#I've written post about butches but not femmes

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

Do you have any shuggy fanfic recommendations? I already read and rearead (and reread) yours one piece ff…

i can certainly give you some recs!

everything's hosted on ao3 and set in the one piece universe; i do read modern/mundane AUs but i'm always really picky about how an author adapts a ship's canon history into an AU, so i've yet to find one that really grabs me except that one college AU i forgot to save a link to… i hope i'll find you again someday…

for all my life i’ve watched from afar, i’m too afraid to try by Badopportunities - complete, 18k

this is probably my favorite shuggy fic i've read so far. a canon divergence in which shanks hunts down ace instead of whitebeard to warn him off the blackbeard hunt directly, and just so happens to find ace while he's hanging out with buggy's crew. love the outside POVs on shanks & buggy before their history was common knowledge, love their dynamic while trying to keep that history secret, love the optimistic way the story ends.

uncharted waters by vestigialmoods - complete, 41k

a long, multi-POV sorta kinda get-together—this one written after we knew the warlord system was being dissolved but before we learned about cross guild. buggy tries to figure out what to do now that he's lost government protection; shanks is encouraged to go for what he wants for once, instead of passively letting fate decide his path. features very fun characterization for both crews, and a really well-crafted scene that deals with phantom limb pain and sexual tension simultaneously.

in the deepest depths i lost myself, i see myself through someone else by Badopportunities - WIP, 36k

it may be gauche to rec multiple fics by the same author but Badopportunities has yet to steer me wrong! this is set during the timeskip, while buggy is searching for an island to claim as his warlord base of operations and shanks is trying to look after former whitebeard territories. they clash. uses one of my favorite lines for a childhood friends-to-lovers ship: one of them says he's single because he's having trouble finding a partner with “similar life experiences.” iykyk

currently incomplete at 4/5 chapters, last updated in 2022… but they just posted a new chapter of their other shuggy wip (which i also recommend, buggy time travels and saves ace & uta) this week, so it feels like anything's possible!

I'll See You in My Dreams by doublejoint - complete, 4k

shanks keeps dreaming of being older, on a ship with only buggy for company, wearing matching rings and sailing for who knows where. i love how efficiently and effectively this fic explores his thoughts on these dreams over the years—are they visions of the future, his secret desires, bad gas? the ending is very sweet.

We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together (and other lies Buggy tells himself) by Transformatron - complete, 11k, explicit

i am not much for smut (being ♠️🏳️‍🌈 and all), but occasionally one gets in the mood, and this fic has some intense emotions to go along with the intense, kinda kinky smut. shanks has found out about cross guild and comes to see buggy, not convinced that this is a safe, sane, and consensual situation buggy's found himself in. they fight about it, and then… 😳

there is background established buggy/crocodile/mihawk, but crocodile and mihawk aren't present for the explicit portion of the fic.

i like lipstick on my neck by kiriya - complete, 20k, explicit

if i'm recommending smut-with-feelings, i have to rec this fic. genderbent butch/femme shanks and buggy run into each other in east blue, post-roguetown and pre-canon, and spend three chapters bickering, drinking, and… you know. absolutely fantastic characterization, buggy is an awful little gremlin and shanks likes her very much despite herself.

i don't know if the fic was inspired by this art or if the art was inspired by this fic, but either way… if you read the fic you should look at the art. that butch shanks is just. absolutely inspired.

#asked and answered #fic recs #one piece #shuggy

[patron-saints]

i was tagged by @memesmadefullmetal in a "list 5 topics you can talk on for an hour without preparing any material" post, which, what an honor, hello <3

so!

fullmetal alchemist brotherhood/manga (but i could honestly just do an hour on femslash rarepairs no problem)

tenchi universe: character analysis, ship dynamics, writing choices, inconsistent timelines, gender, you pick

MDZS/CQL/the untamed: recently @waitineedaname and i did a phone call where we basically talked about the untamed for 6 hours without stopping so i'm pretty confident i could carry just one on my own lol

trying to think of things that AREN'T fiction is really hard because most of the stuff i'm really passionate about is fiction BUT i actually am developing somewhat of an academic expertise on queer culture in the 1940s-60s in the US or at least an expertise on how to best research it! i made a guide with over 150 sources and i've written a paper on historic butch/femme culture too

cheese! it's my favorite food and i used to work at a cheese shop so i know a lot of fun facts

tagging: @waitineedaname @acornered @iernos @bunramen and @princeheathen but no pressure!!

#the number of fictional media i could talk about for an hour is INSANELY high so i tried to pick three recent ones #but name ANY past special interest and i got it on lock #i think i did just fifteen minutes the other night arguing with a friend about lust's status as a girlfailure i could easily do a whole hou #on anything fma #also hello to my new mutuals/friends from boop day

[bandydear]

I’ve been reading your tlgbf tlgbl fic, and am absolutely obsessed!! Where did you get the inspirations for dyke Jackie? I love how you’ve written her and her queerness

So, I prescribe to the theory that Jackie had some inclinations about her homosexuality out there in the wild and that's why she's parading around in sweater vests and limp wrists. That the high femme presentation we see in the pilot is more of a gender and social performance than who she is. And, I explored the people pleaser elements that lingered behind in that.

She compliments Nat in the Pilot that she admires how true to herself Natalie is which means that Jackie is not true to herself. She feels the pressure of expectation and lives within that expectation instead of her truth. We are never given a "truth that could crash an airplane" from Jackie. What she says is that she used to sneak downstairs and watch The Color of Night so she could pause it at Bruce Willis's wang.

For research for the fic, I watched Color of Night (the shit I do for art...). Bruce Willis's flaccid dong is there for like, five frames. And, it's not impressive like she claims it to be. You know what that movie actually has a lot of? Naked women and lesbian sex. Jackie's gay.

