Pontius Gemstone and the Boy Named Stacy

 

Note: In this story, Stacy is 18, and Pontius is 19

Stacy woke slowly, his eyes gradually adjusting to the hospital room. The monitors on his left side, the nightstand with cards and books on the right.  The window that looked out onto the parking lot, with maybe a little green beyond.  A countertop loaded down with "Get Well" balloons.  Two chairs -- wait, there was a figure sitting in one.  His eyes weren't focused yet -- who was it, his brother?

"You're not here to tell me how lucky I am, are you?  Another inch, and the bullet would have hit my aorta, and I would have bled out before the paramedics arrived? God was watching over me?"

"Hell, no."  Stacy recognized the voice...but...the guy slid his chair over to the bed with a loud screech.  Pontius, his friend from church and the skater crowd.  Well, sort of.  "I'm here to tell you to get well, so I can get back to watching you wipe out your ass on the tail slides."

"Har-har, big joke.  Dude, you know you're a wannabe mobber.  Just wait til I get back to that skatepark."  He hadn't realized how much he missed skating, and jamming about skating.

Pontius grabbed Stacy's free hand and pressed it against his own.  "I brought you some chocolate Turtles, 'cause you know, you're into lizards, but they accidentally got eaten in the car on the way over."

"Jackass!" 

He laughed.  Stacy felt surprisingly happy to see him.  They weren't very close friends -- they rarely spoke, and they had never been to each other's houses. But his brash, no-nonsense attitude was the perfect remedy to a week of "God had his hand on you!"

"I wanna know what it was like to work for Jeffrey Dahmer.  Did Cobb like, give you body parts to feed to the gators?"

"It was weird.  I liked working at the Gator Farm. Cobb was so nice to me, always asking about my classes and the Salvation Center, and all the time he was killing people, and he kept that guy Big Dick as a sex slave, like five feet from where I was mopping the floor."

"Yeah, dude, if you knew, you could have splattered the mother-f*cker!"  

"Hey, do you think he was asking so many questions because he was keeping tabs on your Grandad?"  

"Probably.  Seems like every year, some guy pops up with a grudge against my Grandad, the World Famous Eli Gemstone or whatever."  He reached up and squeezed Stacy's left shoulder.  "Does this hurt?'

"No.  I was shot in my right..."

"How about this?"  He moved his hand down to Stacy's crotch and squeezed.

"Hey, knock it off!"

"Just checking to see if your junk still works. Scoot over."  Pontius slid onto the bed next to him, so their thighs and legs were touching, and grabbed the tv remote.  "You get any porn on this thing?" 

"I don't think you're supposed to do that." 

"So call a nurse and complain."  

Stacy had never sat pressed against someone before, except maybe his brother when they were little.  He dated a couple of girls, back before he figured out that he was gay, but they never did any hugging, just handshakes and goodnight pecks.  He had been with two guys, but they were just hookups, unzip, suck, and don't say hello in the hallway the next day.  Was this what having a boyfriend felt like? Were they cuddling?  

Wait -- wasn't Pontius straight?

Pontius was casually clicking on the remote as if the closeness didn't bother him at all. Flustered, Stacy tried to think of something simple to talk about. "Did you know that your Grandad visits me every day?  Your brother Gideon has been by, and Kelvin..."

Uh-oh, Pontius took that as an accusation.  "I would have come before, but I've been busy.  Gideon is starting a new Christian-themed skatepark.  I'm going to be the manager."  He stopped on Spongebob Squarepants, then put down the remote and took Stacy's hand.  Their fingers interlocked.

They watched in silence for a few minutes. 

"This is nice," Stacy said.

Pontius started to blush, a reddening in his neck and face.  "Yeah, well, touching a dude is good for healing, or some New Age bullshit." 

He had a thin, tight frame, small hard biceps, some cool tattoos, and the most beautiful hands.  Why had Stacy never thought of asking him out?  

Reason #1: Stacy was a straight-A student, planning to start at the College of Charleston in the fall and study biology. Maybe become a herpetologist.  But Pontius was kind of a screw-up.  Fun to hang out with, but no goals, no future.  Wait -- managing a Christian-themed skate park?  

