily connected to emotion.

4) Didn’t say Patrick “barely tolerated” Kevin though. I think it’s exactly as he says in the movie: he wanted to love him, he loved the idea of them. He let Kevin go when he knew it wouldn’t work and would cause them both pain, and that is an act of caring.

5) I was heated up by some ugly comments when I wrote this so I was a little more unkind about Kevin than I might have been. I actually think Kevin is an interesting & complex character, and I’m sympathetic to him in many ways. However, I do think his attitude towards money & ambition, and his abandonment issues stem from his childhood, and I do think they play into his desire to pursue Patrick, and his relationship to Jon. I don’t think he wanted Patrick SOLELY bc he fit the vision of an alpha gay prince, b/c Jon was closer to that vision. But I do think he was driven to possess him in a way, due to his own innate inability to be satisfied with what he has.

As you know psychoanalyzing Kevin could take an entire book, though, so I’ll stop there.

6) I can point-by-point establish where the writers indicated Patrick still had feelings for Richie in season 2 & would have already gotten back together with Richie if he was available (especially in 2x05) but I’m not trying to talk you out of your ship. This was really only addressed to people who in fact attack Richie on the basis of his ethnicity or financial situation, or even worse, drag the actors into it.

It’s perfectly fine to ship something that isn’t canon btw. In this case unless you choose to believe that Patrick is lying when he says that he was always in love with Richie, you’ve kind of got no choice. This is the ending the writers always intended, they unfortunately had to speed it up but that doesn’t mean they changed their minds along the way.

ok. so…

1) I think they had more in common than gaming and childhood games. I think they shared a silly saucy sense of humor (and I know I may seem to harp on this but I have always found humor one of the most attractive things about a person so for me that is absolutely key). They tease and banter and I live for that. It is the way I show affection so I interpret it as affection. I agree that there are differences too. The old vs new is definitely a traditional short-hand way of expressing of self-made vs old-money, but even so, Patrick has ambition and loves his career. He tells Kevin that it’s all he ever wanted to do, be in the video-game world, so programming, technology, role-playing, designing, working in a team, working for a corporation…these are not necessarily trivial. (again, I have a bias because I am from this world and so is my husband so we bonded over love of technology and gadgets). I think they also both came from cold backgrounds, with parents that were at best, withholding, and Patrick can immediately see the damage that has done to Kevin. 

2) When I say nothing was standing in his way, I mean that he could have fought a little harder if he felt a little stronger. I believe they shot two versions of the end, one with Richie and him ending up in bed together, and the one we saw. I think the show runners deliberately chose to go with the more ambiguous ending to leave us with a cliff-hanger, but to me it was a ‘sign’. I saw the tears as tears of sadness that this wasn’t going to work, and he wished it had, because it was the ideal romance in his head. The one that proved how evolved and grown up he was. Again, just how i read it. 

3) I think for Patrick being penetrated was an emotionally laden issue, because he had felt only physical discomfort to that point. Physically it was something he was not particularly into, and I believe that his willingness to jump straight into that with Kevin was more of an indication of his overwhelming feelings of lust. I know that isn’t the only foundation of a relationship, but it is a strong one. 

4) I totally agree that Patrick felt that about Kevin. I was worried about that by the end of season 2. That Kevin was going to be another stepping-stone in Patrick’s journey. That Patrick’s view of monogamy was going to be a deal-breaker.

I don’t buy the theory of once-a-cheater because of personal experiences in my life (I was a Jon, not a Kevin b.t.w.) and I believe that people change and evolve as more experiences inform them, and interestingly, Patrick’s view of monogamy and what defines a relationship is definitely the minority, heteronormative view, but I also believe that Kevin was willing to be what Patrick wanted him to be, and that he was trying to start a discussion for that purpose. Though I think this last point is what will forever be the breaking point for anti or pro Kevin (not that I am saying you are anti, but I know some people are for that reason)

6) as for this, this is the part where I am the saddest. Because I watched the same show and interpreted things differently, and in the end none of that matters because the show runners had a point of view that they saw through to the end. I saw those same points where Patrick spoke to and about Richie, and to me they still showed someone desperate for someone’s approval because of how highly they respected their opinion, not of someone in love. But, I was wrong.

As for shipping them, I still do, but my ship now incorporates this latest twist. I don’t say Patrick was lying, because he is, after all, a fictional character, and he is just saying the words that the writers wrote. I am saying though that for me the words did not flow from what I had seen. They did not ring true and consistent. 

