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ruporas · 1 year

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can’t talk about it

[ID: Black and white comic of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. The comic starts with the sounds "thud, thud, click". Vash, mid-action of peeling an apple, turns to the sound, noticing who it was that entered, and says, "Oh, Wolfwood, you're back." He resumes back to his apple in the next panel as he speaks, "Where'd you go? You snuck out of bed quickly this morning..." Wolfwood's hand then enters the panel, hovering over Vash's cheek and Vash looks up as Wolfwood asks, "Can I?" Vash responds, "Not going to talk about it?" while using a hand to gently hold Wolfwood's hovering hand and presses a kiss to his inner palm.

Vash then gets up fully, setting down the knife down on the table and the apple onto a plate, He leans into Wolfwood as Wolfwood explains, "Had to meet someone. Nothing interesting to talk about." Vash kisses Wolfwood's left cheek and a hand moves to cup his other cheek while muttering, "You're being vague." Wolfwood says neutrally, "If yer really that curious, keep askin'. We can talk about that instead of doing this." Vash leans back and responds, "Let's talk after, since... You look so tired."

The panel pans to a close up of Wolfwood's downcast eyes, bags heavy underneath his eyes. He doesn't allow Vash to sit in that moment for long though, then saying, "Yer not helping, Spikey. Being all slow with it... I could fall asleep right now." He moves his hand to start unclasping Vash's coat, starting from his collar. Vash with red cheeks, responds briskly, "Oh, shut up. I'm worried about you. I can't be worried?"

The final shot shows Wolfwood's back to the viewer while Vash's softened expression can be seen as he holds gently onto the side of Wolfwood's face and a hand firm on his waist. Wolfwood responds, "I'm fine, seriously," pausing for a moment before continuing, "Is it okay to still..?" Vash responds, "Yeah, it's okay."

The next image is a shot from later that night after the previous comic. Vash and Wolfwood are now in bed, half naked. Wolfwood's buries his face into Vash's chest, his arms wrapped around him, while Vash is petting at his hair. Vash reminds him, "Hey. You said we'd talk about it." Wolfwood pauses for a moment before piping up, "In the morning? I'm sleepy." Vash says, "Okay..."

The next two pages start from the morning after. Wolfwood is already fully awake, pulling on his outer jacket as he says to Vash, whos' still bundled in his blankets, "Breakfast is on the table. Make sure to eat it. I'm going to grab some things in town and then we're leavin'. Got it?" Vash says, "Mh." Wolfwood responds, "Good. See ya in a bit." The dialogue starts to shift into Vash's inner thoughts now, as he gets up and eats toast, thinking, "Wait. Weren't we supposed to... talk about it?" The next shot then shows him fully up, meeting Wolfwood in town. He carries a half worried expression with him while Wolfwood slides on his glasses for him. A quick panel shows Wolfwood's tired expression from the night before and quickly juxtaposes with Wolfwood in front of him who's smiling gently, the shades covering his eye bags. Wolfwood asks him, "Still not awake yet?" Vash pauses, his thoughts stirring, thinking, "Oh. I guess I was getting ahead of myself... thinking you owe me that kind of honesty." He smiles at Wolfwood and responds, "I'm awake!" His thoughts continue, "Maybe one day, you'd trust me enough to share your burdens."

The final image shows Wolfwood pulling at Vash's cheek and Vash complains, "Owwwww why..." Wolfwood quickly says, "You were thinking something stupid, right? It's all over yer face." Vash mutters, "Nooo, I wasn't..." END ID]

