#I have so many thots and thoughts but they all culminate to:

[swampstew]

❌ (n.sfw) sexual tension while tending his wounds w/ Eustass Kid

a/n: requested by @dxvilmanlev <3 aaahhh writing this sent me down bad into Kid hell, can't deny that. he's an angry little man but i'm very fond of him. want to put him in my pocket so he can yell at strangers who give me weird looks.

contains: gn!reader, n.sfw under the cut (not full on smut but very suggestive), mention of blood, dirty talk, heavy petting

word count: 933

“That’s nothing. You should have seen the enemies though.”

Kid tries hard not to flinch when you gently dab his bruised cheek with an alcohol-soaked cotton pad. You can tell that he was still high from the adrenaline rushing through his veins by the way he was fidgeting around in his chair, gesturing heavily with both hands. You duck from the metal arm swinging around and grab your utensils on the desk, can’t risk another shattered bottle of disinfectant.

While the rest of the crew was being treated in the infirmary like normal people, Kid had to burst into your shared cabin and tell you all about the fight, bleeding from several wounds but with a triumphant smile on his painted lips which reminded you once again why you had fallen for him in the first place. It was his pride and his joy, his strength and the roughness of his edges that softened whenever he was with you, when he let down his guard. He may bite but it was with love. And granted, it turned you on a bit.

You gently grab him by his chin to turn his face how you needed it, checking carefully if you missed a spot. His stern gaze lingered on you but he didn’t protest, a sly smile curling on his lips when your thumb brushes them, tracing the smeared lipstick.

“Like what you see, babe?” – “My throne, all beaten up? Barely.”

Kid growls and wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you into his lap with ease. You’re mine. He leans back in his chair a little, giving you room to straddle him with your hands on his broad chest which he never bothered to cover, fortunately. You let your fingertips run over his skin, carefully inspecting his bruises. They were not that deep, but enough to draw out a sharp breath off Kid when you dab them carefully with a cotton pad. You both didn’t shy away from being rough, but the claw marks you usually left on his skin weren’t that bad.

Your fingertips brush his lower abs and you grin when he pulls you closer, bucking his hips a little. If he weren’t holding you in such a tight grip your hips would be drawing small circles in his lap already, grinding up and down on his thigh. He must still feel the throbbing arousal between your legs though, because he buries one hand in your hair and gently pulls you closer to his face by it, smirking when you let out a small gasp that is muffled by his lips meeting yours. Kid’s kisses were hungry and fiery, always leaving you begging for more until you moaned in his open mouth.

The cold metal of his mechanic arm runs down from your waist to your ass where your skin still remembers the sharpness of the pain his hand once left there. It makes you tremble in excitement and doesn’t go unnoticed.

“You’re trying to seduce a bruised man?”, he teases you, his voice cocky. You bite your lip and shake your head. Of course you weren’t, but you also had to admit that seeing him that rough and holding still under your touch gave you quite some feelings…

His hand glides from your ass to between your legs from behind, forcing them further apart. You hiss when the metal touches you through the thin fabric of your pants and your hips start moving on their own, finally free from his tight grip.

“At least that part of you is honest.”

You shut him up with another kiss, deep and greedy, your tongue slipping between his lips followed by two fingers as you draw out another groan from him. He was getting hard, you could feel him against your leg as you grinded on his thigh and metal hand. His bloody visage only turned you on more, the thought of knowing what beast was possessing this body and how hungry it was for you. How he could utterly destroy you if he wanted to, like fucking with fire.

You want him to devour you.

Just when Kid was about to unbuckle his belt to pull down his pants, your arms wrapped around his neck, hands buried in this red hair with your chest heaving, a knock on the door interrupts you. Kid barks a few curse words and tells the person to fuck off, that you were busy right now while you lick down his sweaty neck, when Killer’s voice from the other side of the door calls out to you.

“I made fresh pasta. Thought you could need some fuel.”

Kid and you exchange a glimpse, just when his stomach rumbles. It was hard to say No to Killer’s pasta, but there was also another hard situation to deal with here…

“Actually, I could use some fuel, you know. To fuck you longer and harder later?” – “I’m so glad you’re saying that because I’m starving.”

