#A HOMOSEXUAL DOES NOT A TWINK MAKE

[chryza]

Y’all learned the word twink and ain’t shut up since

[crafteeauthor]

I know "you are the brawn?" Is just because Charles is a twink but it would be infinitely funnier if Emma clocked Edwin's hell-tempered nature immediately. If that was a thing ghosts could do, or even that only some ghosts could do, then how many of them are under the impression Charles is in over his head- or at the very least more of a Watson than a second Holmes?

Like. Imagine going in to see two detectives but only one of them actually has a chair at the desk? Severe Edwardian dude with sulfur clinging to his aura. He does the talking and seems to make the decisions. His partner occasionally has to remind him to be nice and/or a bit more empathetic.

The other one is perched all pretty ON the desk? And he's visibly slimmer and notably a regular ghost but still claims he's the brawn? Gorgeous 80s guy, turns to his partner for approval almost every time he talks? Big glittery eyes? His scary companion can't quite seem to say no to him?

Emma's a Victorian ghost too so she's probably used to homosexual relationships having barely-there coverups it'd be so fucking funny if she was like "sure yeah the brawn, is that what they're calling it now?"

[paraphwrites]

a brief note about charles rowland, bisexuality, & the art of queer interpretation

for most of modern history, queer people have been cast to the shadows. be they jailed at the time for sodomy, or erased from history after the fact by historians downplaying their relationships, history has been notoriously cruel to queer people. this is especially true in media, which often completely ignored the existence of queer people.

from this lack of representation, the 'queer interpretation' was born. this is when a consumer notices subtext in a piece of media and extrapolates that one or more character(s) is queer. this is especially prominent to try and undo historical revisionism, and what authors may not have been able to publish at the time, but were able to imply.

a well-known example is "a picture of dorian gray," an egregiously homosexual novel, written by an egregiously homosexual man. despite dorian not being explicitly gay.....he is. this is widely accepted among modern interpretations, because wilde utilizes queer-coding and allusions to ancient greece to create subtext that the character is homosexual in nature.

however, not everyone is a fan of the queer interpretation. many people cite it as inserting gayness where it does not belong. this, though an understandable argument, both erases the history of queer people and the ways that authors intentionally queer-coded their characters, and misses the point of art all together. art is open for interpretation, whether it be the symbolism of the curtain color, or the character's sexuality.

but the queer interpretation is especially important because it gives voices to those expressly forbidden to share queer thoughts when they were alive. beyond giving a voice to the author, it also reflects the feelings of the person interpreting the text (as all interpretations do). the degree to which one utilizes the queer interpretation illustrates the degree to which one feels the need to do so. for example, someone who is searching for queer rep is more likely to read charles rowland as gay, whereas someone who isn't fond of headcanons is more likely to accept him as straight

now, is charles rowland bisexual? yes. and also no.

charles rowland does exhibit many characteristics which, when you are familiar with queer-coding, may make him seem like a glaringly bisexual man. he wears earrings, he dresses alternatively, he smirks, he is an absolute twink. but, straight men can smirk too, and wear earrings, and dress punk rock. that does not actually mean anything. BUT it DOES. when utilizing the queer interpretations, one analyzes fashion and diction and other pieces of subtext to draw a conclusion. the implied subtext is queerness. so, charles rowland is bisexual, then, right?

limiting bisexuality to stating your attraction to both men & woman is harmful. it reinforces that heterosexuality is the norm, and implies that, if you do not directly state that you are bisexual, then you are straight.

but, there is merit to the 'charles is straight' argument. it isn't homophobic to not use the queer interoperation.

dbda is a show that is clearly not ashamed of highlighting queer characters. so it stands to reason that if charles is queer, it would have been brought up. (of course, if there had been a season two, maybe we would have seen him discuss his sexuality, but i will work with the source material i have.) so, it stands to reason that charles is straight. afterall, despite faint subtext that charles is straight, the show does not go out of its way to queercode him. so, charles is straight

WRONG AGAIN. charles rowland is neither gay nor straight, he is a plot device in this mini essay.

the heart of the queer interpretation is seeing a character and looking beyond what is written. oftentimes, it involves two characters (eg, edwin & charles). in the instances when there are two, the queer interpretation asks that you look at the most important relationship in the story, rather than what may seem to be the love story.

you may ship catwin, or crystalXcharles, or whatever. and that is totally valid. BUT, the show could still exist without the cat king x edwin. and the show could still totally exist without crystal x charles. but the show immediately falls apart without the relationship between charles & edwin. whether romantic or not, their relationship is the heart of the story. it is a story about THOSE TWO and everyone else is add on. i am not saying no one else is important, but i am saying the heart & foundation of the story is derived from edwin & charles.

queer interpretors ask that you look at the most important relationship in a text, rather than the most explicitly romantic one. and, often, queer interpretors then project romantic feelings onto the two characters that the story could not survive without.

crystal & charles cannot end up together because crystal will never be the most important person in the world to charles. the cat king & edwin can never end up together because the cat king will never be the most important person in the world to edwin. ergo, edwin and charles will inevitably end up together, because they are the most important people to each other.

at least, that's what queer theory might argue about it.

another just as valid argument is that charles rowland is a bisexual, and not in love with edwin. and a third valid argument is that charles rowland isn't bisexual and isn't in love with edwin.

because we don't KNOW. this is interpretation. so i can look at charles rowland and say 'he's a bisexual and he loves edwin.' and you can look at charles and say 'he is straight.' and someone else can say 'he is aromantic' and someone else that he's pansexual and someone else that he needs way more therapy before he can even begin contemplating his sexuality. and they are all VALID.

anyway but i think it's important to understand the why behind why so many people think charles' is bi, and why it matters! i'm not saying charles has to be bisexual, but i'm saying the bisexual interpretation does matter.

[sarahowritesostucky]

📖"The Taste of You"

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Tags: Fresh AU, dark rom-com, dark!Bucky, pre-serum Steve, cannibalism, kidnapping, yandere/basement wife, meet cute-ish, gay sex n' stuff, dub-con

Summary: Steve is so tired of the meat market that modern dating has become. Just when he's deleted all the apps and given up on ever finding Mr. Right, he meets the perfect guy at the grocery store.

A dark, cute, funny, fucked up, and very tasty love story.

A.N.: It's not as murdery as it sounds 😅 But, as per usual: minors DNI. It's a Fresh AU. "If you can't handle the cannibalism, get out of the kitchen"--or something like that

1. Specialty Ingredients

Steve watches, mouth literally hanging open, as it happens again: his date is stomping away, mad.

He just called Steve a scrawny, cock-teasing twink for making out a little on the sidewalk, but then declining to go back to his place to hook up. The guy pressed the issue and Steve got frustrated and told him tersely that he wasn't interested because they just met, okay? That went over like a lead balloon.

Steve scowls as the jerk disappears around the corner at the end of the block. “Well fuck you too,” he mutters, feeling put out—and okay, a little hurt, too. He’s not a cocktease. He’s not scrawny.

Well, maybe that second one is kind of true, but Steve hates how guys will act like they’re into his small stature when they think he’s a sure thing, but then get all derogatory and mean about it once he tries to tell them he’s looking for more than a hookup and wants to take it slow—and not even hetero people slow; gay guy slow, which is super fast in comparison! Steve just wants to get to know a guy for once before sleeping with him. Is that really so bad?

He huffs and turns around, walking dejectedly back to his car. Another handsome asshole, another hope dashed, another pathetic date. He really does have the worst luck, and he’s getting plain sick of it. He checks his phone before he drives away.

Clint: Well???

Steve sighs. He types back a reply to his friend

Steve: another dud

Clint: dude …

Steve rolls his eyes and chucks the phone onto the passenger seat. He turns the key in the ignition, the radio coming on to an old eighties love ballad that just worsens his sense of dejection. “Fucking figures,” he mutters, putting the car into drive.

He leaves the song playing though, because sometimes wallowing is called for.

The next morning, Steve wakes up in a glum mood. He tries to focus on his work for most of the day, rather than his horrible luck with dating, but as he paints the hours away he winds up pouting about it anyhow. He sinks further and further into a depressing pit of self-pity and despair.

Clint texts him, asking if he wants to go out and sing karaoke or something, and Steve knows he’s just trying to cheer him up and all, but he really can’t stand the thought of being cheerful right now.

Steve hates gay guys, he thinks, stomping over to the crappy small sink in his crappy small apartment’s kitchen. He runs the water and rinses off his brushes with a vengeance they don’t deserve. Gay guys suck. Steve hates how shallow they all are, how vapid and self-centered. All they want is to go clubbing and fuck around and that’s it. None of them want a real relationship, and they think Steve is boring for wanting to have a meaningful conversation instead of suck their dicks right away. He gets grumpier about it the more he thinks, and he even has the thought that at least if he were straight he could find someone with feelings, a desire for genuine connection. “Gay guys suck,” he mutters to his poor, abused paint brushes.

Nevermind that Steve himself is incontrovertibly homosexual and has no choice in the matter of what his dating pool consists of. After all: ‘Haters gonna hate, players gonna play’. “Gaays gonna gay, gay, gay, gay, gay.” Steve sings the tune under his breath. He just hates it, hates it all. He’s sick and tired of playing the game.

He sends Natalie a nastily self-deprecating text:

Steve: Know any of your girlfriends who might want to date a faggot?

It’s not nice, and he knows she won’t like him using that word in that context.

Natalie Potential Rich!! Buyer: another douche huh?

He sighs and texts back an apology with a huggy emoji.

Steve: Sorry 🤗 Just frustrated. All the good ones are taken and I’m not interested in the skanks who’re left over.

Natalie responds with the “Give that man a Snickers” Diva-meme, which makes Steve realize that he is, in fact, hungry. He needs to get something to eat. He needs to focus on himself for a change. Maybe it’s finally time to stop looking for Mr. Right and just enjoy Steve Rogers. Maybe he should join a gym, start a new hobby, anything to fill up his time with himself rather than another person. 

