Hey there, buddy! I really hope that you knee surgery went well, and that you’ll be over the worst of the pain as soon as possible. Stay comfy and rest well. If you are not too swamped with requests, would you mind if I shoot one? Would you be able to write for Shannon O’Reily falling for a woman? Perhaps someone she initially believes to be a cute guy, only to find that she is a cute butch, and how she deals with that?
Y’all are so kind!❤️😭 Yeah it’s been… not fun. But you all delivered and I have a decent amount of requests (though I’m always hoping for more🥰) to help me take my mind off the pain. They’re all FUN requests too. I love this fandom’s creativity.
Before I write any of the characters, I track down all their scenes and watch them all to understand the character. I could see Shannon being a late in life lesbian. (Y’all don’t know much about me but I’m an early in life lesbian😂 Pansexual technically but I only seem to like fictional men and irl women lol) Sooo without further ado, I give you all;
(Also totally not basing this on the married woman I’m in love with at work and my girlfriend -open relationship- with a butch mullet… anyhoo…)
Shannon O’Reily Sullivan falling for a Butch Lesbian…
Fuck him. Real goddamn lowlife.
Shannon lit a cigarette between two trembling fingers. So he’d stay with her through high school, through infertility, through prison… but cancer was where he drew the line?
Prick. Real goddamn prick.
It’s not like she hadn’t been supportive. Like she hadn’t been up every night searching the internet for cancer treatments and the antioxidant smoothies and shit. Not like she’d been making a thousand phone calls to a thousand doctors to see if she couldn’t scrape together a better treatment than they’d give him in prison.
Shannon released the smoke in her lungs, but not the anger in her heart. She’d loved him. Actually loved him. And the first doctor who shook her tits in front of him stole him away. She puffed on the cigarette liked it’d be her last.
Now here she was, back in the city. Cyril was at his cousin’s now. Or someone’s. She’d actually miss that doofus. The way he watched her while she did her makeup and giggled whenever a certain blue dog got mail.
Now she had no one and nothing. Nothing of her old life. She’d left it all for him, and he’d left her for Dr. Nathan.
Fuck. She needed a drink.
She stopped off in some pub, she didn’t really read the sign. She plopped down on one of the barstools and flagged down the bartender.
“Whisky. Straight. Double.”
The bartender chuckled a little, and pushed back his hair.
“Sounds like you’ve had a day.”
“Don’t know the half of it, buddy.” She rasped, fingers reaching for another cigarette. The bartender held out a light. She looked him over. Cute features. Dark eyes. Kind of a feminine jaw if not for the masculine brows and piercings.
“Aren’t you the gentleman.” She said, sourly. “If my husband… ex-husband were anything like you, I wouldn’t be here.” 😅
“Hmm, wouldn’t have even had to ask if it was a rough day if you’d just lead with that.” He chucked a little, and flagged the other bartender to watch his checks. He poured her drink and handed it to her, and she shot it back, holding it in her mouth for a second so she could feel the burn. She made a gesture to fill it again. So he did. She threw it back again, just as effortlessly as the first, when she made the motion again, he stopped her.
“A better man isn’t at the bottom of this bottle, hon.”
Shannon got angry. Yet someone else dictating her life. The bartender seemed to understand this, so added;
“Just sit with it for a few seconds. I’m not saying I won’t serve you, just… pace yourself.” 🥲
After a second of silence, he asked,
“Who’s this shit ex?”
Shannon felt the tears well up in her eyes so she explained everything. The marriage. The infertility. The brother. The arrest. The cancer. Everything just came spilling out as she sobbed. Her head was starting to spin. She felt a hand on hers, a little bigger than her own.
“Sorry, hon. Sounds like a real piece of work. Still, he’s in pain and scared right now. Could be that. I’m not saying go back to him or anything, but… I’m saying it’s not you.”
She sniffs and drinks the water the guy pours for her.
“The real shitty part. The part that sucks more than anything else… I actually loved the bastard.”
“That’s always the kicker, isn’t it. You actually love them and then they do something that makes you feel like they were fooling you. You feel silly, and small.”
She sniffed, wiping at her mascara.
“What bitch broke your heart?”
He laughed at her bluntness and reflected.
“Emily. Sweet girl. Beautiful girl. Though… she would always do this thing where if something was funny she’d actually said “wait that’s so funny”. Every time. Like it was just occurring to her.”
They both laughed. Shannon’s fingers stopped trembling.
“Ryan once complained that it was cold but he hated wearing socks to bed so the idiot literally cut the toe off the sock.”😂
Shannon and the bartender laugh for ten minutes about their past relationships. For just ten minutes, she got to remember and forget that bastard all at once. 🙂
“Sorry, I never got your name.” Shannon giggled, head starting to spin.