And just like that he grabs you and throws you over his shoulder, stomping outside determined, giving Killer the finger when he dares to point out the hard-on in Kid’s pants, guiding him the way to the kitchen. You just shrug apologetically, dangling over his back like that, and can’t help but smile about the whole situation.

Sure, you like to fuck, but you also love to be well-fed, leaning onto your lover as he spoons you a portion the size of your head in your bowl, deeply caring about you. You need all the energy you can get to withstand his cock later tonight…

[thedevilsdom]

5000 year old virgin levi anon and i just want to say: i’m so glad my evil horny thot ways have inspired u. now consider this: levi basically being pavlov’d into getting hard around you bc he’s so pent up after that experience that he squeaks and runs out of the room if you walk in, mumbles and blushes and short circuits if you get too close, has to lock himself in his room/the bathrooms at RAD/etc to rub one out bc you smiled at him... and it of course all culminates in you cornering him and teasing him about just why he’s been avoiding you. “what, you didn’t think i’d notice that little tent you’re always trying to hide from me? come on, levi. i’m not stupid.” and boom, he nuts 💀 (i wish i wasn’t an anon but i’m a coward)

alrighty here we go again here’s part 1

part 3

Leviathan/Female Reader (no mention of gender though, but there will be in future chapters), around 1.1k words

Did Leviathan confess to you while you had your hand on his dicks? Yes. He very much did. Did you confess back, and anticipate pursuing a relationship with him afterwards? Yes to that, too. With all the boxes checked, you’re left wondering why the otaku insists on fleeing whenever you enter the same room as him.

At first you’d thought that it was a coincidence, maybe he had somewhere to be and it just happened to line up with the time that you step into the same room. But then it just happened too many times to keep thinking that it was mere chance. Like clockwork, you’d walk in, spot him, he’d spot you, and he’d turn tail and run out through whichever door was closest to him and furthest from you. He even almost ran out of the fire exit before realizing and course correcting. On top of all of this, and luckily for him, you don’t share any classes with him.

Guess you’re going to have to do this the hard way, then.

Class has just let out and you had a plan to put into motion. It starts simply. You leave your class, packing your things up as quickly as possible before making your way towards the classroom that Levi should be in and, just as you suspected, you spot him easily. He’s got his back to you, just as you expected, and he’s taking the route home that you’d planned on him taking. The special thing about this route is that, along the way, it has a couple empty classrooms that you could make use of.

You close the distance with him, sneaking and keeping your steps quiet until you’re right on him. Then you reach out and grab him by the back of his jacket, snatching his attention.

“Come here.” You say before he can get a word in, leading him into one of the empty classrooms and locking the door behind you. When you turn around and make eye contact with him, he’s already looking at you with big, tear filled eyes and a quivering lip. He knows what he’s been doing is wrong.

“What gives, Leviathan?” You ask, standing between him and the door. His eyes scan the room, only to see that the door that you’re blocking is the only way out.

“I-I-!” He stammers, backing away from you until he collides with a desk at the backs of his legs.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, I just want to know why you’ve been avoiding me. We both said we liked each other, so I thought- oh.” While you speak you close the distance with him, and just as you’re telling him off, your eyes finally trace down his body and spot a very prominent bulge in his pants. Looking back up at his face, he looks mortified, like he’d rather drop dead than be here.

“I’m sorry! I can’t- No matter how much I try I can’t stop thinking about- about what you, uh, did-! And whenever I see you I just remember it all over again!” His voice is barely a squeak, wobbling as he’s on the edge of tears while he babbles out his explanation, hands covering his beet red face. “I’m a sorry excuse for a demon! Just a shut in otaku who doesn’t deserve you. Y-you don’t- I know you didn’t mean it when you said you liked me I-“

That’s enough of that.

“Leviathan.” You say in the most stern voice you can muster. A shameful shiver runs down his spine at the sound of you saying his name like that, and it puts a stop to his self deprecating. “I don’t lie to you, Levi.” You close the distance with a couple strides, coming up to be nearly chest to chest with him. He tries to even out his shaky breathing. He pushes further back against the desk he’s leaning on.

“I told you before, you’re my good boy-“ You put your hands on his hips and plant your foot against the horizontal bar between the desk’s legs, your leg between his own.

“W-Wait, MC, I-!” He stammers out, only to be cut off by you.

