#but is it weird i can kind of see that this style

[haridraws]

Hello, I hope you don’t mind me replying in a public reblog. I thought it'd be interesting to expand a little bit on this history for people who haven't heard of them - and on why I sort of think all of this is simultaneously true, and considering gender variation expansively can be useful for thinking about queer history!

I definitely don’t mean to say the Ladies of Llangollen were specifically punished for what they wore, or that they didn’t also wear skirts! The writing is mostly talking about other cases, just using this picture I already drew for the full history section to break up the text, but I totally see why the placement may look misleading here.

In the book itself, this is in the fashion section after explaining short hair was fashionable on women, and next to a caption that just says they “wore riding habits and hats considered more ‘masculine’.” (We have 17-19thC records of men generally disliking women’s riding clothes because they viewed them as not feminine enough, something that still happens with women’s sports clothes today.) Personally I found a lot of even French fashion plates with women’s riding hats in this style still had some kind of softer shape or element of decoration at this time, and saw the Ladies of Llangollen picture as really looking quite like men’s hats when seen side by side.

(These were the absolute most masculine ones I could find while researching the book, among many other more decorative ones, though I’d be interested if you’ve seen more!)

I’m sure I know much less about them, but my impression was also that their having to escape family expectations in Ireland is a way in which you might say they were to some extent outcasts, insofar as they ended up having to live outwith the society they grew up in (though the wording is a bit strong because it's really discussing other figures!) Of course, they were very much famous and quite beloved, lots of big names came to visit as a curiosity - but I think we can at least agree they're still people who did actually have to leave the country to get away from gendered expectations of them.

Mainly I think we might just mean different things by ‘gender non-conforming’, which I don’t mean as ‘equivalent of non-binary or genderqueer’, but in its broad and literal sense! I would say not marrying and going to live with a woman IS inherently not conforming to what’s expected of women at this time, and so was short women’s hair, even though it was a trend.

I don’t know if this is a source you don’t rate, but from whatever image - like Anne Lister - IMO their presentation is both not way beyond the bounds of what’s generally acceptable, but I also don’t think you could say it’s wholly conforming to the ideal of what most of society expected for women then. People are even still weird about straight, cis, traditionally 'feminine' women having short hair in the 21st century, and I think 'gender non-conforming' can be a useful phrase even just to talk about elements that only relate to appearance.

As a bit of a sidebar, we also live in a time now where anti-trans legislation attempts to confine all women to a narrow presentation range, but affects cis women who'd not see themselves as anything but women in terms of their identity at all. So I suppose I see pushing any boundaries of gender presentation as very linked now and historically, and broadening out definitions can often bring new possibilities. Most queer and particularly trans historians I’ve read take quite a broad view of what to consider when thinking about the many ways gender was historically more expansive than some people might think, including trends, and don't consider one interpretation as precluding any other.

Anyway, basically those mini instagram graphics are shortened from an 8-page illustrated history notes section at the back of a historical fiction book. It's a story using real history (and my modern experience) to imagine someone who does have an internal sense of gender at odds with what they're assigned - but it doesn't actually put a label even on the character, and I hope is pretty clear that we can never know the feelings of real people in the past, who existed with their own societally-specific ideas about gender and sexuality. (Though personally I don't really have beef with say, a big researcher of Anne Lister calling her 'the modern equivalent of a butch lesbian' as a way to get people interested.)

My book just has very short introductions that don’t include all the nuance - I’m not a professional historian and wanted them to be accessible to total beginners and young readers. (Though it does include sections about romantic friendships, as well as why we can't really label historical figures in a modern way!)

Mostly I wanted to point people towards finding out more for themselves, and hope it gives interested readers specific figures to look up and resources to get into!

Excuse the format (I made this for instagram since that's what the publisher wants, rip) but this is basically a shorter, easy-to-read version of the history section at the back of my new book. (Part 1 || The book)

More about my relationship with queer history (& section 28) under the cut

Looking up history to make a fun queer historical rom-com opened my eyes to how my entire idea of the past in this country was way off.