He goes into the kitchen, thinking that he’ll make something yummy and binge watch a new series off his Netflix list, but scowls at the barren interior that greets him when he opens the fridge door. Nothing good to eat. “Fuck,” he mutters. He’s got to go to the grocery store now before he can sit down with a meal and relax.

And it’s raining outside, too. Just his fucking luck.

His phone ‘pings’ and he looks over at where he’d set it on the counter. The screen is lit up with a new notification from Grindr:

Henry super liked you!

He picks up the phone and opens the app. Henry’s profile pic is only from the neck down, showing off his abs. Steve rolls his eyes. The next picture is his lower half, a pair of tighty-whities stretched over his erection making it lewd, but still within the app’s no dick pic rules. The third pic is of his bare ass in a jockstrap.

Steve spends a second more than he intends appreciating the guy’s backside, but then he growls and jabs his finger at the screen to reject the guy. He’s fucking fed up with this entire thing! On a sudden, right-feeling whim, he exits the app and holds his finger down on the screen until all the icons start wiggling with their little x’s. He quickly proceeds to delete Grindr, Scruff, and Hornet from his phone.

He’s fucking done with dating. He’s giving up. Steve is just not meant to find Mr. Right. Not this year, anyway. He feels lighter after deleting the apps, and he slides his unburdened phone into his pocket with a sense of accomplishment and a shiny new idea: He’s not going to date for a whole year. He’s going to make this The Year of Steve.

Fuck yeah.

He goes to the hall closet to grab his umbrella and rain boots.

The walk to FreshMart is only four blocks from his apartment, but he still arrives at the grocery store a little damp from the gusting rain. He shakes off his umbrella by the door, grabs a basket, and directs himself towards the produce aisle. He’s added fingerling potatoes and some asparagus spears to his basket, and has just started perusing the meat section when he hears a man’s voice say, 

“Hey, have you ever had this?”

Steve looks over. The guy is holding up a package of bloody red … something. Steve blinks. “Um …”

The stranger twists his lips and shakes his head, looking at the meat. “It’s venison. I thought I’d freak my sister out with something a little different.”

“Your sister?” Steve asks, feeling very odd at being asked his opinion in the middle of the meat department. He looks between the package of raw meat and the stranger—He’s unusually handsome, tall and strong-jawed, brown hair styled in an effortlessly flattering cut. Steve licks his lips nervously. “Um, isn’t that like, deer meat?” He takes a step closer to peer down at the label. “Huh.” He didn’t know regular grocery stores sold that kind of thing. “That’s … exotic,” he says, for lack of a better word.

The stranger chuckles. “Yeah, well. I actually don’t eat animals, so …” he shrugs. “But her and her husband and kids are total carnivores. Thought I’d bring something other than my usual bottle of wine.”

“Oh.” Steve peers up at the man, trying to figure him out. The man smiles sheepishly and Steve winds up smiling, charmed, if somewhat baffled. He looks the man in the eyes and is taken by how pretty they are, how intense. Damn he’s good looking. “Well I, ah, couldn’t tell you what it tastes like. I’ve never had it.” He makes a face. “Like I said, it’s exotic.”

“Oh I love to cook with exotic ingredients. I’m kind of an amateur cuisinier. Or at least I try to be.”

“Oh. Right.” Steve gestures to the blood package. “But you ah … you don’t cook only vegetarian stuff?”

The man grins (and shoot, he’s got an unfairly attractive smile, too). “I guess I just like to satisfy other people’s appetites,” he says, lips parted enticingly. And then his tongue darts out in this totally casual, should-be-illegal sort of way. “I take it you’re a meat eater,” he says knowingly.

Is that a double entendre? Steve thinks it might be a double entendre. Yes! he wants to scream. Yes! He is 1000% a meat eater. He gulps as the guy’s eyes flick down and back up his body in a heated onceover, and Steve may not always be the brightest bulb in the box, but he can tell when he’s being considered. Is this guy really flirting with him? Here? In the freaking grocery store? Is that even a real thing that happens, anymore? Steve flushes and pulls his shopping basket up higher in front of himself, like a shield. “I–I see,” he stammers. “Well … um … yeah.” God, he’s hopeless.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Venison’ll probably be … different.” He nods at the stranger, awkward and aware that the other man isn’t moving away. “Well. Good luck.” He turns and vacantly peruses the meats, pretending that he’s more invested in searching out the perfect porkchop than he really is. He hears the guy’s footsteps moving away.

“Fuck it,” the man says, and turns right back around. He takes a deep breath. “I like your boots.”

“What?”

The guy nods downwards. “Your rain boots. They’re really cute.”

Steve looks down at his feet. His rubber boots are pink and printed with the golden girls’ faces. He looks back up at the stranger, stunned. No straight guy on planet Earth would ever say such a thing. “Um. Thanks.”

The guy holds out his hand, friendly, like he’s not aware he’s acting weird as shit. “I’m James.”

Steve probably stares too long at the offered hand, before he hurries to shove the handles of his shopping basket up onto his one arm so that he can take the guy’s—James’—hand and shake it. It’s pleasantly large over his own hand. “Steve.”

James smiles. He’s arrestingly handsome when he doesn’t smile and Steve feels like an even weaker creature when he does. “Sorry,” James says, looking down shyly. “I uh, I don’t usually do this.”

“Do what?” Steve asks, keenly aware that he may just be about to be propositioned. He winces at the idea of having to turn down another good-looking jerk.

James tilts his head. “Would you …” He hesitates, eyes flicking up and over as a woman passes them. She turns and goes down the soda aisle. He looks back to Steve, distracted. “I was gonna be crazy and ask for your number,” he says, flushing. Steve doesn’t even get a chance to say anything before James is scrubbing his hand over his embarrassed face. “Fuck, I’m sorry. You’re probably not even—” He looks back to the soda aisle where the woman had gone. “Sorry,” he mumbles again, and starts to walk away. “Human disaster in the meat aisle. Just ignore me, please.”

“Wait!” Steve blurts. James turns back around. “Why do you want my number? Were you gonna ask me out? Like on a date?” He uses the word purposefully.

“Well, yeah.” James looks apologetic. “Sorry. I know it’s weird.”

It is weird. But Steve is kind of charmed by the guy’s odd methods. He promptly pushes away his resolution of The Year of Steve. “James,” he says, taking a step closer. “Um, you can. Have my number.” He peeks up at him shyly. “If you want.”

James' happy-surprised-enthused smile is the best one yet. They exchange numbers.

Clint: Wait, wat do you mean, the grocery store??

Steve: he came over and just started talking to me.

Clint: … that’s weird, man. That’s shady.

Steve: actually it was kind of cute. Kind of idk old fashioned.

Clint: Kind of weird. Whats his Insta?

Steve doesn’t hear from James for almost three days. He alternates between finding it refreshing, and being disappointed. Maybe Clint’s right. Maybe the guy was just a weirdo.

Then, on the third day, Steve is leaving from his morning shift at Michaels when he hears his phone ‘ping’ with a notification. When he sees the name “Weird Meat Guy” on the screen, his face splits in a grin.

Weird Meat Guy: Been thinking about you since the other day.

Happy butterflies come to life in Steve’s stomach at the flirtatious tone of the text. His first instinct is to force himself to ignore it for at least thirty minutes, so that he doesn’t seem overeager. But then he thinks, fuck it, just like James had said in the grocery store before turning right back around to ask him out.

Steve types a reply.

Steve: hey stranger. Yeah I was wondering how that venison worked out for you. 😂What’s it taste like?

Weird Meat Guy: I don’t eat animals, not even for my sister’s Sunday dinners. But she said it was fine. Not as good as regular old cow, though🐄🥩

Steve: not surprising.

There’s a bit of a pause where he can see James is typing and deleting and typing again. Then,

Weird Meat Guy: Do you want to go out tonight? We could grab drinks or something?

Steve bites his lip, bad memories of “casual” meetups and “just grabbing drinks” dates and what they’ve always led to, in the past.

Steve: let’s go out to eat. At a restaurant or something. A real date.

James texts back almost immediately, and his answer makes Steve beam like a fool.

Weird Meat Guy: Hell yeah. What’s your favorite kind of food?

Steve can’t help it; he has a good-verging-on-great feeling about this guy. He tries to tuck away his expectations that this time it’ll be different. He can still do The Year of Steve if or when this goes wrong. He’ll just try this one last time though. Just once more before he swears off being a “meat eater” for the year.

He tells James that he really likes Italian food, and the next thing he knows, James is sending him the link to a really nice and expensive Italian place in Brooklyn. Steve thrills at James' enthusiasm, and grimaces at the three dollar signs that Google has lined up beside the restaurant’s name.

He tells James okay, figures he’ll just tighten up his budget a bit for a few weeks after.

James meets him inside the restaurant, at the bar. He’s already got a drink in his hand. “It’s an old fashioned,” he tells him sheepishly. “Sorry to start without you.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“I just get a little nervous when I ask a cute guy out to dinner.”

Steve freezes, but then his mouth twitches. “Oh,” he says. “You, ah … you think I’m cute, huh?”

James grins and winks at him in a way that is devastating and should-not-be-allowed. “Yeah. I sure do.”

Steve is charmed.

The hostess seats them in a dark and cozy booth in the back of the restaurant. Steve settles in and looks around, impressed. “This is a really nice place,” he says, genuinely meaning it but also kind of anxious to open his menu and get a look at whatever prices garnered a $$$ on Google.

“Yeah it’s one of my favorites.” James is grinning at him from across the table. “I was so glad you picked Italian, cause then I knew I had the perfect place to bring you.”

Bring you. Steve looks down and tries not to smile too obviously at the words. “I like it so far,” he says, peeking up coyly at James so that he knows Steve doesn’t just mean the restaurant.

James seems to get it, if his expression is anything to go by.

They open their menus and Steve’s stomach drops at the forty dollar appetizers. Shit. He wishes he’d found a way to mention to James that he’s kind of a starving artist.

“Do you like mushrooms?” James asks, oblivious to Steve’s internal panic. He’s looking across the table at him with eager eyes. “They’ve got the best stuffed mushrooms I’ve ever had. I think they put crack in ‘em.”

