Christmas 2020

We all knew this year would be a bit different in terms of Christmas but thanks to new Government announcements about the tier system here in the UK, it looks like I may not see my family at all and so I'll be stuck on my own without even my housemate for company as he's since left (well, still in the process really). I knew that sooner or later the dark day would come when I would spend the festivities by myself but I never thought it would come this soon. It's one day of the year I really look forward too and I don't know what it will do to my mental health but at least it looks like I'll have some time off work which is always nice. 

Anyway, enough doom and gloom and onto things of a more frilly nature. Recently I have bought a couple of new things. Another Clara dress (red and black with a black collar) I really wanted (despite the fact I probably have enough already) and a pair of blue ankle boots. I still need a replacement pair of black ankle boots and I would really love a pair of white ones and possible a pair of white knee high boots as well to fully go for that 1960s look. Now all I need is a place to wear them and it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon due to the pandemic and unfortunately since the cold weather started I've been dressing for work less and less.  

One further thing I would recommend is Sarah Keyworth's short radio series Are You a Boy or a Girl which explores her own gender fluidity and sexuality. There are four episodes, about 15 minutes each, and I really enjoyed it. The series can be found here (apologies if this may not be available in all regions): Sarah Keyworth: Are You A Boy or A Girl?

Still, there's a new Doctor Who special coming up and both UK and US versions of Drag Race are coming back in January. From looking at the intro videos online, long pointy nails seem to be in this year. 

So anyway, I'll wish everyone out there a merry Christmas for the coming week and I'll leave you with a caption. This was created for my 25 Caps of Christmas thread on Rachel's Haven back in 2016 using an old Christmas card. 

One of the Family (2016)

Quantum Leap #6: A Song for the Soul

A Song for the Soul

(07 April 1963)

Sam is...Cheree Watkins, Supreme Singer 

The Mission...Ensure bandmate Lynelle Walters doesn't sign a contract with sleazy club owner Bobby Lee

This episode holds a special significance for me as it's one of the first Quantum Leap stories I ever saw and I was drawn in purely by my burgeoning love for crossdressing and bodyswapping back when I was a teenager. I can't remember if I saw a trailer for it or just read the description in the TV Times but it was clear that a man was going to be dressing up as a woman and I had to see it. 

The opening scene doesn't disappoint either as Sam leaps straight into a performance by aspiring girl band, The Dovettes, all clad in black strappy bin-bag-like dresses with beehive hairdos. The mission is a straightforward one for Sam as he has to stop bandmate Lynelle signing the contract with club owner Bobby Lee and also bring her father round to the idea of his daughter wanting to pursue a singing career. This is made easier by the fact that he moves in with them for a time as Cheree's parents are handily 'not at home' and that's the last we hear of them. This episode also gives Scott Bakula another chance to show off his wonderful singing voice. 

This is another example of an episode that would probably not be made in this day and age but yet would have seemed more progressive back in the early 1990s. It's admirable that while all but the regular cast (Bakula and Stockwell) are black, the optics of a white man acting the part of a black female teen would not be looked on so kindly. Saying that though, seeing said man dressed as a woman was a big thing for this teenager interested in exploring their gender identity. 

As ever, Scott Bakula puts in a wonderful performance especially portraying Sam's awkwardness in the initial 'leap in' singing scenes when he's one step behind the others. He does seem to shift into the role of a mother hen at times, trying to protect the other two girls when he should be trying to fit in and is a little patronising at times. Support is provided by Tamara Townsend as Lynelle and T'Keyah 'Crystal' Keymáh as Paula who play the rest of The Dovettes and are very believable teenagers. Townsend is the main focus as Lynelle and does a great job as well as showing off her marvellous singing voice. Harrison Page is Lynelle's preacher father and a pre-E.R Eriq La Salle appears as our villain Bobby Lee. While The Dovettes are a proto Supremes, there are shades of Ike and Tina Turner's relationship in Bobby and Lynelle's. There are some lovely 1960s fashions too in the dresses the girls wear especially the bright pink sparkly ones they don for their big performance at Bobby's club (which looks more like a café). 

