#all you need to know about me is i am a lesbian/stone butch top

[terryfuckingturniptruck]

Lmao it is quite funny that I hate when people assume I'm not cis bc I really don't give a shit about gender as a concept just dyke.

[fulltransmetalgenderist]

starting testosterone and having a cute guy to top has made me very interested in butch identities. i'm getting real cool and comfy with my masculinity. however, i'm struggling to learn and navigate my butchness when all the content i see is like "no men >:( lesbians only". im a dude and i love a guy and we both have complicated queer trans identities

I agree with you, the idea that butchness only belongs to lesbianism, and that lesbianism is only the absence of men, both lack nuance and don’t hold up when confronted with trans identities.

When I first knew I wanted to start testosterone and to pass as a guy in public, I had a huge crisis about my sexuality. I love women. so much. and I know, deep in my bones, that I don’t love women the same way that a cishet man loves women. but I was worried that if I start to pass and live as a man, then I would be excluded from lesbianism, because of this assumption that lesbianism is when no men. I felt lost and isolated from both lesbians and trans people. But then I read Stone Butch Blues. And then i found more books. And I read more words written by our queer elders and ancestors, who laid the groundwork for all of the lovely flavors of queer we have today. and I talked to the other queer people around me. and eventually I began to understand lesbianism not as the exclusion of men, but about the active inclusion and centering of women and other gender minorities. This new definition of lesbianism completely changed how I saw my own queer landscape. defining terms by what they are not, isn’t very useful to me anymore, I like defining queer terms by what they do, what they accomplish in a queer community.

So when it comes to being butch: think about the actions a person does that makes them butch. For me, I feel most butch when I can step up and help/protect those around me. I feel like a butch when I can give someone good directions in my city, or when I make sure me and all my friends are taking the right train going in the right direction so all they have to do is chat and be tipsy together and not worry about getting lost. I feel butch when I carry my chihuahua over puddles she can’t jump over and she wags her tail when i bend down to pick her up. I feel butch when I hold my partner in my arms and tell them it’s going to be okay. My feeling of butchness arises when my masculinity can be tender and loving and healing. By rooting my butchness in my own actions, I no longer worry about other people’s definition or conception of butch, because I know that I am actively, every day, doing butch things.

also! lesbians aren’t the only ones who use the term butch, gay men use it too. I love how in love with masculinity queers are, and I love that both lesbians and gay men know that cishet men don’t have a monopoly on masculinity, and that queer masculinity is special and unique and deserving of it’s own wonderful word.

and one last little note: as a leftist I am opposed to all nations, states, and borders. when we queers try making hard and fast boundaries between identities, I fear that we are accidentally making our own nation states that require border patrol and enforcement. and I hate border patrol with every cell of my body. we don’t need that shit in our queer communities. abolish borders. they’re so bad for you.

[goosemixtapes]

i had to read an infuriating post with mine own two eyes tonight so here’s a reminder from your local lesbian:

a) the idea that masculine women and/or lesbians (and particularly those of us who are both) are “pressured to transition” into men is ludicrous. i’m not saying it never happens - i don’t want to discount real people who may have had those experiences - but to act like it’s a trend is, quite frankly, stupid. masculine girls aren’t told to be men. masculine girls are told to be feminine. people who don’t want lesbians around probably don’t want trans people around either.

b) it is not easier to be trans than to be gay. i’m not saying it’s harder - i think trying to rank systems of oppression is a waste of time. that said, the idea that a gay person can “escape” homophobia by transitioning into a “straight” member of the “opposite sex” is - guess what! - also stupid! transitioning doesn’t get you away from homophobia. people will still be homophobic, because they will still see you as your assigned gender; you’ll just also get some lovely transphobia on the top! /s

c) again. let me reiterate. a butch lesbian who transitions to become a “straight man” is not going to suddenly have an easier time. certain aspects of her existence may, in fact, be easier! but other aspects will be much much harder. there’s no get-out-of-homophobia-free card, oh my god. i don’t know what fantasy world some of you are living in where everyone who hates gay people is magically fine with trans people? if people don’t like you being gay, they PROBABLY aren’t going to like you being trans either!

d) lesbians can and do, and have been doing and will continue to do, “transition.” transition is in quotes here because i don’t mean “become men.” i mean that lesbians can do things like take testosterone and get top surgery and use pronouns other than she/her without thinking of themselves as men, and while continuing to think of themselves as lesbians. read stone butch blues. this Just Happens. it’s just another way of exhibiting gender nonconformity! if your stance is “wait lesbians can’t do that” i’m sorry because we literally are it Just Happens

d1) this includes trans women. trans lesbians can also be nonbinary and/or use pronouns other than she/her and do basically anything afab lesbians can. this isn’t my main point, and i’m hesitant to expand because i am not affected by transmisogyny and don’t want to overstep. this post is focused on afab people because it’s drawn from my personal experience, but it’s important to me that y’all know that trans women are not excluded from this narrative.

d2) this isn’t limited to lesbians, either. bi women, for example, also have complex and personal relationships with gender. again, this post is drawn from my own experiences and i am hesitant to expand re: bi women because i know less about their personal experiences. but they are not excluded from this either.

e) HOWEVER. any and all lesbians who “transition” in this way, so long as they still identify as lesbians, ARE STILL LESBIANS. men cannot be lesbians. this means trans men cannot be lesbians. but lesbians who use he/him pronouns or do any of the other things i mentioned are NOT MEN if they don’t identify as men. trans men and he/him lesbians in particular get conflated a lot - but we aren’t the same! we are not the same; he/him lesbians aren’t trying to imply that all trans men are secretly women/lesbians, nor are they trying to imply that men can be lesbians, because lesbians who do these things are not men.

f) why might lesbians “transition” in this way, then, if they aren’t men? well quite frankly it’s none of your business. but generally it’s very simple: because using different pronouns, or going on testosterone, or having top surgery, or etc etc, makes them more comfortable. lesbianism, and butch lesbianism in specific, is deeply about gender nonconformity. saying that you can’t be a lesbian and do any of the things i’ve been listing doesn’t make sense - where do you draw the line? at what point are you trying to define where someone is “too masculine to be a lesbian?” and why do you feel the need to do that?

g) “but are lesbians doing this because of internalized and external misogyny?” look. i won’t lie. it’s POSSIBLE. misogyny is a hell of a drug. but 1) doing these things won’t let you escape misogyny just like it won’t let you escape homophobia; we’ve been over this and 2) the process of questioning your gender is a deeply convoluted and often torturous thing and i can almost guarantee to you that if you’re thinking “is this person really trans/nonbinary/etc or are they just suffering from internalized misogyny?” that that person has probably also had that conversation with themself a thousand times. i don’t think some of y’all realize how long and gnarly questioning can be. we cover our bases, guys. we examine the nuances. transitioning isn’t a snap decision.

g.5) questioning is not always long and gnarly. if your questioning process was very short, hey, good for you! i’m not trying to invalidate your experiences. i’m just saying that It Can Be and It Often Is.

h) certain celebrities who have recently come out have not, to my knowledge, even specified that they no longer identify as a lesbian, despite, for example, using he/him or they/them pronouns. as we’ve been over, these things can coexist. so saying shit like “it’s so tragic that lesbophobia made so-and-so transition” is not only repulsive and disgusting, it’s also completely unfounded!

h.5) that said, even IF certain celebrities who have recently come out no longer identify as a lesbian - okay! so what! lesbians aren’t an endangered species being encroached upon by The Evil Transes. again: we’ve been over this. lesbians and trans men can and do coexist. if someone who formerly identified as a lesbian says they are a trans man, it’s probably because they are. there is not a shortage of lesbians in the world. we are not flocking en masse to transmanhood.

i) if your hot take is “i feel sorry for the lesbian partner of this former lesbian icon who is now transitioning because the Lesbophobes and Misogynists and Evil Trans Rights Activists ganged up on their spouse to make them transition,” i kindly invite you to ~block me~

source: i’m literally a lesbian. and also one of those lesbians who does transitional activities. and also a person with critical thinking skills

[thefandomlesbian]

I'm only gonna say this once:

CM fandom has an issue with lesbophobia.

A huge account here run by a bi woman went in making derogatory value statements about pillow princesses, as if high femme and stone butch culture aren't deeply entrenched in lesbian culture, often borne of trauma, coming from a fundamental place of misunderstanding all lesbian issues. Y'all were radio silent. (And I don't wanna toot my own horn, but I saw that, and you know what I did? It pissed me off, so I blocked them and moved on with my life. I didn't jump in their anons and harass them for being wrong.)

A lesbian goes public and says they are uncomfortable interacting with certain ships because it feels fetishistic. Because it feels uncomfortable. Because we face fetishism every day, and we don't want to interact with things that remind us of that. And y'all are out for blood from us.

I need to emphasize this: It bothers you more to see lesbians who dislike ships you see online than it bothers you to see someone who isn't even a lesbian making blanket statements about lesbian culture being cruel to us as real fucking people.

I encourage you to reread the OP and see that no one was called "icky." No one was called a fetishizer. It says right there in the font that that is how it makes them FEEL.

Please revisit what the OP says. I'll even provide direct quotes! "I hate it when people ship Emily with men because it feels like fetishizing lesbianism." Or a paragraph later: "So it feels like people are fetishizing it because of the amount of people men who say they like lesbians." Y'all bullied OP into deleting their post, but I can include my own tags from the post: "This is why I think it's icky." We talked about how we felt and what we think.

We talked about how we felt after living in society as lesbians, facing this kind of oppression every day. It is triggering in many cases to see characters we regard as lesbians shipped ardently with men. If you are not a lesbian, you have no idea what it's like, especially for GNC lesbians like me who have to deal with extra layers of dypshoria on top of everything else, and especially for those of us like me who live in an incredibly conservative community where we often face violence.

When people are talking about the oppression we face, you need to shut the fuck up and listen.

There was a simple request made to stop interacting with us if you ship Emily Prentiss with men.

Instead, the whole fandom is now coming for lesbians who have to face the trauma of being lesbians every day who just don't want to see a character we love being shipped with men.

The lesbophobia in CM fandom has bothered me for a long ass time, but I'm officially done here. Any further CM posts will come from my queue, and I will not be continuing any of my CM stories. This is not a fan space that is safe for me or other lesbians, and I refuse to continue to produce fanworks for people who are so willing to harass lesbians without taking a single moment to understand the things we face on a daily basis, especially when I in particular am so open on this blog about my experiences as a GNC woman and the shit I have to go through just to survive.

And to whoever signed that ask, "A friend?" Yeah, we're not friends. If you can't approach me in a DM to understand where I'm coming from and are still bold enough to tell me I'm wrong about what I think and feel, we're not friends. Sorry!

[joat-jackofalltrades]

Batfam OC Headcanons

These headcanons are all about my superfamily, who I've dubbed the Shadefam. I have post dedicated to their basic info, here. I'm posting this for fun and to invite others to make their own super family or OC family with far too many headcanon and random chapters for a book that'll never be written.