Reason #2: Wasn't he straight?

"I've seen this episode," Pontius complained.  Let's find some chicks, or some dicks."  He clicked until he found a soap opera with a shirtless hunk sitting on a couch. "Awright! Check out those pecs! Man, I'd love to be working on those."

"I thought you were...you know...you like girls."

Pontius laughed, then lay his head on Stacy's shoulder.  "Dude, you are adorable.  I like pussy, but who's gonna say no to a cock?  I went down on half the cadets at the Citadel, and the other half went down on me.  Sometimes they wanted me to screw them while they screwed their girls, or the other way around."

Casually outing himself as bi?  No long, angst-ridden conversation?  Stacy was astonished, but strangely, not at ease.   Reason #3: Pontius was a player.  Whatever was going on here, it wasn't real.

"I'm gay...."

"Well, duh.  That's obvious, Stace.  Everybody knows.  My grandmother knows, and she's not even alive."

"So...if you knew, and you like guys, why haven't you ever asked me out?"

He looked away.  "Geez, isn't it obvious?  You're like the valedictorian, you have the coolest job in the world, and look at you, with your dick-sucking lips and little pinprick tits and butt that goes on for days.  You're like Mr. Perfection,way out of my league."  He turned back, grinning.  "That's what you wanted to hear, right?"

Stacy laughed.  "Asshole!"

"C'mon, let's make out."  Without waiting for his response, he draped his arm around Stacy's shoulder and leaned in, and they were kissing.  Stacy had only kissed girls before, and only brief good-night pecks. Pontius was forceful and demanding, taking control, pushing, prodding, exploring. 

Stacy slid down so Pontius could lie on top, so he could feel his body, cling to him, his cock prodding against the fabric of his hospital gown.  It wasn't real, Pontius was just playing him, but...OMG, he was hot.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

Gemstones Episode 4.8, Continued: We finally see Big Dick Mitch, the boy named Stacy, a serial killer, and a lot of tied-up guys

Previous: Gemstones Episode 4.8: BJ's hookup, Corey's birthday blade, and Tyler's tree trunk

Earlier in the episode, we saw the homophobic Vance Simkins dragged offstage, BJ walking again, Teenjus in a dance competition, and Cobb gifting Corey with a very special knife.  

The Songs Aimee-Leigh and Lori Wrote:    The siblings are ending a very long board meeting.  They're anxious to go home, but Martin insists on bringing in one last visitor.  What is he, their receptionist?

It's Lori!  She needs to talk to Eli, but he won't answer her calls or texts.  They growl and posture, and yell about how much they hate her, until she proves that she loved Aimee-Leigh, and them.

 1. When Judy was a few months old, they had to drive to Nashville for a show, and Aimee-Leigh missed her so much that she couldn't stop crying.  So they wrote "Little Angels, Big Hearts." Why did you leave your three-month old baby at home? And by the way, that's an eight-hour drive.  You'd better fly.

2. When Kelvin was about 12, he was in a piano concert in Atlanta.  He forgot his lucky shoes, but Mama convinced him to play anyhow.  And they wrote "Barefoot and Praying."  Why does Kelvin's musical talent appear in flashbacks, but never in the present?  He doesn't even own a piano.

3. When Gideon was a baby, he got a fever, and they didn't know if he would make it.  Jesse stayed up all night, holding his hand, and they wrote "Heaven's Thunder," about finding the strength to never give up.  Hey, I'm tearing up. My dad stayed up all night with me once when I was sick.   

This actually proves that Aimee-Leigh loved them, not Lori, but the siblings are moved, and agree to help her contact Eli. 

Big Dick Mitch:  After their lunch,  Eli and Baby Billy get into their car.  Suddenly they get darted, and go unconscious!   In the middle of the afternoon , in the parking lot of a restaurant?  

They awaken several hours later, tied up in a concrete room, with a naked, collared man who says he was kidnapped.

Eli: "Are you Big Dick Mitch?"