Steve laughs despite himself, then decides ‘fuck it’ once again, and closes his menu with a nod. “Sure,” he says. “Let’s do it.” He’ll live frugally for a month if he has to.

James orders them the appetizer and an entire bottle of wine that he knows by its specific name and year. All Steve makes out is the “‘94 ” part of it, and his heart rate picks up. He’s about to really worry about how the hell much a place like this is going to charge for an entire bottle of wine that’s older than he is, but then when the server delivers it and pours for them, James shoots him a wink and tells him, “S’my treat.”

Oh. Steve’s heart flutters as much at the gentlemanly gesture as it does at the possibility that maybe James will pay for the whole meal. A guy can dream.

The mushrooms arrive and Steve gushes to James about how he was right: they are amazing. They get to talking, covering the standard ‘first date’ questions, and it’s stupid and awkward like it always is; but also it isn’t, because James seems to laugh about the awkwardness of it, too. And that makes it kind of fun.

James is thirty-seven to Steve’s twenty-seven (Daddy kink: activated). He has a place in Manhattan but his sister lives in Brooklyn, which is why he was shopping at the FreshMart in Steve’s neck of the woods the other day. He’s got one parent still living, grew up with a loving family but “pretty poor” in Jersey. He hasn’t been in a relationship or even been on a date in “a really long time.” He wants to travel more but he lets his work consume him too much. He doesn’t eat animals.

He’s also really good at making the whole first-date interrogation-phase go smoothly. It’s fun with him, Steve realizes, not awful and strained like it usually would be. Their conversation just seems to flow naturally and easily, both of them smiling almost continually as they chat and joke.

Steve is utterly charmed.

“Okay,” James says, as he pops another mushroom into his mouth and then talks around it. “I’ll do another boring one: what do you do for work?”

Steve gulps and delays answering by taking a sip of the wine—a red that downright tastes expensive. “Um, well my passion is my art. It’s what I went to school for.” He tucks his lips in and shrugs. “But, ya know, ‘starving artists,’ and all that. So I work part time at Michaels, too.”

James doesn’t look like he’s thinking that Steve’s a stereotype or a loser or anything like that. “That’s awesome!” he says, sounding like he genuinely means it. “What kind of art? Or like, what medium do you work with?”

Steve blinks. Nobody ever asks him good questions like this, like they actually care and want to dig deeper into who he really is. “Um, mostly acrylics. Some watercolors and pencil-charcoal sketching,” he says, flustering at the way that James pays such close attention to his answers. “I like to mix it up sometimes, but mostly it’s those three.” He shrugs. “I sell online. I have one really loyal patron—she keeps me afloat. S’nothing that special.”

“Sounds like you know your stuff,” James counters, not letting him insist on his own mediocrity. “If you went to school for it and all, then you must be pretty good. Don’t you have to, like, audition for art school?”

Steve blushes and looks away. “Well. Yeah.”

“And I bet you get all your supplies cheap with the side gig, huh?”

Steve stares at him. “Yeah,” he says, impressed. “Employee discount.”

James nods sagely, as if he’s ever had to worry in his life about the utility of an employee discount. He might’ve grown up poor, but he’s clearly well-off now. Steve can tell that the suit he’s wearing is a custom tailored deal, and the wine he’s ordered for the table has a bouquet of oak and dollar bills. “I think it’s really brave of you,” he’s telling Steve, looking like he admires him or something ridiculous like that. “That you’re following a passion like that? That you can just …” he makes a shaping gesture over the table with his hands, “make something with your own two hands and then sell it? That’s incredible.”

The more James talks, the more Steve gets his hopes up that he might actually be A Really Great Guy™️. Steve can hardly stand to take all the compliments, so he turns the question back around on James: “What about you? What do you do for work?”

James hesitates. “... I’m a surgeon.”

Steve’s eyes go wide and his mouth drops open, making him look like A Gold Digger™️, probably. He closes his mouth. “Oh. Wow, that’s … that’s neat. Medical school, then, huh?”

James smiles through a wince, as if being a freaking doctor is no big deal. “Yeah. It was rough for a few years, but I got through it. I’m in a good place now. It’s pretty smooth sailing.”

“So do you work at like a hospital or something?”

“Not exactly.” He stares at him for a long moment, then suddenly says, “Gosh, I’m just really attracted to you, Steve.” Steve blinks, taken-aback. He reaches for a hurried sip of his wine and tries to think of a response to the weird shift in conversation. “Sorry,” James hurries. “I just felt like I had to say it.” He gives Steve a tender look rather than a lecherous one, which is a welcome change from the usual script. “I think I might really like you.”

Steve flusters and averts his eyes to the tabletop, peeking back up at James a few times. The guy is totally focused on him. It’s intimidating, but not in a bad way. “Yeah,” Steve eventually manages to murmur. “Yeah I think you might be nice.”

James teases him about the ‘nice’, and they fall into easy banter again as they finish the mushrooms and open up their menus to choose their entrees. Steve’s once again fixated on the prices, and he immediately starts trying to see if there’s anything under sixty dollars …

“By the way,” James says casually, not looking up from where he’s reading his menu. “I know this place is fucking ridiculous: I got it covered.”

He says it all easy and nonchalant, like it’s no big deal that he’s treating Steve to what’s probably a three hundred dollar dinner, and Steve once again feels like he’s on a date with a hero, a real gentleman. “Kay,” he says smally, feeling delighted and hopeful as heck on the inside. 

He orders a seafood linguini, and James gets a spinach and cheese tortellini dish. “This is so good,” Steve practically moans around a mouthful of his food. 

James makes a noise of agreement, stuffing another tortellini shell in his mouth. “Mmph.”

“So you really don’t eat any meat?” Steve winds up asking. “Like, not even fish or chicken or anything?” Where does he get his protein? James looks like he keeps in good shape …

James chuckles. “Nope. Haven’t touched the stuff for … gosh, almost fifteen years.”

“Wow.” Steve spears up another shrimp from his pasta and wonders if it offends James. “So like, is it an ethical thing or just …”

“No, no. I just kind of had this epiphany one day—while I was tenderizing a thigh, mind you—that all the things I was eating were living creatures, that we’re animals just like they are.” He makes a thoughtful face as he considers it. “It’s not a moral viewpoint so much as it is a …” he trails off and his eyes return to Steve with an apologetic shrug. “I dunno. My viewpoint shifted that day. Couldn’t shift it back. I’ve tried so many other things now, animal meat just doesn’t taste the same anymore.”

“I can respect that.” Steve wiggles his fork that’s speared with a juicy scallop. “As long as you don’t mind this.” 

“No, no way. Don’t you remember where we met?”

Steve snickers. “Oh yeah, how could I forget. What was it you said? You like to ‘satisfy other people’s appetites’?” He chances a flirty look across the table. “Wasn’t that how you put it?”

James chews, smirking, and he winks at Steve again. Goddamn. “Yeah,” he says lowly. “Yeah. I sure do.”

On the sidewalk outside the restaurant they stand close together, bundled in their jackets. Neither one of them seems to want to leave. “Thanks again,” Steve says. “For dinner. It was really nice.”

“My pleasure.” James takes a step closer, so that they’re almost toe to toe. “I was so excited to go out with you,” he says. He brings a hand up and traces the side of Steve’s face with the backs of his fingers, not looking at Steve’s eyes but rather where he’s touching his cheek. “You’re different,” he murmurs. "And I knew it the moment I met you."

Wow, what a fucking intense thing to say. Steve … doesn’t hate it. “I am?” he whispers, watching his breath swirl on the air between their faces.

“Mmhm. I can tell.” 

Steve shivers and fights the urge to press into James’ touch on his cheek. It feels unduly intimate, and they’re already so close. “I was excited for tonight, too,” he confides. “I’ve had a lot of bad luck with dating. Was getting sick of trying, to be honest.”

“But?” James asks softly, and Steve looks up at him, for once feeling open and honest enough to just admit,

“But I didn’t meet you on some app. And you liked my stupid Golden Girls boots.” James chuckles and Steve looks up, taking in his face up close: the dimple in his chin, the creases of age that’ve barely begun to collect at the corners of his eyes, that one tiny patch of grey in his beard. It makes him all the more insufferably handsome. “And you’re charming,” he whispers. “So there’s that.”

James smiles softly. “Aw, shucks.”

“I think you’re a really nice guy, James. I’d like to see you again.”

James' smile widens hopefully. “Yeah?” he says, leaning even closer.

“Yeah. I think, well … I just think …”

“What?” James touches his face again, this time palming his cheek. “Tell me.”

“Oh, it’s nothin’.” Steve finally lets his eyes slip closed, enjoying the feeling of James’ hand on his skin, the cologne he gets a whiff of when they’re standing this close. “You smell nice.”

“Thank you. Still haven’t told me what you were gonna say.”

Steve smiles sadly. “Oh, I’m just getting my hopes up about you, is all.” He’s still got his eyes closed when James kisses him. He inhales sharply through his nose, surprised. But he doesn’t pull away, and they just … keep kissing.

Eventually James cups his face with both hands and Steve moans, because the way James is kissing him feels so natural and good. He feels like he can taste James' good intentions as they make out softly, right there on the sidewalk.

When they part they’re both panting a little, heavy-lidded eyes flicking over one another, gauging, desire tinged with uncertainty. “That was …” James breathes.

“Yeah,” Steve says, and they both stare at each other for another long moment, before Steve says, “Fuck it,” and surges in to grab James by his jacket and kiss him again, this time harder. James whimpers needily into his mouth, and heat shoots through Steve’s belly at hearing it, arousal flaring to life faster than he can handle. Suddenly his pants feel a little tight, and he wants James so badly he can hardly stand it. “Oh man,” he groans, pulling away from the kiss, grimacing at himself for what he’s about to say. “I really, really never do this,” he promises against James' lips. “But … Do you want to go back to my place?”

James' eyes widen. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Fuck. Yeah, okay.”

They kiss eagerly one more time and then hurry off, giddy, hands clasped, and headed in the direction where James says he’s parked his car.