#vashwood #trigun #trigun maximum #vash the stampede #nicholas d wolfwood #Theyre both thoroughly exhausted tired individuals -- vash having to fight this lonely battle for over a hundred years and getting dragged #back into inevitable situation with knives after a 2 years hiatus of being a gunslinger. they both need so much Rest and comfort in this #department... .SIGHS. BUT I JUST THINK ABOUT WOLFWOOD . AND HOW... LITTLE He has existed on no man's land. how majority of his years being #alive is being used as a weapon and to kill when him at his very core is the most giving and selfless individual ever #badlands rumble inspired me a bit but i do think wolfwood gets dragged into occasional tasks from the eye of michael while on his duty of #guiding vash -- or i think that one chapter where we got to see other members of eom -- there's like a clear division within the eom too #i think.... so i figured similarly to vash but not to the same amount -- there are people that look for wolfwood too. but most of the time #it's probably wolfwood that has to look for someone else and take them out. i feel like it happens ever so occasionally.#evidentially these two don't talk enough canonically but they always know how to express things properly to affirm that they're okay #they have the worst time ever sharing burdens - can't willingly burden the other and has neeever asked for help or reprieve in their #desperate situations... vw is a huge case of right person wrong time syndrome so they just. in the time they get to spend together -- even #if romantically - they don't have enough time to heal to get over that kind of hurdle. They've just never asked for help in all the years #they've been alive -- they don't even know how to and its just aughhhsgskg #and well! they don't even need to ask! because they'll be there for each other anyway at the end of the day -- company and presence alone.#ruporas art

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stealingpotatoes · 9 months

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hands you all this cal to announce i’ve FINALLY finished fallen order (by which i mean i finally picked it up again after those couple hours i played a few months ago and then finished the whole game in 2 days lol)

#cal kestis #bd 1 #jedi fallen order #jfo #star wars #my doods #anyway HOLY CRAP YOU MEAN STAR WARS WAS ALLOWED TO BE GOOD BEFORE ANDOR (2022-)??????????????? AND I DIDNT KNOW??#i love cal i loved the story i love how cinematic and amazing it looked good lord #i don't think i've ever played a game which gets such an amazing sense of scale across #like all the great temples or fallen starships were just Wow #like bracca ALONE gobsmacked me. seeing all these things i grew up watching in tcw as wreckage was like Ough Wow and THEY FELT SO HUGE #im just. wow!!#and THAT FINAL MISSION HUH. MOST FEAR INSPIRING VIDEOGAME ENCOUNTER EVER #my only criticisms are the awkward navigation/ level design in some areas and maybe the ending felt a bit lackluster somehow #i say somehow bc i dont get how lol #the reason im making this post past midnight is bc i got off work at 10pm and then immediately had to finish it LOL #anyway big heart emojis im very happy i sat down and actually played it finally #i want jedi survivor now LOL unfortunately it costs money and i have a rule i never buy games in release year lol #tbh i never rlly buy games til they're £20 or less

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lesbianfakir · 4 months

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Thinking about this post and can we talk about how important it is that fakir was okay with Duck not loving him back?

I think it’s fair to say it’s pretty heavily implied that he’s in love with her, and it’s explicitly confirmed in the guidebook.

While Duck’s feelings for him are more nebulous and hard to pin down, from his perspective she’s in love with Mytho. We as the audience know she doesn’t actually feel that way about Mytho but from Fakir’s perspective everything she’s done so far has been for Mytho. She admitted to him in episode 12 that she had feelings for mytho and there has been nothing to dissuade him from this line of thinking. In fact, he finds her crying because mytho chose rue.

There’s this little moment I like. When Duck tells him mytho has chosen rue as his princess his eyes narrow ever so slightly.

[ID: two screenshots of Fakir from episode 25. In the first he is looking at Duck (off camera) with a serious expression. In the second he narrows his eyes slightly. End ID]

He REACTS to this news, even if it’s subtle. And he doesnt look happy about it. Fakir is upset that Mytho rejected Duck. And this seems so antithetical from what we come to expect from a romantic subplot.

So the girl he loves loves someone else… and he’s okay with that. He never tries to pressure or guilt Duck into being with him. Hell he never even mentions his feelings. She likes someone else so what’s the point. But this never dissuades him from his devotion to her. He doesn’t give her an ultimatum or make her choose. He doesn’t even seem get upset that she loves someone else. Even when she goes back to being a duck destroying his last hope of being with her romantically, even then he never wavers. He wants to spend the rest of his life with her. Whether that’s as friends or as partners or as just a simple boy and a duck, he wants to be with her. How she feels for him doesn’t matter so much as getting to share his life with her.

