#because i can find stuff about being a stone butch lesbian but if i am bi.... i have literally never seen anything about being stone

[archeronfilm]

The Fifth Element (1997)

"I don't care, he should have been a butch lesbian."

In case you don't want spoilers, or to hear my long verbose in-detail thoughts on this movie, here's the short and sweet version:

The Fifth Element is raunchy, corny, and campy in all the right ways, and some of the wrong ones. It's far from a perfect movie, but I really enjoyed watching and rewatching it, and I would recommend it! I guess um, 4/5 stars, maybe.

Okay, now let's get serious. I saw the first 15 minutes of this movie while visiting my mother, found it so intriguing that I watched it with a friend, and then watched it again to write this review. Let's get into the meat of it. Spoilers for a 30 year old movie ahead.

Word Count: 6,082

Okay, The Fifth Element (1997), dir. Luc Besson, is a sci-fi comedy starring such greats as Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman, who I've been in love with since I watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1990).

We open in Egypt in 1914, in a scene I can only describe as "Mummy-esque." Seriously, this scene came on in my mother's living room and I thought we were watching a yet unseen installation of The Mummy or Indiana Jones. It contains, among other things, an incredibly hammy and not-at-all-subtle dump of exposition. They go out of their way to gravitate back to this wall of runes several times, to make sure you know as much background lore as possible. A later scene renders this odd choice kind of unnecessary, but I'll concede its existence for one key reason-- the Mondoshawan.

The Mondoshawan are the good-guy aliens in this movie, though they're only featured on screen two times, one of them being this scene. Their space ship looms awesomely over this strange Egyptian exposition-temple, and they are a star example of one of the best parts of this movie.

All the effects, or at least as many of them as possible, are practical. Of course, it's a movie made in the 90's, so they would be. But the beautifully clunky and real toddling of these men in alien costumes was a dead-ringer for New Who, and it was incredibly endearing to me. I am a major believer in the power and merit of practical effects and the tragedy of computer generation. And this movie is *swimming* in practical effects. It's a delight.

I will say there's this bit where the leader Mondoshawan is toddling towards this very slowly closing stone door and he doesn't make it through because his very slow waddling is somehow slower than the door is, and I think it was supposed to be semi-serious but I laughed at it. It was just a little ridiculous.

The back half of this first scene feels kind of oddly paced, like it's rushed, which is odd to me considering the scene didn't hold back on dumping as much stuff on me as possible just a few minutes ago. Very strange scene, seems to only have one purpose, which I'll get back to later.

So, flash forward 30 years to something dramatically different in aesthetic and vibe, of course. We're in space. We're gritty, we're militaristic, of course. There's an evil fucking orb of fire flying towards the Earth at top speed. Things aren't looking great.

The president, a man with eyes of a frightening shade, is black! This is not plot relevant, but I find the tendency of movies from this period to feature black presidents far before Obama's term to be really interesting. Is this social commentary? A thoughtful statement about how fantastical the idea of a black man in office is to the average American? I will never know. I really like this character, he's a fun guy. He has more personality than most president characters do, probably due to him being on an awesome spaceship with a team of nodding yes-men in a delightfully Star Trek-esque uniform. I like him a lot. He's my boy.

This is the same scene where we get introduced to Vito Cornelius, a priest who appears to be Catholic because he does the sign of the cross later in the movie, even though I definitely assumed he was some weird member of the church of the Fifth Element or something.

Cornelius is here to suggest that the ball of fire is sentient and evil, and that the president shouldn't shoot it with missiles, because it's so sentient and evil that it'll get even sentienter and eviler. Of course, the president disregards this warning, because that's what movie presidents do to random old men in robes.

From this blunder comes one of the many incredibly hard lines in this movie. Where Mr. President tells Staedert, his military commander, "I have a doubt." and Staedert replies "I don't, Mister President" and then presses the fire button on the huge gigantic missiles. It's awesome, only slightly undercut by the fact that it doesn't work and Staedert and his crew get fucking obliterated right after. By the evil sentient ball which shoots out a flare of flames that has an evil spooky skull in it. That's not a joke at all, that seriously happens in this scene. I laughed.

Now we smash cut to Bruce Willis. He's Korben Dallas, this sort of gritty ex-military guy with a very cute cat. I love this cat. She is an adorable, slightly cross eyed white longhair. It's honestly a tragedy and a waste that she was only in like two scenes. She should have been ever-present, fitted with Air Bud esque mouth animation so she could act as Bruce Willis' voice of reason throughout the film.

Korben Dallas is trying to quit smoking. He's a cab driver who's dogshit at driving his cab and is mere seconds away from losing his license. He is, and I quote, "Still stuck on that two-timing slut." He wants a perfect woman. There are about two Chekov's guns in that last block of text.

He opens his first scene with us in what I can only describe as the sluttiest most hot and sweaty chest binder I've ever seen. And a pair of tight belted leather boots that it really seems like he fell asleep wearing.

And then he gets mugged by a guy, presumably so they can show us how much he knows about guns, and that he has been mugged enough that he now has a secret shelf that is just completely full of guns. Hilarious. I love this bit. It's not even relevant, I just loved it.

Okay so the evil sentient ball of fire. We didn't forget about that. This scene is one that confused me really badly during my rewatch. Here, Cornelius explains in full detail and in much less vague terms than before what the Fifth Element does and why they need it to save Earth from this evil ball of fire. This scene renders most of the in-narrative purpose of the first scene moot. The only reason it now exists (other than some background stuff that could probably have been introduced in a less odd way) is to address a more meta issue, which I'll get to later. But while I was watching it, I couldn't help but think "Well... then what the hell were we doing in the desert with Luke Perry?"

In this scene, we get to see the Mondoshawans again for the final time, so we can introduce the bad guy aliens, the Mangalores. They jack the stones (the elements) from the Mondoshawan ship and blow them up.

I thought this scene was supposed to set up the stereotypical "military incompetent" idea that's often present in this type of sci fi, but the president honestly makes mostly good decisions that don't make him feel like a bumbling idiot once through the entire movie. Honestly, he's kind of cool. I like him.

Okay, now that the Mangalores have been tragically exploded, we get the vehicle towards one of our main characters. Using a saved body part from the Mangalores and some utterly and delighfully made up genetic scienceology, we recreated the perfect genes of some alien into... a skinny white girl with the orangest hair I've ever seen. This scene features one of the only costuming choices in the movie that I truly hate. Leeloo's weird strap undies (and subsequent inability to wear normal pants, but mostly these strap undies?). I just hate it. Why is it here. It's not even that sexy looking. She looks like a ham in an asylum.

The set design in this movie is also delightfully Whovian and Star-Trek-ish. Tinfoil walls, lava lamp type sensibilities. The costumes are camp the set is camp, everything is camp. It's an absolute whale. The costumes the policemen wear while chasing runaway Leeloo are just hilarious. Many fantastic choices made all around, except for those fucking weird underpants.

Some of the sci-fi concepts in this movie FEEL overplayed and hammed up, and then I remember that it was released when a lot of this stuff was new and in-vogue, and it becomes an interesting exercise in perspective. Maybe they were pioneers, what do I know? I'm having an absolute ball.

Okay, so Leeloo falls directly through the roof of Korben Dallas' cab, and before you say anything, I do have many choice words throughout this recap/review about the infamous trope borne of this movie, "Born Sexy Yesterday," and I am aware of its existence. These opinions are sprinkled throughout alongside my others.

So Bruce Willis seems to be a big fan of this strange woman who, especially in this scene, acts very childlike. Korben's interest doesn't really read as creepy in this scene, until later when he randomly assaults her. You know, like a creep would do. I digress.

Leeloo knows how to read Roman lettering, and while I understand this choice in this scene, I do think it doesn't make sense and kills a little bit of world building. Whatever. Language guy complaining about language stuff.

Speaking of world building, there are a lot of worldbuilding things conveyed visually and through dialog in this movie that arent ham-fisted exposition vomit, and I am very fond of them. The hitch inside the rear door of Dallas' cab, saying Leeloo "doesn't have a file," the Fog? That is never explained? This world has some suggestion of richness and intrigue that I love to see from sci-fi. They waste no time painting "THIS IS THE POINT" with big red letters, because it's just setdressing, and I think that ultimately makes these details really sing.

I love the dialog and energy in the high speed chase scene, the vertical train, the Fog??? The way this movie doesn't need to explain itself. Until it does explain itself. Blatantly. And then I get sad.

In a lot of ways, I think this movie's actual plot is the least interesting part of it. More on this later.

It also *really* seems like this movie was sponsored by McDonald's.

A nearly unconscious Leeloo begs Korben Dallas to take her to Cornelius, before passing out with such cartoonish vigor that I originally thought she was kidding.

So Korben takes Leeloo to Cornelius' apartment, getting originally turned away for being mistaken for newlyweds (barf). Instead of knocking again, he just kicks down the door. Cornelius realizes due to a tattoo on her inner wrist that she's the Fifth Element (!) and passes out. Korben places her on the couch.

Now, I don't really understand why Korben Dallas chooses to sexually assault Leeloo by kissing her while she's unconscious in this scene. It not only feels gross, it also feels kind of unprecedented. They've met once, had approximately the amount of chemistry you'd expect, and then she passed out. Maybe in the 90's this felt spontaneous and romantic, but to me it just feels like he did it for no reason. I wish she had actually shot him. Thankfully, her outburst of rage at this momentarily makes her feel a little less like a literal grade-schooler, a much needed respite.

Milla Jovovich does what I think is a pretty good job at keeping her pronunciation of the divine language consistent throughout the scenes where she speaks it. She's Ukranian-American, but I have no idea if she's bilingual or had an accent coach or something. Either way, well done Ms. Jovovich!

Anyway, Cornelius walks in having suddenly changed into these silly ass robes, a great sight gag, and kicks Korben out of the room, but not before he reveals that the words that Leeloo yelled at Korben meant "never without my permission," which really made me wish she had shot him *twice*.

The scene where Korben talks to his friend, Finger, about Leeloo was clearly supposed to be romantic, I'm sure. It actually makes him look like a freak. I hated him for much of this movie.

Now, Back to the Mangalores. The Mangalores are a warrior race who have been hired by the big evil of this movie-- Gary Oldman. For some reason, they decided to make him southern. Not that I'm really complaining, but characters in this movie seem to have accents for no reason, and I really love it.

I love Gary Oldman in this movie. His character, Zorg, is fitted with one of the most ridiculous wardrobes of the entire cast. He has this odd plastic cap on his head, a flaccid mohawk, and the filthiest facial hair possible (a soul patch). He is fucking awesome. I love Zorg.

