#but for the sake of this comparison here‚ I'm going based on the subtext I feel is there. I also just do not believe they actually treat

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

No no I think I'm resting my case here

I read this and I thought "Okay, it kind of seems like Snively is running back to Regina because in addition to his confidence that he can take over, he also is seeking stuff from her (actual attention, displays of love, etc) that he doesn’t receive from Robotnik."

But then I read this. And I'm...still reeling?

The wording, the framing!

"The minute it goes awry you'll go crawling back to him"

It just...takes me back to Eggman making Snively declare he no longer in his little love relationship with Regina. The framing here is so "Why would I take you back? You say you care about me, but time and time again... Every time it gets hard you run back to your ex!" to me

And then this!

"I'm done with Eggman! I've come for you!"

"Tell me right now that you're done with Regina. Everything you had with her is over" vs "I'm sorry, but everything I had with him is over now! I'll prove it!"

I just...

There's a whole essay to be had analyzing Robotnik's relationship with Snively, and how Snively almost always seems to leave/betray Robotnik when Robotnik neglects him and/or his empire. And this is not to mention analyzing why Snively pursues Regina in the first place, what that relationship means, etc.

But I suppose my point is that...this entire framing to me frames Snively/Robotnik as toxic lovers with common goals who have had a sort of on and off relationship for forever now, and Regina/Snively as the slightly less toxic option, but at least an option framed as the better one, framed as a change from the norm, framed as Snively's gateway to getting what he really seems to want (not just power, but a partner to share it with, a family of his own making, people with whom he and they will delight in taking revenge on each other's enemies).

Do I daresay that Snively enjoys his game with Robotnik, but wants equal status, attention, and what feels like genuine care?

In other words, with the specific framing of these last issues of SU and Archie StH and the pitting of Snively's relationships with each other, it's hard not to see them both as well...examples of partnerships/lovers. I'll put it that way. I'm finding it hard to ignore possible romantic (or at least, not completely familial) subtext between Robotnik and Snively.

[bowtiepastabitch]

Deeply Transgender and Vividly Pornographic: a deep dive into what makes a fic queer

This is a response to the wonderful @ineffabildaddy making this post, which it was originally going to just be a reblog to but once I started approaching a thousand words it was a bit unwieldy so we're just going all the way. If second base is reading their fics and third base is actually talking to your mutuals, I have no clue what this is.

Here's the prompt text that started it all:

Alright, well I am nothing if not a scientist (narrator voice: they were, in fact, a humanities major), so I spent several hours of my weekend putting this together because I'm a burnt out academic and this is the enrichment in my enclosure. Readers, this is going to contain experpts of some very spicy stuff, so stop here if you're not interested. Me bringing porn? To your tumblr dash? It's more likely than you think.