I know a lot of butch/futch/even high femme dykes who began their journeys presenting heterofemme realness and rejected it when they made their way down the rainbow brick road. Jackie very much gives me those vibes. Like, she has gay energy, but also a very "useless gay man" energy.

I think that finding out "x amount" of her teammates are some kind of queer and that the Very Hetero Sport she's been shielding herself with is uhhhhh Not That is part of what leads her down the path of self-discovery.

She's also shredded. Jackie canonically has an 8-pack and that's interesting because in the 90's, muscle tone was seen as something undesirable for women. (Now, I know that the show is made Now, where the aesthetic ideals are different, but if it's in the text it counts.)

Anyway, this has all been said before in other tumblr posts about Jackie being gay. I'm sure you're asking about why I wrote her as a futch service top instead of say, a femme pillow princess?

It has to do with her character arc. In S1 of Yellowjackets, Jackie's arc is one of nihilism and regression. The only thing that is keeping her alive in this survival situation is her love for Shauna, and when she learns of Shauna's resentment, she loses the will to live. Literally. Dies of a broken heart.

Jackie cannot survive in an environment without love. And, she struggles with survival instincts in general. Which is what makes her a great foil to Nat, who cannot help but survive, and, ironically, dies in S2 of too much love. The moment Nat stopped being cynical and nihilistic she doomed herself.

Two characters in direct opposition cannot exist so therefore they must either kill one or the other other--or change each other to live in harmony. I chose the latter. Jackie softens Nat and Nat hardens Jackie. They meet in the middle. If Jackie becomes hard, and becomes someone who can survive, what does that look like? What's the funniest possible way to get to this point?

Make Jackie the one who builds the shelter. Take this ineffectual, limp wristed twink and show her the way towards self-sufficiency through trades. Her home was broken beyond repair, so she learns how to fix it on her own. The literal is metaphorical and the metaphorical is literal.

So, now that I've explained:

Why Jackie is gay

Why Jackie fixes houses

Now, "why a service top"?

I touch on it in the text, but I don't think she's solely that. I do think that even after coming out, if she was experimenting with people who weren't Shauna she wouldn't allow herself to be physically vulnerable with them. It would cause a panic attack. She has a very Protestant energy and receiving pleasure as a part of sex would probably give her like 5 different mental breaks.

Jackie doesn't enjoy sex with Jeff (oral and hand stuff count as sex) not just because she's gay, but because she's too self-aware of how she's being perceived to enjoy her body.

On the other hand, she is a chronic people pleaser--though Lazy, so I knew she couldn't jump into this with both feet. If Jackie had slept with the girl in chapter 1 it wouldn't have gone well, and it would have been super awkward and unsatisfying for both parties. It's the envy at seeing Nat enjoying herself, and finally being in a safe space to relax a little that allows her to explore sensuality. Still, I don't think she'd let herself be touched in the same way.

If she had, as planned, shared a room with Shauna at Rutgers, I could see her being in a much more comfortable sexual role. Because Shauna was her safe space. But, I could also see her bringing a lot of her own baggage into that situation, and it quickly becoming toxic. I don't think they'd work romantically out of their "platonic" relationship in school, because it had already broken and festered by the Pilot.

Anyway! That's the impetus for Jackie's dykery. I hope that clarified some things. There are other folks out there who have come away with other, valid, and cool conclusions, but these are the ones I came to with my own research and experience. Thanks again for asking!

#fanfic: tlgbf tlgbl #yellowjackets fanfic #jackie taylor

[virtue-boy]

don't really get the 'endangered butch' thing like I see a lot of butches in my day to day life. I just think soft butch is more normal now like you dont have to be a butch butch butch to survive as a butch anymore, just like you can be a masc gay guy who is also kind of a nelly. Like I have tons of butch friends and I probably half of everyone I do organizing with is butch. Like look I'm just one guy maybe you used to see 500 butches every single day or something but like I see butches all the time I just think people are discounting a lot of people's masculinity or something. Like people are like "When was the last time I saw a butch?" and I'm like bruh I saw like 4 yesterday at a queer meeting what are you on about. Like maybe not hard hard butches but like I kind of think every type of queer identity has loosened up a bit like everyone's more androgynous now. Idk its just maddening to me becuase this narrative makes no fucking sense with my own life. I legit just think that it is people discounting butches who don't fit a certain image of a 30 something hard white cis butch with a midsize to buff build in blue collar cosplay, which of course, shout out but like, that's one type of person. I literally see people alllll the time who would be considered butch if they were taller, cis-female passing, buff, less fat or more in line with ideas of white masculinity. And I mean, 90% of the time when someone says something like this they are definitely not including trans female butches in their definition of the category.

Or like, legit I think this must come down to hair. Like mullet and mid-length hair is big in masculine style rn for all ethnicities and genders. Like I know so many people who would be cookie cutter Butch if they got a crew cut instead of having like, Nickelback hair or a mullet. Like are we really declaring a postmortem on butches over what military conscript's hair looked like in 1950? Or like, what white bloggers in San Francisco were wearing 2006 - 2014? Are we really going to discount all the non-white men's fashions and styles that have mid and long length hair?

The other thing I think must be some kind of gender purity definition of butch as a cis woman, so people are declaring butch dead because people use they/them or identify as non-binary, as if "butch" historically was purely "woman-identified" that never used gender non-conforming language or there were never butches who never identified as girls or women. And of course like, ignoring butch trans women off the bat even through like, they are literally carrying the torch and understand butch more than any cis femme ever could as they are intentional butch women. Anyways.