Baby Billy: "That's an odd thing to comment on."  Dude can't help it if he likes dicks, Baby Billy. Remember, he dated Junior.

Notice that Big Dick Mitch is actually quite small. Lori would know this.  I think Cobb gave him the nickname to embarrass him, and told his son -- uh-oh, Corey is in on it, or at least aware of it and protecting Cobb.

Mitch is played by Regan Burns, an actor and comedian best known as the Dad on Dog with a Blog  He has 83 credits on the IMDB.

Cobb enters and introduces Mitch as "a good boy," using a taser to keep him cowering.  He explains that  "I keep Mitch alive because he entertains me," implying that he usually kills Lori's boyfriends.

He's not sure if he will kill Eli and Baby Billy, or break them down, "see how long it takes you to crack, make y'all my womans."  

"You ain't gonna make me a woman!" Baby Billy exclaims.

"I'll make you whatever I want."  He unzips and pulls it out (unseen).  Mitch whimpers as he starts to lower into position for sucking his dick.  Then suddenly Stacy pages him: "the police are here.  They'd like a word."

Stacy is actually a guy, played by Michael Berthold.  Cobb seems to be promoting traditional hegemonic masculinity with the contention that someone who plays a passive role in same-sex activity is a "woman," yet he doesn't seem bothered by a long-haired, androgynous boy with a girl's name?

Michael Berthold grew up in Apopka, north of Orlando, Florida, and as of this writing is a student at the University of Florida, Gainsville.  He has 28 acting credits on the IMDB, including Billy the Fetus (2016), for which he won a Young Actors Award, and  The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019), where he worked with Shia LaBeouf.

And he owns a Great Dane.

More after the break

Mitch Hewer: "Controversial" gay teen on British tv grows up to star in pantos, play Fortnite, and post a j/o video

 

18-year old Mitch Hewer, a new graduate of the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Bristol, entered acting with a bang in 2007 when he was cast a gay teenager on the teen angst drama Skins (2007-13).  After years of Thatcher-Major homophobia, Britain was becoming more gay-positive: laws prohibiting teachers from saying "gay" and public officials appearing at pride events were struck down, and Tony Blair introduced a civil partnership that gave gay couples many of the rights of heterosexuals.  There were several gay characters on British tv, but apparently a gay teenager was "highly controversial."  Mitch got  death threats, and was attacked by a guy with a knife.

Maxxie is a gay-stereotype dance major (which makes sense: Mitch was a dance major at the academy). During his 17 episodes, he hooks up with the down-low Tony (Nicholas Hoult),  helps him through a serious head injury

Attempts to hurt himself...

Shows his butt....

Tussles with homophobic Muslim student Anwar (Dev Patel) but manages to remain his friend, then date him...

Is stalked by a female student with a crush on him...

Gets a boyfriend named James (Jack O'Connell), and they leave the series together, along with Anwar.  

Playing a gay teenager on British tv got Mitch a lot of attention.  He made the cover of Attitude in March and October 2007, and posed nude in Cosmopolitan in 2008 to promote testicular cancer awareness.

After Skins, Mitch starred in Brittanica High (2008-09), about students in a London drama school.  His character, Danny Miller, is straight, the focus of "all of the girls" in the school, but he eventually narrows it down to New Girl Lauren and her enemy-turned-ally Claudia. There's a gay student, Jez (Matthew James Thomas), but his plot arc involves reconciling with his father.  No boyfriend.

Two more straight roles followed:

In Behaving Badly (2014), Nick (Nat Wolfe) is in love with Nina (Selena Gomez), but she is dating Kevin (Austin Stowell).  When they break up, Nick bets that he will be able to bed her before Labor Day.  Mitch plays a minor character, Steven Stevens

Nightlight (2015) is a found footage movie: When Robin (a girl) refuses to go to prom with Ethan (Kyle Fain), he ends up dead and then starts picking off her friends.  The two boys in the group are Chris (Carter Jenkins) and Ben (Mitch),

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

Gemstones Episode 4.6: Kelvin cruises teen idols, Jesse hangs dong, and Cobb gets his cobb bit off. With Ricky Martin and the Italian Stallion

 

Previous: Gemstone Episode 4.5, Continued: Kelvin crashes, the Monkey fumes, and Eli gets a wake-up call

Title: "Interlude IV."  The Interlude is usually Episode 5, but this season started with a stand-alone.  We're halfway through the action in the present day, with Kelvin's meltdown, Judy's jealousy over the monkey, and Eli and Lori dealing with violence.