There are a few issues. The overall plot feels a bit hackneyed but then Quantum Leap plots were usually quite simple missions. Sam initially seems to side with Lynelle's strict father who nearly hits her in one scene. Bobby seems to walk straight into Lynelle's house and up into her bedroom without much trouble so did he break in? You also wonder what may have happened to the girl band he had The Dovettes' pink dresses made for. The reason for Lynelle's mother's death isn't really clear and why are they so concerned about having her father hear her sing anyway when she sings in the church's gospel choir every week? 

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a real conclusion to the story, just a tearful father and daughter reunion which tells you that things are most likely going to be alright despite the fact they never have much of a discussion. Did Lynelle sign with Bobby Lee? Presumably she told him to take a running jump otherwise Sam wouldn't have left. We also learn nothing about what the future has in store for the characters which was always a nice coda to the episode for me. All in all, this is a middling episode of Quantum Leap but one which I will always remember. 

Whamageddon

 As we begin December then so does the game of Whamageddon. 

This is a little game played here in the UK (not sure if anywhere else does it so apologies if I have that wrong). The game revolves around Wham's 1984 Christmas hit Last Christmas. If you can survive from 1st  December to midnight on 24th December without hearing the song then you win, if not then you are out and sent to Whamhalla. It's only the original version though and you have to recognise it so if it's a cover version or you are unsure if you might have heard a bit of it then you're still in the game.  

But Terri why are you telling us this? Why are you not talking about cute skirts? Well, it has to do with the caption I'm putting up this week and it's one I recently rediscovered from last year and I quite liked it. As I've said, I always enjoy writing captions for my witchy character Ember Montoya and I really liked the dialogue I came up with for this one. It's also rather topical as the photograph is a still of Emilia Clarke from the film Last Christmas, featuring the song, which was released last year. 

This caption was created for the 25 Caps of Christmas thread on Rachel's Haven. 

Hope you like.   

Whamageddon (2019)

Empire Records

Last weekend I rewatched a film I hadn't seen for many years. It wasn't that successful on release but has since become something of a cult classic and had a minor effect on me when I was young. 

Empire Records (1995) is very much in the slacker comedy vein that emerged in the early 1990s and one which included one of my favourite movies, Clerks. It also has much of a Breakfast Club vibe. The plot, as much as there is one, revolves around the lives and loves of the staff of the titular record store over one 24-hour period as they try to save their workplace from being turned into a chain store, Music Town, and prepare for the visit of singer Rex Manning. In fact, if you've ever heard the phrase 'Rex Manning Day' or seen it pop up on Twitter then this is what that's referring to. The day is celebrated by fans every year on 8th April. The cast has quite a few future well-known names among it including Renee Zellweger who, although these days is more well known playing the hopeless romantic in films like the Bridget Jones series, (see Note below) here she's playing 'turbo slut' Gina. With it's 'damn the man' teen spirit it's one of those that works well when you're young but is a painful reminder of your lost youth when you reach your 40s. 

However it was Liv Tyler, playing student Cory Mason, who made the biggest impression on me though. I was a teenager at the time and the only reason I needed to rent the video of this was the front cover showing Liv front and centre in a blue cropped jumper, plaid mini skirt and boots (see below). Perhaps this and Clueless fuelled my love of plaid skirts and there certainly seemed to be a lot of it about in the 90s. 

Theatrical poster of Empire Records (1995)
Credit: IMDB

Fast forward a few decades and, watching it again, I started wondering if I could cosplay it. That outfit has become iconic now and, doing a quick Google search, there are quite a few people choosing to cosplay it. It's certainly no weirder than my recent thoughts about doing more waitress cosplays (Alongside Clara Oswald I've thought of doing the outfits from Twin Peaks and Two Broke Girls. I may have a problem).

This brought to mind one of my long held dilemmas about being a straight crossdresser - namely the issue of whether I fancy someone or just want to wear the outfit and in this case I've had a little change. There's no doubt that I found (and still do) Liv Tyler attractive but this time around I was thinking about whether I could cosplay the outfit and how much fun it might be to wear it. Were these my thoughts all along and I simply wasn't expressing them and choosing to subconsciously hide behind sexuality? I don't think so but over the years as I have started to dress more I have allowed myself to think these thoughts, not that I was consciously repressing them in the first place but I just opened the door a bit wider and my world has grown so much that I can think about such things and they don't seem so alien or weird anymore.  