“Natalie.”
“…what.”
Shannon’s head popped up and she really looked at her bartender closely. That feminine jaw started looking a lot more suspicious, even if the mullet had thrown her off. And the lashes a little too long. Lips a little too full… oh god.
“Youre a chick?” She almost accused. The bartender seemed confused.
“Last time I checked, yeah.”
“But… your ex girlfriend?”
“Yeah?”
Shannon hadn’t been living under a rock. She’d heard about lesbians. She’d just never met one so frank. She grabbed her bag, embarrassed.
“Im sorry I thought you were… someone else.”🥸
She rushes out of the bar, only to hear a voice call after her.
“I’m sorry, Shannon!”
She sighed in the doorway and turned around and went back.
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m a little turned around right now.” She said to Natalie, who just gave a sad smile.
“You’re okay. Just kind of thought you knew.”
“Well, I didn’t. You… don’t exactly look traditionally feminine.”
“Yeah, worked on that for years.” Natalie responded.
Shannon laughed.
“If I may ask… what’s the draw?” Shannon leaned forward and whispered. Natalie leaned forward too, and whispered back.
“First of all, I don’t know why we’re whispering. You’re the only one here who didn’t know I’m gay.”
Shannon snickered and went to light another cigarette. Natalie outstretched a lit lighter.
“Second, I don’t know. I just saw guys in their clothes and thought it looked comfortable. Put em on, and suddenly I just felt like myself.”
“So, you like being confused with a guy?”
“I like being me. If other people confuse me with a man, I’ll just correct them. Although…”
“Although?” Shannon asked, sipping on her water again.
“Its not like I haven’t used he/him pronouns before. Sometimes the girl isn’t ready to be with someone super feminine, sometimes I have to pretend to be a guy in public just so we aren’t harassed.”
“Jesus.” Shannon was playing with her long nails.
“That’s also kind of a no no.” The woman gestured to her nails.
“You’re not allowed to look great as a lesbian?”
Natalie tells Shannon the history of lesbian culture that she needs to know. Doc martins and plaid and all that.
“Too bad.” Shannon mentions into her promised third whiskey. Natalie asks what she means.
“Too bad you’re a woman, I mean.” Shannon smiled. “I’ve liked talking to you, Natalie.
“You can keep talking to me even though I’m a woman, y’know.”
“I’m not a lesbian.”
“You don’t have to be a lesbian to talk to a lesbian. We can still hang if you want. Promise I’ll get no ungentlemanly ideas.”
Shannon agrees.
They get coffee with each other before work every day. It’s a lot of Shannon badmouthing Ryan but sometimes they talk about other things.
They start hanging out at nights at each other’s homes. They start watching shows together. Start ordering food for each other.
Shannon is crying one day when Natalie gets there.
“What’s going on, hon?”
Shannon explains that she has to give Ryan the divorce paperwork to sign and go over everything.
“I can’t face him. Not him and his new woman.”
“…you could always take me.”
Natalie explains to Shannon that she can pretend to be her new girlfriend for the paperwork. Just so that Ryan doesn’t pull any shit about her not having anyone.
“I’ve done this for a few of my straight friends. Guys have fewer questions when their woman shows up with a woman.”
Shannon agrees, taking Natalie up with her to go see Ryan.
He’s shamelessly flirting with Dr. Nathan, who is doing her best to ignore him. Natalie leads Shannon in by her hand.
“Ryan.”
“Shannon.” He acknowledged her as coolly as she did him. He notices Natalie over her shoulder.
“Who’s the dyke?”
Shannon’s face burned.
“This is Natalie. She’s been a lot of help since the divorce.” Shannon throws the papers down at Ryan. “Just give me the house. Not like you’re gonna use it any time soon anyway.”
“Fine.” Ryan starts to sign. His eyes keep getting drawn up towards Natalie, who’s stroking her arm softly. “Oh, I see.”
“I’m betting you’re wrong.”
“No, it’s just that it usually takes women a lot longer to go lez.”
“You’re a pig.”
“Nah, I think I got this figured out.”
“You certainly do,” Natalie jumped in, “if you’re implying your dick put her off men in general.”
Shannon laughed and covered her mouth. She’d spoken back to Ryan dozens of times, but never like that.
Ryan’s face goes red. He signs the forms.
“Yeah yeah, just take the butch and leave.”
Shannon is giggling and holding Natalie’s arm the entire way out.
“The look on his face!” Shannon shrieked, throwing her head back to laugh again. “And I got the house! All thanks to you, Nat.”