The New Parking Lot: 2002.  Eli is standing before the County Zoning Board, discussing his plan to build a 10-acre parking lot at the Salvation Center, which would involve buying and demolishing neighboring houses.   He claims that they bring thousands of people to town, who spend money, so it's a "win-win" situation.  Aimee-Leigh points out that they're also bringing in jobs.  The townsfolk growl and complain.  So am I.  Zoning restrictions?  How boring can you get? 

Cute council member Terry Cook is eating a donut.  A background player notes that they did several takes, asking him to convey anger and eat an egg.  

The cast list is not yet up on the IMDB, and googling "Terry Cook" doesn't work, but he looks like Jamie McGuire, the creepy-grin creature on "From." 

 The council president yells: "You may be able to buy out desperate people, Dr. Gemstone, but that doesn't make it right!"   She notes that the county board usually rubber-stamps their crazy plans, but not this time: "The crowd of people behind you is voiceless, and someone has to be their voice!"  

The plan is rejected, and the couple leaves in defeat. Aimee-Leigh wonders why they're even doing this ministry stuff.

Eli: "For the lake house."  That is, for the money. Um...serving God?  Spreading the Gospel? Helping people?

They walk out into a huge demonstration.  Someone shoves pies in their faces.

Writers: This sequence has no connection to the plot.  In Season 3, the Y2K scandal caused Peter's meltdown and enmity toward the Gemstones, but Cobb's enmity has nothing to do with the new parking lot.

Corey Defends Daddy: At the lake house, Lori's husband Cobb (Michael Rooker) is trying to water-ski, but Eli drives too fast, and he capsizes. His manhood challenged, he splutters and swears. 

Meanwhile, on a raft-slide, Young Judy and Jesse laugh at him, which upsets Young Corey.

Young Kelvin defends him, pointing out that at least Cobb is trying, whereas Jesse spends all his time "being bad, having sex."  This has resulted in Amber getting pregnant.  The enraged Jesse tries to attack, but Corey stops him.

A New Album: While Lori and Aimee-Leigh watch their husband in the water, posturing to see who will become the Silverback, they advise the very pregnant Amber that she should go inside and take a nap.  She refuses, so they discuss how much they dislike their kids until Amber gets tired of it and leaves.

Then they discuss recording a new album; they haven't recorded together in years. 

Cut to the studio, where they are making up song lyrics while Judy listens.  Kelvin eavesdrops from outside the door. 

More after the break

Jay R. Ferguson: The "obviously gay" teen idol of the 1990s moves on to play a 1960s sleazoid and the dad of gay sons. With Jay and Carter cocks

In the early 1990s, I was living in West Hollywood, and completely immersed in the LGBT community.  Media from the Straight World was suspect, if not homophobic than heteronormative, presenting men and women gazing at each other as the meaning of life.  So we chose our television programs carefully. On Monday nights, it was Fresh Prince of Bel Air (Carleton, sigh!), Blossom (Joey Lawrence, sigh!), and Designing Women (drag queen inspiration Suzanne Sugarbaker).  Certainly not Evening Shade (1990-94), with Burt Reynolds as a football coach (ugh!) in a small town (ugh!) in Arkansas (ugh!).

So when this photo of a shirtless, partying young man began appearing on all of the gay celebrity websites, we had no idea who he was. 

The photos kept coming.  We discovered that he was Jay R. Ferguson, who played Taylor, son of Burt Reynolds' character Wood.  Wood?  Really?