Spliced between parts of this arms deal, we learn that the stones aren't in the case. Leeloo tells Cornelius that in case they were stolen, the stones were given to someone trusted by the Mondoshawans, but not before changing clothes in front of him and his apprentice. I swear, she does this like three times in this movie.

The cut back to Leeloo in this scene right after Zorg realizes the box is empty is really well done. Effective, funny, punchy. She laughs like a freak, it's great.

There's a bit of dialog Zorg has with his right hand man right after this failed arms deal where he talks about his philosophy around warriors and why he prefers killers. I love this bit. The way he just coldly leaves them with a bomb built into his holy-overkill-gun is hard as shit, and it gives us a nice insight into our villain in the first scene he's in. I like it. I like Zorg.

Speaking of Zorg, we get a proper introduction to him just after. Here is one of the most interesting scenes in this film, where we get some insight about Zorg and Cornelius' respective opinions on life and death.

The interesting thing about this scene is that I kind of agree with Zorg, his saying that death exists to create life for the living, ostensibly feeding the cycle of life and progress. Regardless, he is painted as stupid when Cornelius has to rescue him from choking on a cherry.

And why the hell would you ever put a whole cherry in a glass of water? You're basically asking to choke to death. And Cornelius has a point, why don't you, a guy who has a special button to unearth his bizarre elephantine freak creature from the secret drawer in your desk, have a special robot to smack you on the back when you're choking? *Especially* when you do dumb shit like putting whole pit-in cherries in your glasses of water? Answer me that, Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg.

Actually, I don't know how this bit is supposed to disprove Zorg's point. All it really proves is that people need each other sometimes, which has nothing to do with what Zorg was actually saying to Cornelius here. Now, we could argue that it goes against the way that he executes this philosophy, which is true, being that he is a weird freaky villain who has henchmen, but I don't want to argue that. Because the fact that they have this strange sum-zero philosophical argument where they're ostensibly not even talking to each other is way funnier.

Right after this there's a bit where he sends his right hand man to literally bug the space-oval office. As in, it's a cockroach with a little camera and microphone on it. This bit is super funny. No thematic relevance, I just loved watching the president fucking cream the roach with his shoe while Zorg's henchman writhed in pain from the mic feedback.

The next important scene, by which I mean the next scene, starts with a healthy serving of "Sci-Fi setting that is weird about Asian people." Get behind me, Mr. Kim, this movie doesn't respect you enough.

Anyway, Korben's hilariously young adult-sounding mother calls him on the phone to bitch at him insanely about how he never calls and gives us a key piece of information-- Korben has won an all expenses paid trip to Fhloston Paradise! This coincidentally is where Leeloo told Cornelius the person with the stones was. This contest was actually alluded to on Korben's television in his first scene as well. This movie is very, *very* good at setup-payoff. Lots of domino situations.

Korben professional-improvs his way out of a police confrontation (organized by Zorg) just to get walloped over the head by Cornelius, who intends to steal his tickets so he and Leeloo can save planet Earth. In the process, he also puts his former superior officer in a freezer. Everyone wants Korben's sweet sweet bod in this scene. It's really something.

There's a couple of details about Korben's character and his relationship with Leeloo in this scene that jumped out at me, and I will be addressing them alongside the others of their ilk later in this review.

Cornelius hatches a plan to make his apprentice David impersonate Korben so they can get to Fhloston. It doesn't work, of course, because this movie chose to represent being knocked out the most realistically I've ever seen in a blockbuster flick. Korben is only down for the count for a second or two, which means he caught up with them and pulled some more startlingly effective improvisation out of his ass to get on this flight with Leeloo. It's really remarkable how good this ex military guy is at improv. Get his ass behind a mic. Get Korben on Whose Zorg is it Anyway, and pay me royalties.

I have a note here that just says "Everyone in this movie wears what I can only describe as rave wear. It's pretty hilarious." I have nothing to add. That's accurate.

So they're boarding this flight, right? And here's a real doozy. 1 out of 2 of my impassioned rants on one specific character in this movie who we meet in this scene. Ruby Rhod. Ruby ffffucking Rhod.

I actually *need* to talk about this guy. He is like the Prince of outer space. His scenes where he does his talk show are mesmerizing, zany, all over the place. I felt like I was having a nightmare. He's fascinating, fabulous, flamboyant, some other f word that I'm choosing not to say right now. His use of "green" to mean "good" is just perfect. Korben's completely dodgy and stiff responses are honestly the perfect contrast to Ruby in this scene. They're foils. This scene has captivated me. Ruby prowls around while tiger growling noises play in the background and flirts with this random stewardess ON AIR, inches from her face with the mic separating their mouths, promising to have sex with her later. ON AIR. It's implied that this is a normal thing that is acceptable on his show.

Ruby also has a whole gang of yes men, all of which are only slightly less flamboyantly homosexual than he is, but still feel more explicitly homosexual than Ruby, who has sex with as many women as he can possibly manage, which seems to be many, because every woman who mentions his name in this movie appears to cream their pants if he so much as breathes near them. That girl he flirted with? She moaned and collapsed on the floor right after.

The scene after the show, where Korben Dallas pins Ruby to the wall and threatens him, would have been beautifully compelling if Korben Dallas was a butch lesbian. This is the furthest thing from thoughtful character analysis, I just would have liked it more.

It's implied in the following scene that Ruby has only ever really wanted to fuck aliens before meeting this random stewardess, and we get to watch a very cleverly compiled set of scenes from wildly different locales that all fit together. Ruby having sex with this stewardess, the ship taking off, and Zorg blowing up his right hand man for failing him. They also use the Wilhelm scream in this scene, but given that the movie was made in the late 90's this is par for the course, and is really much more tasteful than usual.

For some reason, rasta(?) music is playing. There is a vaguely rastafarian man in this scene, but only for around 12 seconds. The use of regionally and culturally specific music in this movie that has no bearing on the actual space the characters inhabit is absolutely fascinating to me. There was some music earlier, playing in sci-fi New York, that I swear used a Raga scale. All the music is very good, good job Éric Serra.

After Zorg finishes exploding his frankly very competent right hand man, we get a scene where we discover that he's after the stones because some man he's working for, Mr. Shadow, wants them. Zorg is the main antagonist for most of this movie. Mr. Shadow never comes back again, and we do not need him. All he really serves to do is to make Zorg look more pathetic and give him an excuse to be more desperate when he can't get his hands on the stones, which, while fine, I think the movie could have gotten away with just having Zorg being a dramatic villain who freaks out when he doesn't get his way without this bit. Not egregious, but not really a necessary scene.

Okay, I have a big question. Why is Fhloston paradise Hawaii? It just *is* Hawaii. Did Hawaii escape to a separate planet at some point? Good for them, except that Fhloston is still a crazy tourist spot full of annoying white people, so not really. This is just Super Mega Hell 2 for Hawaiians. The song they sing in the first Fhloston scene is really good, though. Thanks, Éric.

On the topic of Fhloston, I really love the use of color in the set. Given the way the rest of this movie is, it's possible that it's more for visual contrast and not theming, but there is a scene during the opera performance that switches between complements, and the visual contrast is, well, good.

Speaking of the opera, Korben has front row seats, and its 5pm. You know what that means.

It's fucking Ruby Rhod time, baby! Ruby is back in black, in the most fantastic costume in this entire movie. Despite it showing off his entire clavicle (no exaggeration), it manages to get more and more revealing as this scene plays out. This bit where he asks Korben if he's happy with being on Fhloston in his usual over the top, loud, flamboyant way and Korben looks into his eyes, leans into the mic, and says "Thrilled" drolly is a short interaction so packed with sexual tension that I can't even argue for it without just telling you to watch the scene. This is their only interaction that really FEELS like gay sex, and it made my jaw go slack for a couple of seconds, even as the movie immediately moved on to the much more important opera segment.

Speaking of the opera, for real this time, I have one complaint. It's an annoying complaint that nobody ever wants to hear, but I'm saying it anyway because that's what I'm here to do: Diva is *not* singing. Now, maybe in some later movie review we can learn my detailed opinions on live recordings of singing performances in film (short version: I don't think they should happen, and I hate them) my main complaint is mostly that Diva's actress is just not very good at *pretending* to sing, much less opera. She doesn't pretend to breathe, doesn't try to move her mouth with the incredibly strong vibrato (understandable to some extent) but most of all, her mouth shapes just aren't right. I can concretely point to certain mouth shapes and say "that's not the shape her mouth should be when singing that vowel," it's obvious enough that I can do that. Granted, I have some experience in singing on stage, so maybe that's just my personal annoying musician experience speaking, but it was really noticeable to me. Okay, annoying complaint over, now I can say nice things

This opera, Lucia di Lammermoor with a poppy remix track towards the end, is ridiculously well performed. Diva's vocalist, Inva Mula, does a stunning job at both the formal and informal portions of this song. It's actually amazing how little of her voice had to be computer edited to sound more "alien," it's only done like twice in the portion that it's done at all, and the rest is pretty clearly just her. She really knocks it out of the park here.

The movie does something interesting here that I really enjoyed, where they periodically show us different characters reactions to this opera. Mostly Korben and Leeloo. I want to focus on Korben, who looks at Diva like this is the first time he's ever been moved in his life. Seriously, his eyes are wet and shining with unshed tears and I really mean that. Right when we get this poignant reaction out of Korben, the pop track starts playing and the somber moment abruptly ends, which is kind of what it's like watching this movie, or clicking on a Read More and discovering a film review that is easily over 5k words.

This movie has a great penchant for match cuts. Actually, most of the transition and shot choices made in this movie are really top of the line. They're all punchy, sharp, playful, to the point. Fantastic cinematographic choices, guys.

Diva finishes her performance right after Leeloo finishes fighting Zorg by getting shot at while up in an air duct. The opera is then laid siege by the Mangalores, who brutally murder Diva. This is sad for me, because I wanted her and Leeloo to be friends, and for Korben Dallas, who just felt the strongest emotion he's ever experienced thanks to her.

Ruby, of course, continues reporting on his talk show throughout the assault, because he's a goddamn professional. He also spends the next scene and a half shrieking in fear.

The reveal that the stones are literally inside Diva's body not only makes me watch one of the more disgusting scenes in this movie, it also makes me wonder-- Was Leeloo just supposed to kill her? Also, how did they get in there? Many questions and no answers, because we aren't here to fuck around.

While Diva is giving Korben this weird spiel about how Leeloo needs him and his love to survive, there's this brief cut to Leeloo, bleeding in the air vent. This cut is an absolute pang to the gut. She sits, curled up, alone, sobbing painfully with a bullet wound in her leg. She looks small, helpless, childlike in this brief scene. It was so impactful to me that it just made me angry about the way Korben and Leeloo's relationship in this movie is executed. This is another "get back to it later" thing.