The same way Patrick mocking Kevin as being a hungry bottom to his one-night stand did not ring true. Why would Patrick be so mean and bitchy? Why would he think Kevin slept with the young man? Why say that he wasn’t surprised that Kevin hired a pretty young thing to replace him? Nothing in the Kevin I saw implied any of this would be true. It seemed a little out of character for Patrick to be so unforgiving of what was ultimately NOT a betrayal, but a discussion of potential relationship parameters. Mis-steps like that were jarring. 

Anyway, nice discussion. Always wanted to have an open chat with a Richie fan to swap perspectives.

I don’t say this to make you feel bad, but saying they’re both upwardly mobile is sort of lending to my point about classism - this isn’t something Patrick valued in a relationship.

I actually felt like their backgrounds were quite different - Pat’s parents were cold but overbearing; your mother leaving you is a much different thing. Honestly I didn’t think Patrick was equipped to give Kevin the reassurance he needed because of this.

2) I can only speak to the show as it exists, but I’ll point out Haigh specified that if they’d used the other ending Patrick would have kept the secret of having sex with Kevin from Richie. Perhaps the writers decided against this b/c it would have made a P&R ending less plausible.

3) This is why discussing Looking is hard because people have such different outlooks on love etc. but I just personally disagree with this one, I don’t think lust is a basis for a relationship at all. As I saw it, them getting together that way ultimately doomed their relationship. Had they resisted & waited until they were both single IMO they might have lasted.

4) I’m not anti-Kevin, but that’s why I didn’t root for their relationship: I didn’t think Kevin was wrong about his view of what he wanted in a relationship & I didn’t think he should have to change. But I don’t think Patrick is wrong to want monogamy either.

And people can change, but to me the fact that Kevin is back with Jon in an open relationship indicated he really didn’t want to. Patrick could have chosen to believe Kevin on pure faith, but I don’t see any evidence to this date that Kevin ever was or would have been monogamous.

As for Patrick being a little bitchy about Kevin, well, they did have a bad breakup. Richie was a little bitchy about Patrick after they broke up too. I don’t even think being a hungry bottom is a bad thing, personally!

And thinking Kevin is sleeping with other people isn’t unreasonable; I mean, when he talks to Kevin, Kevin does confirm that he’s…sleeping with other people.

“I don’t feel comfortable shipping a pair that is not canon. I don’t have the strength of imagination for that, so it’s been hard for me to reconcile my wishes with the film,”

Which ultimately has led you to create a multi-chapter saga of Patrick and Kevin leaving Richie and Jon again, in order to fulfill your wish that wasn’t granted by Haigh and Lannan. Something, by the way that was never, ever going to happen.

For the creators, Kevin was “another stepping stone” in Patrick’s journey, back to Richie. For the creators, they had Kevin expressing the wish that he had wanted Patrick to give him the chance to show him that he could be monogamous. That they could have tried….Yet, here is Kevin back with his ex-boyfriend Jon, (who initially had no idea that Kevin had numerous one offs, before his affair with Patrick) and this time, Jon’s aware of Kevin’s traits and has accepted that as something that Kevin needs, in order for their new relationship to work, or at least have a chance.

As for Patrick, in your opinion, being nasty about Kevin towards his ONS: Patrick feels like he knows Kevin’s method of operation, especially when it comes to guys that hit whatever it is that gets Kevin sexually stimulated. Also, if you believe what Kevin had to say in his exchange with Patrick, why are you saying that what Patrick had been saying about Kevin to that guy, was out of character?

I fully accept that my reading of what Kevin was supposed to be was not canon. I have felt some foolishness about that, at having invested so much time into this couple, but ultimately I can’t regret it. My intent with this dialogue was to have an open discussion with team Richie about why team Kevin was end game for me.

But it’s ok. I know team Richie won😂.

As for my new fiction, I have basically tried to be true to what the movie showed, and decided to see what would happen a year on from the end of the movie. I have not implied that Patrick didn’t love Richie, not have I implied that being back with Kevin is not a bumpy road or full of pitfalls. It may not even work very well. I am trying to address the reasons for Kevin being back with Jon and as to why Patrick may no longer be with Richie. Basically I’m trying desperately to find a realistic way to keep my ship alive. Jury is out whether I will be able to do that, or if I do if it will be at all believable. Probably takes a better writer than me to pull it off😂😂😂.

[NOTE: the below discussion assumes that you have watched LOOKING. If not, it will not make any sense. Go watch it. I will probably blog more about it among other things.]

Though many focused on the sex and politics within it, LOOKING is in essence a simple story of a man searching for a soulmate. The central relationship is an homage to Jane Austen: the characters are as perfectly suited to each other as yin and yang, and despite some initial friction and bickering due to personal flaws and differences of background, they are in love, but there’s one obstacle that ruins everything – money.