 Generally he was swishing it up, as in this iconic photo: apparently saying "Hey, Girl!" in a classic twink outfit, a short top. a bare midriff, and jeans with a club bulge.  Obviously gay!  

In the days when television was entirely heterosexist or homophobic,when even the most flamboyant actor stayed in the closet or saw his career fade away, seeing "one of us" was amazing.  

Unfortunately,the only way to conduct research was to buy a teen magazine -- and the Different Light bookstore on Santa Monica did not stock Tiger Beat.  

The show ended, the photo stream ended, and we forgot about the obviously-gay Jay.  .

For thirty years.

Until 2025, when The Real O'Neils (2016-2018) appeared on Hulu.  A conservative Irish-Catholic family has to deal with a number of problems: Dad wants a divorce; the daughter is an atheist; the oldest son (Matthew Shively) has an eating disorder; the youngest son (Noah Galvin) is gay.  

Yeah, I don't like "gay" being portrayed as a problem, either.  But I like Noah Galvin.

And the hunky dad is played by...Jay R. Ferguson!

Three questions:

1. What has he been doing in the years since Evening Shade?

2. Any nude photos?

3. Is he really gay?

1. What has he been doing?

Jay's first project after Evening Shade was Higher Learning (1995), which is not a teen sex comedy: Omar Epps (left) stars as a student experiencing racism at Columbia University.  But Jay did show us his butt (while sexing a girl).

And an under-the-covers erection, probably a prosthetic.

Next  Jay moved into teen horror (Campfire Tales, 1997),  sex comedy (Pink as the Day She Was Born, 1997), teen angst (Blue Ridge Falls, 1999), and dark secrets (The In Crowd, 2000), before finding his niche in television:

Glory Days (2001-02).  Oddly, it's not about soldiers, it stars Eddie Cahill as a writer who dished the dirt on residents of his home town, and is surprised when he returns to find that they don't like him.  Jay plays the sheriff.

Judging Amy (2003-4), which is not about a judge named Amy.  A woman has problems with her mother, husband, and child.  Jay plays a doctor.

In a 2005 episode of Medium, Allison realizes that her troubled half-brother Michael (Ryan Hurst) has a "secret."   One assumes that it's being gay, but it's actually that he shares her gift of seeing the future.  Jay plays his buddy.  That's as close to a gay character as he gets.

Surface (2005-2006):  Marine biologist Lake (Lake?): her "will they or won't they?" sparring partner, insurance salesman Rich (Jay), and a teenage boy (Carter Jenkins, left, recent photo) discover a "new and dangerous" species of marine life.  This one actually looks interesting.

By the way, Carter, who went on to star in Shadow Diaries, has a j/o video (after the break).

North of North: Inuit lady, her gay bestie, some paranormal, some Inuk culture, and a lot of Inuk hunks. With Jay's junk and a bonus n*de dude

North of North (2025) appeared without warning on my Netflix list: a woman feels stifled in her tiny village in the Artic.  I can relate to that, so let's go.

Scene 1: While showering (only shoulders visible), a young woman  named Siaja explains that she's from as far north as you've ever been.  I think that's Calgary in the Western Hemisphere, and maybe Oslo in Europe.  Then much farther north than that: Ice Cove, Nunavut.  

A quirky Canadian small town and Inuit culture?  I'm there. 

Siaja has achieved the Canadian Dream, with a husband and child.  Only now husband Ting (Kelly William, top photo) is the Golden Boy of the town, and she's only known as his wife.

First up: he gets to drive the car to the Spring Festival, while she has to haul the supplies on a lame Ski-Doo (snowmobile).

Scene 2: She drops in at Mom's very nice house -- lots of windows -- and announces that because it's a new year, she's going to apply for a job.  Mom dispproves: you're a wife and mother.

Mom opens the store next door, which sells artisanal soap and miscellaneous stuff.  Suddenly her hookup from last night walks in, shirtless.  Siaja asks where he was in 1998 -- he could be her father!  He scrams.  

Mom criticizes her for scaring all of her hookups away.  How many hookups could she get in a town of about 2,000 with no tourist trade and the nearest neighbor 300 miles away?

