#And i don't mean to diminish any experience where that was the case with men yet it was fully platonic

[bybdolan]

this is very personal + subjective because different things are helpful for different people, but one thing that really messed with me during my time of attempting to figure out whether I was gay or bi was the vagueness which with "real" and "fake" attraction are described. It simply wasn't and isn't healthy for me to analyze whether attraction I feel is "real" or "fake" based on pretty arbitrary and broad markers.

[artemisia-black]

Do you think Walburga and Orion physically tortured Sirius or reg when they're being rebellious?

No I quite emphatically don't (will discuss below the cut with a TRIGGER WARNING: DISCUSSIONS OF ABUSE).

1.0 Emotional abuse is devasting

There was clearly emotional abuse and neglect, the gravity of which can often be lost in depictions of gratuitous physical violence. In some fandom spaces, there appears to be a perceived hierarchy of abuse, wherein emotional maltreatment is often regarded as less severe or less compelling to portray. In the case of the Blacks, there was undeniable emotional abuse and neglect. The significance of this type of abuse can frequently be overshadowed in narratives that focus more on explicit physical violence, potentially diminishing the recognition of the profound impact emotional trauma can have.

Walburga's portrait denounces Sirius as the "Shame of her flesh," and Kreacher incessantly proclaims that he is unworthy to "wipe slime from Walburga's boots." Furthermore, the indifference displayed towards permitting a penniless, underage child to leave the home is striking. These instances provide indisputable evidence of emotional neglect and abuse. Additionally, Sirius's almost tentative proposition to Harry regarding living together, coupled with his near disbelief upon receiving an affirmative response, indicates his struggle to believe that he is indeed loved. This vulnerability, evident in his shyness and the slight fumbling of his words, contrasts sharply with his overtly murderous demeanour in the preceding scene.

In my WiP Pietas, I explore how constant criticism makes Sirius feel profoundly lonely, yet he never calls it abuse. This aspect of the narrative underscores the significant internal gaslighting that often accompanies emotional abuse. Victims may internalise the constant belittlement and devaluation to the extent that they question their own feelings and perceptions, doubting the validity of their experiences.

At his words, a sense of kinship stirred in Sirius’s heart and an odd sensation began to build in his stomach. Thoughts of confessing his frustrations and his inner turmoil rose to the surface, like drowning men clamouring for desperate gasps of air. But before he could form a sentence, Leone carried on speaking.

‘But while you are a guest in my house, I ask that as a gentleman, you prioritise my sister’s honour above all else. She is very dear to me, and I do not wish to force her into a marriage.’

He had halted once more, looking over at the girl still seated on the bench with an undisguised fondness that made Sirius ache with a profound sense of loneliness. He could not remember the last time any member of his immediate family had looked at him with anything but anger or dissatisfaction and to his embarrassment, his eyes began to sting.

2.0 The Cruciatus tus as a disciplinary tool is like swatting a fly with a nuke

In canon, the Cruciatus curse comes with a life sentence in Azkaban and is an actual means of torture (not the equivalent of a punch- which is bad enough).

"He had been hit again by the Cruciatus Curse. The pain was so intense, so all-consuming, that he no longer knew where he was. ... White-hot knives were piercing every inch of his skin, his head was surely going to burst with pain, he was screaming more loudly than he’d ever screamed in his life — And then it stopped." GoF

“Pain,” said Moody softly. “You don’t need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse. GoF

It seems highly unlikely that this curse, notorious for leaving the Longbottoms in need of long-term care, would be employed for disciplinary purposes. Moreover, given the Blacks' self-perception of near-royalty, it seems implausible that they would willingly subject their offspring to such torment, risking permanent harm to their lineage.

[dontneedhair]

There Are More Places To Remove Hair From Than Just The Head...

If you are reading this blog, chances are that you are a guy that likes bald heads - on yourself and/or other guys. Those who actually tried out removing the hair on their scalps (and by that, I mean at least a wet shave) will understand how great that fresh smoothness usually feels. It can be hard not touching your head with your hands all the time, and laying your head on a pillow after a shave is something you need to try in order to understand.