“And I’m not gonna stop until you see that.” With one solid tug, you easily pull him away from the desk and forward, so your thigh is giving him pressure right where he needs it.

And that’s enough to get him.

He pitches forward, both hands over his mouth to try to smother his moans as his thighs clench around yours, hips giving pitiful little twitches as he cums hard into his pants. His whines and shudders, the dark spot between his legs only continues to grow. Reaching up a hand, you gently ease his palms off of his lips so you can hear the litany of curses and soft, shaky moans of your name that he tries to keep quiet.

“Wow,” You say, voice almost mocking, and it makes him shiver.

“I-I’m sorry, I’m sor-“

“You know, with the amount you’ve cum, I’d almost think that you weren’t running away to jack off every time you saw me. But I know that’s exactly what you were doing, of course.” Even though your words are cruel and teasing, your hand comes up and cups his face, thumb delicately stroking across his cheek. His eyelashes are wet with unspilled tears as he trembles, looking at you. You look down to see the dark stain on his pants now and remove your jacket, tying it around his waist. It’s at least passable at hiding it, so long as nobody asks any questions.

“My Leviathan, you know what this means?” You ask. He does not like the mischievous look in your eyes. Or, maybe he likes it too much.

“N-no?” He tilts his head, fringe falling across his eyes and furrowed brows.

“It just means that we need to desensitize you.” You grab his chin and give him a peck on the lips, “That way you can at least exist in the same space as me.”

“Wh- w-w- wait, you mean, like, like do more? You want to keep doing this with- with me?” He never ceases to amaze you by going through whatever loops in his head he has to go through in order to not believe what you tell him.

“Yes, Levi. I told you I like you, and I think you’re adorable.” You’ve got one hand on his cheek and the other on his hip, and he looks like he’s about to combust as he stammers out something unintelligible. He’s quaking like a leaf.

“Levi,” You say. He’d do anything to keep hearing his name on your lips.

“Mmh- yeah?” Comes his response. He’s squirming a little, feeling his cum against him in his underwear. You know what you’re subjecting him to, and he knows that you know.

“You said you weren’t too experienced with this stuff, right?” After you speak, he nods in shameful admittance. You’re curious to see just how inexperienced he is. “Great, I can’t wait to teach you some stuff. Now let’s get going, the halls should be clear now.” You skip merrily out of the classroom, unlocking and opening the door as though you hadn’t just made one of the most powerful demons in the Devildom cum in his pants.

Leviathan is both incredibly smitten, and utterly, unabashedly doomed.

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

I MEAN IT GAVE ME CHILLS IN A GOOD WAY. and also it would be hilarious to write imo; just these 6 dudes that all look the same and just made up A Guy.

“Thomas,” Roman announces quite suddenly, with a triumphant gesture that manages to inadvertently sweep half of the script drafts off the couch in the process.

“I still can not believe we’re doing this,” Virgil says.

“Oh, you’d better believe it, Way Down Gay-destown, ‘cause I just got the perfect name for him. Thomas. That’s his name – Thomas Sanders.” Roman pauses, and wiggles his fingers a bit. “Thoughts?”

Remus perks up. “Oh, our fictional character has thots now?”

“Crawling all over him like weevils,” Virgil nods.

“I thought we were calling ourselves ‘Sides’,” says Janus.  

“Guys, please,” Roman begs.

“Thomas sounds good to me,” is Patton’s opinion. “It’s nice and friendly, and also it has two syllables, like the rest of us! It kind of fits in like that.”

“It is a surprisingly apt name, especially when you take into consideration that Roman most likely did not know of the linguistic root when picking it,” Logan muses.

Remus waves a hand lazily from where he’s draped backwards over the couch, writing Transformers inflation porn on the notes app of his shitty phone. “Uh, noparoni, falsehood, all that jazz. I was watching. He went on babynames dot com and everything for this.”

“...What he said, yeah.”

“Ah, yes, babynames dot com, the internet’s premier and leading source for all accurate name derivations,” comes the dry response.

“Thomas means twin,” Roman says. “It means twin, and it’s funny because we all look identical! It’s like another layer of meaning! A fun little injoke, just for us.”