Left: I think the Handsome Man is played by Jeff Roup. who shows his d*ck or a prosthetic here. 

Scene 3: Siaja leaves her child for Mom to babysit and heads for the town headquarters, which has a restaurant, some offices, and the radio station: DJ announces the seal hunt this afternoon and the naming of the festival king and queen this evening.

A blond woman named Helen, apparently the town mayor, comes in complaining about the 14-hour days that supervising the festival takes, while other town business just sits there.  Siaja butters her up with coffee and suggests other cultural activities spread through the year.  Didn't you just hear her?  And she wants to be hired as a full-time cultural manager. 

"Nope.  You have zero work experience and no leadership skills."

"But I see life and beauty in everything!"  At that moment, a guy walks in, wanting to know where to put the fish heads.

Scene 4: While Radio Announcer Colin (Bailey Poching) and a purple-haired woman are discussing how much partying to do tonight, Siaja comes into their office and screams.  Helen didn't even look at her job proposal.

Left: Bailey Poching is gay in real life.

"Why do you want a job anyway?"

"To make our community a better place...ok, I want something of my own."  

"But Inuit culture is all about community.  Your own needs are irrelevant."

When Helen comes in to order the others to get back to work, Siaja asks for a chance.  Couldn't you get a job, like, somewhere else?   Ok, a petition to prove that the town wants a cultural director.  500 signatures -- but that's a quarter of the town! -- by tonight!

More after the break

Black Monday Episode 2.4: Downlow financier, closeted Congressman, and a photocopied dick in the homophobic 1980s.

 

Black Monday, October 17, 1987, is named after a stock market crash that resulted in a drop of 22.6% in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and $500 billion in losses in the U.S., 1.7 trillion dollars worldwide.  I didn't hear anything about it at the time: in West Hollywood we didn't concern ourselves with such trivial matters as finances.  But apparently in the straight world, it was a big deal.  

I still find the world of finance immensely boring, but I happened to notice that an episode of the 2019-22 Black Monday tv series showed Andrew Rannells having sex with a guy -- the scene I used as an illustration for my Gideon-Keefe fan fiction -- so I checked out Episode 2.4, "Fore."

Scene 1: Bosses Dawn, a middle aged black woman, and Blair (Andrew Rannells) , a swishy white man, show horndogs Wayne and Yassir(Horatio Sanz, Yassir X) a photocopy of an enormous penis. They've received an anonymous sexual harassment complaint.  Blair yells at them: "The women in the office don't want to look at that, and neither do I."  

And this is a bad time: Congress is about to pass deregulation, so we'll be getting generational wealth. You'll be able to set up your kids' kids' kids If Amerasavings gets wwind of this,.... Ugh, economics and politics.  Let's get some zombies up in here.

The guys protest that it wasn't them, but they are punished by being placed in the "Rubber Room" for a month, and they have to apologize to every woman in the office.  Then Blair leaves --- he has to go play golf with Congressman Roger  (Tuc Watkins, Andrew's real-life boyfriend) to ensure that he will vote for deregulation.  Dawn can't come, because she's not a white man. Wait -- he calls her "babe."  Are they romantic partners, too?

Scene 2:  The horndogs figure that they've been framed, targeted by "some lying bitch" for being the last old-school "women should enjoy getting their butts grabbed" horndogs in the office. Their plan: find out who issued the bogus complaint, apologize, and then "get revenge." 

Scene 3: Blair goes back to his apartment -- still under construction -- and starts making out with his boyfriend -- Congressman Roger!  

Meanwhile, a lady bursts into the office to yell at the "home-wrecking harlot" who's destroying their marriage.  She wasn't expecting a middle aged black lady: "Blair" sounds more like a young, giggly blond, like the girl from Facts of Life.   

"This is a mixup from the tits up," Dawn assures her.  Blair is a man.  He goes golfing with Congressman Roger to push for his deregulation vote.  A downlow romance!  Neither of the wives know!

"But they golf all the time, in Palm Springs, San Francisco, Fire Island,,," Gay meccas, har-har.