And I find this such a refreshing spin on tired romance tropes. “Just friends” looms large in our media so it’s lovely to see a boy in the so called “friendzone” who’s okay with it. Beyond okay he treasures the time he spends with Duck. His affection for her doesn’t hinge on reciprocation.

It’s so common for characters in fakir’s archetype to grow angry or sad that they’re not “the one,” often lashing out at the girl who doesn’t return their feelings. But instead we have Fakir who’s perfectly content to stay Duck’s friend. After all, being her friend is a gift in itself.

I just love to see a platonic relationship not treated as a lesser stepping stone to a romantic relationship. Sure, Fakir has feelings for Duck. But that in no way undermines the friendship they already have. It’s treated with all the gravity usually reserved for romantic relationships. They’re going to spend their lives together and whether that’s as friends or as lovers—that part isn’t important.

I’m tired of media treating friendships like they’ve suddenly become worthless when one party develops feelings and the other doesn’t return them. With fakiru, the lovely part is that their relationship is built on such a strong foundation it can stand on its own. We the audience are free to interpret it as romantic, platonic, or something in between, but with any reading their close friendship forms the centerpiece.

#somehow by not being canon romantic they invented romance #HUGE win for the aros and the aces (me)#this post inspired by #*drumroll*#TROLLS WORLD TOUR #trolls world tour had a subplot that irked me where branch was upset because he was ‘only best friends’ with poppy #like allos will be allos I know #but aren’t you happy just to be with her?#isn’t every moment you spend as her friend wonderful??#but nooo you need to kiss her too #pathetic.#allos will be allos I just won’t understand #princess tutu #fakiru #queerplatonic fakiru #<—making that it’s own tag #lea posts #described

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arsenicflame · 2 months

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Ed gets amnesia (Izzy-centric, pre s1 banishment, past edizzy to some degree)

It starts something like this: a rope left out after a raid, a captain showing off to the crew, a workload stretched too thin to have noticed the accident waiting to happen...

When Ed wakes, it's almost immediately clear something is wrong. He's lost a few years of memories- not much in the grand scheme of things, but it's enough that the man who lays in front of them is almost unrecognisable to the man they knew. He's from just at the point where he was starting to get frustrated with the 'ease' of being Blackbeard, tiring of his old life, but still so full of life and love in ways the present Ed forgot how to be.

He's a lot more on guard, for a start, waking up surrounded by strangers, even if they are treating him very nicely. He doesn't trust them, he doesn't even fake trusting them, just shuts them out completely.

Stede and Roach figure out what's going on pretty quickly and try to explain it to Ed after that, about what's happened and all the things he missed, but he doesn't believe them for a second- how could he? If he got hurt, Izzy would be there waiting for him to wake up. He always has been, always is, his predictable and reliable Izzy. He says as much to Roach and Stede, the only thing he will say, and they just... side-eye each other. They can't believe it- Izzy?

Anyway, Ed completely shuts down after that, so someone runs to get Izzy. Izzy, who had decided, after everything- especially the past few weeks on the revenge- that there's no way Ed would want him there. He's still lurking on deck because he can't stand not knowing how Ed is, but he knows that's not his place any more. So to say he's surprised when Stede comes and begrudgingly grabs him is an understatement- Stede doesn't tell him anything, obviously, just that Ed’s asking for him.

The way Ed’s face lights up as he walks into the room is a punch to the gut. There's a cheerful greeting, the kind he hasn't received in years, and Ed’s yapping on about what he's been told and what happened and "this ship, Iz!" and he's just... floored. He can't say anything in response, not even to confirm their story because this is Ed, this is his Ed, who's face is turning worried, joking about how it looks like Izzy’s the one with a head injury, and Izzy can't cope. He just... storms out of the room.

Izzy’s up on deck, and he's not even yelling, or working, or really doing anything, just aimlessly coiling ropes in a daze when Ed appears on deck after him. He's thrown his leather jacket over whatever of Stede’s clothes he was wearing, a return to his Blackbeard armour to be seen by crew, and he jogs up to Izzy and starts getting handsy with him, physically turning him to looking him in the eyes and check he's ok, just generally being casual in a way that nobodies ever seen them- a way that nobody expected Izzy to tolerate (but of course he does, its Ed).