BTW when I say S1, S2, or S3 I'm referring to the certain seasons in Young Justice

Buck- trans ftm taken in by Faith at age 12 because his father isn’t able to properly take care of him. (His dad loves and accepts him, but is very broke and wants what’s best for his son)

Hope is taken in by her sister at age 8 in 2013 when their mother died

Buck dates Bart for a period of time before they mutually agree to break up, both lowkey being attached to other teammates at the time (Jaime and Tim)

Faith is bi and doing fine

Grace is lesbian and freaking disaster

Hope is ace and valid

Buck is trans/gay and perfect

Cody is ace/aro and chillin with his homies

Faith and Grace had a fling for a few months but broke up mutually

Grace has a butch lesbian girlfriend named Joana

They always go to pride and their hero atls hang different pride flags the night before July 1st around the city

Hope lowkey grew up without really registering gender and doesn’t say hello to new people, but asks for their preferred pronouns

Bart’s the closest person to Buck in the Outsiders, being the only person that knows about his true powers as well as the few that knows his birth name

Goes to Bart or Garfield when he has a nightmare at the headquarters

Bruce payed for Buck’s top surgery after S2

Keith is the only straight person in the Shadows

Lily is pan and loves her frogs

Lily really likes frogs and has a small tank for them in her apartment

Hope has one frog gifted to her from her favorite aunt

Cody is the only person allowed to cook in the Manor

Cuddle piles when the enter family is together at their secret hideout

Cody is the only one that owns an actual house and they use the basement as their “hideout”

Lots of “Are the Straights Okay?” moments when the group is people watching during stakeouts

Grace being a flirt to everyone

Hope knowing every curse word at age 9 because her sister can’t shut up

Lots of scolding because of profanity

Faith smacking people upside the head

Cody is Buck’s go to when he’s feeling dysphoria when he’s with the fam

Family nights every friday cause none of them got the most normal lives (Faith lost her parents young as did Cody, Grace wasn’t accepted by her family and lost her parents before even turning 20, Hope only had her parents for 8 years, Lily never had a father and her mother is a thief, Buck lost his mother young and left his father before age 13, and Keith lived mostly alone with a constantly working father. Plus they’re all heroes so I mean none of them are remotely normal)

Cody entered the Shadefam after S3 and doesn’t know that he was previously working with Jason for a period of time

Very confused brother reunion when Cody and Jason meet again

The pair of them both worked for Ra’s a Ghul at the same time in the S3

Lily gives Buck a frog plush that he holds after nightmares at the headquarters

Faith does daily calls to her children

Faith was raised by Bruce, how could she not take in a small child that looks like a mini her

Faith being a mom to everyone, even her brother at times

Faith: “Cody… why are you not wearing any socks?”

Cody: “Why would I be wearing socks?”

Faith: “Because the floor is freezing! Now go put on some damn socks so you don’t get a cold!”

Cody: “But-”

Faith: “Do not try me Cody North Miers.”

Cody: “Damn… the middle name.”

Cody trying to keep Lily and Grace from getting killed on the field

Faith trying to keep Lily and Grace from getting killed off the field

Faith moves in with Keith after her amputation because he has a first floor apartment and she can’t do stairs yet

Keith finds out about MJ and Faith finds out about Hunter after he sneaks back in from a patrol before the accident

Grace and Lily are chaotic a hell, pushing themselves as far as they can during training and mission

They are the two that get hurt the most often

Though Faith always has the worst injuries cause she’s a mama bear that will leap in front of her children

Cody will get pretty severe ones as well when he jumps in front of Faith

Cody: “Why the fuck do you keep jumping in front of them?!”

Faith: “I am mama bear bitch!”

Cody: “Well stop being mama bear cause you’re going to get yourself killed one day.”

Faith: “I can’t die bitch!”

Cody and Faith being responsible adults and the most mature of the group, to being bickering siblings at each other's throats

It always ends up shocking the rest of the fam as well as the Team and the Batfam

Cody: “Can you grab me a pop?”

Faith: “The hell is a pop?”

Cody: “You know a Coke or Sprite.”

Faith: “You mean a soda?”

Cody: “Yeah a pop.”

Faith: “It’s soda!”

Cody: “Pop!”

Faith: “SODA!”

Cody: “POP!”

Halo: “Are they fighting over what to call a drink?”

Buck: “Yeah…”

The Shadefam is sort of a faction of the Batfam

Buck ships Bartuardo and got Hope to agree with him after she jumped ship from Bluepulse

Bruce is lowkey protective of Buck (he loves his grandson)

Buck is Alfred’s favorite of the Shadefam children

Cody and Faith are his favorites of the adults

Faith insists they eat dinner at the table together before leaving early to go invent

Grace and Faith have coffee addictions

Hope is not allowed near caffeine, neither is Buck

Lily shows up at Grace’s and Faith’s separate apartments randomly

Faith was the shoulder Lily cried in after Jason death

Bruce accidentally introduced Buck as his grandson to a board of people when he stopped by Wayne Enterprise

Bruce: “This is Buck, my grandson. He’ll be sitting in today because his mother is busy.”

The news outlets had a field day trying to figure out which Wayne kid was his parents and the person that they knocked up or got knocked up by. Many settled on Faith getting knocked up by some random guy before realizing the math didn’t work.

One outlet found out that Buck was born female and called him a “she” in their coverage of it.

Bruce lost it.

Bruce: “I read your coverage of my grandson. I would like to kindly ask you to pull that story.”

Reporter: “But Wayne sir.”

Bruce: “You misgendered my grandson. So either print an apology or I will be suing.”

Bruce does not stand for misgendering

Keith and Faith child’s godmothers are Grace and Joana

Hope and Buck are practically their child’s older siblings

Lily is the child’s favorite auntie

Keith leaves after their child’s birth

Keith: “Someone needs to be here in case something happens to you.”

Faith: “Nothing’s going to happen to me, Love.”

Keith: “Can you guarantee that?”

Faith: “...”

Keith: “That’s what I thought.”

Faith: “I’m not leaving.”

Keith: “I know. And I don’t blame you. You were built for the hero’s life. I wasn’t.”

Faith: “I swear I’ll be careful. For you and for them.”

Both Hope and Buck move to the Outsiders and later Buck leads the Team, leaving the Shadows.

Faith: “The Team? Buck that’s great!”

Buck: “I thought you’d be a bit more… I don’t know feeling the mode about this.”

Faith: “Why? Cause my little hodgepodge of a team is losing a member?”

Buck: “Well yeah.”

Faith: “Buck. The Shadows were just a covert team for the East. Plus it’s not like I’m really losing you. You are my son after all.”

Buck: “I know. And I’ll never forget that… Mom.”

Lily moved in with Jason and the two of them focused more on Gotham, Lily becoming a true Bat.

Lily: “So I guess I’m a Bat now.”

Faith: “Yup.”

Lily: “No longer a Shade.”

Faith: “The Shades were created by a Bat and consisted of like four current Bat members. The Shades are like a stepping stone.”

Lily: “I guess. I’m still gonna miss family nights.”

Faith: “The Shadows might be decreasing in numbers, but that doesn’t mean we’re ending Shade family nights. Bring along Jason, I’m sure he’ll have a ton of fun.”

Lily: “Yeah surrounded by youngins! He’ll be ecstatic!”

Faith: “Well he does need to prepare.”

Lily: “How the fuck did you know!”

Faith: “Wait, what!”

And that’s how Faith learned Lily was pregnant

Grace leaves the hero world once she and Joana get married and she becomes a criminal prosecutor, sealing the fate of the Shadows

Faith: “So you’re giving it up then?”

Grace: “The hero's life is great and every Faith, but.”

Faith: “I know. It’s a lot.”

Grace: “I mean I never wanted to be a hero, I just wanted to put the bad guys away. That’s what I’m doing now. Plus Joana always frets over me after a mission, even if nothing bad happened.”

Faith: “That’s pretty reasonable. Keith tends to exaggerate the smallest cuts.”

Grace: “So you’re not upset that you’re losing another member?”

Faith: “The Shadows were just a covert team for smaller crimes. I always have my back up with the League.”

Grace: “So the Shadows are done now?”

Faith: “For the time being.”

Cody never left the team, but with only two members it became more of a partnership. They continued to work together, with them assisting the League, Team, and Bats whenever they were needed

Even after the team breaks up, they all gather up once a month and hang out for board games, movies, or a patrol around the city for old times sake.

The older members (Faith, Grace, and Keith) do a lot of reminiscing while the “kids” (Buck, Lily, and Hope) just goan and roll their eyes as Cody listens to the tales of his sister and her friends

Lily and Jason never planned on having any biological children, but they did plan on taking in a street kid. They ended up with one biological child and one street kid

Cody becomes the next Bruce Wayne, training and taking in kids that need a good home

Grace and Joana have three kids, two of which have Grace’s abilities

The entire Shade family is always invited to Bat family reunions. Damian was very confused by the massive amount of people that showed up after Bruce told him he only had a “few” siblings.

Damian: “Eight is not a few Father.”

Bruce: “You have seven siblings Damian. Buck is your nephew.”

Damian: “He’s nearly 16 years older than me.”

Bruce: “Yes but he’s Faith’s son.”

Damian: “Reigns is only seven years younger than Miers.”

Bruce: “He still calls her mom correct?”

Damian: “Yes.”

Bruce: “And he calls me Grandpa?”

Damian: “Yes.”

Bruce: “Then he is your nephew.”

Damian: “But Kyle also calls her mom.”

Bruce: “Your sister does it as a joke to annoy your oldest sister.”

Damian: “Kyle is the only blood sibling I have here. Why must I consider the rest of these people siblings?”

Bruce: “Because they are.”

Damian: “Well… seven is still not a small amount of people.”

Bruce: “With the amount of people here, seven is a few.”

Cody is a light sleeper, waking at the slightest sounds

Grace sleeps like the dead, freezing water and banging pots are the only thing that wake her

Keith can sleep through stuff if he’s in a deep sleep, but also wakes to small shifts in the bed when Faith has a nightmare

Faith is another light sleeper, though not as light as her brother

Lily can and will sleep through anything that doesn’t sound threatening, aka wakes only to gunshots and the scrapping of a blade in its sheath

Buck is a deep sleeper, though often wakes to nightmares

Hope sleeps a lot like her sister, though she’s easier to wake up

When Cody wakes up, he’s up. If he’s woken up, a perimeter check is needed before he goes to sleep. If he wakes up on his own, he still does a perimeter check before going about his day

Grace doesn’t fully wake up until she’s had her eggs and instant caramel coffee

Keith rises with the sun full of energy after seeing Faith sleeping beside him

Faith wakes up tired and a little sluggish, needing black coffee to really wake up in the morning

Lily lives in a permanent state of sluggishness during daylight hours, she draws her power through the moon

Buck is always a bit tired, with usual bursts of random energy

Hope wakes with the sun cause she herself is a ray of sun

Faith & Keith child

Valarie (biological)

Cody’s children

Westly (adopted)

Conner (adopted)

Grace & Joana’ children

Derek (Grace’s biological)

Sophie (Grace’s biological)

Adrian (adopted)

Jason & Lily’s children

Charlie (street kid)

Jaden (biological)

Faith, Hope, and Grace are called the holy trinity as a joke

How Lily and Jason act

PDA constantly, it’s not huge things but it’s very clear that they are together

Nightmare comfort

Got together after Jason came back from the dead, working together as Red Hood and Scarlet Falcon

Were rivals of sorts before his death when Lily was still Misfortune. They fought a lot as Robin and Misfortune, though Faith refuses to let Jason take her in

Lily runs cold so she often wears Jason’s jacket

Faith gave both Lily and Jason the “if you hurt my sibling” lecture. Jason was terrified by it, while Lily shrugged it off

Faith: “You hurt my baby brother, I will hurt you tenfold. I will get a crowbar.”

Lily: “Reasonable.”

Faith: “If you hurt my baby sister, I will hurt you tenfold. I will get a crowbar.”

Jason: “Okay ma’am.”

Buck isn’t a meta but cursed

Hope gets killed in 2023 during the first mission that the team gets together after 2020

Shadefam split by 2020, with Keith, Hope, & Buck leaving in 2018, Grace leaving in 2019, and Lily leaving in 2020 with Faith moving from High Hills in 2019

Keith and Faith move after S3 in 2019 to Star City to man the Wayne Enterprise in the West and raise Valerie in a less crime-ridden area

Cody takes over protecting High Hills, taking on two wards

Grace and Joana move to a smaller town outside of New York so Grace couldn’t be dragged back into the Life

Lily lives with Jason in Gotham

Cody was almost taken by the Court of Owls to become a Talon (their mother’s death was a result of the Court) saved by the League of Shadows instead

Valerie

Metahuman with the True Sight ability

Born 2018

Year younger than Damian

Joins the Team as Seer

Connor

Eldest of the Shade children

Born 2014

Joins the family when he's seven

Loves musical theatre

Doesn’t do fieldwork and works as the man behind the screen for his brother and father

Westly

Second eldest of the Shade children

Born 2016

Joins the family when he's six

Works on the field with his father (Bullseye)

Mathlete

Derek & Sophie

Twins

Born 2019

Sophie is a shadow bender (Yin)

Derek is a light bender (Yang)

Both join the Life (much to Joana dismay)

Adrian

Same age as the “twins”

Born 2019

Doesn’t join the Life

Works with their mom (Joana) in the family jeweler shop

Charlie

Equal eldest Shade child (though entered the family far later than Conner)

Born 2014

Joins the family when he's nine

Doesn’t join the Life and studies pre-med to fix up his family

Jaden

(2020)

Joins the Life

When People Call Faith “Mom”

Cody, Grace, Dick, and Jason call her Mom as a joke or when she’s being to much of a mama bear

Grace: “Alright. Alright Mom. We’ll stop.”