Masterlist

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[waxingrunes]

your art is the most realistic art i have seen this fandom spit out i really wish you would make remus shorter and stop making oc’s

This is why I lose enthusiasm for you cunts.

Sick of defending a fucking drawing, a fictional character. Sick of the same agendas in this online world where Remus has to be this fucking wet mop of a man who has one singular personality trope of being obsessed with Sirius Black and wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Have you met real men? You ever interacted with your average Joe, who is a bit shy, bit awkward, bit of a weirdo but he doesn’t have to come with a pre installed stutter and helpless heart eyes and no other arsenal but a goo goo gaga state of mind for his love interest. You lot are unhealthily obsessed. Daily, fucking, bullshit, daily headcanons, daily this, daily that.

My Remus and Sirius are never going to change. What’s insane is the amount of ‘heteronormative’ claims I see attached to this debacle of height and size. I know a man, who is exceptionally tall, built, has had a boyfriend, and topped him the entire way through the relationship. He did not enjoy bottoming, and yet is a bisexual individual, nothing ‘stereotypical’ homosexual about him or his appearance whatsoever. In fact, he’s very much a Remus variant in my eyes; he is softly natured, introverted, and selective socially and STILL A STONY TOP. Real life, real person, not curated from a thread you found on Twitter and have swallowed up whole.

What happened to coming into a fandom space, making something and going, “that’s hot”. When did it become a space to make sure every representation was ticked, to make sure one character isn’t too this or too that. I’m not here to read the same stories or see the same art 100 times over. I fell in love with these two men and have since had a very solid image of them in my head and create art based off of those ideas. I don’t feel pressured to make sure I give my Remus certain soft traits to justify making him look the way I do. I don’t feel the need to advertise Sirius being this massively charismatic guy just to give him a personality because otherwise you might think he doesn’t have one, because of the slightly more feminine light I draw him in (which is misogynistic you dumb fucks). Just because, I draw my Remus tall and a buffed out lank, does not make him an ultra turbo Alpha. Just because I draw my Sirius smaller, does not mean he is a helpless twink. But here’s the secret nobody’s telling you— even if I did draw them like that, even if those were my holy canons and preferences for these boys, that’s okay. I’m here to create things that make me go, “fuck yeah that’s hot”, “hell yeah I want to see Sirius get pulverised by Remus and no I don’t want to see Remus get pulverised by Sirius and no I don’t feel the need to defend that”, “yeah I prefer tough love over easy love”, “absolutely love it when one of them is a dick to the other and there’s heaps of toxic tension, or maybe they’re both like that and they’re both sarcastic pricks that have to work it out”. I’m never going to adhere to the obsession of character moulds you lot have created.

Sick of this space being turned into a political pansy parade. It’s alright if you want to draw this gay couple with any features you want, hyper masculine, hyper feminine, somewhere in the middle, trans, prefer one of them topping, prefer them to be asexual, prefer them to be toxic and have grit (that’s my trope), or just want easy fluff. And it’s also alright if you’re just in fandom because you’re a bit perverted (like me) and wanted to explore that in a couple you found super fucking hot. Don’t let people use the word fetishise, don’t let people use the word heteronormative, don’t let people bamboozle you with big words and reams of bullet points to incite shame, don’t let people box you in, just keep watching the porn, keep consuming the porn, keep avoiding the shit you want to avoid, and enjoy what you want without shame.

[mulletmitsuya]

Tokyo Revengers Siblings Groupchat (Sano's & Akashi's)

Warnings: swearing, suggestive, mentions of drugs/rehab, mentions of stalking (it's all satirical, mostly, and i'm probably using this word wrong), angst? (i wouldn't consider it such but you'll get what i mean)

Desc: just a lil dive into two groups of sibling trios :) this is also the final timeline where everything is okay

Akashi's

Senju: she ate that

Sanzu: ?

Sanzu: what did she eat

Senju: she ate

Sanzu: what

Sanzu: what was it that she ate

Sanzu: who are we talking about

Senju: purrrr💅

Sanzu: what

Sanzu: what the fuck are you saying

Sanzu: you're pissing me off

Takeomi: can you guys shut up

Takeomi: isn't this for important things? like emergencies.

Sanzu: you act like you'd be any help if it was an emergency

Senju: i'm talking about me btw

Senju: i'm at 4 million followers 😋

Sanzu: well i'm at 4 and a half so☺

Takeomi: don't you guys run the channel together?

Sanzu: we required our fans to vote who they were mostly watching for and who's funnier

Sanzu: and that's me

Senju: you're not funny, people just love twinks these days🙄

Sanzu: fuck does that mean?🤨

Sanzu: i'm not a twink? i've been going to the gym for the past year

Senju: do you go there to take pictures or what?

Senju: cause ain't no way

Senju: also, homosexuality + skinny = twink

Takeomi: haruchiyo's not gay

Senju: and who told you that?🤨

Sanzu: i've never been attracted to anyone ever so

Senju: you have a USB of just pictures of Mikey, you fucking freak

Senju: am i just suppose to beleive you just look at them for fun

Sanzu: I'M NOT DOING WHAT U THINK I'M DOING

Sanzu: WHERE DID U EVEN FIND THAT OUT FROM

Sanzu: i'm just admiring him

Sanzu: like stop making this weird

Senju: i'm making this weird? YOU'RE A STALKER

Sanzu: IT'S NOT STALKING

Sanzu: i'm just hanging out with him from far away

Senju: with binoculars?😐

Sanzu: you wouldn't get it

Senju: your guys' obsession with the Sano's needs to be studied

Sanzu: i'm not obsessed, i'm normal

Senju: you could be arrested yk?

Senju: you know how many followers we lost the last time you got arrested?

Sanzu: they came back didn't they??? my acting in my apology video was oscar level. did you see that fucking tear? we actually got more followers after that so fuck you

Senju: chill😭

Takeomi: the "going to rehab" stunt was really good. even got people supporting you. keep up the publicity kid 👍

Sanzu: ...

Sanzu: i actually hate you tbh

Sanzu: i get addicted to drugs and the first thing you think is "how can i capitalize off of this"

Takeomi: ...that's what you did tho?

Takeomi: why are you blaming me for your drug addiction🤨

Sanzu: and you praised me for it

Sanzu: the only time you say anything nice about me is when you benefit from it, especially when there's money involved

Sanzu: but whatever

Takeomi: you blame all your problems on me. you're an adult and actions have consequences, haruchiyo. you sniffed coke, not me

Sanzu: ...

Sanzu: maybe you should admit you're a shit brother

Senju:

Senju: please stop fighting ❤

Senju: peace and love only haha

Sanzu: easy for you to say, he actually likes you

Sanzu: idgaf tho like whatever, i'm leaving

Senju: where?? we have a live in a few minutes

Sanzu: do it without me

Senju: please don't go to the Haitani's, those guys suck, they're a terrible influence

Senju: Haru?

Takeomi: he's gone

Takeomi: don't let him get to you Senju, he's just dramatic

Senju: ...right

Sanos

Izana: who the fuck is outside our window

Izana: it's 9pm

Mikey: what??

Mikey: lemme look

Mikey: oh lol that's just Haru, don't worry about it

Emma: again? Mikey...

Mikey: what?

Izana: what the fuck do you mean "don't worry about it" ????

Emma: you're enabling him :(

Emma: Haruchiyo has mental problems, so maybe you should tell him that, idk, stalking isn't normal?

Mikey: we're just hanging out tho?

Mikey: but from far away

Kakucho: does anyone see flashes from outside?

Mikey: Haru's just taking pictures of me

Izana: ???

Izana: what the fuck

Shinichiro: hey guys! can you guys get under your beds and hide? i think we might be getting robbed 😄

Shinichiro: but i'll take care of it🤞

Mikey: LMAO😭😭😭😭

Izana: what are you gonna do Shinichiro? if i may ask

Shinichiro: ...protect you

Shinichiro: i'm willing to resort to violence to save you guys

Izana: you can't fucking fight😐

Mikey: we aren't getting robbed! my good friend just likes to watch me from my window sometimes and that's okay. Haruchiyo has his own way of doing things, let him be.

Shinichiro: oh. ok!

Shinichiro: goodnight then, i suppose 🤞❤

Izana: no?

Izana: how long has he been doing this?

Izana: this is so weird wtf

Mikey: god forbid gay people have hobbies

Izana: ...?

Emma: what does this have to do with him being gay?

Mikey: idk i think he's in love with me or something, and that's pretty gay

Mikey: which i don't mind

Mikey: people just fall into my hands, i'm charming like that fr

Emma: ...sure🙂

Izana: whatever makes you sleep at night

Mikey: i don't sleep at night, the crippling depression keeps me up

Emma: you sleep 12 hours a day 😐

Mikey: that's not a lot tho

Kakucho: it's half the day...

Mikey: so

Kakucho: nothing

Shinichiro: guys don't sleep too late

Shinichiro: it's waaaay past your bedtime

Shinichiro: early bird catches the worm and all that 😄

Mikey: ...i'm 24

Mikey: fym bedtime🤨

Izana: yeah uh we're all way too old for that

Izana: except Emma

Izana: you should he asleep

Emma: nope, me and my husband are about to try for a baby😚

Kakucho: *my husband and i

Emma: he says hi btw

Mikey: DUDE

Mikey: EWWWWWWWW🤢🤮😭

Izana: what are you, 5?

Izana: also we literally didn't need to know that. i'm really grossed out rn

Izana: what made you think that was okay to say

Emma: because you guys are lonely grumpy men and i have a very active and healthy sexual relationship :))

Emma: i'm being maliceful

Emma: *maleficent

Emma: um i forgot the word

Emma: like, purposefully being mean

Emma: AHA

Emma: malicious

Izana: that took you too long

Izana: and what about it? i'm just not ready to be in a relationship rn and that's fine

Emma: you got drunk last night and cried about how lonely you were😐

Izana: lies

Izana: i need to better myself mentally in order to have a healthy relationship

Mikey: lmao is that what your therapist told you?💀

Izana: yes

Mikey: oh

Emma: ok well i'm logging off. bye🤗

Mikey: i'm gonna have to have a conversation with Ken-chin cause he can't be doing this to my little sister

Kakucho: they are married

Mikey: what's your point?

