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liquidstar · 7 months

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do u have any recs for folks newer to the yuri genre? I've never really read any manga other than shounen and some magical girl stuff

Omg i can totally give yuri recs. (And which ones to stay away from. Sakura Kiss has cousin shit in it, Citrus has stepsister dubcon, Dragon Maid has lolicon, Happy Sugar Life is also lolicon but it’s edgy about it and tries to act like this makes it deep, we can do better)

Anyway here’s my actual recs! I'm going to give details but if you don't wanna read them I bolded all the titles.

YuriKuma Arashi (By Ikuhara of Revolutionary Girl Utena fame), is about lesbian bears. But it’s actually a metaphor for the simultaneous objectification and demonization of lesbians, the expectation both for purity and predation. There are some nitpicks I have with it like the sexualization being a bit too much to bring the point home, but overall I do like its themes and its message. And I think the ending pulls everything together really nicely. There is both a manga and an anime, and I believe the anime came first. I’ve only seen the anime so I’m not sure if/how the manga deviates!!!!

Bloom Into You is an absolute must. Like, for real, I think it’s one of the best romances out there, yuri or otherwise. It gets really deep into both characters' respective psyches and the ways that they’re both Very Screwed Up when it comes to love and romance, or really just life in general. Giving details would be doing them a disservice honestly. Both characters are very messy but also do try their best to genuinely communicate, and what comes of that is a lot of teenage lesbian drama, but the growth they both experience though it TOGETHER is just great, and you can tell they care about each other so much.

Okay this one I’m not really recommending for the good writing, it’s more-so just really cool. Liberta (EXPLICIT) is a series about a vampire who can turn her body into guns and a human woman who is sick of being seen as lesser in her ordinary life. And then they fall in love and are vampires together. The artstyle and character designs are awesome and it has some really cool fight scenes. However it also has full blown barely censored sex scenes. A few of them. One of the women uses her tail at some point. If that’s not what your cup of tea is, give it a pass.

Anyway for something more wholesome you should check out The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All, which I’m actually not fully caught up on bc life, but has still been a super fun read so far. It’s about a girl who works at a music store, and her classmate who gets a crush on her while she’s at work. The classmate doesn’t realize that they’re the same person, due to her looking different at work, and thinks her worksona is a guy. Hijinks ensue.

Otherside Picnic is also highly recommended. Its manga adaptation is lagging behind the light novel, which I can’t find a translation of online (But if anyone can help me out w that 🙏). The story itself is about two college students who go on adventures to a parallel plane of reality, which contains cosmic horrors who can only communicate with humans through fear so intense it will make you go insane. They’re also looking for someone who went missing, and gain cool powers like Ghost Hand and Sans Eye. Yes this is still a yuri series and it’s also really really extremely fucking cool.

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat, is a slice of life story about… Well exactly what it says. A woman with a passion for cooking, making lots of food and sharing it with her neighbor, and they end up bonding through this. It’s also like, cool to see a big butch woman for a change! The story itself is very straightforward but I love watching the relationship progress as well as the mc question her sexuality. This story will absolutely make you super hungry though.

Show Me Your Bust (EXPLICIT) is also exactly what it says on the tin, though it’s technically a webtoon. Again this is a series with explicit sex scenes, but it actually does have a story and actual depth to its characters. Honestly there’s a lot to unpack with all of them and a lot of the relationships aren’t totally healthy but it’s a drama so that’s the point.

A Monster Wants To Eat Me is actually hard to describe without spoilers. It’s about a girl who lives by the sea, meeting a mysterious girl with eyes that remind her of the ocean itself. The girl says that she’s actually been looking for the mc for a long time, and it’s revealed that….

And lastly I wanna mention Hanamonogatari, a story about an old widow who begins to regain confidence in herself as she experiments with make-up with the help of another old lady who works at a local cosmetic store. Honestly it’s very very very sweet, it’s rare to get romances like this of old women when so much of the focus of romances (yuri or otherwise) is often on the characters being attractive. I also really appreciate how the make-up is being used specifically to accentuate their wrinkles. Not hide them. Because aging is beautiful too. Sadly IVE ONLY READ TWO CHAPTERS BECAUSE I DONT THINK THE REST ARE TRANSLATED IF ANYONE OUT THERE CAN HELP ME PLEASE DO 🙏

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tiktaalic · 3 years

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Why exactly do you see Dean as gay rather than bi? Absolutely feel free to completely ignore this ask if you don't want to go into it - it's just I've heard that interpretation a few times here on Tumblr and I'd genuinely be really interested to hear your thoughts behind it, and how you relate it to the way Dean canonically acts on the show

the pithy answer is projection! the unpithy answer is that out of 320 episodes over the span of 15 years, there is one (1) where his attraction comes off as genuine to me, and it took place fifteen years ago (cassie). i’m a lesbian, and when i was younger i had really genuine and meaningful friendships with men that i thought meant i was in love with them. they were very dear friends to me and i cared deeply about them, and they continue to be dear to me and people i care deeply about now that my head’s on straighter. so that’s that point.

this is. going to be a long post so this is the preemptive warning to everyone who can’t read tumblr paragraphs to zip scroll.

lisa straight up reads as a lavender marriage to me. the focus for both lisa AND dean is him stepping in to be a father figure. their conversations about how much they care about each other center around how good he is with ben/how much he loves ben. there’s like, nothing where they’re smiling at each other and actually enjoying each other’s company. she’s a two night stand he’s seen 4 times in the last decade. she is dean putting on his brave face and keeping his promise. lisa’s post dean boyfriend matt is in one episode for about 3 minutes purely so he can die, but this is the scene.

so like. lisa is CAPABLE of interacting with a man she’s dating in a way that looks like they’re dating, versus. this.

so that’s that point. we’re at season six and we’ve already gone through every long term relationship with a woman dean’s been in. but let’s get really technical! let’s go through bad boys and after school special and amara to boot.

in bad boys, robin is dean’s first real crush when he’s fifteen or so. first crush being when you’re 15 rather than in elementary or middle school? gay behavior (joke). let those among us who have not had a straight crush as a teen because they were the first person to be nice to us throw the first stone! and that’s what it boils down to for me. it’s the first time dean’s had ANY stability, and he relishes it. it would not surprise me if she’s his first real friend. she’s definitely his first real NORMAL friend. she asks him what HE likes, what HE wants to do with his life. and that’s totally new for dean! to have choices and to have his wants given consideration instead of just having expectation after expectation loaded onto him.

it does not surprise me that dean, who’s been taking a masterclass in repression and masculinity since the tender age of four, dates robin. it would not surprise me if he dated robin and was gay. of course he’s going to throw himself 100% into a relationship with a girl when he knows he’s at an age where boys are supposed to be skirt chasers, when he meets a girl and she’s NICE to him and KNOWS him like literally no one else does. all of this accompanied by the “i am a boy and have positive feelings for someone who’s a girl this MUST be romance this MUST be a crush” like. this is going to get into overshare territory for a moment i apologize but As A Lesbian when i was 15/16 i actively had crushes on girls and rational-ed them away as Girl Best Friends :) while telling everyone that the feelings i had for my boy best friends were crushes aksdkfkndf. repressed gay people are stupid and dean is MUCH more repressed than me aged 16. so. robin box ticked.

after school special: jail for dabb jail for dabb for a thousand years i know. trust me i know. BUT. 17 year old dean who’s fully pulled on the leather jacket and womanizer persona, who doesn’t talk to anyone in his class and just hangs out in janitor closets making out with a girl who thinks his persona is hot. and when she tries to get close to him, to form an emotional connection, he panics and self sabotages. which. yes. peak straight man behavior. i’m not arguing that this little characterization bit is the pillar upon which gay dean rests, i’m saying if you’re inclined, you can nudge it into gay kid going “oh no this is too much responsibility i gotta get out of this” behavior. and i’m inclined!

amara: the amara stuff is so. hdnfdkf. it’s this primordial connection or whatever stronger than dean and amara both and yet dean’s still able to buck it a few times for [drumroll........] cas! + i don’t have any of the posts on hand but i DO agree with the whole vibe of. “i would fuck the embodiment of my destruction and horrors and failings because my self loathing is THAT strong”. also: gay af for the being of destruction with an immutable pull on you and towards you to say i will give you your greatest desire and then give you your mommy back and dip.

and then there’s the various one night stand stuff. i don’t have the comprehensive list on hand, but off the top of my head these are times when dean has sex scenes that are given huge focus:

when he comes back from hell and everyone’s gently asking if he’s fine and he’s like could a guy who wasn’t fine do THIS [tries to sleep with a bartender and or angel]. when bobby dies and dean’s hardcore mourning and hardcore drinking to the point where i think his drinking is acknowledged for one of a true handful of times in the series. just checked the transcript for that one. the morning after:

DEAN: Ugh.

SAM: You look like crap.

DEAN: Yeah, well, I feel worse than I look. I do recommend the Cobalt Room, by the way. Awesome night. Although I think I'm getting too old for this.

which. again. normal straight man commitmentphobe hitting his 30s and going hmmm.... perhaps real connections would be nice? but that doesn’t contradict gay dean at all, it slots in. also this is season 7. season 7 and he’s too old for this. top of my head i can think of two more similar instances: s11 baby when he groans and goes “mistakes were made”, s13 advanced thanatology when cas is dead and he’s FULL ON grieving so hard that sam takes him to a strip club. and again. he over does it. again he throws himself too hard to the coping vices and when he wakes up he’s tired and sore and has a headache. the other time he gets laid is endverse, which uh. is basically dean in 24/7 mourn drink sleep with someone mode. there are like... a handful of times he has sex For Fun, enough to count on one hand. the rest are all real easy to slap the label PERFORMANCE or COPING WITH MOURNING on.

obviously all of these points go either way - you could absolutely interpret them as legit attraction to women. you can interpret them as legit attraction to women while these instances are still coping/performance. but for me personally they all end up on the gay column instead of the bi column. um. end manifesto i think.

#long post #spnwatch #anonymous #ask #dean

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phlox238 · 3 years

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i wrote a pretty long rymin fic and half of it is min being anxious and getting advice from a lesbian at a gay bar,,, it sucks but here it is anyway

2.5k words this is the most ive ever written

"So," The girl began, gesturing wildly with her hands. "You think you're in love with your best friend, who you've known since you were born, and you're in a band and traveling across Canada and the USA with. What did you say your name is?"

"Oh, fuck." Min-gi sighed, letting his head rest in his hands. "This is weird, isn't it? I barely know you."

"Nah, I just thought that, if we're going to have a slightly drunk chat in the back of a gay bar, then we should know each other's names. I'm Eryn, and you?" Eryn stuck out her hand, the many bracelets she wore on her wrist clanking together.

Min chuckled a little, then took her hand and shook it. Her dark skin was warm, which was surprising, since this part of the bar was near freezing. "Min-gi. But you can call me Min."

"Awesome. So, tell me about it, Min." Eryn tightened her ponytail, leaning forward on her arms.

"Tell you what about it? There's so many things that I could say." He was so caught up in this gay crisis stuff that he hadn't even considered stopping for a moment to really think about it.

Eryn shrugged. "Whatever you want to say. Get stuff off your chest, just let it out, if you want to. There's like, nobody else back here. Doesn't really matter, right? I'm not judgy."

"Okay...well, he has a girlfriend, first of all; has had many of them. So he's not into dudes." Min crossed his arms.

"Hey, he could still be. Just because he dates women doesn't mean he's straight. Could still be into guys. Don't give up hope just yet, okay?" Eryn laced her fingers together, as if she was planning something. The dark lighting of the bar didn't help anything.

“Damn,” Min rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t know you could like both.”

Not without laughing at him first, Eryn started to explain. "Oh, wow, you really are new to this, huh?" She chuckled a little more, shaking her head. “That’s okay. There’s a lot of different ways to love people, you just gotta figure out what works for you. Oh, also; it isn’t just both. There’s the genderqueer people, too, don’t forget about them!” She smiled.

Min didn’t quite know what genderqueer meant, but he figured he could find out later. He was asking too many questions already. "Damn...how do you know all of this? I only realized I was, er, gay, like six months ago." Min marveled at her, the same way a nerd at school would marvel at the 'cool kids.' And honestly, she really looked like one, with her ponytail and undercut, her yellow, patched leather jacket, even the flashy jewelry she wore.

It made Min want to start dressing differently. Dressing cooler, like Ryan, like Eryn. Maybe he could.

Eryn grinned wider. "Oh, you know. It's just things you pick up along the way. I've known that I'm lesbian for a long time, since I was like 11. And I'm 21 now, so that's a long time. Lots of experience." She shuffled a little in her seat, taking another drink of beer. "Anyway. We're getting off track, aren't we? Keep talking, man."

Min laughed, a real laugh. "Okay, okay. A year ago, we, er…" He reached desperately for an explanation for the train, but decided that, just maybe, he could tell her. Really, the worst that she could think of him is that he's a drug user. "Can I tell you something? It's going to sound absolutely insane, probably, but I just. Need to tell someone."

She looked concerned, her dark brown eyes wide, but nodded anyway. "That's real ominous. But sure, go for it."

"Okay. So. Stick with me, here. A year ago, him and I got on a train, right? But then, there was another train door within the train. We just...went into the door. Well, the bastard threw my keys into it and then ran in, so how could I not follow?" Eryn was looking at him intently like she understood. Min could tell he was pretty drunk by now; he'd never be able to open up to someone this much sober. But that's okay. More than okay, really.

"It gets even weirder from then on. Ryan- that's his name, by the way- and I woke up on a giant, infinie train in the middle of nowhere. Gotta be pretty unbelievable, though. You probably think I'm on drugs." Min sighed.

Eryn was silent for a moment, but it was obvious she was getting ready to explode. "Dude, no fucking way!" Yep, there it was. "I got on that train! When I was eleven. I was super conflicted on my sexuality, had a shit ton of internalized homophobia as a result of having homophobic family. I felt like a disgusting person. So I got on the train, and it actually helped me through it." She'd completely lit up when Min mentioned the train. Looked like she was going to grab him by the shoulders and shake him.

For a moment, Min was speechless. Soon, though, he regained his voice. "You're kidding," was all he could muster.

"Nope." Eryn's grin nearly reached her ears. "Did you have someone to help you along, too? There was a white cat named Samantha for me. She was French, for some reason. But I miss her."

"Oh! Yeah, Ryan and I had a floating, talking bell named Kez. Weird, right?. I miss her, too. Wonder how she's doing." Min thought for a second, completely and utterly relieved to have met someone else to share an experience with. Then something clicked. "Hold on...I might have met this cat you speak of. Yellow eyes? Uh, blonde...hair?"

"Blonde hair? Well, she didn't have that. But yeah, yellow eyes, French accent." Eryn nodded. They were silent for a moment.

Min chuckled, suddenly getting the urge to continue on with their story. Telling someone about the train would feel wonderful. "We had a lot of...issues...regarding our friendship, at the time. That's why the train picked us up in the first place." He fiddled with the hem of his shirt. "The train did help us. But we had a lot of weirdly intimate moments on it, and that's where my sexuality crisis started. Like, there was a car where we had to perform a song with each other to get out of it, and of course I got stage fright right before it. I left him alone on stage. Again." Min paused, the guilt almost making him feel like he was living through that moment again.

Eryn nudged him. "And? That doesn't sound intimate. What happened next?"