For the rest of this "getting shot up by Mangalores" scene, Ruby Rhod is cowering and sniffling and screaming for Korben to help him. It's honestly like this for the rest of the movie. They're just friends now. It's awesome. I love this guy. He accidentally shoots a guy in the head and then asks Korben "You think he'll be okay?" He's the best character in this movie.

We get one of Korben's final fantastic moments of improv in this scene. It's around this point, during the "negotiation" scene, that I realized that the problem with this movie is that the best parts of it are the parts that aren't about the two characters who I'm supposed to care about the relationship between.

This scene, where Korben gets in a fighter jet, says it's just like driving a cab (a contrast from his conversation with Finger in his first scene, where he says driving a cab is easy because he isn't driving a jet) and then blows a fucking hole in the airlock and guns it out of the Fhloston ship, is so fucking cool. I'm a very simple man. It was awesome. One question, does Korben have some kind of allergy to reminding people to put seatbelts on? This is the second time he's just allowed his passengers to fly around the cabin while he drives recklessly.

Ruby's show ends at 7pm, when he tiredly proclaims that it's the best show he's ever done. I was thinking the same thing. In fact, Mr. Rhod, I really think you should hire Korben. There, now he has a new job.

Right here is where I'm going to address one of my main points (gripes) about this movie. Yes, I know, over 5k words in.

This part of the scene, where Leeloo has her weird crisis of faith about the evil of the human race, learns about war and concludes that humans aren't worth saving, falls flat to me. Sure, it feels over-played, but ultimately the problem is just that it's not done well, much like the rest of her characterization. Leeloo's depiction as being naive and childlike, which honestly only holds because she doesn't really speak fluent English, holds back her character because of the movies comphet insistence that her and Korben be romantically involved. A narrative where Leeloo, naive and unfamiliar, Leeloo, who needs other people, who sobs painfully alone in an airvent, who needs to be dried off with a towel after getting soaked with water, is actually a child, would be more compelling. And her not being able to reconcile with the evils of humanity would also have felt more convincing if she was literally a child. Like, of *course* she can't see the situation with any nuance, she's a kid. A narrative where Leeloo and Korben's dynamic is more familial would be more interesting, and honestly the way she's characterized already lends itself so perfectly to this narrative that there were points where I got actually upset that the movie refused to go that direction.

I'll go ahead and talk about Korben's character here as well. Korben is a refreshing detraction from the classic grizzled tough guy trope that we tend to see in action movies. Whether this is a result of 90's zeitgeist or just the writer's own preferences, I don't know, but I noticed it. I was expecting Korben Dallas to be a sort of obnoxious, emotionally stunted brick wall of a guy-- but he isn't, really. Korben is quick on his feet, improvisational, messy, and sure he's genius with a gun, but he's also *nice*. He's nice in a distinctly not "Grizzled emotionally stunted guy" way. When he accidentally gets Leeloo soaking wet, he gets her a towel at warp speed, apologizes up and down in a much softer tone than he ever uses for anything else. I thought at first "of course, because he likes her," but then-- Then! When he discovers that he's accidentally plastic-wrapped Cornelius, he rips the plastic and apologizes-- in the same sort of tone. He adapts his approach to the Mangalore barrage in the cruise ship to Ruby Rhod, never complains about Ruby being a nuisance or being in his way, just brings him along and asks him to help out. I honestly really like Korben Dallas. Which is why, upon reflecting on earlier scenes in this movie, it really irritates me that he just kisses Leeloo for no reason, or even that he's in love with her at all.

That scene I mentioned, where Korben dries her off, or even as early as the cab scene where she's talking animatedly to him in the divine language and we get the "bada boom" dialog, just oozes a kind of gentleness and care that doesn't speak satisfactorily to romance or sex. Leeloo, this childlike character, and Korben, this gentle man who happens to be great with guns, don't feel like husband and wife. They don't feel like sexual partners. He feels like her father. That moment with the shower soured the rest of their dynamic for me during my rewatch, because I kept thinking about how much better it could be. That dynamic, as I've already said, would have been deeply compelling, especially given the final reveal of the movie.

Now that we've escaped Fhloston, we've headed back to the temple in Egypt. This is that meta function of the first scene I said I'd address-- without it, there is no sense of a sort of circular journey the film takes. The film establishing this temple *is* important, because otherwise this scene where we return to it just wouldn't land as well. That said, I do still think the first scene is a little odd and clunky. Then again, so is much of this movie, and it's still a good scene.

Our characters spend a frustratingly long time decoding a "riddle" that Leeloo tells Korben, one which was so simple that I was yelling at my laptop the first time I watched it. We get another very gratifying and subtle payoff from an earlier scene where we see Korben has only one match left, which he needs for the fire stone. Earlier, we see him subtly take his penultimate match from the box. This movie's Chekov game is crazy.

Much like this review, Leeloo says something that feels deeply substantial nearly 2 hours into a 2 hour long movie. She says "I don't know love. I was made to protect, not to love. There is no use for me other than this."

This line is so compelling to me. It's the most CHARACTER I've seen from her in the whole movie, and its 2 hours in. We do not get to explore it.

You might have noticed, based on this line, what the Fifth Element actually is. What Leeloo needs in order to activate her Element and shoot the big fuckoff laser into the evil fire ball.

Its ~Love~.

This is, of course, ridiculously corny and requires them to kiss nasty on the mouth for longer than I would have liked to see (Of course, I would have like to not see it at all).

I don't actually mind this conclusion or the theming. It's silly, but so is the whole movie. But you might, like me, see an issue here.

If we had approached this movie the way I so desperately craved, made their dynamic more familial, made Leeloo a child and given Korben a new weird alien daughter, this conclusion would have been leagues more powerful.

Not only would it be a unique approach to what is usually a very hetero and sexual genre, it would have given a much more gratifying conclusion to Korben's character arc. At the beginning of his arc, Korben talks about how he's looking for a perfect woman after his wife left him. In the movie, Korben just... *gets* the perfect woman. He gets exactly what he wanted and he learns nothing. If Korben instead had to reckon with this new facet of his life and identity, had to reconcile with being thrust into quasi-fatherhood, he might actually have deigned to, you know, *develop* as a character. He would have *learned* something. I'm not saying every single character in the movie has to learn something, but the main goddamn character probably should, right?

But since it's an ~adult movie~ for ~grown ups~, we can't tell compelling family narratives, and the movie has to end with them having sex in a reactor pod. I hate that. I hated that conclusion and my least favorite part of this movie was its main conceit, which was genuinely tragic given how enjoyable I found the rest of the film.

So, I'll leave you with this.

The Fifth Element (1997) is a *good* movie. It's incredibly fun, zany, raunchy, and lively. The music is very good, the costuming and set design is whimsical and fantastic. It's a little weird about Asians. It birthed one of the worst cinema tropes ever invented, and it didn't even have to, because the movie would have been really, deeply beautiful if it hadn't.

And Korben Dallas should have been a butch lesbian.

Actually, I'll leave you by saying that the song that plays in the credits of this movie is really good. "Little Light of Love," it's called. I'm going to link it so you can experience it, too.

[fazedlight]

Hi! Sorry if this is too personal, feel free to ignore if that's the case. I'm just interested in talking about queer, esp bi/pan, experiences.

I'm a fellow bisexual and one of my gripes with society at large and the LGBTQ+ community especially is that I often feel like people only see my attraction to same-gender people and erase the fact that I'm also attracted to people of other genders. It has gotten better over the years, but when I was a teenager I even referred to myself as homosexual with exceptions because I only felt welcome in the lesbian community when I denounced all attraction to men and I thought that if I didn't find a home in the lesbian community, I wouldn't be at home anywhere because bisexuality was so heavily erased and mostly seen as a joke or as a half-assed stepping stone to coming out as gay. I'm also not helping my case by being married to a person of the same gender, though I continue to insist that being married to one person of one gender does not make my attractions to other genders invalid.

Most other bisexuals I know have similar experiences to mine on account of either being in a same-gender relationship or single but still defined by their same-gender attraction. From what I've gathered from your profile (and sorry if I'm wrong!), you're married to a person not of the same gender. What are your experiences like? Do people erase your attraction to same-gender people? Does the LGBTQ+ community read your relationship as "straight-passing" and if so, do they take kindly to that? (I'm thinking of sentiments like no "straight" people at pride that completely ignore that people who look "straight" to you might still be queer in so many ways.)

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

Oh boy, anon, let me tell you, I know a LOT of bi/pan people in your shoes.

This got a bit long, so I'll put my answer below the cut.

My experience these days is pretty chill (I'll get to that), but when I was a baby bi, I remember attending a bi-themed event at our LGBT group in college. I was the only bisexual to show up, and ended up spending over an hour answering questions from people basically grilling me on how bisexuals could even exist. To this day I wish I had just walked out instead of spending all that time being so stressed. It scared me off doing community stuff for a long time, unless I had people around me who I knew.

I've been pretty lucky with queer friends, though - bi/pan people, but also gay and ace - who really saw me. So throughout college and now, my friends' group and the sort of general/informal queer social circles I've run in have been very accepting.

I was never particularly feminine (have never bought makeup, have never owned heels, haven't owned a dress since before I started dating my now-spouse, haven't shaved since freshman year of college, etc). I've always leaned towards men's clothes, and then I started buzzcutting my hair into a short crew cut. I also have a man's wedding band.

Because of all that, I get read as queer in public. It's to the point where, when I start a new job, I can see the looks of confusion when I mention my husband. When people see a butch, they expect a lesbian - so I create a lot of confusion, and they kind of have to accept that I am both queer and have a husband. (I wouldn't be surprised if some of them think I'm confused about my sexuality, but none have made that my problem so far.)

But I feel like the femme bi/pan experience - which is far more common, I feel like butches are fairly rare in my circles whether lesbian or bi - receive much more bullshit from people. Because it's easier to be femme and "look straight", and so femmefolk get written off, even though they're equally valid.

I will say that I think online spaces can feel a bit erasing. Like there's a lot of thirstposting in online culture, but it feels like breaking an unspoken rule to thirstpost about both male and female celebrities*, or to talk about sex with men and women. It always makes me facepalm a bit when people call Claire Max a lesbian, when she's been very clear that (1) she is bi, and (2) she is currently dating both a man and a woman and has even been dating the man (Kyle) for longer. It really saddened me a month ago when an artist who draws a lot of wlw art talked about how people gave her shit for drawing m/f art, too. She shouldn't have to segregate her art to two accounts. (*I think there are also often unspoken rules about nonbinary people, in identity-erasing ways. But that's a rant for another post.)

