#vintage sapphic romance

[jeniferprince]

oh, yeah? what a coincidence 

check more of my work on instagram // buy prints here

[thewarmthofequallyreturnedlove]

“I love her and that’s the beginning and end of everything.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

[celluloiddreaming]

[milkandhoneyfemme]

about me !

20, they/she/whatever makes the joke land, OFOS femme lesbian demigirl

TME, white, autistic

ISFJ 2w1 216

I don’t do discourse but TERFS will be shot on sight

In a long distance relationship with my lovely masc girlfriend <333

Domme with strap-bearing hips, NSFW sometimes, 18+

💌: my girlfriend, baking, bubble baths, OFOS/butchfemme history, skincare, cosmetics, 1950s vintage, tulips, roses, fruit, writing love letters

Currently reading:

#lorelei’s library for spoiler free reviews

Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto

Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath

[ladiesbookofetiquette1862]

Bygones Vintage Clothing in Richmond, VA. 1900-1969 clothes and accessories for men and women.

[sheboyfriend]

Closing the space between us In the prelude to our first kiss Is like rupturing the force of the waves with a dive, Like cracking the crust of a crème brûlée, Like tearing the silence with the first note of a song, But a thousand times better.

[oneeyedcatlover]

my dream girl is a witch. i want to date a witch so we can go off on a beautiful graveyard picnic and hold each other’s hands while admiring the gravestones. i want a spooky sweet love. also a witch would probably go see the five nights at freddy’s movie with me. i want a hot goth girl to go see the five nights at freddy’s movie with.

[marieyoungwrites]

Mood board for a sapphic romance novel I’ve been working on

[rosebride1990]

💖Dreams in sapphic💖

[burlap-bows]

from shuffles credit:

Wishing there was shuffles for android. ╥﹏╥

[karyakeeling]

💟

[softbeebee]

For oc plots, I usually tend to lean towards more sapphic/lesbian (f/f or nb|enby/f) roleplays, but on occasion I am open to do m/f or m/m which will depend on the roleplays I have currently and depends on my sole interest in those pairings at the time. Most of my role plays mainly hold a romantic yet interesting plot for them.

I will not do any character under 18 by any means, I want to make that very clear. My OCs are 18 or over.

(open and still looking for roleplay partners) My favourite genres to roleplay are currently : • Era/Period roleplays, I lean towards the 1950s/1960s/1970s/1980s. However, I have had times where I lean in 1920s as well, and this is an era I would be open to this specific era as well.

• Circus themed, this works in a period setting, fantasy setting, or even modern setting. A vintage romance with many dynamics we can use or include as well, it is a rare yet special one to do.

• Fantasy era, urban or medieval setting, especially with some sort of royalty included. 

• Horror/Slasher based role plays are something I love, I enjoy horror movies a lot, so I have a dear muse for this.

• Royalty, this genre can be very interesting and always is something I'm into. I find the cliche arranged marriage story amusing and interesting to play out or various other dynamics. • Crime/Mob/Detective genre, something that gives a maybe Bonnie and Clyde feel to it. Bound 1996 always sticks out to me, and doing a plot like that sticks out in my mind for a f/f pairing.  • Wild West/Western, it always screams something to me, I love the dynamic of a bounty hunter x criminal  • Modern day, urban modern day is a rare one, but if I'm given a good plot and dynamic, I am happy to give it a go for those interested  

• Camp counsellors, it always sticks out with like a summer camp, which is usually set in the 80s. Ideas with this and dynamics can be super interesting. Rivals to lovers are always smart with this.

• Band, usually mixed with 80s or modern era

Those are the genres I lean to for now. If you are interested in any way, please read my rules and message me afterwards. I'll make sure to get back to you as soon as I can!

