#2) NOT EVERYTHING IS GAY. just bc youre a woman that wants two men to be uwu in love .. doesnt mean that they are.

[detectivechandler]

why write chandler if you hate his canon relationship?

canon relationship - ? i ... buddy, timon and pumba are more canon than fucking joe and kent

[jemmo]

in your last reply you said something about pat that made me want to appreciate a subtext in writing in his character. the fact he doesn't dwell on his love for pran (a man) not with himself even as an idea before a spoken word. why is it good and the only way i actually saw it happening? because in earlier episodes he'd joke around pran about "make me your boyfriend" "let's say we're boyfriends" and other times pretty often those words later on if the character is in a crisis over loving a man and acting hostile and all about it, makes you think, so when they said this before what did it feel like? i only mean to say that it was good to see that acceptance of self, the openness, how when you look back at what he said you can see those two feelings in these jokes at the time or were they ever?

and that again drives me to the 3nd of ep4, "if you were her, would you like me?" it was never a question of impossibility. not a gender impossibility. it was not "if you were a woman" it was truly a just "if you were ink, the person", would that be more heartbreaking or less to pran if he understood it at the time?

i don't know if this makes sense even but it just is beautiful to me.

anon you make perfect sense and this is such a perfect addition to everything i said about this before!!!! i didnt even think about this at the time but it really does apply and fits so perfectly

bc as you said, he so commonly around pran makes jokes about being his boyfriend. and yes you can read into this as him subconsciously knowing his feelings before the big ep 5 oh moment, but apart from that it really does speak to just how comfortable he is with that idea, how simply normal it is in his head. never when he says those lines is it with a tone like 'lol imagine if we were boyfriends how gay would that be lol'. instead those lines show us that he is completely fine with the idea of 2 men being in a romantic relationship, comfortable enough that he can play flirt with another man about being his boyfriend. and its not even like by saying that, it makes him gay, or even bi. saying those lines are not a statement on his sexuality, theyre a statement on seeing a homosexual relationship as a normal, exactly the same as any other relationship. which is really, truly perfect setup for how he doesnt get hung up on liking a man, bc its already been established that he's absolutely fine with it. he was fine with it as a concept in the world around him and now he's just as fine with it applying to him, being a part of him, who he is. he truly isnt changed bc he realizes he likes a man bc there's no reason for that to change him. he is still the same pat we've always known, he's just a bit gay now.

and i love what you said about that ink question, bc it says a lot about the message the show is conveying that i never saw that question as 'if you were a woman would you like me'. im not gonna say bad buddy is like this genderless show where gender doesnt matter, bc some characters are very clearly homosexual, its not just a bi party for everyone. but i think in terms of the romances presented, it is so much more about falling in love with a person more than falling in love with a gender. and not in that classic BL 'im not gay i only like him' way no no, not at all, p'aof would never. its more that when these characters are looking at the people they love, gender is a part of it but its not the first thing they see. they see all those details and traits that make them fall for that person. and you can see how gender still plays a role bc for pat and pran, i feel like there's things they like about each other that are very much based on them being men. take pat's thing for smell for instance. im not saying men magically, inherently smell masculine, but at the same time you cant tell me pat likes how pran smells bc he uses a really nice brand of detergent. its probably a mix of everything that is so uniquely pran, and a part of that is the smell of his sweat, the saltiness on his skin. idk how else to describe it it just strikes me as a thing that is very masculine, a thing that you would find attractive about a man, the fact he smells like a man.

im kinda getting lost here but really, what i want to say is that i love how gender is neither an issue or a non-issue. it just exists, its a part of everyone, and it doesnt matter but also matters at the same time yknow. i dont know how else to describe it but i just love it bc this is very much my view of the world too. you cant erase gender entirely bc it is an integral part of us as humans, and yet it doesnt define us. we are so much more. and bad buddy encapsulates that for me perfectly.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

Which kind of het quality stuff are you craving??? In the far off possibility I may have a rec for you. Which I doubt bc quality het is difficult to find but hey, if I can help a fellow bi...

Sure thing! I am, as I said, idiosyncratic in my tastes, so I won't necessarily like something that meets these qualifications (and I might end up liking something that doesn't, or that fits tropes that usually annoy me, because we all contain multitudes and whatnot).

Also, I am curious about your rec, so feel free to send it on even if it doesn't perfectly match what I've said here.

But there are really two main frustrations that I can work out with how m/f stuff often pans out onscreen:

Frustration #1: The guy isn't appealing?

Okay, that's pretty vague and subjective, but what I mean here is that a lot of m/f relationships unfold in media in a way that centers the woman's motivations to be in the relationship on her self-worth - it's less that she desires the man than that she's invested in him desiring her. I always just end up thinking, "but are you even physically attracted to this guy??"

I think I posted about this awhile ago, but I honestly primarily associate men being presented as attractive, their bodies being presented to the viewer as something beautiful and sexy to look at, in queer media (i.e. stuff by, for, and/or about gay men). And it's something I really like about danmei! But I would like to transfer some of that energy into het media. The guy doesn't have to be attractive to me, personally (although obviously it hits better if he is) but I would like some indication that the woman really wants to jump his bones. Give us some cross-directional sexual tension.

Frustration #2: Everything needs to move up the relationship escalator

Granted, this is also a frustration I have with a lot of queer media - man, I could (and probably have) go on and on about that - but there's always the expectation with stories with prominent m/f stuff that that relationship is or should be progressing towards marriage, cohabitation, children, etc. Whereas, my first association with m/f stuff that appeals to me is relationship dynamics that don't follow that mold at all.

For some Lore, when I was a teenager, my dream relationship was one in which we would live on separate continents, exchange passionate and intimate letters containing poetry and art, visit each other regularly, and always be very important to each other - like, "~you're the only one who really understands me~" type of importance - but we wouldn't be part of each others' lives on a day-to-day basis, or function socially as a "couple". And that's the sort of thing I'd really like to see - decoupling relationship dynamics from "the couple" as a social unit. I want people who have a very intimate and unique dynamic together, and who have and continue to influence each other in profound ways, but who aren't interested in marrying, or who used to date but aren't officially dating but still sleep together regularly, that sort of thing.

Or, conversely, I want people who do live together or function socially as a couple, but who have no desire to get married or have children, or generally fit their relationship into an acceptable institutional mold. In historical fantasy-ish settings (which is mainly what I'm thinking of in this entire post, because that's where most of my fandom energy is right now, but this could apply to other genres and settings too) I usually imagine couples who hang out in very socially progressive, radical circles, and whose relationships would be considered kind of transgressive and scandalous by wider society due to not being married.

That said, I'm also not against arranged marriages either - I think people who are put together for more strategic and political purposes, but who come to feel some kind of love for each other or develop and enjoyable sexual dynamic, can make for a really interesting type of story. I'd just like more stuff that doesn't follow the typical trajectory of "falling in love --> marriage".

So, those are broadly the kinds of things I'd like to see less of in m/f stuff. In terms of what I'm craving right now, I'd say what I outline here pretty much encompasses most of it - though I will also say that I'd like the two people in question to be more or less equals. Whether it's in intellect or fighting skills or whatnot, I would like them to be able to match each other - they don't have to have exactly the same talents, but I would like them to push and challenge each other in some way. And I'd like there to be a little tension or even antagonism (I do love my rivalmances), rather than purely fluff.

[lochnessies]

ok here’s a dissection of a post an anon sent me the link to and bc i have the worst time management possible and i completely forgot i had it lol so sorry anon here you go ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

I am constantly thinking about how Edelgard just doesn’t seem designed to appeal to cishet men.

i hate to be the one to break this news to you op but just because a character doesn’t show skin like charlotte fire emblem doesn’t mean she isn’t designed to pander to men. she’s very much designed to pander to the (majority straight male) player base with her ‘uwu i only trust you professor omg did u see that rat? pls don’t look at my painting of you uwu’.

then there’s the whole edelgard c support in japanese where byleth makes reference to having come to her room for ‘yobi’ which is

there’s also the scene where byleth can make an unsolicited comment about edelgard’s breast size. which is… uhh… gross.

edelgard also has cipher cards that go from slightly fanserviceie to full on suggestive

and also her breast armor that my sister relentlessly mocked lol

and here’s a chart from the 3h subreddit about gender/sexually in regards to edelgard and edeleth. it’s extremely straight male. op might have just overlooked this since they probably don’t go on reddit and stay on tumblr (which unlike reddit is mostly female and has a high lgbt demographic).

Like the joke is that Bleagles is the Gay House, but everything about her feels deliberately non-hetero.

i don’t like where this is going…

She’s dressed in sharp outfits covering her upper body, with proportions that don’t seem exaggerated.

so women who cover up must be lgbt because straight women are naturally more revealing? oh y i k e s

Her poise and the way she effortlessly flourishes her axe exhibits an air of coolness. While titties out =/= character of no substance, Edelgard being dressed more modestly suggests that she wasn’t designed with male-centred fanservice in mind.

“titties don’t equal no substance but here’s my post on how she has more substance because she doesn’t show titties” ok

And she still looks absolutely stunning in her more modest attire (like seriously, I haven’t felt the need to return to cosplay in years but I want to do her academy look so bad). 

yes she does. amazing design 10/10. i have a feeling this is the only part i’m going to agree with

Edelgard is intense. She does not mince her words and she is constantly evaluating you. Though she tries, she has a difficult time understanding her peers initially. Early on, she talks about how she would sacrifice herself and others in the name of some greater good. She is terrible at communicating with her peers. She has to be seen as infallible. Her heart has been hardened for years and she assumes she has to stay that way. She also assumes everyone mourns the same way she does - which is why she (kind of insensitively) insists you move on when Jeralt dies. Because to her, grief has to be channeled towards action, or else you’ll get lost in it. This attitude is demonstrated time and time again as she presses on. It can make her come off as cold and unfeeling - but look closer, and she’s anything but.

don’t really have anything to say at this part. it is pretty on the nose though i would slightly disagree with that last sentence a bit. i wouldn’t say she’s as i feeling as hubert is but all of her talks of the war boil down to how she feels and never her victims.

Her story is ultimately about her realizing that to achieve her goals, she needs to let people in and allow herself to want things like cakes and tea parties and lazy days in peace. 

????? what ????? her goals include imperialism, ethnic and religious targeting. her story is about having a set of beliefs and mowing down anybody who stands in her way. that has nothing to do with tea, friends, and lazy days. also am i supposed to be sad that she has to get up everyday and work? i do that and i didn’t start a war and only throw a pity party for myself

The game leaves the player guessing as to how involved the Flame Emperor was in each Part I event, makes you feel hurt by her betrayal, and leaves you with a choice: do you follow the orders of the woman who tried to make you a god without your consent, or a young girl with questionable morals about to throw the world into upheaval?

this isn’t an ideal situation but i think i’m going to stick with the woman who tried to make me a god since i’m not selfish and i know it’s not only my desires and life at stake here. plus the green hair slaps ngl

Choosing her of your own volition (not for completionist reasons) requires the basic ability to sympathize with a woman’s pain. It also requires the player to read beyond her unwavering will and dubious methods to get a sense of how deep that pain goes and how the theme of humanity relates to her differently in each route.

i’m not going to touch this since @nilsh13 made a post on it that i’ll link here. i agree with everything he said so to repeat it would be redundant.

The player must be able to see a young woman’s desperate resolve to change the world so it stops exploiting people and ruining lives. They must be able to accept the fact that women can make the same morally wrong and ambivalent decisions that complicated male characters get to make all the time and still be the one to root for.

literally the same reason i love rhea lol her goddess experiments are dubious at best but her reasons are the same you mentioned. i would say that i like this quality in edelgard too if her ending, while bloody, actually ended in a good outcome for fodlan.

This is not unique to LGBT+ people, but this population is likely to understand why Edelgard feels so strongly about why she has to change the system. 

i understand wanting to change a system, i really do. like edelgard, i’m an opinionated bisexual woman (who’s also physically disabled) so yeah i get it. and change can be good but it can also be terrible. even if the church was the boogeyman edelgard treats it as she still replaces it with her own shit regime. so it’s the same circus just with a new conductor.

I don’t think “Edelgard gets undue criticism because she’s a woman” captures the full picture. An important aspect of her treatment by certain parts of the fandom is that she’s a radical woman.

or maybe she does some pretty fucked up shit and it goes unacknowledged in her own route. and yeah she’s radical but in all the worst ways.

Her hatred of the Church and the Crest system resonates way harder with people who have been hurt by institutions that are deeply engrained in our society. 

and what about people who have been hurt by systems where their ‘merit’ didn’t measure up and they were left behind? what about people from nations that experienced imperialism?

Siding with her means siding against the Church - which, while different from real world religious institutions, still invokes language about “sin” and “punishment.

yeah the ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ are used in relation to attempted murders which i think everybody can agree is a bad thing that needs to be condemned.

Choosing Edelgard will likely hit different if homophobic and transphobic Christians used that rhetoric against you.

it has literally nothing to do with ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ in regards to being gay or trans. that’s you projecting. especially since the church has 2 canon gay characters and two coded ones.

like i can understand why having a church condemn you can be uncomfortable but i’m begging you to please look at the context of what’s happening.

I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that the reason F/F Edeleth is the more popular iteration of that ship because most people who would choose to S-support Edelgard are LGBT+ themselves. This is not a revelation. To anyone in the community, it’s fairly obvious. 

i was talking to nilish and he said

so yeah… while there is definitely sapphic femleth shippers out there, there’s still a whole lot of weird fetishizing going on from straight men about edelgard.

Crimson Flower was my first route. I went into the game knowing absolutely nothing. I played it during the last week of 2020 and hoo boy was it cathartic. 

i can tell. this wasn’t supposed to be a dig but it came out that way and i’m not taking it out.

I felt like I was living out a gay revolution power fantasy, where I could truly change systems of oppression while fighting alongside a group of troubled students I’d shaped the lives of.

so a gay revolution power fantasy (cringe) goes hand in hand with imperialism and installing a dictatorship? also the war had nothing to do with sexuality.

Through your unwavering support, Edelgard learns that she needs to be human, that she must listen to her friends, and that she’s allowed to enjoy the world she’s creating.

edelgard gets to learn how to be human all while hunting those who don’t. and she doesn’t listen fo her friends. she doesn’t even trust them. she’s willing to talk to byleth but keep the people who’s been by her side for five years in the dark about everything. and yeah she gets to enjoy her new words since she’s on top. hate to be a commoner under her rule after she burned down my village in her war.

I love this character so much.

clearly. and i honestly don’t care if somebody likes her. i do as well even if my sometimes scathing words can make it seem otherwise.

It has been six months since I first played and I am still analyzing her,

me too. please help me escape i’m losing my mind

because there’s so much depth. Yet so many people fail to see that depth and dismiss her as evil,

i mean, she does some fucked up shit that goes beyond any of the less than desirable actions of the other main characters and does an extremely poor job in trying to make herself seem innocent. i personally don’t think she’s pure evil but i completely understand where the people who say she is are coming from.

because they never had the will to understand complicated women in the first place. 

that’s big talk from somebody who implies that a gay pope is comparable to homophobic and transphobic irl religions and that leads an oppressive regime all because she uses the vague terms of sin and punishments that you have to gay power fantasy your way out of

[thedeviljudges]

not an ask but your post on queerbaiting in response to @quillsandscreens 's post on gahan being headcanon hit the nail on the head! I don't really have a say in the convo bc im straight but my very straight ass could spot the queercoding from MILES away. I was so baffled when some others couldn't see it. It's all there, subtle but very intentionally framed. And had Gaon being a woman, the straights would've shipped the two to the ends of the earth without any change of script.