Faith: “Don’t call me Mom Grace.”

Dick: “Alright… Mama Bear.”

Faith: “I will kill you Dick.”

Jason: “Oh don’t kill him Mum, he’s a good big brother.”

Faith: “-Jay.”

Cody: “Relax Mother. They’re just playing with you.”

Faith: “CODY!”

Lily does it as a joke most of the time, though often accidentally does it

Lily: “Jeez let up Faith I’m fine.”

Faith: “Fine? Lily, you nearly bled out an hour ago.”

Lily: “Yeah an hour a ago.”

Faith: “Sit the fuck back down you asshole.”

Lily: “Okay.”

Faith: “What were you thinking Lily? You could have been killed. You could have gotten Buck killed.”

Lily: “You quoting Lion King now?”

Faith: “Lily.”

Lily: “Sorry.”

Faith: “What were you planning, Lily? What if we couldn’t have gotten to you in time? What if Buck was in your place? What if we lost you?”

Lily: “I’m- I’m sorry Mom.”

Faith: “I know you- Did you just call me Mom?”

Lily: “Aaaa- no?”

Hope never means to call Faith Mom, but it does just kind of happen

Faith: “Time to get up, Hope. You got school in thirty minutes.”

Hope: “Mmmm.”

Faith: “Come on Hope.”

Hope: “I don’t wanna go Mom.”

Faith: “It’s only for seven hours, Hope.”

Hope: “Mmm. Fine.”

Faith: “Good. Be ready in ten please.”

Hope: “Alright M- Faith. I meant Faith… not Mom.”

Buck calls her Mom the most (besides her own daughter)

Faith: “Have fun sweety.”

Buck: “I will Mom.”

Faith: “You know I’m not old enough to be your mother.”

Buck: “I know Mom. And you know I don’t care.”

faith: “And neither do I in all honesty.”

Tim accidentally called her mom once, which her reflect response was “I’m too young to be your mother”

Faith: “Tim? What are you still doing up?”

Tim: “Working.”

Faith: “For how long?”

Tim: “... I’m on hour… 56?”

Faith: “Go to bed Tim.”

Tim: “But I just need 10 more hours to finish.”

Faith: “Nope. You’re going to bed.”

Tim: “Hey! Put me down!”

Faith: “No. Tim you are a growing boy who needs to sleep.”

Tim: “But I have to-”

Faith: “Sleep! You have to sleep.”

Tim: “Put me down Faith.”

Faith: “Alright.”

Tim: “No I’m not going to bed.”

Faith: “Yes. Yes, you are.”

Tim: “I don’t need you to tuck me in Faith. I’m a grown man.”

Faith: “You’re a seventeen-year-old boy, not a grown man. Now go to bed.”

Tim: “Mmm. Fine. Good night Mom.”

Faith: “I’m too young to be your mother.”

Tim: “...”

Faith: “Good night Timmy.”

Damian also did it by accident once (Jason never let him live it down)

Faith: “I’m fine guys. Just a bit banged up.”

Jason: “Just a bit?”

Dick: “Faith you were held captive for nearly three weeks.”

Tim: “We stayed up endless nights to get you back.”

Lily: “We got to you to find you with a punctured lung and a broken arm.”

Faith: “Yes. But I’m fine now.”

Bruce: “You’re off patrol for the next three weeks and I’ll make sure you get a week off from work.”

Faith: “I don’t need that Bruce. I’ll be fine going back to work and I doubt three weeks probation is needed.”

Damian: “You nearly died Mother!”

Everyone: “Mother?”

Faith: “...”

Tim: “Did you just call Faith Mother?”

Dick: “Well it certainly wasn’t a joke.”

Jason: “I think the demon needs a mommy figure.”

Damian: “Shut up Todd!”

Jason: “Demon misses his mommy!”

Damian: “I said SHUT UP!”

Faith: “Enough! Both of you! Damian get off your brother! Jason stop teasing your brother.”

Damian: “...”

Faith: “Thank you. Now. Damian I’m fine. I’ve been through far worse.”

Lily: “No you haven’t.”

Faith: “You do remember that I got into a car accident where I lost my leg, right?”

Lily: “... Right.”

Faith: “Now I’m going to go watch a movie cause I’ve been stuck in a wooden chair for a few weeks and I have a strange urge to watch Ratatouille.”

And that's it for now. I might make another post about these guys, maybe I won't, depends if people like this.

[cowboyjenunfilterednsfw]

hi jen! im a 21 year old andro/masculine lesbian and i'm honestly terrified of sex. its not that i dont have a sex drive, and im definitely not asexual of any kind, but the act or even thought of actually doing it with someone brings me a lot of distress, and i really hate in general how disinterested i am in actually having sex. ive been in sexual relationships in the past but i've only ever received (most because i'm insecure in my lack of experience in giving) and my lack of interest in sex and insecurities and fears regarding it has caused rifts in my past relationships. this is probably something i should definitely go to therapy for and definitely not be venting your anonymous asks about instead, but its hard for me to feel like im not abnormal and alone in how i'm feeling. people talk about how amazing lesbian sex is, and i wish i could feel less scared about it even though ive had sex before. i feel very insecure of ever being able to provide properly for a future partner, which i know is just from lack of experience but i still dont know how to stop feeling this way. i dont know if you know anyone like this or can offer me any advice on this, but i appreciate you reading this.

Hi. I am glad you reached out. When i was coming out and having sex for the first time with a woman my older lesbians friends were my cheerleaders, my sex Ed teachers and my mentors. I could ask them anything and they would be upfront and honest with me and only crack a smile on occasion.  I also had the benefit of sex workshops at women’s festivals. Lesbians love their workshops!

Therapy can help you work through trauma or fears or just hash out some complex emotions that might be swirling around in your head: a mixture of what you hear, what you are exposed to from friends and your own nerves. 

Unlike what lots of others want you to believe (TIKTOK I am looking at you!). Lesbian sex is not always just a series of orgasms with very little effort. Nor is the average lesbians a top or a bottom or stone or a pillow princess or any other particular role in the bedroom. 

The average lesbian is like you. Unsure, nervous, concerned, excited and many other emotions. I am going to make a bit of an assumption, but as a butch I think I can make this call. Being masc or butch can come with added pressure to fit certain roles: IE top, aggressive, the one to make the first move etc. Ignore all that. Do not be afraid to explore all sides of sex and what brings you and your partner pleasure. 

Ok. so lets talk about being inexperienced. DO not... i repeat.. do not! let that prevent you from enjoying sex to the fullest, giving or receiving. Find a partner that will talk you through what  feels right, can guide you with kindness and allow you to guide them. Lesbians are not mind readers, no matter what tiktok says. DO NOT allow a partner to tell you are bad in bed or that you need them to “teach you” or you won’t be desirable. YOU are desirable as you. When two women care for each other and have mutual trust, which you should strive for, you are patient and kind. You communicate and allow for trying and not always succeeding. You laugh at what goes wrong and celebrate what goes right. 

You do NOT have to be in a long term relationship for there to be some trust and respect. You should expect that even from a one night stand. IF you see red flag, if you feel demeaned or belittled, walk away. There should be no power language “you need me”  or “only I will put up with it”. 

Ok. now the reality and pep talk. The reality is.. even great sex does NOT always led to orgasm. It is okay to stop when you are tired, they are tired or you want to. Orgasms are wonderful but they do not always have to be the end goal. Multiple orgasms are possible but don’t happen every time or often for everyone. It depends on bodies and moods and timing. Lesbian sex can be quick or take hours but it is not a contest with others. It is for your pleasure, her pleasure and that is the focus.   If both of you are getting pleasure pleasing the other one, you will do just fine. 

As to others feeling like this. YES.. even me. Most of us experience trepidation about sex, whether we are inexperienced, haven’t had sex for a while or are going to be with a new partner. Let yourself be excited about the possibilities rather than focus on the chance something doesn’t go right. Just know that you deserve to be with someone who wants to be with you. You have no obligation to have sex the first time or another time. Neither do they. 

The really good new is, if you find a partner you share mutual passion with,  you will figure it out together.  Learning and exploring happens with each new partner, not just your first because women vary wildly. Enjoy the adventure which includes missteps and failures. But it will also include forming an amazing connection with another human and feeling the warmth and tenderness that goes with having sex with another woman. 

[hell-is-a-teenage-girll]

Hello! I just recently started to follow you, and I've been curious about how you view bisexual versatile girls who can't settle for one thing? What I mean is that they can't stay being butch/femme/tomboy, or being top/bottom. Have you or S had a similar experience of being confused on whether you had to stay within a certain label? Love you guys very much!

I don’t see an issue with people not staying within a certain named label as we choose to label ourselves or not.

Like some people do not want to be called a certain “label” while everything they are or do would with in that said label. But we all have the freedom to be who we are and choose if we wanna be actually “that label” or just “be”.

I have had the issue with thinking if I was really a lesbian because I was stone, which at the time I didn’t even know was a thing and I just felt like a failed lesbian because I didn’t and couldn’t touch them “back” and my ex’s accused me of not wanting to touch them, probably not really wanting them or wanting to be with a woman. So I ran to men, because let’s be honest, you do not need to do a lot to have sex with a man. Although again I never touched them (in which I mean jerking them off) or even given a blowjob. I’ve never done any of that.

but I wasn’t happy and wasn’t myself, the last like 2 to 3 years I’ve been letting myself be me again and I found out I am okay the way I am, I am not failed as a lesbian and I am not bisexual and there are people who actually look for people like me, as they are the opposite, and it’s so lovely.

but no one should feel forced to stay within a label, you are totally fine and allowed to switch it up!

- S. Said the following; I mainly started to identify as butch when I made my own nfswtumblr, and I personally never think it’s an issue to change up how you are identify or name yourself, because I also had alot of issues with gender stereotyping and  I caught myself alot thinking what would a guy do in my situation and act on it because I am the way I am, but I realized that that’s stupid and I don’t have to because of how society might think of it. my thoughts about sex and how I feel about it has changed through out the years. Your sexual orientation doesn’t really change but your sexuality and feelings do grow and change through out the years and that’s normal and totally fine.

[howljenky]

I have a few things to say thats been circling in my mind a lot.

The reduction and watering down of the word Femme to mean Feminine woman, not even lesbian as i saw bi ppl use it as well, and straigh women use it as well, as an empowering feminine word that completly disregard the culture of the word, made me ocasionally think to myself "ugh i hate being called a femme" and made me have life crises in which i forget what Femme stands for, because i have no map for it, and noone to cling to, and teach me, and remind me, that i exist in this world to love butches. The loneliness i feel is tearing me apart. More under cut.

Feminine women saw the word femme, and decided femmes are trying to replicate heterosexuality, that femmes are selfish, and close minded, and "exclusuonists", and they took this word for themselves to preach about how good femme4femme relationships are, how ignorant and misogynistic we were for not choosing to date other feminine women, and for replicating heterosexuality, they took it and trampled over us for not being progressive, for choosing to date the ugly mean dykes. And this is it, this is the reason they did it. Their hatered for butches and masculine women.

This hatered is why terms like "soft butch" exists, this is why everyone tells butches they can be feminine if they want to, while pissing and dissing on the butches that reject every form of feminity, calling them links to toxic masculinity, calling them predatory, and mean, and cold hearted, and cheaters, and emotionally closed off, in our own lesbian community no less, which come to bite femmes in the ass as well for choosing to date such "heartless bastards", to the point you take the word femme from us to "save us" or whatever is going through their minds, while also telling everyone a characteristic of being a lesbian is to be soft masculine. They want that "soft androgyny" aesthetic, masculine women to at least have a feminine thing about them, as if butches are still obliged by the police to have 3 women garments on themselves like in our past culture, but not to be too feminine, because then u have to date other feminine lesbians, or fall into this category of lesbians that are being asked "so why dont you just date a man?" Because people just cannot get through their thick skulls that lesbians have NOTHING to do with men. Not too feminine, because feminity is men's.