🥀

[hopecomesbacktolife]

unintentionally did a “sapphic gets a crush” speedrun this weekend omg. the timeline went as such

got all dressed up in vintage outfit -> went to a Sinatra cover band concert -> thought the soft butch lady emcee was cute as all hecc -> kept seeing her throughout the evening -> complimented her suit while both waiting in line for the bathroom -> she flirted with/back at me too and it was so 🔥 -> she was so cute and her eyes were just soooo pretty -> seriously considered asking her out -> she didn’t wash her hands after using the bathroom -> my germophobic/illness-traumatized/covid-precautions-taking self immediately loses interest

like 🫣😂 anyways she was super super cute and I felt so gay and flustered and I am very very very tempted to use this experience as like a basis for an act 1 of either a sapphic AU fic or mayyybe an original story but we shall see! perhaps changing it/fictionalizing it to have a happier ending, as one does for a romance genre, but y’know 🏳️‍🌈💕💜💙

[milkandhoneyfemme]

On my late 1940s/early 1950s femme shit. Long fit n flare dresses. High heels. Hair in rollers. Reapplying my lipstick in a lil contact mirror. Baking cookies for my girlfriend. Studying proper dining etiquette.

[mimeparadox]

The Gamble

Fandom: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 TV series)

Rating: Teen

Characters: Shadow Jones, Renet, Michelangelo

Ships: Shadow Jones/Renet

Story elements: Teenage human sapphic humans, first dates, dating a time traveler is especially fraught, fantasy age gaps, ninja turtles make the best uncles, I had to research the fashion so you’re getting labels, corsets and corsetry, corset lacing, tightlacing is good actually,

Summary: Shadow Jones overthinks romance, as is her wont. Luckily, Michelangelo is there to help.

Artwork: Shadow Jones artwork by @ninitenebrae. Renet artwork by MadSeason.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49330096

================================================

Michelangelo held the black-and-white underbust corset dubiously, as if it were some sort of snake ready to pounce. “You know you don’t need to wear this, right?” he told Shadow. 

“I know, M. ‘You’re beautiful the way you are,’ ‘there’s nothing wrong with your weight,’ ‘you should just be yourself.’ You guys have been telling me for literally years. It’s not a self-esteem thing—trust me.”

“Just checking,” the ninja turtle said, as he inspected the tag embedded in the corset’s inside. “It says here twenty-six inches. That’s not a lot of inches.”

“It’s fine. It’s custom-made, I’ve been breaking it in. Now give it to me.”

Shadow took the corset and placed it around her midsection, atop the vintage Hervé Léger bandage minidress of the sort which she’d been fixated on since she’d been six, and which was currently mercilessly highlighting her every curve. After hooking up the busk and ensuring everything was where it needed to be, she motioned to Michelangelo to take hold of the staylaces, which matched the white of the stripes on the corset’s left side. “Well, ah do declare, Miss Scarlett! You’d best hold on to something!” Michelangelo exclaimed—doubtless a reference to a film or TV show she wasn’t familiar with—and began pulling. 

After a fumbling start due to his particular finger configuration, Michelangelo eventually got the hang of the procedure and found his rhythm. As the corset closed in on all sides, Shadow found her back growing more rigid, and what began as a gentle touch became an increasingly firm hugging sensation.

“You okay, there?” Michelangelo asked, after some minutes. “I think I’m going to really have to pull, to get this last bit closed.”

“Go for it, M.” The corset was currently far tighter than she’d ever worn it before, and yet she still felt she could wear it indefinitely without discomfort. One or two extra inches shouldn’t be a problem. 

Using his mutant turtle strength, Michelangelo gave a mighty heave, and Shadow eventually felt the two ends of the corset meet. Quickly, the two worked together to tie the excess lace into a bow before any slack could form, and the deed was done. 

After a few experimental moments to make sure everything felt right—it did—Shadow walked toward her mirror to take a look at herself.

The look turned into a stare.

Shadow Jones liked her body. While the world outside her family and friends had done its hardest to convince her it was a problem to fix, and was often baffled when she wouldn’t—what else were all those O’Neil Tech millions for?—they had not been able to find purchase in a girl who’d been raised to see beauty and health and worth in all different kinds of bodies, human or otherwise. Being fat hadn’t prevented her from getting a black belt in karate, being the pitcher in her school softball team, getting dates at fourteen and her first girlfriend at fifteen, or being profiled on more than one publication’s 18-Below-18 list (although that one, she fully admitted, owed a lot to her famous parents). 