All fics and such referenced will be linked at the bottom of the page.

~~~

Heteronormativity and cisnormativity, while unfortunately the dominant norm for mainstream pornography, make little appearance within the fandom writing spaces I myself spend time in. That's not to say I haven't read my fair shair of painfully straight smut in my lifetime, but simply that I have taste and am lucky to be neck deep in a fandom with very little of it. Nonetheless, as a card-carrying queer and writer myself, I consider myself quite familiar with the distinctive traits and patterns of queer and cishet pornographic writing. Beyond merely a focus on non-male pleasure or the subtle presence of queer or trans characters, the characterization of queer fanfiction is distinct and has entirely different mannerisms in dealing with conceptions of the body and pleasure. I'll primarily be citing Ineffabildaddy's work, for the sake of a focused analysis, who I will henceforth be referring to as Sam for the sake of pseudo-academic flow.

There are certain linguistic patterns that tend to distinguish heterosexual and heteronormative depictions of sex from queer ones. For instance, "cunt" is utilized sparingly within heteronormative contexts for its vulgarity and added obscenity, whilst queer writers use it pretty universally and without the same subtext. Throughout his writing, Sam works with this queer-coded vocabulary pretty consistently. In "Strawberry Scripture" (F/M), he describes how "Crowley's cunt... was damn-near swollen" and how Aziraphale has to resist "Bury[ing] his face in it immediately." No cis-het man has ever thought about eating pussy that way, and if you find one I'll eat my fucking hat. Likewise, vocabulary for the phallic tends to veer in the direction of "cock" over anything else. Interestingly, this creates a set of contrasting pairings. Heteronormative slang, from my obvervation, is more likely to use 'dick' and 'pussy', and, especially in conjunction, it creates a very distinctive mouthfeel that separates the two and poses them as opposites. 'Pussy', in particular, has a much more feminized feel when juxtaposed against 'dick', favoring much softer consonants and the english diminutive 'y' ending. 'Cock' and 'cunt', in comparison, have a very similar sound and feeling to them, distancing itself from hetero-cis-normative gender dualism of the language. There is, of course, plenty of nuance to this and the use of a variety of language in subverting cisnormative ideas about the sexed body as well, with phrases like 'boypussy' and 'girldick' being rather essential to the way many trans people describe their own bodies. "Fandom's Pornagraphic Subset," (yes I'm stealing sources from my research paper on monsterfucking, suck my dick) an article published in 2021 by Silja Kukka, describes how the "fleshy, hyperbolic descriptions of sex" that characterize this kind of writing are essential to what she dubs the "[creation of] a new genderqueer place outside of the gender dichotomy"(57). If you read enough smut, you know exactly what this is talking about. For example, in "Despite Knowing Better,"(F/M) we get vivid imagery to describe the way "streaks of her spit oozed from her mouth even as Aziraphale fucked it"(Ch5) and of "her walls quivering and clenching around him."(Ch3) This level of graphic sexual depiction goes beyond what would be considered 'tasteful' or 'sexy' in a heteronormative concept of pornography.

In terms of tropes, let's do a deep dive into "Strawberry Scripture"(F/M) to find what makes it queer beyond it's apparently straight pairing. To preface, this fic involves both foodplay and monsterfucking, but we're only gonna analyze one. The inherent queerness of monsterfucking is actually something I've written an entire academic paper on, so I suppose I'll start there. There's something very queer and often very trans about subverting the standard playbook of sexual acts, and while kink itself can easily be heterosexual, most monsterfucking falls far outside that category no matter what genital configuration those involved have. Monsterfucking tends to reject the phallocentrism of heteronormativity and mainstream kink by subverting the concept of the human body itself, giving inhuman and monstrous qualities to characters usually for sex appeal or general kinky shenanigans. While there's an argument to be made for heteronormativity still being able to creep into certain spaces, that certainly isn't true for this fic. There's something intrinsically transgressive about creating an erogenous zone out of a feature that would largely be considered horror or 'gross' in any other form of media, which is exactly what Sam does here as he describes the "cool, satiny sensation that the plates of her scales against his tip engendered." The scales are not merely called apon for their invocation of the unusual but to give them an eroticism in and of themselves, with Crowley reaching orgasm through their stimulation. We also slide gently into Monsterfucker territory in "Close (well you couldn't get much closer)" (M/M), where an argument could be made that the most trans-coded element isn't even Crowley's T-dick but instead the presence of a magic angel dildo. (sentences I never thought I'd fucking say but here we are.) There's something deeply transgender about the deconstruction of genital purpose in sex that recontextualizes the gendered body's role in pleasure. It falls into the same semiotic revolution and reclaiming of the body as the changes in language used by trans folks to rename and reidentify the literal physicality of the body by ones own standards (ie T-dick).

Another major trademark in departing from heteronormatized porn is the shift in narrative focus away from penetrative sex. That is, even in paragraphs where the main sex event is penetration, it rarely takes up even half the prose. The majority of narration is focused on surrounding or tangential actions: "the flowing movement of ... hips was sedate and wanton and lusciously provocative,"(1) "watching the muscles which resided there tense and relax alternately with pleasure,"(2) "his tongue stole past his teeth and slid over them,"(3) and "he whispered, his voice aching and curling and stretching for her"(4); all excerpts pulled from moments in which penetration is taking place, yet the concentration is anywhere but. Likewise, the act of penetration itself only takes up a small portion of physical sex acts in the grander scheme of Sam's writing. Instead, we as readers are presented with a vast spread of cock-sucking, pussy-eating, fingering, teasing, frottage, kissing, and more. Contrast this with the cis-hetero norm, where penetrative sex is the endgoal, and any other action is shucked aside to play second fiddle as mere foreplay. It's the reason virginity as a concept is directly tied to the mystical hymen and one's experience with penetration; a straight girl can suck dick a thousand times and still consider herself a virgin. As such, in a piece of pornographic writing where I have significant trouble finding lines to pull specifically and exclusively describing penetration (seriously, try it out yourself), the heterosexual influence is negligible. And yes, I'm talking about all of them. I had to restructure an entire argument that focused on comparing lines from different works because it was so difficult to find them.

So, in conclusion, Sam, love, there is not an ounce of heteronormativity in even the "straightest" of your writing. Congratulations.

Links, in order of reference:

Strawberry Scripture (3)

Fandom's Pornographic Subset, article by Silja Kukka and a great read

Despite Knowing Better... (4)

Close (you couldn't be much closer)

Many Different Ways to Eat an Oyster (1)

I'm Beginning to See the Light (2)

Author's notes, and then I promise I'll leave y'all alone: Hi! This started as a short analysis but quickly became a three(?)(maybe more?) hour labor of love analyzing the things I love most about both Sam's writing and the writing in this community as a whole. Please please please ask me questions, I'm an autistic little bitch and I like knowing things. My ask box? Open. Comments? Open. Reblogs? Open. If you've read this far, I fucking love you and I am kissing you on the mouth right now. Don't worry, my gender is just queer so it's gay no matter what. <3<3<3