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storyteller-aprendiz · 9 months

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I LOVED THE CHEATING STORYLINE (ACTUALLY)

First, a little bit about me: I am a polyamorous bisexual writer with queer liberation ideals. This is just so that you (beautifull reader that took the time to read this) understands where I am coming from.

So let's recapitulate:

Carlos and Ashlyn plus all of the wildcats except for Big Red and Seb leave for camp, leaving the two boys to spend a lot time together were they grow closer and their relationship understandably strengthens.

So, we end up with two boys that are missing their romantic partners and all the affection their romantic partners can give them. They decide to go see a Harry Styles movie (whyyy?? harry styles- it should have been better Fire Island, anyways). And in the darkness of the cinema Seb reaches for Big Red's nachos, and Big Red for Seb's popcorn. Hands brush, it reminds them of the romantic affection they've been missing, but it isn't enough so they kiss.

And kisses CAN be platonic. Nothing happens, except that Big Red discovers he's bisexual.

Their romantic partners return for camp. They have to tell them about the KISS because if they don't say anything it would be cheating, but Big Red is going to Cairo (for some weird reason). Seb, well there are some rumours about Carlos cheating, which Seb isn't bother by, in his mind he did the same.

He found out does rumours aren't real. Carlos didn't cheat unlike him. The guilt consumes him, he's a coward so he runs from his problems. Seb ignores Carlos for the rest of the summer and two months after that (if they start in the 1st of september, idk how it works).

Seb tells Carlos about the kiss, but it comes out all wrong. Now its too late for the kiss to really being nothing, Seb ignore carlos for 2 months-ish. Plus he says he cheated, which really what is CHEATING?

Is it kissing someone? Is it having sex with someone? Is it entering a romantic relationship with someone? Is it entering a sexual relationship with someone? Is it having feelings for someone?

Carlos & Seb never defined what is cheating for them, and the way Seb says it, it could be anything of the above.

PLUS cheating involves in some way getting tired of the other person and wanting to look for something new. Which Carlos internalizes, but is definetly not how Seb feels about him.

Big Red comes back from Egypt, the first thing he does (after yk doing all the things you do for a trip) is go find Ashlyn and explain himself, and apologize (sort of). Because how he sees it, it wasn't cheating because for him platonic kisses aren't cheating and he still loves Ashlyn, for Ash is a bit different because she doesn't know what cheating is for her, and they also never established what cheating was for each other.

But is fine because Big Red came to her with the truth AS SOON AS POSSIBLE (I'm looking at you Sebastian). Plus they both knew their relationship was reaching an end.

Reminded by Ashlyn, Big Red goes to Carlos to explain the situation, but is too late Seb already ruin it. It was too late, the wording was not the best ("Do you know who was the guy that Seb cheated with?" / "Me". Like, damn). And again CHEATING implies the person that cheats getting bored with their partner and disregarding their feelings.

So yeah, Carlos is feeling bad. Because all this time it had been Seb who had giving Carlos the side eye for the possibility he might cheated with boys on trips to México or Camp, etc. Carlos, who has had to manage the effects of this insecurity of Seb's, then has that same insecuirty made real by the same person that already feels it.

Therefore, a very shitty situation. Because again Seb saying "I cheated on you" is very different from "I kiss Big Red, it didn't mean anything".

And as we know it was all that implied cheating that affected Carlos, not really the kiss on itself. So in true Seblos fasion, he needs a song to be reminded of how much Seb trully loves him, how much he values him.

And we finally get the Seblos (frankie & joe) duet I've been waiting.

Seb finally gets a chance to do things right, explain himself and Red, and assuage any insecurities Carlos might have.

The End.

Which, wow, it was a very convoluted storyline, just type it down, now, I can see how long it was.

So for my recap of it, you can see that I really don't see Seb and Big Red as cheating, because again it was a PLATONIC kiss. That being said, Seblos and Redlyn should have talk about what is cheating for them, and is platonic kisses are part of it, well that changes things a little bit. But yeah. For me what Seb & Big Red did wasn't cheating.

Now lets get into what Seb and Big Red did wrong.

Big Red, you did things very good actually, just don't try to act so proud of it "my coming-out origin story" to your girlfriend? Dude, a bit more tact next time.

Seb, Seb, sweet, sweet, Seb. Do you even know your boyfriend? You did everything wrong. You IGNORED Carlos, a person which craves attention, you make him feel your own guilt about cheating even when he didn't, and make him feel like he did something wrong in the relationship, when you thought it was you who did the wrong thing.

And then, instead of explaining what ACTUALLY happened, you say it in the way that will be MISINTERPRETED and cause a lot of insecurity, insecurity which you HAVE/HAD by the way.

Like I know you aren't good at talking things out loud, but this is a whole other level.

Now, why do I love the storyline? As I declared in the title of this post.

Well 1st CARLOS. I love how this plot allows us to go in deeper with Carlos' insecurities, and even a throwaway line of the exuberant body standards of/in the gay community.