Her fear, when she’d chosen to purchase the corset on something of a lark, had never been about discomfort: rather, it was that it’d do its job too well, and make her hate her own body.  What she didn’t expect, though, is for the corset to make her feel grateful.

Her arms were still hers, as were her legs. Between them, however, was a body that resembled those of the women who made her realize what physical attraction meant, back when she’d been twelve. Those bodies had never been hers.

And yet, it was her very fatness that permitted this transformation. It wasn’t, as she’d sometimes thought when first learning about corsets, about trying to be thin. Being thin would ruin the effect in its entirety—it’d be like Michelangelo, the other one, attempting to sculpt his David with no marble. A corset, Shadow now realized, needed mass to work its magic: not to reduce—all her body was still there, and would still be there after the corset was taken off—but to commune with it, to say See all this? Look at what your body can do. Also, your breasts look UH-MAZING.

Shadow pressed her fingers against her newly hard waist, appreciating its firmness. “Okay, so I know you’re ace and really old and I’m barely legal, but I look hot, don’t I?” The sharp indentation as her hips became her waist looked downright sinful.

“I’ll have you know, young lady, that I’m actually still practically a teen, in turtle years,” Michelangelo said, from his new position sitting on Shadow’s bed. “That’s what Donny says, anyway. As for the rest…the words ‘no daughter of mine is going out dressed like that’ come to mind,” he said, in a shockingly passable impression of Casey.  “They won’t say it, and April won’t like that she thought it, but they’ll definitely think it.”

 “HA! So you think I should change?” she asked unnecessarily. 

“After you just made me strap you in a glorified hernia truss? Absolutely not. Besides, this is what you’re supposed to do, at eighteen. And Renet will love it.”

Shadow forced her smile to remain. What the hell? was her first thought, followed by How did he know?, which settled into It’s a trap. All she’d told Michelangelo, when she’d enlisted him to help her prepare, that it was for a date. He couldn’t truly know who the date was. And the fact was, despite his joking attitude, her uncle could be quite devious when he wanted to be. “What makes you think it’s her I’m going out with?” she finally said, a moment later. 

“Well, I was just guessing,” he said, allowing himself to look at least somewhat sheepish. “But I’ve seen the way you look when you return from your trips. And that there seems to be a lot of them, and that they actually last a lot longer for you than they do for us. Doesn’t take Donny to figure it out.”

The logic was impeccable, and Shadow would have slumped in defeat, if the corset had allowed it. Instead, she sat down next to her uncle, grabbing hold of one of her pillows in the process to squeeze. “Do you think Casey and April have noticed?”

“They haven’t told me anything, at least. But they’re smart—even Casey, in his own way. I wouldn’t be betting against them. Any reason you haven’t told them?”

“Oh, they’d love that,” Shadow said, with a scoff. “Like, she’s a timestress. An official time traveler. Did you know she’s actually 214 years old? Or she was, the last time I saw her—who knows how old she’ll be tonight.  And she’s got a job and responsibilities, and she’s always a hundred years away.” Was it still long distance when the person you dated could appear next to you at any moment? A question for D or L, when next she saw them. 

“I get it. It’s a lot. And yeah, Casey and April probably don’t love those things, and they’d have a lot of things to say, if you talked to them about her—for example, slow down. Sure, Renet’s got baggage—who doesn’t. You’re going on a date with her, not marrying her—right?”

Would that be the worst thing? she thought. “Right. I just really like her,” she said—which was essentially the problem. What’s more, in taking Shadow traveling with her, Renet had taken her world and broadened it immeasurably. Losing that, she feared, would be like devolving, becoming a single-celled organism after one had been human. 

“Like, I’m not saying you’re a bonehead for thinking of these things,” said Michelangelo. “And I get that Renet is a friend. But you did the hard part already, and we’ll be here for you when the next hard part happens. Worrying about it now is just self-sabotage.”

