#I’ve wrestled with butch identity for a long time | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cowboyjen68 · 2 years

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Hello! I hope you’re having a wonderful day! This is a little out of the blue so let me explain a bit. I’m an AFAB androgynous bisexual. I’m currently in a queer sapphic relationship with the love of my life, who is a lesbian.

I’ve been feeling that something is missing from my identity, and that it is tied into my relationship and the role that I play within it, and I’ve been looking around for terms/labels that would fit how I feel. I connect a lot with the term Butch but I’m cautious of using it as I’m not lesbian and I don’t want to erase the history and identity of the label.

I’ve seen a lot of lesbians caution against using the label of Butch as an aesthetic, as it’s an identity and describes the relationship between sexuality, gender, presentation, relationship dynamics and more.

Im in my 20s, In a sapphic relationship for the first time and exploring a lot of things with my partner. I’m a little confused so I’m gathering information from older lesbians and sapphics where I can, and I was hoping you’d be able to answer my questions. Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!

Hello! I am having a great day, even though late fall cold weather is setting it. I am two coffees in this early morning and I am going to do my best to answer this. Please note, I am not a historian, I don't read much lesbian theory or political writings. I can and only ever come at questions from my personal expiences and from information I have learned in the long held lesbian traditional of intergenerational friendships. Basically, stories around kitchen tables and campfires give me what I draw on to respond.

I am really only seeing the term Sapphic or queer sapphic being used in the last few years so I want to make sure I am understanding you a bit better. Sapphic was only really ever used to mean lesbian in my circles, since it refers to the first "really out and known" lesbian, Sappho the poet. But I see lately it is being used to describe any women, bi or lesbian, who is attracted to other women. And queer is a very broad term to me. My best guess is as you said you are bi and with a lesbian and sapphic queer is an more expansive definition of how you see your self in relation to your relationship with another women (your current partner). Forgive me if I misinterpret that. Androgynous seems a description of how you are perceived by others. And what aesthetic you feel comfortable presenting yourself as to the greater world. I just want to make sure I am on the same page of understanding.

Butch has always been a lesbian term in my life time.And my friends in their 80′s and 90′s are even more FIRM in the standing that butch is always, strictly lesbian. Many in fact hold very dearly to butch/femme and the connection between the two, how they are deeply interwoven. Butch is Never used to describe the experiences or energy of bi women or anyone other than a lesbian woman. Historically, to my knowledge, it was used to boil down the experiences and perceptions and realities of masculine lebian women to one easy word that everyone understood. A simplfied descriptor to allow women who shared similar experiences to find each other and form community and be recognized as a defined group within the lesbian and great gay community. And even in the larger world.

I have seen it used as an fashion or aesthetic look as in “that is a butch hair cut” or “that suit is very butch” or “arm wrestling, how very butch”. Mostly that is the use of an understood word to convey a stereo type or humorous take on an activity or clothing an no offense should be taken. I guess because I am firm in knowing I am butch because I have shared my experiences and found others like me who relate, a little play on the word is no big deal. No one is looking at Julie Andrews in Victor Victoria in her fitted suit and thinking she is butch. But they might say “That suit is butch”.

If yiou are bi, butch is not for you. Perhaps masc or masculine Or don’t worry about a descriptor. If the masculinity comes off with clothes or a different hair cut it is just not the same experience as a butch. If you are naturally masculine, but not a lesbian, and believe me, here in the midwest there are plenty of straight and bi women are far and away more mascline than I am, BUT their energy is just not the same. They are rarely mistaken for men, or “not quite women” as is my experience and that of many butches.

I would agree with you that butch is a short cut to describe presentation as it relates to our own comfort AND public perception, sometimes relationship dynamics and sexuality. The gender part was definitely something society thrust on me first. “you act like a boy” or “why do you look like a man”. Now my own LGBT community occiasionally tries to thrust gender roles on me and other butches “Butches have muscles” or “butches are supposed to be tops” (NO, LOL) or “butches love sports” (again, NO).

Please be you and love your woman and be protective and gentle and strong. Wear what you love to wear. Love the hobbies you love and find things that fulfill you. Butch is not for you as a bi person. It is wonderful to have a wide range of friends and find the cross over of experiences. Please seek out bi women and peope to talk to and share your ideas and stories with them. I know bisexuals can be the hidden among us but they are out there. Perhaps a few will see this thread and reach out.

I wish you and your love all the hope and happiness you deserve.

#lesbian #butch #love #labels

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plsdontgivemerdmusernames · 3 years

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Multi-Meme Drifting

So you might have seen meme posts drifting around involving Tom the Cat and Daffy the Duck in funny outfits being called 『Stand Masters 』, with Tom the Cat having the stand 『One More Time』, and Daffy Duck having the stand 『Literally Me』. I’ve just had some ideas for their Stand powers and I must share them with you now. Beware, this is a long post.

『Stand Name』

『One More Time』『Stand Master』

『Tom the Cat』

Power: A, Speed: B, Range: E, Durability: E, Precision: B, Potential: D.