Izzy'll stutter out a response and Ed will wrap his arm over his shoulder, casually, like that's a thing they do. He'll ask for a tour, for him to explain everything, like what's the deal with this Stede guy. He's still enamoured with The Revenge and all its bells and whistles, only now he wants it with Izzy. It's all 'Iz' and 'mate' and affectionate and a side of their relationship even the Queen Anne crew haven't seen in years, a complete shock to absolutely everyone except this Ed.

Ed shows Izzy the model of The Revenge again and Izzy is both heartbroken and so indulgent because that's the Ed he had once, and he's going to take every second while he can. Ed can show him every single trinket on the entire ship if he wants. Izzy's always been willing to indulge Ed to some degree (it's Izzy, after all) but there's usually external factors, like they're in the middle of a raid, storming a hostile ship, or being chased down by the Spanish without any plan and over the years Izzy’s taken to just trying to redirect Ed quickly rather than letting him get distracted with the next shiny thing. It's been a sticking point between them, Ed's distractions and Izzy's rigidity and inability to have fun even when the occasions fitting.

But, for all Izzy's gripes with The Revenge, he does know it's safe for them- or at least that he could take on any member of this useless crew who tried to take advantage of his captain's momentary incapacity. So he does, for once, feels safe to indulge Ed. And God, he wants to. He has wanted to. He wants to watch him forever, like he did when they were little more than kids. He wants to forget all the mistakes he made just to see Ed smile and light up at him one more fucking time. He's not going to throw away this opportunity, no matter how badly it hurts him in the end.

Ed's memories don't come back in a day or so, so the crew keeps getting these shows of their relationship in a way they've never seen before- all these casual touches, and the way he'll turn to Izzy before anyone else, even Izzy laughing a couple of times. The crew gets to see a completely different Izzy- one more like the man he'd have been on The Queen Anne, a man they can see means something to Ed. He's not just his rotten first mate, a necessary evil of Blackbeard, at some point it becomes very clear that Ed did like Izzy, that he chose to have him around. It's like being back when Ed and Izzy were on the same page, at the height of Blackbeard, their partnership, when things were GOOD.

And of course, Izzy’s going along with all this. He's not telling him anything about the way they're different now, about how they finished breaking their matelotage 6 months back, about how they've been living at arms length for years, about how this simply isn't who they are to each other any more. He couldn't possibly do that, not when he gets to live the best days of his life all over again, just for a few short days. Maybe he'll get a week or two, if he's really lucky.

It's hurting him, obviously, it feels like his heart is being ripped out every time Ed touches him, every time he corners him in the depths of the ship (still so untrusting of this unknown crew- not helped by how they treat Izzy. He sees the side eyes and cruel comments and notices in a way the present version of him never did, too wrapped up in Stede and the madness of this ship) but hey. Izzy’s a masochist. He'll take anything Ed gives him, and he'll especially take this opportunity to have one last taste of what he's lost.

At the time it faded so slowly he didn't realise he was losing it until it was all gone, but he won't make that mistake this time. He knows their time together is limited, and he's going to take every fucking second he can and hold it close forever. If Ed makes him leave after he remembers? After he realises the way Izzy took advantage of him? It's worth it, to have this again, one last time.

#this is probably somewhere between too fleshed out and not fleshed out enough. yet somehow still not the right amount of substance #but i didnt want to waste another month making the additional thoughts ive had on this idea flow w the rest so this is what you get #perhaps ill come back and add my (mostly eds perspective on all of this) thoughts in at some point. who knows #if you want a vibe as to where that goes ; huge inspirations in this concept draw upon the lyrics #'But I hate when I feel like this / And I never hated you' :'''''')#(lyrics from poke by frightened rabbit which is your edizzy song recc of the week)#nyxtalks #ofmd #our flag means death #izzy hands #israel hands #edward teach #blackbeard #blackhands #edizzy #post dedicated to my dearest sage for bouncing this concept with me !!! i love u SO much

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uncanny-tranny · 11 days

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People who compare transition to self harm or use real people they know who've self-harmed as a metaphorical comparison to transitioning aren't making the gotcha they think they're making - they're just showing that they don't have the compassion or maturity to engage with either topic at even a conversational level.