So alright, they hate the butches, and they "reclaimed" femme from those who stay with the butches. And it is good for them! They can use the word femme as they please, while continuing to compare butches to men and out relationship to a straight one. But what does that mean for the butchfemme culture?

It directly harms out community. We cannot find eachother that easily anymore. I see the word femme and instead of being estatic that i am not alone in this world, I get wary and confused, to the point that I dont even search for femmes like me anymore. Im okay alone as well, as long as i have the attention of butches. The word femme made me so distant of its meaning, that only butches can pull me out of it and remind me just why i exist and what i am fighting for, just by existing in the same space as them. But they have it hard too. On top of all the hate, from straight people and from the lgbt+ community and even from the lesbian comunity, they have a hard time finding femmes to truly understand them, and love them, and be patient with them as well. The rings of this community falls so thight and it always feels like its getting smaller and smaller instead of larger. Consciously or not, the pressure and hatered we get drives us away from ourselves. The pressure of finding femmes like me, the disappointment i get often of not being understood by fellow lesbians drove me away from them. It's just butches i can rely onto. For lesbians and for other members of the lgbt community, this makes me an exclusionist, a demon, a bad person.

The lack of media representation is a problem here as well. No straight person wants to see an old mean dyke on the screen, so they don't put them. They don't put them so that they won't turn to "stereotypical lesbians". They don't put them because they hate them. The lesbian representation is few as it is, but it is all feminine women, or femme4femme as the others with no regard to the butchfem community chose to name it. This mainly is to appeal to the male gaze, so that no man would feel threatened by someone more masculine than them. In this world, not even lesbians, who exclude men, can never separate from them entirely. Butches get compared to men, femmes are put in a box of feminity for the male gaze, and both being called a heterosexual replica, a second hand straight couple, by everyone. No wonder it took so long for me to even know what i was. And who i was. Where could i have seen myself, if there were no femmes on the screen? How would i have known who i love if there arent any butches in media? If it hadnt been for my then-friend and now unapologetical butch girlfriend, i wouldn't have read stone butch blues, and then i wouldnt have read all the other books, and i wouldnt have gotten myself in that thight spot in the small community, and i would have still be lost and lonely. Now i am just lonely, but not lost.

This lack of representation also makes everyone go along with internet trends, and not getting documented on the culture. They go along with what the others say, because theres barely any place to learn about this and to fully capture its essence and meaning. We are silenced, and deemed not worthy to be heard, because of modernised times, and changes in meanings, and being regressive. But my love for butches is an act of revolution against everyone that might call me selfish, or straight, a fake persona, and its not lower than the other non-aligned lesbians.

This is why I am still an unapologetical Femme. I am a femme, because of the feminine women around me invalidating my identity with calling themselves femme. I am femme, because of loving butches. I am femme because i exist to love and cherish and respect butches. I am femme because when everyone hates butches, where else would they go? Where is their home? Where are they fully accepted? Unconditionally? Where are butches allowed to be masculine without getting bashed for it? Who understands how butches love? Who desires them, without sexualising them?

I am femme because i am a home to butches. I am femme because, regardless of what others say, my femininity still isnt for men, and never will be. I am femme because i want change. I am femme because until butches get accepted as they are, unconditionally and without a doubt, i am not accepted either, and i refuse to get accepted without them. I am femme, until the day i see myself on the screen, until i see my lovers on the screen, until i see our love accepted and beyond that. I am a femme because i want to leave a piece of my love for butches on earth. I am femme because i want to teach, and be heard. My femme-ness doesnt sit in my feminity alone. Femme is liberating, and secure, not restaining, and forced.

I have so much else to say, but this is getting ridiculously long, and all over the place, but these were my thoughts. I desire for a day in which i could be understood. Of course, these thoughts are coming from an easter european mindset, as of where there isnt any representation, zero knowledge on the matter, post-comminist country in which lgbt people need to still hide in certain situations. I am angry at the world's view of the word femme, and what it got to mean these days. I am angry at the hatered towards butches. I am angry and i will not shut up about it anymore.

All i am asking is. Educate yourself. Be conscious of words and what they mean. Respect us. Stop making up new words for every single thing. Futch isnt real guys. Thats all.

.

Terfs and transmysoginists and any other fucker that dares to think this post doesn't include trans women fuck off. Trans butches, studs and trans femmes are always loved and welcomed here. Racists fuck off as well, you arent needed.

[imaginebeatles]

Hello, I'm a homo-romantic ace whose been having a lot of weird conversations lately about who belongs in the LGBT umbrella. I think anyone who is ace has the space if they want it because it is a little understood sexual orientation that experiences a lot of corrective reactions. But lately people have been arguing to me that only aces with non-hetero rom orientations and/or folk who are non cisgender have access to the space. I was wondering the following things:

2/2 what’s your take on asexuality belonging to the LGBT term, the LGBT community and the LGBT complex (cuz I think it’s gotten more complex as a functioning being)? Does asexuality belong in a tertiary space like BDSM which crosses over with queer (and shares similarities) but is not fully within it? Thanks for sharing about your thesis, every time it pops up on my dash I feel very excited. It’s been awhile since I engaged in queer theory and I am loving your work! No pressure to answer tho!

Okay, so…. this is a very contentious topic, but I have a lot of thoughts on this, especially since I’ve started doing research for my thesis. I’ve read some articles on asexuality and the queer community so… here we go. I’ve put it under the cut, so people can easily scroll past it if they’re not interested. 

(I would also like to first say that I will be use the word “queer” here. I know some people are uncomfortable with that because its past use as a slur, however, because it is an actual academic term that is used by everyone writing about these issues, and especially within queer theory, I will be using that word too. I use the word to talk about all non-normative identities/practices related to gender and sexuality, which includes the LGBTQ+ community, but is more extensive than that, including any letters not part of that acronym. Queer is also a (political and academic) practice, not just an identity. This already possibly shows where my answer to your question is going…) 

Firstly, I want to say that I understand why some people within the LGBTQ+ community might be uncomfortable about letting asexual people into that community. There is a difficult relationship between asexuality and queer identities. Some people in the field of asexuality studies have begun to write on this (I’ll list them down one or two down below). Within queer politics, historically but also now, there is a heavy focus on sex. Because queer people have struggled against oppression based on their sexual habits, not having sex is generally viewed as conservative or as a form of assimilation. For wlw this is further true because for a long time healthy sexual behaviour (aka having sex at all) was seen as impossible between two women, because both women would be sexually passive. Not having sex is not radical. This is why hetero-romantic aces are often dismissed as being “straight anyway”. Non-normative sexual practices (like cruising) are an important part of the queer community (academic work within queer studies in especially the 1990s and 2000s shows this too, wherein theoretical and political potential is mined from non-normative sex acts, including bare-backing because of its relation to the HIV crisis in the 80s).

It therefore makes sense that queer people (especially gay men and women, but also others) are uncomfortable with asexuality’s focus on not having sex, and as such asexuality is often seen as being “sex negative” instead of “sex positive” and thus bad. At least, politically. 

I, however, and other academics, do think asexuality is queer, if you define queer as being non-normative in relation to hetero-normativity). Asexuality is seen as non-normative in our current hyper-sexual society and sex is seen as a vital part of heterosexuality too (you have to reproduce and women are meant to be sexually available to men at all times). Asexual people are discriminated against because they refuse sex, which society sees as natural. While the struggles of asexual people are different from those of gay people, bi and trans people (and other identities) also have their own struggles against which they fight. This does not diminish their struggles. 

Acephobia is based on ableist ideas: if you don’t want sex, there must be something wrong with you either mentally or physically, because sex is naturally and everyone should want it and have it (often). Asexuality is often dismissed and not seen as “real”. There must be something that inhibits you from having sex, whether that is physiological, hormonal, or having to do with trauma, or maybe just because you are not “hot enough to get a boyfriend”, which reminds me of how for a long time lesbians were seen as being men-hating ugly women (and feminists). This view leads to asexuality being pathologized (as homosexuality used to be). There have been numerous ways in which low sexual desire or a lack of sexual fantasies has been sees as a disorder in the psychoanalytic tradition. Attempts to “fix” asexual people are made through things like therapy or hormone treatment (or stuff like viagra or other such things), but also through corrective rape, either in a medical contexts under the idea that sexuality needs to be “awakened” within the patient, or in the private sphere at the end of a partner or friend. Research has also shown that people see asexual people as less human, more machine-like. They admit feeling uncomfortable with asexual people, and that they may discriminate against them, such as refusing them rent. 

Asexual people have their own political issues to work through, just as any other identity within the LGBTQ+ community. However, each of these issues and more are related to the fight against hetero-normativity. Another example is that asexual people, especially those who are also aromantic, can help critique the way society privileges heterosexual romantic couplehood, especially married heterosexual couples. Asexual and aromantic people often privilege non-romantic and non-sexual relationship, such as friendships or family, allowing us to re-evaluate these other relationships and open up new forms of queer relating, which will also be appealing to other queer people, who often form their own social group or families and whose relationship and friendships are often in some way “queer”. 

On top of that, it is important to realise that there is a lot of overlap between asexual people and other queer identities. However, queer asexual people constantly remark on how they do not feel safe or represented by the queer or LGBTQ+ community, even those who “welcome” queer aces, but not hetero-romantic aces. The queer and LGBTQ+ community are heavily sexualized spaced, which makes aces feel unwelcome, but also leaves many non-asexual queer people to complain about the lack of safe spaces for queer people that aren’t about clubbing, such as the lack of queer cafes or library. The queer community (and LGBTQ+ community) is itself deeply entrenched in compulsory sexuality, just like hetero-normative society, making aces feel like they don’t belong to either community. 

If an asexual person if gay, or bi, or non-binary, or trans, or queer, or whatever, it is the LGBTQ+ and queer communities that should provide them a safe space and fight for them. Their asexuality informs their experience as homo-romantic or trans or anything else, and cannot be separated from that part of their identity. These are not separate issues. If we want to protect trans kids or gay kids or any other member of the queer/LGBTQ+ community, these communities need to be inclusive of asexuality and provide spaces where these kids are safe and can talk freely about their experiences and the challenges they face. These will undoubtedly also be informed by their asexual identity. 

We are stronger politically when we fight together. We fight the same cause. Asexual people do not ask other LGBTQ+ or queer people to not be sexual. They only ask that they are included and that their own issues are being taken seriously. 

On top of that, asexuality intersects with a lot of other queer issues. For trans folks, for example, the focus on sex in society and romantic relationships may leave them uncomfortable because of their body dysphoria and may thus run into similar issues as sex-repulsed aces. Stone butch women may find common ground with asexuality too, because of the focus on penetrative sex in society. The hypersexualisation of gay men may find that they experience similar issues as asexual people who feel they are being (hyper)sexualised despite not being sexual. There is a lot of overlap, and these issues need to be addressed. We can help each other and offer new perspectives that will help us fight for the same rights. 

On top of that, on a more abstract level, can also be valuable for queer politics in the way that it undermines our current understanding of sexual identity. The way we now think about sexuality was constructed by straight people with the aim of pathologizing and thus actively discriminate against and eliminate perverted sexuality. This started with homosexuality with Freud, and quickly began to expand. If you want to know more about this, Foucault’s History of Sexuality is a good place to start. This allowed for sexual object choice to be used to group specific people together and make them into a specific type or “species”, as Foucault calls it. Our conception of sexuality, then, was constructed to uphold heterosexuality as the norm, making heterosexuality (that is the opposite sex as the sexual object choice) out to be the natural and normal and healthy form of sexuality. 

Asexuality undermines this construction. Asexuality not only shows that there are different forms of attraction, which do not need to be connected to each other in a one-on-one relation, but also shows that sexual attraction is not the only or even the most important basis for attraction. Asexuality is not explainable in our current system and forces people to consider their sexual preferences. What do I like in sex? What kind of sex? What kind of sensuality? And with whom? If I like having sex with men, but only being sensual with women, what does that mean? Asexuality asks us what we prefer, putting the focus on preference  rather than something biological or innate that makes us feel desire towards one gender and not the other. 