I've been lucky to not really encounter those erasure problems in IRL queer spaces in recent history - possibly because the ones I've been in have been heavily mixed on the gender/sexuality spectrum.

I feel like a lot of this is very dependent on local norms. I think the more conservative an area is, the harder it is for people to embrace anyone who doesn't fit cleanly into 2 categories. That goes for male/female/nonbinary, straight/gay/bi, top/bottom/vers, etc. It turns out the "fuzzy" categories are actually VERY common. But binaries are easier for people to grasp.

But I feel like I've rambled on enough. In short, these days, I think my butchness & my local context both sort of shield me from some of the common bi problems. Which is lucky for me, but is absolutely a bullshit thing about culture that we all should work on fixing.

You're valid as a bi person, regardless of who you're in a relationship with (or not in a relationship with).

[aroaceconfessions]

my sexuality is so confusing and nebulous and label-defying it's so frustrating

right now for the most part i just ID as grayaroace. not in the "experiences attraction but very infrequently" way, but in the "experiences attraction but it's very mild" way. that's where i get tripped up. there's more to it than that

i both like the idea of participating in sex and hate it. i enjoy self-pleasure, reading erotica, and imagining fictional characters in sexual situations (though i don't like going into too much detail with it). sex sounds nice in theory, but awkward and terrifying in practice. the part that freaks me out the most is the idea of someone seeing me naked, especially my genitalia. i think it's mostly due to gender dysphoria-- i'm transmasc, which is important context for most (or all?) of this

i'm attracted to women, and when i say that i don't mean i get crushes (though i think i had one once?) or that i ever care enough to seek out sex with any one woman in particular. but i am definitely attracted to them in a way i am not attracted to men. when i try to imagine myself in a romantic or sexual situation, it's with a woman. i do find women hot, find their bodies arousing, but i don't really want sex. i do, but not really.

see how this is confusing? i both am and am not, i both do and don't. i'm so envious of people who can just be like "yeah i'm gay/bi/lesbian/ace". i wish it was that easy. i wish my orientation fit into a neat box

i often go down tumblr rabbit holes of aspec posts and they only ever make me more confused. every time i'm reminded that allo people can also be sex repulsed i start to spiral, thinking maybe THAT'S what i really am, and my hesitation to have sex is because of my dysphoria. i have a below average libido too, which makes it harder to tell. it makes a lot of sense to me, but i don't know how to know for sure. i'm getting sick of labels because they've been so annoying to try to navigate. every time i think i've got it, the rug gets pulled out from under me again

if there is one label that i find myself relating to a lot it's stone butch. i'm pretty sure it's exclusively a lesbian term because that's the only context i ever hear butch in, and because i don't identify as a woman or woman adjacent i don't ID as a lesbian or feel comfortable using their terms. but the idea behind stone butch fits me very well. i only like the idea of giving in a sexual situation. i feel drawn to the idea of hand stuff and giving oral, but despise the idea of being on the receiving end of either. i don't want to be penetrated, but would gladly penetrate a partner if we had a strap. this definitely ties back to my gender dysphoria. it has me wondering, is there a transmasc version of stone butch? i've never seen anyone talk about anything like what i feel. all the transmascs i see online are mlm

it also makes me feel pretty insecure in queer spaces that, despite being queer in multiple ways (aspec + trans) i'm quite vanilla and almost hetero with my sexual interest. so on top of everything else i feel like a fake queer person. i feel alone

i don't know how to end this but if you got this far thank you for reading, and thank you to the person who runs this blog for providing a space for me to vent

Submitted April 16, 2023

[kaijugroupy]

hello! my name is damian-cupid or dc and I’m a 25 year old lesbian/butch-dyke

my pronouns: I go by he/him. I’m neutral towards they/them but will not be addressed as she/her. I like he/him the best because it aligns with my perception of myself and how I seek to be perceived by others. I’m weirdly alright with folks calling me ma'am (I live in the south, might be a respect thing) but otherwise not a fan of being referred to femininely. I don’t mind sir at all.

my gender: I’m butch, I’m a dyke, I’m a fag boy, I’m transmasculine, I’m stag, I’m two-spirit. I think of masculinity as an open thing. I find euphoria in all parts of the spectrum. I suppose I’m non-binary but I honestly am pretty neutral towards the word. The concept of just existing as a person, not on either side is way more appealing. It’s just sort of a nebulous feeling for me that I haven’t found the right label for. I don’t believe butch or bull-dyke means rigidity in apparel, hair length, or attitude. I enjoy applying makeup, I like wearing earrings and tons of jewelry and feel personally more euphoric embracing these things. I like, but am not restricted to “masculine” apparel. I wear what I want and express how I want and all of it is masculine because it comes from me. I think we all have a story to write within our expression, and this is mine.

my attractions: I only seek to have romantic/sensual/sexual relationships with other trans-masculine folks or butches/bull dykes. If you’re a masc dyke, you’re probably my type, plain as that. (aside from personality and all) I experience every type of attraction to masculine folks but am not usually inclined/interested in sexual encounters. I figure I’m demi-sexual and have pretty specific terms about who I’ll actually engage in stuff like that with. I’m not even fully sure myself (it’s pretty rare and it creeps up on me lol.)  I consider myself stone and not usually comfortable with folks touching me unclothed and directly. I’ll give you consent to do so. Those who know me physically know where they stand.

I’m aesthetically attracted to femmes but that honestly doesn’t go very far. I’m not romantically inclined in that direction and am not comfortable with folks asking me if they’re “too femme for me to like” or if they’re “too femme to do (insert action)” with. I’m totally open to and enjoy having femme friends but am un-wanting of romantic/sexual/sensual feminine attention. I only mention this because often times when I express a sentiment in regards to being strictly butch4butch and only wanting to engage on that level with other bull-dykes, femmes message me asking if we can engage in said action like I haven't already drawn a clear boundary line.

Random stuff about me: I like metal,punk-rock, dad rock, screamo. I love reading, writing fic. I have an a03 (doggydenturez) and I post some of my works. I do beadwork. I collect antlers and pine-cones. Currently obsessed with Beastars the manga/show. I like painting when I have the time. I’m obsessed with stickers. I like running for fun/fitness/ but also when I’m antsy or stressed as well as weight training. I am Afro-Colombian, African American or Black, and Afro-Indigenous. I am obsessed with stickers. I love making friends and making genuine connections. I don’t think people have to be perfect or unproblematic, I’m pretty non-judgemental. Just be honest and we’ll get along fine.

Thanks for reading!

[sleephyuns]

Hey Caz! To get it out of the way, I'm not an emoji anon I just like putting a teddy bear as kind of a nice presence 🧸 it looks cute and huggable! 🥰

I may not know how you feel about yourself but I think you're really cool, your casual posts and writing also helped me a lot already with my own identity and I admire how you present yourself and how unapologetically yourself you are, at least on the outside.

I'm not knocking on your advice, I'm truly grateful for it but I should've expected it was going to be something along those lines.

I guess I'm just avoiding the fact that I'm not gonna be able to figure out myself as long as I let other people's opinions get in the way. Another thing I read not too long ago was "if you were alone on an island, how would you want the flowers to perceive you?" which can be used in a lot of situations but I think it applies to gender too. The quote might find you or someone else well.

I will definitely read Stone Butch Blues, it's time for me to do it. Despite me being on the fence between trans masculinity and being a trans male I find myself often judging people, because sadly sometimes it's easier to do then actually look at the possibility of me being part of that colective too.

It's really confusing and hard to accept that I have to go though it by myself but people like you do help, thank you so much for the advice. ❤️

P.S. I'm sorry this got lengthy, I hope it's not a problem. 🧸 Big hug!

No problem at all I appreciate messages like these. And again thank you. I think being “unapologetically me” is something Im striving for (at least in online spaces since irl is a bigger hurdle I have yet to take hold of) so Im really happy to know I come off that way. I’d say your words are encouraging me just as much.

As for the advice I gave, yeah it can be a hard pill to swallow. Its definitely easier said than done because its natural to wonder what people think of you, and not to be all “we live in a society” but yeah most stuff runs on perception so thats just how it is and its hard to let that go.

That quote’s pretty interesting btw. Ive heard variations of it but yeah its something to think about. Without societal expectations things would be a lot different.

Honestly I used to be in that same boat of judgement because the idea of being transmasc and a lesbian seemed impossible and wrong to me like 3 years ago, but here I am so lol. I’d say read the book (and be wary of several heavy possibly triggering topics in it) to get maybe a better grasp of what you’re feeling.

And again, ty for being kind. Hope things become easier as you learn more, and Im sending you a big hug right back :3 ❤️

[uncloseted]

tw: transphobia😭 hi I'm a radfem cisgirl (I hate using "cis" and "trans" words but here I need to for the sake of the story) I've got a friend from ny highschool (we're in college now) who's also a radfem and is always sharing great feminist stuff. Yesterday, she shared the comment of a girl saying "this fight for abortion (it is illegal in my country) is for men/people with vaginas too!" and mocked it. I preferred not to make up any opinions about her because of one single post. But today, she shared a picture of Miss Spain 2019 (a trans girl) who talked about her experience with sexism, and mocked her too. This time, it was obvious to me she was just being transphobic trash. She received lots of backlash and deleted the post, but instead made a new post complaining about people caring about transphobia but not about sexism (a very stupid post, if you ask me). This time, along with some comments from other girls respectfully telling her to stop being cruel and mocking towards trans women, she received a lot of support from other TERFS (although these TERFS said they hate being called TERFS just for being honest and brave lmmfao). They said that transwomen don't belong in radfem because they just suffer from discrimination, not oppression, and listed some reasons why: according to them, trans girls don't suffer: obstetrician violence, forced pregnancy, feminicide, child marriage, genital femenine ablation, glass ceiling barriers, being implanted "maternal sense" while kids, getting their ears perfored while babies, among other stuff, and that differentiate ciswomen biological reality from trans women biological reality isn't transphobia. Other girls said they knew transwomen who were mean to them, using derogatory terms to refer to ciswomen and they were mean and cruel, using this argument to generalize about all transwomen smh.

I'm just so stoned that people could be so cruel to transwomen and set them aside from the feminist fight when they suffer from already being excluded from so many things. It sickens me that some people don't belive trans people exist and treat them that bad, specially trans girls. I wish I could debunk the info this TERFS are spreading because it's so dangerous and enables transphobics to keep harming transpeople and I find that unbearable, but I am not as informed as I should be to debute all their lies at once. Could you help me?