And, frankly, it's infuriating as a person who does see those who self-harm as my equal who doesn't need to be used as a cudgel against another group of often vulnerable people.

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #self harm tw #self harm mention tw #sh tw #transphobia #transphobia tw #and as someone who has self-harmed AND transitioned it's been inherently different. it's not a comparison #and if you wonder why so many trans people have engaged in self harm: social factors. family. abuse. mistreatment #mine stemmed from unrelated abuse largely and also because i wasn't being treated well #absolutely unresolved dysphoria in trans people can inspire that - i know that already. ask me how (don't)...#...but it also isn't inherent to identifying as trans. dysphoria of any kind can make people desperate for any escape...#...and you help them by allowing them space and giving them tools that empower *them*...#...like for me the second a huge part of my dysphoria resolved through transition i was able to start actually fucking LIVING #because for all my life i'd been only able to operate at 50% at most. and now it's more like 80-90% just after transition

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cicide76536 · 4 months

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My gift to @tragediegh for Rote Winterfest Gift-exchange !

My beloved @vilyar was a life saviour for lending me his drawing tablet and computer when mine broke and for helping me sketch some of the harder parts ❤️ Thank you

#cicidedraws #fitzloved #fitzchivalry farseer #the fool #beloved the fool #the farseer trilogy #The rules for lovers song ruled hard and was a good inspiration for this #also With you by Cujo Moon damn #HUGE THANK YOU TO MY BELOVED VILYAR #This would have been ruined without you my sun #I've been sick for so long so I was only able to do this so late and then my drawing table broke and i lost my nerve but there he was #my sun my star my Al who gave me his computer and drawing tablet and everything worked well!#So thank you #This will be us this year #Anyways Tragediegh YOU ARE WELCOME TO JOIN OUR AURORA BOREALIS EXPEDITION #I will send you HD versions of these two #I dont know what to say other than that I hope you like this and get the most amazing year!#Also yall I am trying to learn how to do snow #I ALSO LEARNED NEW SHADOWING TECHNIQUE and I kinda like it!

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princesskkfish · 9 months

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A gift for @tapakah0 fjajrhjabebjjeq

is 3am and I am too tired to see if I missed anything ;~; so sry if it looks a bit funky

Context under the cut idk djabejajbanw

And Ig Hodd and Cass are also in this too in the little picture *shrugs* ok bye bye ima go to bed and pass out now

*runs away* djabrjajbdnajjw

#Idk what to tag this #tjahhjjeja #I tried my best to put your yorki in it but I couldn’t find the post about em Oop-#Rainy forest #lil cabin house thing #My brain stopped working like 2 hours ago #Tap your are a huge inspiration to me and I think your art is super cool #ok yeah anyway hope you like it #*runs away*#I didn’t know what kind of dogs you liked so hopefully a golden and a German shepherd and your yorki is ok #My art #but a fan art :P

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romanceddawn · 3 months

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seto asking yugi one day if he wants some old shirts of his and when he sees how excited yugi is for just secondhand clothes he tries to buy him new ones thinking he must need them. yugi, feeling weird about being bought expensive clothing when he knows he's just going to cut it up or change it in some way, always declines

that is the wrong answer. seto then comes up with a plan where he buys new clothes for his boyfriend and every once in a while he'll act like he just brought out a bunch of old stuff from his closet for yugi to have since 'none of it fits anymore' or 'its not my style idk what i was thinking'

yugi's so lost in the sauce of getting 'hand me downs' he can play with that it takes him a while to realize whats happening. seto denies everything with a smirk

#i just know seto has a huge walk in closet so its conceivable for him to have a lot of old clothes #also this is inspired by me getting a shit ton of hand me downs lately #i AM going to ruin some of them to make cooler clothes and i am so excited #rivalshipping #yugi mutou #seto kaiba #yugioh #devo speaks

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layalu · 11 months

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a Rocky from the other day :]

#forgot to put this one here xd #the pilot release got me right back in a lackadaisy mood so i've been rereading the comics #was high time i did that anyway bc i havent read them in a WHILE so i have a lot of refreshing and catching up to do #if u dont know the webcomic i can highly recommend it!! used to be a huge inspiration for me art wise (and still is tbh)#lackadaisy #my art #proportions are way off but w/e #he is very fun to draw!!

