#my trauma is reflected in non sex forms

[ecstarry]

would love any of your "weird" NSFW headcanons, gor any pairing

- :)

omg i knew this day will come where i EXPOSE myself as a very boring person sex wise ASJDHBSAJH i don't think i have any weird ones for you babe IM SORRY

the "weirdest" one came to me yesterday, while watching dune 2 and it was knives HAHAH and it was with PANDORA like i could see pandora licking the knife just like Feyd-Rautha in his first scene??? YES YES YES GIVE ME UNHINGED PANDORA DOMINATRIX KIND OF VIBES???

[tomwambsgans]

that gay brother/little sister post you reblogged was soooo juicy so now i wanna ask your thoughts on gay roman (i’m absolutely a gay roman truther)

so i'm not attached enough to roman to have TOO many pre-formed thoughts on this but i'm gay enough i can't not have thoughts, so. another disclaimer, due to my lack of attachment i'm not whatsoever married to the notion of either kendall or roman (or shiv for that matter) being gay as opposed to bi. however i have eyes and a brain so i know they're all not straight, like that much is basically textual.

but anyway. when it comes to any of the roy siblings and homosexuality, i'll say my very first thought is this monologue from Angels in America. not that they would necessarily have that exact ideology about it, but those notions would greatly inform their attitude about themselves. imo roman, with his inclination toward fascistic masculinity in particular, would be the most likely to overtly think these things, and i do think he kind of does. roman knows that he's unable to get off with normative sex, but he also explicitly derides "liberal butt-love" and implicitly (sometimes explicitly) all the non-conforming and gender-bending stuff that goes along with it. that's at least partially because he's talking about a category of people that he does not belong to, due to being far above it. it's often the case for those who are rich and powerful and condemn the same "deviant" practices that they themselves engage in, whether it's gay sex, or just generally non-normative sex, abortion, etc. it's okay for me, but not for you.

but that's just one piece to roman's puzzle because there's also clearly shame wrt masculinity (logan's masculinity) and also some sexual trauma involved. i think kieran and/or one of the writers has said something about not wanting to pin Why Roman Is Like That on anything in particular, like not wanting to definitively say that something happened to him as a kid, but honestly i think it's extremely unlikely that he'd be like that about sex if nothing did. maybe it was very complicated and it not any singular event, but there's got to be something. some sexual depth to his childhood abuse that never got explicitly touched on. other people much more invested in roman than i have done really good meta on the roys' relationships to their bodies (like w the Summer of Competetive Eating Disorders), so i'm not gonna try to rehash those other ppl's thoughts, but in short that's the sort of thing i think of when i'm trying to imagine what the fuck happened to roman. like just over-arching themes of The Boot throughout roman's life, the lack of ownership over his own body in a way that reflects femininity and strips him of manhood, whether at home or at military school, etc.

i mean, we (as in the audience) are definitely at least supposed to wonder, like when it's implied that Mo's pederasty wasn't exclusive to girls (Don't Get In The Pool With Him), but also, if anything of that nature happened to him and informed roman's relationship with his sexuality, i have to also think that roman doesn't actually remember. his whole thing in austerlitz where he jokes to connor "i'm gonna tell them you diddled me" gives me the sense that maybe roman just kind of wishes it was that cut-and-dry, because then he'd have something specific to blame his whole deal on.

anyway. this is about roman being gay, not specifically sexually Weird - i just think the context of all that is relevant to how he'd conceptualize himself and any gay feelings he has. and i do think that if and when roman has ever had sex with men, he probably does lump it in with the fact that he can't have Normal sex. i think roman would have to undergo a lot of character development to ever consider it normal sex. honestly, simply recieving a handjob from his personal trainer was likely "wrong" enough for roman to get off despite how the average gay man would see it as extremely vanilla compared to roman needing to be degraded or fantasizing about necrophilia. growing up with logan "i didn't figure you for a faggot" roy would have, of course, really reinforced the ideas about that being Wrong.

(speaking of logan dropping the f slur, i think it's interesting that despite how roman acts anti-woke in front of others, he's shocked when logan says it. it's clearly crossing a line even for him, almost certainly because he's been abused with this word throughout his life. :'/)

so yeah i don't think roman would ever call himself gay (or even bi or queer) even if he is. and as for the matter of if he is, like as in, if tabitha and gerri are exceptions... i honestly don't know, but i don't think roman knows either. i think the relationship he has with love and sex, his own body and others, the very concept of desire and the love and affection and closeness he seeks out... are genuinely so gnarled and complicated, and wrapped up in all the aforementioned shame and abuse, that figuring out where gender factors into it would - once again - basically require years of therapy on his part.