So starting with the question of transwomen in radfem spaces, I don’t think many (if any) transwomen would say that they experience the exact same type of discrimination that cis women do.  There’s often this idea that “trans people don’t believe in biology”, but that’s a bad faith argument.  Trans people understand biology very well, often more than their cis counterparts do, because it’s such a big part of their identity.

Yes, transwomen don’t suffer obstetrician violence, forced pregnancy, child marriage, genital feminine ablation, etc. (I can’t even find any articles on the ear thing).  They do experience femicide, at way higher rates that cis women do. Transwomen are women, and they’re discriminated against in their own way; sometimes that’s because they’re women, and sometimes that’s because they’re trans.  Transwomen are largely supportive of fighting with cis women to rid the world of discrimination for all women, cis and trans alike.  

By contrast, TERFs seem to think that because transwomen sometimes suffer a different type of discrimination than cis women, they can’t be “real women”.  But that argument makes no sense to me.  The vast majority of affluent, white, straight, cis women will never suffer the violence that is apparently so central to the cis female experience.  They’re extremely unlikely to experience femicide, child marriage, genital mutilation... and yet they can acknowledge that those issues are feminist issues, even though they’re not universal to all women.  Why shouldn’t the discrimination that transwomen face also fall under that umbrella?  And if they can accept that women who have had hysterectomies, or women who have chromosomal differences, or women who are intersex, or women who present butch are all women, why shouldn’t transwomen also fall under the umbrella of womanhood?

Further, is that really all that womanhood is to TERFs?  Experiencing the trauma and discrimination that so often accompanies being a cis women?  I don’t think inclusion to a group should be predicated on the amount that one has suffered or how many “oppression points” they’ve amassed. And I don’t think being a woman should be predicated solely on biology, especially given that we never really know what kind of biology a person has just by looking at them.  What “being a woman” is is a metaphysical question that derails the discussion of trans feminism, and it’s a question that I don’t think a lot of TERFs actually have a good answer to.  It’s just an easy way to put the burden of proof on trans people and trans allies and waste our time (but if you’re interested, I do have an opinion on this. I just think it’s best saved for a different time).

In terms of trans people being oppressed, there’s all sorts of data to suggest that trans oppression is very real.  In the US, trans people were banned from serving in the military under the Trump administration, a decision that was only overturned a few days ago, and the Trump administration also reversed the Obama- era Title VII policy that protected trans employees from discrimination.  Trans people are overwhelmingly lacking legal protections- there are no federal non-discrimination laws that include gender identity, and in some states, debates over limiting the rights of trans people to use public bathrooms are ongoing.  

About 57% of trans people faced some type of rejection from their family upon coming out.  Around 29% of trans people live in poverty (compared to 11% in the general population and about 22% in the lesbian and gay populations), and that number is higher for trans people who are Black (39%), Latinx (48%), or Indigenous (35%).  27% of trans people have been fired, not hired, or denied a promotion due to their trans identity.  90% of trans people report facing discrimination in their own jobs.  Trans people face double the rate of unemployment that cis people do (about 14%) and about 44% are underemployed. This is despite the fact that a reported 71% of trans people have some level of post-secondary education- actually higher than the general population, which is about 61%.  It’s often cited that women earn 77 cents on the dollar compared to men, but that statistic doesn’t even exist for trans women.

54% of trans people have experienced intimate partner violence (compared to about 24.3% of cis women), 47% of trans people have been sexually assaulted (compared to about 18% of cis women), and about 10% are physically assaulted in a given year. 

About 22% of trans people and 32% of trans people of color in the US have no health insurance (compared to about 11% of cis women), and 55% of trans people who do have insurance report being denied coverage for at least one gender affirming surgery.  29% of trans adults have been refused healthcare by a doctor or provider because of their gender identity.  In one study, 50% of trans people said that they had to teach their medical providers about trans care.  Trans people are four times as likely than the average population to be infected by HIV.  41% have attempted suicide at one point in their lives, compared to 1.6% of the general population.  

20% of trans people have been evicted or denied housing due to their gender identity, and trans people are four times more likely than cis people to be homeless.  Only 1/5 of trans people report that they have been able to update all of their identification documents, and 41% have a driver’s license that does not match their gender identity.  22% of trans people report that they have been denied equal treatment by a government agency or official, 29% reported police harassment, and 12% reported having been denied equal treatment or harassed by judges or court officials.

75% of transgender students feel unsafe at school because of their gender expression, 60% are forced to use a bathroom or locker room that does not match their gender, 50% were unable to use the name and pronouns that match their gender, and 70% of trans students say that they’ve avoided bathrooms because they feel unsafe.  78% of trans students report being harassed or assaulted at school.

And these are all statistics that focus on trans people at large.  The discrimination is worse for transwomen and especially transwomen of color.  All of that certainly sounds like systemic oppression to me.

Every person who chooses to be a TERF perpetuates this discrimination.  It’s just bigotry towards trans people, plain and simple.  And for what?  A reactionary fear that all transwomen are secretly sexual predators and all transmen are confused girls who don’t know better?  Unfortunately, men can be sexual predators just fine without having to jump through the convoluted hoops trans people go through to be recognized as their true gender identity, and transwomen are way more likely to be sexually assaulted than they are to be sexual predators.  There are no reported cases at all that transwomen are dressing up as men to assault women in bathrooms.  There aren’t even statistics on how frequently trans people are sexual predators. And transmen are just as capable of making informed, thoughtful decisions as cis women.  

TERFs shouldn’t be pitting themselves against trans people.  There’s just nothing to be gained from doing that.  They should be working alongside trans people to fight the patriarchy and the discrimination that cis and trans women both face, regardless of what that discrimination entails.

Last thought.  Not to be a stan or anything but if you’re interested in learning more about these issues, Contrapoints has a number of really good videos on the topic of TERFs (including one that just released today!). They delve a bit deeper into the actual questions that TERFs often bring up and provide some nuanced answers.

[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. 

[ctl-yuejie]

Do you have any recommendations for wlw dramas?? P. S. I love your blog! C:

aww, you are too cute! also: perfect timing, I was just ranting with @earthpodd​ about having no wlw shows to watch.

i’ll just give you the shows I’ve watched and would recommend, just note that there sadly is a lack of well-written and interesting wlw shows in general, even more so if I am solely considering the main characters or the main storyline. i don’t include fetishizing content, shows that bury their gays and those that have incest storylines (side-eyes Japan hard).

the sad reality is that most wlw content can only be found in super dramatic or artistic movies, often made by men. there are some wonderful exceptions (listed below) and there are promising things announced for after 2019, but not as many series.

i usually prefer asian series because they feel like elaborate movies (not a fan of too many seasons) and i am always on the look out for wlw content that’s not only “just” a romcom, but alas, there’s not much to choose from. (give me space lesbians with a solid adventure storyline! give me bi women as main characters in fantasy epics!)

(i also haven’t watched some popular shows like “The L Word” so they are missing from this list -> if anyone has further suggestions feel free to add to this list in the comments!)

going to sort them after my sapphic meter: the more wlw romance and the more important the sexuality of the main character for the story, the higher it is on this list!

Gentleman Jack (2019, HBO, USA/GB)  - Historical Dramaperiod drama based on the real life of Anne Lister, lesbian and industrialist. I haven’t finished this yet but I live for the main character, she is a badass and she and her love interest are everything together. this show is also super intense, with all the conflicts that arise when male landowners and other industrialists want to get a piece of her land.

EDIT: finished it and it is brilliant!!

Sense8 (2015-2018, Netflix, USA) - Sci-Fii think most people have heard of this so i don’t think i need to write much about the plot. finally some sci-fi content with an unusual amount of queer main characters. netflix was a dick to this series but it was great and something different.

Skam España (2018 -, Moviestar+, Spain) - Teen Dramathis is the spanish adaptation of the norwegian tv series skam. innovative in its format it tells the daily life of teenagers in short clips and on social media accounts. the third season’s main story focuses on two girls falling in love and it is a GOOD. they tackle some serious issues but overall this is more of a school/coming of age romance. (note that the other adaptations and the og don’t feature a wlw couple in the main story)

Killing Eve (2018 -, BBC America, UK) - Spy Thrillerdespite horrifying killings that need investigating this series, genre typically, focusses on the relationship of its two main characters. we follow MI6 agent eve polastri (sandra oh) on her hunt for assassin villanelle (jodie comer), who takes an unsettling liking to her. we don’t know their sexualities but villanelle is canonically not straight and for eve, we have to wait and see. they do have insane chemistry and sexual tension which is also very important for the plot. and fiona shaw (actual lesbian) is in this so win-win for representation. the acting is superb.

Fleabag (2016 - 2019, Amazon, UK) - Drama Comedythe stories centers around fleabag, an angry, unstable, and sexually insatiable woman. great use of the fourth wall. even though the main love interests are male, fleabag is bi and it plays an important role in the story. the writing is so on point this series is pure perfection. phoebe waller-bridge is super attractive and a scarily relatable mess as fleabag. fantastic depiction of trauma and how people deal with it while being funny af. has fiona shaw (actual lesbian) and andrew scott (actual gay) in it, so win-win-win for representation. also: olivia colman is in it. 

Brooklyn 99  (2013 -, NBC, USA) - Sit Commost people are aware of this brilliant sit com which features an amazing bi main character. it’s an ensemble cast so it counts.

Derry Girls (2018 -, Channel 4, UK) - Sit Comset during the Troubles in northern ireland the series follows a group of catholic school girls (plus their lovely male english rose) on their adventures. there’s a wee lesbian in the ensemble cast and she’s great and important.

Diary of Tootsies (2016-2017, GMM 25, Thailand) - Comedythe show follows 4 friends, 3 gay drag queens and a lesbian with terrible taste in women, on their search for love. this show is bonkers but has a super satisfying lesbian storyline

The Good Place (2016 -, NBC, USA) - Sit Com -> disclaimer: I haven’t seen the newest season so idk how heavily the bisexual part features in itthis show has a super interesting premise and focuses more on philosophical questions. nevertheless it has a bi main character and some wlw content.

honorary mentions (under the cut)

these are not ranked, just in the order they popped into my mind

Legend of Korra (2012-2014, Nickelodeon, USA)animated series so i didn’t include it on the main list but still a good story with a wlw storyline that took everyone by surprise. 

Colette (2018, USA / UK) - Historical Dramabased on the life of the french novelist of the same name it is a great movie about feminism and emancipation. keira knightly is pure bisexual perfection in this and has multiple romances with women, including a fabulous butch lesbian.

Queer as Folk (2000-2005, Showtime, USA / Canada) - Dramaputting this here because the lesbian couple was more of a side couple. still a good series this somehow manages to be bold in 2019, even though it’s old. the lesbian couple get a tad more disappointing over the seasons.