It also made me realise that part of the reason queer history felt like such new, revelatory information was a law that banned it, which was still in place when I was at school.

Section 28 was put in place by Margaret Thatcher in the 80s, banning "promotion of homosexuality" in UK schools and local authorities. Local libraries were forbidden from stocking anything with LGBT content, and it effectively stopped teachers mentioning any queer history, leaving them scared to even accidentally mention a same-sex partner.

-

just want to add a quote from that article:

legends.

-

Although the law was finally repealed in the 00s, it cast a long shadow. Older teachers were used to it, history books conformed to it, and new teachers still feared homophobic backlash.

Today there's a huge and disturbing rise in anti-trans rhetoric and legislation being attempted in schools and beyond, and it mirrors the homophobic conversations of the 80s. The truth that we've always been here gets met with vitriol - and to be honest, also just outright surprise even by well-intentioned, otherwise widely-read cis and straight people I know, especially in older generations.

I feel like there's also the flipside: once I listened to a podcast where two american women, older than me, were both SHOCKED that anyone was ever executed in Britain for being gay?? For me the threat of execution (before 1824), exile or imprisonment (the two years of hard labour that famously lead to the death of Oscar Wilde) were the main, only things I grew up aware of about queer history.

At best, the queer history I saw growing up was absolute tragedy. Part of what was such a revelation when researching was reading historical accounts that hint at hidden queer histories, secret joys and long, complex lives.

So by the time I finished researching my historical romance book, I'd decided to make an illustrated history section at the back too - these pics are a mini version.

I wish more people knew about the real history we have and how far back it goes - I hope someone unfamiliar might be able to get get a tiny introduction, and recs for ways to get a clearer view of our past.

[dollsdesires]

𝜗𝜚 Caught (chris version)

Content warnings: p in v, doggy style, masturbation (getting caught), pet names (good girl), recording sex

wc: 863

a/n: for whoever requested a chris version, my other post got flagged so i couldn’t reply to it

Water dripped from your hair down to your feet as you stepped out of the hot tub. You stood beside the hot tub with a towel wrapped around you, watching everyone else. Matt and nick were getting out too, chris already heading back inside the air bnb. “I’m fucking starving.” nick said, grabbing a towel and putting it over his body. “We should order something.” matt responded. You agreed, nodding your head. “I can see what chris wants.” you say, drying your hair. After seeing them nod, you start heading inside. As you get closer to chris’s room you start hearing something. You hear muffled grunts but open the door nonetheless.

You pause at what you see. It’s chris with his left hand over his mouth and his right hand stroking himself. He didn’t notice at first, not until you took a step forward, causing the floorboard to creek. His head snapped at you, making both your eyes widen. “Chris! I, uh, what do you want to eat?” you said nervously, trying to act like you didn’t see what you did. He tucked himself back in his shorts in one swift position. “Bro get the fuck out.” he yelled in a half embarrassed half aggravated tone. “I asked you a question, chris.” you were trying to act like your heart wasn’t beating out of your chest. You both paused, it was a long stretch of awkward silence. Your eyes darted across the room, trying to not make eye contact. Your eyes fell on his phone which was still unlocked. “Chris? What is that?” you say breathless, dropping your towel. It was a picture you took with the 3 brothers just earlier today. You were in your bikini with one arm around chris and the other arm around nick. Suddenly it clicked. He was using that to jerk off with. Your jaw went slack and your eyes found his. The awkward silence was now replaced with a different kind of silence. It was full of tension. It was a little weird he was using your picture but you couldn’t help but find it hot. He took notice on how your thighs were clenched together, you didn’t want to admit it but you were soaked.

He took a step forward now hovering over you. “I think you like this.” he whispered. You looked up at him, still not speaking. “Wanna give me something else to jerk off to?” you responded with a nod. He walked over and shut the door before retreating back to you. His lips pressed against yours, softly but firmly. Your mind was racing, it was hard to believe this was happening. You pressed more into the kiss as he deepened it, his lips parting your lips, slipping his tongue in. His hand found your bikini bottom, easily slipping past the waistband. A finger ran through your slick folds, pushing down on your clit. “Chris.” you gasped.