"Standard business trips." A perfect example of heteronormativity: gay men cannot exist, so everything must have a heterosexual explanation.

The Wife, Corky, insists: "Blair and my husband are having sex...with other women, and using each other as alibis."  Come on, no one is that stupid!

Dawn calls Blair to prove that he is playing golf -- just as he is about to.... The wives will be driving out to the country club to meet them on the golf course.  "um...what hole are you in?"  Har-har.

Uh-oh, Blair knows nothing about golf, and it's too late to learn!

Scene 4: The horndogs try to play "good cop/bad cop" while interrogating the women. Except Yassir thinks they're supposed to both be bad cops, because "all cops are bad."

Scene 5: On the way to the country club, Wife Corky complains that Congressman Roger has betrayed her with a "nancy."  Dawn insists that Blair isn't gay, but Wife  Corky meant "a Nancy Reagan," who stole future President Reagan away from his first wife, Jane Wyman. Har-har.

She does happen to be the daughter of a Jerry Falwell-like homophobic televangelist.  He sells a special cologne that can "spray the gay away."

More after the break

Moises Arias: Rico on "Hannah Montana," grows up to play gay characters and show his bum, but is he actually gay? With a hung O'Hearn

 

In 2006, the Disney channel premiered Hannah Montana, about a teenage girl who is secretly a pop star (just go with it).  Hannah was surrounded by a coterie of hunks and hunkoids, including her father Robby (Billy Ray Cyrus), her brother Jackson (Jason Earle), her buddy Oliver (Mitchell Musso), her crush Jake (Cody Linley) -- and Rico Suave (Moises Arias), the billionaire's son, schemer, and prankster who ran Rico's Surf Shop and various other business enterprises.  

Rico's love/hate relationship with Jackson, his employee and classmate, eventually turned to love: they became best friends.  Maybe they were dating in real life, too.  Or maybe Moises was dating Ryan Ochoa, or Jaiden Smith, Will Smith's nonbinary and probably pansexual child.

By the time the series ended in 2011, Moises had become the best and brightest of the Short Guy Brigade: 5'1", muscular, cute, and "obviously" gay.

After Hannah, Moises concentrated on movies and tv shows with gay subtext buddy-bonds or even LGBTQ characters:

In The Kings of Summer (2013), two teenage boys, including Gabriel Basso (left), and their nonbinary, agendered friend Biaggio (Moises) decide to spend the summer together in the wilderness. 

I didn't see Ender's Game (2013), since it was based on a book by homophobic Orson Scott Card, but the plot synopsis suggests a love-hate relationship between far-future space captain Bonzo Madrid (Moises) and Ender (Asa Butterfield).

The Land (2016) features four teenage boys who want to be skateboard champs.

In Ben-Hur (2016), Moises plays Dismas, a Jewish zealot who tries to kill Pontius Pilate from Ben-Hur's balcony.  The guards arrest Ben-Hur, of course, but he loves Dismas too much to betray him.

In Five Feet Apart (2019), he plays a gay disabled guy who lives in a cystic fibrosis ward and facilitates his buddy's heterosexual romance.

He lives in a post-Apocalyptic vault-community and buddy-bonds with a boy in Fallout (2024).

More Moises after the break

Jake Thomas: Lizzie McGuire's bratty brother plays Harry Potter, competes with Cory, kisses Finn.. With Jake's junk and Cory's cock.

Another day, another former teencom star all grown up. Today we're profiling Jake Thomas, who played Matt McGuire, the scamming, pranking little brother of the titular character on the Disney teencom  Lizzie McGuire (2001-2004, plus a 2003 movie).  

Matt is shown here with his best friend Lanny (Christian Copelin, who has retired from acting and now works as a realtor).  

I never actually watched, but the episode guide has him buddy-bonding with several other guys, including Oscar (Sebastian Jude) and Ethan (Clayton Trey Schneider), plus a "girly" interest in cheerleading that causes his father concern.  He could be queer coded. 