100% on point. so this is just me rambling here, but i tend to generalize in terms of straights just bc well, they're dominant and think everything is about them most of the time. so that's not to say everyone (like yourself) does not see the relationship within tdj. however, a good majority don't because they get to be blinded to all of the ways they are not negatively impacted by being queer. on top of that, if you're not within those circles of queer communities, there is so much context you miss out on, and that's a whole other level of overlooking.

underrepresented communities build specific context, discussions and language for each other to pick up on. (very poignant example of this is that is a little more mainstream is the fact that many women and their friends have no issue calling each other a bitch, regardless of whether it's out of love or not. but the minute a man calls a woman one.... nope. bc women understand the context in a non-threatening way. men, on the other hand, do not use that shit playfully and even if they try, it's uncomfortable).

so there is a lot of coding that happens with characters bc 1. there are rules/laws in place that prevent it being stated or could actually harm the crew/production/ability to get funded and 2. it's its own song and dance, the ability to create nuanced, subtle gestures and lines to show a character for who they are without uttering a singular word is absolutely incredibly bc of those limitations.

hets are so used to things being explicitly stated. they've never had to read between the lines. it's always handed to them, so no wonder that skillset isn't sharpened. they're under the impression that if it isn't said word for word, it must not exist and the intention was never there to begin with. but it's all about overtones (look at the stuff going down with venom right now and fans vs critics, which tells you a lot).

at the end of the day, people will see what they want to see, and they will fail to ignore context clues in favor of their own biases. and there are those even with queer characters and fans, yes. reading to much into things and stretching out things for a smidge of representation, but the difference there is that we are never given that to begin with. we've always had to find representation, and so that became the code of conduct, especially in conservative societies that are still battling queer rights.

you're absolutely right that if gaon had been a woman, everyone would've eaten it up. i'm still surprised tdj is still as popular as it is, but i know that it'd be significantly moreso if there was straight scenes involved. but thank god we weren't given more bc the entitlement and downright nasty behavior hets displayed with the gaon/soohyun scenes before they all realized she died...... i will never forget that. literally i will never forget how fucking curl and nasty they were because they couldn't let ONE show be for the gays. and the only reason for that is mainly bc of jinyoung and their obsessive need to be a self-insert with their kpop favs.

on top of that, they really did love the gaslight the entire fandom, even here on tumblr, about how wrong we were, how we turn everything gay, and we're misogynistic bc they couldn't take a damn minute to read/find analysis posts. like, i'm genuinely tired of straight people having the monopoly on what they think is right/wrong, and using misogyny and other social justice issues to call us crazy/delusional. maybe if we had openly queer tv and films for us to enjoy, we wouldn't feel the need to create and find context in the content we love and consume.

and just to reiterate in general, not pointing figures at you anon, tdj is NOT queerbaiting. it's queercoding, and fandom really needs to learn the difference.

[manchesterau]

my thoughts after reading my policeman: SPOILERSS of course!! (ignore spelling or grammar mistakes) (this is very ramble-y and not as in depth as it could have been sorrryyy lol, if you want specifics send me an ask after reading this)

okay...so i read the book in 3 days....which....im very proud of myself bc it takes me so long to finish books but that’s not why you are reading this.

im not going to lie to you...i liked the book. i love angst, and this had plenty of it and i liked it. if you like books such as: harry potter, six of crows, red queen, red white and royal blue you will not like this book. i know many people found it boring, which yeah i can see that, but i didn't find it boring at all. but mostly because i love boring books but that's beside the point. 

the book flowed easily, there isn't a bunch of raunchy sex scenes that ive seen people say it has (i...the things ive read idk what book they even read????) and Tom does has backward views on marriage and what it means to be a wife. but he is not overtly sexist or misogynist or abusive, or subvertly those things either. to be frank he's a scared gay man in the 50s trying to not get caught and thrown in jail. that's literally it. (ill go more into detail on him later). but if you want to read this book i recommend you go in knowing that there will be homophobia (the word queer is used as a slur....3 times or 4 but no more than 5), expect outing, expect not supportive characters, and remember to have some compassion (more on this later).

next i want to go into characters: starting with tom, then Marion, then Patrick, and then the other characters. so if you are planning on reading this book or just dont want to be spoiled them....don't read the next bit.

Tom:

I'm going to get this out of the way.........Tom (who we never get to know outside of the two-point of views we are presented with, and who is being played by Harry) is a police officer in the 50s UK. to be frank when the rumors first went around I was mad like a lot of people were, which is funny because when we got those pictures of harry reading the book before all the speculation we were....happy, that he was reading a book about a gay man. now...I don't care honestly. I could call out the hypocrites (i won't) and honestly I'm hypocritical myself. I use to watch shows like svu (if you were to turn it on right now I wouldn't turn it off) and I enjoyed watching svu. I know and have seen a lot of mutuals, people on my dash enjoy cop shows like b99, or who like actors who have played the character of police before. so it would be hypocritical of me to be mad at him (this is just my single black opinion) and then go and turn on svu (which I don't do anymore). 

I'm not saying that no one can be mad, I'm not saying that the anger people have at him playing this role is bad or not needed or valid. all I'm saying is.....is that I don't care. I got angry over this months ago, and all that anger I felt I don't have anymore, and I can't tell you why. Harry is playing an abusive demented husband who traps his wife in a simulation, and then he will play a gay policeman trying not to face persecution..........and that's that. nothing I can say will reach him, he's playing these roles and there is nothing I can do. will I watch them (pirating of course) yes.

anyways let's get back to tom's character (do not use my opinion to silence other black people I will find you....don't do that shit weirdo): tom is......tom?? like I literally was expecting the worst when I read this because of what other people had to say. but as I'm reading him through the eyes of Marion (his wife) and through the eyes of Patrick (his...true love, fuck the 50s I hate the 50s) one word came to mind constantly: scared. Tom is very scared that he will be found out and his life will be ruined. His family knows about him, which is why I think his father (more on him later) pushed him to be in the national service (where he was a cook, which disappointed him). you don't realize his family knows and then his sister says something and then you go 'wait....THEY KNEW???' and then you will go 'oh so that's why-' 

tom does have old fashion views that you would expect of any man at that time (gay or not it's the 50s and gay men are still capable of saying sexist shit). when asked by Patrick if women should still work after having a kid he said no it's the men's job to provide, Marion said she would like to keep working, he said no when they do have a baby (they literally never did, and idk why he thought he could be intimate with her for that long to produce a baby lol). that's....the most sexist thing he said in the whole book (there maybe some small things im forgetting but nothing that really stood out). that's it. I know it's not small and that was a legitimate issue in the 50s but yeah. Just in case you were apprehensive about Tom's character being a raging woman-hater, no,....he just wasn't a true feminist yet (???? I don't know that's like..the most this book says about an issue women were facing at this time). It's still bad what he said (you'll see how Marion justifies it in the book and both Patrick and her don't agree and try and challenge him on his view).

i dont want to go too in depth but it is very obvious from the beginning he has no and i mean ZEROOOO interest in her at all (you can tell when it hits him that he needs a wife and he starts to act a littleee different but it's not romantic at alll). 

i feel like my review on tom is shit but like!! we don't really get to know him without bias from Patrick and Marion. I think Harry will play a wonderful Tom (even tho he doesn't not fit the description for Tom...at all....like at alllll).

To summarize Tom: very scared gay man from the 50s who is trying to do everything he can to not be found out. his family knows, even he knew at a young age, and yes he does quit being a police officer but it doesn't happen as soon as id like but then again he wasn't one for that long if you pay attention to the years.

Marion:

😑 

i just...if yall could see the notes i made on her.....

To summarize Marion: SHE IS LIVING IN LALA LAND, TOM LITERALLY SHOWS HER NO ROMANTIC INTEREST AT ALLL, AND WHEN SHE METS PATRICK FOR THE FIRST TIME SHE FREAKING NOTICES THAT HE'S ALL BLUSH-Y AND SHIT LIKE...GIRL.....

this is a note i wrote that sums up her and tom's relationship (which is more like friends then anything romantic i mean god their honeymoon was horrible and he proposed to her....nvm 😑)

listen...i can't lie and say i didn't feel sorry for her up until the end when she (spoilers: she outs patrick to his employer which ends up with him getting arrested). after that...ive never hated a character more in my fucking LIFEEEE like oh my god i was pissed

all she does is have fantasies about him being romantic with her (holding hands, hugging, etc) and none of them come true...BECAUSE HES GAYYYYYY i really....the author could have done a better job because there were so many damn red flags.

she's fucking annoying and whiny and yeah it sucked to be a woman in the 50s but you literally outed someone your husband was in love with and thought that you could just go back to being married like he's not devastated and instead of telling what you did you stayed unhappy and made your husband thing that at any point they were coming for him too.......*****

Patrick:

PATRICKKKKK

Patrick and tom deserved a fighting fucking chance i hate the fuck 50s fuck you 50s!!!! I absolutely LOVEDDD his pov and seeing Tom through his pov like it was just so damn refreshing seeing the world through his eyes and how he navigates his queerness in the society they live in. (the dichotomy between a proud gay man and a scared maybe proud but fear overrules that (talking about Tom here) gay man).

There was a lot more to say on how gay men were being persecuted at this time than how women were treated in this particular book. There were some little things here and there about what was expected of Marion as a wife and of a girl/woman at that time but it wasn't the focus.

I loved seeing the way Patrick navigated through his world of art and creativity. And how Tom seemed to fit right in with him.

I hate the things the author made Patrick go through (outed, sent to prison, stripped of his job, and later on in the present day he has had 2 strokes in his 70s). it felt a bit much but it's not too distracting (Patricks pov takes place in the past as he writes in his journal). 

Patrick and Julia (more on her later) are my two favorites in the whole book (Tom is third bc he's a very multi-facted character, Marion is not even on the list) and I wish we got a lot more of Patrick's pov.

Other characters!! (speed round bc this is wayyy too long):

Syvlie (Tom's sister): SYVLIEEE IM MAD AT YOUU I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU WHYY WHYYY

Julia: JULIAAAAA QUEEENNN (you'll see why i love her at the end) 

Tom's parents: his father is abusive point-blank. or at least i think he's abusive (verbally). as im writing this i am now realizing that the way Tom's mom reacts to him (sometimes crying) is bc they knew he was gay omg wow.

tom's dad is very much a man's man guy?? Picture a sexist man from the 50s....now picture him with a gay son.....yeah, I'm not surprised Tom went into national service then to the police force. you can tell he didn't want anyone to find out about Tom so he pushed him to do what he thought best and Tom went with it, scared. 

overall: please do not go into this book expected things to be all flowers and rainbows...this is a book about two gay men in the 50s yall.....

there is something to be said about the tragedy that is in a lot of queer stories, I'm more interested in how white these stories are (that's a rant for another time). but I don't mind my policeman, and i think stories like this should be told. because this actually happened (here is a link to em forster's story where the author takes inspiration from, he really had an affair with a policeman!!! who had a wife!!!).

the ending is bittersweet, and i couldn't help but curse for what could have been. Marion could have not outed Patrick (which she instantly regretted), she could have gotten a divorce (she even contemplated it), they could have been more secretive, Julia could have not said what she said. I think Patrick and Tom were sadly doomed from the start, I just wish they had more time together because I loved seeing their love (the little glimpse we got) bloom into something bigger than them.

thank you for reading!! here are random screenshots of my notes as i read this lol enjoy!!

can’t*

[deservedgrace]

Okay. I'm going to try this again.

Christians who put their religion before everything else scare me.

There are many ways to interpret verses. The NIFB has biblical backing just like progressive Christians do.

The easiest interpretation is the one that's laid out. Meaning, the simplest way to interpret "if a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death" (Lev 20:13) is "if two gay men have sex they deserve to be killed".

The simplest way to interpret "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." (1 Tim 2:12) or "For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church." (1 Corin 14:35) or "Wives submit to your husbands" (Eph 5:22, but also in like a million other places) is "men have authority and women are lesser (especially in marriage)".

People have started bringing up context lately bc they know a lot of things in the Bible sound... let's go with unsavory, and they need a way to justify it. Does context matter? Yes. Does everyone care about context if it contradicts what they already believe? Does everyone take the time to look into context? Does everyone even want to know context? Absolutely not.

It's way too easy to slip in the fundamentalist hellhole. If religion rules your life and someone is able to sway you into thinking immoral interpretations are the truth, you're not going to drop your religion. You'll drop your humanity instead.

[colemckenzies]

hi do you think older sitcoms are essential viewing? if so which do you recommend? i tried taking your quiz but i'm ashamed of not knowing any of the older ones hahaha

depends on what ur goal is!!! (i assume this is about the US version rather than britcoms just bc statistically that's more likely lol)

personally i like older sitcoms bc a) i just think they're neat :) and b) sitcom history IS tv history IS media history IS modern history. in the us and uk specifically sitcoms are so integral to the dna of the country, theyve been there since the beginning, they're the POPULAR television they're what everyone watched. even when they aren't 'good' they're just so omnipresent and influential that they affect literally everything else.

i also think it's cool as a litmus test for where the country is on social issues. invariably sitcoms were the first things to talk about stuff like race and sexuality (and not in the bland woke points way of modern shows lmao) because they were ALLOWED to because it was a safe environment bc 1. it's Funny so when the topic makes people uncomfortable they get to do Nervous Laughter and it's not too serious and 2. everything in a sitcom goes back to the status quo at the end of the episode so there's no Threat from these Scary New Concepts because it will be gone by the end. and yeah it means there was a lot of offensive shit sometimes lol but in the context of the time there is surprisingly little 'punching down' humour it's more just ~poltically incorrect~ which is better than pretending things just don't exist in the 70s imo. and again because it's SUCH a bland and popular genre it made a huge difference to Normalising things like shows like will&grace and the cosby show weren't perfect but just having them on as this safe middle class (bc yeah if they were going ~~socially progressive they were almost always middle class to make it palatable lol) concept made the middle class white cishets go wow 😌 guess they aren't evil freaks 😌 and joe biden even credited w&g for paving the way to gay marriage LOL which yeah obviously none of this is ideal but i think it's cool and has its place in social history!!

it's also just a cool little time capsule especially in domesticoms to see what people were concerned about at the time. this is especially true for britcoms bc of the whole kitchen sink realism thing but applies to us shows too!! like the episode of the golden girls where the children are afraid they'll die in a nuclear war before theyre adults (ah.. the 80s<3) or in rising damp (uk show from the 70s!!!) where there's a joke about not using aerosols bc of the ozone layer which are like Oh This Has Been A Thing For This Long

ANYWAY that's enough rambling. are old sitcoms essential viewing. if u want to fully understand the modern tv landscape then i think yes (especially shows like community and bojack that are very much About television and its legacy, or shows that are satirical subversions like iasip). but like not trying to be a snob u don't HAVE to lol. if u want to understand more about America As A Country then yes. if u want to find some shows that are genuinely enjoyable if in a different way to modern television then yes. yes <3

idk how old you consider 'older' sitcoms to be but some Academic highlights:

beulah (1950) - so a lot of EARLY early sitcoms were radio shows that moved into the new medium, and two of these shows were beulah and amos n andy, both of which were minstrel shows by white men. but when they moved to tv, they actually cast black actors/actresses for the most part, which i just find.. very interesting?? amos n andy did still use some blackface tho whereas iirc beulah never did. anyway this show was a HIT and was the first sitcom to star an african american woman, and also didn't have a laugh track which was rare in those days. obviously very outdated now but a piece of history!!