This is not to say that asexuality makes sexual identity into an arbitrary choice. Rather, it shows that you cannot divide people into identity categories based on sexual object choice shows that attempting to do so is just as silly as doing so based on if you like tea or coffee. Or ketchup or mustard. On top of that, it allows for sexuality to be seen as fluid, not that it changes, but that it is not fixed. Maybe you like ketchup for a long time, and then no anymore. Or maybe you are briefly in the mood only for this specific type of mustard but not the others. Focusing on preference allows us to undermine the whole construct on which hetero-normativity is predicated. Making identities such as heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual or pansexual almost meaningless or nonsensical. If we want to do away with hetero-normativity completely, this is a crucial step to take. It allows us to focus on sexuality as a social construct, rather than something that must be biologically explained. 

TL;DR: I understand why some LGBTQ+ people are uncomfortable with the idea of bringing asexual into the community. However, I think ultimately we are fightening the same cause despite our own specific issues that we face. We have a similar stake in queer politics and queer academia. Asexuality can offer the queer or LGBTQ+ community a lot, and being inclusive to asexuality is crucial if we want to protect queer kids. As such there is a lot that both communities can offer each other. 

This goes for both queer aces and hetero-romantic aces. Hetero-romantic aces also benefit and often have a stake in dismantling hetero-normativity because they are asexual. Hetero-romantic aces also face discrimination under hetero-normativity. Because of this, asexuality at large ought to be included. Excluding hetero-romantic aces from the queer community or LGBTQ+ community shows a misunderstanding of asexuality and its political issues and seems not so much inclusive of asexual issues, but rather inclusive of those issues that relate ONLY to the other part of their identity. For queer aces, however, these two are not separate issues. If you want to be inclusive to queer aces, you have to be inclusive towards asexuality in general. 

Asexuality, then, should be fully within the queer community, not be treated as a separate but overlapping thing like BDSM. Asexuality, when taken seriously, will affect all spaces of the queer community for the better, while still allowing for sex-positive politics. 

Reading suggestions: 

Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality.

Megan Milks, “Stunted Growth: Asexual Politics and the Rhetoric of Sexual Liberation.” In Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, edited by Karli June Cerankowski and Megan Milks. 

Erica Chu, “Radical Identity Politics: Asexuality and Contemporary Articulations of Identity.” In Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, edited by Karli June Cerankowski and Megan Milks. 

[virgofem]

I feel kind of stupid even typing this out but idk if Im a stone fem or not. My gf seems to think I am, and p much every time in the past that I've "topped" I ended up l having some sort of breakdown afterwards, but also because I have topped in the past, and at times even enjoyed it in the moment, I don't know if stone is really a term that I should be using.....(1)

I feel like the fact that I even care so much and want to be stone should say something but I also can’t shake the feeling that I’m doing it for attention, or community, or just because I know a lot of stone fems that I look up to. I just feel a little lost in it all I guess :( (2)

oh sweetheart you don’t need to feel stupid, it’s not at all odd to question yourself. i don’t know how it feels to others, but my experience of finding out about being stone started out like how you described, actually, so here’s a long-ish personal story.

so i’ve been with my partner since we were fifteen, right? and for years we had “regular” lesbian sex, you know, both ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’. i always liked bottoming waaaaaay better. it felt very natural to me and in hindsight that’s what i really wanted when i initiated sex. i didn’t really mind topping i guess, sometimes i liked it too, but it was mostly sort of just… it felt like a necessity kinda? and my gf wanted me to do it, so i did it.

when we got a bit older tho, sex became a very touchy topic. i tried to avoid topping but i didn’t really know why so i couldn’t really communicate it, and that hurt my gf quite a lot i think. we were also both increasingly depressed and my gf’s bpd started to surface. i don’t really remember much from say, being 17-20, partly because it’s been some years already and partly because there was a lot of hurt (and intense emotions, i was very young still) i experienced during that time.

i think i was like… 20, 21 maybe when i first read about being stone. i felt immediately drawn to it, i kept reading about stone butches and their partners and the sex they have had but it took me a whole year or more to understand and accept that i could be stone, too. my denial (and depression) got so bad that i had started thinking i could only top if i was heavily dominated while doing it, which was… obviously not at all healthy. so you can imagine that i had breakdowns, too.

it’s all gotten very scrambled in my head time-wise since these past few years have been quite the turmoil (my therapy, my butch getting diagnosed with bpd, crappy circumstances, lots of misunderstandings etc etc, different kinds of trauma and shit). i’m so proud that we’ve stuck together with my gf through all, and we’ve done a LOT of soul searching and worked hard to get to this point. i’m a stone fem and they’re a stone butch, and i think realizing and accepting that has made our relationship so much better.

sorry that this got so long and rambly but my point is, whatever your past looks like, it does not mean you can’t be stone. i can’t tell you if you are since that’s something you really have to think through yourself, but from what you’ve told me it sounds like you could be a stone fem for sure. i hope you figure it out, best of luck anon. also please don’t hesitate to send more asks or a dm if you want to talk.

[radioromantic-moved]

minors dni under cut please please

anyway you guys may not have noticed since i haven't been like openly posting about it but based on the thing i said in my last promo and my fluctuating sexuality status in my carrd i'm like. having doubts about my asexuality and it's weird as hell. cause i think at this point this has been my longest enduring label and a part of me feels...idk. guilty! about changing it even though people following this blog knew me as bi and people following this blog knew me as cis (a couple of them at least) but even then i never actively denied the possibility that i could be a lesbian or nonbinary/genderfluid when those ideas came up. it was never "i'm bi, NOT a lesbian" or "i'm cis, NOT trans." it was more like "i'm bi, i think? but maybe i'm a lesbian." but asexuality was a thing i Definitely Was for a long time and i forgot how fucked up changing labels makes me feel.

it doesn't help that i always hated the "you're just a late bloomer" excuse especially because it IS used to hurt fully asexual people a lot and even though i'm still pretty young in the grand scheme of things i'm also starting to feel like. god. maybe i Am a late bloomer. like i'm still id-ing as gray ace right now because i definitely don't really engage with my sexuality in a way that's expected or viewed as "normal" by society but also i think there is attraction there i have just been addressing it the wrong way this whole time and i don't know how to feel about it like at all.

and i've been reading stuff written by stone butches and it makes me feel SO seen like. you're telling me i could keep my clothes on during sex? you're telling me i don't have to be touched at all? you're telling me i could Just be the one on top if i wanted? and that all makes me feel so good and so happy and sometimes i am actually able to look at myself in a sexual light, but then again there is still So Much that i need in a specific way and i'm pretty sure most of it's sensory stuff but it's issues that i don't see anyone else having. like i don't like other peoples' bodily fluids on me with the exception of tears or (sometimes) blood. pretty much everything else is my worst grossest nightmare and bodily fluids are like...a big part of sex. and i don't like dirty talk almost all of it feels like too much for me maybe i could handle like. back and forth praise but i kind of...barely want my sex to be sexual most of the time and who wants that other than me!!! and i don't even know if i id as butch which adds a whole other layer to everything

i might make an nsfw blog to work this out because i deal with a lot of things regarding my sexual and romantic feelings through fictional characters but there is this big part of me that feels like this is a betrayal somehow??? like i promised everyone this blog would always be totally sfw because i had no interest in anything sexual and now i DO but i definitely want this blog to remain a safe space for minors and i would hate if i did anything to make my mutuals uncomfortable and i KNOW this should primarily be about me but i feel a weird sense of shame about almost every decision i make that could even somewhat have an impact on other people and i don't like that but it is a thing about me that i don't know how to change. i hate how weird and complicated everything has to be all the time

[sittingoverheredreaming]

Part six of HaruMichi Beauty and the Beast! See the Masterpost for previous chapters

——————

Haruka lie awake in bed. Michiru was… weird. She was a weird strange monster with a weird strange aversion to telling Haruka anything that could help.

Haruka thought about what it would have been like, walking in the garden with her when she was normal. Human. Haruka might want to… well, if she wasn’t afraid to touch her, she might have held her hand. There was something Haruka felt fondness for, under the claws and scales. If only…

Mina would interject there, Haruka knew. If there’s a big exception in the ‘everything’ you like about her, buddy, you don’t really like her.

But this was different, surely. This wasn’t someone who talked down to her or was a vegan or any of the other things that Mina had correctly predicted as dealbreakers. This was a bad situation, that Michiru clearly wanted out of. Maybe she didn’t say it, but Haruka knew.

She jumped up from bed and began to pace. There had to be something she could do. Haruka was handy. Haruka fixed all sorts of things. And maybe those things were inanimate, engines and toilets and the occasional bike chain, but really, she’d had to learn to do all those things, mostly through sheer stubbornness, so she could surely figure out a curse.

Usually, things weren’t really broken, they were just stuck or off track and needed guidance. Haruka looked out the window in the starry night and pondered. Michiru couldn’t tell her what was wrong, but neither could an engine. You had to take what signs you could and follow them to the problem.

What did she know? Michiru was cursed long ago, having once been beautiful. Beautiful and high class. She became something monstrous, and seemed to feel it was appropriate.

That was it! Haruka smacked the side of her head for not realizing sooner. She dashed from her room.

When Haruka had realized who she was, a lesbian and a butch one at that, she’d been afraid. She’d felt, well, monstrous. Inhuman. If there had been any magic in her small town world, it might have made her feelings real. And for Michiru, it had. It was so simple. No wonder Usagi and Makoto wanted them to spend time together. Michiru just needed to see it was okay!

She paused at the stairs that led to Michiru’s chambers. Part of her recognized the boundary, that there was one thing she was told not to do and therefore she should not do it. But surely-- Surely!-- Michiru would not mind if it turned her back to normal. She bounded up the stairs two at a time.

“Michiru!” She called at the top. Nothing. Haruka followed the hall to the first open door.

Unease crept over her. It was a bedroom, and for all she joked that she’d never see a room in worse shape than Minako’s, this one took the cake. Claw marks marred the stone walls, the bed clothes were strewn across the floor, which was also littered with glass. The vanity against one wall had a shattered mirror, and the items that likely belonged on its surface were knocked aside, half broken.

Haruka’s every instinct told her to run. But her every instinct told her to run every time she saw Michiru, and it was crucial to not give in to that impulse. So she pressed on through the next door, to a small room with a balcony.

Curiously, the only decor here was upright and in tact— just a small table, bearing a hand mirror. Haruka picked it up. It did not show her face in the glass, but Mina’s. She was in their apartment, reaching into their fridge. She handed someone— no, Haruka recognized the outreaching hand as her own— a beer. The mirror made no sound, but Haruka could read Mina’s expression well enough. Don’t you ever scare me like that again.

“Do you show the future?”

The mirror did not change. Haruka chose to take that as a good sign.

“Can you show me breaking the curse?”

The image blurred. It showed Haruka’s hand again, this time reaching for Michiru’s claw. She gave a start at the contact, looked afraid, but then light washed over her. As it faded Haruka saw she’d changed to what she must have looked like before, soft and gentle where she had been angular and cold.

“What are you doing?” Came a hiss from the shadows.

“It showed me breaking the curse!” Haruka set the mirror aside, ready to embrace Michiru. “I came to try, see, I thought maybe you needed to know it’s okay if you like women, and I don’t know if that’s right, but I’m going to do it!” Michiru still did not come forward into the moonlight. “I saw it, I just have to—“

“The mirror only shows you what you want to see.” Michiru’s voice was low. Fear shocked through Haruka’s bones, but she fought it down. “The events it shows will never come to pass.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” Haruka approached her slowly. She just had to take her claw in hand, and then… Her whole arm shook. “I just have to—“

Michiru rushed her as she had the first night, slamming her against the wall, one claw at her neck. “Do you think you know better than me? Do you think you are the first fool to think I could be something else?” Her claw wrapped around Haruka’s throat. “What, you saw a beautiful woman in the mirror,  and now you want her? You think I am something good, if only I did not scare you?”

She tossed Haruka to the floor.

“I will always scare you. It does not matter if I look like this or what you saw. I am not gentle and I am not kind. Those below me live on my mercy and I will not submit to anyone.” Michiru threw the mirror against the wall. It fell to the ground with a clatter, but did not so much as chip. “You will run, when you realize. I am not grateful for your efforts. I have loved and been loved and it does not matter.”

