Check Up

I don't really have a lot to write about this week as there's only really one story dominating the world at the moment and that's the Coronavirus pandemic. For avoidance of doubt I'm stll quite well. Over the last week or so everything's shut down and London has become a rather desolate place. I still need to go in for work due to the nature of my job and work in a practically deserted office and feeling guilty that I'm not self-isolating. I think at some point, assuming I survive, and things get back to normal and London is once more hustling and bustling I'll catch myself and remember this time and be glad it's back. Of course one silver lining about working from home, which I will start tomorrow, is that I can dress for it and wear a few of my more work-y outfits.

I hope everyone's been enjoying my little 'Terri is Sick' posts of old captions. If I find any more virus based stuff I'll put them up and there may even be some new ones in the works. 

I'll leave you with a little fact I learnt this week. This is taken from The Book of the Year 2019 by the team behind the No Such Thing As a Fish podcast AKA the QI elves and it's that in 2015 Sweden intruduced the gender neutral pronoun, hen, to go alongside he and she. Over here in the UK  we did trial the use of Mx alongside Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms and Master. I'm not sure if it's still in use, I think it was trialled in Brighton first of all, but I always thought it was quite cool. 

Terri is Sick #3: The Neighbour Virus

And now to the last in my little trilogy unless I can find another virus related caption in my back catalogue...capalogue? Yes capalogue.

Anyway, It's one of my best. If there's one concept I will leave behind to the world of TG captioning then it's the Neighbour Virus. The virus swicthes your DNA with the person that you catch it from, simple as that so you better hope you catch it from someone cute! Much like the Role Exchanger, I love to pepper my caps with little changes in the background. The fact that some people enjoyed it so much over at the Haven that they put it in their preferences is a source of great pride for me. Again, this seems to be a concept I haven't touched for a few years so maybe I ought to bring it back.

There are so many examples that I had trouble picking just one so I hope you like the below which was created for Ashleigh.

Team Transfers (2011)

Terri is Sick #2: Slumber Party Sickness

Some caption concepts are wonderfully inventive, well thought out worlds, that consider every nook and cranny of the universe that they are creating to give the reader that fully immersive experience...and then there are those that are made up on the hoof to get shot of a few pictures.

Back in 2013 I somehow ended up with a surplass of photos of girls enjoying themselves at various sleepovers and so, trying to think of a way to string them all together, and I came up with the Slumber Party Sickness. Looking back it seems this is a tiny bit of a cheat as it's not actually a virus but more of an alien gas so I'm not sure why I called it a sickness, perhaps because it sounded good. Reading back through it, I think I must have been inspired by the Nanogenes in Doctor Who's The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances story in which the alien nanogenes begin reshaping humans into the template of the first person they see, namely a gas mask wearing child in World War II London, taking it as the norm.

In this case the gas seeps into a girls' slumber party and takes that as a template for how humanity lives. The gas then drifts into a students' bedroom and then on to a hotel where our lovely Havenettes were presently staying attending an insurance convetion. Needless to say it all turns into a big slumber party! It seems that I haven't used the concept since which is a shame so perhaps I better see if I can bring it back at some point.

Looking back I remembered doing one origin caption for it but I didn't realise that I did two so please see them both below.

Slumber Party Sickness: Origin Part One (2013) 

Slumber Party Sickness: Origin Part Two (2013)

Terri is Sick #1 The Giggle Virus

Ok, so the world is quite a scary place at the moment. I work in London and the streets are getting more and more deserted every day. So anyway I thought I would counteract the Coronavirus with some of my own viral creations from down the years so I hope you enjoy.

The Giggle Virus was a one-off bimbofication virus I created and the below caption was made for Brittany7 over at Rachel's Haven.

The Giggle Virus (2015)

Quantum Leap #5: Raped

Raped

(20 June 1980)

Sam is...Katie McBain

The Mission...seek justice for Katie's rape

Before going into this I feel I should offer a little explantion partly because I haven't done one of these reviews since 2018 and the title of this one may make people wonder what the hell I'm writing about. Quantum Leap was a TV series that ran from 1989 to 1993 and featured scientist Dr Sam Beckett lost in time and jumping from body to body, decade to decade (mainly from the 1950s to the 1980s), doing good deeds so that he can move on and eventually get back to his own body in the space year 1999. Throughout his travels Sam leapt into a number of women which always meant actor Scott Bakula having to drag up and this intrigued the teenage me so I thought I would review all of Sam's female-based adventures within this blog. Other reviews can be found elsewhere on this blog; just click the Quantum Leap tag