“Thanks, Shannon, but that was all you-“
Shannon feels her lips on Natalie’s before she even realizes it was her that leaned forward.
“I… I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“…you’re good.” Natalie responds with a smile. Shannon catches herself staring again.
“I’m just all turned around right now.”
“That’s okay too.”
“I didn’t mean to-“
“Shannon, it’s okay. I’m here if you want a friend. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t settle for more. I’ve just learned my lesson getting my hopes up on straight women.”
Shannon thinks for a second, chuckling darkly into her cigarette.
“Why don’t we though?”
“Hmm?”
“Why don’t we go out?”
“… if I’ve not been grossly misinformed thus far, it’s because you’re straight.”
“Am I? I think you’re funny, and sweet, and cute. We get coffee. We call each other over on bad nights. We do everything lovers do except we don’t call it that. Why don’t we just call it that then, if that’s the only thing we’re missing. I don’t know if I’m gay. I just know that if you were a man, I’d have no doubts. So it’s worth a try at least.”
Natalie doesn’t know how to respond. She felt herself falling for a straight woman again.
But Natalie can’t say no to those intense eyes.
Natalie crept a hand around Shannon’s.
“Let’s try it then.”
Shannon was right, they were basically living as lovers.
Natalie would come over with food for Shannon after a bad day. Not that box of chocolates and champagne shit. Natalie brings a gallon of chocolate milk and some cheese its. Soul food.
Shannon gets her period on a date and gets embarrassed.
“Babe, c’mon.”
Natalie makes her a makeshift heat pack and orders tacos.
“Can you go to the store and get me some tampons?”
“…I could do that. Or you could just use mine.”😂
Shannon isn’t butch but is intrigued when her closet just doubled in size. She also likes to dress Natalie.
Natalie is decked out, head to toe in a little black dress and heels.
“Get this off of me, Shanna Banana.”
“You look like my own personal Barbie!”
She comes along physically. The kisses are first. Then some light petting. Then more intense and sexual acts.
“Huh.”
“Yeah?”
“Just realized I’m physically attracted to you.”
“…yay?”
Shannon asks a lot of questions starting with “do lesbians ______?”
Natalie pretends it’s a game show.
“Can this baby gay determine if lesbians are capable of doing something, more after these messages.”
Natalie introduces her to girl showers/baths.
“Even the butchiest butch knows how to set up a good bath for her girl.”
They get a Polaroid and just take pictures of each other to hang around the house.
Historians will say they were best friends.
Shannon still doesn’t get that joke.
They adopt a dog together. Duke the Great Dane.
They love their big tired boy.
Shannon loves going shopping with Natalie. Natalie doesn’t like it as much as Shannon does, but she gets the feeling Ryan wasn’t very supportive of things she liked.
You watch Baseball together. Yankees mostly.
Shannon just likes yelling at the ref.
She finally gets to try making new food. Ryan was a picky eater and Cyril even more so -but she doesn’t blame Cyril for any of that.
Finally gets to try that Romanian place everyone was fussing over.
Shannon likes legos. Likes building the flower models for around the house. She starts building everything they need; pencil holders, jewelry boxes, even a fruit bowl.
She never needs Natalie’s help speaking up for herself again. Shannon’s a tough, Irish bitch. Do something wrong and she’ll let you know.
For the first time in a long time, Shannon was happy. Really happy.
She’d become happy she’d been forced into a divorce. She’d never have met Natalie.
Turned out she was worth it to someone. Just one person. And that’s all she needed. ❤️
Bonus: Shannon’s breakup song with Ryan is No Children, by the Mountain Goats. She sings it at the top of her lungs during karaoke. She always hits the line “I hope that if I found the strength to walk out, you’d stay the hell out of my way” a little harder.
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Porky’s
Do you ever look at a pug and think “I can’t believe you’re descended from wolves”? That’s kind of how I feel going into a completely cold viewing of Porky’s (requested by Chad, of course). I’ve seen many a teen sex comedy in my day, but this is the granddaddy of them all and I’ve never seen it. This is the wolf that walked so American Pie the pug could run. I’m not expecting anything resembling likeable characters or good writing here, but I am curious about why this movie was the one to really break out and make a name for itself. There’s not much plot to be had - a group of horny dudes at a Florida high school in the 1950s are sex-crazed monsters who set up elaborate pranks on each other, objectify women, terrorize sex workers, and learn an after-school special lesson about racism, maybe? There’s also a side plot about Kim Cattrall howling like a dog during sex. So far, I’m not seeing where the enduring legacy is coming from. As a sex comedy, it’s terribly unfunny AND deeply unsexy, but like a weird Trojan horse plot twist, this is the best ACAB propaganda advocating for abolition of the police (and with its weird racist undertones, probably abolition of ICE as well!) that I’ve ever seen. Truffles in shit, I guess?