i love lucy (1951) - famous for a reason, the definition of tv history, literally INVENTED the flat lighting style that every multicam sitcom uses so they can shoot from multiple angles at once without shadows, genuinely funny physical comedy and vaudeville, lucille ball is the reason star trek got made so we love her <3

the adventures of ozzie and harriet (1952) - there's over 400 episodes of this and ive not watched most of them bc im not Super into it but it's definitely worth checking out as a Historical Artefact. technically a sitcom but also kind of invented reality tv since it's about a real life family playing themselves, specifically the nelson family. as in ricky nelson. ricky nelson the singer. he grew up on this show.

the honeymooners (1955) - this was filmed on a literal stage in a literal theatre and it feels like it. iconic and referenced a lot but i don't really like it :( wham boom straight to the moon

for Full History probably check out either leave it to beaver or father knows best for the middle class white picket fence domesticom but neither are Particularly notable

the dick van dyke show (1961) - one of my favs!!!! notable for blending the domesticom with the workplace sitcom since you see rob at home and at work (he's a tv writer so there's a canon reason for everyone speaking in quips). this show said women's rights for a) making rob genuinely love his wife b) making one of rob's two co-workers a woman and c) mary tyler moore, a new mother irl, saying I Am Not Going To Do The Vacuuming In Heels And A Hoop Skirt Are You Insane and wearing pants <3. v warm and funny show!!!

the addams family (1964) - ok so this show wasn't actually as revolutionary as everyone on this website likes to pretend it was, pretty much the only 'i hate my wife' show at this point was the honeymooners, there had been loving families, there had been non-middle-class-normative families, the munsters launched the same year and was almost identical. HOWEVER still makes the list bc there were a LOT of fantasy sitcoms in the 60s so they need representing at it was genuinely one of the best (but shout out to i dream of jeannie since that's the fantasy sitcom that sitcom textbooks love to use)

all in the family (1971) - ok so norman lear was a bit of a sitcom legend so one of his had to be included and this was really his first. ol norman loved a britcom so this show is actually based on till death us do part but im not convinced they actually got royalties. anyway one of the first SPECIFICALLY political sitcoms, framed as like young progressive generation vs old conservative generation, also one of the first ever tv shows to suffer from Asshole Main Character Is Erroneously Idolised syndrome. also compare w the honeymooners how all early sitcoms abt working class families tended to revolve around arguments :(

m*a*s*h (1972) - having a bit of a Moment on tumblr rn which is what she deserves. there were a LOT of war-based sitcoms in the early days but this one is significant because even though it was about the korean war it was obviously About vietnam politically. also klinger <333 did so much for queer ppl the Types of jokes surrounding his cross-dressing are very important. also the finale is the most-watched broadcast in america in history outside of recent superbowls, the apollo 11 launch, and nixon's resignation, so that's pretty iconic.

sanford and son (1972) - another norman lear sitcom this time based on britcom steptoe and son, with the major difference being the uk ver had white characters whereas this was one of the first (possibly the first??) all-black sitcom since the 50s. which is a lot of pressure. but it was a success and meant there were then a fair few in the rest of the 70s so that 'black sitcom' became its whole own genre, although they were less likely to have ~universal appeal~ and cross over to white audiences

soap (1977) - SOAP MY BELOVED!! cult classic, soap opera parody, historically significant for having the one of the first main openly gay characters and the earliest one that people still care about (because soap operas are another genre that love to tackle Big Social Issues so of COURSE a soap opera sitcom is gonna have one). by all accounts Bad Gay Rep™ but i love him so much <3

cheers (1982) - cheers isn't even the best sitcom in the cheers universe (frasier <3) but it is one of the most watched tv shows of all time so whatever. nothing That notable about it outside of its popularity, though sam/diane was one of the first big central will-they-won't-they plots.

idk if the 90s still count as older sitcoms?? i won't go into depth bc this post is way too long already but most academically notable 90s shows r seinfeld and will & grace, and ig friends (ew)

BUT if u don't care about sitcom history hfjshd here are some more of my fav pre-90s Vintage Sitcoms that i just watch for fun :) (warning i do NOT have good taste i genuinely like schmaltzy trash):

family affair

bewitched

my mother the car

the brady bunch

wkrp in cincinnati

full house

the golden girls

happy days

[boy-above]

why do u dislike him ? you don't have 2 talk abt it if ur uncomfortable of course

well for starters he did call korekiyo a slur in the original japanese, which was removed in the localization lol. basically called him a slur that's like gay/transphobic word all in one. so that would give me reason enough, but theres a lot of things about him in general i've disliked before knowing that.

kaito has a bunch of toxic masculinity going on, it's evident even from the beginning. when everyone is devastated after kaede's execution, he starts getting upset and even angry at them for "whining and complaining" and even hits shuichi for mourning her, saying that shuichi was "pissing him off" for not "being a man" about it. this is the moment i immediately decided kaito was not worth it. you can see his sexism as well when he says women shouldn't have weapons. there's actually more instances of sexist beliefs in the original japanese but these were mostly taken out when it was localized for english.

kaito thinks he's the hero of the story, pretty evident considering he calls shuichi his "sidekick" and in general views shuichi as someone he needs to ~take under his wing~. he viewed shuichi as weak and someone in need of fixing. in general kaito has a very inflated sense of self importance. he's stubborn and thinks his way is the right way.

he displays pretty bad toxic positivity. that's why he and kokichi butted heads as two extremes at the opposite ends of a scale. while kokichi wouldn't trust anyone, kaito was Too trusting. his "always believe in your friends!!" spiel would have gotten them caught So long ago. nobody would have survived had everything been done his way and his only. he got mad at shuichi for finding out the truth that gonta was a killer, despite the fact that everyone else would have been killed if he hadn't. that logic also rubbed off on maki, who got angry at shuichi for considering one of them could be the murderer in the final trial, because "friends don't accuse each other". i've already talked about how horrible of a thing that was to say to shuichi, whose had to condemn all of his friends to execution including kaede and felt shame and guilt for it. i'm pretty sure in the japanese version kaito was also asked something along the lines of "would you really risk everyone's lives and not vote maki even if you knew she were the killer?" and he said yes, he would. which makes him a giant hypocrite because he said something along the lines of "we all want to live! so don't get in our way" to ryoma once he found out he was suicidal.

another thing that always made me annoyed is that he decided that maki was trustworthy, despite her doing absolutely nothing to earn it. even after learning she was an assassin hiding an entire room full of weapons, he still decided he believed in her or whatever, but he made no effort to try to understand kokichi like he did with her. at that point maki told Huge lies, she kept her talent and weapons a secret from everyone, she was a Huge Risk. but kokichi is the one who is demonized for outing her, even though she could have been a huge danger to everyone and it was really important for the group to know! but of course he's the asshole for telling everyone her secwet ): maki is allowed to keep secrets and be mean, and gets patience and understanding from kaito, meanwhile kokichi got none of that. and i'm sorry but i think it's bc he wanted in maki's pants lmao. i'm sure people would argue with me about that and that's understandable, it's just what my immediate interpretation was the first time i experienced the game. if not that though, i would say i'm pretty sure it's his sexism that determined his trust in maki. he most likely viewed maki as a non threat because she's a woman. he has several lines that imply his belief that women are weaker than men, so i think that is why he viewed kokichi as a threat and not maki. if kokichi were a woman i think kaito would have been less likely to see him as a serious threat.

i'd like to talk about the localization and how it frames kaito and kokichi. it has a clear agenda on who it wants to make look better or worse than they are in the original. kaito curses like a sailor in the original, and they took that out for? what reason exactly? they took out kaito calling korekiyo the slur, (and of course taking out the slur was a Good thing) but i'm saying they could have replaced it with something that still could negatively impact how you view kaito as a character, rather than just pretending he didn't say something insensitive about korekiyo at all. if kokichi gets to call miu a slut and miu gets to tell him to go play with himself then there should have been NO issue with having kaito say crude or derogatory things. another sexist thing he does that they took out is when ryoma admits he is suicidal, kaito uses a word for him that describes him as girly or effeminate. this is changed to coward in the translation. calling a suicidal person a coward to begin with is horrible, but then in the original it's like he's calling him a sissy or pussy or something for being mentally ill as if that's only a "girl thing" as well.

my biggest example of the localization making kokichi worse is when he says that line about "when i like someone i'd do anything to get them to notice me, even strangle them"? in the original he said "when i love someone, even if they strangled me, i still wouldn't turn away." like that is the exact OPPOSITE of what he said but they decided that was fine. they make changes like that that demonize kokichi further while making kaito seem better than he actually is. it sounds like a conspiracy theory or somethin but look it up, they cleaned kaito up in the translation, they took out a lot of his negative qualities that would make him a more nuanced character and instead tried to make him the hero he always thought he was :I

my dislike for kaito also results in a dislike for maki because, i'm sure some people don't agree with me, but i think maki is a complete orbiter character for kaito. which is why i think it's so wild that i've seen people call others misogynistic for not liking her (throwing around impactful words like that when someone doesn't like your favorite character is a common thing i see in fandom spaces lol) because i think maki exists to have feelings for kaito. she attached herself to him and she doesn't have much to do with any of the rest or the cast. what little growth or development she did had was directly because of or in relation to kaito. she even started parroting his beliefs after he was gone like i mentioned earlier. that's why i just can't get behind those two. i know some people love them and that's okay. i know there's tons of ways you can interpret them and that's okay! i have just never been able to like them. there's objectively worse characters in this series so i'm not acting like they're Worse than them, my dislike for them is just something i'm more passionate about i guess??? or like, yknow something i feel more strongly. you should never be passionate about hating something haha

[wickedpact]

I ordered The Old Guard books and they have arrived today which in a small way makes up for the stress I’m having planning a wedding in 2021 (that is already planning take two because it got postponed from last year)

Do you think Joe and Nicky are actually married?

- the annoying Anon but you can call me AA if that’s better

its funny you ask bc i do have an opinion on that and the opinion is: no

im not like... sure, but i have two reasons why i dont think theyre married / why they dont think of themselves as married

  1.) if they did think of themselves as married, the answer to the question ‘what, is he your boyfriend?’ would just be 'no dickhead hes my fucking husband’

1b.) i mean, in the comics speech, joe says ‘He is not my ‘boyfriend’. He is not my 'lover', nor is he my 'partner’. He is all and more. He is my everything.”

so if joe dislikes labels like ‘partner’ or ‘lover’ because theyre not, idk, expansive enough to describe their relationship, (and he doesnt even mention 'husband’!) i cant imagine hed give a shit about marriage one way or another either. i made a post about it a while ago but theyve been together so long i doubt marriage is any more significant to them as a ~symbol of dedication~ than a couple of plastic promise rings two teenagers would buy at walmart. you know, like... theyre so beyond that

2.) im not an expert at queer history and im definitely making a lot of generalizations here that would make a historian flinch, but whenever i look at like,, historical queer media (poems, mostly, i read a lot of poetry for someone who doesnt like poetry) you dont really see gay people Yearn For Marriage like we do in more modern times; i mean, im not an expert on sappho’s writings, but she was kind of [waggles hand] mehhhh abt marriage, while also talking abt how great ‘’‘‘female companionship’’’‘ is. het marriage, and consummation, are often compared to theft and violence in her poems (albeit subtly) while the relationships between women who were...... involved were seen as erotic and comforting.

the two are never conflated, you know, she never talks about maidens marrying each other or wishing that they could, despite talking about marriage pretty frequently. m/f relationships and f/f relationships, which we would both define modernly as the same thing (just plain old love) are shown to be separate things from sappho’s perspective.

i mean, you see more recent stuff about gay people wanting to be married, but like, thats usually within the last couple hundred years. idk what the cultures joe and nicky grew up in taught on marriage, but a lot of Ye Olde people didnt expect to love the people they married (& of course these things depend on where youre from, era, class, gender, etc)

  i mean, i imagine that joe, as the heir of his family’s business, probably had to dodge arranged (economic) marriages, and nicky, well-- there are tons of ‘gay person becomes priest to avoid het marriage’ stories out there. joe and nicky honestly for a good majority of their lives probably saw marriage as an unfortunate inevitability that they luckily got to avoid. and i imagine its likely that they didnt associate love with marriage-- or at least, they saw it as a social or economic thing?

i mean, women being married off to create children and be ‘provided for’, or men getting married to create heirs and for.. sexual satisfaction (i guess).... where does what joe and nicky had comply with that kind of relationship, you know? neither of them was a woman who needed to be economically provided for, neither of them needed or wanted heirs-- just nothing about that specific type of social contract would appeal to them. they probably just saw their relationship with each other as something entirely different than the relationship of a marriage

and by the time the concept of marriage more or less began to change, they were in a relationship for so long that getting married wouldve probably be seen as silly to them

(but again like i said im probably generalizing a lot here)

[roublardise]

my "Crowley isn't attracted to women" take

for @spnprideweek - day 2 - mlm

cw: dicussion of homophobia & transphobia all in all I wanted to highlight how canon gay Crowley is bc I love him 💕 thank u spn for Crowley even tho he deserved better

in the last weeks I've realized there's a huuge consensus in the fandom for pansexual Crowley. if you're pan or not and wanna hc Crowley as pan, power to you! but what's bothering me is the non-discussion of it all. the way it seems obvious for everyone. whereas, to me, Crowley has been canonically gay all this time.....

disclaimer: I'm aware Mark Sheppard alledgely said he saw Crowley as pansexual, however I can't even take these words for canon without context. Especially not when a year later he'd say Crowley's sexuality didn't matter. The way Mark Sheppard talks about characters' sexuality is more a "why are people making a big deal let them be" than "the character doesn't care." Moreover, actors pov can't be taken as canon imo. Jensen Ackles thought Dean straight for so long when Dean's been bi all this time as well. Sometimes actors are biased by their own experiences & stereotypes!

disclaimer #2: on god I don't wanna start discourse lmao. I just wanna share my silly thoughts about a tv show & question the way Crowley's sexuality is written in this silly homophobic tv show. don't @ me about what's making you think Crowley is indisputably pansexual bc I assure you I already know your points

That being said, here's why I think Crowley is a bear, a gay man, a trans gay man actually, a homosexual, who isn't attracted to women & some food for thoughts about why the unquestioned consensus towards pan Crowley could have roots in both homophobia & panphobia.

I don't think we can think of Crowley as your usual demon. We know too much about Crowley's life as a human, and the numerous ways in which he acts un-demony, almost humanly after. Considering him simply like a demon with no concept of gender preference who would be pan “by default” wouldn’t be right with his character. But we also can't question his sexuality in the exact same way we would a human's.

It also can't be thought in the same way as angels': as once-humans demons do have a concept of gender. Crowley especially cares a lot about his gender presentation and the way he's addressed. Not only does he literally sell his soul for a bigger d*ck as a human ; as a demon he uses the same vessel where other demons are shown to move once they had to leave one ; and for the few hours Crowley's possessing a woman, he clearly states he should still be referred to as king.

This will all be used for homophobic & transphobic jokes in the show, but I'll get back to that later on. Gender does matter to Crowley's identity, and I think it could be extended to his sexuality.

I've seen numerous descriptions of it all saying Crowley's sexuality was "ambiguous" and I guess it is, as he never explicitly used any label. However "ambiguous" doesn't mean bi or pan. It doesn't mean anything besides the fact we can't draw a clear-cut conclusion of his sexuality.

Imo we can actually draw a clear-cut conclusion of Crowley's sexuality but yeh, I'm getting there.

----------------

Let's take a look at canon events around Crowley & sexuality!