Richie and Patrick are PRIDE & PREJUDICE, but with the financial situation of the main characters reversed. This time, Mr. Darcy, the sensitive, dignified character who only rarely expresses his deep and powerful emotions, is working-class. Elizabeth Bennett, the flighty flibbertigibbet who speaks too rashly and rushes too quickly to impulsive actions and judgments, comes from an upper-middle-class background. They also happen to be of different ethnicities, and though they are intrigued by each other’s cultural differences, there are inherent problems that arise from them.

While Patrick does not himself personally care about whether Richie has money or not, and is interested to date someone whom he can learn something new and different from, his lingering self-loathing and resentment about his parents’ lack of acceptance of his gayness cause him to cling to a certain aspect of his class privilege. He feels that if he brings a rich man home to Mother, one similar to the one his sister marries, he’ll be accepted as “just like everybody else”. The problem is that Patrick does not actually LIKE this type of man, which is the root of all his romantic failures. His one previous boyfriend is a WASP-y clone of him who he labeled “boring” (you can feel that they achieved bed death one month into their relationship). He goes on a date with a douche-y doctor who is dull as dishwater and laughs at none of his jokes. He pursues what looks right on paper, but which is entirely wrong for him.

As Patrick is the protagonist, we do not get as much of Richie’s perspective, but we do learn that he tends to date men of a certain “type” (not just white men, but particularly preppy and/or nerdy hipster white men). How this relates to Richie’s feelings of rejection from his family and community due to his sexuality is something that should have been explored further, and is one of the biggest losses of the LOOKING cancellation.

Both characters, at various times, wonder if they are a token for the other. Richie initially rejects Patrick when he feels he’s being sexually fetishized; Patrick is driven mad when he realizes that Richie is dating a man who is exactly like him in a number of superficial ways – white, educated, a little bitchy, etc. Richie has been through this kind of relationship before, has had his heart broken before, and his fear that Patrick is like all the others leaves him with little patience for Patrick’s mistakes. Patrick is clumsy and inexperienced at love, and in his desire to prove to Richie how much he wants him, ends up forcing everything too fast, panicking, and driving him away.

During the second season of LOOKING, after having been dumped by Richie, Patrick falls into an affair and then a relationship with his partnered boss, another man whom he idealizes as being “right on paper”: rich, good-looking, confident, powerful. He fails to see or even try to learn who this man actually is: someone with deep insecurities from growing up working-class himself, abandoned by his mother, raised by a neglectful and possibly abusive single father. Kevin is driven to not only pursue money, but to marry up into the higher class. He has his Ivy League doctor boyfriend, but it is not enough. He wants a wife, a kept man, one whose very livelihood he controls. He wants a fancy apartment with a high-tech security system, a fancy cocktail, and a pretty WASP prince to show off.

The seeds of doom for Kevin & Patrick’s relationship are planted before they even argue over the issue of fidelity. During the fight that dissolves their relationship, one of them is continually trying to get to a benefit for a homeless trans teen shelter, and the other would prefer to drink bourbon with his rich white neighbors and hang up his soccer posters. Patrick realizes, over the course of this night, that they have nothing real in common, and that he has been reacting against his desire to be with someone else. Kevin remains in denial, lying to himself about who he is and what he wants, a theme that continues into the movie.

This being a show dedicated to realism, the Kevin & Patrick relationship never could continue past this point. Yet, some fans continued to ship it. I understand this. Not everyone watches a show with acceptance of what the writing intends. If you think a particular actor is more attractive than another, or has more chemistry with the protagonist, it’s perfectly fine to root for it, as long as you accept that you are choosing to ignore what the characters are actually saying and doing.

It is, however, bizarre that some fans respond to this storyline by EMBRACING the very classism that the show denounces.

“HMPF. I suppose Patrick would rather have a $4 charm necklace than a guy who buys him a condo”, I have heard some ‘fans’ say. Precisely the fucking point. Yes, Patrick would rather have a meaningful gift that costs nothing and was given with love, than an expensive present that was bought with no regards for his actual tastes or interests. He kept that escapulario in his Valuables box for a reason. It was priceless to him.

Also, the racism of calling an escapulario a “charm necklace” sums up the irony of racism/classism within the LOOKING fandom in a nutshell: that someone can actually quote Agustin (“hideous charm necklaces”) directly without realizing that they are being an asshole.