I legitimately challenge people to think about the hair thing though. I actually think huge swathes of butches are being written off bc they have mid length hair or they dress more like an architect than an auto mechanic or something. Or just that they don't do any blue collar cosplay at all and just wear men's hoodies and shit. I don't know but like, I just saw a post about someone saying that someone said "you're the first butch I've seen in forever" and I'm just like ??? I've seen like 10 butches of various ages and backgrounds I know personally in the last month.

#butch #mine

[handsomegentlebutch]

Random but I was rambling about my oc earlier and wanted to get these thoughts outta my head.

I play a lot of ttrpgs. Like a lot. I tend to make my player character(s) a femme4butch lesbian bc part of me didn't fully see what femmes might see in a butch like me bc on some level, I used to think I was unworthy of love and the women I like wouldn't like me.

I also started doing it bc we had a toxic player (lowkey homo+transphobic but also implied to be an egg... long story that I don't wanna get into tbh) and I KNEW he'd be an ass if I made a character too loudly and obviously a lesbian and ofc he wouldn't be able to See a femme like I could.

But I wanted to be loud and obvious so I set my nose to the grindstone on femme presentation and feelings and attraction. I've been reading so much stuff on here from so many amazing femmes- stuff they've written and resources written by others that they've shared. Just when I thought I couldn't love femmes more. You prove me wrong.

I feel like being here and reading your thoughts and experiences and rp'ing f4b characters has given me a deeper and more profound understanding of femmes and I understand myself more too. I get it now, yanno? I don't see myself as gross or weird or unlovable anymore. I fun and sexy and cool!! We all are! Femmes n butches have such cool and unique presentation and experiences to gender and I feel like we can Always See each other. Like I know a Femme, capital F kinda Femme from a feminine person. Yanno? I don't really have a point to this post, I just love and appreciate femmes. You're genuine pillars in this community and I'd do anything for you.

Thanks for showing me how to love both me and you :3

#butch speaks #butch lesbian #lesbian #femme lesbian #femme4butch #butch4femme #ilysm :3 #ive been learning to draw #maybe some day ill post art of my characters!! ones i play and npcs in games i run #ive got chracters in all sides of the rainbow #i run an dnd 5e eberron campaign #and a monster of the week game #im a player in a vampire: the masquerade game and a game of masks! #theres so many lgbts to love #but im biased and have favorites (lesbians) :3 #and ofc all this has made me an even better role player #and made me more comfortable outside my comfort zone #ive played ttrpgs for like 12 years now #im a good player and gm #but learning from femme lesbians has made me even better #i love u femmes

[moonshinedyke]

Pinned Post:

-Asteria/Eris (+)

-Mixed Black/Indigenous

-Intersex genderfluid multigender transmascfem

-Alloaro bisexual lilaen lesbian.

-Stud, butch, (bull)dyke, faggot, tranny, freak, bulldagger

This is my blog for venting and just talking about bigotry. I didn't want to clog my main too much with these types of posts since a lot of them involve discoursey topics. This is not a blog that I plan to use to argue with other people under most circumstances. I'm using this blog to vent about my experiences, no matter how big or small they are. Check below the cut for some of my beliefs.

Just because I reblog from someone doesn't mean that I agree with everything they say and do. What it DOES mean is that I think they made a good point in that specific post they made.

-Many white queers have a problem with using their queerness to try and avoid accountability for their white privilege and racism. There is a HUGE racism problem in both online and real life queer spaces.

-Gender criticals are enormous pieces of shit with a very flawed view of sex and gender.

-The hyperpolicing of lesbianism on here is super lesbophobic. Stop obsessing over lesbians not conforming to your neat little cis fem white woman centric boxes. Let lesbians have some gender fuckery without frothing at the mouth.

-Bi lesbians/gays do not hurt mono lesbians/gays by existing. We are not responsible for homophobic cishets harassing you guys and saying that we are is violently biphobic. Stop being a narrowminded cishet bootlicker, assholes.

-Straight passing privilege does not exist. Invisibility and erasure is not a privilege.

-Lesbian separatism as an ideology is transphobic, biphobic, lesbophobic, and racist. If you defend lesbian separatism or pretend that it was even remotely okay then you are a bad person, straight-up.

-Intersexism is rampant in trans spaces. We are not your transition goals, we are not your gotcha to use against TERFs, and we are not nonbinary icons by default. The diversity of the intersex experience is unfathomable because of how many intersex conditions there are and how intersex conditions are viewed across the globe.

-Slur discourse is pointless at best and a straight-up psyop at worst. Let a bisexual call themself a dyke, let a transmasc call themself a tranny, let a lesbian call themself a faggot. I promise that it's not hurting you when other queer people reclaim slurs. Quit your victim complex.

-Butch and femme have always belonged to the whole queer community and have NEVER been lesbian exclusive. Denying that is spitting on ballroom culture- in other words, you're racist and transphobic as hell. Furthermore, Black non-lesbians have more claim to butch and femme than ANY white lesbian does. Read more here. It's a Carrd, yes, but it's a Carrd with actual sources, which is more than you can say for literally every Carrd written by exclusionists that you all choose to use anyways.

-Queer is not a slur and it's up to you to avoid people who use the word if it makes you that uncomfortable.

-Flag discourse is ridiculous. If you hate a flag that badly, just don't use it.

-You don't owe anyone an explanation for why you blocked them.

-I'm very wary of anyone who is against non-traumagenic systems. I don't really understand endo systems or other non-traumagenic systems, but I've seen tons of fakeclaiming and racism coming from the anti-endo community, so I tend to avoid them. I'm not interested in getting into syscourse and I generally keep my system life private.

-Well-researched self diagnosis is good, especially if you can't afford to get a professional diagnosis. Ultimately, you are the one actually experiencing what's in your brain.

-Shipping discourse is ridiculous and literally all of you need to go outside.