It was, Shadow realized, precisely what she needed to hear. When she’d asked Renet out, they’d been moments away from a less-hopeless-than-it-seemed-at-the-time battle with mind-controlled gargoyles, and she’d been emboldened by the prospect of sudden death. Once she realized she’d have to live with what she’d done, she began more and more uncertain of herself, even as talk became, somehow, a concrete plan, one which required coordination and dressing up. Complicating things still further was the fact that the fear didn’t make her any less excited, which was in itself cause to be suspicious. She needed to be, lest her emotions run over her like a truck like they usually did every time she had feelings for someone.  

And yet, who was that nervousness serving, at the moment? Not her, certainly.

“When did you become so wise?” Shadow asked, her confidence returning as soon as it had left. “You’ve never dated anyone in your life.”

Michelangelo smirked. “Hey, I’m not just a ninjutsu master. I know about emotions and crushes and things. Just don’t ask me about how to have sex,” he joked, getting a pillow on the face for his troubles.

----

Renet looked somewhat restless when Shadow spotted her standing at the front door of Belvedere Castle in Central Park. She waved for the timestress’ attention, and Renet waved back, smiling.

Shadow could feel her IQ going down the toilet.

“Been waiting long?” Shadow asked, as soon as they’d gotten within hearing distance.

“About ten minutes—I wanted to take in the park a bit—it’s really nice in the fall.” It was then that Renet first seemed to really take notice of her. “Your waist! You look—oh, wow.” As Renet quite blatantly checked her out, Shadow thought she heard a word that sounded suspiciously like “grife.”

Like Shadow, Renet had not gotten complacent when it came to dressing up for their date (!). Shadow had not known what to expect from her—this was a woman (her date!) who was just as comfortable wearing mod fashion as she was wearing an 1880’s dress with all the underpinnings, sometimes within hours of each other—and Renet had not disappointed, choosing a gorgeous calf-length backless dress, held up by a web of straps starting from the bust line and ending in a collar. The dress was mostly black, with the exception of two sets of colored pleats on its quite full skirt; these pleats subtly changed colors with the timestress’ movements, the one indication that the dress wasn’t something she’d found at a thrift store. Completing the look were a pair of black Converse sneakers, which, alongside Renet’s usual clock purse, helped prevent the ensemble from looking too formal. Were Renet anywhere near normal, Shadow might assume this meant that the date would involve dinner at a restaurant or something equally fancy; knowing her, this could just as well be a camping outfit (A DATING OUTFIT).

God, I want to kiss her. And she wouldn’t even have to stand on her toes to do it—wearing her Isabel Marant wedge sneakers had been a stroke of genius. “Would it…would it be weird if I told you I want to pin you to a wall and kiss you? You just look so good,” she said. This had the effect of short-circuiting the timestress’ brain for a moment, which made her look even cuter. 

Renet wasted no time in retaliating, though: after recovering her senses and stopped blushing, she inched closer to the younger girl’s ear with a downright evil grin, and whispered “Let’s have our date first, and then we’ll see. FYI: your chances are very good,” making it Shadow’s turn to short circuit.

A moment later, Renet produced from her purse her time scepter—the effect of seeing something so large come from a space so much smaller than it always amused her—and waved it in a circular motion to form one of the now-familiar time gates. “So what are we doing tonight?” Shadow asked as both women stepped into the gate’s light. “The Jazz Age? The moon landing?” Each other? Please let it be each other.

Renet’s smile turned into a smirk. “No spoilers. You’ll love it,” she said, taking hold of Shadow’s arm.

And, as 2028 New York blinked out of existence around her, Shadow realized just how right Michelangelo had been. The past, the future…they were both less important than right now, when she was staring at a beautiful woman who was, by all metrics, into her, and whom she trusted with her life. While trusting her with her heart was a different thing, and she didn’t plan to be stupid about it, she first needed to embrace uncertainty and take the risk.

She was so glad she’d chosen to be brave. 