“But—“

“No.” Michiru struck the table aside. Haruka’s heart raced in her chest. “The people of the town turned against me because they knew what I was. I would not change for them or for love or for anything else. And I will not change for you.” She slithered back towards the door. “I have quite enjoyed your company, but I don’t wish to see you any longer. Keep out of my sight until you friend comes for you.”

Haruka lie on the floor, listening as she retreated. Panic gripped her too much to move. Panic, and pain.

“Oh Haruka,” came Usagi’s voice after a long while. “I told you not to come here.” She lifted Haruka gently, her cool touch easing the tender bruises before they fully formed.

“Have there been others like me?”

“Not many.” She pulled Haruka to lean against her body. It felt like a cloud. “You’ve done more than she expected. I don’t think any girl has tried this hard since she was human.”

“Can’t you tell me what you know?”

Usagi made a small, mournful hum. “Michiru thinks I’m stupid, and Mako tries not to, but she does too. But I can put things together pretty okay, so I know more than I’m supposed to.” She stroked Haruka’s hair with her fingers. “We were all pawns for her, to an extent. She’s genuinely fond of Mako and I, but we’re an anomaly. The townspeople, her suitors, everyone, she cared about only so far as what they could offer her. She wanted more than just a big house in a small town. And her family was so rich, she probably could have gotten it. But the town started to suspect she didn’t care about them, and times were changing. They elected a mayor, and he thought it would be strategic for Michiru to make a sign of goodwill. A marriage.” Usagi chuckled a little. “It’s strange the townspeople liked him, he was just as entitled as our lady. But she rejected him, very publically, and it was not wise to do so.”

“So he cursed her?’

“Oh no,” Usagi shook her head vigorously. “Don’t you know, curses are women’s work.”

“So then…” Haruka puzzled over it for a moment. “Who?”

“I pieced together the rest, so I’m missing details. But like I told you, I know all the places one might have a foray with a suitor in this house. And Michiru hand a small handful, all women.” Usagi tapped her fingers again the floor. “One had a brother, around Michiru’s age. I imagine she offered a marriage to him, to appease the town and so that they might stay together, lest MIchiru be driven out.”

“And Michiru turned her down?”

“Our lady would not think any common girl worth that sort of bargain, and she likely said as much.” Usagi sighed. “I want her to think you’re worth it. I don’t know if you can love her, but if she can love you… maybe it would be enough.”

“Will you be free, if she is?”

“I don’t know.” She became solid for a moment. Haruka felt comfort in the warmth of her skin. “I know, sometimes, that time has passed. I don’t know what’s left in the world for us. But I don’t want to stay here.” She faded again. “You can run away, if you want. I would, if I could.”

“I don’t think I could.” Haruka caught Usagi’s translucent hand in hers. “I don’t love her. I don’t know if I can. But sometimes, I kind of like her. And I like you. Someone should fight for you.”

Usagi squeezed her shoulders. “If anyone can fight for us, I think it’s you.”

[butchpardner]

1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 17, 22, 24, 25, 26, 30 !!

Finally answering this after probably a week in my inbox fuck

1. What does “butch” mean do you?

It means being and showing off who I am and who I want to be for myself, not because anyone expects it of me, and presenting and just existing? to be recognized, but mostly to make myself comfortable (and men uncomfortable lmao)

2. When was the first time you thought of yourself as butch?

I guess sometime like senior year in high school? But at that point I didn’t really grasp it? Like I knew the look and I was like “well I know I’m not a femme so.” but it’s fairly recently (within a year? 18 months?) that I’ve taken it more to heart as an identity I guess and not just like an aesthetic choice? Like this is who I want to be and who I am, not just a style or aesthetic choice (I have a lot of feelings and I dont quite know how to sort them out or if they even need sorting? ? ???)

3.What’s your favourite shirt?

(you already know which one!) The gray denim button down I take literally all my pictures in

5. Favourite boots/shoes?

My suede chukkas! Or the gray (silver?) ralph lauren zipper boots

6. What do you wear to dress up?

A button down, nice jeans or slacks and some boots (watch and big rings MANDATORY)

7. What do you wear when you’re lazing around?

Usually an undershirt or flannel with some jeans or sweatpants (depends just how lazy are we talking)

9. Opinion on snapbacks?

I feel like they make my head look weird but? I’ve been told otherwise?

12. Who are your favourite butch celebrities/writers?

i’m….uncultured and really can’t think of anyone off the top of my head….i feel so sad about not knowing more

14. Share a positive butch experience!

uh uh I can’t think of anything off the top of my head but just the day to day like being out and about and like. I know that they know. Like just being recognized. ESPECIALLY if I’m with a certain femme

Ah! And at the print shop! The woman who helped me had this very much like grew up in the 80s butch Look but now shes like 45 and had this really cool silver chain necklace and it’s just nice seeing older butches out and about

16.What is your favourite piece of butch media/media with a butch in it?

Books are media so and like who can name me a mainstream thing with actual canon butches in it like we’re so lacking

motherfucking

Stone Butch Blues

17. Do you experience dysphoria? If so, how do you cope?

mmm yeah in ways that I feel aren’t typical of a lot of butches (not that ive seen anyway but if im wrong hmu, lets talk dysphoria lmao) But a lot of times dealing with it is in clothes? Like I gotta break out my favorite look, something I catch a relfection of and I’m just like. Hell yeah

22. Aside from butch lesbian, do you identify as anything else? (Ex. stud, tomboy, stone)

Does baby butch/dyke count?

24. Boxers, briefs, or boxer briefs?

Boxer briefs!

25. What do you love about being butch?

I love! A lot of it! I love presenting the way I want and knowing that there are other people like me and people who like people like me and taking pride and being a big mean dyke and I love taking things that are “””for MEN””” and making them for ME! and rubbing my gay little butch hands all over everything

26. What do you dislike about being butch?

Dislike! Being grouped! With men!!!!!!!!!!

30. What makes you feel butch?

In public, seeing other butches and getting the Nod is like 11/10 very butch

But on another hand…there’s a cute little femme I know and they call me baby and i fuckiNG MELT into a puddle of butch feelings

[exalnotaxel]

Agua Bendita, AZ

Prior to the 2016 Election, Chris and I wrote a short speculative fiction for a competition. We were to imagine a reality in which Donald Trump wins the election, and well... he won. So now I’m posting it to see the accuracy of our prediction. I hope that it’s not entirely accurate, but only time (and your voices) will tell. 

Agua Bendita, AZ by Chris L Smith & Exal Iraheta

I find myself in an unintentional town built from scraps, and broken backs. Three years ago this was only tumbleweeds and rocks, but thanks to Combover, people found themselves forced to make shelter near this bust of a wall. Long story short, the wall started strong, support from both sides, but then people got pissed. The cost started to fuck everyone over, and after one year, construction stopped; and these people were left stranded in the shadow of the relics of a failed wall. Things really went to hell.

The motel where I’m staying is a little thing, closer to the border than I would like to be.

“This is it,” a middle-aged, woman with graying hair, says to me as she opens the door to the room. A twin bed sits in the middle, facing a three drawer dresser made of particleboard and duct tape. The walls are a bright orange.

“What brings you all the way out here?” she asks.

“I’m writing an article.”

She looks me up and down, “Big city?”

“Yeah. The biggest.”

“Humph,” she says.

“How long have you been here?” I ask her, ready to find the first leg of my story.

She gives me a smirk, hands me the keys and closes the door after her.

“Thanks,” I say, hoping not everyone in this town is as skittish around outsiders.

The small window on the other side of the room adorns a mustard yellow curtain, I can’t tell if the yellow is intentional or a result of years of filtering second hand smoke. As I push it aside I can see a fence enclosing what looks like a skeleton. The skin of the beast has been stripped away like a sunken ship, left to be consumed by the very dirt it was meant to divide.

After a couple of aspirins chased by a shot of tequila, I make my way into town to take a look around. There is a cluster of houses stacked on top of each other like coffins, a small convenience store at the corner, a dive diner, a liquor store; the necessities I suppose. Two kids kick around a brick like a soccer ball, wearing presumably, their father's steal toed boots. Behind them sits a blue-eyed, bald, old man - his shoulders broader than I could ever wish for.

“If you’re looking for a construction job, you’re a few months too late,” the old man says. “Not that you’d be any good in those.”

I look down at my black loafers, fully covered in dirt. I don’t know why, but this makes me feel a bit embarrassed.

“No sir, mister....” I walk up to him and extend my hand. He takes it, a firm grip, gives it a tug and lets go. “I’m here to interview some of the locals, get a sense of—”

“Another goddamn story huh?” The man spits into a Coke can. “Well, if you’re looking to talk to someone, you should pay a visit to Maria Soledad. She loves getting her name in print.”

I clumsily reach for my phone to write down her name, but keep fucking up my damn code. “Is she the forewoman?”

“Nah. She’s a butch dike who probably wanted  to be a goddamn movie star.” He points off to the east. “You’ll find her up there.”

I finally jot down her name. “Well what about you? Why did you come down?”

He spits again, some of the tobacco spit mixture catches the rim of the can.

“The same reason 300 other motherfuckers moved down here. A goddamn contract.”

I turn to leave. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“I ain’t give it to you.” He says with a satisfied smile.

The next day, I make my way down the fork at the end of the dirt road. I only have three days, three fucking days to come up with something. I figure, fine, I’ll talk to some folks, make a piece about desperate eccentric people. They have to be batshit crazy to stay in this town. Right?

A woman, probably around my age, beautiful tan skin, with obviously bleached blonde hair, waters a pathetic garden. She dunks a cracked plastic bucket into a 55 gallon water drum. Her small frame could easily be swallowed whole by the damn thing.

“Excuse me?” I say forcefully, making my voice friendlier, a little skill I acquired from my telemarketer days before being replaced by laptops.

“Oh my lord!” She says, keeping a steady foot on the ground. “You scared the bejesus out of me!”

Her voice is oddly comforting, maybe it’s the subtle hint of midwestern in her, but she reminds me of a relative, maybe my grandma.

“Not many people say ‘Excuse me?’ around here?” I say.

“Not unless they’re wrestling you over a glass of whisky,” she says, with a laugh.

I look behind her, to a small house with a stucco exterior which blends into the dirt and rocks that surround them.

“Lovely place,” I give a nod.

“Oh that? Ain’t it? Isn’t mine though, but thank you.”

“Oh.”

“I live over there, next to that tent park.”

Her sooty finger points towards a cream colored camper, probably ten years old.

“A camper huh? I’ve never been in one of those.”

She pauses and with a raised brow, “Aren’t you a little too young to be hitting on me?”

I can feel my face blush, but I’m sure my brown skin doesn’t show it. “Oh no, sorry. No, I was just trying to think of a compliment, but realized I didn’t have one about campers, because I’ve never been in one.”

She wipes her forehead and takes a deep breath. The dirt on her face leaves a dark mud streak.

A group of children run by, including the two boys from yesterday. They chase each other, tossing stones and rocks found by the wayside.

“Hey, if you little bastards don’t quit that I’m gonna sick Lenny and Carl on you!” she yells.

The kids freeze.

“That’s right, now get a move on.”

The eldest boy, probably around 12, gives her the finger as they run off. “Oh you little punk. Fuck you!” She gives it right back to him.

“Damn kids. I swear, parents get a whiff of money and suddenly you got desperate people, who don’t know what the hell a condom is, moving their illiterate asses down here.”

I take out my phone, and jot a few notes down. This gives her pause.

“Another reporter? Damn it. We’ve spoken to everyone about everything already,” she turns to leave.

“Wait, no, I mean, yes, I’m a reporter. I mean, my name is Travis,” I raise my hand in a weak wave. It makes me feel like a first grader. Now I remember, not grandma, teacher. “Look, I only have a couple of more days left here, and honestly I just need a few interviews, doing a sort of catch up piece, see where things are now, three years after Pumpkin-head in charge started this fiasco.”

“Where you from? Fox News, CNN... The Daily Show?”

“No, I can’t stand cameras.”

“Oh not the Huffington—”

“Look, this is just a small post, not even a blog worthy length. My editor thought it would be a great fucking idea, and well—”

“What the heck did you do? It must have been really terrible to be sent out here on assignment. In the three years since we scraped together this little town, they have not once sent out a reporter of quality. Not once. Each and every one of them did something stupid to get sent down here. Can you believe that? Your kind uses our town as punishment.”

