#papi evangelista icons

[hcllblazerx]

lil papi icons

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[gelson9696]

angel bismark curiel

[notenoughlesbiancontent]

Got tagged by @alexharrier and I’m supposed to pick my top ten favorite women characters. The list was originally at 22, but I narrowed it down considerably to a round dozen and I can’t get rid of any more without extreme sadness. In no particular order, they are as follows:

12. Angel Evangelista- POSE

The cutest one and I just lose it a little bit every time I watch she and Papi in season 2. Also I love Indya Moore so much.

11. Frankie Bergstein- Grace and Frankie

She says all the weird stuff that I wish I was funny enough to say out loud. I recently scandalized my family by telling them that I would absolutely get with Lily Tomlin at any age and they for sure hated that so hard.

10. Stevie Budd- Schitt’s Creek

The sarcasm, the musical performance in Cabaret, the flannels. Just an icon all around.

9. Matilda- Everything’s Going to be Ok

Autistic character played by autistic actor: what’s not to love?? My heart melts every time I see her get a girlfriend for the first time.

8. Cameron Howe- Halt and Catch Fire

Genius computer programmer that’s a hot mess but also kind of amazing. I love her character the most because of her flaws and single-minded intensity.

7. Mia Warren- Little Fires Everywhere

Kerry Washington is so good in this role and I, like Izzie, wish I had her for a mom instead of the self-hating toxic PTA white bread that I do have for a mom.

6. Misty Day- American Horror Story: Coven/Apocalypse

The feelings that she had when Stevie Nicks appeared on screen are exactly the feelings I had when Stevie Nicks appeared on screen and stole my heart. A sapphic fashion icon. Also the part where she cries forever in her own personal hell when she has to dissect a live frog but then has no qualms slicing up some random dudes that killed her precious gators.

5. Petra Solano- Jane the Virgin

I loved her the most when she was being the show’s villain; I didn’t even need the gay redemption arc because she already existed that way in my head.

4. Nomi Marks- Sense8

I heard once that Keanu Reeves went out on a date with Jamie Clayton and for some reason that fact won’t leave my mind. She is such a cute actress and I love this role. She gets to do so many things throughout the course of this show and she is for sure the best part of Sense8.

3. Dani Clayton- The Haunting of Bly Manor

This woman has so much hair and anxious energy and I’m here for all of it. Even though this show is kind of short, I really liked it and she’s the part I can’t stop thinking about.

2. Good Janet (ok who am I kidding- all the Janets can come too)- The Good Place, even though she is decidedly Not A Girl (neither am I so who cares she can take over this list if she wants to)

Janet is the shit. She has some of the best jokes in all of television. The episode where they all have to escape into Janet’s void and thus all become Janets is one of the weirdest greatest bits that I’ve seen in television in recent years. 10/10 comedy.

and finally, the one that started it all, my OG gay root:

1. Miss Honey- Matilda

There are no words. I just have had a crush on this woman since my childhood and that’s pretty much it.

[raihelps]

✧ ｡ — ANGEL BISMARK CURIEL GIF PACK (POSE / S2E1, S2E2, & S2E3)

If you click on THIS LINK, you’ll be taken to #150 gifs of actor Angel Bismark Curiel, best known for playing Lil’ Papi Evangelista on the show Pose. Every gif is 245x140 in size and made by yours truly, so please do not repost or add to other gif hunts. Enjoy!

ETHNICITY: Dominican SOURCE: Pose / Season 2, Episodes 1-3 TW: Alcohol, food, kissing, mild violence, blood, & flashing lights DISCLAIMER: You may turn these into gif icons if you clearly credit me once posted.

[constantlyirksome]

For Pose’s Second Season Activism is in Vogue (2x01 Review.)

The most impressive element for Pose’s second season premier is the importance given to accurately portraying some truly harrowing realities for the LGBT community and people of color during the AIDs crisis. The show has jumped forward in time to 1990, where the body count has reached an unacceptable amount, and the community is fed up. Fed up with the state, the church, and with everyone else just willing to sit and watch their chosen families and friends die. The balls are just as fabulous, camp and fun, they are the shows most joyous moments, as you watch contestants prance, preen, and get read to filth by Pray Tell, you just wanna be there. But everyone in the ballroom feels the urgency and the sorrow of the times they live in. While the main characters snatched trophies a lot of interesting, real history was covered, and it made what is already an incredible show into something cultural essential.