His character introduction is him enjoying making a homophobe man kiss him for a deal

It is rumoured that he was a demon's lover (Lilith's)

He heavily flirts with Bobby

He french kisses Bobby for a deal and takes a pic

He never kisses a woman on screen (tell me if I forgot anyone!)

He flirts with every single man he sees, and even more strongly when it's making the other uncomfortable

The other parent of Crowley's son is never mentioned nor even brought up

He has two orgies that we know of

He has sex with a demon who's possessing a woman (Lola) when he was addicted to human blood

He dates, has sex with, and asks Dean to rule Hell with him. He's in love with Dean

On late spn he drinks fruity drinks

He flirts with and implies he had sex with an angel (Naomi)

He flirts with Death (Billie)

He's into BDSM

I'm not gonna go into details with all the sexual stuff he says bc there's a lot.... But it's always about gay sex. (once again, if I'm forgetting smth pls tell me nicely)

Now, with all that I'd like to question specifically the elements people use to say Crowley is canonically attracted to women.

He has two orgies that we know of

There’s the one Crowley has while he’s himself possessing a woman ; iirc it’s a foursome with two other men and one woman. Crowley still counts as a King, as the show makes sure we know, admitedly this dialogue implies we should still think of him as a not-very-manly-man.

Honestly, if one is convinced Crowley is attracted to women based on this scene.. okay. Personally I don’t see it because the orgy is unplanned, it’s an opportunity Crowley takes. Is he even attracted to the two other men?? Who knows. We don’t even know if Crowley even touches the other woman, there’re so many ways to have group sex. Even if he did, having sex with one woman doesn’t make it impossible for him to be homosexual.

The second orgy is with Dean. Crowley describes it then: “We've done extraordinary things to triplets.” It’s interesting how before I went to check, I thought it was clear the triplets were women. But not at all! I’ve been tricked by heteronormativity myself. So this is up to interpretation. Even though the way the show doesn’t make sure we know the triplets were women is pretty telling (as I’ll talk about later).

It is rumoured that he was Lilith's lover

Well, this is a rumour. In this relationship Crowley would know Lilith as a demon possessing a woman, and Lilith would know Crowley as a demon possessing a man as well. Who's even to say they met in their vessels to sleep together. That's the kind of cases in which the ambiguity of Crowley human/demon situation makes it impossible to draw any kind of conclusion towards Crowley's attraction to women. Also if anything Lilith is clearly a lesbian lmao.

He has sex with Lola when he was addicted to human blood

Same thing here, the relationship is one of demon/demon. Though we do now they do meet in their vessels to sleep together. Besides that, the sex happens while Crowley is at a low point. She's the one bringing him human blood, which makes the sex more of a transaction than anything. It does fit a very grey area of consent which would be fair to question.

We can't know for sure whether the demon possessing the woman was a woman as well, but let's say she was: 1/ Crowley having sex once or twice with a woman doesn't prevent him from being homosexual. 2/ What is he seeing if not a demon's true form? 3/ Wasn't he in a self-destructive mental state?

It's a stretch, imo, to assume Crowley was attracted to her.

He flirts with and had sex with Naomi / flirts with Billie

This one is so ridiculous to me bc Naomi is an angel and as a demon, Crowley sees her true form. We don't even know who was her vessel when they had sex.

The flirt thing is interesting however, bc iirc Naomi and Billie are the only "women" we see Crowley actually flirt with. During the orgies or the demon sex there's no flirt involved. It's interesting bc, as Cas would say: "Naomi's vessel is a woman. Naomi is an angel."

Same case for Billie who's a reaper then Death. Spn is pretty unclear about how the whole thing works but we know reapers are kind of angels. In any case, I won't go as far as saying Billie has any connection to gender.

Moreover, the way Crowley flirts with them is pretty light next to everything else Crowley says to men. It's pretty personal, I'm aware, but I do relate a lot with the way Crowley flirts with them VS how I flirt with men just because (and I'm a lesbian).

Anyway! Both Naomi and Billie are supernatural creatures, which brings the count of women Crowley flirts with to... zero.

-> What I take from all that is that Crowley is attracted to men for sure ; to angels and demons ; and doesn't care about the genitalia involved in the sex he has. We have nothing about the kind of relationships he had as a human. His gender presentation matters a lot to him. The only long-term commitment he has is with Dean. I wouldn't even say he had a committed relationship with Gavin's other parent bc we don't know anything about them.

----------------

But what's my deal with homosexual Crowley? One can wonder, if Crowley doesn't care about bodies, doesn't that mean he can still be written as pan?

No! First because sexual attraction isn't about genitalia (even if transphobes would argue the contrary but they're transphobic so...). And second, well....

I would refer to this point as "how do I know Crowley isn't attracted to women? bc Dean is"

I'm convinced that if the show wanted to write Crowley as anything other than a gay man, it would have been way more obvious.

This is a show who wrote Dean catcalling a faceless woman on the street, for no other reason than to remind the viewers Dean was attracted to women & to balance it with the following homoerotic scene.

One could say spn doesn't have lots of women characters to begin with, but that's my point exactly: when spn wants to show attraction towards women, they do find women for people to be attracted to. Hell, they even give Gavin some girlfriend but never ever bring up the topic of Gavin's other parent. Even though an entire episode is dedicated to learning about Crowley's past.

What's important to understand Crowley's sexuality isn't the people he slept with ; it's the people he doesn't show interest in.

The absence of something is the presence of the thing, blablabla. It's a way to look at homosexuality that heteronormativity makes hard to see because, unconciously, we don't tend to question attraction towards the expected gender. One would ask for a 10 pages essay on why a character is gay, but one would need only a 2 sec kiss to assure a character's heterosexuality or attraction towards the expected gender.

----------------

In Crowley's case, his attraction to men is a huge part of his character right from the beginning (thanks god, at least no one's questioning that). Spn as a show that hears what the fans are saying and twists writing accordingly, is perfectly aware of that. Yet rather than pushing women at him along the course of the show to remind everyone how Not Gay Crowley is - the opposite happens.

Yeh, Lola, Naomi, Billie, they all happen in the later seasons. But even then, the show somehow can't write Crowley as attracted to a human woman.

What happens then is: not only does Crowley fall for Dean ; he engages in some BDSM play with Lucifer : and he switches from drinking only the finest Scotch to fruity cocktails.

The BDSM thing as well as the drink thing are choices rooted in stereotypes, that's how spn is! But it does canonize Crowley's homosexuality. They're depriving him of his "masculinity" as the show goes on, because they purposely write him as homosexual. I don't think spn would have ever written a bi or pan character that way.

We learned a few days ago that Crowley died in a gutter. He died in a gutter for a bigger d*ck. I'm just gonna refer to Oscar Wilde & Mika on this : "some of us in the gutter are looking up at the stars."

The "referred to as king" scene isn't about Crowley being a demon and so not caring about gender - it's the opposite. Other demons are the ones poiting out Crowley's vessel. This is a transphobic joke. It's the demon edition of the "gay boy in a dress" transmisogynistic trope.

Viewers aren't supposed to be on Crowley's side ; we're supposed to be giggling with the other demons while Crowley is being emasculated. Crowley gets a woman vessel because he's a not-very-manly-man, because he's a trans man, because he's homosexual.

And I know that bc Dean is written as bi, and all they're doing is reaffirming the way he does like women while being extra subtle with his love for men.

Meanwhile Crowley is losing influence and power, loses his authority as he loses his throne in Hell, gets humiliated by Lucifer, until all his character revolves around is his love for Dean. The way Crowley is then protrayed as some lovesick ex who can't move on is, imo, a straight man fantasy. Crowley's love is both used as predatory and as a tool to validate Dean's Peak Masculinity.

Spn has been burying their gays all along, and Crowley was right there being punished for not only being in love with Dean but for not being attracted to women. For never being able to be a "normal" guy. For never being able to be seen as a "normal" guy. For checking every homophobic stereotypes in the books. Crowley as a human dies because he's a trans man. Crowley as a demon dies because he's homosexual.

----------------

That's what leads me to be uncomfortable with the way the fandom seems to have a consensus towards pansexual Crowley. (Once again: idc about people's personal hc of Crowley as pan, I just want to think critically about the way no one thinks twice about it & accepts it as canon so easily. Hell, just bc I dared to ask what started the pan Crowley confirmation I got accused of erasing his pansexuality. All I did was ask a question.)

To me, it feels like erasing everything his character went through because he was gay. And it seems to be taken from a reasoning which is going to assume Crowley is attracted to women.

I mean: the reasoning would go "oh, Crowley clearly has a non-straight sexuality -> he's attracted to men -> he's pan" His attraction to women being accepted by default, without needing any backup. And when I look at the canon I see nothing implying he'd be attracted to women. Taking Crowley's attraction to women for granted is following an heteronormative thinking.

Being into people isn't all about who one sleeps with. It's about love. And when we look at what spn shows about Crowley's close relationships, the only meaningful one he got is with Dean. When Rowena wants payback for Crowley making her kill Oskar, she goes for his son.

And it's SO interesting to me because if angels can't be in love because they don't have a soul - can demons? as they're beings with a destroyed soul? And if so, how powerful of Crowley to still fall in love with Dean Winchester.... the power of gay love :) (Crowley 🤝 Cas)

----------------

To conclude all this with some more stuff to think about if, like me, you love questioning everything:

While it's not wrong per se to hc Crowley as pan, it can be worth questioning what's making us so sure we collectively just vibe with it? To me there's a few things: - As I was saying: heteronormative bias - Crowley being a non-fully-human character - Crowley being masculine (despite the show's attempts to erase that) - Crowley being into BDSM - Crowley flirting and making sexual remarks in every context

These, unconsciously, gives a vibe of a character who's "outside" of the gender norm, not making big deal of their sexuality, not even questioning it. This creates this idea of "ambiguity" around Crowley's sexuality. The way Crowley particularly seems to be really chill about sex, is a demon (so what does he know about gender?), and heavily flirty, ... is what most people will link to pansexuality. That doesn't mean thinking of Crowley as pan is being problematic™ ; this means in western medias that's what fills the "pansexual character" imagery (like basically: the Jack Harkness type).

However, when we look at it like that, none of these elements are defining of pansexuality. None of them are excluding him from homosexuality. If not stereotypes.

That's where it gets personal ; but it does make me feel like the huge consensus towards a pansexual Crowley (when there is no clear-cut evidence of it) is erasing the complexity of homosexual experiences. As I said at the begining: I'm happy if pansexual people can relate to Crowley ; everone's free to headcanon. But saying Crowley is canonically pansexual is a stretch - and a take rooted in homophobic stereotypes.

Imo Crowley may have been created with all these traits pushing towards a pan reading of his character. However, as the show went, he was clearly written as a homosexual man. The changes in his portrayal took a turn to be specifically homophobic. He gets imagery that only strictly homosexual characters got (such as drinking fruity cocktails like Aaron. Meanwhile Dean, on the same scene, is allowed beer & whiskey.)

We're used to taking spn's homophobic rep and jokes to make it our own. Yet it seems, when it comes to Crowley, the fandom doesn't see it.

Sometimes people aren't attracted to the gender heteronormativity expects them to be attracted to.......... sometimes people are gay and it's not an umbrella term.

[tintinwrites]

dollface | Mob Boss!Poe Dameron x Reader | Part Two

A/N: I love these two very much okay I’m SORRY. Smut might probably be in the next chapter also yes reader is chill with this bc she KNOWS who she’s with yknow. Yes this is reposted. I forgot the tags!

Rating: T

Warning: Smoking. Alcohol consumption. Reader is propositioned and slightly manhandled by a man for a second. Poe kills a person bc 1. he’s a mob boss? and 2. even the Poe we know and love has killed a lot of people (stormtroopers are people too).

Word count: 1,588, apparently!!

Summary: Poe hasn’t stopped by the speakeasy in a few nights and he has impeccable timing when he does.

Part One

GIF credit: I have no idea, but it’s not mine. If anyone knows whose it is, please let me know!

Tags: @twomoonstwosuns @writefightandflightclub @fanfic-addict-98 @dogsandrocketsocks @himbopoes @agentpike @greengrassandcyansea​ (permanent tags let me know if you don’t want to be tagged for this story)

                                           -----------------------------

There were many nights when Poe Dameron was too busy with his work to come to the speakeasy.

Those nights were spent by the bar, glancing up every time the door opened in hopes he would walk in only to hear the gay laughter of a young and happy couple that would mingle with the bouncing music.

Could anyone really blame you for longing like you were, especially since he had a promise on his lips the last time of letting his hand go further up your dress?

He was all you could think about and it had been days since you last saw his handsome face from his usual spot.

You were, of course, always worried about him given his career; but there were times when you would push aside the way he gazed at you or the obvious caresses and decide he chose to indulge in someone who agreed to something a little hotter and heavier sooner than you had.

It wasn’t that you hadn’t wanted him to put it to you from the moment you saw him, rather that you hardly believed a prominent man like him thought you to be a thrill and the most desirable women made men wait.

But Poe did like you and he did not beg and pant like other men did. No, he gazed at you with adoration and made your skin thrum with the deep desire for his barest touch, and left any possibility of necking and petting entirely up to you like a gentleman.

You’d not even let him get past the suggestive brush of a hand and now he was probably off with someone even vampier than you.

“I’d say you have the best gams in the joint, princess,” a voice said close to your ear, too nasal to be Poe’s and with underlying venom rather than the kind lilt you wanted to hear.

“That’s a nice line, mac, but I ain’t interested.” You used to be quite popular with any bachelor in the area and would happily go to their bed, but Poe was the only man you wanted.

A lot of bachelors were too busy reaching their own quick release to remember that you wanted to enjoy bedding them as well.

It was clear in Poe’s eyes and touches that he would satisfy you in a way that no man ever could, which perhaps had something to do with how much you enjoyed each other’s company and appearance.

“You make the fellas buy you a couple drinks first, don’t you?” The man slid in front of you, all pale face and oily hair.

“Save your dough.” Even when you did enjoy the company of more than one man, there were some you weren’t interested in that found trouble taking the hint.

“Armie said you played hard to get, but that you’re all kinds of worth it when you open your thighs.”

“My thighs are not open tonight.”

You moved to turn and walk away when this man grabbed your wrist firmly, tugging you around to face him and moving his other hand to your chin.

His firm grip was not timid like Poe’s, not being careful to keep the pressure light, making you wince as he pulled you closer and tilted your chin up to make you look at him.

He opened his mouth with almost a sneer to say something when his jaw dropped open, gaze moving behind you.

A hard chest pressed into your back and the man stepped away from you in terror.

“There a problem, dollface?” That was the voice you wanted, smooth and calmingly kind, and you quickly turned to press into Poe.

The man bristled quickly like he hadn’t been afraid of the known mob boss standing in front of him, having to make himself seem bigger than he was even though he was most definitely half a foot taller than Poe. “Her thighs aren’t open tonight, Dameron.”

“I bet they are for me. And even if they weren’t, I respect that.” His words were met with a dark glare that soon moved to you.

“To think you went from being a pro skirt to a gun moll.”

Your own expression dropped at the implication that you’d been paid for sex and the intended insult that you were nothing more than a whore for Poe.

There was a laugh from behind you then Poe put a hand over one of your ears as he yanked your head down to his chest

It may have been muffled when he fired the gun, but you could still hear it fairly decently and you most definitely saw the blood splatter as the man fell to the floor.

Poe immediately turned the both of you away as you screamed, with him shielding your view of everything and holding you tightly to him. You were panicking against his suit jacket, not sure if you had really witnessed him shoot that man.

Everything in the club stopped for a moment, completely silent as everyone looked over to see what had happened; upon seeing Poe, they quickly understood and the band tentatively started to play again.