Atomic Blonde (2017, USA) - Action Spy Thrillerthe plot is absolute nonsense and the production value is sometimes questionable. but it has charlize theron beating up people with great fight choreography and she makes out with female french spies. charlize theron puts the wlw in every scene of this movie.

The Handmaiden (2016, South Korea) - Period Dramasuper interesting plot, very enjoyable overall, i had some problems with the male gaze in this though

In Between (2016, Israel / France)  - Dramavery moving film about three Palestinian women sharing a flat in tel aviv. the desire for personal and sexual freedom is the center piece of this movie and allows an unusual insight into the progressive Palestinian underground scene.

Cloudburst (2011, Canada / USA) - Comedy Dramaabout a senior lesbian couple that decides to elope to Canada to get married, after one of them gets put into a nursing home by her granddaughter. the last 12 minutes are horrible (mostly the writing) but everything before that is absolutely great. i live for badass grandmothers in love. 

Boss in Love (2018, South Korea) - RomComsuper cute short movie with some great sex positivity.

Don’t Say Sorry (2018, South Korea) - Romancevery beautiful short movie about discovering one’s sexuality and first love.

The Favourite (2018, UK / Ireland / USA) - Black Comedyolivia colman as pitiful queen anne and rachel weisz and emma stone playing two cousins competing for her favour. absolutely hysterical, wonderfully shot and very gay. rachel weisz is so attractive in male clothes i don’t know what to do with myself. 

iStories L (2018, Thailand)actually filmed as a commercial this lesbian short film is wonderful and has a great aesthetic. its about an assistant producer helping the main actress with her lines and developing feelings for her in the process.

last but not least: there’s some movies that I know are good & important but haven’t watched yet such as Rafiki (Kenya), Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (India) etc.

the Korean short movies are on vimeo, the Thai stuff has official uploads on youtube, and with the rest google should help. didn’t include any german wlw even though there is a bunch, because I have yet to find something that really satisfies me (don’t get me started on tv series).

[rowanthestrange]

You want to work on a not casual ship that would got you some hatemail ? Well maybe 7/ace or 12/bill ? Good luck 💜

Oh you went HARD. I like that in a prompter.

Seven/Ace would be such a queerplatonic thing. I just can’t see the Seven we’ve been given as anything but aro-ace (which probably would go into the naming and theming of the story cus well ‘Ace’). I’d say I’d also do it as a poly-slash-open deal, where Seven is great at finding girls for Ace, but Ace is as emotionally stable as nitro-9 so it’s just a physical thing and as soon as it gets tender or anything, she stone-butches it back to the TARDIS, cus he’s the only one who gets it. They each understand the other to be intrinsic to their survival without being able to pin it down, but as Seven says, if the flap of a butterfly’s wings is enough to influence history, then who are they to stab it into a board.

Twelve/Bill. I know this one. We’re going to take the ‘Am I A Good Man’ stuff, where Twelve finds out that the ‘man’ bit was also up for grabs (which I’d argue is canon) and take it all the way baby with some good old emotionally devestating Trans!Twelve.

Does he have any understanding of gender? Nope. The ‘man’ bit feels sort of wrong, but he’s spent the last 3000 years being a man, so what does it even mean? What does he want in life? No idea, but it doesn’t matter because he feels like his life is on rails and nothing can stop the treadmill he’s on. What would being a woman actually mean - is it fetishising an aspect of femininity? Therefore is it sexist? Missy is a complete demon about any questions to do with that, because she hasn’t ever given a real introspective look into her own reasonings in life - it’s why she’s here - and she keeps making these pointed comments about their childhood, and being fickle.

And he can’t just start calling himself ‘she’, not even in his head, because he’d never pass in a million years, and he’d just look ridiculous - and contrary to popular belief, he doesn’t actually like people laughing at him behind his back.

Enter our resident lesbian spacepunk, Bill. It takes her a couple of months to get the idea about the Doctor. He- She is hardly obvious about it, and it’s mostly extrapolation from conversations that the Doctor seems to pretend they never had. And that general sense of discomfort she radiates. Like Aleks back at school - her first questioning moment since she was 14 (though in the ‘other direction’ this time), but the crush popped like a soap-bubble when he started being, well, more ‘he’, so she never really thought about it again.

She doesn’t fancy the Doctor. That’s certain. But you can’t really go around with your heart bleeding for someone, and it not have some sort of effect on you.

Bill doesn’t discuss it with hi- her. Just tries to keep the pronouns correct in her head, and well, treat her right. Whether she admits it or not, the Doctor does like to be gentled a bit. Bill never understood the idea of butch and femme in real life - the world seemed to have moved on, and the Doctor doesn’t fit in those boxes any more than she does. Doesn’t like people being over-sweet to her. Does like to have her nails painted. Doesn’t like nicknames. Does like when she finds some suitably androgynous-leaning-feminine shirt in the Oxfam for her. A skull in a flower crown. Sums her up.

And they keep not talking about it. The Doctor’s life gets…easier feeling. Somehow Bill seems to just make him feel better. He thinks he might love her, in another life that is. If he gave himself another chance. If he did this again.

But he won’t. It’s not worth getting it wrong again. He’d either stay like this, trapped and wrong feeling; or push too far into it, turn out to have just been confused all along, and then be trapped and wrong feeling as a woman he isn’t.

They never do get to talk about it. Everything goes wrong, time becomes fluid then painfully finite, there is no time to talk about it properly anymore because it isn’t the most important thing, and somewhere in the space between universes, a few words get lost.

“Hey. Uh… You know how I’m usually all about women?”

“Yeah?”

“Glad you knew that.”

And Bill can only hope she got the message.

Out of the cold, the Doctor gives a speech to a person who doesn’t exist. There’s still time to back out. But there is a chance, a single chance…

A hope.

And in that universe, the Doctor doesn’t Fall.

She jumps.

[lids-flutter-open]

James orsino -goth gay YA ch 5

“Hey,” Orsino said. He was smiling at me. “Nice to see you. James, right?”

“And you’re Orsino.”

“I’m Robin,” said a girl with good skin and short hair in a flat-top. She looked like a panel from a 1980s lesbian comic. “I’m Orsino’s sister.”

“Hi,” I said. “Does anyone want weed?”

They did. We smoked and January talked to Ian. I didn’t get all of what they said, but Ian was glowing. Overhead the trees dropped a few leaves and some of the pine needles from the scrubby little pine tree by the house blew over the yard and into the bonfire, sparking as they went. There were at least fifty people at the show. Probably more, inside the house and around in front where they weren’t meant to be. People were slowly trickling back around the edges of the show space in the garage, waiting for the temperature inside to finally get cool enough to repopulate. 

“So are you from around here?” I asked Orsino. “Or where?” I had given him a joint I’d rolled earlier and been carrying around in my cigarette case. He coughed a lot as he smoked.

“Down south about an hour,” Orsino said. “Near Centralia, kind of. But most of the time lately I live up in Tacoma with Robin and January. My dad owns some cows and a chicken farm and my mom is always fighting with him and it’s bad to be around. You?”

“I’m from here,” I said. “I’m in high school. One of the ones near the farms. It’s all rednecks. No gays really.”

“You go to that Compton House thing?” Orsino asked. “I know that’s like, a big thing for gay kids here. My therapist was trying to get me to go since I didn’t like the trans group in Tacoma.”

“I go,” I said. “I’m on the Speakers’ Bureau doing sex education at schools and public organizations and stuff.”

“Oh,” Orsino said. He waggled his eyebrows. “You know a lot about sex then?” He exhaled some of the smoke from his joint into my face and smiled.

“In the public health sense, anyway,” I said. “I know where to get condoms and free dental dams.” I paused. I really wanted to say something flirtatious, but wasn’t sure what to start with. “And I know from Delaney and Genet and White for the rest, though who knows what I’m missing in that sense.” I could feel my hands reach up and touch the bad little patch of stubble on my neck. I wished there was a mirror or a dark window around I could glance into to make sure I didn’t look like a fool. I crossed my legs and turned more towards Orsino.

“Don’t know who those guys are,” Orsino smirked. His eyes were really dark brown and the firelight was sort of reflected there. I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me for the references or making fun of me for doing sex education as a teenager like some kind of Young Democrat. I didn’t know his vibe enough to tell.

“They’re all older. Delaney’s the one you’re supposed to read, I’m pretty sure,” I said. “Or at least, he’s the one most likely to have been read by hot people, from what I can tell.”

“Oh, it’s a book,” said Orsino. 

“He’s an author,” I said. “Samuel Delaney. Chip Delaney. Time Square Red, Time Square Blue. Science fiction and sexy gay memoir. Never mind. I’m stoned. I’m sorry.”

“He writes about sex and taught you sex, is what you’re saying.”

“Yeah.”

“Does he write about like specific kinks you were trying to communicate to me or something?”

I felt my face grow hot. “Public bathrooms,” I said. “Is one thing he’s very into. Not that I am. Unless you are. But that’s not—it’s just his prose.”

“Do you always give a … what’s it called. A bibliography. Do you always do that when someone asks you about sex?”

“Do you always ask boys about sex two seconds after meeting them?”

“Only when they’re hot,” Orsino said. “Then yeah, I do. Sorry, I can’t read social cues well. Was that out of line?”

“No.”

“You didn’t answer the question. You go around give out bibliographies about sex? Like that pink hair lady who draws that weird comic about sex toys online?”

“You’re the one named fucking Orsino,” I said. “Literary references are something you signed up for.” I took a hit from my pipe. I was starting to feel slightly more comfortable, but it wasn’t happening fast enough. I glanced at Orsino’s hands. The nails were short. His pinky nail on his left hand was painted black but none of the other fingernails were. There was a little stick-and-poke of a rabbit on the back of his right hand.

“Maybe I should change it,” he said. “To something butch. I can be Harry. Or Brandon.”

“A trade name,” I said. 

“A farm boy name.”

“Brandon is a G.O.P candidate name.”

“Now that’s trade.”

“What music do you like, Brandon?”

“Well, I’m here. OVID’s good. January can be a bitch a little bit, but it’s good music. And I like Dyke Drama and G.L.O.S.S, obviously. And LOONE. But also Mitski. And Blood Kennel and Limp Wrist and Dick Binge. But I also like The Shins.”

“My dad likes The Shins,” I said. “I have like a gag reflex about The Shins.” I could hear my voice, catty and faggy. “They’re such a dad band. How old are you, anyway?”

“Eighteen,” Orsino said.

“Okay. Well, for an eighteen-year-old you sure like dad bands.”

“It’s good music,” Orsino said. “You gotta listen to the lyrics. What about you?”

