You are fourth- or fifth-billed in the credits but have so far contributed almost nothing to the A- and B-storylines.
In episode 2, you had a throwaway line about a beautiful member of the opposite sex not being your “type,” a line that has now taken on a strange significance.
You are a younger brother who stands to inherit nothing.
The camera lingers on your hands for an unnecessary split-second after you help your best friend into your corset.
You are an unusually helpful lady-in-waiting.
You are an arch and careless school-chum who seems to live only for exciting late-night champagne raids and fountain-dunking.
You are being played by Rupert Graves.
You are a woman who becomes friends with Jane Eyre.
Your gaze lingers for no appreciable reason.
You’re in the first third of a miniseries about another person’s life and you’re only credited in the episodes that take place during their boarding-school years. Also, you have perfectly floppy hair. (Works for male or female.)
You applaud with the crowd, but something about your clapping seems insincere.
All the ingenues at court are simply wild about you. You could not be more indifferent. Also, your name is Hugh.
Your story takes place sometime before 1950 but was filmed any time after 1980.
100% of your scenes are shot with the least amount of light possible. Your face is never less than half in shadow.
While being playfully teased by one of the top-billed characters about your apparently non-existent love life, you say, “There is someone” while maintaining eye contact.
You’re sad all the time, for no reason (the reason is later revealed to be Secret Gayness).
You are a woman who has been described by another character as any of the following: spirited, willful, indifferent, aloof, vigorous, outdoorsy, or keen.
You mention that you have recently been to Greece.
You are wan. So very wan.
You are an unusually supportive roommate with a knack for springing surprise kisses at the worst possible moment.
You are the only kind person in a Deadly Decadent Court.
You nonchalantly but significantly decline “one last drink” or a trip to the strip club/old-timey brothel with the boys on a friendly night out, choosing instead to walk home alone in the growing darkness.
You speak slightly more kindly to someone below your station than is strictly necessary. What appears to be politeness and common decency is fueled by lust.
You are a poet, a musician, or an Italian ambassador with no reason for having as much screen time as you do; one of the main characters has at least three scenes where they compliment your work before kissing you unexpectedly in a dark hallway.
You are a respected but under-the-radar British actor who is on the verge of becoming well-known in America.
You spend a lot of time standing in archways/doorways/any sort of liminal space.
Director: He’s standing in a DOORWAY, you see.
Audience: Yes, yes.
Director: It’s a metaphor.
Audience: Uh huh.
Director: He’s BETWEEN WORLDS. Get it?
Audience: YES, WE GET IT.
always LURKING, you are
You constantly linger upon the threshold of decision.
Also, actual thresholds. Your storyline is not one which requires subtle symbolism.
“So very wan.” So very lol.
You are my favorite character and I resent the producers for not giving you more airtime.
“You are a respected but under-the-radar British actor who is on the verge of becoming well-known in America.”
Or aspiring Italian-American Broadway actress FIGHT ME
only vaguely related, but inspired by:
I’m always torn between enjoying representation and feeling like a lot of straight writers inserting queer characters into their fiction are engaging in some kind of mascoting/tokenism/weak political statement. there are definitely exceptions–as far as I know Charles Stross is straight, and he’s written what’re probably my favorite mostly-gay-cast novels ever, Halting State and Rule 34, and I’m sure there are many others in his company–but much more often it feels so self-conscious and takes such a hackneyed, binary or lamely Kinseyan approach to sexuality. I dunno. doesn’t upset me, but it does bug me and occasionally embarrass me in the same way bad, belabored comedy can just get embarrassing to watch.
let us never forget the guy who gave us the Altered Carbon trilogy with all its awkward straight sex scenes also gave us The Steel Remains, in which basically every exposition scene is delivered alongside some fairly hardcore and explicit gay boys fuckin. I have no idea of the author’s own tastes and identity, so maybe not even relevant here, but god damn was that embarrassing to read.
Julia Serano wrote an interesting article called Considering Trans and Queer Appropriation where she examines what it means when breeders start picking up pieces of queer culture, when it can be a good thing and when it can be a bad thing and how that can be subjective depending on your personal politics (eg “keep your right to marry, I don’t want to fall into the toxic lifecycle you consider normal”).