A smirk spread across his face. His hand returned from your bottoms, both of them finding your hips, guiding you to turn around. He pushed you softly into the bed. With your face now into the mattress, he slid your bottoms down. “Be a good girl f’me.” he whispered. His swimming trunks found the floor in an instant. He lined his still fully hard cock to your entrance. A hand found your mouth as he slid in, not giving you any time to adjust to his thick size. Your moans and whimpers were muffled, thank god. He groaned softly as he felt your tight walls around him. His other hand found your hip, holding himself up as he pounded into you. He kept slamming into you, you were close. The hand that was on your mouth left, grabbing his phone and clicking on the camera. He stayed slamming into you the entire time. He put the camera in front of your face and hit record. “Let the camera hear you, baby.” he encouraged, as he hit that specific spot in you, making you let out a loud moan. You knew matt and nick were just outside, but you couldn’t help it. You felt your thighs began to tremble, getting even more worked up by the fact he was recording this. You felt your pussy clench and your muscles tighten. The hand that was on your hip came up, holding your mouth once again as you came, only letting a few moans come out. He rode you through your high, then pulled out. He aimed his dick to your back and started cuming, his phone left your face and started recording his release. He let out a soft groan before the door swung open.

“Chris, have you seen-“ Matt was cut off by the sight of the two of you. Chris quickly stopped recording and tucked himself into his swim trunks while you pulled up your bottoms. “The fuck?!” matt said before leaving and slamming the door shut out of embarrassment. You and chris looked at each other, still embarrassed but still turned on. “I’ll use our video next time.” he smirks before speaking again. “That is, only when you’re not here to do it f’me.”

a/n: idk why my other posts got flagged, tumblr count your days

[velvetvexations]

god help me I'll throw my hat into the omegaverse discourse ring as a transmasc; I can understand a lot of other trans men/masc's complaints about it (and honestly, there's been certain fandoms/common character interpretations of "omega" characters that really did just feel like transmasc futa. no shade to anyone who did this with love but for an example, I saw a lot of art/headcanons/fic of modern tristamp Vash that made me....raise my eyebrows, let's say), but I will say that as a transmasc person who has written a lot of omegaverse, I actually specifically enjoy it because I feel like it's a rare opportunity to normalize non-cis bodies in an in-universe, literal sense- creating a world where your biology is not tied to your gender presentation and your gender presentation has multiple unique layers is really fun for me.

Mind, I prefer writing "queer utopia" style worlds, so I could see how this could get real weird real fast if you're trying to do An Oppression Metaphor. I think the real problem, if there is one, kind of goes back to the fact that this has basically become transmasc futa, but without a lot of recognizing that this is the case in the wider fanbase/cis readership. So you'll have people blithely consuming this stuff and not really thinking about it as Trans Fiction, so there's less pressure to like. Think about what's being depicted and why and how. And saying things like "omegaverse has the potential to perpetuate transandrophobic stereotypes about trans male/masc bodies because there's a huge chunk of the readerbase who knows very little about the reality of actual trans bodies and so they're going to absorb some of this and not recognize how that might fuck with their perception of real trans people" is both unwieldy as hell and feels like it'd be subject to like...the sort of "oh that's just transemasculation lol" kind of shit where no one except other trans mascs are taking it seriously. But at the same time, I can't give up on omegaverse as a genre with a lot of potential for trans experiences being depicted in new ways!

yeah like the education that this can affect transmascs is the main thing not that Omegaverse is in and of itself bad

[cinnamon-flame]

Starting off the new year with I think the most background heavy piece I've ever made! I think Rainwings and Nightwings would celebrate their traditional holidays together after the events of The brightest night. So this drawing is meant to show their cultures kind of blending together during a very joyful time. I remember talking about this concept with someone on tumblr a year ago but when I went back through my posts I couldn't for the life of me find it - so if your reading this, I remember you and this drawing stems from that conversation so thank you!