"I hid in the bathroom. So he came in, and at first he was angry, but I was having a full on anxiety attack. We sat in the bathtub, hip to hip, knee to knee. It was weird, but nice. He helped me calm down. And like...in our last year of Highschool, I gave him a shirt with our band name on it. In that bath tub, he had it with him. He kept it. Said he'd never done a show without it." Min laughed, but there wasn't much humor about it. "Man, I wanted to kiss him so bad right then and there. But I didn't."

Eryn had a soft look in her eyes. "I dunno about you, but that sounds pretty damn gay to me. Maybe he's just dating other people to distract himself from his crush on you, who knows! All I'm trying to say is, don't give up on this, Min. You two have something going on, I don't know what, but it could blossom into a relationship." She patted him on the shoulder, then took another drink of her beer.

Min did the same. "What if he's not gay?" His voice was small. "Worse, what if he's homophobic? I don't know...fuck, it's terrifying. I could lose him because I'm gay."

"Well," Eryn paused for a moment, "you could try and subtly bring it into conversation. Maybe, like, bring up a celebrity who's gay. See his reaction." She gestured with her hands a lot, Min noticed.

Min nodded. It seemed simple in theory, but he knew he'd manage to fuck it up somehow. The logical part of his brain knew Ryan wouldn't leave him for being gay, but at the same time, there was this voice in the back of his head. Irrational thoughts, irrational fears; that's all it spoke of.

"Thank you. Really. It's been nice to talk about this, especially with someone who's been on the train. That thing is...a freak of nature. Maybe not even nature, I don't know. I'll try that with him, too." Min said finally, after some silence. Eryn laughed.

"Yeah, it absolutely is." She smiled widely. Eryn glanced around, her eyes finally landing on the only visible clock in this part of the bar. Her eyes widened. "Shit, I should really get going! Sorry. I told my girlfriend I'd be back around now." She, out of nowhere, gave Min a hug. It'd been a while since he'd hugged anyone, he realized, and it felt nice. Although, very unexpected.

Min hugged her back, sort of awkwardly. They separated soon after.

"That's okay. Again...thank you, so much. I should get young too." By now, it was almost 11 pm, and he figured he should leave as well. Ryan should be back at their apartment soon enough.

Min was about to turn and leave, but Eryn stopped him.

"Hey! How about we exchange phone numbers? This was a good chat, eh? I'd like to stay in contact." Eryn searched her pockets for a pen and some paper, but only found a marker. "Can I, like, write it on your arm and you can do the same?"

Min knew Ryan would tease him over it, but oh, well, he made a new friend. "Yeah, that's fine." He laughed, offering her his arm. She quickly scribbled her number on it, and honestly, it was barely legible. But he could read it, somewhat.

He then wrote his number on her arm, they exchanged goodbyes, and were on their way. Min dreaded returning to Ryan, who would definitely start to go on and on about his girlfriend, and just prove to make Min feel worse about his stupid crush.

But maybe, just maybe, Eryn was right. Maybe things would finally go his way for once.

•••

Min's walk home was quiet (as quiet as New York can be at night) and cold, it being the middle of November. Snow was just beginning to fall. Being outside Eryn's words stuck in his head like glue. Talk to him. As if he could do that. The idea of even just mentioning anything close to being gay made anxiety rise in his throat like bile.

He couldn't. Probably.

Before he could think much more on it, he was home. Home. Back to the decent one bedroom apartment they'd scraped up all of the money in their pockets to buy. Back to the scent of cigarette smoke in the air, back to the strange stains on the carpet in the hallway. Most importantly, back to Ryan. No matter how much resentment Min-gi might hold to him for having a girlfriend, Ryan usually made things better.

He walked up the stairs and down the hall to apartment number 202, ironically. Unlocked and opened the door to find it dark inside save for a single lamp. Min walked in, curious, just to find Ryan curled up in the fetal position on the sofa. That really made him anxious.

"Hey...Ryan? You good, man?" Min sat on the empty portion of the sofa, near his head.

Ryan stirred, rolling over onto his back. His head was resting a bit on Min's thigh, and it felt kind of nice.

"I dunno…" He mumbled. "She broke up with me."

"What?" Min looked down at Ryan, surprised. "Lisa? You're kidding."

"Nope, not kidding." Ryan laced his fingers together over his stomach. "The thing is...I'm like, kind of relieved that she did it? How fucked up is that?"

Min tilted his head in confusion. He really wanted to run his hand through Ryan's hair, but that was a really inappropriate thought for the moment.

"She, uh...said some things. When she broke up with me." He sighed. "Called me a fag." Ryan laughed, like he found it funny. Min didn't.

"Dude, what? Why?" Min's voice was a little shaky, for no other reason than that they were talking about gay people.

Ryan sighed. "Take a good look at us, Min." He brought his forearm up to cover his eyes. "We're two dudes, living in a one bedroom apartment together. We do everything together. Of course she's gonna think there's something going on."

Min felt like he was going to fucking disintegrate. "U-Uh...and that's a bad thing?"

"I mean...no. It just kind of clicked that...maybe she's right. Maybe I am gay." Ryan sat up, his back facing towards Min. He didn't look back. " I always assumed that I'd be straight, but this...it makes sense. None of my relationships have ever worked out. With women."

Min reached out and gently touched his shoulder. "Ryan...it's okay."

Ryan looked back, now, and his eyes were watery. Min frowned.

“How could it be okay?” His voice cracked as he spoke. “It’s just another reason for people to hate me. For my parents to hate me. Hell, maybe even you.” By the time that he finished talking, his voice was almost inaudible.

"No!" Min almost shouted, jolting forward. "No. Ryan, I could never hate you." Fuck, how was he supposed to tell Ryan he's gay now? Part of him wanted to shout it out impulsively, but the other part, it just wanted to keep hiding. Because what if something goes wrong? What if Ryan's in love with someone else? All what ifs. He really needed to stop.

Min inhaled deeply. Here goes. "This is gonna sound really coincidental, but...I'm gay too."

Quickly, Ryan turned around to face Min. His eyes were wide behind his glasses.

"What? No fucking way. You're kidding." Ryan was leaning forward, using his fists to prop him up.

Min shook his head. "No...I'm not. I was gonna tell you soon anyway, but now seemed like a good time." He scratched his head awkwardly.

Then, Ryan launched at him, hugging him. Arms wrapped around his neck, knees touching Min's thighs, the whole package. Min was sure he'd die with how flushed his face was; but thankfully, he didn't.

After what felt like a while, Ryan finally spoke.

"I love you." He mumbled into Min's shoulder.

Min paused. "In a gay way, or…?"

Ryan laughed. "Yeah, you idiot." He shook his head in amusement.

"Good. That's...great." He hugged Ryan tighter, finally letting himself run his fingers through his hair. It was soft, just like he expected. "I love you too."

#rymin #infinity train #infinity train book 4 #ryan akagi #min gi park #infinity train season 4

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

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Anonymous asked: I really enjoy your erudite and literary posts about James Bond in your blog very much. Your most recent post about Connery as best cinematic Bond and Dalton as the best literary Bond was brilliant. Although the PC brigade have been inching towards making Bond a woman or even non-white, Ian Fleming’s legacy of a suave but cold hearted English gentleman spy hasn’t been completely trashed. As someone familiar with Fleming literary lore can you also tell me where was James Bond educated? Was it Oxford or Cambridge? I was having a discussion over Zoom with friends and the Oxonians like myself thought it was Oxford because in Casino Royale with Daniel Craig it’s made very plain it was Oxford. Your thoughts?

I appreciate your kind words about my posts on James Bond and his creator Ian Fleming. It’s very hard to ignore the cinematic James Bond because he is very much an icon of our modern culture that needs no translation to transcend across cultures. Alongside Sherlock Holmes, another British literary and cinematic export, the name alone speak for itself.

James Bond appeals to both genders very well.

For the men, Bond dresses well and lives in a care free way. He is both ferociously intelligent and resourceful to get out of any tight corner. He drives incredible cars (from the incredibly stylish Aston Martin DB5 to the incredibly awful AMC Hornet) and uses awesome technology (he is the archetypal boy with toys). He's not afraid to get down in the dirt to fight or engage in lethal gun-play and spectacular car chases. He sleeps with beautiful women, regardless how strong and independent they are (or even lesbian if we’re being honest about Pussy Galore).

For us ladies, while he's not averse to action, he's also a cultured gentleman with suave and sophisticated manners. He's also a generally pretty good looking guy. In many ways, he's a conventional male ideal. So while his conventional good looks and manners aren't for everyone, they hit right the sweet spot of what women like. For everyone, he's a spy! Not at a grey real world nondescript spy, but a cool spy fighting larger than life bad guys whose bland sartorial choices scream mad super villain. It's a very black and white world that James Bond lives in. These bad guys truly are villainous in the desire to re-order humanity, and we need a debonair British MI6 agent to save us from these mad men who want to harm us by laying waste to a bonkers Armageddon.

When all is said and done I think that what makes James Bond so iconic across gender and generations is what Raymond Chandler wrote back in 1959, “every man wants to be James Bond and every woman wants to be with him”.

That sounds about right. Men want to be him, women want to be with him.

I know my first introduction to James Bond was through my grandfather on my Anglo-Scots father’s side who was a dashing gentleman in his day with a long rumoured hush hush work for Her Majesty’s government firmly shoved under the carpet to avoid further discussion that he - being self-effacing and humble - would find embarrassing that would paint him in any heroic light. Years later he had bought his Bahamas beach pile in Harbour Island out in the Caribbean for the family to rest up from cold winters in Britain. Amongst his immense stack of books dotted around the place were (and still are) first editions of Flemings novels which a few were signed by the author as he on occasion met Ian Fleming when he would sail over to Jamaica (they were also OEs which helped). We were not allowed to touch these but instead picked up the dog earred paperbacks that still retained their 60s musty smell.

On my teen sojourns there I would spend time along with my siblings just reading anything we could find to take to the beach or lounge around in a hammock or a chaise longue. That’s how I came to read the Fleming books - really out of necessity to avoid boredom on a beach (which isn’t really my thing as I prefer the rugged outdoors). But I was pleasantly surprised how well written the books were and I actually enjoyed the stories; it was a refreshing change from the more heavy literary tomes I was trying hard to wade through. As for the Bond films, I watched them on film nights at boarding school; I remember having a school girl crush on Connery, Dalton, and Brosnan.

There are many reasons for the successful longevity of James Bond in popular culture and literature but perhaps one of the most pertinent to our discussion is that James Bond is actually a blank slate and therefore malleable as a character and so he can capture the current zeitgeist in time.

This ability of the film to adapt to different generations while remaining relevant is an important factor for its longevity. For example, the early James Bond films were unashamedly sexist with characters using women as objects and discarding them. In the most recent James Bond films, certainly starting with Timothy Dalton, there is a subtle change in attitude with a few chauvinist attitudes.

James Bond today is more serious, seduces fewer women, and is more respectful towards women in his life, including his boss. This shows how the film changes concerning the rise of feminism in the West. For example, Miss Moneypenny used to be a minor character in the very first James Bond films. Today, she is more formidable and doesn’t tolerate sexist remarks.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this blank slate malleability that has allowed different actors that have been cast to play James Bond their own way - rather than get a straight like for like Scottish sounding actor to replacing Connery for example the film producers went across to Moore via Lazenby for example - and letting each actor imbue the super spy with different moods. They each added their own colour from the same broad palate to create different tones. However, each of these characters maintained the essential character that defines James Bond. The actors have broadly stayed true to the inherent mix of character and class associated with James Bond.

For this reason I have some empathy towards your concern that Bond would be held hostage to the current zeitgeist of white washing or genderising everything so as to avoid being a victim of cancel culture. But it’s only empathy because I feel there is a danger of misunderstanding just who James Bond is and what he represents.

What do I mean by this?

I mentioned James Bond is a malleable character to the point he’s presented as a blank slate. This is ‘literally’ true - certainly as far as the books go. Ian Fleming doesn’t tell us much about Bond other than his appearance in his books. Indeed - as I mentioned in my past blog post on Connery as the best Bond - Fleming wasn’t convinced by Connery as Bond. He was reported to have said, ‘I’m looking for Commander Bond and not an overgrown stuntman’ and even dismissed Connery as “that fucking truck driver”. Fleming has good reason to rage. His Bond as written in the books was someone like him.

Like Fleming, Bond was an Eton educated Englishman; an officer and a (rogue) gentleman who was a lieutenant-commander in Naval Intelligence. As Connery began to wow and win over Fleming as Bond, Fleming had a change of heart. Fleming in his later Bond books re-wrote a half-Scottish ancestry for Bond as a tribute to Connery’s portrayal. Bond’s Scottish father was a Royal Navy captain and later an arms dealer, Andrew Bond from Glencoe; and his mother, Monique Delacroix, was Swiss from an industrial family. Bond himself was born in Zurich. Bond isn’t English at all but half-Scots and half-Swiss according to literary canon.

So I mention this because the question who can play James Bond is not as straight forward as it might seem.

But clearly we now have a canon of work, both cinematically and in the literature, where we have base line of who Bond is - or what audiences could possibly suspend their disbelief and go with what is presented to them as James Bond.

I do vaguely remember the hullabaloo and hand wringing around Daniel Craig playing Bond because he didn’t conform to the traditional tall, dark, and handsome trope of James Bond super suave spy. People couldn’t get past his blond hair. Some still can’t. But in my humble opinion he has been an outstanding James Bond and has reimagined Bond in a fresh and exciting way. Craig is in fact mining the Fleming books for his characterisation of Bond as a suave, gritty, humourless killer of the books. Dalton got there before him but that’s a moot point. To our current generation Craig has modernised Bond and dusted 007 down from being a relic of the Cold War to being a relevant 21st Century super spy.

Can anyone play James Bond OO7? Yes and no. It’s arguing that two different things are one and the same. They are not. James Bond is separate from OO7.

Can a woman play Jane Bond or a black woman or non-white man play Black Bond? Respectfully, no. That’s not who James Bond is.

James Bond is a flesh and blood character with a specific genealogical history - whether in the books or on the screen. This Bond has literary back story that is canon and makes him who he is. Bond does transcend time - he can’t be 38 years old for over 75 years in the real world - but at the same time his character only makes sense when rooted in a specific historic context we know existed (and still exists) and not some wishy washy make believe fantasy of British society. He’s an Old Etonian and therefore an upper middle class male product of the British establishment that is identifiable in a very British cultural context.

Jane Bond would have to have gone to Cheltenham Ladies College, Benneden, or Roedean I suppose if we are talking about equivalence - but such girls’ boarding schools were not the breeding ground for future spies (more likely they married them or became trusted secretaries in the intelligence services as well as flower arranging in their Anglican parish church).

I believe they are letting in black pupils on bursaries at Eton these days to be more inclusive but again it’s an an exception not the rule and Eton doesn’t even get public credit for the inclusive work they try to do because it’s not well known.

Moreover we know Bond loses his Scottish-Swiss parents in a skiing accident. I don’t mean to sound racist but I ski a lot in Switzerland and I can say you don’t really find droves of non-white skiers on the slopes of Verbier or Zermatt. Of course there are a few but it’s the exception and not the norm. Again, I’m not trying to be racist but just point out some obvious things when it pertains to the credibility of character that underlines who Bond is. You pull one thread out of the literary biography and the danger is the rest of the tapestry will unravel.