I may just be uninformed, but isn’t the use of the term “breeders” kinda obsolete in an age where many queer and trans people have kids?
it totally is, it just amuses me too much to stop using it (plus I was just tired of saying straight over and over)
The single pair of Doomed Lesbians in a BBC Period Drama does start to feel a bit samey, after awhile.
Just to say re: Stross: https://twitter.com/cstross/status/64676565765737…
Stross retweeted the reply I made to that tweet after you made me aware of it, I have to admit that feels pretty cool, how shallow am I
I have read too many Laundry Files books and was never really impressed with Pinky & Brain, so I am hella surprised that Halting State and Rule 34 not only have loads of gays but well-written ones? o.o
I waffle on Pinky and Brain, but ultimately, I would be more surprised if London didn’t have a couple (or a thousand) like them than if it did, so, y’know.
Halting State is 1/3 protagonist gay (and involves her and her partner struggling to juggle their kid(s it’s been a few years) and work) and Rule 34 is 100% queer protagonists with some really wonderful…like…one of the characters (the Pakistani (?) hetero-married bisnacksual (?) dude) seems to have the internal life of an Adam4Adam profile, which I just adore. I always wonder how those people who seem to be able to think about nothing but dicks -function,- and that guy explores that idea -extensively.- not sure if intentionally.
this all perfectly describes my best possible life, tbh.
You are perpetually returning from a morning of hunting with the main character, but you’re always situated at the back of the party.
I always hoped someone would help me understand my true nature… a gay subplot in a period drama.
“You speak slightly more kindly to someone below your station than is strictly necessary. What appears to be politeness and common decency is fueled by lust.” YES. I don’t know why this particular thing bugs me so much, but it does.
Because that’s the only reason the Quality would bother to treat the Common Riffraff with anything other than complete disdain, y’know.
It bugs me too. For me, it’s because of the Predatory Gay stereotype. Straight characters do it too, but there are many other straight characters in the same drama. There’s usually one gay character and it’s cliché to make them creep on others.
Anyone makes any references to your wrists.
You are ever seated alone when everyone else is in pairs, particularly at a wedding.
You would like to write, but social pressures insist that you work at a bank.
Your best short story is a about a forest; the metaphor is never explained.
Another character, who everyone else finds pompous and dull, to you seems mysteriously fascinating.
I once wrote a really gay forest allegory and I’m now engaged in a gay subplot in the world’s plot line. This checks out.
You are a younger brother who stands to inherit nothing
…or an elder brother who stands to inherit everything. If only you can unglue your eyes from this lutist’s codpiece.
On an unrelated note, I always feel weirdly validated when someone links to TV Tropes. That’s probably bad, right?
You’re not alone. I almost clicked on the link to make sure I wasn’t imagining that it was a link to TV Tropes. Then I remembered that clicking on a link to TV Tropes inevitably leads to several hours trapped on the site, and I refrained.
The wild mass guessing pages get me every time.
I had a serious moment of personal triumph: I clicked the link, read the description, and then hit the back button. It was amazing.
Teach me your secret
The key is to read the words, but not absorb any of them, so it’s as if you never saw them at all. Also, to keep your finger over the back button so you can hit it before you have a chance to look at any of the subcategories.
It was also helpful that I got the ratios on my henna mixture wrong, so I’ve had black walnut running down my face and distracting me all day.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of henna mix that’s juuuuuust a little too liquid, slowly escaping your containment methods. I’m impressed you can type.
I just keep putting more tissues and cotton balls right under the edge of the plastic wrap. It’s all very annoying.
You are a woman and wear pants, and/or look longingly at a pair of pants.
All the girls are being made to wear pants, and you are suspiciously enthusiastic about it.
Or you are a woman who always wears tweeds.
On the casting sheet, your character is described as “toothsome woman with a fondness for men’s attire” and the casting director mentions looking for a “Tilda Swinton-type.”
Or Janet McTeer.
You are a _man_ and the casting director wants a Tilda Swinton type.
… Is this about a real period drama? Which one is it?
You’re in a very seriously-written period piece, but your character’s relationship (and performance) to your little sister is ripped, whole-cloth, from that of the Gay Best Friend character from any late-90s teen movie.
wow, mallory must have gotten through Deadwood pretty quickly!
If you are a woman, your necklines are of the utmost importance. High and prudish, severe, almost mannish? Low and scalloped so that one can almost spot a hint of areola? Average height, with delicate lace just brushing your birdlike collarbones? All possibilities. All gay as fuck.
