Listen, just because we had a little too much lesbian separatism in the ’70s doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have any now. For too long now has the word “slash” been used to exclusively refer to a set of pallid, languorous white-blonde youths semi-closetedly making out under the bleachers, and as much as I approve of Magic Twink Makeouts, one can tire of too much of almost anything.
Which leads me to Scandal, the greatest television program currently extant by our nation’s greatest showrunner, which leads me to my thesis: Look, I wasn’t placed on this earth to tell teens what to do on Tumblr, but in my humble opinion Mellie/Olivia should be at least as popular as Princess Bubblegum/Marceline (I ship Bubblegum/Marcelline like it’s my part-time job at the Orange Julius, but that is a story for another day)
This was all sparked when I recently discovered that the Google image search for “Mellie/Olivia slash” was abundantly disappointing. This shocked me! The rage-chemistry between Kerry Washington (the greatest living human woman) and Bellamy Young (a woman with a face like a porcelain Victorian sex doll, which I mean as the highest compliment) is so incandescent that I found myself baffled by the dearth of fan art.
There are many reasons to support a relationship between Mellie and Olivia. They will be legally binding; should you read them all, you will be unable to stop supporting Mellie/Olivia for the rest of your days. I also write this in the hopes that Shonda Rhimes will become a regular reader of the site and also occasionally send me a gchat just to say “hi.”
I will list some of them now.
1. Fitz is very very very boring and also terrible. I like the way he says “Hi” to Olivia but that’s pretty much it. I don’t mind that he’s a murderer; I would have murdered that lady too, no question, but he strikes me as the kind of man who does not keep his fingernails properly trimmed and would say things like “Can you get me _____ as long as you’re up?” but never offers to get you anything when he gets up.
2. Think about the sex Mellie and Olivia would have. No, really think about it, though. It’d be all big hair and cashmere trench coats and pearls and fury and soft hands and cheekbones and tears and soft mouths and silk. It would start out angry and surprising, then twitch between tentative and uncertain and grasping and hungry. It would be spiritually transcendent femme-on-femme sex.
3. In the spirit of “really thinking about it,” here is how the first time they had sex would most likely begin: Mellie would call Olivia a whore, then Olivia would get in her face, and then they’d suddenly find that their voices would go soft and low and husky and half-velvet and they couldn’t find a reason to back away.
4. SECRET WHITE HOUSE LESBIAN SEX. Secret White House lesbian sex.
5. Possibly the greatest reason: when Cyrus found out about them he would giggle delightedly. He’d get mad later, of course (so many complications!), but first he’d giggle. He’d start giggling so hard his face would get red and he’d have to lock himself in his office so no one at work saw him giggling like a little boy. And that would be wonderful. (Addendum to item the fifth: it’s very possible James would invite them over for secret gay double-dating dinner parties.)
6. Think of the power exchanges. Real power exchanges, not like how it is now where Fitz gets what he wants literally all of the time and sometimes Olivia yells at him before he gets his way anyhow. They’re on an equal footing in a lot of ways. Mellie has more official clout, but Olivia can make things happen that Mellie can’t. You would never be able to stop watching, wondering who was going to come out on top from one week to the next.
7. They would wear each other’s pantsuits as a secret symbol of their love during press conferences, but deny doing so heatedly in person. Imagine the pantsuits. Imagine them.
8. You know the trembling, icy rage-faces Mellie makes when she has to see Olivia? Bellamy Young has such a beautifully expressive face. Hurt and determination and loathing and curiosity play across her features in equal measure before they settle into a composed mask. How good would it feel to watch those masks melt?
9. Which one of them would be Madam President and which one would be First Lady? Easy. THEY’D SWITCH OFF EVERY WEEK. Co-Presidents Mellie and Olivia Pope (obviously Mellie would drop whatever Fitz’s last name is, Grimace or whatever) would wear tiaras every day. They would fight, yeah. A LOT. But they would always, always, find their way back to each other in bed in the (Mary Todd) Lincoln Room.
10. In conclusion Shonda Rhimes you made some great lesbians on Grey’s Anatomy so please make some lesbians on Scandal, I trust you.
Femslash Fridays is a recurring series about slash fandom that will continue to appear as long as Mallory feels like it. For suggestions please email [email protected].
[Image via Gladiator Files]
Tags: bellamy young, femslash fridays, kerry washington, lesbians everywhere, recurring series about lesbians, scandal, shonda rhimes
This is the only thing I ever want to read/think about forever.
“You’re evil.” “You’re welcome.” takes on a whole new meaning
…femslash….every….friday?
ridiculouslyexcitedbaby.gif
Yes, femslash forever please.
And you know, if anyone has any reading suggestions, femslash friday seems like a good place…
…. I am going to go e-grab someone’s hands and dance around in the least-dignified circle while shrieking now, shrieking like a teen girl at an anime conference wearing Utena cosplay for the first time ever.
I WILL HAVE MY HANDS GRABBED. LET US WHIRL AND SHRIEK.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! EEEEEE!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! *dancey dancey dancey*
That was EXACTLY my reaction (less the anime conference reference which is, alas, not in my wheelhouse).
why are there tears in my eyes??
