September 24th was our two-year anniversary. We had a very slow going, I admit, until 2016, when queer female deaths hit critical mass. 2014 was a low year, but after that we’ve had more than ever before.
Before we get into things, here’s our monthly status:
- New Characters — 151
- New Shows — 41
Those 151 characters include as many people from The L Word as possible.
Also TV season has started up in the US, so we’re waiting to hear who’s gay on the CW. Since it’s the CW, we’ll probably find out when they die.
News
The biggest news in September was the death of AfterEllen. While the site will remain up, it will be run by heterosexual men and few of the existing freelancers will be continuing on (so far one). Making matters worse, after Trish Bendix (the former Editor in Chief) posted her very personal (and approved of) farewell, she was fired two days early and denied her severance pay.
Four years ago, when WB/TNT mistreated the organizers of RizzlesCon, we didn’t really have the power we do now. We’d not yet amassed the ability to protest effectively. It’s harder when you’re spread around the world. But today we do, and we’ve not let AfterEllen go without a loud, proud, word.
Behind the Closet
There’s a funny story about how lesbians eat data for breakfast. We managed to break some software on this site in a pretty phenomenal way that ended up requiring working with three separate companies, but it’s all working now. Suffice to say, lessons were learned and the server only crashed twice. The good news is that when you search on content, now you’ll get a little more relevant information.
Most of the work on the site this month has been behind the scenes. A few things to make our lives easier when updating and adding content. We’ve added in more links in more places too. The icons for clichés and tropes are all links! Now you can wiki-clicky until you’ve been on the site for six hours.
The one ‘big’ thing is the date based archives now include all data for everything. For example, if you go to look at December 2014, you’ll see all the posts made as well as characters and shows added. If you look at the years (like 2016) you’ll see everything for the year but also the death count for that year.