Close-ups:

[fyllophobia]

[wisteriasymphony]

have I ever talked about the dumb ghost hunting au. given how much i love gothic themes i feel like this was inevitable

[jovialturtleface]

Oh! Hi ^_^

[icewindandboringhorror]

One of the interesting bits of trying to resume working on the game after so long is looking back at my ancient Draft Placeholder versions of an image from 4 yrs ago trying to remember what the hell I meant back then, to hopefully interpret it into some more final (ish..) form of the same thing .. making slow progress lol

[caravanlurker]

shout out to that one time I watched the PRISMCorps Magical Girl lore video and the first few episodes of TGAMM in veeery close proximity. too much time on this xP loong ramble in the tags

[spotaus]

Boys, hold me to this one, I'm gonna make a Papyrus oc.

Not exactly a new idea, but I've been sleeping on Papyri since I joined this Fandom and I refuse to keep going. We (I) need more Papyruses with the dramatic Sans backstories without directly swapping a sans, and I shall provide at least One.

[violetren]

Fantasy High Junior Year is the first installment of D20 based in the world of Spyre in which I have known with the sudden and complete knowledge of who I'd like to play as a character in some kind of unreal scenario where I got to play in that playground. Literally the only thing that hasn't come to me has been the name.

Full character concept under the cut

She's a half elf and ideally in the unreal scenario of playing her in Spyre she'd be in her sophomore year getting shunted onto some pre-established party by Aguefort after her previous party got decimated during a school adventure that should have been freshman safe but just wasn't. Most of her old party is fully dead and unable or unwilling to come back, one might be comatose, and at least one other one just dropped out and the fact that they left while she stayed is almost a bigger strain on their friendship than the death of their friends but they aren't acknowledging that because neither of them wants to feel like they are being the unsupportive friend when they are all each other has left of their party.

In her original party she was the rogue and just barely settled into the mastermind subclass, always watching other peoples moods and figuring out what words would get them to behave in certain ways. This is all very forgone conclusion based on her particular flavour of edgy rogue backstory in which she had a pretty solid start to her childhood, with hard working parents and a cute younger sibling, until one day her parents died, but instead of the classic "oh the rogue became an urchin" she and her sibling were taken in by her grandfather, a man her parents had put concentrated effort into never letting near their kids. Grandad is The Deadbeat Dad twice over, mostly just neglecting them meaning she had to step up early to keep her sibling cared for, but making them both wish he'd ONLY neglect them whenever he came back home drunk and in debt and wanting to blame someone else about it. She spent a lot of time learning how to redirect his focus before he could blow up, and how to get the focus on her instead of her sibling when she couldn't prevent it from happening.

Starting her new year with a new party who weren't missing anyone but were instead just a small enough group that adding a new member just helped round out the paperwork, she is now also an oath of ancients paladin for Cassandra, goddess of doubt and mystery.

The unreal scenario ideally takes place after FHJY so like Ankarna has finally got through to Cassandra that "no babe, the cat wasn't just grumpy with people who weren't you, she was evil to everyone including you" and Cassandra is still like "but I love a grumpy cat."

My gal ended up on Cassandra's radar either in the immediate aftermath of the battle or while lying in a hospital bed a couple of days later just in full existential tailspin of "how could we have ever thought adventuring was fun? what kind of fucked up world lets kids put themselves in that kind of danger? why do so many people i love die, or leave? why is continuing to adventure still more feasible a life path than trying to find an adult that will actually help? how could anything about my life so far be called fair?" And Cassandra is the first authority figure type being who ever looks her in the eye and goes "hey, you're right its not fair, and I don't know how to help with all your problems, but I can maybe help with some of them, and will stay by your side for the ones I can't fix."