If you do not think Patrick should prefer a man with no money to a rich guy, SOLELY FOR THAT REASON, that is your set of values and perspective, not the show’s. Patrick never needed or wanted a man to provide for him, or provoke his ambitions. You cannot say that the writers misled you or betrayed you on this account. Their message was clear at every step: if you are racist and/or classist you will make poor decisions and miss out on opportunities for true relationships and friendships between human beings.

And beyond that, it is fine to ship what you ship, even if you choose to ignore the actual storyline and theme: that is what shipping is for. It is NOT fine to be unable to distinguish between actor and character. It is unacceptable to attack an actor for his ethnicity or sexuality because you don’t like his character and hate the fact that he was portrayed as the romantic ideal.

Bear in mind that when you go around screaming at other fans that, in your opinion, a straight actor cannot perform gay love scenes, you are also implying that a gay actor cannot play a straight character. This is simply inverted homophobia, and it is unacceptable in people who claim to be fans of a gay show.

You’re not fooling anybody by using coded racism along the lines of “I can’t understand his accent” either (especially when you have no problem understanding a white actor with an Essex accent so thick I’ve had to ask Brits to interpret his interviews for me before).

As a result, I’m disappointed in some – not most, but a vicious and virulent few – LOOKING fans. This show had enough attacks from the outside: gay shows always do. They had to face homophobic trolls, as well as expectations of portraying 10-20% of the population that they (like every other gay show, book, movie, etc.) could not possibly live up to. The last thing they needed on top of that was people who claimed to love the show attacking the actors for who they are or the writers for their intentions. It’s not their fault if you don’t understand the story you’re watching or what it’s trying to say.

Also, I have never in any previous post or in any of my fanfic writing denigrated Richie’s character or discussed the fact that Raul is a straight actor playing a gay role, so I am not really addressing those points, because if other people in the fandom are, they do not represent my point of view.

I respect and admire Richie. He is a good guy. Flawed as everyone is. And for me, the reason I was and am Team Kevin is not because he was poor or Mexican but because I found his character as written a little boring, lacking a sense of humor, and lacking chemistry with Patrick.

Let me be clear, these characters are fictional, and every viewer’s opinion/read of the situation is valid, and there is and should be room for multiple interpretations.

I am only expressing my own. And I’m expressing them only because I feel Team Kevin is somewhat maligned as being anti-Richie for reasons that are a little reprehensible to me, such as racism and classicism, rather than for more specific plot and character-driven reasons.

I was a loyal viewer of the show from when it first aired on television, and was settled in and excited to buy the Richie storyline all the way through the beautiful and soulful s1e5… but it fizzled. I didn’t interpret that final s1e8 scene as Richie dumping Patrick. He was giving Patrick a chance to step in and reassure him he was ready, and Patrick didn’t take it. Because he didn’t want to. Nothing standing in his way, except his own feelings that a relationship with Richie was not comfortable. I felt like he’d been trying to persuade himself to want a relationship with Richie precisely because it would be daring and different form his rather limited past, something to prove to his friends that he was growing up, something to force in the face of his parents so that he could confront them about the way he’d felt about their tepid acceptance…but that ultimately there just wasn’t the romantic feeling and connection there to carry the relationship beyond bumps in the road. 

It didn’t ring true that Patrick has to overcome feelings of racism and classism because one of his best friends is Cuban and the other a waiter who is no more than high-school educated. So why are we to believe that the barriers to Richie were purely race and class and these were things Patrick had to work through?

From that moment on I saw Richie as the ‘conscious’ of the show. The character that was supposed to make Patrick think, make him re-evaluate, make him a better person because of how comfortable he was in his own skin and how very black-and-white he was rather than getting lost in the grey. But I didn’t for a second buy that there was an underlying love that was strong enough to overcome their awkward beginnings. I felt in Patrick more of a relief that they could move on and maybe be friends, which was a more suitable relationship for them.

And the fact that Patrick was drawn to Kevin from the very beginning, physically and emotionally, with the teasing and the flirting and the longing looks…the fact that he was so willing to bottom for Kevin with practically no hesitation, that felt like real emotion and physical attraction to me, not just ‘let me hang out with someone my mom would like’. He had opportunities to walk away from that too, but didn’t. I didn’t believe in a Patrick that was so self-deluded that he would walk away from someone he supposedly loved and into something with someone he barely tolerated just because it was the ‘safer, more obvious’ choice, especially as that choice was so complicated given the presence of Jon. I gave him more credit than that. 