This entry however I did have second thoughts about due to the subject matter. My reviews are often light hearted and this is a very dark subject however I did commit to doing these reviews and I wanted to see that through plus the original production team would have taken quite a risk in producing an episode with this subject matter and I didn't want to ignore that. Please stop reading now if the subject may cause offence or be a trigger.

~~~

Throughout these reviews, we've seen Sam tackle various aspects of female life and this episode focuses more on the darker side. In some senses it feels like a companion to the earlier What Price, Gloria? with its sexual harrassment storyline. In the 21st century crime shows use the subject of rape regularly but in 1991 it was still quite taboo on TV so I dare say it was brave of the production team to run with the storyline especially considering you had a man in the lead role taking the place of the female victim but at least it has a female writer, Beverly Bridges. When I origianlly watched most of the series on BBC2 weekend mornings in the mid 1990s this one was omitted due to the subject matter and I only caught up with it later. This episode also has the distinction of being one of the rare episodes in which the 'mirror image' actor gets to do more than look just shocked and even has actual lines plus their name in the opening credits. Cheryl Pollack, who plays the real Katie, shines in the court scenes.  

Opening at a hospital in Mill Valley, California during the hours after the assault, Sam leaps in and vows to bring her attacker to justice. He has his usual quick grumble about becoming a woman but that is soon shelved once he learns that Katie has just been raped. On the face of it he has a straightforward mission especially as we know who the attacker is, local rich kid and Katie's ex Kevin Wentworth, alothough the story plays with the idea that sex may have taken place consensually with Katie crying rape later as she was known to be 'a tease'. Sam's friend and observer Al once again plays devils advocate in suggesting that Sam may be here to stop Kevin being convicted.This idea never really sticks though especially when the real Katie testifies in court. While Sam may have the courage to take on the small town mentality and Kevin's powerful family, he doesn't have all the facts of the case. It's here that the show's sci-fi element comes in handy as the real Katie is back in 1999 at Project Quantum Leap and with the help of Al she is able to appear in court and give her testimony while Sam, the only person who can hear her, parrots her speech. 

The fact that Kevin then goes free presents a bleaker ending however it seems a bit at odds with the plotline because Sam needs to complete his mission to leap out. The eventual ending does satisfy though as a freed Kevin tries to assault Katie again and gets a beating from Sam. We are given little information about what happened in the originl plotline apart from the fact that the McBains move away and presumably the rape would have weighed heavily over Katie's life perhaps causing serious problems. With this ending Kevin would presumably have been arrested for the later attack. His sort of entitled rich kid would doubtless have still been offending simply because he could get away with it had he not been brought to account by Sam. For all we know the rape of Katie McBain in 1980 may have been the first time so Sam was sent back to nip it in the bud. Earlier drafts of the script supposedly had Katie growing up to become a lawyer specialising in prosecuting rape cases. This would make a lot of sense as you could argue that without the trial, successful or not, putting her on that path a lot of criminals would go free. I also wonder if this story changed anything in Sam himself and his attitude to becoming a woman and I'll look out for that when revisiting subsequent episodes.   

It's also interesting that the epsiode is set in 1980. Quantum Leap by and large liked to stick around the 1950s and 1960s so setting an episode in the 1980s, a decade which had finished only two years previously, would be their equivelent of doing a modern day story. The show rarely showed the outside of the project and the world of 1999 and to good effect as nothing dates like a vision of the future and the later episode Killin' Time, which saw a killer leapee escape from the project, showed that. In fact the show had only just ventured into the 1980s with its previous episode, Permanent Wave which was set in 1983. The fashions and styles of the time are also quite muted so we doubtless get a better picture of the 1980s than the earlier decades. 

There isn't much of a supporting cast, mainly the detective Officer Shumway and Katie's lawyer ADA Nancy Hudson who help Katie and her family but they do well. Matthew Sheehan who plays Kevin keeps just right side of creepy to make you wonder if he did it (although there is never really that much doubt) before fully revealling his true self as he breaks into Katie's back garden by which time you really are glad to see Sam knock the stuffing out of him.  

Overall it's interesting to see such a tough subject being handled in this era of television and on a feelgood fantasy show such as this. You would certainly not be able to make it like this today which you could say of a number of Quantum Leap stories especally our next one in which we'll be taking a leap back to the 1960s to sing some soul songs. 

It's All Yellow

My friends, I have crumbled.