Well, there are other places on your body where removing all hair just feels fantastic.

The first time I had the courage to actually shave my legs was more than 15 years ago, and I remember being so paranoid about whether or not others would notice and possibly not approve. However, what also struck me right from the beginning was the new feeling that wearing my pants gave me. All of a sudden, the fabric touched my legs without any hair in between, and when walking, that caused an incredible sensation, vaguely reminding me of the feeling of wet pants clinging to your skin.

For the last ten years, I have used an epilator on my entire legs and feet; since then, the front of my thighs has become more and more smooth, while the hairs at the back seem to diminish much less. Everything you see on those two photos used to be covered by blond body hair.

Shaving my arms and hands and eventually starting to use my epilator on them (which I have also done for 10 years now) took the entire thing to a new level. My legs were mostly covered by long pants anyway, but with smooth arms I suddenly felt very "exposed" during the summer months. The sensation in long sleeves is quite comparable to smooth legs in pants and totally addictive.

Chest, stomach and underarms were among the first places I started to experiment with as a teenager. Here again, I've epilated everything for more than 10 years and really prefer the hairless look on myself (I can appreciate body hair on other men to some degree though).

I still remember when I first had the thought to shave off my pubes as a teenager and how I used to feel both naughty and guilty about it (it wasn't that mainstream at the time). My entire pubic area including all of my butt was also the first region where I started to consistently epilate and/or tweeze everything, nearly 12 years ago. The actual pubes have diminished a lot; unfortunately, the hairs on my penis, scrotum and butt don't seem to become much sparser at all over time.

In any case, being entirely hairless in your underwear can feel very different depending on what kind of underwear you are wearing. Usually, it feels pretty great. I couldn't imagine going back to having hair down there at all, not to mention that the regrowth would be limited, especially for the zone above the penis.

Here again, I used to be so worried what others would think if they found out. These days, I don't mind using communal showers or for my dermatologist to have a look at the moles everywhere on my body.

I'm aware that many men who are into bald heads prefer the rest of the body to be rather furry, and while I usually prefer men to be smooth, I can concede that body hair can look good on men and that many men are really attractive with nice haircuts and even beards (though completely hairless heads have a mesmerising effect on me).

For myself though, I just love the look and the feel of being hairless, even if that may make me less handsome in the eyes of some people.

[georgieluz]

EP 5 SHENANIGANS AND IT'S A LONG ONE

at least basilone fucks better than leckie

NOOO EUGENE IS ON A BOAT GET HIM OUT OF THERE NOOO SEND HIM BACK

RAMI FUCKING MALEK FINALLY TURNED UP

i was starting to think i imagined he was in this

IF ANY OF THESE MEN BULLY EUGENE I'LL RIOT

where did de l'eau get those booty shorts?

also sorry for the lack of capital letters in there, my guy, gotta loose 'em it for the aesthetic i'm afraid

OMG ARE WE FINALLY GETTING A EUGENE AND BESTIE REUNION????

THERE IS NO HETEROSEXUAL EXPLANATION WHATEVER THE FUCK KIND OF GREETING THAT WAS HE FUCKING TACKLED HIM TO THE GROUND ????????? THE GROUND !!

"OLD FRIENDS, HUH. THAT EXPLAINS IT"

captain said "ahhhhh the gays, gotcha, proceed"

ok sid bud we're not friends anymore #justice4thecrabs put that lighter DOWN

refusing to comment further on the fact that in both this and band of brothers it's my man who feels the need to shout in the middle of movies but hey, at least the guys appreciated hoosier's joke, poor georgie boy got shut down every time

and maybe if hoosier was forced to watch leckie fuck for ten minutes straight he'd be less eager to get to the fucking (no sorry i'm not letting it go)

nooo he didn't get to say goodbye ????