Kakucho: ...nothing

[dionysism]

wanna go more in depth for your hatred about tsoa? is it really REALLY inaccurate? im start to get more into greek mythology and many recommended that book to me besides the obvious ones like the actual materials

(btw i love your posts mwa mwa stay hydrated)

sure! yes it is very inaccurate. let me just say though its been like 3 years since i read it and i'm currently out of state so i don't have it on me to skim through but perhaps one day i will reread it just to make a whole masterpost on everything i hate about it. maybe not tho because it was agonizing enough on the first read 💀

also let me put a trigger warning here i will be mentioning sexual assault in this post because it's in the book and i'll be referring to that scene

so i have a lot of issues with it let me try to organize my thoughts... her characterization is my main issue. just terrible. also i feel like her writing is like.... weird or unfitting sometimes. like theres a scene where patroclus (who is like... 11 or 12 at this point maybe younger) says achilles is "still plump with childhood" or something (again probably not the exact quote its been a minute but something similar) which is just not how 11 year olds talk about other 11 year olds? its supposed to be from patroclus' perspective and i just feel like when shes writing him as a kid he still sounds, thinks, and talks like a grown adult. sometimes he doesn't even sound like patroclus he just sounds like madeline miller.

which brings me to her characterization of patroclus in general. just fucking horrific was her inspo troy (2004)? she made him this medic twink who only heals and even when he finally does fight in achilles armor its like he gets kills on pure luck and you're supposed to be shocked. patroclus in the iliad is 1. older than achilles and 2. a great warrior! this is why achilles lets him don his armor in the first place because he KNOWS how good patroclus is on the battlefield. also patroclus has anger and rage of his own! he is not a smol uwu baby don't PISS ME OFF! his kill count crazy. idek where she got the medic thing from there's like one (1) scene in the iliad where patroclus helps an injured solider in the camp but he is most certainly not the medic of the greeks. he's dull in tsoa. he has hardly any personality outside his love for achilles.

next is her thetis. this, i think, enrages me more than anything else. thetis is a character of grief. thetis is a goddess who, for all her power, is ultimately unable to change the fate of her son. she may be a little overbearing at times, but NOTHING like how she is in tsoa. madeline miller makes her a homophobic (?) helicopter abusive mother (i say ? on the homophobia because im not sure if it was homophobia or if she just hated patroclus specifically. if it was homophobia the stupidity of making an ancient greek god homophobic speaks for itself) thetis doesn't even hate patroclus in the iliad, in fact, thetis is the one who preserves his body and keeps it fresh and prevents it from rotting while achilles waits for his new armor and then goes out to fight hector. she tells achilles he could lay there for a year and she would keep him unchanged. in tsoa, she forces them apart, and tells achilles if he does not sleep with deidamia, she will never let him see patroclus again. this is insane to me. thetis would not set her son up for s/a and force him to sleep with someone against his will. and mind you this occurs after she's already stated clearly that thetis is a victim of rape herself. i assume this is madeline miller's way of asserting that achilles has no attraction to women while still being able to have his son in the plot later. this again, is stupid to me. if you want to argue achilles may have been gay, fine, homosexuality was complicated in ancient greece and you could potentially make the argument his sleeping with women was to uphold a reputation but i think it's more accurate that he was probably just attracted to both. however i think you can make him explicitly gay in a retelling without adding sexual assault to his story. i also find this especially distasteful because in actual antiquity achilles is the one committing sexual assault. (if i had a nickel for every time madeline miller made a character who canonically assaults someone else a victim of s/a while removing the fact they commit it themselves from the story i'd have 2 nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?) in general i find it very weird how madeline, on multiple occasions, demonizes a woman from mythology and makes her into a villain she simply is not. this y'alls "feminist retelling" author? oh okay.. i guess! (her deidama is an antagonist in this too, as a hysterical jealous Other Woman)

i also felt she imposed too many modern standards/heteronormativity onto achilles and patroclus' relationship. like i said with patroclus, making him the weak defenseless healer and achilles the badass warrior. very much giving one is strong and masculine and the other is nurturing and feminine. changing the aspects of their other relationships so its like they've only ever loved eachother and no else which isn't necessary. achilles and patroclus could (and do, in the iliad) sleep with other people and it would not diminish how intense and true their love for each other is!!

over all she sanitized the story, flattened it and butchered all the characters with a sprinkle of fetishization and misogyny on top. the book is frankly boring and underdeveloped too. this is honestly not as in depth of a review as i would like to give but like i said i don't have access to the book at the moment so i just stuck to the core grievances i remember having

(also thank you, you stay hydrated too!! <3)

[bisclavret]

hello I'm thinking about that gifset you did. yaoi cocaine. whatever it was. with gwaine and merlin having figured each other out. and gwaine looking betrayed while merlin looks elated is SO IMPORTANT TO ME YOU DON'T EVEN GET IT.

GWAINE USES HAVING MERLIN FIGURED OUT TO BRING HIM JOY. MERLIN USES HAVING GWAINE FIGURED OUT TO HURT HIM.

fuckkkk it just. you can sort of see it with how they distance themselves too and what their relationship looks like in s4 & 5. ESPECIALLY 5 bc at the end of the season merlin uses his knowledge of gwaine (that gwaine cares about him and would risk his life for him without hesitation) to hurt him (not being honest with him about his magic or allowing him to help get it back) LIKE OH MY GOD. THEY HAVE EACH OTHER FIGURED OUT. MERLIN KNOWS IT'LL HURT GWAINE IF HE DOESN'T TELL HIM THINGS BUT HE ALSO KNOWS GWAINE WILL DO ANYTHING FOR HIM AND I JUST. AUGH. I THINK THAT SHOULD BE EXPLORED MORE BC LATER SEASONS MERWAINE TOXIC YAOI IS EVERYTHING TO ME

oh im so glad you picked up on that too! theyre literally ideological foils to each other in that episode: even as they bond over some shared values and trauma (and attraction), the key conflict between them is that gwaine's life experiences have made him a staunch anti-royalist while merlin is prophecy-pilled into believing he lucked out with "the good ones". from the moment merlin learns gwaine's dad was a knight he relentlessly uses this fact to convert gwaine back to catholicism nobility so he can stick around as a knight of camelot, which merlin rationalizes as a kindness because gwaine seems lonely and leads a dangerous life.

but the way gwaine reacts to merlin's attempts at persuasion is conflicted and suspicious because "what's this guy's agenda?" and i don't think that ever fully lets up. even as gwaine concedes that arthur is one of "the good ones" i do believe it's just for merlin's sake because there are no "good ones" in a class war lol he sees how rooted merlin is in his beliefs (not to mention the repressed sexuality) and wants to reassure him that even though he's in no rush to join him, he's not judging him either. and merlin is relieved and happy with this outcome because gwaine kindly didn't call him out on the homosexuality and he stopped trying to threaten his beliefs. that whole episode is the equivalent of being a leftist on a dating app in 2022 wondering how low you'd stoop for a cute british twink that's unironically mourning queen elizabeth. but i digress.

merwaine is toxic yaoi to ME because not only does it start with them butting heads ideologically, merlin's ideology WINS and gwaine abandons everything he stood for to become a knight in the hopes of finding love and community. and then of course by the time s4 and s5 roll in there is so much grief and shame and fanaticism in merlin that he refuses to indulge, refuses to go off-script and allow gwaine to be anything except a tool and a weapon. which is obviously not the vibe gwaine was getting off of merlin in s3, but by his last episode he's surrendered himself to the reality that that's all merlin allows himself to want from him to the point where after merlin rejects him one last time he literally gives him his sword and lets him walk away. grim!

then again, they're both complicit in making each other feel worse! gwaine sounds like he already has some mistrust of magic when we first meet him, and by s5 he's parroting camelot-isms about magic, "you are a sorcerer and a heretic", and killing sorcerers who did nothing. and then merlin quietly marks their grave and keeps repeating to himself that "it'll get better one day" while refusing to listen to anyone who has any criticism whatsoever.

and to circle back to the point of "they figured each other out": THAT'S WHY IT'S SO POTENT. TO ME. merlin knows that gwaine loves him best of all but whenever gwaine tries to act on his love merlin recoils because of catholic fanaticism he's convinced everyone he shares his secrets with will die. the repression is off the charts. and gwaine resents repression but he's forced to abide by it because he's disarmed by merlin's apparent selflessness and bravery (and the fact that merlin gets to live a life of adventure and self righteous fighting while not actually being a noble - that's literally gwaine's dream!) but i simply cannot look at gwaine in honestly ANY of the seasons he's in and go "oh he doesn't mind :) he just wants to be involved!" the man practically died of a broken heart. merlin broke his heart. and gwaine let him, he was also an active participant! i like to overanalyze eoin's acting decisions and try and pinpoint moments where he bites his tongue lest he says something that goes against merlin's (and the show's) ideology that will cost him his place. which is not unlike hiding a secret identity if you think about it

[jamisonwritestf2trash]

Please rant about it!!

Ok!

But also, I'm linking the videos just incase people stumble across this and want to watch the videos after seeing this:

HBomberguy's Video

Todd in the Shadows video

————————————————————

I'm starting out with some of my favorite parts before a mini rant bc, yeah! (This is nowhere near all of my favorite parts, but there's just so much it'd take me hours to compile.

————————————————————

Immediately starting with a Harlan Ellison moment was amazing

The "world's most fuckable twink" line absolutely took me out, but then him going into the explanation about plagiarism being disrespectful right after was like two back to back gut punches, in the best way. Because he was so fucking right about it.

The grammar mistakes he points out are so funny

Him overlaying Brian Deer's documentary over Blair's video was also great.

Him calling Blair out for being lazy and honestly a shitty person was also great.

ALSO! BLAIR CITING HER SOURSE AND IT BEING A PIRACY WEBCITE!?