The villainous Tom the Cat (Originally Jasper the Cat), who dresses in in a garishly striped acid green and neon orange zoot suit with a wide-brimmed banana-yellow pork-pie hat, always chewing a lit cigar, takes a page from many JoJo boss stand masters with having powers over time. Having discovered his abilities when caught by the police after mugging a rich, middle-aged lady named Mama Two-Shoes, Jasper the Cat, petty criminal and gangster, used One More Time to frame his boss Butch the Cat, escaping conviction with the contents of her purse and using the money to get the new identity of Tom.

Tom’s Stand, One More Time, manifests as a plastic Möbius strip that resembles a tape measure, with Imperial hatch marks running down one edge. One More Time is a non-humanoid, short-range Stand, the length of which Tom the Cat manipulates in order to use his power, which must be close to Tom’s target. By stretching One More Time, Tom can prolong moments to the point of stopping them altogether, and by cutting One More Time apart and swapping sections Tom can alter the flow of events and location of objects within its range. Furthermore, Tom can use One More Time like a garrote, stretching out time and preventing the enemy’s allies from being able to stop Tom.

The precision of this stand is limited to Tom’s foresight, as altering events in time may result in other events following their causes. (For example, using One More Time to trap an enemy in a waiting room may result in re-arranging Tom’s day, such as waking up at midnight and having a continental breakfast, buffet lunch, and three-course meal before going back to bed and not eating anything until Tom uses his power.) As Tom does so, One More Time produces squealing like a viola, the sound of time being warped.

Tom the Cat has abused One More Time, using it to gain power, wealth, and privilege through a combination of assassination, blackmail, sabotage, and theft, perverting the serendipity of others around Tom the Cat and stealing opportunities by ensuring that Tom gets them first, and avoiding injury by replacing Tom’s place in time with other victims or by relocating the effects of blows. Tom’s sadism, vindictiveness, energy, and determination has made him the first mob boss of Albuquerque, New Mexico to win a mayoral position, as well as the hand of Toodles Galore, the former girlfriend of his boss, friend, and later enemy Butch.

『Stand Name』

『Literally Me』『Stand Master』

『Daffy Duck』

Power: E, Speed: E, Range: C, Durability: A, Precision: D, Potential: B.

Daffy Horatio Armando Dumas Tiberius Sheldon Duck is a combative, emotional, and completely unrestrained protagonist, proud of his painstakingly-cultivated appearance, which is that of a black duck who wears a bright pink, mauve-buttoned and -piped tuxedo with an unusually large, acid-green bow tie, a vivid crimson chrysanthemum boutonnière, and banana-yellow gloves and dress shoes. Daffy Duck has done up the feathers on the top of his head, dying them as yellow as his gloves, curling them, and combing them into a quiff.

Having served in the 600th Bombardment Squadron in World War II after conscription, Daffy Duck returned to Albuquerque to become a jazz singer, actor, and dancer, roles in which he had real talent and in which he put great effort into each performance, though he was always passed over by both managers and fans for the utterly effortless, unpracticed, and sarcastic appearances of Bugs Bunny. He always tried to get a leading act by impressing the managers, and always failed.

One night, Daffy Duck tried to show up Bugs’ act by swallowing a nitroglycerin pill, a gunpowder tablet, and a lit match, with the subsequent injury activating Literally Me for the first time, transporting him into the body of a nurse working in a trauma ward. By correctly alerting doctors to treat a misdiagnosed patient, Daffy was transported into a hospital bed after the performance, with a 7-shaped incision stitched shut across his chest and abdomen, career-ending injuries, and a sympathetic visitor in future Stand Master and friend Bugs Bunny.

Daffy’s Stand, Literally Me, is a humanoid (Or in his case, anatine), mid-range Stand, resembling Daffy wearing a lime-green body suit with a teal equipment belt, gauntlets, and boots. Both gauntlets and boots flare out at the ends, appearing loose on the Stand’s body. A large, triangular teal collar juts from the neck and shoulders, and the head has a teal bill and half-helmet with an odd little illicium sprouting from the top, tipped with a yellow light-bulb. In place of eyes, Literally Me has a smooth, reflective, black visor. In combat, Daffy Duck uses Literally Me to trip up and hurt enemies and their Stands with their own power or wrestle them to the ground until they exhaust themselves, using the Stand’s unparalleled durability to take hits that would cripple and kill lesser users, during which Literally Me cries a loud “Hoo-Hoo” frequently.

Daffy’s Stand Ability is very similar to the plot of Quantum Leap; if Daffy Duck faces an impediment, Daffy can use Literally Me to randomly take control of a person or creature in a situation tangentially similar to his own. By solving their problem, Daffy Duck re-materializes, having simultaneously solved his own problem. In this altered state, Daffy Duck’s vocalizations can be identified by the retention of his speech impediment (a lateral lisp) even if the creature Daffy Duck has taken control of has no natural ability for speech. For example, if Daffy Duck is imprisoned and wants to get out, he may use Literally Me to take the form of an indoor cat that wants to go outside and sit in the grass, leaving imprisonment when the cat gets to sit in the grass, though most problems Daffy must solve involve similar stakes to the one Daffy is in.