Of course one could try and go for a Black Bond on screen and then hope there is a huge suspension of belief on the part of the audience. But I suspect it’s a bridge too far. It just doesn’t fit. Audiences around the world have an image of who Bond is - British at the very least but also male (damaged and flawed in many ways) and coming from a specific British social class background that serves as an entree to a closed world of English gentleman clubs, Savile Row, English sports cars, and the hushed corridors of Whitehall.

Any woke film maker with an ounce of creative vision and talent and one who is invested in this would be better off creating a new character entirely - with their own specific biography that is both believable and relatable. Can you imagine an American James Bond? What a ghastly thought. Or worse a Canadian one? Canadians are far too nice and far too apologetic to produce a cruel cold eyed killer. But look what clever film makers like Spielberg and Lucas did with Indiana Jones and even later Doug Liman did with Jason Bourne - both fantastic creations that are part of the cultural zeitgeist now.

Or look at Charlize Theron who plays a MI6/CIA/KGB triple agent in Atomic Blonde or Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust in any of the Mission Impossible movies. I would eagerly watch any movies with these two badass women on the screen. All this talk about making Bond a woman or even coloured is just lazy thinking at best and at worst kow towing to the populist tides of PC brigade.

But I firmly believe one can have a female and a person of colour portraying 007. This is because James Bond and OO7 are two different things entirely. Many mistakenly believe 007 is Bond’s own code name and specific alias to him alone.

007 is a license to kill for a very specialised kind of intelligence officer. Bond has that privilege for as long as he serves at the service of Her Majesty’s pleasure. His 007 license can be revoked - and it has been in the past Bond films - and he’s back to being a just another desk jockey civil servant in Whitehall. So my point is OO7 is not sacred to Bond’s identity. Bond could continue to be Bond even if M took away his 007 license to kill.

The origins of the Double O title may date to Fleming's wartime service in Naval Intelligence. According to World War Two historian Damien Lewis in his book Churchill's Secret Warriors, agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) were given a “0” prefix when they became "zero-rated" upon completion of training in how to kill. As part of his role as assistant to the head of naval intelligence, Rear Admiral John Godfrey (himself the inspiration for M), Fleming acted as liaison to the SOE.

In the novel Moonraker it’s established that the section routinely has three agents concurrently; the film series, beginning with Thunderball, establishes the number of OO agents at a minimum of 9. Fleming himself only mentions five OO agents in all. According to Moonraker, James Bond is the most senior of three OO agents; the two others were OO8 and OO11. The three men share an office and a secretary named Loelia Ponsonby. Later novels feature two more OO agents; OO9 is mentioned in Thunderball and OO6 is mentioned in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Other authors have elaborated and expanded upon the OO agents. While they presumably have been sent on dangerous missions as Bond has, little has been revealed about most of them. Several have been named, both by Fleming and other authors, along with passing references to their service records, which suggest that agents are largely recruited (as Bond was) from the British military's special forces.

Interestingly, In the novel You Only Live Twice, Bond was transferred into another branch and given the number 7777, suggesting there was no active agent 007 in that time; he is later reinstated as 007 in the novel The Man with the Golden Gun. As an aside, in Fleming's Moonraker, OO agents face mandatory retirement at 45 years old. However Sebastian Faulks's Devil May Care (an authorised Bond adventure from the Fleming estate and therefore arguably could be considered canon) features M giving Bond a choice of when to retire - which explains why Roger Moore (God bless) went past his sell by date.

In the films the OO section is a discrete area of MI6, whose agents report directly to M, and tend to be sent on special assignments and troubleshooting missions, often involving rogue agents (from Britain or other countries) or situations where an "ordinary" intelligence operation uncovers or reveals terrorist or criminal activity too sensitive to be dealt with using ordinary procedural or legal measures, and where the aforementioned discretionary "licence to kill" is deemed necessary or useful in rectifying the situation.

The World is Not Enough introduces a special insignia for the 00 Section. Bond's fellow OO agents appear receiving briefings in Thunderball and The World Is Not Enough. The latter film shows a woman in one of the 00 chairs. In Thunderball, there are nine chairs for the OO agents; Moneypenny says every 00 agent in Europe has been recalled, not every OO agent in the world. Behind the scenes photos of the film reveal that one of the agents in the chairs is female as well. As with the books, other writers have elaborated and expanded upon the OO agents in the films and in other media.

In GoldenEye, 006 is an alias for Alec Trevelyan; as of 2019, Trevelyan is the only OO agent other than Bond to play a major role in an EON Productions film, with all other appearances either being brief or dialogue references only.

In Casino Royale with Daniel Craig’s first outing as Bond, we see in the introduction the tense exchange between Bond and Dryden, a section chief whom Bond has been sent to kill for selling secrets.

James Bond: M really doesn't mind you earning a little money on the side, Dryden. She'd just prefer it if it wasn't selling secrets. Dryden: If the theatrics are supposed to scare me, you have the wrong man Bond. If M was so sure I was bent...she'd have sent a Double-O. Benefits of being Section Chief...I would know of anyone being promoted to Double-O status, wouldn't I? Your file shows no kills...and it takes - James Bond: - two. (flashback of Bond fighting Dryden's contact in a bathroom.)

The OO is just a coveted position and nothing to do with who occupies it. Ito use a topical comparative example it’s like a football team in which a new star player would be given an ex-player’s shirt number e.g. Messi wears Number 10 for Argentina which is heavily identified with the late great Maradona. So conceivably there would be no problem having a woman or anyone else play 007. I think it would be an interesting creative choice to have a woman or someone else play OO7 and Bond is out of the service and yet he has to work together with this new OO7 - the creative tension would be a refreshing twist on the canon.

Your question about James Bond’s Oxford or Cambridge education is more easier to answer.

It really depends again which Bond one is talking about. The literary James Bond or the cinematic Bond.

In the Fleming books, James Bond’s didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge or any of the other great universities of Britain. In the books Bond’s education is not gone into much detail. We know he was raised overseas until he was orphaned at the age of 11 when his parents died in a mountaineering accident near Chamonix in the Alps. He is home schooled for a time by an aunt, Charmain Bond, in the English village of Pett Bottom before being packed off to boarding school at Eton around 12 years old. Bond doesn’t stay long as he gets expelled for playing around with a maid. He is then sent to his father’s boarding school in Scotland, Fettes College.

Bond is then briefly attends the University of Geneva - as Ian Fleming did - before being taught to ski in Kitzbühel. In 1941 Bond joins a branch of what was to become the Ministry of Defence and becomes a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, ending the war as a commander. Bond applies to M for a position within the "Secret Service", part of the HM Civil Service, and rises to the rank of principal officer. And that’s it.

In the cinematic Bond universe things get more complicated and even contentious as you alluded to in your question. It’s never made quite clear which of the two - Oxford or Cambridge - Bond attended because it depends on how much weight you attach to the lines being spoken in each of the films where it is raised.

In Tomorrow Never Dies, Bond is up at Oxford (New College to be exact since his Aston Martin DB5 was parked in the courtyard at the entrance). He is seen bedding a sexy Danish professor, Inga Bergstrom, to brush up on his Danish (to which Moneypenny on the phone retorts ‘You always were a cunning linguist’). But it’s definitely doesn’t mean Bond studied there as an undergraduate.

Casino Royale is the film many think yes, James Bond went to Oxford because it is mentioned by Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) as she sizes up Daniel Craig’s Bond on the train. Here is the full quote as said by Vesper Lynd, “All right... by the cut of your suit, you went to Oxford or wherever. Naturally you think human beings dress like that. But you wear it with such disdain, my guess is you didn't come from money, and your school friends never let you forget it. Which means you were at that school by the grace of someone else's charity - hence that chip on your shoulder. And since your first thought about me ran to "orphan," that's what I'd say you are.”

The thing to note is that it’s Vesper Lynd taunting Bond and even then she takes a wide stab by saying ‘Oxford or wherever’ because she doesn’t really know and Bond doesn’t oblige her with an answer.

That whole scene struck me as strange because she’s guessing by the cut of the suit it must be Oxford (or Cambridge). Bond is wearing an Italian suit (Brioni to be specific) and not and English Savile Row one that presumably someone of Bond’s taste and background would be sporting.

A more plausible answer if we are going by the cinematic Bond universe is Cambridge. Indeed it is stated explicitly by Bond himself. Can you guess?

You Only Live Twice which is has the distinction of being the only Bond film (as far as I can tell) from being set in just one country - Japan.

You remember the scene. Lieutenant commander James Bond has just had a briefing with M on board a submarine and is naturally flirting with Moneypenny on his way out. Moneypenny playfully tosses him a Japanese phrase book, saying he might need it.

“You forget,” Bond responds with an expression just short of a smirk as he tosses it back to her, “I took a first in oriental languages at Cambridge.”

So it seems James Bond is a Cambridge man.

A first means - as any British university student would know - first class honours. It’s the highest classification grade one can get in their undergraduate degree ie a ‘first’. Although at Cambridge, like Oxford, you can also get a double first in the part I and part II of the Tripos. Both universities also award first-class honours with distinction, informally known as a ‘Starred First’ (Cambridge) or a ‘Congratulatory First’ (Oxford).

Another oddity is he says ‘oriental languages’ when one got a degree in ‘oriental studies’ at the Oriental Faculty at Cambridge. That is until 2007 when Cambridge bowed to public and student pressure and chose to drop its Oriental Faculty label and instead adopted the name the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Oxford still hangs on to its name the Faculty of Oriental Studies.

My only reservation about crowing over an Oxonian is how truthful was Bond being with Moneypenny in this scene?

Is this line meant to be taken seriously or ironically? Most people seem to take it seriously, despite much of Connery's dialogue being obviously ironic and playful. Certainly, Bond is shown to have never been to Japan before and is incapable of saying anything in Japanese other than the odd "sayonara" and "arigato." But then again Bond does know the correct temperature sake is meant to be served at. So there’s that.

Or it could be Bond was speaking a half-truth. I know speaking from experience as someone who very nearly read asian languages instead of my eventual choice of Classics that ‘Oriental languages’ at the ex-Oriental faculty in Cambridge can mean many other languages e.g. Sanskrit, Hindi, Farsi, Hebrew, Arabic as well as Korean, Japanese and Chinese. It opens up so many other delicious possibilities for Bond. If he read Arabic then perhaps he’s being deeply ironic with Moneypenny (after all she would have drooled over read his MI6 personnel file).

If you think I’m losing my mind then ponder on the fact it was Roald Dahl who penned the screenplay of You Only Live Twice. Dahl was not above snark. Indeed pretty sure he would have got a starred first in snark at any university.

Of course the most obvious explanation is that it’s plot armour as a way for Bond to just get on with the story by suspending the audience belief. Why wouldn’t Bond know Japanese? He seems to know everything else imaginable.

However if it ever was it’s now become canon as EON - the production company behind the Bond films - have stated officially for the fandom that Bond’s official bio has it that he went to Eton and Cambridge, where he got a first in oriental languages. So that seems settled then.

In hindsight it makes perfect sense that Bond went to Cambridge since historically Cambridge has provided the bulk of the spies not just for Her Majesty’s service but also for the other side, the Russians - the so-called Cambridge Spies of Philby, Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, and Cairncross, and a host of other traitors. We seem to be an equal opportunities employment service.

I’m sorry to disappoint you and other Oxonians that despite what you might think James Bond didn’t attend Oxford. Believe me as a Cantabrigian it gives me no pleasure to say this…..too much.

Thanks for your question.

#ask #question #james bond #bond #film #cinema #ian fleming #oxford #cambridge #oxbridge #university #education #cancel culture #culture #society #britain #british #personal

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thinger-strang · 5 years

Text

no one dies and everyone's gay au

Nancy finds Barb when she gets stuck in the Upside Down when she's in the forest with Jonathan (don't ask me about the logistics) and so Steve ends up finding Jonathan and Barb in Nancy's room? And he's confused because at first he'd just seen Jon and thought Nancy was cheating but then he saw Barb walk into the room? (traumatic sleepover time! except Jon stays on the ground and Barb and Nance cuddle on the bed bc they're best friends and BARB WAS MISSING FOR LIKE TWO DAYS I THINK? she deserves snugs)

But Tommy and Carol started talking about how Nancy was probably sleeping with both, everyone knew Barb was the biggest d*ke in Hawkins, Nancy probably got curious about the other side!

He doesn't necessarily agree but still doesn't stop Tommy from spray painting the theater (because Nancy still lied to him? Lying generally meant there was something? going on? idk Steve's just confused and a little hurt rn)

The rest of the season goes pretty much the same, Barb's just there trying to not die and trying to help the Gang™ find Will and fight this bitch ass demogorgon (I don't think she's really be part of the Nancy and Jonathan luring it to the house and fighting it, she'd help with set up and the plan but I think she'd fuck right off when it comes down to facing it, she's had enough monsters for one life time thx)

But she'd so wanna help get Will out so she's there with Joyce and everyone talking to El while she's in the bath finding Will and talking Hop and Joyce about the Upside Down

(and she's been to the hospital, she didn't get a face sucking monster thing so she recovered quicker? idk don't ask logistics again lmao)

But she and Will end up getting along and sometimes when she's hanging out with Nancy and the party comes over she'll say hi to Will and like ruffle his hair

(also I want a little scene after the big monster hunting trip scene where a) Nancy and Jonathan explain everything to Steve and b) where Steve sees Barb again and pulls her into the biggest hug and starts like apologizing for not paying attention that night and for letting her get taken and even though she assured him it wasn't his fault he still feels guilty about it, it was his house, he should have helped her bandage her hand or something? idk but this right here is the beginning of the Barb/Steve friendship and the start of the "fall of King Steve")

cue s2

and so the four get really close, Jonathan and Steve are actually friends (idk what s2 was pulling but they're friends) and Barb talks to Nancy about Steve and Jonathan and Nancy ends up breaking up with Steve way earlier (bc you know none of that drama would have happened if Barb was there so)

But they're all still good friends, Steve's cool about the break up, and Nancy and Jonathan get together but it's not like right after? so it's all chill and they all went through a dramatic experience together so they remain close knit yeah

and Barb eventually comes out to them (everyone's supportive obviously) and Steve's is ready to throw down with anyone for her

cue Billy

the four of them are sizing up the new guy, Nancy doesn't really care, Jonathan thinks his hair is a little ridiculous (which I mean, that first day? when he steps out of the Camaro? yeah it was a lil rough), Barb can see right through his macho bullshit, and Steve? has a little bi meltdown. bc this kid has definitely had boy crushes before and knows he likes both (kid listens to queen of course he knew he was bi lmao)

blah blah blah s2 happens, Barb, Steve, and Billy have the same English class and Billys generally quiet during school, kinda stand-off-ish, only really bugs people during gym/basketball, but he literally sits in the back and does absolutely nothing during class and still somehow has the highest grade

