Tag: Check Please

porcupine-girl:

Can we just talk for a minute about how emotional this frame gets me? Like, look at this poor boy at the start of the season:

Tight, tense shoulders, hat pulled low while he’s talking to Bitty, kinda freaked out that Tater caught him.

Then halfway through the year:

Hesitant, not sure these people he’s starting to think of as friends will accept him.

Now, like, yeah, you can look at how happy he is in the photo with Tater, you can look at like all of Family Skate. You can see how happy he is that he doesn’t have to hide Bitty, that his teammates can finally start feeling more like real friends, even family, now that he doesn’t have to hide from them.

But that frame up there, that says so much more to me. Like, honestly, as wonderful as Family Skate is, it still feels to me like what it is – Bitty meeting these people for the first time, all of them being extra-nice to him both because he’s new and because they all know that they need to make super duper sure that the gay couple feels comfortable and knows that everyone’s on their side. It’s warm and happy and feel-good, but it’s people trying to be warm and happy and feel-good, y’know? Which is what they should be doing in that context, there’s nothing wrong with it.

This, on the other hand, is not warm or happy at all. What it is, is everyone treating Jack and Bitty exactly how they would treat a teammate whose wife made this life-altering jam. They’re calling their own wives to get orders, they’re being rude and demanding (*ahem* Tater), they’re all trying to get in before each other. Nobody’s on his best behavior, nobody actually gives a shit that Jack is trying to talk on the damn phone. 

Nobody “cared” before that Bitty was a guy, in that nobody judged them or looked down on them or was mean to them or anything like that. But they cared in that they were aware of it when interacting with him and it affected their behavior, even if it was in the direction of being nicer.

But this is nobody giving a single shit anymore, his gender and Jack’s sexuality are entirely 100% irrelevant. All that matters is getting their jam.

And just think about how nice that is for Jack, to be really, truly accepted like that, after all this time. He wasn’t even out to anyone at Samwell. Obviously, the team would have been fine with it, but dating a guy would have meant more risks than just SMH rejecting him.

And now that he’s in love and happy, he can finally just be. With this team and these guys he’s known for less than a year, he can be all of himself and nobody cares. It’s all good. It’s all so freaking good.