This power has some drawbacks, however; if Daffy Duck completes the task in a manner that is somehow “illegal”, such as getting the cat outside by slipping through a door held ajar without the owner’s permission, Daffy’s problem is also solved in an illegal manner, such as breaking out, but if Daffy solves the problem “legally”, such as convincing the cat’s owners to take the cat outside for a walk on a leash, Daffy’s own problem is solved legally, such as being released without charge due to the discovery of a different suspect.

#Tom the Cat #Daffy Duck #Stand Users #Looney Tunes #Tom and Jerry #Warner Bros.#Merrie Melodies #Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer #Hanna-Barbera #JoJo's Bizzare Adventure #David Production #Memes #[tumblr]

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borrowedfeathers · 5 years

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donut rebagel (comments welcome though, esp from mutuals)

Genital/dysphoria talk, gender essentialism and transphobia/transmisogyny under the cut

That last post about how vagina positivity is fraught in an environment when people practicing it in bad faith are at large just brought back a flood of memories for me concerning when my college girlfriend and I went to see The Vagina Monologues in early 2010 — at the time we both thought we were cis and straight and thought we were a “different” but otherwise unremarkable cishet couple (although I did once say “We are the gayest straight couple ever!” during a silly private dance session to “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record),” making us both laugh, which makes me feel equal parts Extreme Cringe and “Um yeah, about that...”) and we thought going to see that kind of show was the Good Progressive thing to do, and we listened attentively and respectfully to the serious stories and laughed appropriately at the more lighthearted ones.

But then when we got back to my dorm room we both started SOBBING and clinging to each other and at the time we had a hard time articulating exactly why — we probably chalked it up then and there to ~being moved by such powerful art~ but in retrospect, and not very long retrospect at that since we both wound up coming out (me as nonbinary, her as a trans woman) to each other by the end of the year, that seeing such a performance had dredged up a profound sense of sorrow and helplessness in our respective selves that we had no idea how to handle. I had just come back from my mental-health-motivated academic leave of nearly a year a few months earlier and she had had a very strong reaction to my absence since we’d only been together for four months when I got put on leave but we’d already gotten extremely close, so we both were already in a rather volatile state before we went to see the play.

For me, seeing all these (afaik) cis women talking about their vaginas in unambiguously positive terms — one gag that still haunts me to this day was one woman claiming the superiority of the clit in masturbation by saying “Who needs a shotgun when you’ve got semi-automatic?” (using violence metaphors in sex, whoopee!) — just made me have a few nervous giggles as it made me wonder if I should feel guilty for the times when I was growing up and felt bottom dysphoria, which I had first felt when I was five but was able to suppress for years at a time since I didn’t need anything else making me feel like a freak, but it kept popping up and yet I still pushed it down because even after I found out about trans guys I knew I didn’t want to be a man and in fact was afraid of it because I thought I’d come to see that as the lesser of two evils, but what the hell else could it mean?? And this, of course, to my unbeknownst-to-myself OCD brain, just made it pop up more and more. And while I can’t speak to E’s reaction at the time and what the content was that upset her so much, based on things she’s told me after the fact I can only imagine that the play awakened a sense of “why can’t that be me?” that she couldn’t put her finger on at the time and due to what she didn’t yet know was internalized transmisogyny she no doubt felt guilty and beat herself up for it (unfortunately, sometimes literally) as a result.

E and I are still close friends and entrust each other with a lot but since we’re not a couple anymore I don’t ask her about such extremely private things as that, but she has talked about her dysphoria to me and while her ways of coping seem to me to have gradually improved over the years, it’s still a very painful, cyclical thing that she consistently has to wrestle with to keep from falling into self-loathing. On my side, while I’ve reassessed my identity from Just Plain Nonbinary to nonbinary butch lesbian — while I did feel differently about my sexuality and relationship to gender at the time than now, a lot of what kept me from that reassessment was just thinking it flat-out wasn’t possible — I still identify as Very Adamantly Not-Cis and still feel strong bouts of dysphoria, less consistently than E does but with me and my cancer there’s an added sense of futility and fatalism in feeling that unless a miracle occurs I can’t actually do anything about it and I’m stuck in this less-than-ideal body for as long as I’m still alive.

So while it wound up going in (largely) opposite directions for us, this sort of thing speaks volumes to me about how being gender-essentialist about genitals in particular can do a lot of harm to young people — we were only 19 at the time — just starting to question their genders. I’m not going to deny that vaginas are belittled a lot of the time, and I certainly don’t think that there should be an outright ban on positivity toward them, but the unfortunate truth is that I don’t know how to appropriately handle such a thing unless TERFism were somehow to magically vanish overnight. I don’t want to throw cis women who have real and painful struggles with that part of their bodies under the bus but I seriously doubt there’s a way for them to be Loud and Proud about vaginas without replicating harmful gender essentialism and doing various degrees of collateral damage to trans/nonbinary, GNC and gender-questioning people, of which there are always more out there than anyone would expect, much less a garden-variety cis person. I know someone’s gotta handle an issue like this but I don’t know who because cis people Don’t Get It and non-cis people are rightfully exhausted and upset by it. It’s just a big goddamn mess. :(

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #inky pawprints

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fountainpenguin · 4 years

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P & Q

P: How much do you plan in advance versus letting the story unfold as you go?

Story-wise, ends and general events are always planned early on (All 130 Prompts, most of Identity Theft, Hawthorn Haven, Little Imperfections, No Anesthetic, Factor It In, Devil’s Backbone, and so on are already planned even though I won’t be posting some of these things for years), so it’s just a matter of doing the actual writing. Beginnings come next and middles come last.

For me, writing is a matter of saying, “Here is my destination. Where are we coming from and how do we get there?” Depending on what I’m writing, sometimes where I’m coming from is the previous chapter, sometimes it’s a specific point in my timeline. Chapters don’t require a lot of set-up because readers should more or less remember what’s recently happened to a character, but with one-shots I have to clarify not only the setting, but recent events as best as I can. There’s a different mindset there.

Origin, Knots, and the Prompts are divided into over a hundred different files in Google Docs, so I can’t give an accurate word count, but I probably have 200k words on hand for both Origin and Knots and at least 300k for the Prompts. I wrote scenes I consider significant early on and I’m working my way towards them, correcting inconsistencies along the way.

What I plan worldbuilding-wise for a fantasy series is another topic altogether (Expanded on below the cut).

Sociopolitical Aspects

For my Mario works, for example, the first thing planned was how the Koopa Kingdom is laid out, and where the Koopalings fit into my ideas. Then it was a matter of deciding which parts of canon I want to draw from and what I want to do with it. I didn’t rule out the new kingdoms revealed in Odyssey, but I definitely didn’t erase Sarasaland and the Beanbean Kingdom either. I worked out the political systems of a few countries, what the social norms and big crimes are, and the basics of Bowser’s inclination towards violence.

I have a document noting what the people of each land are called and what their native languages are so I don’t have to worry about contradicting myself later, which has been extremely useful. I even determined populations for different kingdoms, with the Mushroom Kingdom at about 235 million people, the Koopa Kingdom almost twice that, and the Beanbean Kingdom a measly 4 million. Even if this info never comes up in story, it helps me understand how people interact with one another and fit into this system.

In my FOP works, I worked out the history of Fairy/Anti-Fairy conflicts, drawing from aspects of canon such as the known war over human godchildren. The Pixies fit in there too as the neutral party. Then there’s the matter of fitting in the aliens and humans. Deeper yet, the Ghosts and Beasts. Figuring out the international relationships up front works best for me, and then I can later determine how characters with this background interact in this environment.

In my Danny Phantom works, I drew from a comment Butch made once that although King Pariah was a tyrant, he did keep the Ghost Zone organized and it’s fallen to chaos since he was overthrown. I worked out Ghost-Skeleton relations, how the Observants play into things, and what the space within the world might be like.

In my WordGirl works, determining how Hexagon functions was crucial to what I decided to do with Kid Math: In this case, his planet is obsessed with math to the point they only have spoken language, not a written one. They use numbers and mark up blueprints, but written language is for the Lexiconians [Insert snobby scoffing].

When writing Rhyme and Reason backstory, I worked out how common powers are, how those with certain powers are treated by society, what kind of education kids with powers get pushed towards, what laws might exist, how many heroes there might be, and how police involvement works in cities that have heroes. In this alternate world, there are things called charm schools that are “finishing schools” for kids with powers, and Rhyme was almost sent to one until she ran away.

Physical Aspects

I made the Mushroom Kingdom an archipelago and chose Indonesia as my main inspiration country, researching the climate, seasons, plants, and meals typically found there. I know exactly when the dry season ends and the wet season starts and how this affects the Piranha Plants.

In FOP, I understand the landscapes of Fairy World and Anti-Fairy World, what kinds of mountains and water features they can have, and the flora and fauna found in each location. I know ways to move between locations, what travel is possible with magic, and what happens in times there isn’t any magic. I know what the major buildings are, where they are, and what they do.

In my DP works, there are certain stable parts of the Ghost Zone and certain unstable parts. It’s easy to get lost if you’re new there and not used to things moving around, but as you learn the rules of the world, you’re able to identify landmarks. I know which populations live where and what those landscapes are like. I came up with rules for how lairs work and how far things can move about the Zone. I know how things work and which characters know X amount of information about their surroundings.

Cultural Aspects

I pored over a LOT of small details in canon for my Mario works. I took painstaking notes about the Soybean civilization, the ancient Luffs, the fallen Bask Kingdom, and all sorts of historical tidbits and worked those into modern canon. Some stuff didn’t cross my path during my personal gameplay, but I like knowing about it anyhow.