-Anti-transmasculinity as a form of oppression exists and to say otherwise is antiblack and transmisogynistic, since it often goes in hand with transmisogynoir.

-Nonbinary people do not owe you androgyny, let alone any change in appearance once they come out as nonbinary.

-Nonmen and nonwoman are not just terms that are super hostile to multigender people, they're also racist due to their hostility towards Two-Spirit people as well as how they've been used to degender Black people.

#pinned post

[stonebutchwritings]

i saw your recent post mention gnc femmes and i didnt know femmes can be gnc? omg... i can be femme with facial hair?? when im not explicitly femme dressed? (masc presenting/androgynous/mixed assortment)

thank you for including that, i know it wasnt the intent of your post, it really 0:!!! me though because i look butchy but i feel femme.

also i agree with your post wholeheartedly, and i wish butches were appreciated and loved more and valued for their butchiness instead of hypersexualized and demonized as well.

cw for the d slur! i'll let you know when it's abt to be said~

i think that a lot of femmes are very gender non-conforming! a lot of femmes access this through more brazen sexuality or campiness in their aesthetics, but many femmes also access gender non-conformity through the way they don't shave, the way they carry themselves, etc. I've even seen a post floating around here about a femme who passes as butch during their work shift because of their physical labor-related job, but they, and you, are still femme.

i want to let you know, you don't "look butchy"! you're always looking femme when you're a femme. maybe you're not dressed to your nines, but you do look amazingly femme! it's even more clear when you incorporate the staples of gender non-conformity that you do-- a good piece on this was written by Arlene Istar, a Jewish lesbian writer, about her femmeness.

(d slur in the next paragraph, so you can skip to the excerpt if you'd like, but be warned that the excerpt has a version of the t slur in it! if you want to avoid the d slur in the excerpt too, stop reading after the word "femmy".)

The piece is called Femme Dyke, and it's featured in the Persistent Desire, but I'll put the important excerpt down here. content warning for a version of the t slur!

[ID: I find myself feeling frustrated while writing, thinking you, the reader, must picture me as far more femme than I am. Although I enjoy wearing skirts, I often wear pants. I rarely wear makeup (although I do have a fetish for nail polish), and I proudly wear my facial hair. I neither love nor hate to cook or clean house and have healed (finally) my codependent need to be eternally present for my partner. By nobody's standards am I "delicate, docile, deferential, ladylike, refined, and genteel," as femininity is traditionally defined, although some might argue that I am "soft, tender, and submissive"-- but only under the right circumstances. One friend, trying to reconcile my very assertive presence with my femme drag, called me a transvestite butch! I do not fit anyone's stereotype of a feminine woman, any more than I fit anyone's stereotype of a dyke.

A few years ago, I bought a pai of warm winter boots. I worked in an agency where all the women wore heavy femme drag, and even if I hadn't been out, my differentness was apparent. I wasn't sure if the agency would even let me wear boots to work. I walked into my office, and two male co-workers immediately began playfully whistling. "Ooh,new boots -- how butch," they teased me. Later that evening, I met my lover and another friend, both butch identified. They too teased: "Ooh, new boots -- how femmy," they said. And I suppose that's what being a femme-dyke means. The boys think I'm butch, and the girls think I'm femme. End image description.]

There are a million ways to be femme, and I want to be ecstatically clear when I say that many femmes, especially Black femmes, Indigenous femmes, South Asian femmes, other femmes of color, Jewish femmes (as you can see above), disabled femmes, and tma femmes, have been practicing femininity that wasn't deemed "feminine enough" for ages. they are still femmes, and are sometimes in fact, some of the best femme role models you could hope for!

Also, thank you for your kindness towards butches and the issues we've been having, lately and forever. I hope that this answer can help you feel more recognized and appreciated in your community as well.

#anon #ask #i will be going kind of inactive for pretty much the rest of the day bc i have a life but like. i want to leave on a high note ! #i love femmes with all my heart <3 <3 <3 #mine

[steg5rr]

I agree to other everything you say about tlt fandom and appreciate that I’m not the only one who feels that way, but have you seen the state of arcane fandom? they genuinely can not comprehend a lesbian relationship lol

Omg, I was talking about this in a comment section of another post. It's so bloody tiring. I've stopped interacting with the mainstream fandom because soooo many TRA's unironically think it's acceptable to draw/write Vi with double mastectomy scars and male facial hair and think it's NORMAL.

Not only are they coming for and erasing a strong, female, masculine character and applying harmful unnecessary labels - They're also, again, denouncing homosexual relationships. Ofc the one time we have a well-written butch/femme lesbian couple we need to drug up the more masc one and cut her tits off. It's completely asinine and quite frankly homophobic. But a lot of people aren't ready for that conversation 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Giving a lesbian fake gender dysphoria, turning her into a poor mock-up of a male and shipping her with a female is as progressive as you can get these days apparently

#gender critical #lgb drop the t

[eemamminy-art]

4 3 and 13 :3c

One of the best takes you’ve ever seen

This was I think in a DM conversation or it might have been mentioned on twitter too idk but a mutual of mine told me once how estimeric has so much appeal with wlw because they fit SO well into classic butch/femme architypes. Estinien is brusque and has a very rough outward demeanor but on the inside is loyal with a very big heart. Meanwhile, Aymeric has the quiet steady strength that holds them both together and comes across as generally a lot softer and more accommodating although he is just as strong of will as Estinien, if not more so.

Putting it into that perspective really nailed why the ship has been so meaningful to me, and especially why I've been so inspired to write about them as a butch/femme couple too! I'm sure there are many reasons for why people like the ship, but I think my friend was onto something when they told me that :3

Apparently I wrote about it at the time also? I think about it often!!