Also also him making fun of how her sprite moves 😭

Him calling out Internet Historian for being a piece of shit

German board game joke

How he points out Reilly's skill and talent

"Just don't touch the screen or move the mouse awa..."

"MASTER OF SHIT!" (rips the wall down)

"There's one group more important than historians, or journalists, or anyone else with a real job, and that's gay people."

————————————————————

Rant time :)

My mini rant is just about how fucking stomach churning the second half is. Like, let me tell you, I watched that entire section, mouth agape, in shock and horror. I can bearly fathom how lazy, pathetic, and malicious you'd have to be to pull some of the shit he (Somerton) did. (The first half stuff was insanely bad too don't get me wrong)

Hbomberguy did an amazing job showing the visual of how many parts of the queer horror video were plagiarized, I legitimately gasped when the highlighted portions were shown.

Every time you think he can't get any lower, he does. It's baffling, and honestly, I wish I could say more about how mad this makes me, but I'm so mad and tired that I can't think of words so mini rant over, I suppose.

————————————————————

But also, sorry, this is one thing I feel like no one is mentioning, and it's driving me insane. I also watched Todd in the Shadows video (which is also really good btw) and at least three parts of the video debunk lies Somerton said about nazis, the main ones being, (and I'm taking the titles from the yt video so you can find these in the time stamps)

1. The SS was "teeming with homosexuals"

2. The hitler youth was also run by homosexuals

3. The nazis created our current body standards.

In the three mentioned above, Somerton's lies are genuinely just him writing gay fan fic about nazi Germany (at least that's how I felt about what he was speaking and wording things) and it's fucking disgusting. He says things in such a skin crawling way it makes me sick.

And no one seems to be talking about it or how fucking weird it is, but hey, maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my mini rant and my favorite parts. Sorry it's all kinda messy.

[transmascpetewentz]

A Short Guide To Writing Gay Trans Men

So a few disclaimers before I start:

I'm not going to talk about anything sex-related here because 1) people have made other guides and google is your friend & 2) I'm not very comfortable with it.

I am just one person, and due to the fact that I am white and thin and perisex, I will definitely have blind spots. If you want more information about intersections that don't apply to me, ask someone who it does apply to!

I did get lots of messages from trans guys giving me advice on this, but nonetheless I do not speak for absolutely everyone.

There will be very little info here on how to accurately write medical transitions because that's not something I've experienced. Google is your best friend on this one.

This is not a complete post. I will keep adding to it as time goes on. If you're seeing this post reblogged by someone else, click on the original to see if I've made any additions or corrections before you send me that anon hate and/or comment telling me to kill myself.

What Not To Do

When there is a trans male character written by a cis person, especially a cis man, there's a very solid chance that he is going to check off at least 9 of the following boxes:

Thin

White

Able-bodied

Neurotypical or LSN neurodivergent

Binary

No nuance given to his identity and expression

Sexuality not specified or elaborated on

A cis person's love interest

2 dimensional transmasc stereotype

Usually small and feminine, but not actually femme

Gay transmasc characters written by cis people are very difficult to find because cis authors will often not specify the sexuality of the trans man dating a cis man or elaborate on his connection to the MLM community. This is because many cis authors believe that writing a gay trans man is just writing a woman but switching one of the genders. This is, of course, not true, and there must be more care taken to provide nuance and create a more accurate (and non-dysphoria-inducing) representation.

Moving Past The White Twink Stereotype

This is one of the most basic bars to clear for a cis person writing a gay trans man, and yet so many continue to fail at this very simple task. Ask yourself: is your gay transmasc character a white, hairless, thin person? If the answer is yes, that's not inherently a bad thing, though it may be good to reflect on why you want to create a character like this if this is the only type of transmasc representation you write.

The biggest thing you need to do here is to give him a set of defining traits. Not physical traits, not even gender expression traits. Just personality. What kind of person is he? How does he cope with the transphobia in this world (unless you're writing a fantasy universe without transphobia)? How does he act towards strangers? How does he approach people of different genders? What is his outlook on cis people? Once you have the basics, it's time to think about his physical appearance & expression and how that has impacted his life and his personality.

You also want to avoid the trope where a gay trans man's personality is undeveloped and he is treated as an object for cis men to help them advance their character arcs. It's fine for trans men to serve a purpose like that in the story, but they need to be their own individual humans.

Writing Sexuality

If your trans male characters date men, and I cannot reiterate this enough, make them be open about their homosexuality or bisexuality. Give them a sexual orientation and make them be proud of it. Of course, not every gay trans man is going to identify heavily with a masc/fem role in gay male relationships, but you should seriously consider whether or not your character would.

Additionally, don't follow the flawed line of logic of "trans man -> vagina -> bottom -> fem/femme." It's fine to make your gay trans male characters fem but please, I swear to god please give them a good reason for being so. If you do make your character femme, be very cautious to use language that doesn't trigger actual trans men's dysphoria. Don't constantly point out the character's physical features that may be associated with femininity unless you're making a point either about his dysphoria or about how society treats him or maybe about how he comes to accept his body. However, please be extremely careful with the last one as this trope has been used in so many transphobic portrayals.

Have your gay trans male character exist in gay spaces with other gay men (both cis and trans). Have him be open about being a gay man specifically. Give him cis gay male friends. Give him trans gay male friends. Don't allow your reader to ignore the fact that he is very much a gay man.

Dysphoria

For the love of all things good, please do not write your gay trans male character's dysphoria as "from the day I was born, I knew I was born in the wrong body. I have had no internalized shame or guilting into making me doubt my transness, and it was obvious that I was not a woman." That's not how anyone's dysphoria works, even if they did know from a young age that they were born in the wrong body.

For gay trans men specifically, most of us end up realizing we're trans around either age 12 or age 20. This doesn't mean he has to be exactly that age, but that's generally the safest age to have your character's egg crack. Of course, you can sprinkle in signs that he's trans since he was a young child, but I know a lot of gay trans men and I have yet to meet one who has known since birth and has had no doubt in his mind about it. However you can and should write older gay trans men, even some who find out they're trans in their 40s or older. Representation of older trans people is seriously lacking compared to how many there are.

Don't make your character the stereotype of a straight trans man who doesn't face the specific intersection of being trans and gay. Facing this intersection does affect something even as personal as dysphoria. Many of us will have self-doubt, believe that we're disgusting fetishists of gay men, or simply exist as women in gay spaces for a time. You also have to take into account gay beauty standards & your character's upbringing to figure out what they're likely to be most dysphoric about.

hi :3

That's it for now. I'll keep adding to this post as I get feedback and suggestions. If you want more advice, feel free to send me an ask. When I get enough asks about things, I'll make an FAQ post answering some of them.

[threepandas]

ANOTHER~: YANDERE!AFO

(But first! Art link! I found the edited version. The ORIGINAL is better VVV)

OKAY, SO...

As I mentioned on my LAST Yandere!Afo? The person Afo most wants to fuck? Is HIMSELF. But NOT as his own equal. God, No. He'd kill that treacherous, no doubt attempting to usurp him, snake in the grass IMMEDIATELY. He's an awful and untrustworthy WRETCH. He would know.

No, no, the man AfO MOST wants to fuck?

Is a slightly to moderately YOUNGER version of himself.

Someone WEAKER. Someone he can OVERPOWER. Watch as they struggle helplessly in his grip. He wants a GAME. To watch them LOSE. See the realization in their eyes, that they've been outmatched all along. Played. That their stubborn pride means NOTHING before him.

He loves himself. Is OBSESSED with himself. But at the same time? Wants to break that other self down and make him? Helpless, pathetic, and dirty.

Submit to him.

Refuse him.

Show him your RAGE.

And? We can argue all day, about whether he is heterosexual, homosexuality, bi or pansexual. A raging narcissist (he is). If he's Ace as FUCK. But? For the purpose of THIS post and prompt? I am commenting upon his boner for himself. His Selfcest aspect. So we're all going to go with it.

He? Wants to Fuck This Man:

This one right here. Biiiiiit older of course, as this is baby faced Teen AfO. But? Twink AfO. Early-mid-late Twenties lookin, "I think I'm an adult but am wildly unprepared to handle the manipulations of a Seasoned Adult" baby faced, arrogant lil shit. Proud and sneering. Disdainful.

THATS the one he wants to slam full force, with super strength, not just down ONTO a flat surface, but THROUGH and right into the ground until it CRATERS. Hold him down by the NECK and choke him slowly as he takes his time. Make him watch as he destroys his precious little suit, his put together appearance, do as he pleases.

See the FURY in his eyes. The hatred. The kindling, obsessive, need for REVENGE.

You have NO idea how many times he's gotten off on that fantasy. Idly kept an eye out for Time and Reality Hopping Quirks. There is, after all, only so much relief quirks and his own touch can provide, in the end. He IS but a man. Even he gets... frustrated.

But? As they say? Every human on earth supposedly has 7 doppelgangers. Especially when you don't FUCKIN DIE. It was bound to happen EVENTUALLY. The right combination of genetics and Quirks. Lightning striking once again.

Perhaps they are distantly related through his mother's unknown family. Perhaps his father's. Impossible to tell. The traits were obviously VERY recessive. But? White hair, familiar eyes. A... "copy" quirk.

The young man is LYING.

Unlike himself, the younger man requires all five fingers touching. A variation of his own. Dressed sharply, he is a vicious lawyer. One with a preference for the poor, discriminated, underclasses. Those with DANGEROUS Quirks. Useful ones.

He greets everyone with a firm, American style, handshake.

AfO is ENTRACED. How many HUNDREDS must he have by now? A net, thrown to collect indiscriminately, until something useful appears? Does he piece them together? The weaker quirks? CAN he? Like AfO? Can only take or can he give as well? But, ah, why SHOULD he?

A little demon prince, pretending to be the benevolent hero. The white knight on shining steed. Here to save the day. How GREATFUL they all are! Afo laughs and laughs. Oh, how it takes him back.

And? They never see him coming. How could they? He is a ghost of a shadow, hidden in the dark. They think they are unique! Their own special brand of predator. Unaware there is something bigger, meaner, hunting THEM.