Afterwards  Lizzy, Jake moved into drama with a painful episode of Without a Trace (2004): High schooler Eric Miller (Jake) vanishes during a bathroom break.  The agents first assume that it's a kidnapping, but soon discover that he was lured into a humiliation trap.  He's heterosexual, but queer viewers who were bullied in high school still found it a powerfully moving experience.

Then Jake returned to his home in Knoxville, Tennessee to finish high school.   But he still had time for acting projects, like the movie Monster Night (2006), where he fights monsters and gets a girlfriend on Halloween; and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (2003-07), where he plays the Harry Potter parody Nigel Planter.

Gay representation: Dean Toadblatt, headmaster of Toadblatt's School of Sorcery, marries his boyfriend in a 2007 episode.  Main characters Nergal and Irwin start dating in the series finale.  No parent complained.

After graeduating from Farragut High School in 2007, Jake returned to Los Angeles to play the snobbish Stickler in Cory in the House (2007-2008). He and Cory (Kyle Massey), son of the White House chef, compete over It-Girl Meena, daughter of the Bahavian Ambassador.  Stickler's dad is the head of the CIA, so he has access to a lot of super-spy equipment to make his wooing easier; but Meena still prefers Corey. 

Although Stickler only appears in 11 of 33 episodes, he was a fan favorite. On April 1,  2022, Jake announced a Cory spin-off, Stickler and Newt in the House, pairing Stickler with newly-elected President Newt (Jason Dolley, left).  It was an April Fool's Day prank, but many fans got excited, thinking that it was real.

Since it's imaginary, we can also imagine that Stickler and Newt are boyfriends.  Maybe the grown-up Cory drops by to spend the night in the Lincoln Bedroom.

More Jake after the break

Pilot Bunch: Unbreakable boyfriend, zombie boyfriend, teen Jesus manager. With n*de dudes from New Orleans and Hawaii

 

I may have met Pilot Bunch, who will play Johnny B., the "hype manager" of the teenage Jesus in the Gemstone tv series Teenjus, at a Halloween party a few years ago. No, we didn't hook up.

Today he looks a lot like my niece before she began transitioning.  And coincidentally, their boyfriends look very similar, too.

Pilot was born in Kazakhstan, but grew up in Atlanta, where he will graduate from the Woodward Academy in 2025.   His first acting role was in The Lion King, performed at his elementary school.  He got an agent at age 11, and began appearing on tv at age 14.  To date he has twelve on-screen credits  listed on the IMDB, including:

Four episodes of Drama Club (2021), a Nickelodeon mockumentary about a middle school drama club recruitng a football player (Chase Vacnin).  Sounds like "High School Musical."

Pilot plays Colin, the chem-class lab partner of focus character Mack (a girl).  In an interview in TresA, he says that he loved the character: "witty, sarcastic, and always messing with Curtis (Reyn Doi).  Reyn Doi usually plays gay characters, so we can assume that Colin is gay-subtext or gay-vague.

In 2021, Pilot played Vincent, a resident of the Alexandria Safe Zone, in  the post-apocalyptic The Walking Dead.  "A reckless, immature bully," he and his friends play "chicken" with a child zombie (Augustus Morgan, son of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays antagonist Negan).  He says that the role was fun because he got to hang out with Augustus in his zombie makeup. 

He also has roles on The Wonder Years, 115 Grains, The Hill, and Red One, and some theater, including Shenandoah.  He plays Robert, who is kidnapped by Union soldiers during the Civil War (right, with Caleb Baumann as Gabriel)  Robert isn't dead; Gabriel is his best friend, not an angel.

Pilot's biggest role to date is in The Unbreakable Boy (2025), a biographical heartwarmer featuring Austin (Jacob Laval), who has a brittle-bone disorder and is on the autism spectrum.  Pilot starts out a bully, but becomes Austin closest friend and supporter. In a feature article in Pop Size, he notes that the role has special significance for him, because his brother is on the autism spectrum

Pilot's Instagram contains no pictures of him with girls, except for this one, but he could hardly help it: it was at a friend's birthday party.  Otherwise it's boys all the way down.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit