Stereotypes
Notes: This was mostly written for my lovely and very patient friend Skittly, with whom I play band!verse Grell. Some notes beforehand - yes, my written Scottish dialect is nearly indistinguishable from my written cowboy drawl accent thingy.
Ronald is mysteriously American. This is secretly a plot to get him less up-beat, since he has to celebrate Thanksgiving all on his lonesome.
William is Irish, and the potatoes in a box on his bed reference the potato famine. Which is a mean joke.
Eric is Scottish, Glasgow smile and hoodie and all.
Oh, and George Michael is a British popstar who got arrested for public indecency and drunk driving. You can already tell what kind of singer Grell is going to be.
And they are in a band. That is basically it.
It wasn't easy being the only American in a house full of English people (and one Scotsman, and one Irishman, who got Very Annoyed when you categorized them as British) and Ronald had been prepared for the kind of playful ribbing that men gave each other; in fact, he'd looked forward to it, a little bit.
And then Grell heard his accent, once, and it sounded just Southern enough to rank him up there with the great cowboys that Grell knew: Billy the Kid, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill and those two gay ones from 'Brokeback Mountain'.
Ronald had a problem with that.
First of all, he'd distinctly heard Grell called William 'Wild Bill' once, and the image it brought with it was not a pleasant one and required horse-killing amounts of caffeine to shift.
Second of all, he wasn't that Southern.
"I'm just south of the Mason-Dixon," Ronald mumbled, mostly to himself, as there was nobody else in the room except Eric, who had a hangover and should not be disturbed by cultural issues.
. . .
Eric had had enough. That fucker was going to learn his name if he screamed out 'They'll never take our freedom' one more goddamned time.
"They're jealous," Alan reassured him, "it's such a lovely accent, Eric."
"... FREEDOOOOOM," went the bastard across the street, and Eric looked around desperately for something hard and phallic enough to brain him with. Alan caught the glance, and narrowed his eyes and, like an obedient and well-trained kitten, Eric plonked back down onto the sofa, and folded his arms tight across his chest.
"I think it's sexy," Alan insisted, laying a hand on Eric's knee, which was jumping, "And I do like your kilt... Scotsmen are rated amongst the highest in all the sex polls."
"Y'cannae stop tryin' ta make it up ta me, Alan," Eric sighed. He paused, then looked up curiously, adding, "... sexy?"
"The sexiest," Alan promised, and laid a kiss to Eric's cheek. "Now ignore that twat across the road and tell me a story, hm?"
. . .
There was a box of potatoes sitting in the middle of William's bed.
William lowered the bag down to the ground and frowned, reaching for the plain white card propped up on the over-flowing top.
There, in what was unmistakably Alan's neat, precise print, was the phrase: 'You'd have survived the Irish Potato Famine with us around! Love, your boys.'
. . .
Alan was a posh British bloke, stiff upper lip included within that package. He drank tea every evening, and his reaction to a fight was 'write a cutting letter', unless that fight was happening in that instant, in which case his reaction would be to pry whomever it was that was attacking Eric off him, and then perhaps throw him into the Tower of London. His father knew the Queen - distantly.
It really wasn't that surprising. Most everyone knew the Queen distantly, she was protected to within an inch of her life and not liable to take to the streets unsupervised any time soon.
The only way Alan moved away from the British mindset was when it came to Eric.
Scotsmen and British men hardly got on swimmingly, but Eric was special enough to get past that.
After all, the only reason British men abhorred the Scottish was for that ghastly outfit; and Eric looked quite delicious in his kilt and long white socks and sporran, thank you very much.
. . .
Grell Sutcliff fit perfectly into the stereotype of the superstar British bloke.
He drank constantly, he smoked, he said inappropriate things in front of visiting dignitaries or people from other countries, he was loud, he was rude, he was perverted, he had sex n the oddest places, he had sex, he exercised, he did not like tea.
He fit perfectly into the stereotype of the superstar British bloke, if that British bloke happened to be George Michael.
Ronald is mysteriously American. This is secretly a plot to get him less up-beat, since he has to celebrate Thanksgiving all on his lonesome.
William is Irish, and the potatoes in a box on his bed reference the potato famine. Which is a mean joke.
Eric is Scottish, Glasgow smile and hoodie and all.
Oh, and George Michael is a British popstar who got arrested for public indecency and drunk driving. You can already tell what kind of singer Grell is going to be.
And they are in a band. That is basically it.
It wasn't easy being the only American in a house full of English people (and one Scotsman, and one Irishman, who got Very Annoyed when you categorized them as British) and Ronald had been prepared for the kind of playful ribbing that men gave each other; in fact, he'd looked forward to it, a little bit.
And then Grell heard his accent, once, and it sounded just Southern enough to rank him up there with the great cowboys that Grell knew: Billy the Kid, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill and those two gay ones from 'Brokeback Mountain'.
Ronald had a problem with that.
First of all, he'd distinctly heard Grell called William 'Wild Bill' once, and the image it brought with it was not a pleasant one and required horse-killing amounts of caffeine to shift.
Second of all, he wasn't that Southern.
"I'm just south of the Mason-Dixon," Ronald mumbled, mostly to himself, as there was nobody else in the room except Eric, who had a hangover and should not be disturbed by cultural issues.
. . .
Eric had had enough. That fucker was going to learn his name if he screamed out 'They'll never take our freedom' one more goddamned time.
"They're jealous," Alan reassured him, "it's such a lovely accent, Eric."
"... FREEDOOOOOM," went the bastard across the street, and Eric looked around desperately for something hard and phallic enough to brain him with. Alan caught the glance, and narrowed his eyes and, like an obedient and well-trained kitten, Eric plonked back down onto the sofa, and folded his arms tight across his chest.
"I think it's sexy," Alan insisted, laying a hand on Eric's knee, which was jumping, "And I do like your kilt... Scotsmen are rated amongst the highest in all the sex polls."
"Y'cannae stop tryin' ta make it up ta me, Alan," Eric sighed. He paused, then looked up curiously, adding, "... sexy?"
"The sexiest," Alan promised, and laid a kiss to Eric's cheek. "Now ignore that twat across the road and tell me a story, hm?"
. . .
There was a box of potatoes sitting in the middle of William's bed.
William lowered the bag down to the ground and frowned, reaching for the plain white card propped up on the over-flowing top.
There, in what was unmistakably Alan's neat, precise print, was the phrase: 'You'd have survived the Irish Potato Famine with us around! Love, your boys.'
. . .
Alan was a posh British bloke, stiff upper lip included within that package. He drank tea every evening, and his reaction to a fight was 'write a cutting letter', unless that fight was happening in that instant, in which case his reaction would be to pry whomever it was that was attacking Eric off him, and then perhaps throw him into the Tower of London. His father knew the Queen - distantly.
It really wasn't that surprising. Most everyone knew the Queen distantly, she was protected to within an inch of her life and not liable to take to the streets unsupervised any time soon.
The only way Alan moved away from the British mindset was when it came to Eric.
Scotsmen and British men hardly got on swimmingly, but Eric was special enough to get past that.
After all, the only reason British men abhorred the Scottish was for that ghastly outfit; and Eric looked quite delicious in his kilt and long white socks and sporran, thank you very much.
. . .
Grell Sutcliff fit perfectly into the stereotype of the superstar British bloke.
He drank constantly, he smoked, he said inappropriate things in front of visiting dignitaries or people from other countries, he was loud, he was rude, he was perverted, he had sex n the oddest places, he had sex, he exercised, he did not like tea.
He fit perfectly into the stereotype of the superstar British bloke, if that British bloke happened to be George Michael.