(FUCK him and Barb get paired for a project and she fucking calls him out? like she's just like you're gay I'm lesbian you can cut the crap around me and they become...not friends? but they have solidarity, they're cool)

and I'm a slut for this trope but BILLY FIGHTS DEMODOGS WITH THEM lmao he hears Max sneak out and follows her and finds her in the junkyard armouring up a bus with fucking Harrington and a couple of nerds? and like the sun is setting and he needs to get Max home so he's like "Maxine! I don't know what the fuck this is and I don't fucking care, we gotta go!" and the four are like yelling at him to either leave or get in the bus! and he's so confused, I'm not here to play games Max! and Steve's running out of the bus with a FUCKING NAIL BAT WHAT THE FUCK HARRINGTON? And Steve's like behind you! and swings at a demodog. Billy has a borderline panic attack before he finds like a fender or exhaust pipe or whatever and starts swinging too

the dogs run away and Billy rounds onto Steve like what the living shit was that? and Steve has to explain everything with Dustin and Lucas interrupting and Max shrugging and trying to understand too? it's a mess

s2 continues with Billy and with HOPPER NOT BEING ABLE TO STAND HIM bc he's caught him speeding and underage drinking and shit and Billy's nervous as hell around cops which makes him mouthy and ITS A MESS

they're all at Joyce's (Barb's there too bc Will's possessed and they need to check up on her too? and she's concerned for Will anyway yeah she's in this too) and El shows up and Steve and Billy are just like what? another one? who the fuck? like Steve heard about her but this isn't a tiny child without hair??? idk it's funny

BILLY WITH AN AXE IN THE TUNNELS

(obviously Steve isn't passed out and the kids don't drive the car, it's Billy's awful impulse control that leads to them going into the tunnels)

okay I couldn't decide where to put Barb here? so I left her with Steve and Billy to babysit and she ends up in the tunnels too? and she's def handling it better than the boys are fuck yeah

Steve has his bat and is in front and Billy found an axe in the pile of shit from the Byers' shed and he pulls up the end

it's awesome

yada yada Steve and Billy end up becoming weirdly good friends by the end and he's good with him and Barb, idk about Nance and Jon but eh

s3 now

Billy ends up getting two jobs; lifeguard and cook at Benny's (bc he's alive too, fight me bitches this is the ultimate fix it) and Barb ends up working as a waitress there too (and working together builds the weirdest bonds so they are besties now)

everything in s3 is pretty much the same but with diner scenes too? and like all the Hawkins moms swarm Benny's too and leave lipstick stains on their kitchen tips and "send my compliments to the chef *wink*"

Billy eats it up but Barb can tell he also kinda hates it bc he's barely 18 and not even remotely into women and it makes him super uncomfortable but publicly he "loves" it (he starts wearing tank tops to the pool and tries to hide out in the kitchen but it really doesn't work)

he still gets caught up with the mind flayer but it's not bc he's about to sleep with Karen bc ew, idk why he's driving out by the warehouse idk maybe he's out on a drive bc he can't sleep yeah

anyway he gets caught up but like he knows, or kind of knows, what this is and calls in sick to both jobs and talks to Hopper bc WHAT THE FUCK isn't the gate closed? I got face fucked my an interdimensional monster so unless you know where the fuck that came from?? and they deal with it earlier (most of the shit still happens but it's less...messy? like Hop and Joyce are more involved in the Billy shit and Steve knows about it?)

Steve still gets caught up with the Russians (I don't think he'd have a chance to tell anyone (specifically Hopper) bc he finds out about Billy then the elevator stuff happens like right after and yada yada)

so for most of the season it's them trying to actually help Billy! and they end up saving a lot of people? (specifically Heather bc she was really nice to Billy and I want he to live fight me it's my au)

but enough people get melted and shit that starcourt still get destroyed blah blah blah!

but Billy makes it and so does Hop and Alexie (no one dies au) and they all end up doing the thing in the mall like they did in the shed with Will? like breaking Billy out? Barb talks about working at the diner and their secret and Steve talks about them hanging out and playing basketball and the tunnels and Max talks about Billy buying her a new board and them scream-singing along to ACDC in the Camaro and the kids mention him giving them rides and shit and yeah! El talks about his mom and that's it! Joyce and Hop close the gate while Billy's holding the one arm (he doesn't get stabbed in the chest, as cool as that scar would be, no...but he gets some on his hands and upper arms and his sides?)

(also Billy's drinking like bleach rn so they try and reverse that as much as possible while he's possessed so that he has a better recovery later bc no! chlorine is not good for you! and Billy tries so hard to not drink it but sometimes he can't fucking stop? idk but he has a support system now!)

and Robin came out to Steve and Steve comes out to her too? like kinda? he alludes to it vaguely bc he's so not ready to be out to anyone FUCK

And Billy comes out to Steve (he was planning on doing it earlier that summer but shit happened)

and Robin becomes friends with everyone (ITS ROBIN X BARB HOURS BITCHES)

(OKAY small like side shit? Benny and Hopper have known each other for years and Benny's like one of the only registered foster parents on Hawkins so he ends up fostering a lot of wayward kids while Hop figures out legal stuff (he hasn't adopted anyone yet but him and his husband (yeah Benny's gay deal with it) really want to? they just haven't yet, all the kids they take care of end up in their care temporarily) BUT Hop finds out about Billy and Max's home life (I know a lot of people write that Neil wouldn't hit Max but...nah son not how that works? idk but he needs to get them out? and Neil's bad to Susan too (he's the worst to Billy but still bad to Max and Susan) anyway Hop helps Susan leave Neil (it takes a while and Billy and Max end up with Benny for a little bit while the divorce is going down and all the legal shit yeah it's safer out of the house rn) long story short Billy ends up staying with Benny after everything and ends up getting adopted (they're like we know you're 18 and you don't need a guardian but if you want we can be your dads? and Billys like yeah sure that'd be nice and yeah) Hop ends up being a weird like uncle figure? idk like I said him and Benny are close and they both adopted kids so yeah? and Billy ends up considering El his little sister and he still visits Max and Susan and yeah?)

ANYWAY everything kind of calms down, Hop and Joyce get together (I just realized I forgot about Bob so...idk I guess this isn't an everyone survives au? no no that's weird um idk him and Joyce end up breaking up idk why) but yeah Hop and Joyce get together and like it's kind of fast but they've been in love for a long time so it's kind of fine? like idk but yeah

Barb and Robin get together (ITS FUCKING CUTE they go to aquariums and have paint dates where they sit on some old sheets and paint while listening to Robin's records ITS CUTE!)

STEVE COMES OUT TO EVERYONE! he definitely cries bc fuck he was scared! bc he likes both and he wasn't sure if that was a thing or whatever for a while and Billy's like oh yeah, like David Bowie or Freddie Mercury? and that's when Steve's cries bc oh thank God you guys get it and you're cool with it oh fuck and YEAH

UM Max is bi too, Will comes out as gay (listen I know none of this is like 80's realistic but everyone's gay and alive and happy, fuck off)

Um it takes forever for Billy and Steve to get together, it's awful. like Barb and Robin have to deal with their pining and shit? and like Robin hears about it from Steve at work and Barb hears about it from Billy at the diner and they put their knowledge together and make a Plan ™

it's like elaborate and dramatic (shut up they're all like 18-19) and shit? BUT LMAO okay one day they're all hanging out at Steve's (bc I've also hopped aboard the neglectful parents train sorry) and idk Steve and Billy are there before Robin and Barb are so the girls walk in on them arguing over whatever and like Billy's talking really fast and Steve's talking with his hands and idk what it's about but Billy ends up yelling that he loves him BUT THEY KEEP ARGUING FOR LIKE A SOLID MINUTE AFTER THAT BEFORE IT HITS THEM and Steve gets all quiet and is just like you love me? and Billy doesn't fucking know what to do?? he's like bright red and frozen and Robin and Barb are by the door trying to not like break the spell (bc it's been months guys) and Billy's like of course I do asshole and Robin thinks Steve's about to have a panic attack but he like rushes forward and cups Billy's face and kisses him senseless and it's like the best thing Robin and Barb have ever seen

and they're resting their foreheads together, Steve's still holding Billy's face and Billy has his hands on Steve's chest it's really tender but Robin's like yeah congrats and shit but you guys ruined our Plan™! and she gives them a long ass rundown of their elaborate scheme and Steve and Billy are like still touching and bumping into each other as they listen and Barb interrupts and says that this was better and Robin rolls her eyes but agrees

and they're watching a movie or whatever, cuddling in their respective couples and Steve fucking jumps up randomly and rounds on Billy like hey woah fuck I love you too, I didn't say that earlier! and Billy's looking up at him like yeah I know that asshole and yeah

#okay this is s u p e r long sorry #but also not #harringrove #robin x barb #fix-it #stranger things #the ultimate fix-it #pls ask me stuff about this im so down to ramble about this?#pls #fic #my stuff #also idk how to do keep reading thungs so sorry 😬#also i barely mention nancy jon the kids or the adults #this is about my gay quad #buckland #bobin #my writings

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takaraphoenix · 4 years

Note

For the ask game marvel

Thanks for asking! ^^

Top 5 favourite characters: Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Janet van Dyne, Okoye, Carol Danvers

Other characters you like: Ororo Munroe, Gwen Stacy, Miles Morales, Darcy Lewis, Hope van Dyne

Least favourite characters:MCU!W@nda

Otps: Loki/Tony, Bucky/Tony, Thor/Tony

Notps: Tony/Pepper, Peter/Michelle, MCU!Steve/Tony, Steve/Bucky, Valkyrie/Carol, honestly it’s actually a pretty long list so we’ll leave it at a Top Five

Favourite friendships: TONY AND RHODEY!!! Also Peter and Miles in a “they’re the same age”-setting

Favourite family:THE IRON FAM

Favourite episodes: doesn’t have episodes

Favourite season/book/movie: listen, it may be basic but Avengers. The first one. Like, that was all the MCU was about. Forming that team. It may not be the best movie by various definitions, but it’s my favorite because it sums up what Marvel should be all about for me

Favourite quotes: not really a quote-kinda-gal. Like, there are these often quoted quips and stuff from the MCU but nothing that I’d really say means a lot to me

Best musical moment: an Avengers musical would be awesome :O

Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: That hero shot. In the first Avengers when after all these years, those heroes all came together and we got that shot of them all together

When it really disappointed you: *cough* so often. But the worst offenders are Age of Ultron and Thor Ragnarok. Like. Just. Everything about these two movies. AoU’s only redeeming quality was Vision and Ragnarok just flat-out didn’t have any redeeming qualities.

Saddest moment: WHEN TONY DIED. I CRIED. A LOT ;-;

Most well done character death: If I am allowed to use the deleted scene instead of the one that ended up in the movie, then Tony’s death. Because him dying and everyone kneeling before him was amazing??

Favourite guest star: JARVIS. JARVIS IN THAT ENDGAME

Favourite cast member: Kat Dennings

Character you wish was still alive: ANTHONY EDWARD STARK

One thing you hope really happens: that Captain Marvel makes Carol/Maria canon, because Marvel promised more LGBT rep, with new AND existing characters and if you wanna retcon anyone into being rep, genuinely NONE from the MCU offer it better than the two women who raised a child together, lived together and spent the entire movie being each other’s anchor??

Most shocking twist: that Captain America was wrong in his own movie :D man I was dreading Civil War because if it’s Civil War but Captain America then surely they will give Steve the moral high ground and have Tony be in the wrong - and then they just made Steve the fuck-up and Tony the reasonable one and it still feels like a blessing (though I still think this shouldn’t have been a Captain America movie. It should have been an Avengers movie...)

When did you start watching/reading?: I watched it when Iron Man first came out, but like... casually. I only started caring - and caught up with the ones I was missing - when Avengers came out

Best animal/creature: are... are there animals in this franchise...? Because I just genuinely do not recall any, aside from Valkyrie’s outta-nowhere pegasus in Endgame...

Favourite location: ooof Wakanda probably?

Trope you wish they would stop using: miscommunication and distrust. Like. The Avengers movies were supposed to be about a team, but we didn’t have A SINGLE actual Avengers movie where they were just a team. Every single one had miscommunication, distrust and betrayal among the team and it was tiresome and stupid. There should have been at the very least ONE proper Avengers movie where it’s the Avengers, united as one team, facing a threat together

One thing this show/book/film does better than others: the interwoven universe. I mean, these phases lined up pretty well while so many other franchise attempts fail because they can’t build it up and rush it too much

Funniest moments: the majority of things Tony Stark says :D and also Okoye, just her being a whole mood

Couple you would like to see: I’d be over the moon if, once they introduce the X-Men, T’Challa/Ororo could become canon? Also the further above mentioned Carol/Maria. And when they’re giving Valkyrie a girlfriend next Thor, I really hope it’s gonna be Sif

Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: Freema Agyeman as Ororo Munroe. She’d be the perfect age to be with Chadwick’s T’Challa, she is a gorgeous badass and I really want to see her in it??

Favourite outfit: that Infinity War nanotech Iron Man suit

Favourite item: the Cloak of Levitation

Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?:uuuhm... Huh. No, I actually don’t...

What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: I would be a human. Maybe working for Darcy? :D

Most boring plotline: ...Ant-Man and the Wasp, like I genuinely can’t remember what that movie was about, beyond getting Janet out...??

Most laughably bad moment:ooof there were so many, most of them in Ragnarok, really. That movie was one laughably bad moment after the other

Best flashback/flashfoward if any: mh, I don’t know??

Most layered character: Tony Stark, unsurprisingly so considering who you asked xD

Most one dimensional character: the majority of villains

Scariest moment: not really scary

Grossest moment: can’t think of one?

Best looking male: M’Baku

Best looking female: Gamora? Sif? Okoye? Hope? Why would you make a weak-minded lesbian choose

Who you’re crushing on (if any): Hope and Okoye

Favourite cast moment: I don’t really care for these things ^^°

Favourite transportation: flying with the Iron Man suit?

Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): I don’t know

Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you: I mean there are probably a ton, to be quite frank, and most are linked to the flusterfuck of timetravel Endgame put in there :D

Best promo: I don’t really follow these things; I don’t even watch trailers if I can avoid them

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: Avengers, that team-shot

IN DEPTH FANDOM QUESTIONS

#Marvel #MCU #In-Depth Fandom Ask Game #send me asks #fantasylover16

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bookwrm130 · 6 years

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Can you gush about Petramos now? Lol I loved your Wayhaught fics and I was so excited that you wrote a little one shot for Petramos

Oh, my friend, I am procrastinating so hard right now, so I will, indeed, gush about Petramos. This is gonna be a long one, y’all, so grab your preferred choice of drink and grab a seat. (Also, thank you for reading my Wayhaught fics. It’s a little harder for me to get inspired to write when the show isn’t on, but just you wait until Wynonna Earp is airing again.)

Let’s start from the beginning, Petra Solano herself. (Quick question, why do people still refer to her as Mrs. Solano? Or Ms. Solano? Are the writers just lazy? Is there an in-universe reason that she still uses her ex-husband’s last name? Did I miss something? Somebody tell me.) I love, love, love a good redemption arc. What I also love is seeing a normally harsh or cold person being softened by a person they care about, i.e. Carmilla, Sara Lance, and so on. Seeing this often cold and calculated person bumbling about, losing her composure, questioning her every actions because she’s never acted like this before? Let’s just say I relate to this on some level. Ask my ex, she would probably agree with me.

When Jane Ramos came into her life, she had that wall up. So many people have used her and hurt her, so she took precautions and drove people away, calling JR a crook and so on. It doesn’t help that lawyers do have a reputation of being exactly the kind of person Petra feared. How Jane Ramos came into her life was a little bit sad, too. Other than the fact that, you know, JR was actually being blackmailed to be her lawyer, Petra quite literally begged JR to help her because no one was on her side anymore. Even the narrator pointed out that she had to pay for this friendship. Which, come on, that’s really sad.