I considered Peach’s pathway to becoming queen and how she fits her role, especially compared to her predecessors. I made stars important in Mushroom Kingdom culture and the moon important in Koopa culture. I created lore for why karting exists, canonizing all locations and the general idea of kart racing even if I’m not going to make every kart track canon or organize each game in a timeline.

FOP worldbuilding involved gathering as much canon from the show as possible, collecting info from folklore, plucking bits and pieces from insect and bat biology, and marrying the three together. It was important to me to give Fairy World a distinct culture different from any on Earth, and really examine how magic affects daily life in this world.

Anthropomorphizing insect behaviors gave me Fairies who lick faces as a form of greeting and who favor those with freckles above those without. Not exactly accurate to show canon, but it works great. Gyne and drone relationships have been fun to build, and I made sure my timeline included points in the past where such relations were different than modern times. Changes in relationships over time is something that really fascinates me.

Anti-Fairy World also gets a unique culture. Since they’re evil antagonists in show canon, I certainly didn’t want to race-code them like any group of people on Earth. I’ve tried to design them their own culture, heavily inspired by bats and a belief in luck above all. Bats aren’t sociosexual, but they are promiscuous, so I don’t stick wholly to bat behaviors either: they’re partially based on bonobos. Most importantly, I made sure everything I did was fun for me to write.

With my particular writing style, it works to have deep, complex culture for the Anti-Fairies. If I wanted to write short, lighthearted pieces, that would impact where my worldbuilding priorities lay (Probably lots of cute holiday traditions and less focus on why Anti-Fairy culture revolves around causing others harm).

General Research

Heights, timelines, food, and clothes are all things I settle as soon as possible, and I keep ref sheets on hand so I can fact check myself at a glance. Fairies and Anti-Fairies, being a species who live in the clouds, have easier access to silkworms than cotton plants. That determines what their clothing is made of, what products are expensive, and what gets worn on certain occasions.

I draw from canon where possible, using screenshots or known character heights (Mario canonically 5′1″) and comparing them to others. Being of a different height can impact how others view you. Dining etiquette is a fun cultural difference that can create conversation or social awkwardness and really set the mood.

With fanfics, I dig as deep as I can. Did you know Wario canonically doesn’t know how old he is because his mom never threw him a birthday party? Or that he keeps a matchbox of ants in his cabinet and is “waiting until they worship him as a god”? I drink details like this by the gallon.

I prefer nailing this stuff down before getting far in my writing because that’s what works for me personally. I worldbuild further over time as I think up new questions I didn’t already have answers for.

Unique Aspects

Magic systems are complex. They generally take me longest and are more work than play. I like to have an outline of how a magic system works, write the story, figure out what I absolutely need magic to do and what I don’t want it to do, and then tighten the system during the revision process. For example, I weakened shapeshifting in my FOP works so you can’t easily hold another form while aroused- I personally didn’t want age changes to be involved in lovemaking. That expanded to making it hard to hold a form when you’re drunk too.

It was important to me in my Mario works to have 1-Up mushrooms exist and be capable of saving your life, but I also needed a reason why people don’t walk around with 99 lives and consume 1-Ups at all times. After wrestling with plans for a while, I decided to make them time-sensitive. You have to consume them often to have more than one life on a regular basis, and they’re pretty rare. As long as I can justify why someone has access to this rare item, I can utilize a 1-Up’s power, but I can also justify killing someone off if enough time has passed since they last consumed one.

With Fairly OddParents, I’d seen enough episodes to understand the basics of wishes, magical backup, and Da Rules. When I became serious about writing FOP ‘fics, I started noting the times Cosmo and Wanda failed to use magic for reasons other than Da Rules (Not in sync with each other, low battery, lack of belief in magic, Big Wand toppled over, etc.) and built my version of the FOP magic system to accommodate as many of these “inconsistencies” as I could. My take on magic is complex, but I can stretch the system many ways, so it works great for me.

Will I use everything I’ve worldbuilt in story? I might not say it directly, but having a pool of information I can draw from helps me find ways to flesh out a character’s life. Some stuff makes it in, other stuff is only vaguely glimpsed. To me, diving into worldbuilding is fun. Taking what I have and creating something with it is even more fun. I could whip out a bunch of one-shots about basic slice-of-life events without doing all this work, but tying my stories to social, political, or culture aspects of the world is what I really enjoy.

Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

//Laughs

I don’t like deleting things, so I move them to scrap docs instead. Origin, Knots, and the 130 Prompts each have a scrap file of 50+ pages (91 pages of scrapped Prompt scenes) and I can usually remember keywords so the deleted scenes are easy to search for if I need them. Some get recycled, even back into the same chapter I originally deleted them from, but a lot stay dead because they were either irrelevant or inconsistent with the final material.