Ankarna is kinda there watching her wife work and seeing how angry my gal is at the world and is having kind of the same reaction as a straight laced suburbanite might have when they take their kid to get a puppy at the pet store and the kid instantly becomes obsessed with the snake on display. It's a very "Sweetie are you sure you want that one, it doesn't look very cuddly, why not one of the ones over here?" while Cassandra is like "but look at that cute widdle face." (the face is a jaded thousand yard glare). (Ankarna is clinging to her new dawn philosophy by her fucking fingers and trying not to be like, this brat is giving me Kalina vibes.)

As a paladin of doubt and mystery with a background roguish masterminding, my gal's new approach to socialising and adventuring (which is her primary mode of socialisation now) is an aggressively bitchy gaslight, gate-keep, girl-boss campaign that makes people think she's constantly trying to cast vicious mockery without ever having learned the spell. It's all mean girl "Oh, you actually thought that quip sounded cool?" while dealing with anyone she doesn't immediately see a reason to play nice with. Cause like she's gotta spread some doubt, no one said what kind. For her new party she's smart enough to reign it in but that mostly just means she keeps conversations as short and on rails as possible. In a very weird way she is like a hairs breath away from becoming a cleric of Ankarna just for like the "we keep moving forward" energy she pushes out, but girl doesn't have the level of introspection (wisdom) required for cleric hood.

However as bitchy as she has forged herself into becoming she is still a big sister first and foremost, so at home she just tries to model the same acceptance and stability she remembers from her parents for her sibling. You see hints of that whenever she interacts with anyone who is already earnestly feeling doubt, because for as worrisome as her general attitude is for Ankarna, she does actually get Cassandra's "you don't have to walk in the dark alone" message. That message saved her when she was at her lowest point, so she fully confuses the shit out of her new party whenever any of them are feeling vulnerable and she's genuinely compassionate and steadfast she is with them. Also in how her whole way of holding herself changes is they have to interact with someone younger than they are.

Also she definitely has some kind of amulet or talisman of some kind that connects her with her sibling so if her grandad comes home while she's off adventuring and presents a threat she can teleport immediately to her sibling and rock that old mans shit. Fuck him, she has smites now. Technically its for any situation in which her sibling feels unsafe but it was brought with grandad in mind and he's the only reason either sibling has ever thought it would be needed. She would absolutely leave the party hanging mid combat no hesitation and barely any warning if signalled whether they had gotten close enough for her to explain what the signal meant or not.

She doesn't really talk with Kristen that much (Kristen's first impression is also probably "oh no, are you the new cat") but she does sometimes text with Craig about all this new church stuff.

[maliro-t]

some game design thinky thoughts.

[relevant-url-incoming]

I think the funniest thing I ever did to Nalyan was put him in this outfit like.

Oh you don't like being around Jedi? and your excuse is that you don't care about or trust the Force and you think Jedi are so stupid and you dislike their aesthetics and insert another petty grumpy argument here? what the fuck are you wearing buddy because that looks suspiciously like half the clothes that got dropped on my consular. you've got a dopey little ponytail that's totally not a little piece of eight-year-old you still desperately hoping to become someone's padawan and your formal outfit is just bootleg jedi clothes. it's funny because if i don't laugh at it i feel really really sad for him. my guy. you need so much therapy for all the shit i put you through.

anyway he will wear this and tell people with a straight face that he's never spoken to a single jedi in his life. these people include risha and corso, who were in fact there the last time he talked to a jedi, and guss, who takes this as an insult and not nalyan being a fucking weirdo (because if anyone other than guss asks nalyan is the first to say he should totally count as a jedi. only if guss isn't there though). this man has Problems.

[jovialturtleface]

[keeps-ache]

i should learn to make hash browns

[rainbowresurrection]

I ended up reading The Price of the Phoenix and while it didn't make me want to bleach my eyes like Killing Time, I still didn't like it as much as I hoped I would. Don't get me wrong, the homoeroticism was intriguing to me, but the actual writing and storyline itself left me with a headache. I think I get my hopes up with these books, given all of the possibilities that the written word has for Trek, and it inevitably sets me up for disappointment lol