“Yes,” says Virgil, “you’re right. We need many, many deep layers of meaning and in-jokes woven into the shared identity we’re crafting as part of Roman and Remus’s wild, spur-of-the-moment internet scam.”

“How dare you,” Roman objects loudly, flailing so suddenly that he nearly falls off the couch. “This is polar opposite of a scam, we’re – we are merely taking advantage of our uncanny shared appearance to... share joy amongst the humble Youtube vlogging community! And perhaps show off. Just a little. But to say that it’s a scam – ”

“No, this is definitely a scam,” Janus says. “I mean, look at us. We’re inventing an entire person for internet clout.”

Patton looks like he’s having second thoughts about this whole thing. “I’m having second thoughts,” he says. “Like, on an ethical, moral sort of level, is any of this... really a good idea?”

“People invent other people for shittier reasons all the time, I think we’re fine,” Virgil says. “I mean, look at internet catfishes. Or every male fiction writer with a very obvious and creepy fetish. Or J.K. Rowling.”

“J.K. Rowling doesn’t exist?” Janus says. “Excellent. We won, boys.”

Roman grabs a pen and scribbles it into the notebook, next to a hasty little stickman doodle of an average-looking guy and a list of qualities and attributes and skills. “Well, all that aside, nobody seems to have an objection to this, so Thomas it is! Thomas Sanders. Thomas I’ve-Just-Realized-He-Needs-A-Middle-Name Sanders.”

“Thomas F Sanders,” Remus suggests.

“The F stands for ‘Fucking’, doesn’t it,” sighs Patton.

“Well, yeah.”

“Way to go for the low-hanging fruit, dude,” Virgil says. “Okay, put a pin in the middle name for now. Our collective brainchild has a name, so... that’s something. I guess.” He grabs the notebook from Roman and squints down at the short-ish list they have so far. “Any more character traits we wanna give this guy?”

“Intense love of Disney films,” Roman says.

“We’ve already got that; you suggested it about five times already.”

“Maybe he can play the ukulele!” Patton suggests.

Virgil nods, and starts to write it down before stopping abruptly. “Wait. Can any of us play the ukulele?”

Silence.

“He can only have traits that we already have,” Virgil reminds them. “That’s the whole idea. We’re derivatives of him.”

“Well, I’ll work on the ukulele thing,” Roman says decisively. “Put it down anyway. Anyone else?”

“He can’t cook to save his life,” Janus says.

“Catholic guilt,” Logan provides, with a little wince and a slight adjustment of his glasses. “It provides a good base for many of the plotlines we wish to include in this, I believe.”

“Give him a huge dick,” Remus says.

“Remus,” Roman growls.

“Just a humungous badonker of a penis. He beats his meat and the entire earth rumbles.”

“Remus,” Patton groans.

Remus grins. "He’s packing some real chunky meat down there. As in, his drill is a five star excavator. A proper manmade wonder. It's the kind of meal you get a prize for finishing. A bridge between two warring nations. And the girth! God had to resize the Earth so the radii wouldn't match. You can use his cast iron pelvic greatsword as a radiation shield in Chernobyl. His – "

“Remus, weren’t you listening? We’re only giving him traits that we already have,” Virgil says, looking Remus dead in the eyes. “I’m not going to let you misrepresent yourself like this.”

The room almost immediately erupts into a loud chorus of enthusiastic oohs. Quite a few people throw things at Virgil, who lets out a snort of amusement and ducks to avoid getting nailed in the eye by a stray television remote control. Remus just cackles.

“We’re going to have to tone back the dick jokes, probably,” says Janus with some regret, once everybody calms down a bit. “Don’t want to get demonetized within the first few weeks.”

“Well, Remus already broke the Youtube demonetization speedrun last week, so at least we know what not to do,” Patton says absently. “The real question is, though – who’s going to actually play this Thomas person?

“Don’t look at me,” says Janus. “I’m looking forward to getting the play the villain for once.”

Patton points at him, mock-glaring. “Hey, don’t think you’re missing out on a redemption arc just because you like the evil aesthetic!”

Janus lets out a little affronted hissing noise at that, but doesn’t actually object.

“Well, I’m not shaving my moustache for any of you fuckers, no matter how much internet clout we’re gonna get for it,” Remus declares.

A quick, meaningful glance is exchanged between the four remaining people in the room.  