Link to a great meta you’ve read

I don't know that I really read a lot of meta but one I reblogged recently about garleans was interesting! x

I also liked this post about Zenos a lot but warning it has spoilers for the end of 6.0! x

Recommend a fic (can be your own!) that features something you wish was written about more

I will recommend two! Which are both my own but admittedly, I don't read much fic because of my comprehension and sensory issues, so I apologize if it comes off a little self centered lol and also apologies to the person who sent me the ask because both of these are ahead of where you are in msq unfortunately!

First one is "Just Listen", which I wrote for estimeric week last year, which is more or less about how poorly adjusted Estinien and Aymeric are to life after the Dragonsong War and how they are both really struggling to take care of themselves. I would love to see those more humanizing elements in more fics! Not just for this ship but any really! I like to think about how their experiences have maybe done some damage to their mental health and their physical health, and how surviving a war neither of them thought they'd live through is its own sort of trauma. And also just, codependent messy relationships that aren't labeled as toxic or doomed to fail would also be nice to see more of, which is how I tend to ship estimeric usually!

The second is "Last Words", which I wrote as some catharsis for my own relationship with my late parents and my grief for them, and how that affects my familial relationships now. It's about Fourchenault struggling with the unspoken issues he'd had with his father and how he's now torn between doing what he feels is right and being closer to his children. I think there aren't a lot of works that show him in a favorable light and I would love to see that more. To show that he is complex and has his own sets of issues that led him to the point of doing the things he did, instead of just portraying him as a punching bag or the butt of the joke like I see in most works that involve him. He's a controversial character for sure but I think that's what makes him interesting!

#ask meme answers #asks to spread love meme #these were such thoughtful questions omg it took me a while to think of how to answer!!

[mademoiselle-red]

Hi there, so, for Laluna's ask game, I want to know the answers to 5, 14, 15, 16, 24 if you care to answer!!

5 Where did Ralph really go that one time he went to make a phone call?

Answered here.

14 The Phaedrus: wtf?

This is a topic I've written a bit about in the past. I wrote a fic that expounds a bit on how I read The Phaedrus as a Ralph-substitute and Ralph-fantasy that Laurie eventually must let go in order accept himself and Ralph for who they are. I also created a post a while ago in which I constructed a The Charioteer / Maurice dialogue by juxtaposing quotes about The Phaedrus & Platonic Love from the two novels, as if they were speaking to each other. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the social/gender roles presented in The Phaedrus and how Laurie struggles to translate them into his relationship with Ralph. 

The Phaedrus posits that love between men can and should be cultivated as a means to achieving spiritual transcendence. The premise of the argument is that physical erotic love corrupts the soul, and should be avoided, by redirecting that love towards a shared love of the mind, of philosophy, which is the love of knowledge. The speech then outlines the kind of relationship ideal for forming this love of knowledge: an older lover who mentors a younger beloved. 

In The Phaedrus, “lover” and “beloved” are social roles with a certain set of culturally-inscribed behavioral and aesthetic expectations. The lover is supposed to be older, wiser, and passionately in love with the beloved’s physical beauty, but restrains himself from acting on his erotic desire, and instead channels his passion towards guiding the beloved in matters of philosophy. The beloved is supposed to be younger, physically beautiful, and in love with the passion for knowledge and virtue that his lover inspires. In this model, the beloved reflects the lover’s passion back at him (implying that passion for the lover does not originate from within the beloved himself), and in mirroring his lover, he loves him, but thinks it is friendship, because his love is a love of virtue and philosophy, not a love of physical beauty.  

I find it a bit similar in some ways to “femme” and butch” social/gender identities in lesbian culture, in that there are a set of traits typically associated with each role (butch = masculine, femme = feminine), but these associations feel limiting when people are expected to conform to them 100% of the time, and are quite harmful when applied to relationship dynamics (such as expecting butches to always “take the lead” because they are masculine-presenting). 

Plato's idea of love between men as a means to loving philosophy & civic virtue also mirrors the idea of love between men and women as a means to procreation, or love between women as a means to feminist liberation. Love can facilitate all of these goals, but the expectation that love must facilitate these goals, and the idea that these goals are the only legitimate reason to love leads to a lot of human misery.

On the limitations of Plato’s model of love, the roman skeptic Cicero commented: 

"For what is that friendly love? Why does no one love a deformed youth or a comely old man?"--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iv. 33.

The question observes that men who do not fit into the lover/beloved roles have no place in this model of love. Similarly, The Charioteer also questions the usefulness of the Platonic model for a gay man in a world without institutionalized pederasty.

From the outset, Laurie’s love for Ralph fails to conform to the platonic model. He is a young man drawn to the physical beauty of a comely older man. The beloved, like the sexless Victorian woman, is assumed to possess no sexual desire of his own, which is why his passion is supposed to be a reflection of the lover’s passion, and his acceptance of the lover’s erotic desires is supposed to be motivated by compassion. However, Laurie's love for Ralph is physical as well as intellectual and emotional, he is moved by both compassion and lust, admiration and protectiveness.

Laurie notices early during his reunion with Ralph that he cannot and does not want to fit into the role of a beloved, but finds it even more impossible for him to imagine being Ralph’s older and wiser lover. Even Bunny had the good fortune (from Laurie’s POV) of being able to be Ralph’s teacher for a bit. Bunny can be Ralph’s lover, because he can teach him things he didn’t know, while Laurie has nothing to teach.

Since he cannot be Ralph's lover or beloved, Laurie wants to be Ralph’s equal, but his only guide to a morally acceptable gay relationship depicts an unequal relationship as the spiritual ideal. And zooming out of Plato for a moment, there is no “map” to an equal relationship to be found anywhere in Laurie’s life: he lives in a society where women are still expected to be submissive to men in marriage.  