Overall I would recommend the film if you're looking for a fun teen movie with some peppy 90s nostalgia and a great soundtrack. 

Note: One of my first ways of dealing with my crossdressing fantasies was to draw myself in different situations. One of which was as Bridget Jones in a cardigan and mini skirt on the poster when Bridget Jones' Diary was released in 2001. 

The Week in Crossdressing #6

 I've written before about Harry Styles and his penchant for crossdressing which is always nice to see from someone in the public eye. This week he appeared on the cover of Vogue's December 2020 edition not only being the first solo male ever to do so in the magazine's long history but the first one to do so wearing a dress. 

There's a full interview with him about it on Vogue's website here: 

https://www.vogue.com/article/harry-styles-cover-december-2020

One choice quote I would definitely pick out from the article is: "I find myself looking at women’s clothes, thinking they’re amazing" which I'm sure is a sentiment many of us (certainly me, hopefully you reading this) will agree with. 

Harry Styles on the cover of Vogue
Photographer: Tyler Mitchell
Credit: Vogue.com

Of course this has sparked debate which is mainly about masculinity and whether it undermines it (depending on whether you think that is for good or bad), whether he looks sexy and whether it makes any difference that a cis het white male is doing it as opposed someone from a different background. There are also articles recreating the shoot and others in which 'brave men' (actual wording) walk down the street wearing dresses. 

I guess this is really a cross section of where male crossdressing is in 2020. On the one hand we have more people like Styles, especially those in the public eye, embracing gender fluidity and yet it's still seen as something a bit weird for men to do and I suppose some will always hold that opinion unless things change a lot and with fashion that's always possible. Personally I'm thrilled that this has happened and hope more men will embrace it and see it as not so much of an odd thing to do after all. 

Laundry Day

I was working on another review which I had hoped to put up this week but work has been a bit crazy and I actually had to rewatch the programme I was meant to be reviewing since I originally saw it a few months back and needed a refresh. 

Instead I thought I would put up another caption and this week I have coincidentally been going through a lot of my old captions in particular those featuring Ember Montoya, my witchy character. This was mainly because I have another one in mind to do featuring her and this time in the guise of a matchmaker. I've given Ember a number of jobs over the years and in fact the caption below was part of a Witch for Hire caption offer in which participants could hire Ember to do a job for them...or perhaps they would be the job themselves. I particularly love the last line in this one. 

This was originally created for SP2000 on Rachel's Haven. 

Laundry Day (2015)

 

My Week #10

 As we in the UK enter lockdown for the second time I was able to get one last clothes shop in and bought a new dress from a charity shop partly because I decided I need some more colours in my wardrobe other than black and blue. Ok, so it's still blue but a lighter blue and with some red flowers all over it. Probably a bit too late for such a summery dress but I wore it last weekend and it was rather nice. 

One slightly odd thing I've been thinking this week is about taking a course in fashion. I did do fashion briefly as part of a BTEC course in art I did back in college over 20 years ago and I approached it rather gingerly and I do wonder whether I was repressing something back then. Maybe if I had taken more of an interest it may have helped me but I think I was just too young at the time. The main part I did though was to write a brief history of fashion and I really enjoyed researching it and looking into it all. I'm only thinking about doing a brief online course though, perhaps leaning more towards a history of fashion rather than the design part. Designing would be an interesting thing though but I doubt I would be that good at it or even know what I'm trying to do. Maybe it's just this little fantasy I have of wanting to be a fashionista type girl or to have that kind of persona. Anyway, that's just something that's cropped up this week. 

To round off, it's been quite hard to escape the ongoing US election this week and while I haven't really got any US election themed captions, I did do a UK one back in 2015 and it's always been one of my favourites perhaps because it involves a 'he'll become what he hates' scenario. 

This was created for the April 2015 caption contest on Rachel's Haven with the theme of The Backfire. 

Tory Girl (2015)