At the end of the day, why is it worse for Patrick to fall in love with someone who is rich and successful and good looking, NOT because of those things, but because they have so many shared passions, interests, a strong physical attraction, and a similar outlook on life? I can see if a viewer considers Kevin as a pure metaphor for a lying cheat it would be easy to disregard him, but I never saw Kevin as that. I saw him as conflicted, troubled, flawed, knocked out of his comfort zone by his growing feelings for someone, made vulnerable by his need for a man who was complicated and difficult and needy and much less comfortable than the partner he was already with, and it was a hard decision to make, but he did make it, and turned his life upside down and took a risk that Patrick would take him back. I never saw Kevin as collecting Patrick as a trophy. 

Ultimately the way it read to me was that Richie’s very grounded, very soulful and open approach to life was something that Patrick wanted to aspire to. To emulate. Like a mentor. He wanted to be more at peace with his place in life, with his homosexuality, with his choices, the way Richie seemed to be. And it was a beautiful friendship with much to offer Patrick.

Kevin offered Patrick something very different. A truly sexual relationship with a man who treated him like a fully sexual being who didn’t feel disappointment in him, didn’t need Patrick to behave a certain way, wasn’t a mentor but was starting as an equal. And had a past that would challenge Patrick and test his self-confidence and his feelings of self-worth.  

I understand that the writers had something different in mind, and that Richie was always end-game, but I think they planned to expand on that over more series, and I’m not sure that they were there yet by the end of season 2.  

I would have liked to have seen how they would have made that pivot back to Richie, but my lament about the film was that the end wasn’t earned. I didn’t buy it when Patrick said he’d been in love with him from the beginning. The evidence wasn’t there.

So…that was my read on it. I don’t feel comfortable shipping a pair that is not canon, I don’t have the strength of imagination for that, so it has been hard for me to reconcile my wishes with the film, however, I also can’t unsee what I thought I saw while watching the show, and so I will forever view Richie as the sweetest, most grounded, well adjusted character of the show who is a true mentor, and Kevin as the complicated, flawed, anti-hero who I adore with all his conflicted and messed-up actions and behaviors. 

I’ve always found your posts & fics respectful & you’re not one of the people I was referring to.

A couple of points though:

1) people like to say Kevin & Patrick had “more in common” but what exactly did they have in common other than video games & childhood love for pop dance routines? Major things they do not have in common include: every other aspect of their childhood/family experience, the type of building/community they want to live in, the type of people they like to hang out with, attitude towards monogamy/relationships

(Not saying I think it’s wrong to want a couple that DOESN’T have everything in common by the way; Richie & Patrick don’t have much in common beyond the type of relationship that they want to have & wanting to have it with each other. Just saying I never get this point.)

2) “Nothing was standing in his way” - except the fact that he’d just had sex with someone else 15 minutes before. What was he supposed to do, say, no, Richie I love you, but I’ve got to go in and take a shower?

He recognized that the fact that he’d cheated meant that he was not in fact ready for Richie’s love, that Richie was right, and that he had to simply accept that. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t in love or didn’t care. He cried like a baby!

3) Being willing to be penetrated, or any kind of sexual activity really, is not necessarily connected to emotion.

4) Didn’t say Patrick “barely tolerated” Kevin though. I think it’s exactly as he says in the movie: he wanted to love him, he loved the idea of them. He let Kevin go when he knew it wouldn’t work and would cause them both pain, and that is an act of caring.

5) I was heated up by some ugly comments when I wrote this so I was a little more unkind about Kevin than I might have been. I actually think Kevin is an interesting & complex character, and I’m sympathetic to him in many ways. However, I do think his attitude towards money & ambition, and his abandonment issues stem from his childhood, and I do think they play into his desire to pursue Patrick, and his relationship to Jon. I don’t think he wanted Patrick SOLELY bc he fit the vision of an alpha gay prince, b/c Jon was closer to that vision. But I do think he was driven to possess him in a way, due to his own innate inability to be satisfied with what he has.

As you know psychoanalyzing Kevin could take an entire book, though, so I’ll stop there.

6) I can point-by-point establish where the writers indicated Patrick still had feelings for Richie in season 2 & would have already gotten back together with Richie if he was available (especially in 2x05) but I’m not trying to talk you out of your ship. This was really only addressed to people who in fact attack Richie on the basis of his ethnicity or financial situation, or even worse, drag the actors into it.