istg nothing better happen to EITHER of them

SNAFU HAS THE BIGGEST GRETCHEN WEINER ENERGY EXCEPT HE'S REGINA GEORGE HERE

captain haldane is daddy i'm not sorry

that beach scene was filmed so well.. it made something so chaotic very easy to follow without diminishing the immersive experience, especially since we were following eugene and leckie and hoosier at the same time in different stages but yeah just really appreciated the cinematography

MASSIVELY UPSET THAT MY MAN GOT HIT IT'S ONLY EPISODE 5 FOR GOD'S SAKE

ALSO DID HE REALLY SAY SORRY TO HIM :(

and leckie calling him by his actual name instead of his nickname just in case he d-words :( :( :( ok :( :(

he's ok right? he must be.... one of you would have accidentally hinted it to me if he had died .. i'm sure he's fine, so pls come back (i mean i hope they sent the real hoosier home bc i don't want any of them there irl but for show purposes i would like to see my guy a little more but not at real hoosier's expense y'know... he's fine i'm sure)

OH DAMN EUGENE BROKE UP WITH THE PREPPY BOY NEXT DOOR AND CHOSE THE ABSOLUTELY UNHINGED BAD BOY INSTEAD

snafu bro u ok

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY IS MY MAN OKAY??

THAT WAS A LOT OF BLOOD LOSS????

HE'S FINE RIGHT?

no one warned me of anything bad happening to him so i'm gonna assume he's alive and well and is off being annoying in a hospital somewhere :)

[goldxnfemme]

I'm new to the lesbian scene, I was jw what do butch and femme really mean? (Regarding your post yesterday)

Hi! I'm sorry I took a couple days to get to this, I've been wondering how to best, in the most complete way, address this, in the sense that I've answered this a few times and I keep adding more and more each time, it never seems like quite enough. I talked to my girlfriend, a fellow femme about this and she told me "I was thinking that you could surely write it just from your head and heart!" and she's right, I could, but to talk about these identities and pass only the subjectivity of my experiences and the bit of knowledge I have wouldn't do it justice. I will talk about it from those angles though, don't worry. I thought I could share bits and pieces of books that helped shape me into the femme I am today, I have mentioned those before, but I found myself with too many pieces, over 90, and I think that's too many for one post, so here and now I will promise to share those with you, not in this post, but in this blog and I believe sharing different experiences will help the general understanding. I am only one femme and my experience isn't universal, so we shall share the knowledge.

I have answered a similar ask before, here , hopefully the link works, if I miss anything, my butch/femme tag is also here, there I have a lot of resources there.

Butch and femme are complex and subjective identities (there are so many ways to be butch and femme , it's not one size fits all because everyone is a little different), and it's important to me that I don't diminish them into aesthetics, because I want people the understand that the center of butch and femme isn't looks.

Here's the center of these identities for me, what unifies us all, regardless of subjectivity, is that at the end of the day they are about community, about being there for each other, about taking care of each other, about finding safety in each other's arms when the world is still shitty towards you, about protecting one another in any way that you can and making sure they feel that sense of belonging in our community. Butch and femme are two sides of the same coin facing struggles and fighting to protect our counterparts however we need to.

In this case, I'll talk about these identities in lesbian communities.

Butch is authentic, transgressive, beautiful is its own ways, it's taking masculinity that for a long time was seen as only belonging to men and making it their home, their comfort, finding their true self there and giving it their very own meanings, much like femmes' femininity, their masculinity isn't one size fits all and it shows itself in different ways. Femme, for me, is taking femininity and making it your own, presenting yourself for others in your community, femme is strong, it's brave, it's fierce, it's demanding when we need it to be, it's making your voice heard for your sake and for others, because that's the important bit, it's all about community. Femme is being safety and community to butches and vice versa. Being femme is being proud. Femme is taking care of your community, it's making a home together where we all belong.

Butch and femme are about subversion and belonging.

It's not that without a butch I am not femme, or that we're necessarily attached, it's that their existence fosters my femmeness and brings it to its full potential, my place of belonging. Butches in general bring us something to contrast against while going both in the same direction.