Having no role that suits him, Laurie flips between being the beloved and the lover in his relationship with Ralph. He wants to blame Ralph for “inspiring” his love, which puts him in the role of the beloved, but he also wants to take responsibility for his love, which would make him a lover, but Ralph does not seem to rely on him for anything.

The Phaedrus brought Laurie comfort and hope when he started out on his journey to self discovery, but its outdated instructions for a relationship are no longer useful. The rigid roles of lover vs beloved that Laurie unconsciously tries to adopt in turn fail to satisfy his need to love and be loved, to know and be known, to admire and be admired, to help and be helped.

15 At which point did you know TC was going to be One Of Those Books for you?

Answered here.

16 Missing scene you're most curious about.

Answered here.

24 Most surprisingly modern aspect of TC.

Ralph and Laurie feeling alienated from the queer party and hookup culture and wanting to settle down in a conventional middle class life is something that resonates with a large part of contemporary queer culture. The desire for marriage and domesticity as means of assimilating in mainstream society was a major impetus for marriage equality movements around the world!

Another (unsurprisingly) modern aspect of TC is the depiction of misogyny in queer spaces. It has sadly not gone away. 

#the charioteer

[slutnali]

Answer two of the wips asks you haven’t done yet

oo ty bestie 💜✨ [sorry this is a lil late]

🌀Post the fic summary for a fic you haven't written/published yet. It can be hypothetical or something you really plan on releasing...

This is something I've been working on for years on and off because it's one of those types that I just have so much love for and so many HC's and things I want to do. I actually have an outline of it and it's very much slice of life throughout Denali and Rosé's relationship. The series is called Best Part named after the song by H.E.R and Daniel Ceasar and each update will be named after a love song [haven't decided what to name the first one though rip]

Denali just bought her own space to open up her bakery. She meets contractor/handywoman Rosé at the hardware store [h*me dep*t] and they get to talking ofc in which Rosie agrees to take a look at the state of the bakery and eventually agrees to help with renovations

This series is very much my baby and there's themes about growing up Latina and the expectations put on by your family to be a woman of the house and tend to the men.. themes of some challenges/discomfort masc lesbians face, acts of service as a love language, food & cooking as a love language, the beauty of femme x masc/butch relationships [disclaimer: all types of lesbian relationships are valid‼️ for this fic series i just wanted to explore a different type of dynamic? if thats the right word? for these two bc theyre usually written femme x femme in most, if not all lesbian fics]

Its just so warm and full of love, like a freshly baked loaf of sweet bread

also features Jan as Rosé's younger sister who is an interior decorator, their cousin Lemon as Jan's assistant, Lagoona as Jan's partner and childhood bff to rosie, ex chocolatier Priyanka who quit her job to work with Nali and cake/cookie decorator Willow. maybe more to come but i doubt it

❄️Share a snippet from a WIP of your choosing.

By the time they’d dropped off the sweets a very hormonal Jan had been craving, it’d been dark out and neither wanted to attempt showing up to a restaurant knowing it’d still be full to the brim with patrons waiting to be seated and stressed waiters running about. 

So they opt for grabbing pizza and heading to Denali’s place instead with Rosé promising she’d take her on an actual date next time.

Next time.

The promise rings in Denali’s ears and she has to hold back the cheeky smile that threatens to form across glossed lips. Whether Rosé was confident this would go well or not, neither could be sure, but it’d be a lie if she said she didn’t admire her confidence and eagerness in wanting to spend more time with her.

“What’re you thinking about?”

With a (somewhat sheepish) shake of her head in response, Denali says, “Just happy they fixed the elevator.”

#rosenali #wip game #bakernali au #answered #this snippet is unedited but idec

[sapphicunicorn]

I've been gone forever!!!

Did you think I was putting the final touches on my writing and getting published? Because that's what I wish my absence was about! Instead, I was getting swallowed by college life (not parties or friendship, just the immense amount of work involved). Holding a 4.0 at the advanced age of 31 is NOT easy. This brain does NOT work anymore! Not to mention, I've been struggling with brain fog and exhaustion and just a general lack of interest in life or hobbies (but still on antidepressants). So while I've been gone, the only "original" writing that I've gotten done are flash pieces with old prompts from @flashfictionfridayofficial set in the Monster Hunter world. It's been a great way to kind of doodle every day or so. They're not amazing or well-written, but at least I'm still writing!

If you're a fan of lesbians, butch/femme couples, unhealthy relationships, friends to lovers to enemies to maybe friends with benefits, and just Monster Hunter goodness, then you might be interested in my gals. You can check it out on Ao3 here, or if I get the energy, I might start posting them on Tumblr.

Otherwise, school never ends. Reading for fun is impossible when you're neck-deep in literature courses, but I managed a few books recently. We'll see if school allows me to read anything fun this year, but my schedule is still just as crazy as ever. Maybe I'll get some cute pics of my boring books to share this year... and actually stay active on Tumblr again!

#personal whining #what even are my tags anymore?? #lesbian fanfic #monster hunter fanfic

[blood-starved-beast]

Redemption arc squad for the bingo (Acxa/Farnese/Zuko/Riven/etc)

Redemption Arc squad yes (Did not include Zethrid and Ezor cause redemption - for what? Doing hot girl shit?) To start, here's the original so people have ease of access to see.

Send me more asks if you'd like me to say more.