Now let’s take a look at JR herself. A very good lawyer, calculating and manipulative in her own rights, definitely did not enjoy being called a crook, because even though she is a lawyer, she is definitely a lawyer that would only take cases where she believes her client is not guilty. She definitely has a strong moral compass. Case in point, her insistence that the blackmailer confirmed that Petra was guilty, or her refusal to work against Petra as soon as she believed she was not. JR is probably just hardened by her experience, how shitty the system is, how people, even her, can exploit it. Side note, I love how they just casually mentioned that JR had an ex-girlfriend. So easy, nothing else was said about it, no one reacted weird. Side, side note, can somebody tell me how many lesbian lawyers are on TV? Because I feel like there’s a lot, but I can only think of two right now, JR and Hogarth.

So we’ve got these two really hot, really tall, headstrong, calculative, manipulative women. (I’m not gonna lie, I’ve had a crush on Rosario Dawson ever since I saw her on RENT and is honestly the biggest reason I decided to come back to JtV because holy fucking hell Rosario Dawson playing GAY?? Swoon.) Now usually when TV shows create a pairing, it’s almost always an opposite attracts type of thing. But not here. I think one of the reasons Petra is so attracted to JR is because they’re so similar. She can’t control JR. And she doesn’t know what to do with that. She knows what to expect from a man, but she doesn’t know what to do with this really hot lawyer that would not just crumble under her control. And it’s so awesome. The opposite attracts thing works and it’s really good and I do believe a lot of couples are like that in real life, but there are also a lot of couples who are very similar and I love it.

Since I touched on it a bit, we cannot have Petramos without Yael Grobglas and Rosario Dawson. Oh My God, Yael’s face acting is magnificent. Examples include, the two times that she was reminded of her sex dream and her face before was like “Oh Shit” and then her face after morphed into an almost stoic, a little bit angry, frowny look, to counteract that thought. And then her face when she told Jane and Rafael that she and JR had sex. Oh my god, amazing. Oh, don’t forget her face when JR ambush-kissed her. It went from surprise, to this is happening, to I enjoy this very much. Okay I can list every single Petramos scene and I can say something about Yael’s face because hot damn that woman is a great physical actor. (Also body language. That’s really important. I can probably break that down scene by scene. But I won’t. Unless someone wants me to.)

And then Rosario!!! Is!!! So!!! Fucking!!! Hot!!! All the lip bites? The smouldering looks? God. Rosario, you can show up at my door and get me off anytime. And I think she’s such a great actor, too. I hate to bring up the fight scene, but I’ve watched it a few times already and her voice, man. When she yells at Petra, it breaks a bit. It’s so believable that she was so angry at Petra, how it went from cold and calm and calculated, to emotional stomping and yelling. We’ve never really seen this side of her, except for when she found that note on her mother. JR did break Petra’s wall down, but I would also like to say that Petra broke JR’s wall down. The woman willingly spent time with kids even though she explicitly said she doesn’t like kids, but she’s willing to try this out because they’re serious oh my fucking god stab my heart right now.

All in all, friend, I love them so much. To me, one measure to see how important a queer character’s relationship to the storyline is how much screen time they actually get. Now of course, this isn’t a perfect measure, but it’s an easily quantifiable method. The amazing people at YouTube that have posted all the Petramos scenes have made a single compilation video of all the Petramos scenes. The video is a little bit over an hour long. Now, I’m sure if you were to do that with Jafael just this season alone, it would be waaay longer than that, but Jane is the main character and Rafael is her main boy right now. But over an hour of screen time in 10 episodes? That’s pretty good. In comparison, Wayhaught had about that much time in the second season of Wynonna Earp. But then again, part of that Petramos hour is them getting into that relationship while the Wayhaught hour they were already in the relationship, but I digress!

I’m looking forward to next season where they will make up (then make out). I’m looking forward to the domestic scenes because I live for that shit. And my one wish is for JR to join in on the Saturday brunches because can you imagine? That would officially mark her as part of the crazy family. Other than the Petramos scenes, the brunches scenes have always been my favorite.

To any of you that made it this far, told you this would get long. But that’s it for now, I’m going to go back and watch the scene where Petra’s heart glowed in a loop.

#petra solano #jane ramos #petramos #text #rambling text

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everlarkingjoshifer · 6 years

Text

A Different Way CHPT 13

Hello, my lovelies,

I’m here with another late ass chapter of this crazy story. It’s been a busy week for me but I’m trying. LOL

First, I would like to thank @titaniasfics and @javistg for her incredible beta work. (You ladies are awesome!) To @mega-aulover @jobanana7 and my sexy Hubby for being such amazing cheerleaders and finally to @sunsetsrmydreams for her beautiful banner.

To my loyal readers and those who have left such incredibly sweet comments, I just wanted you all to know how incredibly honored I feel and you guys are the very reason I keep writing despite all my doubts and second thinking. Without you, I wouldn’t even be in the position I’m in. So Thank you guys, thank you for your continuous love and support. Know, that I appreciate everything from the bottom of my overly anxious heart!

If you’d like to access any other chapter, you can do so here AO3

As always, don’t forget to read, review, and reblog. Now on to the story...

Katniss awoke to Peeta’s arm slung across her hip. They’d decided to cuddle on the sofa and ended up falling asleep. After an unsuccessful attempt to move, she instead resorted to using her free hand to shake him awake. “Peeta wake up.”

“No, not yet,” he moaned, wrapping his arm around her tighter and breathing in the scent of her hair.

“Peeta, I don’t want the kids to see us like this. We have to get up before they do,” she insisted patting him on the arm.

Blearily, Peeta raised himself from his sleep and rubbed his eyes. “Fine, I’m up.”

“Toothbrushes?” she asked covering her mouth.

Peeta pointed to a general area, “It’s in the closet with the towels.”

Katniss nodded and went to freshen up. She widened her eyes when raccoon-like prints looked back at her and groaned. this was exactly why she hated makeup so much. Turning on the faucet she tried to wipe as much of the mascara as she could. Once she was satisfied with the results she got to brushing her teeth. Hoping Peeta hadn’t noticed the disheveled mess she’d woken up as she walked out of the bathroom and said, “Should I make breakfast?”

“That would be great!” Peeta said brightening up while he folded the comforter.

The kids woke up midway through Katniss making scrambled eggs and bacon.

“So, what is it with Johanna and your sister? Are they lovers or roommates,” Peeta asked with a bite of his eggs.

Katniss choked. “Oh god, no, they’re just roommates. They’re both highly hetero.”

“What’s hetero daddy?” asked Rye, big eyes looking his way.

“It means a man and a woman like each other,” Peeta answered looking at Katniss.

“Oh, so it’s not like aunty Rue, right mommy? She likes a girl,” Willow added.

“That’s right, baby, she’s a lesbian. You get two aunties. Aunty Rue, and Tia Clove,” Katniss replied smiling. She looked over at Peeta. “Rue’s my old college roommate.”

Peeta nodded understanding. Once everyone had their tummies filled, Katniss hung out until Willow begged to go home because she missed her own clothes.

Putting on her coat, she smiled at Peeta and squeezed his hand while Willow gave Rye a quick hug goodbye before walking out of the house.

A couple of weeks passed. Katniss had never felt hornier than when around Peeta Mellark. It was as though she were a teenager all over again. She would often go over to his house while the kids were at school. Sometimes as early as dropping Willow off. Sometimes he would let her in and had what Katniss considered to be the hottest sex she’d ever experienced, and other times work took a priority leaving Katniss to settle her discomfort on her own which frustrated her to no end. Her hand could only do so much as Peeta was more than attentive and knew exactly which buttons to push.

Her work, thank God, never suffered. But when Johanna Skyped her in the middle of her little sessions Katniss grunted with frustration at not being able to finish, cursing herself for not bothering to close the stupid laptop.

“What the hell are you doing, and why are you so sweaty?” Johanna asked rummaging into a chip bag.

“I was busy if you must know,” Katniss answered hoping to avoid any more questions.

Johanna looked unconvinced as she chewed. “Doing what?”

“None of your business,” Katniss clipped.

“Ask her if she was flicking the bean,” yelled Prim off camera.

Katniss gasped and turned crimson.

“Oh my god, you were, weren’t you?” Johanna squealed.

Katniss shook her head. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Liar. I can always tell when you’re lying,” Johanna accused. She turned to call Prim who rushed by. “Your sister was flicking her bean.”

Katniss covered her face. “Oh my god, I hate you both.”

“You were?” asked Prim looking both surprised and a little grossed out.

Katniss swallowed and closed her eyes as she nodded. She could hear both girls squealing gleefully and felt herself blush even more.

“What brought on this new course of events?” asked Prim settling on a chair next to Johanna. Both women looking attentive waiting for an answer.

Katniss sighed knowing there would be no way she could keep her secret from them. They’d eventually wear her down. “I slept with Peeta.” Mortification set in as both her sister and best friend gasped and Johanna yelled a ‘fuck yes’. Katniss could picture them pumping their hands triumphantly.

Rolling her eyes she groaned, “Okay, you can stop now.”

“Hell to the no,” yelled Johanna enthusiastically. “You have so much more to explain. When did this happen and, more to the point, was he good? I betcha he was good.”

“ I really hate you,” Katniss groaned.

Johanna stuck her tongue out. “No, you don’t. You love us.”

Prim made a disgusted face. “Ew, I don’t want to know about my sister’s sex life.”

“Well then, cover your dainty ears. Wouldn’t want to affect your delicate sensibilities,” Johanna advised.

Prim stuck her tongue out.

“Why me?” Katniss whispered knowing her best friend was right.

Johanna gave off a cartoonish cackle, “Why not? You’re super hot and you can be nice when you want to be.”

Katniss gave them the middle finger as she did everything to avoid their gaze. “I’m awesome, okay? And for the record, yes he’s amazing. Come to think of it, I don’t think Gale was ever half as good as Peeta. I think this is the best sex I’ve ever had.”

“Probably the ONLY good sex you’ve ever had. It doesn’t look like Gale would ever be good at any of it,” Johanna tuned in.

Katniss snorted. “How would you know that?”

Prim rolled her eyes. “Puh-lease. He’s so into himself that I suspect he’s selfish. Bet you he was more worried about his pleasure than yours.”

“Not to mention that I think he has a small dick that curves to the left and he has problems with cumming as fast as the flash runs,” Johanna chimed in.

Katniss laughed nervously. “How did you know?”

“She was right?” asked Prim scrunching up her face. “Ew.”

“What can I say, I’m a talented woman,” Johanna looked so proud of herself.

Clearing her throat Katniss continued, “Actually, I’ve been sleeping with him for a couple of weeks now.”

Both Johanna and Prim’s eyes looked like saucers as they gasped and covered their mouths to muffle their squealing. Katniss was beginning to suspect Prim and Johanna were part dolphin, what with the frequency they emitted through the computer. It was both thrilling and annoying at the same time.

“You’re fucking that hot piece of ass and didn’t tell us right away? Oh, now I’m mad,” Johanna murmured and glared once she regained her bearings.

“Yup,” Katniss answered.

Prim looked impressed. “Not bad.”

Rolling her eyes, Katniss told them the whole story of Gale and his insensitive words. Both ladies reacted appropriately, with Johanna promising to crush his nutsack between her hands and Prim, who wasn’t one to use curse words, finally calling him a fuckface.

When she got to the part where Peeta showed her his painting and she discovered her portrait they sighed romantically.

“Don’t be such a stingy hoe and share more details already,” Johanna pouted bouncing on her chair like a spoiled five-year-old.

“What else is there to say, though,” Katniss asked shrugging.

Prim laughed shaking her head. “You could tell us if you guys are dating. Do I get to call him my big brother now?”

“That’s the problem, we haven’t exactly established anything, and he hasn’t taken off his wedding band. I’m afraid I’m falling for a guy who feels he has to keep the memory of his wife alive as some sort of punishment to whatever he feels he’s guilty of,” Katniss said. She hesitated for a second taking a wavering breath. “I’m scared,” she whispered

“Katniss, there’s nothing to be scared of. He’s loved you forever, and I’m pretty sure he’s feeling just as insecure as you. I mean, you have to deal with Lame Gale,” Prim said looking to Johanna for assertion.

Katniss pursed her lips, “But what if he decides that having a relationship could ruin his son?”

“That won’t happen. Rye would’ve already rejected you and he hasn’t,” Johanna put in choosing to resume her chip munching.

Katniss groaned running her hand across her face. “What am I gonna do?”

“Katniss, do you love him, or even like him enough to know that you can love him?” Prim asked.

Katniss thought for a minute. “I’m not sure if what I feel for him is gratitude for helping me so much or love. Maybe it’s a combination of both, or I don’t really know.”

“Well, I suggest you figure that shit out first,” Johanna said with Prim nodding vigorously.

Katniss huffed. “Well, I guess fuck me, huh?”

Johanna wiggled her eyebrows. “More like keep fucking him! He’s delicious looking, you lucky bitch.”

Katniss snorted. “Shut up.”

#ADW chpt 13 #everlark fic #enjoy!#this was such a fun chapter to write!

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thecinephale · 6 years

Photo

Redefining Romance with The Shape of Water and On Body and Soul

By the time Katharine and I met in November of 2015 I didn’t care about romance. This word that had consumed me since I was a child no longer made any sense. My celibate adolescence was spent scribbling love poems and consuming movies like (500) Days of Summer, Beginners, and Annie Hall. But I’d since realized my poetry sucked and that Woody Allen’s body of work was nothing to admire. I was casually sleeping with a close friend and grappling with the absence of a core part of my identity. Ever since I was four and told my sister’s best friend I had a crush on her, liking girls and turning that like into a personal narrative was part of me. It was my way of being close to women and how I’d come to terms with what kind of man I could be. I wasn’t effeminate, I was sensitive. I wasn’t girly, I was romantic.

And yet after years of crafting yarns from ordinary, or even non-existent, experiences, I was about to have my first truly cinematic meet-cute. Katharine and I met at Sleep No More during her very first performance. A friend of mine who worked there had been trying to get me to go for nearly a year and finally this night, for some reason, I caved. During the show I had four one-on-ones, immersive show lingo for private moments with performers, and I was more than satisfied with my experience. The show was just about over when I saw her, sitting on a suitcase at the end of an empty hall. Unsure if she was a performer or a tired audience member I slowly crept toward her. She stood up, took my hand, and we had a one-on-one. Later at the bar, my friend introduced us and we spent the rest of the night talking. A week later we were on a train together headed upstate.

This story is romantic in every way I could’ve hoped for as a teenager. And yet what I remember most from these weeks is the joy I felt getting to know Katharine. I was honestly a bit embarrassed having met her at Sleep No More since that place thrives off of people’s sometimes toxic fantasies. Especially because none of it felt that grand. I didn’t even think our first conversation could possibly be romantic until my friend asked me why I didn’t get her number. Our first date was upstate because she mentioned wanting to get out of the city before it got too cold and it seemed like a good idea. I didn’t know that she was the one. It was a date. I’d been on many first dates and planned to go on more. And while I did like her, I wasn’t obsessive. I liked her more on our second date than our first, and on our third date than our second, and today I’m more obsessed with her than I’ve ever been before.