Reading this made me want Julian Fellowes to make a spinoff called “Sinister Queers of Downton Abbey: Thomas and O’brien Take London.”
WOULD WATCH
NO don’t let him do it, let someone better direct.
But do we really want Julian “we have one gay character who never gets a love interest and ends the series attempting suicide” Fellowes writing it?
(I may have some residual Thomas Barrow-related bitterness.)
Oh my God I know. Thomas Barrow you are too beautiful for this world and deserved better.
Such a fair point. Hey, uh, hey Mallory? Would you mind creating, writing, and directing a TV show real quick? Like, in your spare time? The spare time you totally have lots of? We only expect four seasons minimum. Thanks!
Would watch, especially if the straight characters were all relegated to subplots and cameo appearances.
Also if horrible things happen to Mary for a change because she is a really unpleasant person who deserves it.
Although then again, Mallory would probably like Mary because she’s got the whole “Randian Psychopath” edge to her.
Real talk I know it’ll probably never happen but I desperately want them to give Thomas a boyfriend in the christmas special no matter how contrived and stupid it is. Because that might be the last of the season ever and if that’s the case than Thomas will only get his happy ending in the world of fanfics.
Right! It just pissed me off so much that the one gay character got constant misery porn. And he only had a lover for the first episode, which was probably just to establish his gayness. But I’ve pretty much gotten rid of all my CS expectations by this point :P.
CS?
Here – if you were to ship Thomas with anyone, who would it be? I ship him with Branson, (even though I know they don’t have a great deal of common together on the show itself). Mostly because the actors themselves have super great chemistry off-camera and character-wise there’s no weird power dynamics!
Oh Christmas special. And I kinda ship him with the Duke from the first episode despite how it ended. I also like him with the blind soldier from S2. But yeah the actors that play Thomas and Branson are really cute together in interviews:)
Season 6 hasn’t aired in the US yet. Just fyi.
We have weeks to try and forget that massive, depressing spoiler.
I’m incredibly terrible at forgetting spoilers, especially depressing ones.
I have wanted something like this since the first season but I also don’t because Fellowes would find a way to ruin it.
You suggest to the other lads/gals that you should all go swimming. OR you are suspiciously uncomfortable when someone else suggests swimming.
This is me, forever.
“How d’you do, come and have a bathe” — YES RUPERT GRAVES AND JULIAN SANDS please do
You go to foreign capitals a lot. (This both is and is not a euphemism.)
You are a woman who has been described by another character as any of the following: spirited, willful, indifferent, aloof, vigorous, outdoorsy, or keen.
omg ALL of the women in P.G. Wodehouse?
I could go for an “all of the women in Wodehouse are queer” headcanon. Yes indeedly.
Not just the women. Everyone.
you’ll like this, then: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1636310
THAT was much more skillful than I expected! All good wishes to Lady Florence and Madeline!
(I draw the line at shipping Bertie and Jeeves, though. Some things just need to remain subtextual.)
Oh my goodness, Jeeves having to explain “no, sir, some people genuinely are heterosexual” to Bertie, how marvelous.
You are an arch and careless school-chum who seems to live only for exciting late-night champagne raids and fountain-dunking.
is that not the entire Drones Club to balance ’em out?
This would explain how unconvincing all of the heterosexual relationships in P.G. Wodehouse’s writing are.
I’m TRYING to find the article I once read about how Wodehouse was asexual, he was never very interested in it, possibly because of a type of mumps he had as a child? Since then the only reading I can handle of Bertie Wooster is “jolly asexual.”
(found one sort of?) http://www.economist.com/node/3398668
Well, except for Gussie and Madeleine. They’re just soppy enough to be for real.
Who knows what they got up to when not chucking dinner rolls at each other across the table.
Chucking dinner rolls at each other *under* the table.
If you know what I mean, and I think you do.
There’s a great YouTube video of Drones scenes from the series set to Noel Coward’s “Green Carnation”.
Also “boyish slimness,” “athletic,” “springy,” “jaunty” (looking at you, Soft Butch Bobby Wickham!)
You are described as “an artistic sort.”
The show spends 2+ seasons deepening your character and you even get some furtive tail before the producers inexplicably decide That’s Enough Gay.
I know, WTF happened to Sal?
I just thought about Ricky (Ricky!) from My So-Called Life and realized that that could now pass for a period drama.