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blood-choke · 6 months

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hiiii… i wanted to ask more about this particular val scene where mc and her talk about that portrait and mc is a bit stuck on the word husband and wants val to know theyre not a man. can i ask what inspired that type of convo? i wanted to know if it’s something you’ll touch up on again? is this underlying feelings mc had before their entombment… worried that val sees them as a man just because mc is masc? cause i know that’s kind of broader discussion in the lesbian community iirc….. was that why you wanted to incorporate it? this ask has so many questions LOL but basically i wanted to say i was intrigued and it did made me think more on those type of dynamics (thinking back to those resources you rb’d a while ago that go more into depth about diff things in the lesbian community)

oh boy get ready for another long-winded answer from me!

a lot of the feelings mc has about their gender are inspired by Leslie Feinberg's work (mainly Stone Butch Blues)

Feinberg was someone who lived & passed as a man for years of hir life, and wrote a lot about the complexities of hir gender and what it was like being a "gender outlaw."

there was actually a scene in particular from sbb that kinda put the kernel of an idea in my mind that led to this narrative of the mc feeling overshadowed by Standard and anxious about being perceived as a man. it's towards the end of the book when Jess (sbb's protagonist) meets Ruth (a trans woman that Jess falls in love with)

Jess offers to help Ruth carry groceries up to her apartment, and Ruth takes this the wrong way & is offended, partly because she thinks Jess is a man.

One Saturday afternoon I found her clutching two huge bags of groceries and fumbling with the downstairs front-door lock. I pulled out my key.

“Here, let me.” She didn’t say thank you. She hurried ahead of me on the stairs.

“Can I help you carry those?” I offered.

“Do I look weak to you?” she asked.

I stopped on the stairs. “No. Where I come from it’s just a sign of respect, that’s all.”

She continued up the stairs. “Well, where I come from,” she called out, “men don’t reward women for pretending to be helpless.” Once I heard her apartment door close I kicked the stair in anger and frustration.

later, after they get to know each other better, they have this interaction:

I laughed and picked at my salad. “Do you know if I’m a man or a woman?”

“No,” Ruth said. “That’s why I know so much about you.”

I sighed. “Did you think I was a man when you first met me?" She nodded. "Yes. At first I thought you were a straight man. Then I thought you were gay. It’s been a shock for me to realize that even I make assumptions about sex and gender that aren’t true. I thought I was liberated from all of that.”

I smiled. “I didn’t want you to think I was a man. I wanted you to see how much more complicated I am. I wanted you to like what you saw.”

i think the inspiration here is quite obvious, hahaha. i figure anyone that's read sbb can sense the similar through-line here in my work. though the conversation between mc and Valentina has a much different tone.

there's another scene later as well after something happens to Jess and she has to have her jaw wired shut. she's working at a new job and is unable to speak, and she's also passing as a man at this job. she overhears some of her female coworkers talking about her and they refer to her as a "creep" and speculate that she's always watching one of them. Jess overhears all of this and then walks out of the job, goes home and pulls the wires out of her mouth herself:

After I was sure I’d gotten the last piece of wire out of my gums, I rinsed my mouth with whiskey and then drank the rest of it so I could sleep without remembering how Marija’s words had stripped me of my humanity.

butches & gnc women still face this kind of dehumanization; compared or likened to men in a derogatory way, accused of being "heteropatriarchal," the predatory stereotype of the fat ugly lesbian, and on the other side they're also hypersexualized, especially online and in queer spaces. butchphobia is a specific kind of misogyny that hits from all sides, even from the people that are supposed to be a part of your community. and this attitude especially effects trans women and women of color, who are already experiencing all of these things due to transmisogyny and racism.