“I only listen to Ariana Grande,” I said, smirking at him stupidly and fluttering my eyelashes. I might have been being dumb, but he was still smiling at me, so I wanted to try being bolder. “And Gaga. I literally only listen to Just Dance by Lady Gaga and Pete Davidson by Ariana Grande every single day of my life. On repeat. I hate punk music.”

“Oh, really,” Orsino said in a flat-affect kind of voice. “You must be having a really interesting time here tonight then.”

“It’s really funny music,” I said. “And nobody is wearing platform boots or a rainbow pin or jewels or teal hair or anything.”

“I saw someone with teal hair,” Orsino said.

“That was me, actually. Earlier. I came with teal hair and an Ariana Grande tour shirt and changed.”

“Oh really,” Orsino said. He made eye contact with me and then slowly reached out and pulled at one of my curls. “I like what you’ve done with your hair since then. Insta-dye job to black. Insta-goth. It’s a really cute haircut on you, actually.”

“Thanks. I did it in the bathroom sink,” I said. “Just now. Using charcoal from the fire. I thought, oh no, everyone has dark hair or bad orangey dry bleach jobs. I have to fit in.”

“You’re doing good and blending in,” Orsino said. He finished the joint and ground out the end in the dirt under the stump. “Wait. Did you just neg me for my bleach job?” 

I felt my face fall. “What?”

“You said bad bleach jobs and looked at my hair. Were you making fun of me for my bleach job? You know, negging me? I know it’s all dry forest fire thatch up here.”

“I guess I did,” I said. I looked at his hair and back at his eyes. 

“Didn’t expect you to be acting like a straight English major goth at a sorority party over here,” Orsino said. “Calling all the girls ugly cause you think it’ll make them like you.”

I swallowed. “You’re right. That was cruel of me. I made fun of your name, earlier, too, and that was wrong. I shouldn’t be mean to cute boys.” 

“And my music taste.”

“That’s just a difference of opinion.”

Orsino looked at me like a cat playing with a mouse, but in a friendly way. “You were very cruel about my hair, though. I feel so small.”

“Sorry. It’s a bad habit. You can do two negs for me now. Tell me I’m ugly so you can hit on me better.”

“Hm,” Orsino said. He swung one hairy leg over the stump so half of him was in shadow under the trees and his right foot was nestled in the ivy and broken glass that lay all along the perimeter of the Goat Mansion yard. “Well, you aren’t ugly, so I can’t do exactly that. Maybe I want to save my negs. Find your weak spots and then go in for the kill.”

“I’m shaking,” I said. 

“Okay. I have one. My first one is that your mustache sucks. It’s like really cute that you’re trying it and I know what you’re going for, and the concept is attractive to me, and I like your philtrum, but it’s a bad mustache.”

“Ooh. Ouch. That stings,” I said. “I think it stings more because of all the compliments you threw in with it to cushion it.” But I scooted closer to him.

“I can do more.” He looked at me hard. “If you consent. I can be meaner about it.”

“About my mustache? Okay,” I said. “But I might be hurt and never speak to you again.”

“You’re trying to look like Freddie Mercury or something, right? You look like a summer camp counselor from the 1980s.”

“Ouch! You sure snatched my wig.” I put on a faggy voice. It kind of did sting to hear him say that, though also I knew that my mustache amounted to about twenty-four downy bad little hairs. But I guess I deserved it.

“See how it feels?” Orsino scooted a little closer. I found myself appreciating how broad his shoulders and torso were compared to mine. I looked at his smile. His canines were a little crooked.

“I actually am a summer camp counselor,” I said. “During the summer.”

“I’m Sherlock Holmes.”

“I can give you another weak spot,” I said. “I’m a nerd and I used to be a horse girl. Got any horse related disses?”

“It doesn’t count if you give them to me. That’s a self defense maneuver. Also I don’t know if you’re even telling the truth. It’s gotta be something you’re sensitive about.”

“Are you sensitive about your hair and your name?”

“Yes! I’m a punk. My image is very important to me. Talking shit on my hair was mean. You started this whole battle.”

“Okay, fine. I’m sorry already. But give me time to recover from your first cutting remark before you do any more to me.” I put away my pipe. I glanced briefly over at Ian. Jukebox had left and now he was talking to Opal and Robin a few feet away. I felt like socially I was obligated to join their shit instead of sitting here talking to this boy I didn’t really know yet. At least so I could be up on the whole deal with Miss San Juan and the Dusties or whatever the new band was called. “Do you want to meet my friends?” I asked Orsino, standing. 

“Sure,” he said. He pulled himself up. “Hey, you’re not really hurt about the mustache thing, right?” He wasn’t smiling as much any more.  “I was just playing around. Your mustache is fine. It looks like every other high school punk’s mustache. Better than some. Better than mine. And you’re cute. You pull it off pretty good.”

I realized he thought he had misstepped and now I’d lost interest. I felt a flutter in my stomach. 

“It’s a really sensitive topic for me because of my gender dysphoria,” I said in a deadpan voice. I walked over to Ian and Opal and Robin.

Orsino followed me, squinting a little as if he couldn’t tell if I was joking. He put his thumbs into the belt loops of his pants.“Are you serious?” He asked.  "I’m sorry, I…”

“I won’t ever forgive you. Hey, meet my friends. Here are my friends Opal and Ian, who I guess have a band now.”

Ian paused. He had been saying something to Robin about some music stuff. I wasn’t sure what equipment they were talking about but it had hertz. He looked over to Orsino and then me and raised his eyebrows. 

“Hey,” he said. “I’m Miss San Juan, otherwise known as Ian. You saw me set up and then saw my set just now. You were jumping. Didn’t get your name.”

“I was indeed jumping,” Orsino said. “It was a pretty good show for how messy it seemed like things were before it started. You did good. You have a great stage presence. I’m Orsino.” He held out his hand, arcing his arm out for a man-handshake. 

Ian placed his delicate little hand in Orsino’s big one like a princess greeting her security guard. “Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m Orsino,” Orsino said again to Opal, holding out his hand again. For the first time I realized he was maybe kind of too stoned.

“I’m Opal,” said Opal. “I’m a drummer and use they/them pronouns and I’m really hungry for some trash food right now. Does anyone else want food?” They looked at me and then at Orsino. “You both look like you want some trash food.”

“Fuck yeah,” Orsino said. “Do we know when the next show starts, though?”

“There’s the gas station that doesn’t sell beer around the corner that way,” Opal said. “They have chips and sometimes hot dogs and pizza. We’ll be quick.”

“Let’s go,” Orsino said. He put his arm around my shoulders and set off toward the edge of the yard as if we had been walking together like that everywhere for years, as if he had touched me before.

“I don’t think I want food right now,” Ian said. “I’ll stay here.” He had a sort of quiet, wan tone in his voice that made me pause.

“Oh,” I said, and dug my feet into the ground to stop and pulled away from Orsino’s arm. I looked from Orsino to Ian. I didn’t want to leave Ian standing here alone right after his big set. “Ian, are you sure? You’ll need calories in a little bit.”

“I just feel like standing and smoking for a second in the quiet over here by the fence,” Ian said. 

“Quieter out by the gas station,” I said.

“I don’t feel like walking.”

“I’ll stay here too then,” I said. 

“I’m still going,” Orsino said. “I’m genuinely hungry.”

“Come on, then, big papa,” Opal said. “Let’s get some cheese fuel.” They turned their chair and wheeled fairly rapidly across the grass. 

[partialbirthabortion]

Hi!! I hope this isn't rude but I'm a lesbian and I think I might be a femme but how do I know I'm not just suffering from regular old compulsory femininity / the male gaze? I tried googling some stuff but everything looked super dodgy and I don't know any elder lesbians irl I can ask about it :(

It is incredibly charming to be called an elder lesbian! This isn’t rude at all.

So. I am quite literally, for the next few months anyway, a teenage lesbian. I doubt I have my feet to the ground much more firmly than you do. But I’ve been thinking about femme a lot recently, too, and I can try to throw you a line: it sounds like you have to reframe your thinking. Femme isn’t a degree of lesbian femininity, validated by an inborn mode of gender performance (rather than “compulsory femininity”). It’s a location in our culture, a set of values towards other women, a way of relating to lesbianism and lesbians, especially butches and other femmes. And it’s a sense of self that you have to find in your core.

I wrote to my girlfriend recently that being her femme feels all at once like something new and exciting and ancient, timeless and inevitable. I managed it in a less corny way, but it’s true! Femme, like butch, is rooted in lesbian history. It’s deeply informed by our culture, our political moments, our traditions of eroticism. There’s really no way to know if you’re femme without reading our words- and the words of butches about us- because you can’t recognize something you haven’t seen and touched and tasted. When I last reread Stone Butch Blues, I choked up when Theresa met Jess after she’s released from jail and touches the blood on her shirt- a moment, incidentally, that Minnie Bruce Pratt also writes resonated with her- not just because of the scene itself, but because I was overwhelmed to know very suddenly and surely that I was Theresa, or would have been. That I was touching the shirt and cupping Jess’s face. It’s a gut feeling, yes, but you have to read and think and work to tease it out. Honestly, I could get very woo woo granola earth child about femme frankly and so could most other femmes I know, but you don’t have to. What you need to do is read our work and think “Are these women like me?” That’s most of what there is to the figuring out of it!

[spikycharlotte]

:0 all of them

y’all better strap in

four jews in a room bitching / what’s your favorite stereotype for your religion?

haha i don’t really identify with one in particular? so i’m not sure.

a tight-knit family / who do you consider family?

i for sure believe “blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” while i do have family members whom i do love and am proud to call family, i don’t think the question is calling for that.

my best friends are like family to me, and i’d do anything for them. i also have a mentor/teacher, and he and his wife are like second parents to me.

love is blind / what makes a healthy relationship?