Fortunately for me, I have a good memory of what I kept vs. what I scrapped. I’ve compiled some favorites in my deviantArt Sta.sh and linked them in my FOP sideblog because they’re my version of sketchdumps. Even if they’re unfinished, I still think they’re interesting to look at.

For some reason I don’t delete much from my standalone one-shots, just my multi-chapter stuff. Most of what enters my standalones survives.

The projects I’m most hurt to have left hanging are my Total Drama stories The Beatin’ Path and Lions Under Palm Trees, keeping with my tradition of writing stories about eliminated contestants at that season’s elimination location from the perspective of the first character eliminated. I have a good 15k words written for the former and 25k for the latter, and I just… let them slip through my fingers in favor of Fairly OddParents years ago.

Arguably letting them go is for the best because I took the “cartoon physics are canon” concept and RAN with it, so I have an entire plot arc about one character coming into puberty and having his ability to utilize cartoon physics switch on for the first time. I personally consider Lions one of my best works in terms of matching my niche interests, but the acknowledgement of cartoon physics does stray from Total Drama canon, and I just couldn’t get over that enough to keep posting it.

Some of my all-time favorite scenes and characterizations are in these stories. I’m glad I have what I do for myself because these works make me smile even all these years later, buuut it’s probably best if I keep most of this nonsense private. This is probably my favorite snippet of the entire Lions draft, though:

“What’s in the box?”

Don’t say the hearts of small animals, don’t say the hearts of small animals.

“Stuff for my girlfriend.” It wasn’t untrue.

The least loved always end up my favorites somehow. I’m still so in love with my delusional wizard. I honestly might love Leonard more than I love any of the FOP characters I write about nowadays; he was the best I ever had. I mean, look at this FREAKING CHILD-

====

“Hand me my dice.”

Beardo dropped the dice in his hand. Leonard rolled them across the grass. Nine. He groaned. But, obediently, he knelt and poked his head inside the damaged zeppelin.

“Roll me an observance check.”

“Snake eyes.”

“Seriously? It’s dark. Try again. Higher this time.”

Beardo gave the dice another toss. “Lucky lucky seven.”

Leonard let out a high whistle between his front teeth. “No response,” he said after a moment. “I don’t think there are any animals down there, except maybe a few rats and some bugs. All right, I’m jumping down. Keep an eye on my back.”

He slid through the gap and dropped out of sight. Beardo heard him say, “Lux up,” and click the penlight on his keychain.

====

“Incriminatus, television.”

No reaction.

“Incriminatus, television.”

No reaction. The Christmas advertisements blared on. Leonard raised his wand to his eye, then slapped the tip a few times against his palm. “Come on, wand. Tammy isn’t here anymore. Why aren’t you working? I still believe in you.”

The door eased open. “Hey, Leonard,” Jen said in a voice of false cheerfulness. “I got your toothbrush out of… the other room.”

Leonard didn’t try to switch off the TV and faced the window instead. “Brushing teeth is for people who can’t do it with magic.”

====

“Wait.” Leonard raised both hands above his head, squeezing his eyelids tight. “Wait. What you’re saying is, Scarlett pulled a Courtney to the extreme and hid her secret identity as an ‘evil’ mastermind supervillain shaman queen this entire time. She played a character so well that even her closest friend – not to mention Chris – couldn’t see through her act until she chose to reveal herself. At which point she then convinced everyone that she was actually said ‘evil’ mastermind supervillain. You’re telling me there was a LARPing goddess in my presence, and I completely missed it.”

“I didn’t put it in those words for a reason,” Jasmine said, “but at its core, yes.”

Leonard pressed his hands to his cheeks and stared into his salad. “Holy flipping plot twist. I am so turned on right now.”

“No,” Jasmine said, jabbing him in the chest with one finger, “No you are not.”

Amy clicked her tongue. “Leonard, you have a girlfriend.”

“Not anymore. That’s it. I’m breaking up with Tammy for real this time.”

Beardo slapped him on the back of the head and made a sound like a police siren.

====

One Lions chapter was named “Baa Baa Blackmail” if that tells you anything. Ah, memories… It’s probably for the best if these projects stay retired, but I love them so very much.

Fanfic Ask Meme

#Zach needs a tag 9 #asks #ridwriting #Mushrooms and more #FAIRIES!#Satirical vocab alien child show #Going ghost!#riddleverse mention #Long post

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coreymichaelsmithson · 6 years

Text

The Spaniard

I was once given a gift of love by a stranger.

It lasted only a few hours of one evening, but it seemed like an époque, an age of unalloyed bliss. I could, of course, elucidate for you the mechanics of our pleasure … pepper this text with explicit particulars, offer up all the "naughty bits" that people love to fixate on. With a few choice expletives, I could stir your discomfort or your titillation, your outrage or your envy. But I'll spare you all that, and share with you instead the emotional epiphany that bloomed within this one encounter. Trust me, as I lead you into and out of the hothouse.