It also gave us a Carlos that fought for Seb, when he wasn't talking to him. Like in S2, he would have just give him the cold shoulder too, called it a day, and if they never talk again, well it would be more self-pity to drown himself into.

It gave us Miss Jenn & Carlos bonding over their broken hearts, Ashlyn & Carlos moments talking about their partners (and queerness), Carlos & Kourtney caring for each other.

It gave us a freaking Seblos duet (though I know we could've get this any other way).

2nd Seb. Like I know that I have been to harsh on him, and that's because he messed up. And I LOVE that about him.

Like Sebastian has always been this perfect character ("Sweet Perfect Innocent Seb" as Carlos call him), but now we know it isn't always easy to be sweet, perfect, and innocent.

And he messed up in a way that was actually in line with his character, like he is definitely the person that drags out the problem until he can't ignore it (Points to S2), and doesn't want to deal with it.

Carlos messes up a lot, but now we find out that Seb does too.

3rd Big Red. I love his outlook in this whole situation. How he looks back at the moment and doesn't think "I cheated on my girlfriend" but rather "Wow, cool bi awakening". Because again, he wasn't into Seb, it was a platonic kiss, all it did for him was making him realized that he likes kissing boys, and boys in general as well as girls.

Which brings me to the fact that we finally got to know Big Red's bi awakening. Is it controversial? Yes. Does it perpetuates stereotypes? Depending on how you look at it, because although Big Red doesn't look at it as cheating, Ashlyn has more mix feeling about it, and the guy he kissed definetly thinks they cheated.

4th, it was a freaking queer storyline. Like normally I hate cheating as a way to cause more drama into a relationship, plus being the reason the character break up. But the way HSMTMTS queered it all the way.

Like I definitely can SEE this happening on a queer friendship group irl. Like the Redlyn break-up is the queerest scene on the show ever, Big Red's whole different out look on the situation, Carlos' insecurities about why Seb cheated, how Seb reacts to the whole thing, and the uses Halloween to try an fix it. The fact that it was a platonic kiss, which both parties know didn't meant they were into the other person, but that they just like to kiss.

Very, very queer my friend.

Lastly, I have mostly been talking about it from my own interpretation and my feelings about it. But I want to talk about how I saw it was received.

And that was, not so good.

Which I do and don't understand at the same time. On the one side, I am in part of the crow that says that relationships don't need to have drama to be interesting. Especially, when the only drama mainstream authors can think about is, cheating, fear of being cheated on, and jelousy. Like very boring my friend.

Then there's the whole "Bisexual Stereotipe" in the room, which true (most people don't even care about Bi men) is not the best. However, I want to ask, why are we so insistan on looking good? Why do we crave acceptance so much?

If a may I would like to bring attention to this next excerpt from Bi Notes from a Bisexual Revolution by Shiri Esner:

The idea of unfaithfulness also brings into light the metaphor of the bisexual as traitor (one of my personal favorites). The dictionary defines

treason as “a betrayal of trust,” or as “an attempt to overthrow the government . . . or to kill . . . the sovereign,” a definition that betrays, if you will, bisexuality’s function as an agitator. We can think about bisexuality as betrayal of the trust imposed on us by power structures, as well as embodying an attempt to overthrow or “kill” hegemonic order. We can then use this as a gateway to betraying monogamy, patriarchy, governments, countries, and wars, betraying the “LGBT” (meaning, the GGGG) movement, for promoting the assimilation of our communities and cooperating with oppressive structures. We can be traitors to anything that confines us, and to anything that stands in our way: all power structures, all oppression.

Which actually brings me to the last idea of why I think people are reacting badly to the storyline, we are not used to see queer people mess up in media. With this I mean that we are either demonized or made into paragons.

Let me pick another quote from Will Williams, amazing creator of Valence a super duper queer Urban Fantasy Podcast:

So like, there’s this — there’s this idea of “bad representation”, of showing queer people in a negative light as complex and fucked up characters. [...] There’s this idea that showing queer people like this gives cishet people more reasons to hate us.

And I understand that. I absolutely do. [...] But where I am right now, my philosophy is, cishet people will always hate us. They’ll always find reasons to think that we’re abhorrent even if we’re the most morally upright person in their eyes, regardless of being queer. [...]

I don’t — I — because I’m a mess, and because I’m a queer person, and because I have huge monumental flaws as a person, I really struggle to feel represented by most things [...] So when I think of the media that matters to me, and makes me feel seen, and gives me catharsis, and makes me feel represented as specifically a queer person, I always think of really fucked up, messed up queer characters hat other people might point to and be like, this is bad representation. I just don’t think that there’s any such thing as good representation.

To conclude, I love the cheating storyline. Because in my book it wasn't actually cheating, we've got to explore the characters even more- let them mess up, and it was queer as fuck.

#hsmtmts #high school musical: the musical: the series #hsmtmts s4 #hsmtmts analysis #hsmtmts spoilers #carlos rodriguez #seb mathew smith #ashlyn caswell #big red redonovich #seblos #redlyn #sebastian mathew smith

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