I stand speechless. I could tell her about how I got super high at our office Christmas party. I could tell her how I got so drunk the night before the last presidential debates, I got kicked out and arrested for disorderly conduct. I could tell her, but what’s the fucking point?

“My name is Maria, I’m the one with a green thumb ‘round here.”  I look over to her sparse garden. “You try growing tomatoes in the g-damn desert,” she says, before motioning me to follow her.

She swings open the small door, followed by a gust of hot air.

“The space is small, but I make do,” Maria says, tossing some of her torn jeans aside from the entrance. “Excuse my mess, I wasn’t expecting company.”

I get an odd feeling in my head, as if my brain is working extra hard to take note of everything inside. The way she drapes her small window with a red scarf, giving the room a magenta hue. Her stacks of books, teetering on the edge of a two person kitchen table, only inches away from the sink that could probably hold three dishes.

“Do you mind if I record our conversation?” I say, trying my best to hide my judgement, but I’m sure it’s of no use.

“I don’t mind,” she says.

“So, before, you mentioned Lenny and Carl, are those other residents?”

She gives a boisterous laugh that catches me off guard. For a moment there, I question her sanity.

“Oh, no no,” she says, shaking her head. “Those are Simpsons characters, but I may have told those little turds they were escaped prisoners from the construction groups they brought down here from Buckeye, talk about story, that’s what you all should be writing about.”

“Prisoners? Working on the wall?”

“Yes!” She reaches into her single serve fridge and hands me beer. “Imagine, 300 of us, leaving lives behind to come down to this pile of shit to get some work, and what do we find? A chain gang, already here. I only saw two months of pay the entire year we built.”

The beer sizzles, some of the foam falls on my hand. I unthinkingly suck it up. “How long did that last?”

“Up until we started to fight back. I don’t care if the Mexicans or the 99 percent were paying for this damn wall, I just wanted to be able to pay for my kid’s lunches. They owe me about thirty-eight thousand, am I ever going to see that? Probably not.”

I look over to a small counter protruding off the sink. There are piles of documents, receipts, trash, but in the midst of all that, perfectly centered, is a single frame of two little girls.

“Those your daughters?” I ask her.

She nods, “Cindy and Vicky.”

“Wait, I thought - the old man said you were a lesbian.”

“It is 2019 Mr. Travis, ‘LESBIANS’ can have children you know.”

“Sorry, that came out wrong. I meant to ask about your spouse. Where is she?”

Maria goes silent for a moment. She takes a long swing of her beer.

“Well, up until two years ago, she was my wife, but laws change I suppose. Afterwards it was just fights, disagreements, and bitterness. You know how these things go don’t you? What are you like 32, 33?”

“36,” I say, sipping on my beer, fighting the temptation to chug the whole thing, and have a second.

“36? Were you married? Wife? Assuming you’re straight.”

I can feel my body for some reason swaying. “I am.” I say with an odd quiver. “Was married for a year. Divorced now. She was from Texas, not that that matters.”

“Well, what happened?”

“I guess the same reasons I find myself researching a fluff story here,” I say, wondering where that honesty came from. She must have slipped something in my beer.

“Well, Mr. Travis, at least you had a choice in the matter. Carey and I, well, the fucking country decided we were over.”

Maria drinks the rest of her can, and effortlessly crushes it with her hands. “But what’s the use in dwelling on that. The way I see it, I’m stuck here. I could move somewhere I suppose, but every time I get the nerve too we get told that work is about to start up again. I dunno. I guess I don’t have anywhere to go back to.”

“How do you afford living here if they—”

“I knew our conversation would eventually get here. I’ll tell you what, Mr. Travis, the wall may not be very profitable but women have always found a way to make it at the expense of lonesome men.”

I want to ask the obvious question, but something holds me back. I drink to fill the silence.

“I’ve got a few more question for you, Mr. Travis,” she says, “How long has it been since you’ve felt the warmth of a woman?” Maria reaches over and takes the can out of my hand.

I begin to panic and stand. “I think this will be enough.”

“Wait, don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t enjoy fucking men.” Maria takes another swig. “This town isn’t the innocent, pathetic little place the country thinks it is.” She looks at her phone stowed away in a cupholder. “About that time, why don’t you go and take a look. Really look. You’ll see what I mean.”

I leave the little camper behind, and make my way back to my rental car. As I sit with my key in the ignition, I soak in Maria’s words. I look around. The boys from before continue their chase a little way down the path. Out of a little box house, a girl, probably only 15, walks out with her bike, I don’t know why but something tells me to follow her. She doesn’t ride far, maybe about 15 minutes down to the construction site. The road turns to concrete, some of the few pieces of concrete I’ve seen all day, it leads into what looks like a motel. I figure it’s housing built for the workers. The girl drops her bike out front, walks to the farthest door on the right, and knocks. A man in his 50s, jet black hair, opens the door. He waits for her with a big smile. His heavy hand grazes her little face. She walks in and the door shuts behind her.

Is this it?

I turn my car around, my heart racing. A part of myself that I have ignored for years suddenly erupts. This pit in my stomach filled with anger, disgust, the shit of the world, overflowing as I rush to a halt at Maria’s camper.

She stands at the door waiting for me, smoking a cigarette. “This ain’t the first place like this, Mr. Travis. Three years, shit reporters.” Maria sits down on the small steps that lead into her camper. “So, what would you like to talk about?”

[angelacamillesmith]

A Butch in the Barbershop

With my wedding fast approaching, I recently went on a motivated search for a local barber. I live in a predominantly Black town so, one would think, finding a barber would be a simple task. However, in the five years that I’ve lived in my town, I had yet to settle on a barber after trying at least four, at different shops. One gave me an excellent cut the first time but, was slapdash the second. Maybe I didn’t tip well enough? Or, maybe he doesn’t prefer to cut women’s hair….likely a combination of the two. But, I tipped what the average man tips, per my brother, about 5 bucks.

Still, I learned that, even in the barbershop, women are sometimes charged a sex/gender premium. Some shops are so brazen as to post the cost-differential for women without explanation on their price boards. I think the logic goes something like this, the average woman will spend hundreds of dollars in one shot on her hair so, we can safely charge women a higher rate and they won’t bat an eye. My rebuttal of that theory, of course, is that I’m not such a woman and I want to be charged the same rate a man would be charged for the same service.

Barbershops are men’s spaces and Black barbershops can function as a type of retreat  and fraternal space; men-only spaces where men can be themselves outside of the presence and earshot of women. There are many movies and television shows that depict Black barbershop culture. We women will likely never personally experience unfiltered barbershop culture even when we receive routine services there. A recent such program, produced by LeBron James, The Shop, provides a kind of curated-for-television birds eye view of the type of conversations that happen in the barbershop about sports, politics, etc.

The fact remains that when we women enter a barbershop, we change its culture by our presence. Usually, conversations that would be considered indelicate in mixed company are curtailed. Yet, I’ve also experienced the opposite on several occasions when the men in the barbershop made it a point not to alter their language, conversation, or behavior in my presence. In these spaces, I believe it was being communicated to me that women weren’t welcome. In one such space, I was assigned to a novice barber who took over an hour to do a cut that should have taken 15-20 minutes inclusive of cutting me while lining me up.  Message received!

In anticipation of my wedding, I received a lead on a barber who turned out to be right around the corner from my house. I decided to go and give him a trial. I opted to go a week ahead of time in case I didn’t like the cut I received so I would have time for a do-over if necessary. I entered the shop on a Saturday morning, (This is typically a no-no for me because Saturday mornings are peak testosterone time in barber shops.  But, it couldn’t be helped.). I asked for Amir, the barber to whom I’d been referred and understood to be the owner. Sure enough, there he was at the first chair (I had picked up over the years that the first chair in a barbershop is reserved for the top dog.) doing a cut. I asked Amir if he had room for a walk-in that day and he said he didn’t because he had a lot of appointments. He did, however, redirect me to another barber, Rock.

Rock had to be summoned from the back and, when they (I don’t know their affirming pronouns.) emerged, I was filled with a combination of relief and also a familiar disappointment. I thought, “Oh, though your shop is promoting itself as unisex, what you mean is that you have one barber who cuts all of the women who come in?!”  It seemed obvious to me that Rock, whose gender identity I don’t know, had been assigned female at birth. Rock, who looks to be in their fifties or older, is an old-school butch, a large, imposing figure with long dreads in need of a condition and re-twist and knuckles as unmoisturized as a shade-tree mechanic and an excellent barber.

Rock was an intimidating presence. In my self-education process on the trans experience, I have been reading first-person accounts of trans-identified folx. Right now, I’m finishing up Stone Butch Blues, a classic, by the late Leslie Feinberg one of the first, if not the first, book chronicling Lesbian Butch identity, culture and experience. I have no way of knowing Rock’s sexual orientation since one can be straight, gay or neither and be butch. Rock is a stone butch.  I am certainly masculine of center, I maintain certain feminine sensibilities and affectations and don’t identify as butch. Still, I identify with Rock because we are part of the same gender non-conforming tribe and are both flouting convention by occupying men’s space though my occupation is short-term and periodic while Rock’s is permanent. Rock mentioned that they had been cutting in that shop for twelve years. I wondered what the cost of that experience had been for Rock over the years.

I’ve been to the shop twice now and I notice that Rock is accepted in the space. The first time Rock cut my hair, they were engaged in friendly banter with several of the men, barbers and patrons, about sports. It was clear that Rock is a sports enthusiast as are many of the men in the shop. Rock gave as good as they got and skirted the edges of a vulgarity of language that I typically only associate with men. Rock kept censoring themself at points in the conversation in just the same courtly way men do when they want to give respect to a lady in the room.  Rock is clearly one of the guys. But, the second time I went, perhaps because Rock was in a different mood that day, maybe there was bad blood between Rock and this particular barber, or this other barber was showing off for my sake. Who knows? But, the conversation got tense quickly when a barber made a joke about Rock’s weight/size. Rock, in a most menacing tone, told the guy to get away from their chair even threatening to move him if he didn’t go away. He hesitated momentarily, but then he moved away. In that moment, I was afraid for that guy. It was very clear that Rock could and would handle him and the situation and he also knew it. Rock had to be willing to be as violent and aggressive as it took to be respected in that space. I wonder if Rock has ever had to physically prove that willingness. And, just maybe I’ll find out at some future visit to the barber shop.

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

NOTE: I was eating garlic bread while writing this first scene. Truefans will know.

Scott and Ramona made good on their offer to help me clean up Super Simon's super-mess. Unfortunately, they only stuck around long enough to do that because they had to move on to find the next piece of the Gideonflux. Or the next Gideonflux? I wasn't clear on whether or not that was the name of each thingy or the whole of them once collected. Either way, we hugged and said our goodbyes once the slime was gone.

"Look me up sometime," Ramona whispered into my ear as we hugged. "If you're ever on Alpha Centauri, or in the States. I tend to hang out there mostly."

"Probably not happening. I've had enough excitement for a while."

"Totally understandable." Then she moved on to hug Knives while I turned to Scott.

"So… um, do you still play?"

He shrugged and gave a quiet laugh. "We both know I suck. And not just at the bass guitar." It was quiet for a moment. "I was expecting you to say 'yeah, you do, Scott'."

"Mm. Just didn't feel like saying it. You helped me clean up in here, and were pretty cool about me coming out just now. Helps a lot."

"Did you come out? Oh… yeah, I guess so. I mean, maybe living with Wallace kind of did that thing."

"That thing?"

"You know, the thing where you aren't surprised by certain kinds of stuff anymore."

"Desensitised you?"

"That's it."

Nodding a little, I glanced over at where Ramona and Knives were chattering away like old friends, even though they had once been bitter rivals for Scott's affections. "Shit changes. Easier to just roll with it."

"Kind of my motto lately, too," he admitted with a little chuckle. Then he frowned. "Kim?"

"Yes?"

"The bald look sucks, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

"Right. I dunno, I got a little of it chopped off with a buzz saw from a sub-boss, and I kept trying to even it out, and Ramona walked in to see I already completely shaved it off. So I've been trying to rock it, but… yeah, she agrees with you. I'll grow it back out."