First, Acxa

Unsurprisingly, she's the one who gets the bingo. Excluding a few others in the fandom, people get her wrong like the amount of parentfication she gets in the fandom is frankly insane why can't fandom be normal about her (saying this, as I proceed to not be normal about her). Her arc is great, and one of the few in vld that made sense, surprisingly enough. Only reason I don't give her the best is cause Haggar/Honerva is there. Of course saying so would be hitting the wasp's nest. She definitely should've gotten more screentime, and they wasted the fact that she worked with Haggar in s8 especially. Keith knew she was with Haggar in the Kral Zera no one bothered to ask her anything??? We should've gotten a backstory flashback in act 2 in my opinion. The way she went around backstabbing people like 10 times but you know she wasn't planning this shit out is the funniest thing what is wrong with her indeed.

Next, Zuko

Zuko, I don't have much opinions about as he was written very good and I'm pretty much satisfied with how the writers went about him. I'd say he gets top spot in Atla for best writing cause Aang's near perfect arc was messed up with the dumb thing to have his avatar state reopened by some random rock. Especially when the world building established that it was an emotional-psychological-spiritual thing. In that sense, Zuko was consistently the best. Zuko's most popular pairings suck and I almost forgot to put this cause my atla fandom experience was literally ten years ago but then I remembered zukk@. Zut@ra I never liked which is rich coming from me who likes friggin Rivelia but my excuse is that my fandom experience was shaped by exposure to that friggin ship war from way back then and that spoiled a lot for me. Katara deserves better and she's not a fixer, at least, not for Zuko she would. Fandom woobification besides that, annoys me especially when he can get all toxic masculinity sometimes (this was a thing established at the Beach ep). His arc is one that I'm always referencing so you could say I'm pretty obsessed with it. If you'd ask me about him 8 years ago I feel like I'd say more but I'm long overdue for an atla rewatch so I'd have to refresh.

Now Farnese

Farnese has one of the more interesting arcs in media I've seen recently. She's a bitch with little freudian excuse and does a lot of horrific things to boot. And YET her redemption arc is so so good Miura was a master at his craft Rest in Peace. I think she'd benefit more from screentime but this is just me wanting a good Berserk adaption post golden age. Her best character work is when she works with Casca and Schierke imho.

Finally, Riven

Riven I love a lot but she hasn't reached Meow-Meow stage to get the bingo (for League, that award I think, would go to Irelia). Her fandom reception is weird though, but that depends on who you look to. The cismale fans are really gross with her, and the friggin battle bunny skin is atrocious. The original that is. Which was a fan-inspired skin by the way. That and her popularity among this cohort really messed with her characterization, even in the writers room cause I'd feel like she should be Butch, but cause of it has since seen a more femme-mization in her splashart and other media. As with most non-arcane characters she needs more lore. I'd like to see a Zelda styled game for example, where she tries to atone for her war crimes in Ionia by helping people etc. Besides that I could see her working with Rell, Irelia, others. Sentinels of Light did her so dirty worse than Irelia for sure (maybe not as bad as Pyke or Rengar, but still). There were so many ways to handle that but they did her and Irelia's arc in the most superficial way that I'm dog-bites-cage-rail.jpg all about how it could've been done better. Btw, her popular ships suck cause they are with Yasuo, who I don't really like, and *shudders* Zac. Rivelia is next on the list after that but I do like that, but I have ~ issues ~ with how it was handled but also most fandom content for it is not my cup of tea at all (WHERE IS THE SPICE???).

Thanks for the ask Cat!

For everyone else, here is the original post.

#Acxa #Prince Zuko #Farnese #Riven Konte #vld #atla #Berserk #League of legends #character ask bingo #d asks

[blacksurvivalnostalgichanges]

What are some ships that you like in bs? I feel like ships are weirdly divisive in the fandom so I like hearing other people opinions

funny you say that since recently i whooshed a tumblr post away because it was shipping camilo and chiara and that felt So Wrong

i guess since i've mentioned it i might as well say it. i like chiara and emma because of the pass. i like this sort of cute hurt comfort stuff. very achillean also. and i like camilo and daniel but in this sort of "they would ruin each other" way, almost ironically

between the manhwa trio i've always liked isol and hyunwoo. i think it's just so interesting. it's like they're mirrors but also contrasts. if they just let the other in they'd make each other better. red and blue also, bears noting, isol's eyes are blue, it counts as red and blue

i respect shipping hyejin with either of them, but it's not my thing though

that's the main one i like, some other assorted ones are nicky and eleven (it's so cute. it's adorable. sickeningly cute, i think), lenox and barbara (if you've read lenox's q&a you get it. they're hilarious together also), fiora and jenny (it's very very obvious. butch lesbian and femme lesbian. i am not immune to cliches), and sua and dailin (all vibes. it's completely vibes)

there's some that i've written quotes for but am not passionate about or stopped caring about, i guess i should mention it. mainly natha and arda lately, i'm ambivalent. i've shipped arda with shoichi but mainly for laughs. i liked dan and magnus because wide and long and i still think them talking would be extremely funny but i don't ship it anymore

on the other side of the scale, i very subjectively hate it when people ship yuki with rio because i hate it. lore sort of proves me right since it seems that their personalities make them not actually get along, but it does not matter, even if lore said they were perfect for each other i'd hate it

#answering asks #wouldnt it suck if this anon was that exact guy #i am not sorry. i can only imagine shipping that for aesthetics. they would make each other worse #i don't even want to make it about shipping those two with other people i just strongly dislike that one #i don't even get it in the way i'd ship camilo with daniel as mentioned because why would you want to make #chiara suffer? daniel did a lot of shit just BECAUSE. him suffering is alright nay hilarious #chiara only did bad shit because she was dealt the worst life possible #it's like faulting isol for his guerrila backstory. he had very little choice

[arielmagicesi]

can’t wait until two-three years from now when the thought of my “WWDITS phase” makes me want to crawl into a hole and turn into an earthworm, like my “TRC phase” does now. but until then I’m having fun

