God Is Looking Back

MLM Poly Ship Tournament -Round One: Poll #4

One of my favorite details of adult Niall’s characterization is how he strategically deploys true information to get himself out of corners he’s been backed into. Like when he’s upset because of like…. everything that happened in ep 5… but primarily bc he just cheated on Ava in a way he knows on some level could get him killed. He uses the truth about what he did with the 30k (bc the jig is up on that anyway so he may as well get his moneys worth) to explain why he’s distraught and redirect Ava away from any and all of the Ruben stuff she could have asked about. And when he has to come out bc the plot has hit him with a real carrot-and-stick double whammy about it lol he’s like okay well then I’m going to use that to wiggle out of the other situation Ruben was suspicious about

“I think a lot about queer villains, the problem and pleasure and audacity of them. I know I should have a very specific political response to them. I know, for example, I should be offended by Disney’s lineup of vain, effete, ne'er-do-wells (Scar, Jafar), sinister drag queens (Ursula, Cruella de Vil), and constipated, man-hating power dykes (Lady Tremaine, Maleficent). I should be furious at Downton Abbey’s scheming gay butler and Girlfriend’s controlling lunatic lesbian, and I should be indignant about Rebecca and Strangers on a Train and Laura and The Terror and All About Eve, and every other classic and contemporary foppish, conniving, sissy, cruel, humorless, depraved, evil, insane homosexual on the large and small screen. And yet, while I recognize the problem intellectually–the system of coding, the way villainy and queerness become a kind of shorthand for each other–I cannot help but love these fictional queer villains. I love them for all of their aesthetic lushness and theatrical glee, their fabulousness, their ruthlessness, their power. They’re always by far the most interesting characters on the screen. After all, they live in a world that hates them. They’ve adapted; they’ve learned to conceal themselves. They’ve survived.”