It’s perfectly fine to ship something that isn’t canon btw. In this case unless you choose to believe that Patrick is lying when he says that he was always in love with Richie, you’ve kind of got no choice. This is the ending the writers always intended, they unfortunately had to speed it up but that doesn’t mean they changed their minds along the way.

ok. so…

1) I think they had more in common than gaming and childhood games. I think they shared a silly saucy sense of humor (and I know I may seem to harp on this but I have always found humor one of the most attractive things about a person so for me that is absolutely key). They tease and banter and I live for that. It is the way I show affection so I interpret it as affection. I agree that there are differences too. The old vs new is definitely a traditional short-hand way of expressing of self-made vs old-money, but even so, Patrick has ambition and loves his career. He tells Kevin that it’s all he ever wanted to do, be in the video-game world, so programming, technology, role-playing, designing, working in a team, working for a corporation…these are not necessarily trivial. (again, I have a bias because I am from this world and so is my husband so we bonded over love of technology and gadgets). I think they also both came from cold backgrounds, with parents that were at best, withholding, and Patrick can immediately see the damage that has done to Kevin. 

2) When I say nothing was standing in his way, I mean that he could have fought a little harder if he felt a little stronger. I believe they shot two versions of the end, one with Richie and him ending up in bed together, and the one we saw. I think the show runners deliberately chose to go with the more ambiguous ending to leave us with a cliff-hanger, but to me it was a ‘sign’. I saw the tears as tears of sadness that this wasn’t going to work, and he wished it had, because it was the ideal romance in his head. The one that proved how evolved and grown up he was. Again, just how i read it. 

3) I think for Patrick being penetrated was an emotionally laden issue, because he had felt only physical discomfort to that point. Physically it was something he was not particularly into, and I believe that his willingness to jump straight into that with Kevin was more of an indication of his overwhelming feelings of lust. I know that isn’t the only foundation of a relationship, but it is a strong one. 

4) I totally agree that Patrick felt that about Kevin. I was worried about that by the end of season 2. That Kevin was going to be another stepping-stone in Patrick’s journey. That Patrick’s view of monogamy was going to be a deal-breaker.

I don’t buy the theory of once-a-cheater because of personal experiences in my life (I was a Jon, not a Kevin b.t.w.) and I believe that people change and evolve as more experiences inform them, and interestingly, Patrick’s view of monogamy and what defines a relationship is definitely the minority, heteronormative view, but I also believe that Kevin was willing to be what Patrick wanted him to be, and that he was trying to start a discussion for that purpose. Though I think this last point is what will forever be the breaking point for anti or pro Kevin (not that I am saying you are anti, but I know some people are for that reason)

6) as for this, this is the part where I am the saddest. Because I watched the same show and interpreted things differently, and in the end none of that matters because the show runners had a point of view that they saw through to the end. I saw those same points where Patrick spoke to and about Richie, and to me they still showed someone desperate for someone’s approval because of how highly they respected their opinion, not of someone in love. But, I was wrong.

As for shipping them, I still do, but my ship now incorporates this latest twist. I don’t say Patrick was lying, because he is, after all, a fictional character, and he is just saying the words that the writers wrote. I am saying though that for me the words did not flow from what I had seen. They did not ring true and consistent. 

The same way Patrick mocking Kevin as being a hungry bottom to his one-night stand did not ring true. Why would Patrick be so mean and bitchy? Why would he think Kevin slept with the young man? Why say that he wasn’t surprised that Kevin hired a pretty young thing to replace him? Nothing in the Kevin I saw implied any of this would be true. It seemed a little out of character for Patrick to be so unforgiving of what was ultimately NOT a betrayal, but a discussion of potential relationship parameters. Mis-steps like that were jarring. 

Anyway, nice discussion. Always wanted to have an open chat with a Richie fan to swap perspectives.

I don’t say this to make you feel bad, but saying they’re both upwardly mobile is sort of lending to my point about classism - this isn’t something Patrick valued in a relationship.

I actually felt like their backgrounds were quite different - Pat’s parents were cold but overbearing; your mother leaving you is a much different thing. Honestly I didn’t think Patrick was equipped to give Kevin the reassurance he needed because of this.

2) I can only speak to the show as it exists, but I’ll point out Haigh specified that if they’d used the other ending Patrick would have kept the secret of having sex with Kevin from Richie. Perhaps the writers decided against this b/c it would have made a P&R ending less plausible.

3) This is why discussing Looking is hard because people have such different outlooks on love etc. but I just personally disagree with this one, I don’t think lust is a basis for a relationship at all. As I saw it, them getting together that way ultimately doomed their relationship. Had they resisted & waited until they were both single IMO they might have lasted.

4) I’m not anti-Kevin, but that’s why I didn’t root for their relationship: I didn’t think Kevin was wrong about his view of what he wanted in a relationship & I didn’t think he should have to change. But I don’t think Patrick is wrong to want monogamy either.

And people can change, but to me the fact that Kevin is back with Jon in an open relationship indicated he really didn’t want to. Patrick could have chosen to believe Kevin on pure faith, but I don’t see any evidence to this date that Kevin ever was or would have been monogamous.