When someone with the power of Poe Dameron did something like this, you turned a blind eye to it, especially since he did his best not to take action like this very often and it was known that he had good reason when he did.

He was generally a benevolent man regardless, holding you tight to his body as two of his men walked over to quickly take the scene he was hiding you from out.

You weren’t released from his tight grip until there was nothing more than a small puddle of blood on the floor and the speakeasy was back in full swing, tilting your chin up gently to see tears streaming down your cheeks steadily.

That idiot may have offended you, but Poe knew that he was the reason you were crying.

He wanted to be the one thing that would never hurt you.

Wrapping an arm around your waist, he lead you through the crowd with purpose, pulling you outside and walking with you up those brick steps to the sound of your heels clacking softly. You followed him to the nearby alley where he gently pushed you to lean against the side of the building that sat atop the club, watching you sob softly with his brow furrowed in apology.

“You mad at me? You’re allowed to be mad at me, baby.” He reached up to wipe your tears away, smiling when you leaned into his hand sweetly.

“I need a cigarette.” You looked up at him with those beautiful, sad eyes of yours.

He immediately pulled back to search inside his jacket for the matches and pack of cigarettes he kept in there, easily taking one out and putting it to his own lips to light it like you always did for him.

The match fell to the ground upon him shaking the flame out, cigarette held out to your shaking hand that seemed to have a difficult time taking it from him.

Instead of making you hold it, he put it to your lips and let you take as long of a drag as you needed to.

You stood like that for a couple minutes, bringing yourself down as Poe held the cigarette up anytime you needed another puff of it, until you gazed at him with charming softness.

“I wouldn’t be sweet on you if I was unhappy with your work, you sap. I was spooked by the shot, is all.” You grabbed the remaining cigarette from him and stomped it out on the ground.

“You wanna punch me?” He opened his arms to allow you a chance at any spot on him you might want to punch.

“Oh, stop, you idiot!” You laughed a bit.

“There’s the pretty smile I was looking for.” His arms went around you instantly when you pressed into him, squeezing you.

You held on tight as you could to his wonderful frame, huffing softly as the light breeze gently lifted some of your styled curls and the fringe layered on your dress.

“I’m sorry I spooked you like that, dollface. But no one talks about you like that and no one grabs you the way he did.”

“He was very persistent and I was so happy when I heard you...it’s been too long since you came to see me here.”

Poe pulled away to stroke over your hair. “I’m sorry for that seeing as I promised you something special for next time…”

You wanted to kiss him more than anything when he leaned in, but now was not the time and his lips met the apple of your cheek when you turned your head away.

“You were right when you said that my thighs are likely open for you, but perhaps tonight we could just dance?” You swayed a little with him despite the music being too far away to be heard muffled through that door and he smiled.

“How would it be possible to deny a dance with such a beautiful woman?” He moved a hand to your waist, pulling you closer again.

“I hope you know it’s a nickel for every minute.”

“Even for your sap?”

“Oh, definitely.”

“You minx.”

You giggled at the playful slap that he landed on your thigh, melting into him happily as the two of you swayed and twirled in the alley to no music at all.

[queenofallwitches]

an update and primer:

so the last winter was weird. I had a complete breakdown, went into psychiatric hospital for 40 days in total. two seperate times.

learnt a heap of new things, met a tonne of cool people and had amazing conversations and few fights but overcome my own demons by that.

brain speaking-I have a scarred brain stem and neurological disorder is not a mental diagnosis, but a neurological disorder, proven by MRI scan, ADHD.

also damage to my basal ganglia, and prefrontal cortex.

neurological diagnosis means ADHD is not a "mental" health issue, as some believe, rather a neurodevelopment disorder caused by structural differences in the ADHD brain.

other neurodevelopment disorders include: Tourettes, Autism, Cerebal Palsy, Dyslexia and other Motor and Intellectual Disabilities. (Which recieve, in my view, a lot of insight, media information and stigma reduction by the advocacy networks surrounding these types of disability).

Over the last few years Autism has been over everything, I've seen mainstream media cover Tourettes and yet ADHD is still HUGELY misunderstood, misconceived and misrepresented in media, be in from the angle of documentaries, personal insight of a "typical" case, films, tv, and other media.

one of the first things my dr told me was "in females it rarely presents as hyperactive red-cordial OD child"

which is what my mother BELIEVES, that is because I have an adopted cousin with the ADHD dx who was that growing up, but the representation I'm told is also divergent for women with a higher IQ score than the average IQ. I come in around 142 and tested 123 at age 3 when I was unable to focus, pay attention and had severe trauma. I tested 142 in grade 8.

I'll share my experience as a female who is intellectually gifted, with higher IQ than average, and an adhd brain:

I've been told gifted and talented "genius" children are harder to diagnose because the symptoms present differently, we hide it better (camouflage) and our focusing can be "faked" by mediocre efforts of academic success.. this is true, I would do the assignment the Sunday night hours deadline, last minute, or have my parents half do it for me, plagiarise it (fuck I've killed my whole academic career now) copied but changed my words

from old 1970s encyclopaedias I KNEW they couldn't cross reference (I went through 15 years of school never studying doing homework or assignments and still had top grades).

I literally did not listen, and spent my classes planning the end of the world survival strategies with my GT friend who, basically helped me with my calculus and hard fucking maths, which was the ONLY 50 minutes of the day I put attention into my work.

now I'm going to be heading back to full-time study in the coming months, I get anxious as the pressure of a Bachelor level degree, and the pressure it takes me to perform, is enough to break me down. I've been advised it might be wise to start light (like a basic vet style diploma) and then build up, which is logical, but I keep thinking I'm meant to be doing my thesis by now. which is the kind of pressure one gets as a kid who is told repeatedly, "your intelligence is exceedingly the average and you can do ANYTHING you want"

I wanted to be an astronaut, a storm chaser, and an architect, a town planner and then a journalist. I always held to being a "FBI agent" or spy (I wonder why). so when I found psychology is really a blend of all these things, I kinda found a niche in a psych and social science double degree. but I'm thinking my academic career is LIFELONG, and due to the fact I also want to work in my field alongside my many written thesis coming, I'll be in academics for a long time. I may fail a few things, which I have to come to terms with. I do not fail easily, or readily, but I'm a perfectionist type-a academic who will put my whole life on the line to achieve "merit". I get exams, I get assessments, I read journals super-easy, I talk the talk and walk the walk so well psychologists who are at masters level compliment me on my "knowledge".

when it comes to mental health and trauma, I will always have the personal attachment, called lived experience, which will make failure and burnout, 100 percent realistic. I have to boundary up, bootstraps on, and prepare that yes, my personal "bias" will probably be entwined in this.

which is why I'm looking at the social science for the statistics and thesis writing side of things, and the counselling for the trained therapist side. either way, the degree of counselling requires so much self-insight, and then the social-science will back me away from personifying it. the other choice is criminology, which leads to forensic psychology, which is eternally fascinating. my main concern is the pro-pedophile content Ill be up against, which will look at the anatomy of a shoplifter akin to the devil, and leave the pedophile in the DSM-5 dx "paraphilia" box.

I'm not joining or jumping to anything.

either way I've got 2 year of credit, a heap of pathways and a lot of "academic momentum" from all my life being aimed to be "academic powerhouse". I went through my files and found a lot of awards I'd won in my high school, and top place in the competitions we would be entering in. I remember feeling so sad if I had a "credit" vs a distinction or high distinction, only to see now, a credit in university maths in year 9 is a skillset I don't have anymore so, good on me. or a credit in English, or Science at that age was pretty impressive, considering these tests were random and not studied for.

just a general skills assessment only the top 30 kids in the year were to take on a year by year basis and put out to vet from the top universities and taken by other kids in the same grade around the state.

it puts so much focus on my intelligence, because it's primed to be that way, I know that is true. I know I feel good being academically successful and it gives me a feeling of "achievement" but is it really for me?

I also found 2 letters from my local politicians offering me job placement, work experience and I was 1/4 kids in my 10th grade graduation tom get the letter, and due to my behaviour I pissed ALL the idiots who bullied me off. I was "too pretty to be a nerd" "too smart to be pOpUlAr".

so I made a group of misfits, who are all highly intelligent, creative and my group had the ONLY gay male in the school AND THIS IS BEFORE YOU FUCKING RETARDS MADE IT "COOL". he was bullied badly, so fuck you, you fucks claim "liberalism" but I bet you were the type of idiot who bullied guys like him in high school while you pretended to like my chemical romance and fake cut yourselves. I hate you all, forever.

my grade was full of idiots who were fake emo, who left the scene the moment the scene changed to dub-step and club music. I was there, watching you all, like sonny Moore, went from FFTL to that dubstep skrillex shit he started in 2009.

I dated you, hooked up with you and I went to your gigs. I know who was real and who was fake. I met some of you years later and realised the more emotive ones were the less "alternative appearing".

I can say 1/10000 emo guys from the 00s were genuinely Into the music and scene for the right reasons based on my dating history and this can and will be analysed statistically using SPSS one day to prove a lot. I've had too many relationships from each sub-culture and I have had 4-11 males at a time per public "output" of my energy pursue me over life.

I'm not being cocky when I say I have a long line of "suitors" and its banked back about 50 men. it's been a thing I've avoided as it seems to grow based on my body shape, attitude, appearance, so I am currently out of touch with dating scenes, no interest to try that ANYWAY, given the fact that I have had so many LONG TERM relationships ANYWAY. I can't see another one going well, and at this case, I'm living with an ex but we never went on conventional and now our families label this 3 things: "asexual", "polyamorous" and "open relationship". I'm also "bisexual" but this all to humans outside, looks ridiculous on paper. (wild orgies and lots of swinging or some stupid sex magick probably is what J brother literally thinks we do).

bc humans are intrinsically designed to need to label things they don't understand. we share a lease, not a relationship, and fucking polyamorous, I WISH. there are no girl-girl-guy 3 some, or orgies, or sex magic parties.

this has changed the attitude and perception of this "relation' which Is non-romantic, non-sexual. he can date and likely, will, as can I , and I likely won't date.

I would say 14/15 have had ADHD, or other mental illness and or trauma. which means to me, nothing at all.

I think this "open book" non romantic relationship style of "friends and roommates" not sexual.

attachment is misunderstood by others but works well fro my adhd, meaning I'm not expected to marry, or be a wife in any capacity. he is free to do what he wants, as I am, and open communication is a novel frontier I brought into this in the start, and stayed with for the duration. we fight, but I fight with a lot of people in my life over many petty things. also down to my adhd, I believe, I have rejection sensitive dysphoria, which makes me hypersensitive to rejection, perceived or real.

im not sure if this is trauma or adhd or both. but

I have used sexuality as a weapon in many relationships but it cannot or will not be used here, so I have had to resort to uncovering parts of myself which I never knew, which will stay with me even if he decided to marry and wife up in 5 years, which I'm okay and expecting him to do, and I would much rather that then be trapped in a situation where I cannot be that "wife/mother archetype" as I'm too "femme fatal/other-woman/sex-laced seductress and siren" a "FWB, unicorn, drug buddy, hook-up where im a therapist" or "intellectual and cognitive mind-bender work-study obsessed woman".

both at once and many types of human, including one who is a full-time ceremonial magician of 7 years. I will drink, drug, fuck, fight like males and still be more feminine and high maintenance than 89% of women. I grew up a tomboy and don't mind getting into fun, adventure based situations, like hiking, or anything adrenaline, I would only be reluctant to eat weird shit.

I also have many "neurological" issues including ADHD, and trauma which causes a rupture in the average human and I dating.

I'll tell you how many men have said "you are the unicorn" and then realised what that means, I went as far as canvasing the PUA world back in 2014 after reading the game, a book on PUA, which is essentially, pick up artistry, based on NLP and hypnosis. I did this after reading the copy my ex in 2008 handed me before we dated saying "I gave this up for you". it took me years to open the book, buy when I did I truly believed the only way I would fall in love again, was through PUA. that failed in so many ways but gave me a training foundation for men who were candidates for that, I have trained up J, and the way that sounds is BAD. I know, but I got a lot of value myself, I just don't see it how I wanted to see it.

but that was my original intent, and I achieved this he knows that, knew it was happening and evolved for the best self.

I am thinking we can modulate this into a business model for how I was operating in the BDSM world was mainly psychological, not physical.

I get told all of is incredibly intimidating (I am told) to women and men.

I don't really care anymore, because people have always seen this part of me in the wrong way ANYWAY, but I own who I am NOW. which is what I needed ANYWAY. so it cannot be stolen again, and sexual healing has come from abstinence ironically.

I also don't care what or who is trying to tear up my relations, toxic or not toxic, all people around me will be on a healing journey by default, or cut out of my life, for I am radiating that energy so brightly its impossible NOT to feel that pull.

I will drag your shadows into the light, and make your secrets spin from your lips into my consciousness. its not what I do but its what is design.

I make your weaknesses mountains to climb over. you cannot hide from these in my presence, I won't be this controlling or obsessive female who wants 24-7 attention as I have a life full of meaning without love or sex. I don't want to be wined, dined or expensively gifted, unless specially requested.

I don't want love letters or romantic declarations, this isn't some femnazi bullshit, but it triggers me. I appreciate the efforts and won't make you feel bad about your insecurities, for mine are probably 30 x more pronounced.

I appreciate small things, that most males won't or don't know how to do. like remembering things I've said and being thoughtful. or knowing my silence isn't personal, or a game, but a protective wall. I've had songs sung too me, guitars played, songs written, or things made in ways that are heartfelt. but I've always had them used against me too. so it is the context. I value time, energy, conversations of depth and reciprocal exchange. I also value trauma understanding, my alters and fragments being accepted and valued as me as a whole and a person who is not afraid, or scared of stupid stuff like sensitivity, emotions, feelings as raw as my own. men feel intensely too, lol.

but will only give oral sex 100 times before I don't recieve it, I can communicate now so that wouldn't happen.

but I won't be a bitch about this stuff. I am extremely feminine and care in ways other people, do not, I forget nothing people tell me, so it can be a reward or reverse uno card pull in a fight, but I am not evil or deviant in my relations. I react, depending on how you treat me. I don't need your money, or providing source of income to be okay as I am my own queen, however sharing resources is okay to build something. I don't need to be seduced, but will need to be shown a person is trustworthy.

few cross that.

that will always be time-endurance and testing. there are ground rules I don't play with, or play games. or like being forced or forged into something I'm not. I know abusive and I know safe, and I am a psychology expert, trained psychotherapist and study humans for fun, so I'll always be analysing things.

and I know red flags and I know ego, I know how to placate and please and pleasure, but will only do so, for a bigger and better reason than the mere act of seduction. which is without value and transactional to someone like me, I won't lie.

and I know every tactic in the book, for the book was written by someone like me, many lives ago, and my karma is being burnt for that book.

in terms of walls, I have many, may it be called a maze. or labrnyth.

I will teach you things you never thought you'd know, and change your life in ways you won't ever be able to go back to before. I will blow your mind, sexually, emotionally, intellectually, on all levels, and I'll make your friends and family love me.

I'll bring your walls down and you won't be able to understand this, because you don't understand me, and thats ok.

but I'll always understanding you and make your life better because thats what I do anyway, and people talk to me about things I will never share, as I keep secrets. I am jealous, of everything but, only because I am attached in a disorganised way, and working on that.(I won't even mention how man women or men don't know basic psychology of themselves). I also am a therapist , for my friends and family too.i should not be , but I am. I care, I listen, If you think I'm not listening, I'm still listening. sometimes I interrupt, because I have ADHD and I am horrible at resolute planning, or being "normal". but I don't want to be normal anyway. I need you to recognise and understand my shit, for that is what I do for everyone in my life, and I have helped more than I receive.