“Leave me out of it,” Virgil decides.

“I don’t really mind, either way,” Patton says.

“In that case, I shall arm-wrestle you for the honor of portraying our glorious, talented and entirely fictional centre of being on our upcoming Grammy-award-winning sixty-part webseries,” Roman declares, flexing dramatically.

“Which may or may not be a scam,” Logan says.

“...Look, are we doing this or what?”

“Absolutely.” Logan places down his book, and shrugs off his jacket. “I should warn you, however – I am what I believe is colloquially referred to as ‘absolutely fucking ripped’.” He breaks out into a surprisingly wicked smile. “Roman, let me be clear. I am going to be the one to portray Thomas Fucking Sanders, our beloved nonexistent media superstar culmination-of-our-collective-selves. And I am about to flat-out destroy you. Let’s go.”

There’s a beat of silence as everybody stares at Logan. The stares range from impressed to terrified to obviously horny. All of these are equally valid emotions to be feeling, because Logan is ripped, and somehow none of them have ever realized this before.

“Well, before we do that, give me five minutes to make popcorn,” says Janus. “Because I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

[protectwoc]

thots on little women (2019)

or, y’all are giving greta gerwig too much credit (part two)

The character arc that was changed the least from the source material, but that still manages to personally offend me the most, is, of course, Amy’s. It’s no secret that Gerwig is an Amy stan, or at least more of a fan of her than most people. I am as well, which is why I am so disappointed with this particular arc.

It’s honestly more disappointing because Gerwig handled parts of Amy’s arc extremely well, namely, her relationship with Laurie. Gerwig did an excellent job of making Amy and Laurie’s relationship feel less like a consolation prize since Laurie did not end up marrying Jo and more like a fully realized and reciprocal relationship, arguably more so than Alcott herself. HOWEVER, and this is a big however, the Amy/Laurie relationship is not the only important part of Amy’s characterization in the novel, and unfortunately, it is in the movie.

Amy starts out the novel as a selfish twelve year old girl, which is evidenced in no other but the infamous book-burning scene. However, throughout the novel, she grows out of that selfishness and into a more selfless, self aware woman. (Again, whatever your thoughts on “learning to be selfless” as a trope in women’s narratives are not necessarily relevant.)

For example, in the first half of the novel, one of Amy’s most notable chapters deals with pickled limes. For anyone who only watched the movie or doesn’t quite remember the book, a short summary:

Amy, the only one of the March girls who attends school, is upset because the girls in her school have been trading pickled limes. The limes are seen as a status symbol, which can be traded for little trinkets, bestowed upon favorites, or indulged in in front of your enemies. The pickled limes trend has become so popular that the teacher, Mr. Davis, has banned them in the classroom, which has done nothing to curb their popularity. Amy, who is relatively popular among her classmates regardless of her relatively lower class status, has been gifted several limes but had no way to return them, is greatly “in debt.” When Meg gives Amy enough money to buy a whopping twenty-five pickled limes, she flaunts and preens her way around the classroom until a girl she snubbed tattles to the teacher and gets all twenty five limes taken away.

This scene is a good example of the beginning of Amy’s arc of overcoming her one major personality flaw. It shows how her selfish nature is really just immature behavior, and as she ages, she matures out of that childishness. Another good example of this arc happens when Beth contracts scarlet fever. At first, she complains, saying that she would rather contract the deadly disease than to go to her Aunt’s house, but as she remains there, we see her mature and even grow fond of Aunt March. Her personal arc independent of Laurie was a big part of Amy’s plotline, and it was unfortunately left out of the movie.

The most glaring example of this is the omission of one of the most important scenes of Amy’s arc in the book: the occurrences at the fair. Again, indulge me in a brief summary for those who won’t know exactly what I am talking about:

The mother of one of Amy’s friends, Mrs. Chester, holds a three day fair for all of the girls in Amy’s social circle. As Amy is the most talented and most well-liked of the girls, she has the best table at the fair, at the very front, where she is to sell her beautiful artistic creations. However, her friend, May Chester, is jealous of her, and seeing this, Ms. Chester takes the table from Amy and gives it to May, relegating Amy to the back corner to sell flowers. At first, Amy is incredibly upset, and takes all of her art back to the table with her, however, after talking with her family, who are properly indignant on her behalf, she resolves to be gracious and humble and gives her own drawings to May to sell. Seeing this, Jo tells Laurie to take all of his handsome, college-aged bachelor friends to Amy’s table, which he does, and they spend the entire next day of the fair flirting with her and buying every one of the flowers from Amy. On the final day of the fair Amy, who has entirely overcome her own selfish wishes, tells Laurie and his friends to go do the same to May. This string of selfless acts is seen by Aunt March and Aunt Carrol (who in the novel has half of Aunt March’s role in the movie) and is the premier reason behind Aunt Carrol deciding to take Amy to Europe instead of Jo.