“By the way, thank you for asking me out,” said Renet, as their surroundings resolved into something once again resembling reality. “I’ve known I liked you for the longest time, but I didn’t want to be the one to say something—the age difference, you know.”

“Oh!” was Shadow’s only verbal response. I thought it was the corset that was supposed to leave me breathless. 

[julietandcinderella-if]

Hello lovely! I hope you're doing alright and that you're having a great time! Speaking of writing I would love to get mor e insight into your idea brainstorming and outlining process if you don't mind. 💗💗💐✨

Hello, sweetie, and it's no trouble at all! Hope you're doing alright aswell! ^^💙

Disclaimer: In no way am I professional writer or author, and this is simply just my way on how I concept and write ideas and stories

It isn't that hard for me to have an idea suddenly pop into my head. I'll use this IF as an example.

1. The inspiration

Vampire in The Garden is my first inspiration for this, really. I watched it once and thought: "What if I write a tragic, sapphic, vampire story with a mix of Romeo and Juliet?". Obviously, I can't imitate it nor copy the story directly, so I look for other inspiration.

Well, not really look, because I remembered the term: "cottagecore sapphics" while going through Twitter and found art of two women being loving and domestic in the countryside. So, that's where I went for vibes. The married part comes next, because come on wives. Just wives all around.

Next would be aesthetics. I personally love the vintage aesthetic of the 50's, so I went with there, plus I always wanted to write a sapphic story set in the 50's.

Location is easy, since I already have an existing country, so I don't really need to make a place from the ground up.

~•~•~

2. Characters

Okay, so I got the idea down, so who's going to be in it?

At this point neither the Bledsoes or the Welhavens existed, so I had to make them from the ground up. Adele's first, because she's the vampire wife that Welhaven has to romance, so I designed her based on my ideal woman, vibes of the clothes I wanted her to dress in, and some characters from existing media. Same goes with the rest of the cast, minus the ideal woman part. It's a bit of trial and error on their character design, because I want it to fit their personality.

Fun fact: Adam and Azalea were the hardest to design—both went thru 3-4 different iterations before I settled on the one I like.

Names were easier, but required a bit more research, so a good chunk of designing are finding names for the cast and opening a bunch of tabs on baby name websites. At this point, I'm sure Google's wondering if I'm a teen parent with how much baby name sites I've opened.

~•~•~

3. Plot

Idea? Check. Characters? Check. Plot? Uh…

So, anyway, I start plotting.

Nothing extreme, really, since the inspiration already provided parts of it, which is the wives dying and me wanting domestic wives time.

So I start with the wives, just married and running away from everything because of their forbidden love. But why are they running away? Oh, I know, Adele's family doesn't like her marrying a human, because it's against their law. Now they're running away from the hunters that were sent after them and went into hiding. So, now, they live in a small cottage, trying to live out their peaceful days the best they can before everything comes crashing down.

Rest of the plot beats come after that, and I won't spoil them here.

I think up of needed variables, stats, and content warnings along the way in this step.

~•~•~

4. [Vampire] Lore

The most tedious task of all: making lore.

I want to make my vampires different from the mainstream vampires we all know, so I took inspiration again. The arms turning to bat wings is heavily inspired from Vampire in The Garden's vampires while the clans and society (for Bellhollow) are loosely based on English aristocracy and the French bergeouise with aesthetics and vibes being taken from the 1800's.

The rest are my own bits of pizazz like the drinking coconut water and vampires going mad if left alone for too long and always staying in pairs or groups. I want to make the vampires powerful, but not annoying OP—human, but also still monsters.

The lore about the [old] Bledsoes have to be written too, since the one in modern day is vastly different from the one in J&C.

~•~•~

5. Tumblr Blog & Intro Post

Time to gather the sapphics and lesbians.

I make the blog, and customize it a bit to fit the aesthetics and vibes, then I start writing the intro post with the headers I made on Canva.

Post. Reblog on other IF blog with a lot followers, and let Tumblr do its thing.

So yeah, this is basically how I concept stuff. Not that exciting and a bit quick, but that's just how I work when I create things. :p