I imagine AfO has ALOT of fun.

But! That's for part two!

[biracy]

Saw a Post bc of Tumblr's horrible "you made a popular text post? Let's put other popular textposts that are saying literally the direct opposite of your point in the 'more like this' section" feature that like, literally explicitly claimed that "we need to see a butch fucking a twink on live television" jokes are Violently Homophobic And Literally Forcing REAL Lesbians To Like Dick or whatever. Besides the obvious (which is that the behavior of other people who share a label with you does not reflect on you at all, the reality that there are self-identified lesbians who date and/or have sex with self-identified gay men is not forcing you, as a self-identified lesbian or gay man to do that, stop caring what other people do), it is so extremely telling that people hear the words "butch" and "twink" and think 100% Monosexual Gold Star Womb Lesbian and 100% Monosexual Gold Star idk. Cock Gay respectively. I've ALWAYS said that my girlfriend and I are "a butch fucking a twink" and we're both bisexual, no threat of Literally Destroying Homosexuality or whatever there. Overall there is SUCH a consistent distaste for and vitriol towards both the most vaguely bisexual tendencies and any sort of actually "challenging" or "uncomfortable" gender variance (yknow, anything other than "women and afabs"-tier "trans inclusion") that permeates through soooo much of this sort of "discourse" that I, as a gender-variant bisexual Thing myself, cannot ignore or pretend I'm fine with. Anyway they should air a butch fucking a twink on live television and more butches and twinks should make out in bars because the fluidity of other people's sexualities are not literally threatening your own. Also it's hot

[cherrothestupiddragon]

The funniest thing about Persona 5 being my favorite game is that one day (my birthday), I come back home, open reddit, see a meme and think:

"Oh right, today's the day where that homosexual, homphobic, psicopathic twink detective shot the silent, bisexual main character in the head. Does that make me the first or the latter?"

[bandydear]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, now that I've explained:

Why Jackie is gay

Why Jackie fixes houses

Now, "why a service top"?

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

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

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

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

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

[bowtiepastabitch]

The Inherent Queerness of Monsterfucking: Fifty Shades of Subversive

Or; The research paper I begrudgingly watched 50 shades for, with edits for smooth tumblr reading. Yes, this is a paper about porn. ~2400 words.

Like porn, politics, and football, people tend to have very strong opinions on BDSM and kink. Inherent to the nature of kink is the subversion and revolution of social norms and our sense of taboo, a transgression against the rules we've set as a society. The subversion of traditional ideas about sex is what makes kink kinky; it turns concepts of right and wrong, pain and pleasure, completely upside down. Normative gender roles, too, can sometimes be reserved, such as the case of the female dominatrix, but in practice things tend to trend in a heteronormative direction. One study (1) shows that most men tend to self-identify as dominant, with most women tending to identify as submissive, especially in heterosexual contexts. Likewise, in homosexual male spaces, masculine men are much more likely to be perceived as tops whilst more feminine/gnc men and "twinks" are more likely to be pegged as bottoms (2) Despite the focus on transgression and subversion within BDSM and kink, masculinity and phallocentrism still dominate norms both in the public eye and within many kink communities themselves, especially online. For queer women and those outside the gender binary, often neglected and forgotten in kink representations, this brings up an important question: What does kink look like outside that model? In fan communities online, many writers seek to answer that question. Between the boundaries of traditional gender and anatomical essentialism, queer kink stories both acknowledge and defy phallocentric, patriarchial ideas about sex, gender, and power.

The realm of fantasy holds a magnifying glass to this discord between queerness and phallocentrism, having the ability to take certain ideas to their erotic extremes beyond what's realistic within the consensus reality. Many kink acts themselves are rooted in fantasy and roleplay elements, acting on desires not otherwise appropriate or even possible. These fantasies take place in the imagination and become the foundations for erotic fiction. The 2015 film Fifty Shades of Grey is one such piece, with its immense popularity solidifying a specific heteronormative perception of BDSM relationship dynamics. The movie follows a dominant, controlling male's pursual of a sexual relationship with a bland, naive young college senior: quite the "big Dommy McDommerson"(3) as one reviews from the community puts it, Christian Grey is practically a caricature of the standard hyper-masculine archetype, full of snappy innuendos and brooding bad-boy backstory, not to mention fully inept at romance and consent. At its core, Fifty Shades is essentially a reiteration of the standard many-times-rinsed-and-repeated stereotypes and heteronormative ideas about kink and sex. The gay male kink fantasy, too, unsurprisingly centers the phallus. The works of Tom of Finland, for a prominent example, deal extensively with this imagery of masculine dominance and phallocentrism, sketching out big strapping men with disproportionately massive cocks that center a specific model of cis maleness tangential to dominant norms of sexualized masculinity. By contrast, the obscure fantasy world of kinky erotic fiction written by and for queers contains vast diversity of gender and sexual dynamics; the only real commonality is an aversion to the heteronorm. Here, queer kink stories are told in relative anonymity and can explore a variety of kinky and subversive ideas about sex, gender, pleasure, pain, and identity. One example, "A Taste of Hell," an Overwatch fic that provides an excellent example of this phenomena, illustrates many of the transgressive ideas explored by these communities including rape, free use, violence, and the trope known as monsterfucking. (3) The plot is simple, following a young woman who dies and goes to hell only to discover it to be essentially an eternity of sexual slavery to lesbian demons, whose lover comes in from the living world to argue for her resurrection. 

"A Taste of Hell" was published to AO3 in 2017 by user 'zieg', and the broader community it's a part of exists as a safe space for exploration of sexuality and social taboo without judgement or moral condemnation. In these online communities, primarily women and genderqueer people (only 1% surveyed identified as male) construct fictional worlds of erotic potential where boundaries of right and wrong are blurred and anything can be sexy. Zieg describes their writing as "an experiment of sorts," and "an elaborate, fantastical roleplay of sorts between writer and reader." They acknowledge the disturbing and "fucked up" nature of their material, citing the BDSM and kink tradition of taboo roleplay, in a disclaimer linked at the beginning of the piece; this idea of sexual transgression is widely regarded with little further comment in much of the community, with 48,000 posts tagged "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" on AO3, a reference to the idea that the label ought to be warning enough. "This is hot and I'm going to hell," says one respondent to Kukka's research in Fandom's Pornographic Subset, "God please forgive me." A key factor in these writings is the unapolagetically "fleshy, hyperbolic descriptions of sex;" euphemisms and formal sex language are absent from the text, which instead tends to lean towards the crass and the colloquial, with an entire miniature dialect of fandom-specific vocabulary. Far from the clean cinematography of Fifty Shades, “A Taste of Hell'' features graphic descriptive imagery of “hot pussy” and “gaping fuck holes.” This forwardness lends itself to the overall openness of online kink communities, where arousal and sexuality are topics for unrestricted, frank discussion. The comments are full of readers praising the erotic sensuality and writing style of the fiction, openly expressing their arousal and enjoyment of the piece.

The lack of repression in these spaces contributes to the allure of these communities, with many respondents expressing a feeling that “belonging to an accepting community helped them to alleviate their feelings of shame.” (Kukka 64) Audre Lorde, in Uses of the Erotic describes the manner in which female eroticism is “vilified, abused, and devalued within western society” to the detriment of one’s personal power and the necessity for connection and acceptance of one’s inner self and desires in recouping it. The presence of communities for “exploration of sexuality and desire” where “neither is feared or forbidden” nurtures this self-acceptance, and it can be a powerful tool in vital identity formation through the “imagining and reimagining” (Kukka 64) of oneself through shared fantasy. By telling and reading stories, participants can learn more about their own tastes and desires and experiment with new fantasies and ideas.

Many of these fantasies and stories feature a direct dismantling of the gender binary: men can get pregnant (colloquially dubbed 'mpreg'), canonically heterosexual and hetero-presenting characters can be 'shipped' in gay pairings, and sexual activity can be engaged with supernatural creatures like aliens, werewolves, ghosts, and monsters. (i.e. monsterfucking) At its core, monsterfucking is a type of fantasy that subverts not only heteronormative ideas about gender and sexuality, but the human ideal of the gendered body itself. More than just giving a woman a penis or a man a vagina (though it’s certainly done, with and without the context of transness), this trope involves an entirely nonhuman character with its own unique genitalia to match its purpose in the story. For “A Taste of Hell,” this involves a vast host of dominating demon women, with the majority having vaguely human-esque vulvas lubricated with a cinnamon-scented liquid and a sharp, pointed clitoris. The one exception is a character referred to as Mistress Cyx, who has a “long purple horse cock expanding from her groin, a solid metre long and 20 cm thick.” It’s certainly a grotesque description. Similar to the kinky gender-bending roleplay that takes place in real life, these fictions “[provide] a safe space for people to fuck with their gender” (Bauer 234) and to explore the different ways in which sex can be engaged between parties through a subversion of human contexts for gendered sexuality. Tentacles, eggs, probes, tongues, cloacas, and even 'sex pollen' can all contribute in their own strange ways independent of the genders of the involved parties. Even objectively phallic objects, such as the aforementioned horsecock or other supernatural phallus, tend to defy accepted heteronormative standards in the way they're used and described. Combined especially with tropes like male prenancy, where cisgender male characters are able to become pregnant through penetrative sex, these stories "create a new genderqueer place outside of the gender dichotomy" (Kukka 57) where sexual dynamics dely on anything but the gender of those involved.