Now, my pledge to stop buying clothes wasn't going to last forever of course but I had hoped to resist buying everything that caught my eye. Unless I bought a bigger wardrobe in the process. This week I did come away with a couple of purchases. I've mentioned before that I do want to cosplay Cher from Clueless in her yellow plaid suit at some point and this week I saw a lovely yellow cardigan that I could wear with it. It's not perfect as the original is lower cut and has bigger buttons but this should do until I find something closer but I still have to try it with the suit to see if it properly matches up. Also in cosplay, a friend of mine gave me some stuff to help with my Missy costume. I'm still looking into getting the actual suit which hopefully will be soon. The more I think about it, the more I'm looking forward to it.

The yellow cardie came along at the right time really as I have been looking into wearing brighter clothes as I do tend to go for blue and black quite a bit. Funnily enough in the last week I've seen a lot of mustard yellow tights around so it may be something that's coming back in at least for Winter. I actually have a pair myself. Dark red is also quite a Wintery colour I've seen around and I have a skirt which I bought quite cheap recently and I'm still finding out how wonderful it looks with various combinations of tops although it feels a little loose so I'm having to pair it with a belt quite a bit. Sometimes you need to feel that bit of bite to know that something is on.     

One dress I did have my eye on was a lovely blue and black zig-zaged number with a slim black belt. also had a bit of a boob window. For a while, lots of clothes seemed to shapes randomly cut out of them. I remember seeing one range of jumpers advising the consumer to check the back lest they get home and find a dirty great hole in the back that was in fact intentionally there. I didn't try it on but I can't stop thinking about it so I may go for it if it's still there at the weekend. What I did buy however was a dress I think I mentioned a few weeks ago, it's a gold and black houndstooth patterned dress with a black collar. It was down to half price. I may have resisted but for the black tights I was wearing at the time and oh it just looked so good.

This week, with an informal staff day looming, I've been thinking about dressing for work again. I'm fairly confident I could handle it and I even have an outfit in mind I would feel comfortable in. Perhaps I'll wait and see how I feel in a couple of months. No links for this week but I hope you've enjoyed this little missive.

The Week In Crossdressing #3

There's not an awful lot I have to say this week so I'm afraid it's going to be a bit of a hotchpotch of a post today.

Last Saturday I went to a Doctor Who screening and wore a very 60s style sleeveless blue and white dress with some bright purple tights and knee length black boots. Previously I've worn white tights as that is more the 60s style which, as I understand it, was more pale or tan tights or bare legs but I wanted to try a few colours with it so after an initial idea of wearing blue or yellow I settled on the purple. I also went with a pale pink nail polish and found myself wanting something a bit brighter and bolder. Choosing the right tights and the right shoes has become more of a big thing for me recently. In fact though I have been dressing less and less which is mainly due to the cold weather. February has been a cold, wet and miserable month over here so I'll be glad to get into the spring. I didn't buy any new clothes this week but I did try on a lovely black and white striped top with a bow. A little too small for me, I'm afraid.

As with my last blog, here are a few links to things I've seen this week:

Over in the commuter's favourite (or only) free paper The Metro there was this lovely article featuring a non-binary person standing up for their more feminine clothing choices:

The Metro: Non-binary person wearing skirt supermarket gives the best answer to a customer saying it was confusing

A friend of mine also linked me to the below blog which was fascinating reading and probably a better comment on the whole thing than the mad ramblings of a fortysomething crossdresser. I love the term 'gender creative' too. I've still not thought an awful lot about what term properly defines me these days and I might write about it at another time but 'gender creative' is certainly a good one.

Raising My Rainbow: Gender Is Over

My final one is a video from Bernadette Banner, Rachel Maksy and Morgan Donner who love to dress in more historical styles and in it they explore the reactions they get from the general public.

Why Are You Dressed Like That?: Embracing Bygone Styles

It peaked my interest as history bounding is similar in some ways to crossdressing. Both involve dressing in a style outside what is considered socially acceptable and both can invoke suprising results so this spoke to me very much. I love Rachel Maksy's outfit in this too and will be watching more of her videos. There is quite a wealth of stuff on YouTube I could also write about. Normally I just enter the terms 'clothes swap' or 'crossdressing' and see what pops up.

Coming full circle, history bounding is quite interesting to me and as discussed earlier, I really like the 60s style so I would love to do more of that mayble branching out into the 80s or even the 90s (I'm sure there were some outfits teenage me was jealous of). Certainly after watching the latest series of The Marvellous Mrs Maisal recently, the 50s style has rarely looked more gorgeous. There are some outfits I've seen in some old photos of swinging London but one outfit I would love to do though is the below brown leather look sported by Maggie Blye as Lorna in 1969 classic The Italian Job (apologies for picture blurriness) which I was reminded of while rewatching it last year.

Still from The Italian Job (1969)
Screenshot taken by myself

That's everything for this week. Hopefully I'll have something a bit more in the coming weeks.