Some thoughts:
I see that we’re using the Grease method of casting 35-year-olds to play teenagers. Maybe everyone born in the mid-30s actually did look twice their age when they were in high school. They went through the war, that shit prematurely ages a person.
WOW there are way more racial slurs being thrown around than I expected. I mean, I expected some, sure, but wow, this is a lot. Exotic ones, too, not just your typical anti-black nonsense.
We do see some peen and a lot of male butts, so there’s at least some equal opportunity exploitation here.
Interesting that there’s a subplot about Tim (Cyril O’Reilly) and his just-out-of-prison father being abusive as if we’re attempting to humanize and soften the most virulent racist - we’re talking real in-your-face bigotry - in the film. Are they actually trying to make Schwartz (Scott Colomby) feel sympathy for his abuser because Tim’s dad beat him up after Tim assaulted Schwartz and lost? And the resolution is for Tim to stand up to his dad and say “If being a man means being what you are, I’d rather be queer.” Has...has anyone written about the homoerotic relationship between Tim and Schwartz? The way they protect each other and have that nice little moment after Tim’s dad is arrested? There’s an enemies-to-lovers slow burn fanfic OR a dissertation in here about compulsory heterosexuality in teen sex comedies - I’d read either one..
The actual Porky’s club is a nightmare - there’s Confederate flags everywhere, and one of the patrons tries to assault one of the dancers. Also Mr. Porky refers to his dancers as piglets, so good job! I hate Porky’s the most out of everything I hate in this movie!
Nice to see that the cops are good ol boys blatantly racketeering and extorting money from folks who are, admittedly, assholes but still. They don’t even pretend not to be dirty cops. These are the villains of the movie.
I also feel like it’s significant that Schwartz is the only character who seems even remotely decent. It’s as if his status as the Other means he’s de-sexed and not allowed to participate in the creepy behavior of the rest of the guys, but by extension that actually means he’s the only one I’d be willing to spend more than 30 seconds with.
It feels as if this script was just a collection of pranks the writers came up with and the flimsiest wet tissue paper plot to connect them all together. Rather than the precursor to American Pie, this lives comfortably in that space that all those terrible spoof movies of the early 2000s did - Date Move, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, etc. If your plot is just a series of 2-to-4-word “joke” pitches on post it notes (locker room peephole! Gym teacher grabs dick! Woman howls during sex! Naked running!)...you know what, I was gonna say something insulting, but this movie made truckloads of money for the creators, so what the fuck do I know? Keep doing your thing I guess even if it’s more depressing than - and contains the same amount of artistic integrity as - a crusty pan of congealed eggs at the breakfast buffet in a strip club just like Porky’s.
The infamous shower scene is horrifying for all of the sexual harassment, but turns out there’s also a bunch of virulent fatphobia and the sexual assault of one of the peeping toms as well. Just when you think this movie can’t fit any more horrors in it, it really steps up to the plate. Also, for any of you aspiring screenwriters out there, I’mma need you to jot this down - girls’ reaction to being watched in the shower is not to find it hilarious and want to further engage with the peeping tom.
I’m no structural engineer, but I just don’t think a couple of piece of shit fishing boats and a 20 horsepower 1951 Chevy pickup can pull out the foundation of an entire building. Like, fuck Porky’s - I have no problem with this plan to basically demolish the building, but I find it hard to believe that this infrastructure is so shoddy that you can just take it out no sweat. The WPA probably built that bridge! That’s some solid American craftsmanship!
In the big climax, the villains of the piece (the bad cops) are outsmarted by the good cops - you know, the ones who are also engaging in intimidation, threats with a deadly weapon, and extortion. But see, they ARE pretending they aren’t dirty, and that’s what makes them the good guys! Literally, the showdown ends up being “you’re corrupt, but we’re more corrupt, and if you try to prove it you’ll have to expose how corrupt you are so MIC DROP BITCHES” and then the good cops break some headlights and that’s the end of the movie. So the moral of the story is that we live in a terrifying police state and cops can do whatever they want, and you just better hope that the cops are on YOUR side. Am I saying that this movie influenced NWA when they wrote and released “Fuck tha Police” in 1988? No. But I’m not NOT saying it.
Did I Cry? Only on the inside.
You already know if you’re going to like this movie before you watch it. What you might not know is that this is the highest-grossing movie from Canada for over 20 years. Everything about my experience of watching this movie was perplexing, and the way that fact makes me feel pretty much encapsulates the rest of my feelings on the matter.
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