As for Patrick being a little bitchy about Kevin, well, they did have a bad breakup. Richie was a little bitchy about Patrick after they broke up too. I don’t even think being a hungry bottom is a bad thing, personally!

And thinking Kevin is sleeping with other people isn’t unreasonable; I mean, when he talks to Kevin, Kevin does confirm that he’s…sleeping with other people.

"I don't feel comfortable shipping a pair that is not canon. I don't have the strength of imagination for that, so it's been hard for me to reconcile my wishes with the film,"

Which ultimately has led you to create a multi-chapter saga of Patrick and Kevin leaving Richie and Jon again, in order to fulfill your wish that wasn't granted by Haigh and Lannan. Something, by the way that was never, ever going to happen.

For the creators, Kevin was "another stepping stone" in Patrick's journey, back to Richie. For the creators, they had Kevin expressing the wish that he had wanted Patrick to give him the chance to show him that he could be monogamous. That they could have tried....Yet, here is Kevin back with his ex-boyfriend Jon, (who initially had no idea that Kevin had numerous one offs, before his affair with Patrick) and this time, Jon's aware of Kevin's traits and has accepted that as something that Kevin needs, in order for their new relationship to work, or at least have a chance.

As for Patrick, in your opinion, being nasty about Kevin towards his ONS: Patrick feels like he knows Kevin's method of operation, especially when it comes to guys that hit whatever it is that gets Kevin sexually stimulated. Also, if you believe what Kevin had to say in his exchange with Patrick, why are you saying that what Patrick had been saying about Kevin to that guy, was out of character?

[NOTE: the below discussion assumes that you have watched LOOKING. If not, it will not make any sense. Go watch it. I will probably blog more about it among other things.]

Though many focused on the sex and politics within it, LOOKING is in essence a simple story of a man searching for a soulmate. The central relationship is an homage to Jane Austen: the characters are as perfectly suited to each other as yin and yang, and despite some initial friction and bickering due to personal flaws and differences of background, they are in love, but there’s one obstacle that ruins everything – money.

Richie and Patrick are PRIDE & PREJUDICE, but with the financial situation of the main characters reversed. This time, Mr. Darcy, the sensitive, dignified character who only rarely expresses his deep and powerful emotions, is working-class. Elizabeth Bennett, the flighty flibbertigibbet who speaks too rashly and rushes too quickly to impulsive actions and judgments, comes from an upper-middle-class background. They also happen to be of different ethnicities, and though they are intrigued by each other’s cultural differences, there are inherent problems that arise from them.

While Patrick does not himself personally care about whether Richie has money or not, and is interested to date someone whom he can learn something new and different from, his lingering self-loathing and resentment about his parents’ lack of acceptance of his gayness cause him to cling to a certain aspect of his class privilege. He feels that if he brings a rich man home to Mother, one similar to the one his sister marries, he’ll be accepted as “just like everybody else”. The problem is that Patrick does not actually LIKE this type of man, which is the root of all his romantic failures. His one previous boyfriend is a WASP-y clone of him who he labeled “boring” (you can feel that they achieved bed death one month into their relationship). He goes on a date with a douche-y doctor who is dull as dishwater and laughs at none of his jokes. He pursues what looks right on paper, but which is entirely wrong for him.

As Patrick is the protagonist, we do not get as much of Richie’s perspective, but we do learn that he tends to date men of a certain “type” (not just white men, but particularly preppy and/or nerdy hipster white men). How this relates to Richie’s feelings of rejection from his family and community due to his sexuality is something that should have been explored further, and is one of the biggest losses of the LOOKING cancellation.

Both characters, at various times, wonder if they are a token for the other. Richie initially rejects Patrick when he feels he’s being sexually fetishized; Patrick is driven mad when he realizes that Richie is dating a man who is exactly like him in a number of superficial ways – white, educated, a little bitchy, etc. Richie has been through this kind of relationship before, has had his heart broken before, and his fear that Patrick is like all the others leaves him with little patience for Patrick’s mistakes. Patrick is clumsy and inexperienced at love, and in his desire to prove to Richie how much he wants him, ends up forcing everything too fast, panicking, and driving him away.

During the second season of LOOKING, after having been dumped by Richie, Patrick falls into an affair and then a relationship with his partnered boss, another man whom he idealizes as being “right on paper”: rich, good-looking, confident, powerful. He fails to see or even try to learn who this man actually is: someone with deep insecurities from growing up working-class himself, abandoned by his mother, raised by a neglectful and possibly abusive single father. Kevin is driven to not only pursue money, but to marry up into the higher class. He has his Ivy League doctor boyfriend, but it is not enough. He wants a wife, a kept man, one whose very livelihood he controls. He wants a fancy apartment with a high-tech security system, a fancy cocktail, and a pretty WASP prince to show off.