The first scene opens with Pray and mother Blanca taking a trip to the very real and very horrendous Hart Island to pay their respects to a deceased friend. Hart island was essentially a mass grave on an island in the Bronx, where unclaimed bodies from city morgues, and those whose loved ones couldn’t afford proper ceremonies were buried. It became a dumping ground for victims of the AIDS epidemic, their bodies separated from everyone else, lest they give the disease to other dead people, makes sense right?

The disinterested worker who Blanca and Pray encounter just makes the place sound all the more horrible with how totally nonchalantly she describes the layout and the rules. The duo is deservedly mystified. It sort of drives home the disinterest, the total dismissal of those who died by the straight communities, by those unaffected. The actual scene they encounter after is something from a nightmare. Big diggers carve out mass graves, stacked with wooden crates, each with a body inside, with nothing but a number spray-painted on top to indicate who the poor souls inside were. Knowing that Blanca and Pray both have HIV, you can see the heartbreak and terror as Billy Porter and MJ Rodriguez give a tearful goodbye to their friend.

Jump forward to the world listening to Madonna’s Vogue, that has just been released, and the people in the ballroom scene have a reason to celebrate again, believing the exposure to their world will bring positive change. Blanca, in particular, sings queen Madonnas praises the whole episode, believing blindly that the song will change their lives. Now nearly thirty years on, we know the song didn’t do that. Madonna sort of sanitized the movement and no one outside the LGBT cared to wonder where it came from. But it’s hope; hope that drives Blanca to push herself and her children to do better.

She pushes Angel, who’s been taking cute photos with Lil Papi, to pursue modeling. She has the talent and the beauty, winning the season’s first ball looking rich AF (can we talk about that titty bounce??) Indya Moore is breathtaking both in beauty and performance. Her optimism, and then her deep shame when a photographer takes advantage of her is a thing to see. The close up shot on her face, while he takes nudes of her for his “personal collection” is so sad, you don’t need to see her body to feel her shame, and feel totally pissed at the photographer, who deservedly gets beaten half to death.

Lil Papi is her guardian angel this season, the two having become inseparable in the most adorable way ever. Their chemistry is out of this world as they flirt, and he looks at her like she’s a star in the sky, and she is! Seeing him smash that guys face in, or throwing his jacket in a rage over how she was treated is amazing. He’s everything Stanley from season one wasn’t. Stan saw her outward beauty, used her to explore whatever he was feeling with little regard to how that made her feel. Papi sees her beauty and then beyond, into how special she is inside. I personally cannot wait to see that relationship bloom, long live Papangel.

Just like I hope to see more of Papi/Angel Curiel-Bismark this season, so to do I want more of Sandra Bernhard as nurse Judy. Her compassion and patience with the people she treats, coupled with her fire at rallies is incredible, and Sandra B just brings something iconic to it that’s uniquely her. She brings Pray to his first rally with ACT UP (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power), is probably going to be one of the most significant incidents of the season. ACT UP is another real element Pose creators have added, including one of their Stop the Church protests, a passive lie in at a new york church led by Judy and the Evangelistas. The shots taken and interspersed that looked like real life VHS footage drew you back to the idea that while these are actors in a show, these protests were very real. Act Up was and is still an amazing group that works to fight Aids politically, religiously and medically. Pose’s decision to include these things is going to bring a lot of attention to the warriors on the front line of the AIDs crisis just like it did with ballroom, and that’s epic.

Pray Tell learns that liberation and change won’t come from a song but in radically tearing shit down and building it back up again, and he ends up screaming this message at Elektra, who decides to stay away from anything political this episode. Her time is spent planning an elaborate ballroom presentation so spectacular and choreographed Pray rips into her for misusing her time when her family needed her. He throws her trophy at her feet with the applause of everyone in the ballroom. I don’t believe Elektra is a bad person. I think there is a reason she is the way she is, and hopefully, we see more of that as she walks for the house of Ferocity, who sorely need her help.

Pray Tells call to arms is as fitting today now as it was back then, as people in the LGBT and trans women of colour are still being subjugated, murdered and treated like shit. Pose isn’t just shining a spotlight on the amazing ballroom scene, it’s also using its platform to integrate essential messages into its story, and hopefully it continues to teach in the same awesome ways as in the premier.

“We better start caring for ourselves. Show up for your lives, Wake up!”

Best Look: Elektra’s over the top, let them eat cake cotour, complete with spinning skirt and working guillotine. 