There is a really simple explanation for this. Something about maturity and real, adult relationships. But this alone assumes that what I’d grown out of was romance, when in fact what I was really grappling with was male, heteronormative romance. I’d confronted the behaviors I’d copied for so long and realized they didn’t fit with who I was. But now what? A year and a half after Katharine and I met I came out to her and began transitioning.

***

It’s been a relief coming out, like I was holding my breath my entire life and can finally inhale and exhale like everyone else. So much of my life makes sense now in a way that it never did and I never thought it would. And one of the most rewarding aspects of my personal transition has been transitioning Katharine and I’s relationship as well, going from a seemingly heterosexual relationship to an openly lesbian one. There’s both liberation and emptiness in a relationship that is free from the vast majority of messaging received. Everything from fairy tales to Cosmo to the oeuvre of a known child molester has a lot less power when none of that stuff was ever meant to represent you. But there’s a reason why people enjoy that stuff. It feels good to be seen and it’s a relief to sink into fantasy. And while I’ve embraced the general umbrella by binge watching The L Word with Katharine and finally understanding my deep connection to Fun Home, Carol, and The Watermelon Woman, there’s still a searching for a love story like ours. A love story that feels outside of normalcy, that feels confusing and difficult and complicated yet ultimately just as fantastical and lovely. And it can’t just be solved by, say, a trans love story. I’d certainly welcome more of those (for now shout out to Sense8 and Her Story), but it’s deeper than that.

***

Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water is a ridiculous movie. That it’s currently the Oscar frontrunner is honestly astounding. Yes, it’s impeccably shot, designed, scored, written, and acted, but it’s also a movie that I’m at a loss to defend. On his podcast Keep It wonderful culture writer Ira Madison III was making fun of the movie and impersonated Octavia Spencer’s character with a simple “You fucking that fish?” I burst out laughing. Because it’s hilarious and because the scene in the movie isn’t actually that far off!

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the film is about a mute woman named Eliza (the always great Sally Hawkins) who works as a cleaner at a government facility during the Cold War. The US attains a creature simply called “Amphibian Man” and Eliza falls in love with him (them?). So it’s sort of like Beauty and the Beast if Beast never really spoke, there was explicit sex, and Belle had a black best friend and a gay neighbor. There’s also a subplot with some Russians. And a musical number.

It’s goofy as hell and yet I spent a large portion of the movie in tears. It reached its scaly arm down my throat and grabbed my heart. Any moment where the Amphibian Man was on screen I had a voice in my head that just kept repeating, “That’s me. That’s me.” Now I don’t know what it says about where I’m at in my transition that I have an easier time relating to a fish man than Jamie Clayton’s awesome trans hacker on Sense8, but alas it’s the truth. Because if I’m being honest, I usually don’t feel like I’m being perceived as a woman, I rarely even feel like I’m being perceived as trans, but I do feel like I’m being perceived as a creature.

Watching Eliza not only fall in love with Amphibian Man but be the instigator of the relationship felt revolutionary and comforting in equal measure. Returning to Beauty and the Beast (also King Kong, also everything like this), it’s usually the creature that kidnaps or captures the virginal lady and has to convince her to love him. This always feels a little gross and undercuts the message of acceptance. But here Eliza is a sexual woman. From the beginning it’s shown that masturbation is a part of her daily routine. She doesn’t fall for the Amphibian Man because of a repressed desire. She falls for the creature because she feels a connection. She wants to help them live a life of freedom alongside her. She wants to teach the Amphibian Man how to live in her world because it would bring her happiness.

Katharine didn’t rescue me from a lab. But she has helped me escape… something. She has helped introduce me to a confusing world of feminine expectations and desires that feel comfortable and natural and also confusing and impossible. And above all else she has done this because she loves me. She isn’t still dating me because she’s a good person (no matter what other cis-es like to suggest). She’s still dating me because she sees me for who I am and loves me. I’m insecure about a lot of things, but I know this to be true and it means everything to me.

***

Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body and Soul, another Oscar nominee (a longshot in the Foreign Film category) has faced a similar reaction to Del Toro’s film. It won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, yet almost every review even when positive points out the film’s silly weirdness. Also a love story, this time between two humans, Enyedi’s first film in 18 years is about a pair of employees at a slaughterhouse who realize that they’re somehow having the exact same dream about two deer. The people are Endre, the emotionally detached manager with a disabled left arm, and Mária, the new quality control inspector who is autistic and quickly becomes the butt of her coworkers’ jokes.

Again, I understand the reaction. The very concept of a love story at a slaughterhouse (featuring graphic scenes of slaughter) is already a stretch. Add the hokiness of nocturnal destiny, a subplot involving stolen bull Viagra, some deeply unpleasant narrative turns, and a formal approach as reserved as its leads, it’s unsurprising that many don’t know how to receive this film. It’s too open-hearted for the arthouse yet it’s not exactly fine-tuned for Nicholas Sparks. But for me, this film lived up to its title and infiltrated my body and soul, I connected deeply, and wept softly. And I’ve been unable to shake it, that initial feeling only growing since the first viewing.

There is an obvious contrast between the dream sequences with Endre and Mária as deer and the real life sequences of animals in cages having their guts torn out. It’s easy to read this simply as a statement between the purity of their love and the harshness of the rest of the world. But this ignores the unreality of the deer scenes and the specificity of animal imagery. Because a main thread through the film is that Mária and Endre don’t know how to be animals. Or in other words: Endre does not know how to be a man and Mária does not know how to be a woman.

The two male foils to Endre are his best friend, Jenö, and a new hire, Sanyi. Jenö is married and despite proselytizing the merits of keeping women in their place he does whatever his wife wants. Endre watches with the remove of a scientist as Jenö carries out a charade where he is able to assert his supposed masculinity while filling his more passive role. Sanyi, on the other hand, is naturally alpha, flirting with every female co-worker and ignoring his male superiors. Endre seems to pity Jenö and resent Sanyi, but it quickly becomes clear that who he has the most disgust for is himself. He grows wildly defensive when he is caught ogling a woman, insisting that he simply looked like all men would. The woman didn’t even seem to notice and doesn’t seem to care. He then declares multiple times later in the film that he would prefer to remove love and sex from his life rather than deal with the impossibility of filling the role of “man” in these encounters. He’s given up on it all until he meets Mária.

Mária also has two foils, Klára, a voluptuous psychologist who interviews everyone after the bull Viagra incident, and Zsóka, the oldest employee at the slaughterhouse. Klára is everything Mária is not. She’s comfortable in her body and comfortable around men. She expresses her feelings, sometimes even to the point of aggression. When Mária retells Endre’s dream, she is unable to push back against Klára’s anger or defend herself. Zsóka, who is even more comfortable with her sexuality than Klára, is much kinder to Mária. Instead of judging, she attempts to coach her in the ways of womanhood. This, of course, means posture, how to walk and talk, and, most importantly, what clothes to wear. Mária attempts to master these skills, like she does later with sex, with an obsessive precision.

Mária’s experience of gender is intrinsically tied to her autism. Her lack of awareness in how to act as a woman is similar to her struggle to generally fit in as a person. I’m hesitant to find symbolism in her character or draw parallels between our lives since her experience is so different from my own. But in my unqualified opinion the film treats Mária with a respect and fullness that leaves her as open to analysis and connection as any other character. It’s not autism that becomes ingrained in the semiotics of the film but rather the world around this one autistic character, the world around Mária. And I couldn’t help but feel parallels both to Endre’s attempts at manhood and Mária’s learning of womanhood. I couldn’t help but watch this relationship unfolding in a harsh world and think of my own. Mária and Endre’s budding romance faces plenty of conflict throughout the film but there’s an overwhelming feeling of destiny between them. The conflicts are not a result of their incongruity but rather the difficulties and pressures of their surroundings. Any conflicts within themselves are related to their individual difficulties with the world at large.

The dream sequences aren’t just beautiful and serene. They are otherworldly. Literally. The plane on which Mária and Endre connect is outside of real life. Their connection is dependent on both of them finding it within themselves to detach from their discomfort with society. In their dreams it is easy, but in life that’s really hard. Because it’s not healthy to completely detach (as fun as rainy days cuddling can be). The necessity is being able to carry on normal life with your partner and face a mutual unbelonging from our world. From our ableist world. From our gendered world. From our heteronormative world. From our transphobic world.

My connection to this film is reliant both on its silly romanticism and its severe honesty. Because that’s how I feel. Being with Katharine feels like it’s on another plane of being, in how I feel about her, in how happy it makes me to be near her, and yet real life can be really hard. This film shows the beauty in getting through that hardship with another person, the pressures it can place on a relationship, and the ultimate reward of working through it all together.

***

The Shape of Water and On Body and Soul have allowed me to articulate something about myself and my relationship that I’d previously failed to do. They taught me that romance, not just love but gooey-eyed, goofy capital R Romance, can be for all of us. That romantic doesn’t have to mean arrogant poems or chasing after girls in the rain. It can mean connecting with somebody when you feel less than human, it can mean facing a society that doesn’t want you with the help of another. And, most importantly, that this can all be silly and over-the-top in a way that will make half the audience laugh and half the audience cry. These films destroyed a line between romance and mature relationship that I’d taken as fact even though my own relationship is such an obvious combination of the two. They allowed me to see myself in a new way, to see Katharine in a new way, and to appreciate our relationship even more than I already did.

So I’ll say it here. On social media, like an adolescent that will someday regret such an embarrassing overshare. I’m deeply, madly, overwhelmingly in love.

Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all.

#Valentine's Day #The Shape of Water #On Body and Soul #love stories #queer love #Guillermo Del Toro #Ildikó Enyedi #LGBTQIA #trans #transgender

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haltandcatchfiretothemax · 7 years

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It's us: Halt and Catch Fire 4x09 and 4x10.

So, it took a few days but I think it's finally sunk in for me that Halt and Catch Fire actually ended the way it did? I truly was not prepared, I'd braced myself for a very specific, very heterosexual and annoying ending, and was ready to resent it forever.

But in the end, Halt finally quit playing and quit punishing its characters. So naturally, I'm instead prepared to talk about it forever! So, pause your Peter Gabriel cd that you've been crying to all week, grab your hackeysack and your bagel bites, sit down a safe distance from the pool, and lets process this finale even MORE! Literally nothing but spoilers for Halt and Catch Fire 4x09 and 4x10 below.

So, let's talk about how and when the show tied up each of our character's stories:

Bos and Diane: While I stand by all of my previous critiques of what the show put both of them through this season, and how mean it was to Diane, how can you not be happy for them?! I'm happy that Bos is in good health, and that Diane seems more than ready to retire from being a miserable business woman and shift to enjoying her life and her family.

Haley and Vanessa: Okay, so, this was a bummer, right? I love how they did it though. I love that they showed us Haley striding into that mildly ridiculous hot dog place of dreams and asking Vanessa out -- I haven't seen a lot of queer teenage girls asking their crushes out in mainstream media and also I myself haven't ever been brave enough to do that IRL so that was kind of awesome of her?! -- and I love that they didn't tell us what exactly happened. The focus stays on Haley's sadness, disappointment, and embarrassment, and the show avoids making wlw crushes look like they're all doomed to misery. (Which, they're not, ICYMI.)

Comet. I was surprised by how hard this hit me. This is a key theme of the show: projects end, sometimes amicably, and sometimes disastrously, partnerships dissolve, it's part of life, and yes, it's especially difficult to accept for traumatized abuse survivor over-achievers. But you have to learn to move on to the next thing, or you're in for a long life, and not in a good way. A competitor, Yahoo, the jokes about which I remember, beats Comet to the punch. It happens! But, just like it happens IRL, this is also the death of Gordon's last venture, and of J*e's last connection to him, and….jesus fvck, it hurts.

Cameron & J*e: The end of Comet ends up meaning the end of Jameron, though not for a lack of trying on both sides. This ship has a huge following despite never having worked or been healthy, and despite Lee Pace's fantastic work this season, the show never sold me on his redemption -- and yes, it was an issue of his redemption, as a former abuser, do not start with or @ me about this. Even if we accept that J*e has changed, he and Cameron want different things. She shouldn't be forced to have a family she doesn't want, and it is not in any way healthy for him to sacrifice something that huge to be with her? (That doesn't even get into how grief and loss alters relationships, sometimes in terrible and painful ways, and J*e's loss is real.) Their break up scene was sad and tough to watch, but, they're both free to find better partners, who actually meet their needs. Can't help but see that as a win.

Joanie: I could say something snarky about the writers sending her off to eat, pray, and love or whatever, but I love Joanie, and while it's a little sad, I'm glad that she got to leave home and start to get some perspective on her family and also her grief. Sometimes, we don't quite fit in at home, and we need to go elsewhere -- isn't that kind of true of our entire main cast? Also, her very last scene, when she's on the phone, is such full of such great, teenage-y, youthful energy and emotion. Ugh, I'll always be a little annoyed that we didn't spend more time with her, but thank you for stealing every scene you were in, gurl!

Donna Emerson, Senior Managing Partner at Symphonic Ventures! Um. This is literally everything Donna deserves, finally? I'm bummed that we had to wait until the last episode for it, and I don't dig how it feels like Gordon had to die for her to really come into her own, but my g-d: seeing Donna's years of hard work pay off feels good! That she pushes her firm in a new direction, literally renames it, and makes it a place that looks like a perfect balance between the AGGEK offices and the Mutiny house (<3!) is just…I can't, let me stop before I weep with joy…Donna finally has the kind of security she always wanted, now she can do whatever she likes! Including founding Lesbians Who Tech! More to the point: she doesn't seem to want a partner. She's finally comfortable standing on her own, even though it can be lonely.

….whatever was going on with Alexa and Cameron? We never got a name for their venture, right? Anyways. I'm sorry that the show didn't do more with Alexa, but I appreciated the reminder that Cameron isn't suited to the business and networking part of working in tech, and that people easily misinterpret that as brattiness (or worse). It was also a nice reminder of how Donna was a good match for Cameron.

Cameron: I guess it's understandable that after Gordon's death, the end of Comet, the end of a major relationship, and two months in Europe, Cameron would feel like she has no real reason to stay in California, or no real place in even Bos, Donna, and Haley's lives. I can't help but feel slightly disappointed by her wanting to run away -- to Florida, of all places -- but I also really empathize with her struggle to see her own patterns clearly enough to do something about them. In the end, it seems like she's not sure what she wants to do, but like she's sure she wants to do better, and like she wants to see if fixing things with her mom will help her. Despite a lot of loss, Cameron hasn't given up yet. She's still lonely and uncertain but she's strong, and getting better at making and owning her decisions, so, that's actually kind of amazing. Well done, my anxious genius bby!

Haley. While it would've been cool to see Haley start dating Vanessa, in the end, we got to see Haley affirm herself, with the help of her dad's tapes (which, brb crying slightly) and her gay moms (let's just be real?), oh and also her bi uncle(!), and that's even better. Haley might have, like many young women before her, experimented with dating boys despite her limited interest in them, but in the end? She dumps her boyfriend. Haley is getting hit with a lot of change, but she knows who she is (and so does her mom, apparently?!): she's Haley Clark, and she likes computers, comedy, and girls. And she's gonna be okay!