The seeds of doom for Kevin & Patrick’s relationship are planted before they even argue over the issue of fidelity. During the fight that dissolves their relationship, one of them is continually trying to get to a benefit for a homeless trans teen shelter, and the other would prefer to drink bourbon with his rich white neighbors and hang up his soccer posters. Patrick realizes, over the course of this night, that they have nothing real in common, and that he has been reacting against his desire to be with someone else. Kevin remains in denial, lying to himself about who he is and what he wants, a theme that continues into the movie.

This being a show dedicated to realism, the Kevin & Patrick relationship never could continue past this point. Yet, some fans continued to ship it. I understand this. Not everyone watches a show with acceptance of what the writing intends. If you think a particular actor is more attractive than another, or has more chemistry with the protagonist, it’s perfectly fine to root for it, as long as you accept that you are choosing to ignore what the characters are actually saying and doing.

It is, however, bizarre that some fans respond to this storyline by EMBRACING the very classism that the show denounces.

“HMPF. I suppose Patrick would rather have a $4 charm necklace than a guy who buys him a condo”, I have heard some ‘fans’ say. Precisely the fucking point. Yes, Patrick would rather have a meaningful gift that costs nothing and was given with love, than an expensive present that was bought with no regards for his actual tastes or interests. He kept that escapulario in his Valuables box for a reason. It was priceless to him.

Also, the racism of calling an escapulario a “charm necklace” sums up the irony of racism/classism within the LOOKING fandom in a nutshell: that someone can actually quote Agustin (“hideous charm necklaces”) directly without realizing that they are being an asshole.

If you do not think Patrick should prefer a man with no money to a rich guy, SOLELY FOR THAT REASON, that is your set of values and perspective, not the show’s. Patrick never needed or wanted a man to provide for him, or provoke his ambitions. You cannot say that the writers misled you or betrayed you on this account. Their message was clear at every step: if you are racist and/or classist you will make poor decisions and miss out on opportunities for true relationships and friendships between human beings.

And beyond that, it is fine to ship what you ship, even if you choose to ignore the actual storyline and theme: that is what shipping is for. It is NOT fine to be unable to distinguish between actor and character. It is unacceptable to attack an actor for his ethnicity or sexuality because you don’t like his character and hate the fact that he was portrayed as the romantic ideal.

Bear in mind that when you go around screaming at other fans that, in your opinion, a straight actor cannot perform gay love scenes, you are also implying that a gay actor cannot play a straight character. This is simply inverted homophobia, and it is unacceptable in people who claim to be fans of a gay show.

You’re not fooling anybody by using coded racism along the lines of “I can’t understand his accent” either (especially when you have no problem understanding a white actor with an Essex accent so thick I’ve had to ask Brits to interpret his interviews for me before).

As a result, I’m disappointed in some – not most, but a vicious and virulent few – LOOKING fans. This show had enough attacks from the outside: gay shows always do. They had to face homophobic trolls, as well as expectations of portraying 10-20% of the population that they (like every other gay show, book, movie, etc.) could not possibly live up to. The last thing they needed on top of that was people who claimed to love the show attacking the actors for who they are or the writers for their intentions. It’s not their fault if you don’t understand the story you’re watching or what it’s trying to say.

In the ones where P&K are moving in together, Patrick has Richie’s escapulario in his Valuables box in the next room.

In the one where Kevin has waited for Patrick on the stoop, Patrick has just freaked out in the previous episode about Brady being Richie’s soulmate.

In the one where they’re cuddling on the couch, Patrick gets up the next morning to go see Richie.

[Hey, here’s a quick Looking movie coda before I write road trip fic of them driving Richie’s barber truck all the way to San Antonio, TX.]

It’s almost four in the morning by the time they leave Orphan Andy’s and head for the trains.

Patrick’s exhaustion is a little dizzying when combined with the pure relief of his fingers tangled in Richie’s—but his heart’s still thumping in his chest, he’s still giddy and teary-eyed at the same time.

He laughs as Richie wipes under his eyes with his thumbs, while the others say goodbye a little ways down the sidewalk. Patrick leans into Richie’s hands, kisses his soft smile. 

“I wanna come with you to Texas.”

Russell T. Davies on Looking (via lookinghbo)

Wise words, Davis. Couldn’t agree more.

(via lookingfans)