"You'll survive the stubbly stage," I snorted. "Anyway… uh, take it easy, Pilgrim."

"You too, Princess Pine."

"Shut the fuck up and go."

Once they got back to the subspace pipe in the ceiling, they waved over their shoulders, and Knives and I waved back. Then Ramona took his hand and they jumped upward into the pipe and out of our lives forever. Or, y'know… for a long time, anyway. The pipe was gone, too; just vanished into the mystic.

After staring after them for a long moment, Knives turned to beam up at me. "You're in loooove with me, huh?"

"You can shut the fuck up and go, too," I grumbled, which didn't affect her in the slightest. She only leaned up and kissed my cheek, which made me roll my eyes but I still couldn't help the little smile on my face. "Bleh. Should we try to do any more repairs in here? Or what?"

"Dunno. But you look really cute in that dress. Kinda distracting."

"Huh?" Glancing down, I saw that the 'princess dress' my other self had been wearing was still on me. "Oh, great. I look like a bridal reject."

"You look beautiful. Like… honestly, when we get back, I really want to see you in stuff like this more often. But only if you want to!" she added as her smile vanished, worried I would be mad. But I wasn't; just surprised.

"Really? You like me all girled up? I figured it would help if I was the more 'butch' of the two of us. Like… I know you act like it isn't important, but it is. To both of us. You're my girlfriend, and everyone else is gonna see you that way."

A little shrug of one shoulder tried to say that she didn't mind, but her smile gave away how pleased she was that I had thought about that. "Nah. I like who I am and how I look; pretty confident in that. But I would probably dress extra girly if you were extra girly, so we could be lipstick lesbians together."

"Aww," I said with a little snort, and we both giggled. "Is it weird that I find that idea cute? It's cute, right?"

"Totally cute! And we can be super butch one day, and all the days between we can just… be us."

"Yeah," I whispered as I picked up my spear and we headed for the entrance. Almost more to myself than to her. "Us."

                                                ~ o ~

To summarise, I walked her all the way back to the Belly Button Portal and let her get sucked back up and out. Then I was kind of by myself and not sure of what to do. This was different from the dream-slash-flashback; now I was just kinda hanging out in my own stomach. How did I get myself into these messes?

But then I felt myself being called upward. It was kind of rude, my feet were sucked into the air first and I had to hold my dress down to keep it from falling up around my head — even though there was nobody around to see my underwear anyway. Then I was leaving my inner plane behind…

When I 'woke up' an instant later, I was lying on the sofa in the same curled-up position that I was in when I turned to stone. Everybody was gathered around who had been there when I was smacked with the glove, though a couple of them were seated or in different positions. Steph had changed into a different shirt at some point. Wallace was taking off a blue fingerless glove and tossing it casually on the coffee table, as if he did this kind of thing every day. When she noticed my eyes were open, Knives grinned at me and helped me sit up.

"Hey," she said in a gentle voice.

"How do you feel?" Stephen asked, brow furrowed as he felt my forehead. "Like, feverish or anything?"

"I'm fine, you jerk," I sighed as I slapped his hand away. "And that's for smacking me while I was a statue."

Clearly anxious, Steph crouched down next to me. "You okay? I mean… seriously, are you?"

"Yeah. Just really… man, that was weird. But I'm gonna be just fine now. Promise." My eyes found those of my girlfriend, my 'prince' and my ninja saviour, and drew her in close to me. "Pleased as punch."

The minute our lips met, in front of God and everybody, Wallace let out a long sigh. "Well, this is my cue to exit. Glad to lend my chi and expertise but I'm not much for girl-on-girl. Or girl-on-anything."

"Thanks for the boosts," Knives giggled as she turned back, though she was still half-lying on top of me. I didn't mind at all. "Helped with the sub-boss and final boss a lot. You wanna hang out sometime?"

"Why? You know any more boys with glasses?" Then he let out a tsk of mild annoyance. "Oh yeah, crap… steady boyfriend. I'm off the market; looking, no touching. Which reminds me that Goodhandy's awaits, so-"

"I meant to just like, chill and have fun together? Unless you don't wanna… it's fine."

"We're hanging out," I told Wallace in a stern, no-arguments-allowed tone. I could tell Knives was already doubting herself from his spurning of the offer, and that wasn't allowed.

"Fine, so we'll hang out," he grumbled with a roll of his eyes as he got to the front door. "Anywhere with a liquor licence. Goodnight, kids." And with that, he shuffled out.

"Yeah, I should go, too," Stephen said as he stood. "But seriously, I'm really glad you're okay, Kim. We should, uh, jam together sometime; I know we have a regular drummer but you're every bit as good-"

"Don't stroke my ego, Stills. But… yeah, could be fun."

Knives giggled as she hugged me a little before jumping to her feet excitedly. "Maybe we could get Sex Bob-omb back together! I mean, we just saw Scott, and the rest of the band's right here! Even Neil!"

"U-uh, yeah," Neil said, glancing nervously at Knives. I could tell he still felt really awkward about how things ended. Good. Fucking needed to own up to what he did.

In fact, I decided that needed to happen right away. Without another word, I hooked a hand around his upper arm and started dragging him to the kitchen. "Thanks for hauling me back here," I said as we entered.

"Sure, yeah. I couldn't just leave you out-"

"Okay, listen," I hissed once we were around the corner. "You're a nice kid, salt of the earth, blah blah blah. But I think you owe Knives an apology for how you ended things."

Caught off guard, he cleared his throat and looked away. "W-why? You're with her now, and like… that works out. For you two, I mean."

"If you're talking about her junk, that's not important to me. Maybe it'll 'work out', maybe not. But you kind of made her feel like crap about that. I know it's not the only reason you broke up, but it's part of it and you should maybe own up to how shitty you handled things."

"Oh. Well…" Swallowing hard, he looked down at the floor. "Yeah, I was really, uh, surprised. But I still thought she was great! Just, like… I couldn't handle it. Made me feel really uncomfortable, and like…" His voice got quieter, and I could tell this wasn't the easiest thing in the world for him. Especially Neil, who wasn't used to talking a lot. "I didn't want to hurt her any worse so I broke it off and tried to, uh, let her down easy. Besides, I knew she was still into Scott, and kind of crushing on Stephen. I was just kinda… there."

"What did you say? I mean, the way you 'let her down easy' is just as important as the fact that you tried. Which yeah, I guess is pretty decent."

"Just that, um, I didn't think I could handle it if we ever went past kissing. But that I hoped she found a guy who's less, uh… weird about that. I dunno, she's just really special, and I felt dumb for being hung up on… on pants stuff."

Even though 'pants stuff' was a ridiculous and hilarious way to phrase it, I couldn't help sympathising. Maybe I got over it where Neil couldn't, but we both had that moment of surprise, and the discomfort right after. But the average dude tends to have that latent homophobia thing going on, that even if they kind of grow and learn they still feel weird about anything intimate involving another guy. Or in this case, another person who happens to have a dick. Guess it wasn't fair to punish Neil too much for being average.

"Alright, I get you. But you should still apologise. Not in public, but like… I think she'd really feel better if you just said something. Knives is definitely special, and very sensitive, and deserves the best." After a brief pause, I added, "Maybe I'm a little biased, but you know I'm right."

Nodding, he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Yeah. Just wasn't something I could handle when she told me, but like… it's not about who she is. At all! Because she's awesome. I'm really glad you two are like, so close now."

"Dating. You can say we're dating."

"Yeah, that. Girlfriends or whatever. It's cool."

Rolling my eyes, I went back into the living room. I guess "it's cool" was the best I could expect and it was a positive sign. I saw Knives look up, then past my shoulder at Neil, and then she patted me on the hip and smiled at me as she walked past; I guess he planned to do it literally right away.

"Wow," Steph sighed as she slumped down on the couch. I hit it with her, and Stephen on my other side.

"Yeah. Wow."

"What was it like in there? I mean… you kind of act like you could tell. That whole glove thing."

"You at least knew what we were doing when you were a statue," Stephen said in a grumbling voice.

"Yeah. Uh… the statue thing was more annoying than anything, but I'd already been through something like that with the glove before. The rest…"

Where the fuck do you even start with a story like this?

                                                ~ o ~

About two hours later, Knives and I excused ourselves from the Nordegraf ancestral home and went back toward my place. It was pretty late — well actually, early. The thing took all night. Felt pretty bad for all our friends, but at least it made sense of why Steph had changed her shirt. Both of us called off work as we walked, knowing we had been through way too much crap to bother with focusing on annoying customers for one day.

"Can't believe I have this whole other plane of existence in my ribcage," I muttered as we walked. "There's a John Mayer joke in there somewhere."

"What?" Knives laughed. I didn't bother to explain, and she didn't bother to ask again. "Anyway, I'm just glad we did it. You were stone for so long…"

"Yeah. Well, I guess that won't be happening anymore."

"Really? So… you think taking care of Super Simon fixed it?"

With a long sigh, I stared up at the sky as we walked. Putting one thought in front of the other. "He wasn't the real problem. It was me. Gideon took advantage of it, but the… Fluxy thing wouldn't have worked if I wasn't already broken inside. But yeah, I'm not going to be 'rocking out' anymore."

My shy smile lingered for a few seconds. Nervous that the joke was too stupid. This time, Knives definitely caught the pun and groaned, bumped her hip into mine as we walked. And I laughed. I really laughed… it felt weird and wrong, but I told myself not to worry about that.

"I like that."

"What, shitty puns?"

"No. You laughing. It's a great laugh."

"I sound like a coughing parrot."

"Nah," she giggled, lacing her fingers through mine and pulling me over to kiss my cheek. "Just because I can tell you're out of practice doesn't mean I can't hear how beautiful it's gonna be when you figure out I'm not gonna make fun of you for laughing."

God, why did my cheeks have to be so hot? "Y-yeah. Um… I guess I could blame Princess Pine for that."

"What do you mean?"

"The part of me that we set free. I mean… it's a bunch of metaphorical bullshit, but with our lives as fucked up as they are…" Sighing, I came to a stop, leaning my back against a telephone pole. "She was the real me, yeah. I guess that's true. Thing is, the other me was the real me, too. A NegaKim that I let take control because Princess Pine couldn't handle how much pain she was in after… Scott. But they weren't really that different from each other, so instead of extremes like 'black and white' or 'hot and cold', it's more like… 'mildly warm and slightly chilly'. NegaKim was stronger in some ways, and I needed her to help me stay alive. Problem was, she's not very good at taking the steps to heal, so I kinda got stuck in this limbo. Not getting worse, but not getting better, either."

"Ohhh," was all she breathed. But she was listening with rapt attention, rocking back and forth on her boots as I babbled. "Then you made the cage yourself?"

"Maybe. Probably a combination of me and the Gideonflux. Like, that I gave it the power to really lock down my lighter side, or whatever. Like I said, metaphorical shit. But now that she's out, it's… not as hard to get closer to you."

Her body curled around mine, and I felt a little flutter. Call me a closet case if you want, but it still felt crazy being all affectionate with her in public. Now I was willing to let it happen, though. Princess Pine was part of me again and she gave me a different kind of power.

The power of love. It's a curious thing.

"NegaKim was actually doing pretty good at that before, y'know. I never felt like you were being mean just to be mean. Only that you were having trouble opening up."

"Bet you didn't suspect it was a fragment of Ramona's ex to blame," I snorted, and she laughed as she nuzzled my collarbone. "Jesus, what a crazy night."

After a moment's indecision, Knives took a step back, pulling my hands a little to get me to stand up. Then she held them out for a second before dropping them, and I kept them in that position with my eyebrows raising. After a slight crouch, she hopped up into my arms.

"HNGG! What are you doing?!"

"Letting you carry me home," she tittered, arms wrapping tightly around my neck as I threatened to buckle under her.

"Thought I was supposed to be the princess and you the prince. Gender-nonspecific prince," I added hastily. Didn't seem to have bothered her in the slightest, if the kiss to my nose was any indicator.

"We're whatever we want to be. C'mon, let's go!"

God, she felt so good. Didn't have the heart to drop her, even if my back wasn't thrilled with hauling her all the way back to my place. Just didn't want to let her go.

                                                 To Be Concluded…