Cameron and Donna. Where do I even start? Finally, after approximately a decade, Cam and Donna have come to fully see and appreciate each other. They've put Mutiny behind them, and they've come to respect each other's space, even -- Donna doesn't try to stop Cameron from leaving town, and Cameron doesn't press Donna about working together. They know where they went wrong in the past and now they're friends. ('Friends'. Right!) Cameron is about to leave when Donna gets an idea, and we don't hear what it is, but from the beginning of Cameron's smile and all the hints dropped through out both final episodes, it seems like Cameron is going to stay and work on this idea with Donna, this time as equal partners. Actually, from all the hints dropped, it seems like Cameron and Donna are eventually going to end up in a romantic relationship together, t b h! Either way, Cameron and Donna are ultimately reaffirmed as the real heart of the show, and their relationship is validated in a way I feel like I really haven't ever seen on film before. That might not matter to a lot of people, but as a lesbian who is deeply emotionally invested in all of her relationships with women, including her friendships with straight women, I can't tell you how happy it made me to see these two lonely, brilliant, sensitive, stone fox, take-no-shit geniuses get the happy ending they've always deserved.

And finally, J*e. I'll just say outright that I don't feel bad for J*e. He went to Texas in 1983, destroyed a lot of lives, spent a decade chasing a woman who repeatedly rejected his advances, and then after a many tragic losses over the course of ten years, he stopped. Okay? He stopped, he stopped chasing a woman he didn't belong with, stopped making collateral damage out of Donna, and maybe most importantly, let himself step away from the tech sector, where he did influential work, but lost so many people, including the love of his life, and yes, I'm talking about Gordon. Sigh. So long as he isn't coming between or antagonizing Cameron and Donna, I hope J*e will really make this fresh start stick. I hope he'll maybe get some grief counseling, meet a hot single dad or teacher or something, and eventually adopt or foster some kids? We don't get to see that, though. All we know is that he's left behind what wasn't working, and he's trying again. I hate to tell you this babies, but: sometimes, out here in the real world, that really is the best you can do.

I stand by my critiques of the season, especially those regarding the handling of the women characters. Honestly, they also could've done better by J*e, our one canonically non-heterosexual main cast member. But I enjoyed this finale far more than I thought possible, and I needed its overall message. I understand that message to be that we can thrive, despite our flaws, if we find people who get us, work that we enjoy, some kind of niche where we're accepted for who we are and what we love. Even if it takes a while, even if we lose those people and those homes, we can keep searching.

It's been a wild, and super emotional ride, yalce! But like Donna, I loved every minute of it. Because even when I didn't love it, I loved writing about the show and talking to some of you about it here. I genuinely hope that you got as much out of this show as I did, and that it made you feel maybe a little more hopeful, and a little less alone, and that it will keep making you feel that way, even though it's ended its run. I hope that it will do that for me, at least.

#halt and catch fire s4 #h&cf FINALE FEELS #4x09 #4x10 #search #ten of swords #halt and catch fire to the max originals!

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laceofhearts · 7 years

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The Asexual Me

tl;dr: I’m a newly minted ace-lesbian with a confusing concept of sexuality

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with my sexuality. I consider myself to be a self-aware person. I’ve got faults, and issues, and hang-ups, and I can pretty much pinpoint reasons for all of these. I once had a meeting with my universities’s student counsellors and they just said “well you seem to know what your deal is.” I live in my own head a lot, and I’m a bit of a narcissist, it’s bound to happen.

When I was 13 I realised I was bisexual. When I was 18 I realised I was gay. At 21, I’ve realised that I’m asexual. What can I say, I’m indecisive. My brain tends to work things through for me in the background. I’ll notice something, not actively think about it for months, and then suddenly my brain will go “Oh, that’s why you thought the Jonas Brothers were weird looking!”

Sex

A part of me has always known that sex and I were just not made to work. The idea of having sex with boys has just always been... Just no. I thought girls would be different, because girls are just objectively awesome.

I’ve never had a “type”. I downloaded Tinder as a baby 18 year old, and I always made sure to read their profiles (to see if they had any pets, obviously. There was a points system involved: 10 for a dog, 5 for a cat, bonus 2 points for weird pets). A friend of mine stole my phone from me, saying I was being too picky, and proceeded to swipe right on everyone he deemed to be attractive enough. Setting aside his abhorrent obvious euro-centric beauty standards, it just made me uncomfortable. I’d never thought to look at whether I found someone attractive or not.

I’ve had sex. Multiple times. Admittedly, only sex that has involved two vaginas, but sex all the same. I’ve tried different things, different positions, different people etc. etc. But always, the overarching feeling I’d get while doing the horizontal tango was: “Are we done yet?” I mean, there’s the joke that lesbian sex goes on for hours and only ends when one of you gets hungry, but what about when neither of you have particularly good upper body strength and no one thought to bring hair ties? Only so many times you can have someone else’s hair in your eye.

I don’t mean to sound negative, because it’s not like we had a bad time. We laughed a lot, and I loved the intimacy and connectedness of it. So I assumed I was sexual, because… well that’s the kicker isn’t it - no one ever tells you that you might not be. I probably should have known better, I was always the one ranting about society treating heterosexuality like it was the norm. It just honestly never occurred to me.

Romance

A lack of sexual attraction is called asexuality. A lack of romantic attraction is called aromanticism. I’m not aromantic - I am in an amazing and long term relationship with my girlfriend. But I also never searched out romantic relationships, they always just fell on me.

That sounds a bit arrogant, I swear I’ve only ever dated two people, it’s hardly a trend.

I never had crushes as a kid. I mean, I think I had a bit of thing for Kim Possible and Lara Croft, but I’m still not sure if I fancied them, or if I just wanted to BE them. As a pre-teen, I thought it meant I was more evolved than my peers (ugh, yeah, I was that jerk). As a late-teen, I thought it was a gay thing - I didn’t know what crushes on girls looked like, heteronormativity, etc. etc. As I got older, I became increasingly aware that, actually, lots of lesbians had crushes on women as they grew up. This moment is probably when the whole ‘asexual’ thing started clicking with me.

I don’t know whether my lack of crushes as a kid was an aspect of my asexuality, or a manifestation of a kind of aromanticism. I might never know, but I think that’s just part of life - there’s going to be some things about yourself that you’re just never going to solidly understand. I’ve just accepted that this is me, this is who I am, and this is how I am. I worked really hard to like myself, so I’m not questioning it too much.

Labels

In technical, queer theory terms, I suppose I’m a homoromantic asexual. Basically, I like women in the hearts and flowers sense, but in the downstairs area I’m a no-go zone for everyone. Asexuality varies, and in a broad sense it can go from Sex Positive - Sex Neutral - Sex Repulsed. This is highly simplified, but it works for a simple explanation. Without getting into details, I fall somewhere between neutral and repulsed. In a world-wide sense, I’m in a very privileged position, as a person and as someone who’s asexual.

The tv show House MD, while for various reasons I’m not a fan, did have a great metaphor for me to use to explain the concept of privilege. It goes like this:

‘Everyone draws a neat little circle, and everything in that circle is “normal”. So skinny, socially-privileged white people have a nice little circle, and everything out that circle should be broken and reset so they can be brought into this circle. If that doesn’t work, institutionalised. Or worse, pitied.’

We all form these circles, that’s just how we work. I’m white, relatively good looking, able-bodied, and educated - I fit into more privileged circles than other people. Being queer knocks me back a ring, but so does my having a speech impediment, and not being skinny. If we take a look at the LGBT+ circle, if you’re a cisgender white gay guy, that’s the circle that’s “normal”. If you’re a lesbian, or bisexual, you’re in a different ring. If you’re a PoC, there’s another ring back. Trans, whoops, there’s another ring.

Asexuality is a controversial addition to the LGBT+ community, apparently. I’m not going to get into ace discourse, but to summarise there are some LGBT people who don’t think asexuals belong. To my horror and consternation, the leaders of the ace-hate seems to be lesbians, a community I still associate myself with. I’m lucky in the sense that I’m a women interested in women. Asexual’s who are heteroromantic don’t have it nearly as easy.

Myself

My favourite word for this post seems to be ‘complicated’, but it’s an accurate description. I still refer to myself as a lesbian. I worked hard to overcome a lot of internalised homophobia around the word, and I think the best way to overcome the oversexualisation of the term is for more women-loving-women to use it again, instead of just saying ‘gay’. Of course, that’s just how I see it, you should only refer to yourself with words that you feel comfortable using - if lesbian doesn’t feel right to you, don’t use it.

I’m still romantically interested in only women (so far), and I only see myself being romantically interested in one woman for the foreseeable future. To me, my romantic orientation is more significant to my life than my sexual one. To anyone not in the know, they assume I’m romantically and sexually interested in women, and that’s cool. I don’t need the world to know about my sex life, or lack thereof [Note: I am aware of the irony of that sentence given that I’m writing a very public blog post about my sex life]. I’m a firm believe that visibility is important to any kind of activism or social change. People have to know you exist. That’s why I’ve written this post. I’m working on being more “emotionally open” with my girlfriend, so I thought, what the hell, let’s be open with the world.

So this is it. Asexuality is still a coat I’m trying on, a label I’m cautiously applying, an aspect of myself I’m still working through. It’s a journey which I’m not a hundred percent comfortable with - yet.

#ace-lesbian #asexual #asexuality #lesbian-ace #LGBTQ+#personal

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fyeahwynonnaearp · 7 years

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What Just Happened?!?: She Ain’t Right (S02E04)

What. W H A T. T H E. F U D G E N U G G E T S. WTF. WTF. WTF. WTF. WTF. WTF. WTF?!? JUST HAPPENED?!?!?

So this is late because that episode killed me and I’ve risen from the dead just in time for tonight’s episode to completely slay me. If the cast is freaking out about it, then what the hell is going to happen?!?

Monster(s) of the Week Potential Big Bad Kind

WomanInBlack!Mercedes Gardner (@DaniKind): It was sad to think Wynonna’s sassy friend died, which was a shame because she was an awesome bitch. But, she’s still here! Stolen face, healthy bacon obsession, and Gardner Family creepy-incesty-vibes and all!

WomanInBlack!Beth Gardner (@meghanheffern): “She’s putting on her face.” It was such an innocuous statement...until it wasn’t.

The Goo™: Likes early morning walks in winter, having fun, and a sucker for shiny things. May or may not have a thing for a certain ‘ginger butch cop’ and might make you kiss your older sister for shits and giggles. A problematic child that has your back if you happen to lose a limb.

Final Thoughts (No Spoilers)

We knew from season one that this show moves fast. They like to dodge,dip,duck,dive,and dodge all of our expectations and theories, but will turn around and give us something that we Earpers joke about and not expect that they will actually do it! This episode was an emotional roller coaster and it wasn’t until I was staring blankly at my TV two hours after it aired that I realized there was no WayHaught...and I was completely okay with it.

The plot of this season is definitely starting to separate itself from the Earp Curse. Some people might hate it and feel that the show is tackling too many things at once and need to focus on killing the Revenants, but I appreciate this. By not focusing on Revenants, this gives justification as to why more seasons are needed (story-wise). Plus, we know there are more than just humans-turned-demons and I like seeing how it develops Wynonna from reluctant hero to actually-wants-to-save-the-day.

The Earp sisters are definitely at the forefront of this episode. In the beginning of the season, I definitely questioned why won’t Waverly just talk to Wynonna about her issues. But then I remembered, Wynonna left Waverly and has been gone for three years before coming back and on-and-off before then. As close and as protective Wynonna is, she did abandon and leave Waverly alone in the past (whether it was by her choice or not). So, it makes sense why Waverly wouldn’t really have heart-to-heart talks with her big sister because in all actuality, how well do they really know each other? Especially since Wynonna might not even know when Waverly’s birthday is.

Read on for spoiler laden rants, freak outs, and (probably) incorrect theories. SO: This is super late because as I was about to post this, my laptop freaked out and shut down. Like, now my Mac HD disk needs repair, had to install OS on my external hard drive, and I needed to do a complete erase/redo of my laptop. Wynonna Earp broke my computer.

10 Things That Happened/I Learned

1. Dolls is a fire-breathing maybe-dragon! (ex?) Deputy Marshall Xavier Dolls from Arizona can breathe fire! This is NOT a drill. Jokes about LizardDemon!Dolls are over. It became real. This is real life.

2. Jeremy Chetri is an adorable gay, even if he can’t start fires with his mind. He has a fanboy!crush on Doc and doesn’t want Dolls to get the wrong impression that he’s straight when Rosita was flirting with him. Because, you know, Dolls helped him do a chin-up one time. So, as of now, The Squad™ is at least half-unicorn: confirmed!Lesbian Officer Nicole Haught, unconfirmed!Bisexual Waverly Earp, confirmed!Gay Jeremy Chetri, and unconfirmed!butwouldn’tbesurprised Bynonna.

3. Ba-Ding! Ba-Ding! And The Mysterious Case of “OMFG! Is That A Hand?! Whose Fucking Hand Is That!?”. Look Ma! No hand!Waverly Earp. It was the moment when wlw everywhere grieved Nicole and Waverly’s young sex life. Even if The Goo™ didn’t do the ultimate winggoo act and regrew Waverly’s hand, I’m sure she and Nicole are super smart enough to not let a little loss of limb to stop them from having the sex. But seriously, there needs to be a follow-up on Waverly’s hand because is it just there...chilling? Will she get that ring back? It looked like a nice ring.

4. The Women In Black and the face-stealing and holy shit! are the Gardner sisters still wiggling and alive?!? When we first see the Women in Black, I admit to not completely think they were a big deal. Like, oh! there are two of them and cool! she doesn’t have a face and ah! it’s the Lady Gaga hand. But now they have a weird Tucker-obsession and plans to give him whatever he desires.

5. Tucker Gardner VS Officer Nicole Haught. It’s official, Nicole is facing Tucker this season. At first, I thought it was awesome that Nicole will now get to be an actual cop. But with Tucker teaming up with the Women in Black, I think I will be screaming “Let her in The Squad™, Wynonna! Talk to Nicole!!” at my TV for the rest of the season.

6. “Miss Four Blankets, Plus A Bonus Blanket”. Just gals being pals. Because Nicole is definitely the bonus blanket. Plus, “Tacos are tasty!” and Girls are like guns, you better run when they’re smoking (Haught)...when they’re smoking hot.

7. What is coming?! And it’s not winter. We know from the season 2 trailer that there is this ‘Legion’ thing and buff firefighters in red robes and Black Plague bird masks, but what is going on with the asshole seal and the asshole who broke it and the asshole that broke out of it?! Well, whatever it is, there are theories that it’s connected to Waverly’s origins. Emily Andras hinted earlier that the pictures from the opening titles are clues.

8. GOONONNA.

9. WynHaught bro-ship sails(?). Wynonna apologized to Nicole, but they’re talking about two different things. Wynonna is apologizing because Gooverly and Nicole knows Waverly might be acting weird because of the whole not an Earp thing. Dolliday bro-ship is alive and well. Yes, they’re into the same crazy chick with a gun, but that won’t stop them from being bros and respecting each other.

10. The Plate. What is up with the fancy commemorative Purgatory plate? It’s clearly important because people died for it and Black Badge wants it and it belonged to an Earp. It always comes back to the Earps, doesn’t it?

#wynonna earp #what just happened #this broke my laptop

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fluffleforce-mysdrym · 7 years

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Sometimes I wonder if I’m really ace or if I’m a lesbian.