i also really wanted to use this to touch on the kind of gender essentialism that we see in a lot of these cis feminist discussions - to these women at this job, Jess had committed no real crime other than being quiet and being the “wrong” kind of man. something about this scene has always stuck with me and really bothered me, but it's hard to put into words; on one hand i can admit i have probably been one of those women who made some kind of similar remark about a man i barely knew, but i've also been someone on the receiving end, too, because of the way i look. the mc in blood choke is put into this box, but they can't fit in, as someone who has been on both sides and doesn't really understand where they belong because of it; how can she stand beside Valentina or Hana or Clear when they might see her as a perpetrator, someone who can't be trusted? how does this mindset harm both the women and the men of the council and everyone in between? how can we break this cycle?

one of the films i mentioned recently when talking about the character designs was The Same Difference, which is specifically about the Black lesbian community and the discrimination within that community based upon gender roles (though this is not something limited to just the Black lesbian community)

a lot of the women in that doc talk about the boxes they're put in as AG or stud lesbians - they can't have their hair long, they can't wear makeup, they can't do this or that, they have to be aggressive and hard or else they're not real studs. they discuss stud on stud (or butch4butch) and how other lesbians look down on those types of lesbians, as well as the disdain for bisexual women for "betraying" the community. it explores the way misogyny and the patriarchy still oppress these women and forces them into this restrictive gender role despite their refusal to adhere to the other role originally assigned to them, and the way racism specifically intersects and exacerbates it for Black lesbians. there's a stud that's an exotic dancer and wears a weave, and a lot of other studs have a problem with this because a weave is "a female thing." another section follows a pregnant stud, and how the community shuns her for that, because she "dresses like a man and acts like a man" so why is she getting pregnant when she should be "the man"?

mc doesn't remember how they felt before entombment, but waking up they feel this need to prove themselves - both in that they are hard and aggressive like a butch should be, but also in that they want to be this person for Valentina or Clear or Hana (or all of them) that is safe and comforting. but they aren't sure how to do that when the world perceives them as this one specific thing - as a husband, as Standard, as a man, specifically this man who hurt Valentina.

of course we've already seen this to not be true of the companions with the last chapter as the mc learns more and spends more time with everyone. but this is kind of the foundation of where this whole idea came from. it started with my novel & i chose vampires for that story & this one because there is a long history of lesbian vampirism (and also because it's sexy) but there's this "curse" that both Hana & Valerie talk about in their respective stories, the first one being the racism she's had to face, the transphobia, along with this alienation and perception of lesbians as predatory and conniving and aggressive, as vampires, which i just think really lends itself to expanding upon these issues lesbians & trans women face both in general and within the community.

anyways if you want to read more i suggest Stone Butch Blues, which you can get for free on Leslie Feinberg's website, as well as S/he, by Minnie Bruce Pratt, available on the internet archive, Gender Failure by Ivan E. Coyote & Rae Spoon also on the internet archive, and you can rent The Same Difference for $10 on vimeo.

#im gonna be real idk if this makes sense to anyone but me. lmfao #but basically leslie feinberg is a huge inspiration for me #and just exploring the way homophobia and transphobia and misogyny all intersect when someone is gnc #and the expectations put on them #i think about butch al a lot and the things she says to jess and the way that section of the book plays out #and then in the end when the cops raid the bar #al and jess are fags except for what the cops did to al and the way they dehumanize her #how the mc is considered a man in certain instances - when the girls throw a brick at her or when the woman yells at her in the bathroom #or when atlas shakes hands with her and calls her their man #but other times she's a 'proper lady' with V or when that man gives her and Hana a dirty look in the elevator #or when cassius says 'ladies first'#mc is always one or the other whatever is convenient and degrades her the most in the moment #you know?#i dont know. im just saying stuff #basically i want to explore these gendered expectations & stereotypes and how they harm someone vulnerable like mc #how they feel alienated even from V & hana & clear for not being butch enough #but also for being butch and trans in the first place and feeling like an infiltrator #ask #anonymous

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