That show was about a sophomore, and it came out the year I was a sophomore, and now I officially feel old.
(I watched it because Sassy magazine loved it! I got nearly the same haircut she did!)
When you’re around the conversation inexplicably turns to Classical Greek poetry for some reason
You are described as “quite fond of studying ‘The Greeks.'”
All of these are Most Accurate – adding in another one, in that “When your “gay” storyline has “been completed”, you will mysteriously disappear from the show.”
WHY DID THEY DO THAT TO YOU SAL FROM MAD MEN, WHY.
All of the other gay characters in that show disappeared too, but for Sal it was the worst because he was given so much development and time on screen and then byyyyyyyeeeee we’ll never see you again even though a lot of the straight people who vanished *were* seen again in later seasons.
For other shows, it’s a little bit softer, more “When your gay storyline has been completed, they won’t know what to do with you and you’ll just sort of rattle around doing nothing.”
Apparently if you’re gay, the dramatic potential of you being gay in the past only works for one storyline, and once that one’s been “used up”, you have nothing to offer. This is despite the fact that all the straight people continue to have storylines either related or unrelated to their sexuality.
For some reason these tropes seem a lot more common for male characters than female ones, but they make me Angry.
Right, because Sal was a totally one-sided character whose only quality was gayness and he always wore purple jackets and a yellow ascot. He had no ambition, no love for his mother or his wife, no artistic abilities, and no feelings about discrimination, loneliness or identity. And the journey of gay people back then ended when they discovered cruising.
No, seriously he was a great character with an interesting story line and I was SO MAD when he disappeared. Plus he was one of only like two people on Mad Med who ever smiled for any reason other than evil schemes.
THERE WAS SO MUCH MORE THEY COULD HAVE DONE WITH SAL, he could have very safely been the main character and you would have had a lot to talk about. It’s weird, that someone could write such a great character and yet completely waste them. Matthew Weiner giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other.
The great thing about Sal is you also got to explore the moral/ethical dilemma of someone who is making other people unhappy through no fault of his own/because he can’t see any other way. Like Sal’s wife is not having a great life, but Sal obviously felt that marrying her was his only real option. I mean compare that to Don Draper’s decision to get himself out of poverty/rejection of his brother, which was also something that he felt was the only choice he could make at the time – but then Don also did things because he didn’t care about other people, whereas Sal probably cared too much about other people. Grumble grumble grumble so many thoughts and words about Sal, gonna be sad and annoyed and wistful for the rest of the day now.
Plus the question of “what happens to an illustrator in the age of photography” which was SO INTERESTING and they just DROPPED IT.
Gonna be so mad FOREVER
GIVE ME MY SAL ROMANO SPINOFF RIGHT NOW, seriously. It would have been super interesting to see what he did next!
BTW I did a video about Mad Men’s queer characters, if you would like to see it it is HERE https://youtu.be/t4LsXNpJf1w
Ohhh, don’t get me started about disappearing Mad Men characters. Kinsey of all characters got to reappear and get follow-up story, but Sal just disappeared off the face of the planet.
Rachel, Freddy Rumsen, That random pregnant niece lady, Glenn, Kinsey, Midge – they all reappeared and got story closure but Sal didn’t. As far as I know there was no behind the scenes disagreements/difficulties between Weiner and Bryan Batt, so I have no idea what that was about, unless Lee Garner Jr were somehow a real person and also in charge of the writing staff.
also all the queer characters disappeared without a trace – Joan’s roommate, Joyce, Kurt, Bob, Bob’s random propositioning-a-cop buddy, Lee Garner Jr, those swingers who want to do Megan and Don – but with most of them, they were really minor characters or weren’t in the story much. Not that I wanted any of them to disappear (Bob also had his story really late in the season so maybe he didn’t quite disappear – his story still sort of ended abruptly and stupidly though.) All the queer characters on Mad Men evaporated.
As someone who only watched all of Mad Men within the last 6 months can I just thank you for complaining about this because its so refreshing to see that people are still upset about this (also, did you see Bryan Batt’s “Closing the Book on Sal Romano” piece? So good)
I think I might have seen it, but I’ll look for it again. A lot of people were upset about Sal, don’t worry – it’s not just you. I heard a lot of disappointment about Sal on The AV Club as well, so it’s not just in spaces that are more specifically queer/feminist spaces.