Cuz like

growing up I always had crushes on female characters in shows, even if I said I liked dude characters. Starfire, every Disney Princess, Willow, etc.

like seriously, I’d be super invested in the smart/pretty girl in a movie, and when she died, I’d still watch the rest of the movie, but I wouldn’t care as much because the only character I cared about was dead

i wished my boyfriends were women while I was with them

i’ve totally had crushes on girls i knew

my first kiss was a girl

seeing really pretty women can occasionally make my heart skip a beat and make me forget to breathe and stuff

girls are so pretty

and like

guys are alright i guess

when I was little I was always told that girls don’t have crushes on girls and so whatever I felt toward girls was admiration and whatever I felt toward guys was a crush

men are my biggest turn off

like I can lose any and all interest in just about anything if a man is suddenly using it to hit on me

dudes can be cool friends but kissing them is bleh

And like, if I’m being honest, the reasons I don’t do relationships are

it always ends up feeling like work

i’ve only ever had boyfriends, but I just get tired of having to deal with them after a few months (this does not apply to Douchebag Dan, for obvious reasons)

like yes, we’re a couple, stop being so needy. No, I don’t want to hold your hand and snuggle every goddamn day. ffs. I have shit to do. Stop guilt tripping me when I have homework/work/writing that needs to be done.

i have never seen a relationship last and do not understand the point of wasting time with someone if either of you are looking for forever when one of you knows it won’t happen

my mom always commented on romantic movies, “And two years later they got divorced.” or something along those lines.

like i used to pray my parents would get a divorce because my mother is so jealous and I just wanted her to stop telling me my dad wanted to bang girls my age (he’s never indicated he does) and to let my dad be happy

i can be jealous too, and I don’t want to do to someone what my mom does to my dad. I have moments where I’m so much like her and I would rather whoever might be in a relationship with me be happy with someone else than put them through all that. Seriously.

i have a lot of cons and not so many pros, so it seems kind of unfair to enter a relationship with another human being when I’m bringing mostly baggage and uselessness to the table.

And it’s a completely shit reason for why I’ve been thinking about this for a while now:

No one will listen to me when I say I’m ace. They just keep pushing the fact that I need a boyfriend or acting like I secretly like boys and am too broken to realize it, and like...

If I were going to date someone, she would be awesome, and not a guy.

But that’s not ace, that’s being a lesbian.

But then I’m gender fluid -- sometimes I’m a woman, most of the time I’m agender -- so would I even be a lesbian?

And i just...

I dunno man.

For a while I thought I was bi because I was about as attracted to girls as guys, but then I didn’t really wanna have sex with anyone, so.

I still remember back in college. I was doing research for a paper and I saw an article about a ‘mysterious 4th gender’. So I clicked it and they were saying that a bunch of people in this study identified as asexual, not being attracted to anyone, and I was like, “Hey that’s me.”

Then I finished my paper and forgot the term and just went about life because i didn’t care that much.

And then I was reintroduced to the term a few years later and was like, “still me.”

And now I’m like, “Hmm...if I were actually capable of being a functional adult, I would totally date girls.”

So...

Idfk.

But I do know I’m not into guys.

And that’s the one thing people around me don’t seem to understand.

Except for my dad. He’s cool. I told him I’m not into guys, and he said, “You get that from me. I’m not into guys either.”

#i love my dad #and tbh imma probably stop worrying about this in a week or two and just go back to not caring in general #like i have for the last few years #i think it's called ignoring issues and hoping they never come up or just go away #not da #text post #mysdrym mumbles #sexuality #idefk anymore

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femslashrevolution · 7 years

Text

I Am Femslash: Mod Jess

This post is part of Femslash Revolution’s I Am Femslash series, sharing voices of F/F creators from all walks of life. The views represented within are those of the author only.

(Thank you so much to those who suggested my name. You’ve made my new year! I do want to give a TW for some discussion of my personality history of alcohol, disordered eating, and mental illness...don’t worry, I got a happy ending!)

There’s a movie called Gold Diggers: Secret of Bear Mountain that I watched about a thousand times as a little girl. I wore out two VHS tapes (one of which my mom stole from Parrot Video and Tanning Salon for me in 1995). It was about two girls, Beth (played by Christina Ricci) and Jody (played by Anna Chlumsky), who meet over the summer and go on a treasure hunt together. The first time I watched the movie, I was three or four years old, and I was immediately attracted to Jody.

The thing was, I had an Uncle Jody, so I thought that was only a boy’s name. So, to me, Jody was a boy, and he teased and got a rise out of Beth, and I adored it. Then my mom told me that Jody was actually a girl—she just had short hair and wore tomboy clothes. I was so upset, and I don’t know why!

I know now, of course, that I was frustrated that Jody couldn’t have been flirting with Beth, because they were girls, and girls only did that with boys. So why did they make me feel like that? What had gone wrong inside of me to make me want that?

Despite my love for this movie (which is now cited for it’s amazing lesbian subtext), I absolutely did not think I was a lesbian growing up. I had no idea. I was bookish and shy and very feminine. I assigned myself strategic crushes on quiet, distant boys who were so far out of my league that there was no chance of anything actually happening.

Even fandom was a pretty male-centric place starting out. My introduction to online fandom actually began in the mid-2000’s with the Fueled by Ramen “bandom”—emo/alternative/rock bands like Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco. I crushed on boys with slim hips and long hair and fingernail polish, boys who weren’t afraid to be feminine. It wasn’t very friendly towards women, and femslash was quite a foreign concept. But…the more feminine an artist was, the more I was drawn to him. I became quite enamored with Adam Lambert during his American Idol season because of his makeup and hair, and because, though he wasn’t out yet, I knew he was gay. I only ever was attracted to gay men, and I think this was similar to my unattainable crushes in grade school—it’s not as if anything could ever happen with them. They were safe.

Then, a little show called Glee popped up out of nowhere.

It seems normal now to anticipate pairings like Clarke and Lexa or Alex and Maggie on network TV. They’re possible now. Sure, there was Tara/Willow, but they were a bit before my time, and Arizona/Callie, but Grey’s was a little above my age bracket. But then there was a slow pan upwards from two pairs of sneaker-clad feet, four legs entwined with matching red cheerleading skirts, and my heart began hammering, my breathing quickened, I got all sweaty and cold at the same time.

It was happening, it was happening. Brittany and Santana were queer girls, and they were kissing, and it wasn’t a joke. I was a freshman in high school and knew so little about the world.

From then on, I was in the femslash fandom, confined to our desktop computer in the kitchen. Brittany/Santana gave way to Quinn/Rachel, who became my OTP. Many of my favorite fandoms weren’t femslash juggernauts (Emily/JJ from Criminal Minds was a big one for a while), but I always found small spaces with other femslash lovers. However, I was in the middle of writing a Criminal Minds high school AU that featured both Emily/JJ and the smaller pairing of Hotch/Reid. I received a firm, angry review from someone who wondered why I wasted my time on femslash when people only read for my slash pairings. They said femslash wasn’t really a thing in fandom.

I quit fandom for three years after that.

In that time, I still identified as straight, and to this day, I don’t know why. I was only attracted to women; I was not attracted to men except in the abstract. I was growing bored with straight romance movies and books. I sought almost exclusively LGBT media and I still do today. But maybe I thought it was a phase. Maybe I thought I’d grow out of it. Maybe I just didn’t care, because I was anxious and depressed, I battled intrusive thoughts and dissociation every day, I binge ate and drank, and I had a wicked nicotine addiction.

I got into college, moved out, and I still identified as straight. I loved college and completely flourished creatively, academically, and socially. I quit smoking, changed my style from very feminine to relaxed and tomboyish, and stopped wearing makeup. I won several writing contests and read hundreds of books. But my drinking got worse and so did my anxiety, no matter how happy I thought I was. To make matters worse, I drank alone—I partied with my friends and had great times, but my drinking was a solitary thing. Because if I drank around my new friends, I might say something. I might admit something to them. I wasn’t ready for that. But it took me a long time to realize that when I drank alone and blacked out on my dorm room floor, I was just trying to hold off from admitting something to myself.

It took me a long time to come out. I won’t bore you with what is really a very boring story, but I will say it was very difficult but I received a lot of support from many people. Due to this, I can’t help but feel much of my high school and college experiences were wasted due to my being closeted.

Around this time, I got into the Teen Wolf fandom, which is still my biggest fandom experience. While there were no canon femslash pairings, there was still a thriving femslash fandom that I got involved in right away. I then found Once Upon a Time and Orphan Black years later—two fandoms that I joined mainly because of the main femslash ships.

And the only way I noticed those ships was through this awesome new blog I found called Femslash Revolution. I knew I had to get in on the action, so I contacted Lulu, the amazing person who made it all happen and guided me every step of the way. There would be no blog without her—that’s a given. She’s the woman behind the curtain, and we owe it all to her. Looking back, I can’t believe how small we were back then, and that was only a few years ago! Our pairing tags fit on one page, and we got the chance to spotlight fandoms with popular femslash content, including relatively new fandoms like Orange Is the New Black.

Now, I am out and proud. I’m a published writer. I have also written over 900 individual pieces of fan fiction. I live comfortably and easily. I started medication for my mental illness and by necessity stopped drinking, which was the best thing that I ever did. I am in recovery from my eating disorder. And through it all, this blog has been here. Clarke Griffin has been here. Alana Bloom has been here. Santana Lopez, Alex Danvers, Cosima Niehaus, Poussey Washington, and Amy Raudenfeld have all been here, smiling and laughing and crying along with me, filling me with their strength and inspiration and the idea that we exist, and we aren’t going anywhere.

And you guys have been right here, too. I hope you stick around for a long, long time.

About the Author: @freshbrainss

By day, I go by Jess. I love cats, coffee, and Minnesota winters. And why, yes, I am single. You can find me at AO3 and on LJ. I also mod for a LJ drabble community called femslash100, so if you’re a writer, come and play with us!

#I Am Femslash #freshbrainss #Type: meta #Femslash February 2017 #Femslash February

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violetemerald · 7 years

Video

youtube

Multi-Fandom Canon Femslash - ["Something To Talk About" by Bonnie Raitt] [FAC]

Made for Silviasi22's Femslash Addiction Contest! Round 1: HAPPINESS. ~~~ Voiceovers are transcribed at the bottom of the description, and lyrics are linked below too! ~~~ So... pretty different vid from me here! I joined LesbianCollabs a while ago and enjoy vidding femslash ships quite a bit in general, always have, but... idk it's still been a really long time since I posted a new video that was entirely about a wlw ship/lesbian ship. And I've never vidded a multi-couples vid that was all femslash before.

Link to the contest btw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5q-4crjGKE - deadline is in 2 days but as long as it is femslash or a single character lesbian being happy, and is over 40 sec long, you can still enter. ;)

I actually had the idea to vid this song back in 2007-2008 when season 4 of Grey's Anatomy was airing for the first time. Maybe it was later in 2008 when season 5 was airing that I thought of it, but I know it was before Hahn left the show. I started a fanvideo about only Dr. Erica Hahn and Dr. Callie Torres, but never finished it, probably partially because the song's too long, too fast paced, etc and they have relatively limited scenes. Anyway I know no one EVER vids them, I've literally NEVER seen them vidded lol, but that was why I vidded them in this here...

They aren't ALL couples I ship, and parts of the vid are a bit random, but I do really love most of these pairings. For some queer women I struggled with picking just one of their ships haha but ultimately decided on who would be easiest for me to vid set to this song.

This was FUN to make.

Couples: Erica Hahn/Callie Torres (Grey's Anatomy) Naomi/Emily (Skins) Karma/Amy (Faking It) Clarke/Lexa (The 100) Dianna/Christie but also Dianna/other random women (White Collar) Brittany/Santana (Glee) - most of my Glee vidding is on luvtheheavenFOX4. Haddie/Lauren (Parenthood) Alex/Maggie (Supergirl) Brenna/Greer (Chasing Life) Claire/Gretchen (Heroes) Anna/Peyton (One Tree Hill) Kerry Weaver/Kim Legaspi (ER) Emily/Maya (Pretty Little Liars) Cosima/Delphine (Orphan Black) Sydney/Maggie (Saving Hope) Nyssa/Sara (DC's Legends of Tomorrow & Arrow) Rose/Luisa (Jane the Virgin) Paris/Rory (Gilmore Girls) Lori/Hillary (Kyle XY) Stef/Lena (The Fosters) Carol/Susan (Friends)

Song: Something To Talk About Artist: Bonnie Raitt Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bonnieraitt/somethingtotalkabout.html

Voiceovers:

Naomi's mother: People who make us happy are never the people you expect.

Dianna: Nice hat.

Naomi's mother: So when you find someone, you've got to cherish it.

Peter: You're not even on her dance card. No dancing for you. Neal: Um. She digs the hat. Peter: Um. She'd rather be wearing the hat.

Addison: Are you speaking The... Vagina Monologues now? Callie: What? Addison: I'm all for it.

Brittany: I heard a rumor that Santana plays for the other team.

Callie: You want to know if Erica and I are a... couple?

Haddie: My super-awesome best friend.

Shane: Your friend, right.

Addison: Because you seem like a couple! A really happy couple.

Sam: Pretty cool that our girlfriends are such good friends, right?

Addison: She's pretty, huh? Erica Hahn: She's beautiful.

Winn: It's not like you're into this... Maggie person.

Maggie: I didn't know you were into girls.

Max: If two girls are kissing, does that mean that they're lesbians? Haddie & Max's mother: What? Why would you ask me...? Max: Haddie and Lauren were kissing.

April: Since when are you in the Eco Club? Is that girl in it or something? The one you love? Brenna: I don't love her. But yeah she's in it.

Gretchen: Okay maybe I'm a little bit stalking you. It's just... I have a crush.

Felix: Wow, I didn't know this was a Lesbian Mixer.

Anna: You're not gay, are you?

Kerry: I happened across a copy over the weekend and couldn't resist.

Kara: I mean, do you know if she likes you?

Gretchen: People are gonna start to talk. Claire: Let 'em talk.

Sara's dad: I'm just happy to hear you had someone to care for you.

JJ: You ladies like to wriggle, don't you?

Haddie's dad: I just want to thank you for being such a good friend to Haddie. Lauren: Yeah. I mean I love Haddie.

Cosima: I just want to make like, uh, crazy science with you.

Luisa: She was wearing this tight, red dress that highlighted every curve of her body. Her breasts, her hips... Michael: Got it. Good.

Rory: You know, we sat on the beach, went to a club, we watched The Power of Myth, Paris and I kissed- Lorelai: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You watched The Power of Myth?

Lori: Oh I don't know, Hills. You wanna give it a try?

Sydney: When my husband wants to have sex with me, he throws his yarmulke on the bed.

Kerry: I am The Chief of Emergency Medicine *and* I am a lesbian!

Delphine: Je t'aime.

Brittany: I love so much.

Carol: We're, uh... We're getting married.

Stef: It's the wrong one!

Ross: As in, I now pronounce you wife and wife married?

Emily: I like girls. I like a girl. I love her.

Amy: Woo hoo!

#Faking It #Glee #Grey's Anatomy #NBC Parenthood #Maggie x Alex #Queerbaiting #sorry but I included some of those too even in my canon femslash vid #so many more fandoms too

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