I'll probably accidentally give you therapy, but thats fine, because you will uncover your depths and find meaning in this. it's not something that goes bad unless you are fundamentally, evil, even the most abusive relationship I was in, was benefited from this process. yes he's still narcissistic, but he is self-aware. and did I benefit, never, just know the anatomy of self-proclaimed narc and I still can't hate him. will get my civil claim one day.

I will fuck your mind without meaning too. but thats because I fuck my own mind. but the meaning is made in the man- some find this highly offensive or personal (its not). I fuck minds by my own overthinking, or over perception on many levels of reality. so join the ride, or don't come along at all. because once the rollercoaster is in motion, I have no control of what may or may not happen. it's purely experimental.

I am experimental.

and the women who are judging me, are not any better.

look within, and shut the fuck up. self-improve and quit this jealous divide and conquer bitchiness. I HATE gossip, bitches, snitches and fakers.

I look to other women who are intellectually, physically and spiritually "individual". and find value in superior status to my own, which is something my narcissistic ex taught me.

I look for mentors, and teachers and people who will teach me how to improve myself, which I am fearful to reconnect after something is amazing and I can't give anything back of positive value. I am sorry I am working on that.

I won't devalue those below me, but I also need to be mutually benefiting from a relationship.

I dont drag people down, I may disappear if I feel I am doing this by mistake. I am flakey as fuck, and sorry for that. its anxiety and lack of perfectionism, so I am wrong and bad for this. I can change. will change.

if you can find value with my relation, personal professional or romantic, we can move into a symbiotic beneficial agreement based on mutual "terms". but many won't or cannot see this, nor do I impose my bullshit into the lives of randoms at this age.

I don't care if this is cruel, it's real.

I value loyalty, compassion, self-insight/awareness, someone who understands all parts-spirituality, metaphysics while still having intellectual & logical & analytical brain-sight.

I enjoy music, magick and learning new things.

I do not care about appearances I dont think ive dated based on one time. I do value connections and chemistry which is far-few between, I hate fakers. I smell insincerity miles away. but I do respect women who are well-presented, or beautiful, with hair beauty and makeup, I can't do this shit well, so I look up to those who are in professions who do it like art. I find them to be genius level queens who scare me.

I call out bad behaviour and make people uncomfortable if they are repressed. I will change you without even meaning too, I don't even need to date you. its just my presence, over time, amplified by the intensity of the dynamics.

I don't want simplicity, but I also don't need over complexity.

I value passion, independence, creativity, curiosity, problem-solving, deep-disscussions, shared adventures and some occasional risk-taking (lol), sensuality and sexuality for a common cause beyond physical pleasure. I like being taught but not micromanaged. I need my own independence, and need to be trusted with that. I hate being scolded for that like a child, or being pushed to change my ways to conform to societal values. which I will push back and refuse to do. which is not healthy. I don't adult like many others do, but I try to proceed in other ways. and learn to adult like normal people, accept me.

I also value myself, and how I can be celebrated, enhanced and improved vs. the opposite.

I give space, and have boundaries, and understand human psychology, sexuality and relationships in ways few others unless they are trained, can do.

I value MY time. so you can have space to value YOURS. I dont need to be in anyones pocket for a long time. I love being alone, and being around people who are stimulating, but draining people will be drained out of my life quicker than I intend. I am sorry for the people who felt I disappeared, when I was only trying to be 'fair', if I feel I'm a bad influence, I will work on myself until I'm not. I'm still working on it.

I also use this psychology awareness, to enhance communication, connection. you may or may not become an accidental guinea pig. I will be upfront that I am experimental, but that is part of the buy ticket and take the ride. lets work together. not apart.

I am coming from a place of love, and love is what I feel for my animals, which you will be adopting as children.which I want to stop experiments being done on. I love love, in all ways, but hate cruelty of animals and children, violence and suffering. I dont advocate justice, because I find life is fucking cruel, unfair and unjust. by default, so I focus on myself. what can be changed, and what I am able to do in my own locus on control. I will always find myself drawn to the outsiders, the misfits, the vagabonds, the misunderstood. I want to help people who are society, or socially, disadvantaged by trauma and mental illness, but only when I have ability to help myself.

it's a journey.

I will not date anyone who is cruel to animals, outside of specify magical sacrifice, there is not any place for that. nor will I date or fraternise with anything or anyone linked or associated with pedophilia. I won't judge anyone on anything that are outside animal cruelty and pedophilia. I don't and haven't. I keep on good terms with every ex, bar 1 whom I only apologised too this year. it felt good to do that. I change my behaviour.

I am open, but also highly attuned to both logical, factual, empirical , scientific worlds, and spiritual, intuitive, psychic and the "collective unconscious". I walk in both these realms, and I am "conventionally attractive". which puts a lot of pressure on me, to be "stupid". I am always dumbing myself down to fit into normality, but I look ridiculous if I do that so I peacock my intellect.

only to be misconceived.

I give up because I no longer care how anyone but MYSELF can see ME. I won't dumb myself down , but I can enhance you UP. prepare yourself for graded education, evolution and self-growth on mass scales.sorry not sorry.

that sucks for the people who want to be living vicariously through me, for making up to lost trauma years, for family who sold me out for the success I'd bring home, or fake trauma enmeshed friends, or whatever they want or need from me. I value my time and energy, and have given that in abundance, and if you want to be with nut only "one part of me that is alters". I can't provide that now. not sorry.

I have to work on something or not be in a dynamic at all.

I no longer can switch on demand to adapt for you, it will not be effective and that upsets a lot of people. especially now I'm sober. harder to handle this, as I see the world for its ways and why it is, more vividly. I haven't had alcohol for almost 2 months, although, I could drink, I haven't.

I can't do it, anymore. it, being, faking, my selves fronting to impress. I can't. I have no more left to give, and I'm expected by everyone to be a way I can't do it in the way they want.

I will go to another year long outpatient DBT, followed by 10 weeks of A-C-T therapy, and however many ECT OR TMS may or may not help. I'm told it won't (ect) work. but TMS, is something I am open too. but I am telling you, none of this psychotherapy, that will be based on dbt skills, day therapy, intensive skills training, recommencing my studying, and resuming "life worth living" will or can wipe the traumas I've "recovered" memories for.

I will also shut the fuck up, and tell nobody about this if you leave me alone, I told that to my family, and this is open letter to the watchers, stalkers and perps who read this openly as I track the hits on here and have 200+ visits a day every day for the last month. globally. no idea how or who you are but I think its the same people who called the police for the "ayreon song lyrics" seen to be a suicide not last October.

thanks for that wake up call, I have shut the fuck up, since December, more so now. I will burn the journals, or lock them up.

my recovery is not linear, not yet fully integrated and I trust nobody so I don't think my psychotherapy will be deep, I focus on things like ADHD AND my EDNOS. and dbt skills. I won't be talking about sexual traumas.

enjoy the update, and thanks for the "attention".

I have my goals, my work, my meaning and what my life should and could and will look like, but I will not share that with anyone. that means everyone right now.

I've been tested, traumatised and terrorised to the point of not-tolerant of anyone who may bring that back, and banish the fuck out of my sphere every moment I need.

take me as I am, or watch me as I go, which I will go, where I am not wanted I will remove myself, but I will find where I am celebrated because I create that.

I will rise up against all adversity every time but that is survival and that created a resilient and brave woman, in me. who will not be destroyed or decomposed by humans who are fundamentally fucking evil.

I gift you my truth, in progression, and give up the pain of the past.

[szivtalan]

character ask: kagami, momoi, alex and himuro 👀👀👀

!!! omg thank u Ceru! u might be one of my favorite mutuals <33 (putting this under a read more just so I can speak at lengths about each individual character)

Why I like Kagami: this is where I sarcastically ask “why DON’T i like him” but that’s literally the next question so; he’s everything i want to be and more. He has the determination and the willpower to make his own dreams come true, he’s gay as shit, he’s tall and buff and well-adjusted, mature enough to live on his own at an annoyingly young age, he’s funny and dumb and a total himbo as well as an excellent advisor bc of how grounded he is.

Why I don’t: I’m... not really good with explosive people. Violent men with loud voices especially scare me, and I’d think I’d flinch around him a lot and that would make me rlly anxious.

Favorite episode: it’s a toss-up between the Seirin fam visiting his place for the first time (is it where Kuroko confesses his love to him and then passes out in his arms? idk), and the onsen episode. I also loved all his plays against Kise and Aomine. AND the training camp w him running a lot in the sand.

Favorite season/movie: season 2 probably because he’s not a jerk anymore, but he’s still on his way to shed off any asshole behavior stuck to him. And I actually liked Last Game?

Favorite line: “There’s no such thing as useless effort.” and “This is our drama and we write the plot.” because he’s so ridiculous.

Favorite outfit: all of his casual fits... comfy but manly is my Jam

OTP: AoKaga....they’re truly soulmates, star-crossed lovers, canonically brought together by fate.

Brotp/otp no. 2: KagaKuro, I love them

Head Canon: I have several collections because I think too much about this boy, but here’s something I think about his family: he doesn’t know what happened to his mom. He never asked, because it wasn’t relevant, and he didn’t want to inconvenience his dad by questioning him. Occasionally, as a kid he felt like he was missing out on something (seeing other kids with their moms, feeling like they’re being treated with much more gentle care because they have moms), but as he grew older he realized that nurturing behavior shouldn’t have been limited to only a mother, and that he was just straight up neglected without any regards to missing a parent in his life.

Unpopular opinion: I never realized this was an unpopular opinion but I’m glad he went back to America at the end of Last Game. Obviously, it’s sad that he had to separate from the others, but I felt like Japanese basketball has always been just a stepping point to him, and now that he’d beat the best of them, it was time to move on. And it also warms my heart that him getting scouted in the US gave Aomine hope to aim big, too. I felt like both of them would’ve felt trapped in Japan with their skill sets.

A wish: I want him to be happy and gay and to confront Himuro and tell him how hurt he was by how he treated him and probably do the same to his dad too

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: ....whatever I’d say Shinsun has probably written it/will write it, but I don’t want him to forget about the GoM just because he becomes a world-famous athlete.

5 words to best describe them: sweet child with anger issues

My nickname for them: not mine (it’s Sypha’s) but “Kags”, Kagami, Tigerboy, Kagababe, Baby

Why I like Momoi: she is SO nurturing and sweet and she cares so much about her boys!! I’m sorry it always turns into “how they remind me of myself” but actually I get feeling like a background character and being the moral/emotional/physical support of those who are more talented or in any way better than you. I feel a strange kind of kinship with her and also,,, feminine girls make my heart stop, and it doesn’t get more feminine than Momoi. Added: Aomine aside, the Touou team wouldn’t worth shit without her skills tbh, and she’s not in any way less than the GoM. Also, I appreciate her being the one person to try to keep their friend group together.

Why I don’t: Analytical People Scare me like!! how do u know stuff people are Unknowable!! I usually am also irked by her pointing out Riko’s breast size but I can just pretend that’s in a gay way (maybe Momoi likes girls with small boobs and she’s just bad at flirting) (also I don’t exactly liked her calling Aomine a “ganguro” but I have too little knowledge on the use of this word to say exactly why)

Favorite episode (scene if movie): uh the one where Aomine made her cry? It really came through how much love she actually has for her friends at that one.

Favorite season/movie: she was great in all of them!!

Favorite line: I can’t remember the exact quote and Google isn’t really helpful either but the one where she made Kuroko promise they’ll always play together or something? Or that they’re gonna beat Aomine?? idk?

Favorite outfit: I like all of them but mostly I just appreciate her wearing so many hoodies, she looks so cute in them

OTP / Brotp: it’s both AoMomo. I feel like the have the most special and strongest bond in the entire series.

Head Canon: She’s never been shown to do, but I feel like she wears Aomine’s clothes a Lot. Also, they definitely have sleepovers To This Day.

Unpopular opinion: Momoi is good at basketball and she loves playing!!! But try being successful in it when ur opponents are Giants and Way More Buff than you are

A wish: I wish people appreciated her more!! Both in fandom and in canon. She’s an amazing person and she has her own skills and strengths that are rarely explored or even mentioned anywhere.

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: her falling out with her boys ;-; I do not want that

5 words to best describe them: strawberry sweetheart to steal ur heart

My nickname for them: Satsuki :> I feel like it’s a little too much to call characters on their first names sometimes but hers is so cute I can’t

Why I like Alex: yet again another woman with an extensive skill set. I love her persistence and again I appreciate getting disillusioned and finding your way back to the thing you love. Also it’s just sweet that she did that by teaching (again, something I can relate to)

Why I don’t: the whole “kissing children” thing rubbed me the wrong way but again, just like Momoi’s obsession with comparing breast sizes, it’s just bad/sexist writing from Fujimaki probably

Favorite episode (scene if movie): adshg any and all where she expressed that Himuro and Kagami are equally important to her <33 that shit makes my heart burst

Favorite season/movie: she only appears towards the end of s2 and in s3 so... I guess s3?

Favorite line: its so Bad that u literally can’t find the iconic quotes of these iconic ladies anywhere but... her story on finding her passion again through teaching kids, and anytime she mentions her fondness of Kagami and Himuro.

Favorite outfit: her iconic olive green coat with the short red shorts... wtf was that I loved it.

OTP: she doesn’t really interact with people her age but I’ve heard she’s shipped with Masako Araki and I’ve seen some seriously good fanarts and like... Yes Good I’d Love To See It

Brotp: I feel like her and Himuro would be that sassy pair that Kagami tries and fails to contain and they get into all sorts of weird, absurd situations asdjs what I’m trying to say is Kagami has to bail them out of jail from time to time

Head Canon: fck me if I’m wrong but she’s the lesbian single mom of the two gay kids she reluctantly adopted from the streets

Unpopular opinion: it’s more like another headcanon, but she can dunk and she taught Kagami how to do it.

A wish: I’d love her to coach the Seirin fam more!! Pls let her be part of her children’s lives (she could also judge streetball games between the goms it would be fun)

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: anything about her being romantically involved with her pupils makes me.................no

5 words to best describe them: Beautiful Beach Blonde Basketball....goddess

My nickname for them: Alex!! sometimes An Icon

Why I like Himuro: em dash Asdgsdj I’m joking, I’m becoming more and more fond of the boy. Once I realized that he shouldn’t have been the “bigger person” in that situation and one year doesn’t really mean much when you’re that young and that hurt, I realized he’s actually a good and hard-working kid and I’m sorry for giving him so much shade. Also I really like his snark and sass, but that might not even be canon at this point tbh

Why I don’t: I’m still sort of irked by him beating down on Kagami because he was envious/mad, but I realized the aspect of that situation that Really got to me was how devoted Kagami still was to him after all that. That devotion was what felt toxic, nothing that Himuro actually did to him.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): the time they met up w Kagami just to exchange a dramatic socially distancing bro fist and a few encouraging words.... gays be Like That

Favorite season/movie: I really didn’t mind s3 Himuro

Favorite line: apparently he’s said some iconic stuff that I don’t remember (and my sources don’t seem really legit) but I’m gonna say “let’s see you become number 1, bro” because again, that’s just so ridiculous and endearing. On one hand he really went from loathing Kagami to rooting for him and wanting him to reach his full potential and on the other, honey ur  like 17 stop speaking like That

Favorite outfit: his knitted V-neck sweaters and the black coat with the white fur.... boy’s got all the fashion sense that’s missing from Kagami

OTP: can I say.....AoHimu asdfh I ship 3/4 of these characters with Aomine what does that say about me

Brotp: KagaHimu. They can be sweet, but I’ve only ever seen Jake write them really well

Head Canon: I’ve been entertaining the idea of....trans Himuro.....