Thanks! Yeah honestly i think that’s been the biggest comfort (like, that article is published in ESQUIRE! There was apparently a bunch of write-ins against it! One time Elizabeth Moss ran into Bryan Batt again told him “if one more person asks me when Sal come back I’m going to scream” which, no offense to her but GOOD! )
I would 100% watch a spin-off of Mad Men that revolved entirely around Sal, and also the other queer characters were in it.
Come to think of it, there aren’t many mainstream TV ensemble shows where the main character or one of the really main characters is queer. Halt and Catch Fire, House of Cards (but because both of those characters are bi, they can have them do straight things and have straight relationships most of the time – not minimising bi characters in any way, I love bi characters and we need more of them, but maybe they’re less “threatening”/their same-sex relationships can be relegated to side plots/one episode details), Orange is the new Black, Peep Show apparently (just heard something about that) and I think that’s it? Barring your Dante’s Coves and your “gay interest” shows where absolutely everyone is gay.
Orphan Black, though I’m not convinced it’s mainstream, has/had reps for all of the lgbt letters.
“Better Call Sal”
“ended abruptly” Yep. I kinda want to use “moved to Michigan” as a euphemism for when tv writers shift gay characters out of the story.
But..did he move to Michigan? I don’t even think they gave him that level of explanation for his disappearance. It was just like “I’M GOING TO BE HOME LATE” to his wife and we never saw him again.
Bob moved to Michigan at the end of season 6 for business reasons with some car account, and then in 7 he came back but Sterling Cooper Whoever lost the account (with Bob being offered a job directly with said car company. I think even they understood that they couldn’t fire a gay character AGAIN, even if he was never on the show again regardless).
Oh yeah I remember that – the conclusion to Bob’s story was pretty dumb/irritating, but at least it was near the end of the series as a whole so it wasn’t as aggravating as Sal disappearing in season 3.
Still not over what they did to Sal. 🙁
Saaaaaaaaalll! *cries plaintively into the night*
omg is THIS why I haven’t seen Mac in so long? T_T
You’re a jolly, red-cheeked young nurse who cheerfully answers queries about whether you’ve found the right chap with “Now, now, I’ve no time for that type of nonsense!”
(And then you get hit by a car. Call the Midwife, I’m looking at you.)
RIGHT? Gah, so angry about that.
I’ve said it before, my headcanon: She miraculously recovers, they live happily ever after, and the series concludes with a flash forward to their adorable, triumphant octogenarian wedding.
I have a whole tearful reunion written in my head.
**** NEW SEASON SPOILER ALERT****
I REPEAT:
SPOILER
ALERT
ON NEXT LINE
She’s back! She’s fine! She’s staying in Nonnatus and they’re thinking about a flat!
Squeee <3
That storyline was the actual worst. Like, the worst worst.
I haven’t watched that season yet and now I’m angry that they did something so crap with a queer character, THIS ISN’T THE 1950s FOR REAL, you don’t *have* to actually kill off your queer characters! JEBUS CHRIS!
O_O
O_O
…
I was planning on catching up on that series this holiday season, but now maybe I think I’ll pass.
It’s really very good, I just wish the fourth season hadn’t fallen so much into the trap of melodrama and Doing Terrible Things to Gay People in the Name of Historical Accuracy.
I was mostly mad that the Tudors fanfiction all seemed to feature the boring-as-fuck couple from the header image of this post. If you wanted to watch them be boring, you had the actual show! At least use the fanfiction to turn al that subtext between Henry and the French king into actual text, honestly.
Ah yes, Chris Martin and Other Chris Martin.
I was so mad at them for existing. They were so dull and then one of the Chris Martins died. It was awful. Henry and Francis had naked wrestling! Never had I been so disappointed in the Internet.
You are harshly and unreasonably set against your best friend’s new love interest, despite their complete perfection as a suitor and obvious interest in being your friend.
See also: signs that you’re me.
I was going to refrain from mentioning the autobiographical nature of my comment, since I figured we’d all recognize ourselves in it.
In my defense, my dearest love went and married a Libertarian.
“You’re sad all the time, for no reason (the reason is later revealed to be Secret Gayness).”
MY CHILDHOOD. (Kidding. Sort of. I’m okay now.)
But WHY is the attractive-if-unfortunately-mustachioed man laying in bed next to a marble statue?