C O M M U N I C A T I O N ! ! ! you should NEVER be lying to your s/o!! and if your s/o does something you’re not comfortable with/makes you upset, TELL THEM! you shouldn’t be stewing, but also don’t enter the conversation angry and accusatory. and on the flip side, if your s/o comes to you with something you did, LISTEN TO THEM. apologize and explain yourself, even if it was just a misunderstanding! avoid becoming defensive. 

the thrill of first love / what’s something you’d kill for?

answered here!

marvin at the psychiatrist / do you ever feel like no one is listening to you when you talk?

i used to feel this way all the time, but i’ve recently become comfortable with saying, “excuse me, i was speaking” when i’m spoken over. also i find myself in lots of leadership positions in my day-to-day, so i’m pretty good at making myself heard.

my father’s a homo / could you/would you want to be president?

the idea (a loud, genderqueer, butch lesbian with the conscience to do the best for others) sounds great, but i’m not the person that fits that description to be president. i’m infj, so i’ve got the teacher personality, and that’s what i want to do!

everyone tells jason to see a psychiatrist / do people nag you consistently about something? if so, what?

this is such a #relatableteen answer but my room is a goddamn mess and my mom nags me on the daily to clean it (something i never do)

this had better come to a stop / what’s something people do that infuriates you?

i talked about this a little bit, but when people come to me with relationship issues and the issue could resolved so easily if instead of coming to me and telling me, they just went to their s/o. a problem cannot be resolved through outside sources.

i’m breaking down / what makes you crazy/pushes you over the edge?

answered here!

please come to our house / what was the last thing you did to help someone?

ummm to fit with the “therapy” theme of this the other night i helped a friend when she needed to vent about some crappy home things. 

jason’s therapy / what’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given?

i resent this question being with this song!!! i think mendel’s “feel alright” advice (while flawed) at its core is actually kind of pure and good! of course the way he gives it is bad (ignore your problems!)

but worst advice i’ve ever been given was i asked a friend towards the beginning of my last relationship if i should continue it and she said i should, and it ended much later and i was very unhappy throughout most of it. so that was pretty shitty. (i now have a very wonderful girlfriend who is currently having me answer all of these questions :-))

a marriage proposal / how would you want to be proposed to?

actually something very similar to how mendel does it! something private and lowkey, and just having someone word vomit their love for me sounds very cute and endearing.

however i always thought of myself as the one who would propose, so there’s that

a tight-knit family (reprise) / are you satisfied with what you have in life, or do you want more?

well as a student in high school it’s kind of hard to be satisfied, because there’s so much i want to do but i can’t as my student-ness prevents me from doing so.

but considering my place in life, i think i am quite happy!! i have a great gf, great friends, and i’m kind of excited for this school year!

trina’s song / what’s the worst interaction you’ve had with the opposite gender?

every interaction i’ve ever had with a male human being ever in my life. i could go on and on. but one that comes to mind is how one time a dude went on this huge rant during a teacher’s lecture about freud’s psychosexual theories about how homosexuality is an unnatural choice, all while continuing to glance at me to make sure he got his desired reaction

march of the falsettos / who’s the most immature person you know, and why?

um i know plenty, but the worst are some of my younger very intelligent female friends who are more focused on their boyfriends than their academics, which while i love and support them infuriate me to no end.

trina’s song (reprise) / have you ever settled for something better than you’d expected, but not as good as you’d hoped?

while this worked out for trina, as she soon would realize that mendel would be as good as she hoped, settling for less than you hope is never a good thing. 

i’ve always thought this, so i can’t really think of any examples

the chess game / what’s the most petty thing you’ve ever done?

perfect question for this song, op. 

i’ve done a lot of petty things in my life, bc i think everyone does. very recently though a girl was annoying the hell out of me trying to get me to tell her the answers for our summer hw and i gave her the entirely wrong answers.

making a home / how different are you in public than in private?

my personality is very much the same, but i’m obviously more in public. i don’t swear as much. and in private i talk to myself and sing loudly all the time which doesn’t make much sense to do in public

the games i play / do you ever wish you were doing more than you currently are?

constantly. i’m in high school so my options are grossly limited. i’m super excited to go to college and begin my teaching career. i just really want to help people!!

marvin hits trina / have you ever hated someone for being happy?

before i was in a better place like i am now, i really resented my best friend for getting a boyfriend for a while. but now i’m fine and very happy for the both of them.

i never wanted to love you / have you ever liked something you knew was bad? have you stopped?

um in middle school i liked sup/erwhol/ock despite the problematicness of them all (the other two more so than d/octor w/ho), if that’s what this means.

father to son / what is your relationship with your parents?

i love my mom a lot, she’s great. she had me in high school, and my bio dad split when he found out i existed, so i’ve never met him, but i also have no interest in doing so. i love my (step) dad a lot, but our relationship is kind of strained bc i don’t think he fully understands my being gay (even though he’s not rude or anything about it)

falsettoland/about time / do you use labels?

i actually quite like labels ? i like legitimizing my identity by finding out that other people feel the same way, and therefore have worked to put a name to it.

that’s also why i kind of like the femme/butch scale even though it was initially a joke, bc it acknowledges that not every lesbian is lipstick OR stone butch, and idk i kinda like it. but i do hate when nonlesbians ,,,,,, use it ,,,,,,, to describe lesbians,,,,, bc,,, it’s not for them…..

year of the child / when was the last time everything was about you?

idk prob my birthday parties… i don’t like being the perfect center of attention, i feel uncomfortable

miracle of judaism / what’s the last significant decision you had to make?

oh geez idk. i don’t make a lot of those… i can’t think of one right now.

the baseball game / do you play/like sports? which ones?

i do not like them really… i like badminton tho… that’s more of an activity and not a sport though

a day in falsettoland / what’s your daily routine like? 

during the summer, i wake up and fart around on the internet, unless i have somewhere to be. all the while texting maggie all day

everyone hates his parents / what was the last thing your parents did that pissed you off?

my mom is a really bad backseat driver. like swearing and anger is her brand of backseat driving. so it makes me super anxious and angry hearing someone constantly bitch while i’m trying to drive

what more can i say? / are you in love? have you ever been in love? what is it like? 

answered here! 

something bad is happening / do you get frustrated when you don’t know something?

yes i do. its a problem, especially as i’m on academic team

more racquetball / are you a sore loser/winner?

yes yes yes. mariokart comes to mind in particular. if i lose it was lagging or too many items were unfairly sent my way, or if i win everyone else sucks and i’m the best

holding to the ground / how do you react when things don’t go as planned?

i’m not the best. i’m a huge control freak, so when things don’t work out perfectly i freak out

days like this / are you an optimist, a pessimist, or a realist?

i think i’m like an.. optimistic realist? like i’m a realist, but with that i’m more likely to say “the worst case scenario is this, so at least that’s not happening”

canceling the bar mitzvah / how do you react under pressure?

i get stressed, but i also get my work done, so good and bad

unlikely lovers / do you have any friends who are extremely different from you?

yeah, a lot actually! i have one friend who listens to hard core rock stuff and has a bunch of piercings and has never listened to a musical in her life and i also have friends super into gymnastics and cheerleading and stuff. i love my friends!!

another miracle of judaism / if you could have anything right now, what would it be?

maggie, next to me

something bad is happening (reprise) / have you ever had to deliver some really bad news? how did it go? 

i had to explain to someone the oak/great comet drama, which was not fun. but i don’t think i’ve ever had to break super terrible bad news, especially not like what charlotte had to tell her best friend

you gotta die sometime / are you afraid of dying/death?

i don’t know…? the idea of nothingness is for sure daunting

jason’s bar mitzvah / what was the last big event you attended?

the other day i went to the first practice of the year for academic team! theres a lot of us and we had pizza and played and whatnot

falsettoland (reprise) / what do you want your legacy to be?

i just want people to remember me as someone who did their best to help others

[tramgender]

Hey its ya boy let’s talk about me for a second so everyone knows what is up

This is a blog for me to document stuff, mostly for my own benefit. I am a bi masc creature (binary? nonbinary? who knows) with no name right now but that may change. It is a mystery.  

timeline under the cut

Timeline (I won’t go into events before I knew what trans was because it’s mostly the usual “I always felt like I was a boy/I was a tomboy/etc”). Throughout all of this, I have very bad social and body hair/face/voice/hip dysphoria, but not much in the way of chest or bottom dysphoria (however I do have a small chest and wear no bra and lots of baggy clothes so it’s unnoticeable. On rare occasions where I’ve had to wear tight clothing, I do get chest dysphoria so it’s a case of out of sight out of mind I suppose). I’m cool with never getting top surgery but I do very much want to be on T. I want a face that reads masculine enough so that I can have long hair again. 

2011, I’m 16. I frequent a lot of ‘cringe’ style websites focused mainly on tearing down bad YA literature. (They used to call it ‘sporking’). One of the members of a forum was a trans man, and in his signature he linked a forum I don’t really remember the name of - Somebody’s Playground? Basically a forum for transgender people. It was the first time I had ever heard of the concept whatsoever and I was elated, reading the FtM board was honestly a phenomenal experience. I never registered, only lurked. In hindsight the board wasn’t amazingly progressive, most of the posts were ‘do I pass’ and people deriding any hint of agab they could find. Nothing about nb people. 

2011 still but I’m 17 now. I cut my hair short for the first time (it was waist-length before) and I feel great. Our school puts on a musical and I’m invited to the afterparty, and I go on a sleepover at a friend’s house (she lived near the venue). Since cutting my hair short, my friends had been jokingly calling me ‘Mark’ and implying that I’m the boyfriend of one of them (?? I still don’t know why they did this. But I loved it). My brother lent me a jacket for the afterparty. I had a great time and when we went back to my friend’s house, we hung out in the playground outside. I told them I thought I was transgender. The response was “No you aren’t” and “You spend too much time on the internet”. They never joke about me being a boy again, instead they start telling me to shave and that I’m a grown woman now so I had to do it.

2011-2013, I move to another school and leave those friends. I was absolutely crushed by how they had treated me and although they seemed to forget about that night, I never did. I don’t come out to anyone but I live internally as a man, mentally referring to myself with he/him pronouns etc. I was horribly depressed. 

2013 - 2015, college. I started to really participate in lgbt tumblr spaces. I was pro-everything, until following some not so great people led me down the path of “why would anyone choose to be an oppressor (aka a man)” (these people were also trans, they weren’t terfs). I was still, of course, horribly depressed. So I internalised it and started calling myself fully NB instead to avoid the baggage of being a man. I said some extremely nasty things about trans men. At my college, there was an open trans man student rep who I saw often and I was debilitatingly jealous of him. Eventually my undiagnosed ADHD, OCD and depression forced me to drop out of college. 

2015 -2018. I move home and basically stew. I start reading texts about butches, I read Stone Butch Blues and I’m convinced that I am a butch lesbian. It’s a safe option and I take a lot of pride in it, I follow a lot of ex-transmasc lesbians (never terfs, but a lot of butches who detransitioned). 

2019. I am open & honest with myself for the first time in 6 years. Yeehaw. But I’ve missed out on a lot of experiences and opportunities, and I’m still mentally ill (though I am now being treated). Everything kinda sucks but I might be starting college soon. 

And now. I’m going to start to self-improve. I’m going to find an exercise routine and work out and try to pass more. I don’t know if I’ll ever come out to anyone irl. I’m taking my meds again (starting tomorrow). So let’s go. 

[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…