if you take life too seriously it ceases to be funny

Cambridge Spies (2003) | Episode 2

Sense and Sensibility (1995)

Yonderland (2013-2016) | 1.04 The Ultimate Prize (credit to @larryrickard for the Yonderland downloads!)

"Okay, everything seems to be in ord- oh fuck now what? Oh huh. Alright fine. New orders came in, cancel the menstrual cycle. Dig up the genetic balding patterns from somewhere, I don't fucking know they're buried somewhere in the dna. I'm greenlighting the growing-hair-on-your-toes thing. Yeah just cancel the ongoing maintenance processes, new orders came in so this is apparently what we're doing now."

dna is mostly just instructions for building proteins, and not very persuasive ones at that. it sits in the nucleus of the cell, and what happens after RNA transcription isn't any of its business. this is a good thing! it means we can override it sometimes when we need to (and when we know how). but a lot of rhetoric around DNA (and therefore gender and sex and morphological freedom in general) treats it like this Platonic sorcery that must be obeyed, lest we incur the wrath of the gods. and it's nothing so special!

MERYL STREEP as DONNA SHERIDAN MAMMA MILF MIA! (2008) dir. Phyllida Lloyd

How I Met Your Mother | 2.17

How I Met Your Mother | 9.18

THE GOOD PLACE (2016—2020) cr. Michael Schur