If you are a chap, you marry the hero’s sister, who in subsequent episodes becomes first crestfallen, then watchful, then vinegary.
This is wonderful and very, very accurate. It’s really time people started mixing it up with their gay subplots.
Your hair is always a mess, but a sexy mess, presumably from all the gay sex you’re having.
Related: Mallory you should watch Lost Girl.
Rupert Graves
So Mystrade fans have a shot?
I almost wonder if she mean Rupert Everett?
NO NO, she means Rupert Graves. PLEASE treat yourself to MAURICE and EDUCATE YOURSELF, it is the Lord’s highest blessing
Or ROOM WITH A VIEW, which doesn’t have a gay subplot, but you will so not care.
I always think it’s hilarious when people try to write Mycroft as heterosexual, it’s like, bless your little heart, I did not think such sweet innocence still existed in the world.
You are a Hard Woman To Hounds.
“The camera lingers on your hands for an unnecessary split-second after you help your best friend into your corset.”
YOUR corset? Even in the unlikely event that that’s a typo, it just makes it even better. Ambiguously lesbian corset-sharing all the way.
Rule #1 is always that you must let a lower class gay fall in love with you before you ruin / imprison / kill them to maintain your reputation. You may feel bad about this secretly or you may be repressed enough that you just feel a lifelong unease that you can’t put your finger on
“Your character is played by Rupert Graves” – Or Ben Wishaw!
“You are a respected but under-the-radar British actor who is on the verge of becoming well-known in America.” – Oh, yep, there we go.
Seriously, if anybody just couldn’t make themselves put up with the Cloud Atlas movie (and boy, do I respect that), his subplot and hair are sublime and not directed by the Wachowskis. Also, if any Tom Hiddleston fans skipped the first part of the The Hollow Crown because he wasn’t in it: Richard II is definitely the weakest of the bunch but GOD Wishaw plays him like SUCH a historical sad-queer stereotype. It’d be a very different play if he and Bollingbroke just had make-up sex instead of the whole banishing/rebellion/Christ-analogue thing…
Othello would have been similarly altered.
Meanwhile, Emilia and Desdemona would be so *happy* together!
“Wait, Em, are you sure this is really a relationship? I mean, you’re not always grumping at me and cryptically accusing me of stuff without letting me know what I’ve done. If you’re angry about something you just say so instead of calling me a whore and then saying you’re not angry. Love can work that way?”
“Hey, it surprised me at first too, being with someone I loved and admired instead of someone I distrusted and hated. But let’s take happiness where we can get it!”
(This is also how it went down with Hermione and Paulina, yes? And meanwhile when Antigonus was pursued by a bear the Bard meant pursued by a large, kind, hairy man who just wanted to take care of him?)
Someone mentioned on tumblr that Romeo + Juliet could’ve ended happily if Juliet had married Mercutio, and Romeo + Benvolio had taken a ‘bachelor’s apartment’ right next door, and then Romeo + Mercutio high-five as they climb the fence to be with their loves.
I’m not aware of any Mercutio/Benvolio-ness in text, but boy did it make me want to rewrite the second half of R+J as a French farce.
And now with the above I just want to watch a series of Shakespeare tragedies turned into happily-ever-after queer dramas. (Storylines that also need a happy-ever-after would be Antonio. And while we’re there can we make Shylock’s ending less awful and anti-Semetic?)
“You are a woman who has been described by another character as any of the following: spirited, willful, indifferent, aloof, vigorous, outdoorsy, or keen.”
I have been described as all of these. I didn’t think they were very accurate adjectives but they make much more sense now.
You’ve been to Tangier.
Oh Cousin Peter did love those fishermen boys in TANGIERS
You’ve made some eyebrow-raising comments about organised religion. At a deadly, decadent court or something.
Someone mentioned on tumblr that Romeo + Juliet could've ended happily if Juliet had married Mercutio, and Romeo + Benvolio had taken a 'bachelor's apartment' right next door, and then Romeo + Mercutio high-five as they climb the fence to be with their loves.
I'm not aware of any Mercutio/Benvolio-ness in text, but boy did it make me want to rewrite the second half of R+J as a French farce.
And now with the above I just want to watch a series of Shakespeare tragedies turned into happily-ever-after queer dramas. (Storylines that also need a happy-ever-after would be Antonio. And while we're there can we make Shylock's ending less awful and anti-Semetic?)