#at least i'm not cyberbullying a ya author anymore. christ #or calling people homophobic for not giving a shit about some inconsequential detail of fictional bullshit #or whatever else i did when i was 19 that i've blocked from my memory #my other post-high-school great obsession was she ra and that's a whole other can of worms #at least i'm not prefacing every statement i make with 'i know that some people might consider that this could potentially be problematic' #and then the statement is like 'i think scorpia is butch' #and people thought it was problematic because she wore a dress once and therefore she's a femme appropriating butch culture? #seriously fucking kill me #what am i gonna look back on from now and want to walk into the ocean about... #written by me

[olderthannetfic]

I wanted to ask you about radical feminism (TERF-ism & TIRF-ism). Radical feminism never seemed to be *necessarily* some of the really bad things that people on this blog say it is. For instance, everything roach-works says it is in an earlier post. There are at least some people I've read who are part of the movement of radical feminism (whether or not they would self-identify as that) and who really don't espouse any of the views in roach-works comments. (1/2) Thinking of the list of points

--

From nothorses - the people I’ve read (e.g. Iris Marion Young) *do* espouse many of these, but not so in a way that has to lead to these more extreme views that roach-works mentioned. One may not agree with them but they don’t seem so bad to me? Are they? Am I a terrible person? It disturbs me to hear something with the word 'feminism' in it denigrated so harshly, and it always seems to me like the views get mixed up with the worst half of the people who believe in them. (2/2)

(Appendix...) I feel there's a lot of truth in SOME of the views that nothorses correctly ascribes (i. m. o.) to radical feminists, in particular: "Women are all miserable with their bodies, cursed with the pressure to reproduce and have sex with men. ... miserable with their genders, forced as they are to ensure the overwhelming and constant suffering that is patriarchy." Is it just that the "all" makes the views too strong? Or is there, for critics, a more fundamental problem I'm missing?

I've seen some much nicer, saner people self-describe as radical feminists and object strenuously to how I see radfems... However, all of them still kept talking about porn in terms that only make sense if you're talking about the evils of the mainstream industry, and moreso the mainstream industry of the 1970s (which is when a lot of this rhetoric comes from). And yet this attitude gets over-applied to porn in general, regardless of medium, working conditions, or level of economic necessity involved in its creation.

The attitudes I think are pretty much universal in this ideology, and universally shitty, come out when they're confronted with fsub content by and for women.

Yeah, yeah, "mommy porn". I'm not saying Fifty Shades of Grey is well written or not kind of embarrassing, but when people start bleating about how confused womenfolk will get bad ideas from it, you should be suspicious, whether they're radfems or fundies.

"The hot billionaire falls in love with me for no reason and does all the work to make sex hot while I lie there like a dead fish" is a common fantasy. It really doesn't say anything about the woman in question, nor does it make the patriarchy stronger.

The big one to look for from nothorses list is #5:

Sex, in particular, is more often exploitative than not. Only some kinds of sex are not exploitative. Many kinds of sex that we think are consensual, or that people say are consensual, are either rape or proto-rape.

This is saying "BDSM is rape", which is something that most radfems do think once you scratch the surface. Rape roleplay is also rape and furthering the patriarchy.

Even if they make some small allowance for informed adults doing BDSM in some strict environment with specific rules, show them 50SoG and women's right to choose goes out the window. Sure, the relationship in the book looks pretty unhealthy, at least at the beginning, but the thing being criticized is readers' right to choose.

Even the radfems who support butchness and don't think butch women are gender traitors will usually be assholes over trashy wank material like 50SoG.

And once you open the door to "your libido is political", you've started down a very dark road that leads to a bunch of naturally kinky tumblr teens sitting in their bedrooms, staring at their computer screens, and wondering if they're a future rapist because they like a/b/o or sex pollen or something.

--

I get where you're coming from. Maybe you're in a context where most women are pretty miserable. But I'm not. I was raised by a mother who thought diets were stupid and telling your daughter what you think of her body is active child abuse.

Being a victim of abuse, including "you're too fat" type abuse, is neither inherent nor unique to women. Sure, women tend to be under the microscope, but so are lots of people.

As an upper middle class anglo white woman in the US and moreover as a woman who looks fairly conventionally femme even with my very hairy legs (much to my annoyance), I honestly don't experience that much policing. I already, through no fault and certainly no merit of my own, conform reasonably well to the "neutral" standard of white womanhood. My male equivalent would be the most unmarked in the US, but I'm only a little marked.

What this gender-obsessed analysis misses is that it's not about womanhood: it's about failing to be the "neutral" default. Poor people fail. Black people fail. Asian people fail. Disabled people fail. At least in the US. In Japan, third generation Korean-Japanese fail. Burakumin fail despite being ethnically Japanese due to having been a separate caste for centuries.

"Intersectionality" on social media tends to get used as miserypoker: the speaker with the most listed oppressions wins the argument and you should signal boost them or you're a bad person.

In actuality, what intersectionality means is recognizing that gender and sex may sometimes just not be very important in a given person's life if they experience enough privilege or if, conversely, they have such a profound lack of privilege elsewhere that this other identity overshadows gender in terms of their lived experience.

Radfem ideology says I must prioritize Woman out of my many identities. But, in reality, I feel more kinship with bisexual men than with lesbian women. I feel more kinship with kinky straight people than with bisexuals who want AO3 and pride parades to be nothing but g-rated hand holding.

--

I get that it's upsetting for people to be railing against something called "feminism", but that's like saying that disliking the Jews for Jesus makes you antisemitic. The whole point is that a lot of people feel that radical feminism is pretty anti-woman in many of its core values.

I don't think you're a bad person. I do think that some of the underpinnings of radfem ideology lead directly to sensitive people who are concerned about such things wondering if they are.