The notion of that dynamic is important in its existence and application, regardless of romantic inclinations, the contrast, the mutual support and protection and uplifting, still should exist, being possible and necessary, while in a butch for butch or femme for femme, butch or femme4both relationship, etc.

Therefore those identities meet in their very own representation of lesbian gender and being there for each other.

Now I want to address a few misunderstandings I've seen about these identities*:

- you don't have to be tall to be a butch. There are no height restrictions in the butch identity, as far as I'm concerned. Short butches are still butches and beyond valid, your height doesn't determine how butch you are. The inverse is also true, femmes do not have to be short and petite, no height restrictions for us either.

- you don't have to be attracted to butches to be femme or to femmes to be butch, again not a requirement, but it's important to understand this is your community, regardless of romantic inclinations, the mutual support and protection and uplifting are deeply rooted in these identities, that is important.

- butch doesn't equal top/femme doesn't equal bottom. Butches do not have to be tops, butches do not have to be dominant, butches are not aggressive, at least none of the ones I know and have read about, butches don't have to have these characteristics attributed to "traditional"/stereotypical masculinity. These can be harmful stereotypes at times. Neither are femmes inherently submissive and agreeable to everything.

- in talking sexuality, stone butch and stone femme identities/dynamics/relationships are actually healthy and reciprocal, they're not selfish. And those boundaries should be respected. I have more about these in the butch/femme tag.

- femmes aren't always gender confirming. It is very frustrating for me that people still believe this, I'd say, more often than not, femmes are gender nonconforming, we can have complicated relationships with gender just like butches.

- you don't have to be physically strong to be butch. The butch identity isn't about your muscles. While I'm here talking about bodies, butches and femmes don't have to be white and thin, people of colour who have those identities are amazing, fat butches and femmes are such an important part of our community and history. Oh and disabled butches/femmes, you are so loved and valid.

In fact, when I talk about butch identity towards people of colour it reminds me of this piece from Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme:

hopefully readable, though I think you have to click on them to do so

- continuing, femme isn't hyper feminine all the time or even at all for some of us, butch isn't rough and tough and hyper masculine all the time or again, even at all. And that goes into what i said, those identities aren't looks, some femmes find comfort in hyper femininity, some femmes have a different version of their own femininity and that's okay, same goes for butches, there isn't a requirement of how masculine or feminine you have to be, masculinity and femininity are what you make of it, these concepts go through our experiences in life, our notions of self, etc.

- oh mind you, for some authors the idea of butch and therefore femme, in and of itself, is beyond the cisnormative standards. All of this to say, trans butches and femmes, you belong here. You're part of our history, to say that you don't is to ignore the importance and the work the trans community put in to get us here.

- butches can do whatever they want with their hair, wearing makeup doesn't make them less butch, not wearing makeup doesn't make femmes less femme, having short hair doesn't make femmes less femme, wearing clothes not traditionally considered feminine doesn't make you less femme.

At the end of the day each butch and femme are unique, you won't ever find one exactly like the other and that's what makes those identities beautiful.

*Of course I'm not covering all of them, there are just so many, but here's a few I've seen a lot and that were pointed out to me.

ID under keep reading.

ID: image 1 - text reading:

"While focusing on demonstrating butch and female masculinity's epistemological origins, many feminist theorists have interpreted butch as a way of "knowing, interpreting, and doing lesbian gender." Ontologically, these lesbian genders are seen as being "concerned with having an identity, and a kind of true self." Some understand it as both socially constructed "gender performance" and others as representing an essentialized heterosexual, biological, male identity that merely clones the referent. The expressions of one's gendered butch identity are intrinsically linked to culture and race. In Davis and Kennedy's classic Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community, they describe "a new style of butch, a woman who dressed in working-class male clothes for as much of the time as she possibly could, and went to the bar every day, not just on weekends. She was also street wise and fought back physically when provoked by straight society or by other lesbians." The political significance of this emergence lies in the visibility lesbians gained in the 1940s and '50s as World War II reshaped the American landscape, changing women's roles in relationship to work, gender, and family. Butch was a site of resistance to the heteronormative limitations on women. It was a place to embrace one's identity in a public way that allowed for alignment between the public and private self, a way of claiming space with your very presence. There is a long-standing history of butch representations that have helped solidify the iconic image of today's butch. The icon of butch identity was fashioned through historical narratives, poetry, biography, and classic novels such as Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, written in 1928 and long considered the most well-known lesbian novel, The Beebo Brinker Chronicles from Ann Bannon, which moved butch into mainstream consciousness in the 1950s, and Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues, set in the pre-Stonewall era of the 1960s, which solidified the archetype. This "butch raging bull, as Halberstam argues, is meant to "offer masculinity a new champion" drawing on the iconography of the white male boxer. These works created a narrative for what and how butch looks and feels that still holds significant cultural power today. The external signifiers - the class and racial location of these historical accounts and cultural references to bars and customs - locate butch identity. This locating of butchness within a specific culture, class, race, and ethnicity makes it difficult for the masculine of centre person of colour to enter into the narrative without their gender presentation, specifically their version of masculinity, being questioned. Attempts to disrupt this sense of "classical" butch continue to rely on representations and cultural location within whiteness and white notions of masculinity and femininity. As Halberstam points out, there is cultural value in marginalizing masculinities that divert from the master narrative. Even though Halberstam is speaking to heteronormative masculinity here, these diverting narratives have the potential to "dilute" the "authoritative power" of white butchness in the same way. As this narrative is pushed into the mainstream queer consciousness to construct butch identity, many of our experiences are left out. Supporting versions of masculinity that we enjoy and trust, many of these "heroic masculinities" depend absolutely on the subordination of alternative masculinities. This role of the dominant narrative being constructed and circulated while simultaneously preventing alternative narratives is an important factor in establishing fixed understandings of female masculinity and butch."

Image 2 - text reading:

“Halberstam goes on to address female masculinity's relation to whiteness and identifies it as a site of inquiry for "cultural studies" yet does not venture down the road of how the relationship to race critically alters female masculinity as a concept. The challenge in theorizing butch gender and identity is that to determine how it operates, you have to locate it within certain bodies and cultural and sexual practices. These various locations, when analyzed, become fixed and static through the work of the writer exploring their creation and development. A central argument in Female Masculinity is that masculinity "becomes legible as masculinity where and when it leaves the white male middle-class body." While a considerable amount of the analysis explores when and where the narrative departs from the male body, less attention is given to when and where it departs from whiteness. Unlike white female masculinity, female masculinity for womyn of colour is based on sites of power and systemic oppression - through masculinities of colour. The assumption that they can be resignified with equal subversive and revolutionary actions against white manhood is false. The ability to access masculinity pivots upon the ways in which gender intersects with race, and these gaps have been filled with many new ways of naming ourselves. In the last decade, the explosion of young masculine-of-centre womyn has created a demographic shift on the butch landscape, giving way to terms like "stud," "boi," "tom," and "macha" in California and the South, "dom" within the DC, Maryland, and Virginia region, and "aggressives," or "AGS" in New York. These identities represent a redefined female masculinity that is rooted in the experiences of womyn of colour and is more genderqueer than historical interpretations of butch. For some this raises the question: "What is happening to all of our butches?" I think this evolution highlights the fact that, for many of us who came of age ten or twenty years ago, and even called ourselves butches, we never felt fully rooted in that language and space. As a community, we have the opportunity to respond with an open heart to this evolution, ensuring that the legacy of butch as a social, political, and personal space continues to grow and thrive. But we must also concede its limitations. The title of this piece, "Masculine of Centre, Seeks Her Refined Femme," is a heading from the first dating profile posted using the term "masculine of centre." It speaks to both a historical legacy of butch-femme and a longing for a language different and new.”

END ID