The stranger and I walked towards one another from opposite ends of a hallway … both of us clad only in towels, striding barefoot by closed doors, from behind which we could hear all the moans and slaps and sighs of a place like this, a place where men gather to lose themselves in pleasure, or pain, or both. In the dim center of the hall, we passed one another, unable to see much more than our outlines … for in a house of red lights, there are only silhouettes, blurry and unfixed suggestions, just enough visibility to define a few salient details. You can see things that suggest the paintings of Francis Bacon: cages, metal rails, open mouths, anatomy lit by televisions or neon, torsos half-cloaked in shadow, limbs dangling from slings, nightmarish smears instead of faces. Club music pulses from hidden speakers. If you have a checklist of sorts, and many men do, you could stand under a bare bulb, and see if each potential dance partner passes muster ... but you probably wouldn’t glean very much, because certain kinds of dark have a real thickness to them.

I could not see him, but I could feel him, even from a distance.

The gravity in the room had changed. Suddenly, we were like two comets of equal mass, each interrupting the other's trajectory, turning until we were in a locked orbit around one another, spinning together through the glittering dust of space and time. He guided me backwards through the hall, until we stood under a lantern, and we looked into one another's eyes, and everywhere else, and nothing that I saw under the scarlet lamp surprised me, save for the irresistibility of his dimples. But in that moment, I knew him, and he knew me.

The first thing I did was to place my hand upon his heart, and he placed his own hand atop it. I reached up with my free hand, and ran my fingers through his beard, and he did the same with mine. The hair on his jaw was soft, luxuriant. He closed his eyes, and I could feel his grin more than I could see it. Everything else fell away: the DJ's music and its insistent "untz-untz-untz", the reek of poppers and desperation, the nearby custodian with his latex gloves and disinfectant. We were alone.

Arm in arm, we walked back to the room I had rented. It featured a narrow twin-sized bed, with the cheap kind of plastic-covered mattress that is easy to clean. There was a storage locker beneath, and a monitor on a tilted bracket, and a mirrored wall. Not much for décor, but it was sufficient.

After an initial, overpowering rush of ardor, we strung our remaining hours together with long passages of conversation. I learned all that I could. He was an architect, and a polyglot … born and raised in Spain, now living in Germany and working in France. While men in other rooms around us groaned through their catalogue of kinks, their grunted litanies, the architect and I just lay there, naked and entwined, and talked about art. We talked about Matthias Grünewald's "Crucifixion", the interpenetrating forms of Moshe Safdie's "Habitat 67", the genius of the Centre Georges Pompidou, and Moroccan food. We talked about Serge Gainsbourg, Divine, Carravaggio, the Taj Mahal, Versailles, Berlin's decadent years, and Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Theresa" … to which, a short while later, my facial expression would be favorably compared. Our conversation flowed with such ease, such candor … it seemed we had been friends for years, rather than minutes. Obviously, we did much more than talk, but our dialogue was every bit as stimulating as all of the nonverbal, concupiscent business.

Men in our culture are trained from an early age to avoid intimacy. Vulnerability and emotional availability are seen as a weakness. Even platonic affection is looked upon unfavorably. The "bro-hug", in which the two parties' bent arms and clasped fists form a boundary, a barrier to real closeness, is an unsatisfying expression of our anxiety. Men are so starved for touch that we sexualize and even pathologize our needs; love becomes horseplay in the locker-room, trust becomes violent sport, lust becomes wrestling, and curiosity becomes a secret assignation in an underground cave. Men are encouraged to swallow their emotions, wall up their desires, and refrain from physical bonding. As a result, some butch dudes are drawn to heavy BDSM scenes as a way of coping with this conflict … own pain before it owns you, use ritualized shame to regain a sense of control. “Real men” punch each other instead of kissing. “Real men” rape or get raped.

In this setting, in this harsh climate, two men lying peacefully in each other's arms can feel like a revolutionary act.

All around us, we heard sounds of guys hurting one another, or begging to be hurt. All of the devils in Hell were howling. Masculinity became a showy, loud parade of safewords and signifiers, and from behind a hundred closed doors rose a chorus of denials, denigrations, demands. Meanwhile, in the midst of all this, the architect and I embraced. As our neighbors spat and hurled invective at one another, the Spaniard and I examined, and fondled, and praised all that we touched. We took our time to explore, without fear of reprisal or rejection, and to enjoy all the soft, yielding sensations of adoration.

What I remember most is the sense of permission. Permission to touch, to look, to sniff, to taste, to explore, to enjoy. Permission to relax, to be present, to lounge lazily together on the cheap mattress, nuzzling, with neither goal nor expectation. I rested my head on his chest while he pressed words and kisses onto my brow. Later, during one of our numerous sweating ascents, as we worked together towards our white hot rewards, I stared upwards into his eyes, and received his gaze in return, holding his face between my hands as we moved in unison. We felt unashamed. There was nothing dirty in our coupling, nothing furtive or tainted. It was pure.

