And what was she, the fairy Melusine?

Things I don't like about Popular- the fact that there's one, central person of colour in the main (young) cast. Indeed, the diversity among the adult cast is better, all round. The cheap ableism, and other stereotypes peddled, in a show that makes quite an effort to have convincing characters with disabilities, and which was the only teen show I saw with long term illness presented, especially mental illness.

The implication in the early episodes that the teen male characters are the voice/eyes of reason irks me, but they seem to fix that later., Same with the nice guy (TM) stuff.

And fuck, I wish the third series and Sam coming to terms with being queer had been made, because the lack of queer identified teens is driving me up the wall.

But I like the way the characters are angry, and confused, and suffering and awful, but brilliant.

I love the snatches of teenage self righteousness, some good, some bad. The seizing at all the wrong ideas for why your life is bad, and how you can fix it. 

The portrayal of an anxiety attack, and all the little references to Brooke's mental illness and food issues and guilt. 

The way teenage attitude to sex is portrayed, as confused and ridiculously puritanical and fetishizing at the same time, or at least can be.

I mean, I know it's a privileged fantasy and delusion at the same time. I do appreciate the progressive gestures it makes (it was the first place I came across transition as a concept, rather than just the idea of a "sex change operation". First place I heard the phrase "person of colour". 

I was a self hating, other people hating, angry hurting student in an exclusive environment. At that was for an whole bunch of reasons, which have not exactly gone away. Lately, they've been more there, by lately I mean the last year or so. I really, really fucking needed eight hours of watching a dissection of misplaced hate and righteousness. 

I love you guys, people I think read this, people I would be pleasantly suprised if I were to find out you read this. people who don't read this but will be subjected to my rant about Popular and comparisons to Little Woman if I can force myself to re-read Alcott, people I don't know but who've stayed reading this long. But I've such a huge inferiority complex relating to you, to what you do. And people, you do many and varied things, have done many and varied things. And I get all inferior and resentful for the weirdest things, even now. But I talked to my dad, earlier, in such a bad state that I was hurting from the muscles tensed and my voice was hoarse, which as you may know, is generally how I don't like to appear to my dad. And he pointed out things I knew, but that I am living and working with a person I deeply care about and love, and doing what matters to me. The bizarre worries- I worry that I fall into a template of dropouts from my school- there are three of us, it seems, and I have only heard good things about the other two from people who seemed neutral. And it will hurt, for a good while, that some of the people who looked up to me never will again. And I really don't think people will replace them, but some day I will work out a workshop around Always So Free and take it to sixth forms, or finally do the proper Strangers on a Train adaptation, or do genderqueer slam without freezing. And that will be fucking sweet. (The slam when I froze, still pretty sweet)