Quiz: Survive These Increasingly Dramatic Soap Opera Plots, I’ll Tell You Which Shondaland Gay You Are

There is a very specific kind of gay that is what we shall call a “Shondaland gay” — someone who’s prone to talking in monologues, a workaholic with a messy personal life, a lover of wine or tequila and talking over annoying white men. But more than anything, a keen sense of survival skill.

If there is one thing that Broader Shonda Rhimes Universe is gonna do, it’s throw someone through a plane. Or maybe blow up a hospital. A fire in a corn maze right before Halloween. A little shootout on the courthouse steps for funsies.

Before we get into this quiz, a few rules:

  1. First, in the interest of greater Shondaland diversity, we are going to be combining shows here: Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19, and How To Get Away with Murder
  2. However, with respect to Cyrus Beene and my once upon a time fantasy wife Olivia Pope — we are sticking to the sapphic Shondaland shows, so no Scandal, Inventing Anna, or Bridgerton.
  3. And that said, off the quick top of my head, even if we limit it to only lesbian, bisexual, and queer women characters, there are still roughly 16 sapphics in the Shondaland universe, which is quite simply too many to fit into one singular quiz. (Imagine having to scroll through 16 options for every answer!!) Therefore, some beloveds did not make the cut. Goodbye to Perfect Penny and Former Intern Leah, for example. I wish them well on their journey.

And now… without any further ado… survive these increasingly frenetic, overly dramatic, soap opera plots — and I’ll tell you which Shondaland Gay you are! May Calliope Iphegenia Torres ever be in your favor!

It’s bright and early the first day of your new job, how did you wake up this morning?(Required)
Did I forget to mention that you’re an intern at a hospital? Great! What’s your first case?(Required)
Because it’s your first case, you of course mess it up! What’d you do?(Required)
Whew! That was stressful! Time for a quick mid-morning snack! What are you eating?(Required)
Don’t you know there’s no breaks in Shondaland! While you’re outside eating, an ambulance crashes into the side of the hospital. What do you do?(Required)
You saved the day! And it’s barely noon! How do you celebrate?(Required)
Well now there’s a bomb — a live, actual, ticking bomb — in someone’s stomach. The fire department and special police forces have been called. In the meantime, you’ve been assigned to the case. What do you do?(Required)
The fire department has arrived! You need to help them clear out the area before the bomb blows. How do you accomplish this task:(Required)
Everyone’s safe and the fire captain can’t believe what a great job you did! They wonder, have you ever considered a career change?(Required)
The fire department leaves, but just then the hospital’s electrical system gets hacked! There’s no way to access the locked-away meds or keep track of a patient's symptoms. Everyone’s freaking out and you can’t believe it’s only mid-afternoon of your first day. What do you do?(Required)
Fancy lawyers have shown up with the FBI (because of the hackers) and they want to talk with you. What happens next:(Required)
The lawyers are gone! Your day at work is over! It’s happy hour! What are you drinking?(Required)
After happy hour, you head home to change for a date. But you get a text message! What went wrong:(Required)
Hahahaaaaa well you’re going to be ignoring THAT emergency! What are you doing tonight instead?(Required)
You’ve survived until morning somehow! Congratulations! Here’s your tie breaker! In case of emergency only, which Shondaland character do YOU think you’re most like?(Required)

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Carmen Phillips

Carmen Phillips is Autostraddle's former editor in chief. She began at Autostraddle in 2017 as a freelance team writer and worked her way up through the company, eventually becoming the EIC from 2021-2024. A Black Puerto Rican feminist writer with a PhD in American Studies from New York University, Carmen specializes in writing about Blackness, race, queerness, politics, culture, and the many ways we find community and connection with each other.  During her time at Autostraddle, Carmen focused on pop culture, TV and film reviews, criticism, interviews, and news analysis. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. And there were several years in her early 20s when she earnestly slept with a copy of James Baldwin’s “Fire Next Time” under her pillow. To reach out, you can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram, or her website.

Carmen has written 716 articles for us.

36 Comments

  7. This quiz we great but issue…i don’t know who any of the Shondaland people are really- so the last question was a shot in the dark. I got Annalise Keating, but it would be cool if there was a longer blurb on what that meant…

    And as with all the quizzes on this site, I wish there was a way to see all the possible results.

    Reply to This Comment

    • If you look at question #15, those are all the potential results! But I definitely get how the names have little meaning if you haven’t seen the shows.

      For Annalise specifically, Viola Davis because the first Black actor to win an Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Drama for the role — I’ve always loved that she broke that ceiling playing a queer character. And Zendaya (the second Black woman to ever win, and she’s done it twice) also won it for playing a queer character — Rue in Euphoria — which is also nice.

      Natalie wrote my all time favorite piece about Annalise and her impact, it takes my breath away every time, which you can read here: https://www.autostraddle.com/i-am-who-i-am-annalise-keating-and-the-power-of-black-reflection/

      Reply to This Comment

  12. Tegan Price: “An insatiable fashion sense, an insatiable desire to win at almost any cost, and absolutely the hottest person in every room you walk into.” I don’t really watch TV so none of these characters are familiar. But I will take this description as a compliment!

    Reply to This Comment

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