Leaving this scene out of Amy’s narrative in the movie is, I think, unforgivable. The inclusion of this scene would have exponentially improved Amy’s arc, for three major reasons:

This scene is the culmination of Amy’s “selfish to selfless arc”. Again, regardless of your opinions on whether this is a good lesson for her to learn, it is an arc, and as the movie stands currently, she simply doesn’t have one. The occurrences at the fair show her finally growing out of her childhood vices into the mature woman we see in Europe, and to exclude this scene does her a disservice.

Prior to her trip to Europe, this is one of the only scenes in the novel where Laurie and Amy have any sort of interaction. If Gerwig wanted to more fully develop the Amy/Laurie romance I cannot imagine the logic behind leaving this scene out. It would make the romance seem less rushed, which has been a common critique of their love story since the book came out, and would even  provide context for Amy’s “Not when I have spent my entire life loving you” line which Gerwig added to the narrative.

As previously mentioned, this scene is one of the main reasons behind Amy being allowed to travel to Europe with Aunt March/Aunt Carrol. Within the movie, this reasoning is less obvious, especially given the fact that Aunt March had already told Jo she would take her to Europe, and the inclusion of this scene would have made the trip feel more earned for Amy.

Greta Gerwig has made no secret of the fact that she both a feminist and a fan of Amy March. I am both of those things as well, which is why I cannot understand her logic behind robbing Amy of a complete arc. In the movie, the most important parts of Amy’s arc are all tied to a man. Even that arc is not as fully developed as it could be. Gerwig did a magnificent job with Amy’s overall likability, but that is not the same thing as writing a fully realized arc for her.

But even though Amy is my personal favorite character, and I am more personally invested in her arc, Gerwig’s mishandling of Amy is not the most egregious sin committed in this movie. That honor is reserved for Jo’s arc.

Part Two: Jo

A Buzzfeed article entitled “The New ‘Little Women’ Makes Space for Jo’s Queerness” claims that “Gerwig’s adaptation, without being too explicit about it, does gorgeous justice to that [queer] reading.” An Advocate magazine article called “Greta Gerwig Brings Out the Inherent Queerness of Little Women” makes the bold claim that the 2019 Little Women “offers the queerest and most feminist reading yet.” An even bolder declaration by them magazine says that “The New Little Women Basically Proves Jo is Queer”. Gerwig has been lauded both by critics and by her own actors for creating an explicitly queer narrative for Jo March. 

As previously mentioned, I do not generally read Alcott’s Jo as queer. However, upon my first encounter with this headcanon, I could immediately see why so many people did see her this way, and why this interpretation is so beloved. Jo has a lot of non-stereotypically straight traits that have made her something of a queer icon in many progressive literary circles. Both the way she bemoans being “born a woman” and her intense desire not to marry spoke to a lot of queer or non-cis readers, many of whom were excited to see her portrayed this way on the silver screen. And though I am not particularly attached to this headcanon, as a bi woman, I too was excited to see her that way.

And then… I didn’t.

Look, I hate to burst y’alls bubble, but there is literally not a single second in the movie where Jo is anything resembling queer. At best, she could be read as aromantic/asexual, but that’s about it. (Note: Obviously I don’t intend to imply that being aro/ace is somehow “lesser than” being L G B or T, but obviously the form of queerness people were expecting is one in which Jo is explicitly attracted to women.) There are no subtle looks in the direction of another woman, no scenes in which Jo expresses any negative emotion towards the idea of marrying a man specifically. She doesn’t even have a single female friend outside of her sisters.