Unpopular opinion: everyone thinks that Kagami is the violent kid and Himuro is the chill, sweet child who’s somehow wound up with this mess of a fiery tiger, but it’s actually Himuro who taught Kagami how to fight and Kagami learned quite a lot of aggression from him

A wish: I feel like Himuro should’ve gotten a separate episode to explore his thoughts, feelings and past. He had so much potential as a character Is2g

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: him quitting basketball would fucking destroy me. I’d be devastated for others too, but it would really pull on my heartstrings if he just dropped the only thing he’s been so passionate about.

5 words to best describe them: gender-non-conforming emo child

My nickname for them: Himu, Tatsuya, Tatsu

[microsuedemouse]

man it has been a MINUTE since I made my own post about anything fandom-related on this website but @suzirya is blogging about The Old Guard and I haven’t seen anyone else talking about it really and I’ve got. some thoughts

I had literally never heard of this movie at all until a few nights ago when we were eating dinner in the living room and my dad pulled it up and said ‘hey I want to watch this’ and played the trailer for my brother and me. We were pretty much like yeah, sure, we all enjoy a good action flick, and aside from my other brother (who was occupied with D&D) it ended up being the whole family watching it. and I enjoyed it WAY more than I’d anticipated, especially for something I’d never heard about.

if you don’t know what I’m talking about: drop what you’re doing and go watch The Old Guard on Netflix. (it’s a Netflix original so yes it will be there.) it’s a very fun and good action film based on a series of graphic novels about a small group of immortals trying to do what’s right. there are many selling points but one of them is that it will be very good for your little gay soul, bc Charlize Theron stars (in a character with no explicitly-stated romances but lots of relationships that will make you Feel Things) and two of the other main characters are two men who met during the Crusades and are just amazingly in love with each other. And not in a vague way that the straights can interpret as Powerful Friendship. They are explicitly in love with each other and so devoted and ugh.

ANYWAY. putting the rest of my chattering under a cut bc spoilers and also I’m a wordy piece of shit

1 - early in this movie I was thinking about how glad I am that Charlize Theron has stepped into this role of like... cool female action star, but also, her characters are never super sexed up. almost any female characters I can think of in action movies, if they’re part of the action rather than victims/bystanders, are always made sexy. even when they’re Strong sexy, they’re still... a lot sometimes? I was thinking especially of some Angelina Jolie stuff, Scarlett Johanssen, etc. there are probably lots of exceptions to this that I just don’t know but still - we’ve had Theron in several roles like this recently, and appearance-wise she’s treated with the same respect as her male counterparts, which is so fucking cool and also such a fucking relief. we all love beautiful ladies, obviously, but it’s so SO good to see our female heroes just doing their jobs, without us ever being made aware of their sexuality.

and as the movie went on this was hitting me more and more, and I was also thinking it about... everyone? like. the other female lead, played by KiKi Layne, was arguably more feminine than Theron but not any more sexualised. even once she’s out of her army fatigues she’s dressed with practicality in mind, and again, we never have her female-ness pointed out to us. and I was so about every bit of that. both objectively and as a person whose relationship to female-ness and femininity is kind of weird, it’s such a good thing to see leading women whose gender and appearances and bodies aren’t being focussed on that way.

and as a sidebar to that, while I wouldn’t describe any of the prominent male characters as unattractive by any means, none of them were like... Marvel-actor hot. and I just, idk, especially in action/superhero movies, that’s refreshing to me. a lot of them looked like Regular Dudes in a way that I find very appealing.

2 - can we TALK about Joe and Nicky. holy shit. my brother and I kept leaning over to each other to be like ‘if anything happens to either of them I’ll riot.’ I MEAN.

we got a genuine, explicit, on-screen established romance between these men. it was not implied, it was not just how the actors played it in the hopes that people would catch on - it was right there. they hold each other to sleep, they kiss each other with such love, they talk to other characters about how much they adore each other. they met during the Crusades. they’ve been in love for centuries! and they’re so sweet, so devoted, so adoring! and they never have any arguments or tension to further the plot (one of my personal most-hated plot devices in any story with an established relationship). they just spend this movie loving each other, protecting each other and their weird little family, doing anything they can for each other. they’re taken prisoner and spend their time awake joking and making each other smile. and the one singular bit of casual homophobia they encounter on-screen is met with a declaration of love so heartfelt and intense that the guy who made the shitty comment literally doesn’t know what to say - which is a brief but extremely good scene in the movie, imo.

oh, also worth noting: this romance is biracial and interfaith (inasmuch as either of them may be men of faith after being alive for centuries). just to add to how good this is to see on-screen. all of this on top of them being IMMORTAL AND UNKILLABLE. NO GAYS BURIED HERE

2.5 - can I talk for a second about how goddamn much I love seeing non-hetero romance in genre fiction!!! I know it’s getting easier to find, but still. genre fiction is very much my domain and I love seeing queer romance there, especially when it’s simply an accepted fact and the characters’ queerness isn’t central to the story. narratives about queerness are good and important and serve a function but most of them aren’t really my thing, personally. a story that’s about all kinds of other things but also has queer characters there, being themselves, being in love, is so 1000% my shit.

3 - also? Charlize Theron’s character, Andy?? fascinating from a queer perspective. she doesn’t have any explicitly-stated romance with anyone, but her relationships with other characters are so compelling and so interesting. The backstory about her and another immortal, Quynh, very very distinctly gives you the impression that they were women in love. everything about Andy’s guilt and bitterness over not having been able to find/save Quynh feels so much like there was a romance there. it could have been platonic or familial - they were together, without anyone else, for centuries at least, and therefore obviously developed a very deep love - but the way Andy talks about Quynh it feels so much like there was something left unsaid, or unresolved.

also, her scene with the clerk in the pharmacy. oh my god. this woman clearly recognises that whatever is going on with Andy, something is wrong, and she offers her help, no questions asked. she takes her into the back room and patches up her wound. this scene has such an inherent intimacy because of the close quarters and the privacy and the act taking place, but... there’s also this really interesting connection happening between them, where they recognise something in one another but don’t state it. (personally, I couldn’t help wondering if the clerk was a domestic abuse survivor, maybe? but there are so many ways you could interpret her character from her behaviour and dialogue in that scene, and I’d love to see other people’s takes.)

and then on the other hand you have her relationship with Booker, who’s been with her the longest out of any of the living immortals. they’re incredible. their relationship is so, so interesting and well-depicted! they have such chemistry, that you can easily read as romantic or platonic. they’ve been together for so many hundreds of years and they work together, trust each other, with such a deep understanding and love and respect. and it never quite tips over into the romance you kind of think it will, which imo only makes it that much more compelling - there are so many directions you could take that dynamic.

4 - and then on the topic of Booker: I am SO into the way his betrayal was handled.

he did, undeniably, betray the others. there’s no argument on that fact. his motivations were understandable (and heartbreaking), even to Andy, though certainly not an excuse. so yes, they were furious with him. reasonably so! but... that didn’t actually break their relationships with him. they didn’t leave him behind in the lab, even if in some ways they might have wanted to. and in the ensuing battle, they were still able to work together and trust each other as they always have. the damage done to their larger relationship was put aside to be dealt with after all of this, as it should be. and even when they did deal with it, what they agreed on was just a century of exile from their group. given the lives they’re all living, that seems like such a mild sentence.

but to me, it makes so much sense. again, these people have lived for centuries, and there are so few of them. they need each other. the bonds they’ve formed over all this time together - the trust, the love, the sense of family - would not only be vital to both their survival and their sanity, but also incredibly difficult to truly break. what he did would seem unforgivable from an outside perspective, and even after that century passed I’m certain he’d have to earn back their trust and respect, but it makes absolute sense that they’d be willing to take him back one day.

god. GOD. I’m sure there’s more I could talk about but this is what I can think of right now and I’ve been typing for like forty minutes probably so I’m done for now but.

god.

this movie and its characters GOT ME, guys. I’m really in it. ugh UGH

[watchmegetobsessed]

Different - Adam Sackler (pt. 5)

OMG thank you so much for all the kind words and love you’ve showed to this series, you made me so happy! as i said, this story sits close to my heart so i’m very happy that so many of you enjoyed it! this is officially the last part of this series so thank you for reading, but i think i will surely write more about Sackler bc im just OBSESSED with him. so follow me or ask me to put you on my Adam taglist if you’d like to read more from me!

series summary: Hannah lets you move in with her and Adam as you are her second cousin and in need of a place to live. Your relationship with Adam starts rocky, but things soon seem to be taking a turn.

pairing: Adam Sackler x Reader

❗️ WARNING: SMUT!❗️

word count: 5k

PART 1 - PART 2 - PART 3 - PART 4

masterlist

If you had to specify the worst period in your life, you’d point to the three months that followed that one hell of a day, without hesitation. You never in your life would have thought you’d end up this hurt, because you somehow always thought you’d have Adam. But you didn’t, because you decided to push him away and even though it broke you in every possible way, you still told yourself it was the right decision to make. The only one you thought you’d made in a while.

He tried to call you hundreds of times for a week after everything that has happened, but you declined all of his calls, and if he left you a voicemail, you just deleted it without even listening, because you knew if you heard his voice that would just make it even harder. You wanted to call him a lot of times, when you were questioning if you’ve made the right decision, your fingers lingered over his contact in your phone several times, but you never called.

For obvious reasons Hannah broke all contact with you and you couldn’t blame her. You deserved everything you got from her and maybe even more. Her words burnt into your mind and you found yourself repeating them in your thoughts quite often, as if your consciousness wanted you to remember how horrible of a person you are. Not that it wasn’t true, to be honest.

It took you three months to somewhat settle down and be able to continue with your everydays after everything that has happened. But it doesn’t mean you forgot any of it. That void Adam left in you was still there, you just learned to ignore it and pretend like you don’t miss him every day of your life.

Tyler quit after the incident with you, being the clever grown man that he is, so at least you had one less thing to worry about. But your days started to blur into one big mess. It took you long to actually try to pull yourself out of this slumber-like state. What really helped you is that you started taking yoga classes. Twice a week you took one hour to yourself, to connect with yourself and do something for your own good.

There’s a juice bar near the studio where you go and you are heading there right now as well, dreaming about a freshly pressed green juice. Walking in you are welcomed by the tiny bells above the door and the sound brings a smile to your face as you stand in line.

When you finally get your juice and pay for it turning around you look for an empty table where you can peacefully read through your emails until you finish your juice, but you stop breathing for a second when your eyes meet a familiar gaze.

“Hannah,” you breathe out as she is looking right back at you from a table in the corner. She has her phone in her hands and a sandwich with a red juice on the table.

“Want to sit?” she offers and for a moment you feel like this is a trap. “Come on, I’m not gonna scream at you I promise,” she chuckles taking her bag away from the empty chair at the table and you take the seat shyly.

“Thank you. I didn’t know you come here.”

“I don’t. I was just in the neighborhood and got hungry,” she shrugs looking down at her half eaten sandwich.

There is a long, awkward silence between the two of you and you have no idea what you should say. The last time you saw her she was basically cursing you out for stealing her boyfriend, but now she seems cool with being around you, which is quite surprising to you.

“So, it’s been long since we last saw each other, huh?”

“Yeah,” you nod, a thousand things on your mind that you want to say, but none of them really comes out. So then you say that one thing that obviously needs to be said. “Hannah, I’m so sorry for everything then went down. I don’t know what has gotten into me, I honestly didn’t want to hurt you, that was never my intention.”

“I know,” she nods with a warm smile and you are more than surprised by her reaction.

“You do?”

“Yeah,” she chuckles. “Look I’m not saying that what you did was right and that I wasn’t supposed to be mad at you, because it was pretty fucked up, I hope you see that. But I lashed out on you a little too hard and not even for the right reason. I mean, when Adam accidentally dropped that you two have kissed, my mind went into chaos pretty fast.”

“That’s the normal reaction to finding out such thing.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t mad because you kissed. I mean, kissing is not even that big of a deal, I have kissed Elijah several times when I was dating other men. Now I know that he is gay, but you get the point, right?”

You just nod, thinking you are following her trail of thoughts though you’re not sure where she is heading with it.

“I was hurt that you two had feelings, I’ll admit that. I wasn’t expecting it to happen, but I’m mature enough to know that it’s not really something you have control over. I mean, I couldn’t control my feelings when Adam and I were just casually sleeping together and I fell for him. I didn’t mean that to happen, but it did!” she chuckles and you crack a smile as well. “Listen,” she sighs laying her hands out on the table. “I’m sorry for calling you disgusting, that was a little… too over the top.”

“Honestly, I think you had every right,” you sigh shaking your head.

“No,” she sighs. “The main reason why I was mad was because… I wasn’t the one who pulled the plug.”

You stare at her for a few moments, confused by what she meant by those words.

“I’m sorry?”

“Yeah, you heard it right. I wanted to be the one to break up with Adam and it bothered me that I ended up being dumped. It hurt my ego, because I was very sure I’d be the one to just end it and walk away like this badass, independent woman, but my breakup plan didn’t go as planned. When I went home that day with the pure intention of breaking up with him we quickly got into a fight and Adam just blurted it out, that he has feelings for you and that you already kissed and he wants to break up, right before I could say it so he took my chance. I didn’t get to be the one who ended it and it bothered me way more than it should have.”

“Hannah…”

“I’m sorry for being a bitch, it was really unnecessary. It still doesn’t change the fact that you fucked my boyfriend,” she adds pointing at you.

“Oh, I didn’t fuck him,” you shyly correct her and genuine surprise shows on her face.

“Really? Because I thought Adam just didn’t want to make me angrier and that’s why he said you just kissed.”

“No. When the kiss happened I felt so ashamed that I told him that nothing can happen until you and him are not officially done. I know it doesn’t make the whole situation better, but I wasn’t gonna be that girl who sleeps with someone else’s boyfriend.”

“Huh,” she huffs to herself, rearranging her whole viewing of what has happened. “Okay, this makes it a little better, still fucked up, but not that much.”

“Good to know. Not that it changes anything, but… yeah.”

“So you really haven’t talked to Adam since then,” she figures from the way you look.

“Did you?”

“I did,” she nods and you raise your eyebrows at her. This conversation is full of surprises. “We met about a month ago at Ray’s birthday. At first we were awkwardly avoiding each other, but then he actually came up to me and apologized.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah. Following that, we had a nice talk and I can really tell the guy is suffering.”

“What?” you whisper, feeling your heart immediately breaking.

“He didn’t take it well that you shut him out. And I’m not just saying this because this is what I think. He straight up told me. He told me all about how he hasn’t felt like himself ever since you didn’t let him into your place that night.”

“He told you about that?” you glance away from her. You weren’t expecting her to know so many details.

“Yeah. He really thinks he ruined you.”

“Ruined me?”

“Y/N, Adam is wired differently. He took it like he was to blame for everything and that you blame him for how everything turned out to be.”

“I’m blaming myself, not him.”

“I told him that this is probably what you think, but he would never believe it if it’s not coming from you.”

You sit there in silence, because you don’t know what you could say. You feel horrible knowing Adam has been suffering since your parting, but you still haven’t changed your mind. There’s no way Adam and you could ever make it work between the two of you, you could never do that to Hannah.

“I know what you are thinking,” Hannah speaks up pulling you out of your thoughts. “You’re thinking that you can’t be with Adam because it’s not right.”

