im not dying in this room with you

[Question: Uh, hi. Your live audience at the minute seems to be mostly women, maybe 70%, 80%. Do you think that makes a difference to, like, the vibe in the room? Does it make a difference to what you do and say on stage?]

Gerard: You know, I— Yeah, and it's— and you know, um, I've noticed more it's more so. It used to be a little bit more mixed with men and women, now it's largely a women-only audience. I had a talk with my therapist about this (audience laughs), and I said, I said, "What's that about?"

And, uh, no, it came up because I was working on a project and it involved, um, either a transgender character or two very strong female lead characters. And I— I had been talking about why, you know, why why do I write these kinds of characters? Why am I— why do I connect stronger with women?

- m/f ship between a nonblack man & a Black woman

- it's either canon (e.g. mel/jayce arcane, arthur/guinevere bbcmerlin) or entirely plausible (e.g. prism or coupé/robert dispatch)

- fanbase overwhelmingly pairs nb man off with another nb man and disengages from the Black woman character, shunting her into a background wise & sassy caretaker role (for which there is a name) or leaving her out of fanworks entirely

- fans who do this ^ claim it is an expression of love and admiration for the Black woman character, actually, bc the nb man (who may be her canonical partner) "can't handle all that" (he may be perfectly competent and engaged; she may be totally low maintenance; it has no bearing), she's just too wonderful (too much) and out of his league (lacking in flaws and interiority and fan appeal)

A gif of text that is on fire. It reads:

Evening with Bright Light, 2020

13 sketchbook pages. part of Gospel of Dirt opening 07/09