Someone posted our “gay movies” thing on tumblr this morning with the caption “Wait, Mallory isn’t straight?” and I TOOK IT AS A CHALLENGE.
this morning
So what you’re saying is, as usual, you spew these beautifully written and creative pieces out in minutes flat without breaking a sweat.
Follow Mallory on Twitter! That’s where the first drafts happen. Then you see them as a post and it’s like a secret you’re in on.
Oh I do! And I love it. But I usually try to stay off Twitter at work. (try)
Realistically, seeing my actual life experience (not an approximation, even!) reflected on a major website more than once a day is having a somewhat detrimental effect on my previously-stable sense of cynicism. I keep having to go look up articles on various public transit snafus to calm down/remind myself the Toast is an oasis, not the world.
wait are you having an affair with kerry washington
If only in my mind.
:)))) THAT WAS ME. I’m sorry I came off wrong but it was ELATION I was going for! You’re one of us! And you write like THAT?!?! *SWOOOONNNN*
Also I got you to talk at length about Olivia Wilde so really there’s no downside.
My first thought when reading the intro was about how excited James would be to double with them.
slash just became my thing
HECK YES.
I just finished reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland last week, and it left me cold. Now I see why. Because THIS is what feminist utopias are supposed to look like.
I stopped watching Scandal after the first season because I was so goddamn sick of Olivia and Fitz and their nonsense. And from the glimpses I got of season 2 it didn’t look like there’s been any less of an emphasis on their romantic drama. But dear God, I would watch the HELL out of a Scandal that brought Olivia and Mellie together as lovers/spouses/whatever. I LOVE Mellie and her expressive face and her intelligence and Machiavellian ruthlessness; she is 10,000X more interesting to me than Fitz. Olivia’s torrid affair with Fitz to me is cliché and boring, but hooking up with Mellie actually would be scandalous/surprising in the way the show seems to want to be. Also, mad hot. Like scorching death valley hot.
In conclusion: Femslash Friday forever and ever, amen.
Fitz is a valueless human, and I am constantly, constantly baffled by the women, queers, and POC on the show who want to keep him happy and in power at the expense of their own happiness and power.
Is Fitz maybe just a metaphor for The White Man?
I will say I think the actor who plays him is terrific, and there is a legitimate chemistry between him and Kerry Washington, but OH MY GOD IS FITZ just like PRESIDENT EEYORE.
Ding ding ding! See also Shepard, Derek. I haven’t been keeping up with Scandal, but has Olivia gotten to do her “You don’t get to call me a whore” speech yet?
Yes, that essentially happened last week. Good call.
Hooray! I think the promise of that will get me to catch up! I might have just rewatched Meredith’s version on youtube….
Yeah I pretty much want to fast forward through every scene Fitz is in, he is the biggest baby ever, and I have no confidence in him as a president. That said, every other scene in Scandal is perfect and amazing.
Every Friday, right? I need it.
Mallory, as my father would say, regardless of gender, you are a gentleman and a scholar.
Hahaha SHIT this is the phrase I was looking for a few days ago when I called someone an officer & a gentleman.
This is too perfect. Dangerously perfect. I would also like to submit every single character on American Horror Story: Coven for Femslash Friday because while Mellie & Olivia have political powers, the Coven ladies have ACTUAL POWERS OF WITCHCRAFT. Gabourey Sidibe and Emma Roberts! Jessica Lange and Frances Conroy! There are so many possibilities!
But please, please let the day for Marceline/Princess Bubblegum come sooner rather than later.
PRAISE
Bellamy Young is one of those people who looks like she will always be perfect in face and hair. I love her for that. I love Anna Camp for the same reason. Something about that icy perfection…
*floats into the sky*
“bursts into glitter and confetti*
“rains down gently onto Mallory*
Yes. This pleases me.
I haven’t watched this show but I like this anyway.
I used to be on that PB/Marceline train. Now I’m all about PB/Shoko. Bubko? Shonibel?
OH MY GOD. Its something I never even knew I was missing, but how did I live without this for so long??? Melvia sex pantsuits, I’m dead.
Mellie will get Olivia another providence code just so they can sex it up in that bunker while the world ends outside (aka Tuesdays).
PS IS IT NEXT FRIDAY YET
Crossover threesome with VIctoria Grayson, I’ve said forever.
EPIPHANY!!!
The two biggest man babies on tv right now (of shows I watch) are President Fitz on Scandal and Ezra Fitz on Pretty Little Liars.
How much do you wanna bet they share a writer who dated a terrible man baby named Fitz? I bet 1 million.
OR! Pres. Fitz is future Ezra Fitz, hence the penchant for younger women. He managed to change his name and escape his past in Rosewood.
I have read this three times this week. And then I signed up for an account just so I could say that I LOVE this piece, it captures everything I feel about Olivia and Mellie in words while I just mostly sit in my room and sigh over the perfection that they could be as a couple. (Why anyone wanted Fitz to run for president when they could have had Mellie instead is beyond me; and I am a huge fan of the idea of Olivia and Mellie switching out roles.)
I had (and still have, I’m not done with the show yet) very high hopes for Mellie/Elizabeth North, but it doesn’t look like Shonda Rhimes will provide me with this.