“This is the truth. I did enough harm with my stupidity.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you got together with him.” “What?” you look at her with wide eyes. Is this a trap?

“Honestly, I’m over it. Despite everything that happened, I love you and I obviously love Adam in some way and it hurts me to see both of you like this. If it’s my blessing that’s holding you back, you have it.”

“But do you actually mean it?”

“I genuinely do. I’m working on being less selfish, something I’ve been told to be quite a lot lately and I think this is a right step towards that. I don’t really have a real reason to bring up why I shouldn’t let you be happy. It would be an egoistic move from me to watch you both suffer when I could easily help. I was over Adam when it all happened, we distanced way before that, this whole thing hurt me in a different way that has nothing to do with you or him. Would it be strange at first? Of course, but I’ve seen and been through stranger things in my life, so I’m not surprised anymore.”

This conversation has truly taken some surprising turns and you would have never thought that by the end of the day you’d have such a relief on the one thing that’s been weighing down on you for so long.

The two of you stay there in the juice bar for another hour or so, just talking and reconnecting, smoothing everything out that’s been building up in yourself through the months spent apart. She brings you the change you couldn’t give yourself and it finally pushes you out of this hell of a circle you’ve been running in for too long.

It takes you an entire week to build your courage up to face Adam. When you leave to his place that evening you’re not even sure if he still lives there, but you decide to take the chance and if it turns out that he has moved, you’ll take it as a sign that you weren’t supposed to meet him.

As you stand at the door silently, you wonder if he is on the other side. If he looks the same or if something has changed on him. Did he get a haircut? Did he maybe shave? Does he even want to see you? The questions keep flowing in and out of you until you just stop thinking and force yourself to knock on the door.

You hear shuffling from inside and then the door flies open and there he is, standing right in front of you in a pair of dark jeans and grey t-shirt, staring down at you with the most surprised look you’ve ever seen on his handsome face.

“Hey,” you shyly greet him with a small smile.

“Hey. Wha-what are you doing here?”

“I uhh—I wanted to talk to you. Is it not a good time for you?” you ask suddenly feeling like you are bothering him, after all, you just showed up unannounced, he might have plans or company over. Your stomach churns at the thought of the latter.

“No! Come in!” he shakes his head realizing he hasn’t even invited you in. He closes the door behind you and running ahead he collects some abandoned clothes from the floor and couch so you can sit down. You just smile at him as he throws them into his bedroom before joining you.

“So what’s up?”

“I… I met Hannah the other day.”

“Mm,” he hums, curiously waiting for the rest of the story.

“We talked about a lot of things and we kind of reconciled which was very nice and needed. And she told me about things I didn’t know, the reason why she lashed out so hard on me a-and that she met you a while ago.”

“Yeah, we ran into each other at Ray’s birthday,” he nods confirming the information you got from her.

“She said that you didn’t take well what happened… between us.” You glance at him and his gaze is just so intense, it’s making you feel a lot more anxious than you already are.

“I mean… Yeah, I’m not gonna lie, it’s been pretty fucked up for me.”

“I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?”

“For… making you believe that I was blaming you for everything. It was never true, I blamed myself for what happened. I thought that I failed not just Hannah but you as well and that I deserve to be left alone and suffer the consequences of my own actions.”

“Fuck, Y/N, you know we were in this together, why would you blame it all on yourself?” he sighs, frustrated to find out about your feelings.

“Why would you blame it all on yourself?” you repeat his words, feeling like it’s relevant to ask the same thing from him. “We both made mistakes.”

“Yeah,” he nods pressing his lips together into a thin line.

“I’m sorry for not letting you in that night, but I really thought I don’t deserve the smallest happy thing in my life after hearing Hannah lash out on me.”

“You were really driving me crazy. You didn’t even give me a chance to actually talk to you, just shut me out right away.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do to change the past,” you say chuckling lightly. He nods in agreement. “Hannah told me some other things too.”

“Like what?”

“That she doesn’t want either of us to stay miserable and if she is the only person standing between us she is giving us her blessing.”

Adam sucks on his breath as the conversation just took a sudden turn he was hoping to happen, but didn’t think it would really.

“So… What does this mean?” he nervously asks and you find it adorable how this huge man, full of muscle and masculinity can look like the cutest creature on Earth.

“Adam, I’m sorry for the way I reacted back then, but I had a lot of time to think and my conversation with Hannah really put things into their place.”

“Alright,” he nods.

“And I think that… If you still want to, we can… give it a try. Give us a try,” you finally say and you see his eyes brightening up immediately, as the corners of his mouth curl up.

“Is this for real? You’re not just fucking with me, right?” he asks gasping and you can’t help but chuckle at his genuine reaction.

“I’m not fucking with you, Adam,” you say shaking your head.

You watch him let his head fall back as his fits fly into the air.

“Fuck yes!” he happily shouts before quickly bouncing back and cupping your face in his hands he kisses you the way he has imagined so many times since the first time your lips touched.

You let the sensation take over your whole body as your hands grip onto his broad shoulders while his hands slide down to your waist and he gently pulls you until you are sitting on his lap, knees on each sides of his, bodies pressed together.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he breathes out, burying his face into your neck as you hold him tight, fingers laced through his hair, just taking the moment in, embracing every emotion as it is, letting them flowing through your body, right into him.

The heat of the moment quickly turns into something sentimental and moving, everything crashing down on you at once and you just let yourself experience it the way it comes to you.

“I really thought I lost you forever,” he mumbles against your skin, placing soft kisses below your skin. “Swear to God if you dare to do it again, I’m gonna lose my fucking mind,” he chuckles making you laugh as well while the damn tears start forming in your eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” you breathe out lifting his head and brushing his hair out of his face you just stare into his eyes, those beautiful, hazel eyes you’ve missed so much. “But I’m here now.”

“Yes you are,” he grins before kissing you again.

His lips tug on yours, taking his time with you, while his hands run up and down on your body, exploring every bit of it, but he doesn’t move further. He doesn’t try to take your clothes off or push it and you find it very comforting and securing that he still remembers the things you talked about months ago. But you feel like you are more than comfortable with him to take this next step.

“Adam,” you mumble against his lips, your hands sliding down to his stomach where you grab the hem of his shirt.

“Yeah?”

“You can… You can go for it.”

Stopping he leans back so he can look into your eyes, looking for any sign that tells him he shouldn’t, but you just smile at him shyly.

“Are you sure? Because I’m completely fine with doing nothing, just… lying in bed and being with you.”

“I’m completely sure,” you say pecking his lips shortly. He seems uncertain as you pull his shirt up, but he holds his arms up and lets you undress him, tossing the shirt to the side before laying your palms out on his chest.

Then slowly but surely he gets into action. His hands reach under your thighs and he stands up with you in his arms, carrying you into his bedroom and laying you down to his bed, getting on top of you. His large hands fumble with the small buttons of your shirt, but you reach down to help him and a moment later the shirt is gone and he is pulling your pants down before undoing his own jeans.

You feel secure and comfortable with him, but it’s still a challenging moment regarding of your general anxiety. When he looks down at your body that’s only covered by your lingerie you feel insecure about it and he quickly realizes it.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathes out as he gets on top of you, kissing you sweetly. “Fucking gorgeous,” he smiles before kissing every inch of your face, making you giggle.

Your lips reconnect and soon the rest of your clothes are gone, leaving both of you naked under his sheets.

“Just tell me when something doesn’t feel good, okay?” he asks after he rolls a condom on and you nervously nod. “Hey, we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he assures you seeing how nervous you are.

“I want to, I’m just… I don’t want it to be disappointing to you,” you say quietly.

“That’s impossible. You can never disappoint me, I could come just by looking at you naked,” he jokes making you laugh.

“Oh, so how come you haven’t finished yet?” you ask smirking at him.

“I’m really struggling to hold myself back. You can’t fucking imagine,” he grins kissing you gently. “Don’t think about me, think about yourself. I’m pretty fucking sure what feels good for you will feel amazing to me as well.”

You just nod your head licking your lips as he reaches between you and him and positions himself to your center. He looks you in the eyes one last time, as if he is asking for the final permission and when you nod, brushing his hair out of his forehead, with one slow but confident push he is inside you.

You gasp at the feeling, given the fact that it’s been so long since you’ve been with someone and he is pretty gifted when it comes to his length. But he lets you take your time to adjust to the feeling, staying still and peppering your face with gentle kisses.

“Y-You can move,” you tell him quietly.

“Sure?”

“Yeah,” you nod and moving your hands to the back of his neck you let out a moan as he slowly starts rocking his hips back and forth.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he growls into your neck.

At first it feels a little uncomfortable and strange, but you start to loosen up and do what Adam told you; just focus on yourself. Pulling your legs up you let him hit a way better angle, making you moan as he thrusts inside you and you slowly start to find what feels the best for you.

“You good?” he asks breathing heavily and you just nod, biting into your bottom lip as you wrap your arms around his neck. “Do you want to switch it up?”

“Like… me on top?” you ask unsurely.

“It’s an option.” “Um, yeah,” you say, trying to keep your confidence as he wraps an arm around you and carefully flips the two of you over, so you are now sitting on him. You start moving your hips, not too sure what you should really be doing.

“Relax, just do whatever feels good for you,” he comforts you, his hands holding onto your hips as he gently starts guiding you, giving you a direction to start.

It takes a few seconds to finally find what you enjoy the most and when you do, you just go for it.

“Yes, fuck!” he moans, his head sinking into the pillow. Reaching up his hands cup your breasts as you buck your hips up and down, taking up the pace that feels just right.

“Adam,” you moan his name, hands on his chest as you keep moving, feeling your orgasm building up inside you.

“Yeah, you’re doing so fucking great,” he groans, thrusting his hips up matching your rhythm and you whimper from the feeling.

He pushes himself up into a sitting position, wrapping his arms around your body, your hands on his bare shoulders as you just keep moving and panting, your cheek pressing against his. Turning he kisses your jawline, one hand sliding down to your ass, the other one up into your hair at the back of your head.

“Fuck,” he growls and you know he is close, but so as you.

You pick your pace up, desperate for release, you let your head fall back and his lips meet the soft skin on your neck, kissing down on your throat and the moment his fingers dig into your skin at your ribcage you explode.

“Fuck!” you gasp, falling out of your rhythm as your orgasm washes over your body. You hear Adam grunting as he thrusts a couple more times before he comes as well.

Your panting fills the silence in the room in the next few seconds as you come back down from your high, eyes turning back to Adam who is already looking at you in awe.

“What?” you shyly ask.

“And you thought you would disappoint,” he grins kissing your shoulder. “You fucking… sex goddess.”

“Stop!” you chuckle, leaning down you kiss him softly, the raw passion is gone and replaced by a deeper, sensational feeling.

“You don’t regret it, right?” he asks a little later when the two of you are lying next to each other on your sides, facing each other, his hand playing with yours on the pillow.

“No, of course not,” you smile as he laces his fingers together with yours and pulling your hand to his lips he places a chaste kiss to the back of your hand.

“Alright. Good.”

“This is so crazy,” you exhale softly, watching him in awe.

“What’s crazy?”

“How this all turned out to be. So different from what I imagined.”

“What did you originally imagine?” he asks with a curious smirk on his full lips.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” you admit chuckling. “But not this for sure.”

His hand reaches out and he pulls you closer to him, legs tangling together as he kisses the tip of your nose, making you smile.

“Well, this is our life now. You are stuck with me.”

“What a tragedy,” you tease him, earning him to squeeze your hip gently. “The greatest tragedy of all times,” you add making him chuckle.

Making yourself comfortable in his arms you feel your eyelids getting heavier with each blink. Kissing his lips softly one more time you let them close and stay closed as Adam kisses your forehead.

“Promise me you’ll be here when I wake up,” he whispers and you open your eyes looking at him, seeing that need for validation in his eyes.

“I’m here to stay, don’t worry,” you reassure him before you let your eyes close again and this time, you slowly drift to sleep, feeling his fingers gently caressing your side until the very last moment you’re awake.

 You smile to yourself upon hearing the front door open and close and when you see Adam walk in a moment later you get up from your bed to greet your boyfriend the proper way on his birthday.

“Hey,” you smile at him kissing his lips softly.

“Hi, I missed you,” he grins giving your ass a gentle squeeze before letting go of you and walking over to your bed he throws himself onto it with a tired sigh.

“How was your day?”

“Just the usual, nothing extra. The guys on set got me a cupcake,” he chuckles to himself.

“That’s cute,” you say crawling onto the bed, thinking about how adorable he would look like with a tiny cupcake compared to his size.

Reaching over to your nightstand you grab the white envelope you’ve had prepared for him, his name written on it in cursive to make it look fancy.

“Happy birthday,” you hand it to him with an excited smile.

“Y/N, I told you no gifts!” he looks at you with narrow eyes. He really did say he doesn’t want anything for his birthday, just to be with you, the only person he is interested in as he said. But you just couldn’t contain yourself and you had a funny idea about his gift.

“I know, but it’s not really a gift. It’s just… something I owe you.”

“Is this a pair of your panties?” he jokes and you just shake your head at him laughing.

“Just open it!”

He gives you a puzzled look as he opens the envelope and looks inside. He pulls out the twenty and five dollar bills with an even more confused look as he holds them up while you just giggle to yourself.

“What is this supposed to be?”

“This is the twenty-five bucks you paid me when we went out with Hannah. I felt like I should pay you back.”

“But why?”

“Because… I would rather not have you paying for a moment in our relationship that was kind of significant.”

“We really bonded that night, huh?” he chuckles placing a hand on your thigh as he puts the money and the envelope away. “Did you think we would end up here back then?”

“Not then. But I was already having thoughts about you.”

“Me too,” he admits smiling.

It’s kind of crazy thinking back at that day now, two months into your relationship with him, it all feels so surreal. You’ve definitely come a long way from ignoring each other in the apartment to being so madly in love.

Leaning closer he kisses you softly, his hand holding your chin tenderly.

“I love you,” he whispers and a wide smile stretches across your face. It’s not the first time he said it, but every time feels like the first, making your heart flip in your chest, completely whipped for this tall, weird but so amazing man you get to call your boyfriend.

“I love you too,” you mumble back before he grabs you by your waist and a moment later you are lying on the mattress, him on top of you, kissing down on your neck.

“Babe?” he asks stopping at your chest, looking up at you from under his dark eyelashes.

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask for one thing for my birthday?”

“Sure,” you smile down at him, curious about what he wants.

“I want to fuck you on the kitchen counter,” he bluntly states, and you just chuckle, combing his hair with your fingers.

Rolling off the bed you just walk over to the kitchen counter pushing the boxes and plates to the side before hopping onto the top and crossing your leg seductively, smirking at him while he is still on your bed, watching you completely amazed by you.

“Well, happy birthday to you, big boy,” you say in a low tone and it drives him crazy immediately. Jumping off the bed he rushes over to you, uncrossing your legs so he can stand between your knees.

“Best fucking birthday ever,” he grins before pressing his lips to yours.

-

general/forever taglist for Adam Driver

i do separate taglists for different people, but not for different works of mine! if you ask to be on my Adam taglist, you’ll be tagged in all of my Adam fics!

@superdriver @siren-queen03 @holacherrycola90 @spencer-is-amazing @unusual-kindred-spirits @hailthemightywoecloud @holy-kylo-stars @kowalskibro-adamdriverblog @hurricanesunset @writerandee @luxury-0pps @prncess91 @malefoygal @zaahidahhh @filternotincluded @fire-in-her-veinz​

if you’d like to be taken off or added to the list, please let me know!