Best Read: Substitute ballroom announcer Jack (played by real ballroom icon Jack Mizrahi, “Trash bag realness darling, sponsored by GLAD. Hefty hefty hefty, wimpy wimpy wimpy!”

[christianworld]

Elektra's speech and congratulatory announcement to Blanca. " Ballroom is home, Ballroom is Family, Ballroom is love. And if it weren't for this community. I wouldn't where I am today. I wouldn't be who I am if it weren't for the many women, my sisters who lifted me up when I couldn't do it myself. As Tyrone observed correctly, yes, I am an icon, but that didn't happen overnight. I worked hard to leave an indelible statement. I know the work and sacrifice it takes to become a legend. To become a legend is not simply about competing and collecting trophies. It's about how you represent this community and I have seen this woman work tirelessly not only for family but for all of us. I am proud to call her my daughter and finally bestow legendary status on the one and only, my baby girl, Blanca Evangelista" ❤.

Elektra awards Blanca with the plague. At the same time, Angel, Lulu Ricky and Papi appear and they celebrate in the center of the ballroom while everyone chants Evanga! Lista! 😁😃

[hcllblazerx]

papi & angel matching icons

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[constantlyirksome]

Pose Season Finale Thoughts: AKA why I love this show.

Ok the first few scenes, where you learn Blanca has been alone and sick for EIGHT MONTHS made me unbearably sad. MJ Rodriguez pulled through this episode with some amazing work this episode she gave me some of the seasons best highs and lows. When you see her then in the hospital my heart stopped but then seeing her family come in, to reunite with Pray as well was incredibly touching... Where they been at while she’s been sick tho??

Frederica does NOT get points in my book for her women with ambition speech. She lost the right to pull the feminism/sisterhood card when she burned Blanca. If your feminism isn’t intersectional you can shove it she’s essentially a TERF. BUT Patti Lupone in that scene? MARVELOUS work casting her was a stroke of genius.

To learn how the industry treated Angel was so, so heartbreaking. It was based on the true story of trans model Arfrica Norman who was outed during a photoshoot. I wanted to smack the shit out of that man at the shoot like how dare he?? What kind of sick fuck turns on somone like that.

That being said Angel and Papi’s story after that was so healing and gorgeous. He loves her with everything he’s got, unashamedly and loudly. We need more of that in the community and from cis men in particular. Recently there was a young man who sadly took his own life after being bullied severely for having a trans girlfriend who he loved openly, that needs to stop. It’s another issue I’m glad Pose tackled.

Their proposal was beyond perfect. Angel getting on one knee, the rose, Papi wanting to do it too, the simultaneous proposal, then to have they’re chosen family celebrate with them? Love that journey for them.

Papi finding his passion, his drive is amazing to see too. The rest of the Evangelista kids found their calling, it’s great we get to see him hustle and be passionate, I want more of this storyline! Next season I want Esteban Martinez Management in huge letters.

The four ballroom MCs need their own spinoff. They’re iconic. I am glad they and the ballroom judges got called out, the women getting judged and ridiculed in a space THEY created? Not cute. 

The “walk a mile in their shoes” thing could be a little like comparing being trans to drag, which Pray brought up so it was all done with good intentions and turned out to be beautiful! The MCs and pray looked amazing.

But let’s be real, Ricky, Cubby and Lemar ate the category up. Ricky had me panting he looked so good. Cubby was straight tilapia. Lemar WORKED IT OUT Not giving him the trophy would have been criminal I want more Lamar next season.

Also more Florida Ferocity and Shadow Wintour, like go off a bit children.

If you’re not on board with Ricky and Pray Tell you’re wrong. Such a beautiful scene where Ricky taught Pray a lesson! He’s grown so much and has so much compassion, the relationship works for both of them. Ricky shouting “Thats my man!” cleared my skin and watered my crops.

Elektra really assembled the most stunning judges panel and I’m glad they all got some revenge with here as MC.

Come judge for me! Come judge for me! Come judge for me! Wheres my club remix??

Finally, Blanca for Candy’s sweet refrain... She served, she brought the house down, she made me cry. She earned the money, the crown, the title. Then to see her potentially find some new children, a young man and trans girl... minny Damon and Angel... It made me as happy as the first few scenes made me sad. 

I said this on twitter but this show is so healing to me as a gay man. to watch an episode every week where people like me and the amazing people in the community love and support and have fun is so important... Thank you Janet Mock and Steven Canals for this digital safe space.