A few hours later, after a refreshing shower, we left the bathhouse together and walked through Capitol Hill, ground zero of Seattle's queer life. As a teenager, I had spent a great deal of time there. When I was a young punk-tinged faggot in the height of the AIDS era, this neighborhood was holy ground. It was the first place where I saw that love could be weaponized. It was the first place where I wore queer clothing, hung out with my queer friends, raised my fist in queer solidarity. It was where I could try on various adolescent identities to see what would stick: affected conceptual artiste, potsmoking poet in a black beret and hoop earring, goth queen with runny mascara and ratted hair, pacifist protestor in army jacket and combat boots. Capitol Hill was my real schoolhouse, long after I had abandoned the silly structures of high school. I explained all of this to the Spaniard as we strolled, arm in arm, through the soft, tepid drizzle.

He wanted to sit for a while. We found a quiet, romantic restaurant, the kind of joint with pressed tin ceilings and good lighting. The kitchen was closed, but he got a beer and I got a coffee. There, away from the red bulbs, away from the growling animals, I could look deeply into his eyes, and really study him, and I found that he was even more beautiful than before.

But for all of his graces, and there were many, the Spaniard had one very strange, slightly unsettling aspect … his face kept changing.

It wasn't just his expression. He looked utterly different from moment to moment, shockingly so. His ethnicity was impossible to guess. All the countries of Eurasia battled for supremacy over his features; sometimes he appeared Greek, sometimes Italian, sometimes Turkish, sometimes Dutch. Between sentences, his eye color changed, his nose grew longer or shorter, his cheekbones raised or lowered, his hair thinned or thickened. I've known a few shapeshifters in my life, and have studied other historical ones, people like Feodor Chaliapin, but I have never before encountered one as startlingly adept as this. If I were not so completely convinced of his kindness, his abundant and quite obvious goodness, I would be terrified by the plasticity of his appearance. I gasped aloud a few times as I watched it happen. I knew that I was not going mad, that I was not hallucinating. His face was transforming itself before my eyes. He was an angel who couldn't choose which human skin to wear.

We lingered for a long while, trying the patience of the waitstaff, who were probably eager to finish up their tickets for the evening. We talked about his life in Germany, his upcoming teaching appointment at a university in France. We talked about our relationships, the failures and the successes, the crushed dreams and the enduring flames. We tried to compress as many of our life stories as we could into the tiny space between us.

I told him about the fate of my poor William, who slid into a spiral of drugs and madness and loneliness, a decline that ended with his putrefaction in a darkened hallway. The Spaniard listened to all this, wide-eyed and silent, nodding, and he held my hand throughout. After I finished, and was left at a loss for words, surprising myself once again by the intensity of my grief, he came round the table without a word and held me, cradling my head against his bosom, stroking my hair. He did this with no self-consciousness, even though we were sitting right by the front windows, in plain sight of the passersby. It was the sweetest expression of love, abundant love, and I drank of it like a burnt man in the desert.

Shortly after midnight, I walked him back to his hotel. It had gotten colder, after the rain. Our arms remained wrapped tightly around one another the entire time. We came at last to his place, where he would meet his traveling companion; they would head off in the morning to Vancouver, and then onwards to home. We kissed, and then I confessed what I had known, with absolute certainty, since I first placed my hand upon his breast … that I loved him. And I meant it, so much so that I felt as if a part of my heart were being wrenched from its anchors. And then I walked away, smiling but reluctant, shoving my hands into my pockets and leaning into the quickly chilling air. The night collapsed between us like the Red Sea.

It's quite unlikely that I'll ever see him again. He lives, after all, on the other side of the ocean, near the intersection of Germany, France, and Switzerland, where he has all the riches of Europe at his disposal … while I live in a vapid cultural wasteland, where teenagers eat detergent and racists burn their shoes. I'm desperately poor, and don't know how I could possibly get back to that part of the world.

But, it doesn't really matter, anyway. He gave me the gift that I needed. Right as we were about to part, I realized, as he held his lips against mine, that the intensity of our coupling was as much a matter of urgency as it was pleasure. Seeing the approaching end of something brought every moment into sharp relief. Yes, we met in a lurid place, and yes, our romance could only last for one evening. But the fleeting nature of this encounter helped give shape to our joy, definition to our goodwill. Our dalliance was not the vast ocean of a long marriage, with many tempests and calms; ours was a tiny alpine pond, ringed with wildflowers and glinting in the sun, lasting only a season, or a tidepool that came alive for a few hours, rippling atop a shoreline rock. In its brevity it was perfect. In the days to come I will think of him, and cherish our one flawless night, turning it over and over again in my mind like a faceted jewel, a gem made more brilliant by its rarity. And the next time I'm asked what it means to fall in love at first sight, I will recall the Spaniard, and his devastating dimples, and his gentle radiance … and while I must keep for myself much of what he whispered to me, in the dark, I will later relay in short conversational bursts our glimpse of heaven, our small but significant triumph over wickedness, and what we discovered together in the middle of the bathhouse, way down in the lowly maze where men descend together, into the depths, under the infernal glare of red.

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