These strange sex encounters, naturally, draw their fair share of criticism from disturbed onlookers. Perhaps the most pressing, ignoring the undertones of bestiality, is the issue of consent. Elements of non-consent, popularly shortened to non-con, feature heavily in many female fantasies, both straight and queer. In Fifty Shades of Grey, for example, consent is often dubious at best; Christian Grey repeatedly makes inappropriate comments to Anastasia before they become romantically involved, and even tracks her down while she’s drunk (he doesn’t like her getting drunk) and forces her to come back to his hotel room where he undresses her and puts her to sleep. He frequently tries to push BDSM activities on her that she, a vanilla virgin, is not prepared for, and despite insisting that he won’t touch her without a signed contract, he repeatedly initiates sexual activity throughout the entire movie, with varying levels of enthusiasm on Anna’s part, even demanding that she “say yes… to being [his]”(4) while he has her in a vulnerable, powerless sexual position. “It really did frame BDSM as being abusive,” says Blaque in her review. “It just did.” Despite all this, the movie heavily romanticizes Grey’s controlling nature and never addresses the violations of appropriate consent. Conversely, queer kink pieces like “A Taste of Hell” are expected to openly acknowledge their problematic elements before the reader even opens the text. Zieg tags the piece “Rape/Non-Con Elements” as well as “Free Use,” “Sex Slave,” and more; the reader is responsible for reading the tags prior to opening in order to consent to any kinks or uncomfortable content present. Characters meanwhile hold to near nonexistent moral standards, allowable within the suspension of disbelief and judgment that’s critical to the existence of these fanfiction communities. This allows for a more complete and authentic exploration of subversive and transgressive sexual content, with one respondent to Kukka’s study reporting comfort with the questionable material due to a “bigger distance” between themself and scenarios they consider “triple fictional,” a phrase they use to describe the fictional (non-canon) interactions of fictional characters from an existing fiction franchise, all in all: fanfiction.

Despite all this, Fifty Shades of Grey and kinky monsterfucker fanfiction still have common elements. Both feature unequal power dynamics, a core facet of many kink roleplay genres, and both focus on non-male fantasies. Like Fifty Shades of Grey, queer kink practices in real life have even been accused of succumbing to patriarchal sexual models and being anti-feminist for that reason. As France points out in “Sadomasochism and Feminism,” this kind of logic “defines sadomasochism with reference to dominant norms,” reducing female and queer sexual perspectives to a mere reflection of that which oppresses. That’s not to say the world one lives in doesn’t impact sexual experiences and preferences, but allowing oppressive narratives to define queer and female sexuality really only allows those oppressive narratives to dominate the conversation of sexuality altogether, feeding back into their power. Even Fifty Shades of Grey, with its problematic representations of BDSM and reiteration of heteronormative relationship tropes, deserves a level of nuance as a female erotic fantasy in its own right. Furthermore, examining “A Taste of Hell” in the context of male power, when it contains not a single male or masculine character, seems absurd. The absence of male figures rejects the phallocentric idea that sex and sexuality revolves around male power and presence. “The largest category” of responses to Kukka’s study “highlights the importance of kink meme communities in catering to the erotic needs of women and other non cis-male people.” Both works fit that description, subverting the “male-dominated mainstream porn” model. 

Another commonality lies in culture of origin; the Fifty Shades of Grey novel in fact originated as a fanfiction of the popular Twilight series, though it’s largely been scrubbed of lexical evidence of its humble origins. Fandom culture online, especially in fanfiction communities, has evolved its own unique set of customs and, more importantly, linguistic quirks. Monsterfucking itself is a term presumably originating in kinky fanfiction circles online, describing the specific type of kink dynamic discussed here. As mentioned earlier, these specific colloquialisms for sexual activity, free of awkwardly formal terminology,  are a key part of the community’s open conversation. The unique language of these communities experiences constant transformation, as writers are free to create new tags at their leisure and new slang terms spring up organically from online interactions and memes. Furthermore, within queer and kinky sects of these communities, there’s plenty of overlap with real life queer and kinky vernacular, as well as a host of transformative and individualized language. It can be helpful for those “exploring and expanding gender concepts” to use transformative language to “rename or recode body parts and sexual practices according to the meaning they have for the participants involved as opposed to heteronormative perspectives” in kink practices, and that benefit is amplified through the written language of fiction. This “material-semiotic renaming” that Bauer describes can involve the invention of new language or incorporation of subversive ideas and community slang for genderfuckery, and the explicit description of genitalia and the body present in monsterfucking smut lends itself quite well to exploration and experimentation thereof. With many characters existing as mere projections for interpretation of real life experiences and confusions, it makes sense that their descriptions would be so varied and unique in a veritable playground of self-exploration. 

Despite mainstream perceptions of kink as a male-dominated practice, these online pockets of queer community continue to thrive and subvert expectations about sex and gender.  Sexually explicit queer kinky fanfictions can provide essential safe spaces for exploration of sexuality and unusual fantasies, allowing readers to learn more about themselves and others and to form community connections. These works incorporate intentionally taboo and disturbing elements, such as monsterfucking, to explore uncomfortable subjects and enjoy the erotic allure of kinky fantasies in a nonjudgmental, communal online space. Such spaces nurture identity building, mutual understanding, and a sense of belonging, as well as providing space for creative expression and validation, specially for those who are geographically isolated from real world lgbtq+ kink spaces or experience social, financial, or accessibility barriers to meeting with like-minded individuals in person.

Boyd-Rogers et al.

Pun unintended, unfortunately

We don't talk about how long I spent trying to find an example fic for this paper that met my needs. Authors who provide commentary on their own porn can be surprisingly difficult to find.

I need you to imagine for a moment me, an ace and very queer individual, pirating fifty shades of grey at my desk with a pad of paper out taking fucking notes so I can cite it in my paper. It was my prof's idea. Apparently I needed to be able to cite a juxtaposing source.

This paper has been adapted from a research paper that I wrote for my freshman writing seminar, with the bulkier explanation of basic fandom concepts having been removed or edited.

Works Cited

“About Tom of Finland.” Tom of Finland Foundation, 2 Nov. 2022, https://www.tomoffinland.org/about-tom-of-finland/.

Bauer, Robin. “Transgressive and Transformative Gendered Sexual Practices and White Privileges: The Case of the Dyke/Trans BDSM Communities.” Women's Studies Quarterly, 2008, pp. 233–253.

Blaque, Kat, director. Actual BDSMer Watches Fifty Shades of Grey | Kat Blaque, 13 Aug. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F93WHXewX5c. Accessed 24 Apr. 2023.

Boyd-Rogers, Caroline C., and Geoffrey B. Maddox. “LGBTQIA + and Heterosexual BDSM Practitioners: Discrimination, Stigma, Tabooness, Support, and Community Involvement.” Sexuality Research and Social Policy, vol. 19, no. 4, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-022-00759-y.

“Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.” Archive of Our Own, https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Dead%20Dove:%20Do%20Not%20Eat/works.

Fifty Shades of Grey. Universal, 2015.

Kukka, Silja. “‘Fandom's Pornographic Subset.’” Lambda Nordica, vol. 26, no. 1, 2021, pp. 53–79., https://doi.org/10.34041/ln.v26.721.

Lorde, Audre. “Uses of The Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde, 1984, pp. 53–59.

Zieg. “A Taste of Hell.” Archive of Our Own, 3 Apr. 2017, https://archiveofourown.org/works/10536954? 

[go-go-gadget-autism]

i’ve been on tumblr to where i can sort of get the generalized humor that hit posts have and i know i’m funny enough to do them however i am also Too Stupid to Think of something.

so here are some quotes from me and my friends.

“what if i disguised myself as a chair?”

“that’s because you’re a classified homosexual.”

“having boobs does NOT make you magical.”

“since you haven’t seen rudolph the red nosed reindeer, i think you deserve to be shot.”

“why are you french”

“i am the sex”

“i will jizz in your oven”

“if you’re gonna get a blood disease, go big or go home”

“i’m not just fast, i’m autism fast”

“everyone needs an emotional support femboy”

“you should become a foot fetish artist”

“give me my aids”

“biblically accurate republican”

“i haven’t pissed in sixteen years”

“i didn’t waterboard the fish i swear!”

“i have the personality of a brick that plays dragon city”

“hentai father”

“the communism demons”

“i’m gonna commit a war crime on these fucking bugs”

“get sucked”

“the king of piss”

“the joke here is that you’re all going to die”

“*in hulk hogan voice* grab on my balls brother”

“*in scottish accent* necrophilia is like fine wine”

“platonic sugar daddy”

“i’m not gonna suck his nose.”

“girthy gunnage”

“how can a gun be autistic”

“don’t get your beans in a bungle”

“i don’t wanna be a bouillon cube!!”

“skinny jeans crush my balls, and not in a good way”

“i was gonna say that made me hard but then i remembered that i don’t have a penis”

“all chickens are racist.”

“people that use the skull emoji are attracted to femboys”

“aren’t fleshy potatoes just irish people??”

“he has rebellious white boy energy, and not in the sexy way”

“i’m just gonna casually eat poland gimme a second”

“you’re at perfect dick punching height”

“i am NOT a spy balloon!!!”

“penis jumpscare”

“stab me daddy”

“all hail the fuckle knuckle”

“that is the gayest fish i have ever seen”

“wait, you guys fuck ovens?”

“guys, am i a twink?”

“a gun is useless against the dreaded taxes.”

“chemically unstable shitting”

“non-hispanic bitch slap”

“you’re a woman sometimes, go make me a sandwich”

“are you accusing me of being sans undertale?”

“not gonna lie, i’d let Ted Bundy kill me. I’d let him eat me. preferably alive.”

“someone’s parent. imma bang em.”

“hitler moment”

“breast buy”

“guys, i did it! i created therapy!”

“i need my HVAC bible”

“the grapes built like himbos?”

“you’d let a tree shoot you if it had enough eyeliner.”

“i am a terrible mexican”

“i am going to make you into a soup”

“fuck it. *unchops your suey*”

“i’m gonna cuck him. musically.”

“you may be an engineer, but i have the pokémon deluxe essential handbook!”

“i’m going to fight the visible light spectrum”

“sounds like your balls just couldn’t handle the neutron style”

“i don’t do vapes i only do bagels”

“if you shit on my couch i swear to fucking god”

“you’re balls?”

“on a happier note, i just purchased England!”

“yeah, that’s old hag energy”

“i am now switzerland”

“i am in a relationship with gay jesus”

“what’s up cucumber”

“unlike you, i’m misogynistic.”

“hoe you are NOT going commando while working at an arby’s”

“ok well if you do throw up try to aim for the holes in your violin”

feel free to add your own quotes! my friends and i say some insane shit sorry