One of the reasons the 2019 Jo (and by extension, Laurie), have been hailed as queer icons is their relative gender fluidity. Jo and Laurie exchange clothes throughout the movie, which was intended to display their “gender fluidity”. I knew about this particular facet of the movie before going to watch it in theaters, so I was looking for these occasions specifically, and I still couldn’t tell that they were supposed to be gender neutral. Maybe that’s just me, because I don’t know a lot about civil war era clothing, but whatever.

The other reason that Jo is considered queer in the movie is her rejection of traditional Civil War era femininity. She doesn’t want to get married, and she has no interest in “girly” things like dresses or parties. But neither of those things are specifically queer. Being “not like other girls” as your premier personality trait is not queer, it’s just garden-variety misogyny.

Even Jo’s big scene where she laments her competing desire to stay unmarried and her intense loneliness, has nothing marking it as explicitly queer. “I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for,” she bursts out. Love. Not love for a man. Not even marriage. She is decrying the entire concept of love.

“But Rae,” I can hear you asking, “what about the ending, where it’s implied she doesn’t marry Professor Bhaer and gets to publish her novel?” To that, there are two important things to consider. One: the ending is intentionally portrayed as optional. Even though it is heavily implied that Jo did not go off and get heterosexual married at the end, it is possible to ignore that ending or do some light mental gymnastics to make the two versions of Jo’s ending coincide. And I’m not just saying this as a worst-case-scenario, I actually have seen people do this, in fandom and my own life.

Secondly, even if you take the ending as completely factual, we still have all the scenes involving Bhaer previous to the ending to give some hint of Jo’s sexuality. We never see her even look at another woman, but she flirts with Bhaer and blushes when he looks at her and asks for his opinion on her work. Even ignoring the straight-as-default setting of most casual viewers, canonically, Jo has only ever shown interest in men. One man specifically, but still.

“But she could still be bi/pansexual, or suffering from compulsory heterosexuality,” I hear. And this is basically the crux of my argument. In fandom, you don’t have to assume straight as the default, and it's probably better not to. Bi/pan headcanons for “straight” characters are a good, positive way of adding to a fandom culture. However, when it comes to canonical representation, the opposite is true. Representation is not representation if it is not explicit.

I’m not saying that queer viewers cannot feel represented by Jo in this movie. I personally  feel represented by Hermoine Granger as a black woman, due to her “wild, bushy hair” and her penchant for social activism (SPEW). However, I cannot give JK Rowling credit for that representation because she had nothing to do with it. She did not do any of the hard work to actually make Hermoine a black woman. In the same way, we cannot credit Gerwig with adding queer representation to Little Women, because she didn’t.

Conclusion: The Response

I know reading this essay probably makes me seem like a Greta Gerwig-hater or like I disliked the movie. Both of those things are untrue. As previously mentioned, I loved the movie. I’ve watched the Amy/Laurie scenes of the movie like a hundred times already. I also don’t hate Greta Gerwig. This is the only movie of hers that I’ve seen, but I heard all about Lady Bird and its popularity, and I think the directing of Little Women was excellent. The fact that Greta Gerwig is a very talented filmmaker is not necessarily an arguable point.

I don’t believe that Gerwig had to fully develop any of the sisters. I don’t even think that Gerwig is required to add queer representation (or racial diversity for that matter) to her movies. Greta Gerwig decided to adapt an extremely white, cishet Civil War era book into an extremely white, cishet Civil War era movie. Hot take time: she is entirely in her rights to do that.

BUT. The thing that bugs me the most about the movie, and is basically the impetus behind me writing this essay, is the response to the movie. For whatever reason, Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation has been deemed more “woke” than it actually is. Little Women (2019) has been lauded for its strong female presence (even though there are only white, cis, straight women), for it’s development of the other, non-Jo sisters (even though it doesn’t), and for giving its lead space to be queer (even though she isn’t).

Greta Gerwig made an excellent film, but she did not do anything that has never been done before. I liked the movie, but I’m not about to go campaign for Greta Gerwig or the movie to win an Oscar. In general, we need to be less willing to acclaim those who do the bare minimum.

Again, I’m not good at writing conclusions. At a certain point I’m going to just start repeating myself, so I’m going to go ahead and cut myself off now. Again, if anybody has any opinions on this, agree or disagree, please come talk to me about it! I’d love to hear any other thoughts.