it's definitely very plausible to me that kinky, non-normative sex is something he only needs in order to get off with women because he has no innate desire for them even when he loves them (and roman definitely has a lot of love inside of him that he will bend over backwards to give and recieve). but it's just as plausible that roman's association of feelings of wrongness with sexual pleasure is in fact unrelated to whatever gendered desire he has or doesn't have. his attraction to men is, funnily enough, more undeniable to me than his attraction to women is, but i do think that how it's portrayed in the show emphasizes roman's role in the world more than desire he holds inside of him. i always think of that one tweet that's like "whenever there's a guy that needs to be seduced, instead of shiv or some other hot woman they send roman." and his role as the Desired One (aka Practically A Woman) is likely a sort of spite factor in him wanting to deny overt homosexual interest too, since it's kind of imposed on him before he has a chance to say anything about who he is.

it's funny bc roman is the one male character where like... i simultaneously like the idea of them being gay and enjoy their relationships with women. he's just so complicated that he kind of exists outside the constructions of sexual orientation? like not in the "he's closeted and he's never coming out so even if he's gay, he's also not" way, but "this guy would not be able to figure out how to define attraction or desire to begin with." gerri being the love of his life and the notion of him being gay are not whatsoever mutually exclusive in my mind, because he's just that complicated.

finally i wanna say, again, that i'm not extremely attached to roman. nowhere near to the degree that i care about tom and greg. which i say because yknow.. i want to kill and maim when i see anything implying that either tom or greg are anything but gay. idk how you feel about it but i'd totally sympathize if you were the same about roman, lol. and i wanna emphasize that it's very likely the only reason i'm not necessarily a gay roman truther is because i haven't thought about it enough. i'd love to see anyone else's gay roman meta if they have it.

[ionlydrinkhotwater]

Back on my GOLDEN AND ELLIOT FRIENDSHIP BRAINROT

"“He came specially to say good-bye to you,” Golden said, more politely, but his tone also questioned Elliot’s intelligence. “I do not know if you are not interested, or protecting yourself, but you cannot guard yourself against the whole world. You only succeed in placing a barrier between yourself and the world.” He hesitated. “I know that from personal experience.” It was the first crack Golden had let himself show Elliot, in his ivory-and-gold façade: it was the first time Golden had shown Elliot that Golden wished to be known. Elliot appreciated that Golden wanted to be friends. He wondered what hurts Golden’s world had inflicted on him, and how they were different from the wounds the world had inflicted on Elliot, and Serene, and even Luke. Elliot hoped he would get to know Golden better."- In Other Lands

So in the Sunday Morning Transcript Q&A @sarahreesbrennan said that Golden would be a game changer for the group and I 100% see that.

One the biggest changes I could see happening is helping Elliot shoulder the emotional burden he takes on within the Luke, Serene, Elliot trio.

Tormenting their beloveds while maintaining a valid position is right up their alley.

One of the things that Elliot has over Serene and Luke is that he's more emotionally mature than they are, now that might be surprising but it's actually true. It comes down to society and personal experience. Elliot has had to self parent, self reflect, self examine and try to empathize with others because of his upbringing. He grew up with a neglectful, alcoholic, emotional abusive father whose moods dominated and dictated his home life. He may be awkward and clumsy but he's still capable of great empathy because he had to navigate a messed up situation.

After Adam sexually harassed him (rereading it its quite harrowing, one has to wonder what would have happened if Culaine had not been there? ) He tells Luke about it, now admittedly in not the best way but to be honest that may be a case of adrenaline and trauma making him adopt a casual attitude about it. Unfortunately Luke handles it poorly and Elliot becomes contrite. Even when Luke learns the truth he does not redress the issue with Elliot and even uses it as an excuse to not tell Elliot about his sexuality. Elliot is also really sorry about how he handled the news. But notice at no point does Luke attempt to navigate the emotionally fraught issues at play here, largely leaving it to Elliot to sooth HIS feelings. (I'll get back to this). Yes he broke Adam's nose but Elliot doesn't know that he's been avenged and to be fair it's more satisfying for Luke than Elliot cause he's still going to feel victimized and not believed. Notice Elliot doesn't really talk about it again and when Serene and Elliot are about to be intimate she says some very uncomfortable things about Elliot essentially being a seducer and that whatever happens will be his fault(and look Serene is great and improves from this but DAMN that was rough to read). And Jace in and of itself is just fraught with questions about consent but again Elliot is retriggered when Jace basically says that Elliot should be flattered he was harassed by Adam cause he's hot and Elliots father is indifferent to his teenage Son in a relationship with an adult. I think Elliot pursuing a relationship with Myra after all of this was a form of self love honestly cause Myra is a sweetheart. What's clear from Adaras attitude, Lukes attitude and Serenes attitude, Sex Ed in the Borderlands is woefully inept and the topic of consent is non existant. Adara only recognized that what happened with Luke and her was not OK because of her personal experience with folks not respecting her boundaries not from a societal understanding of it. I think that's why Luke can't wrap his mind around the seriousness of Elliots complant about Adam and why when he does Kiss Elliot himself he DOESN'T ASK FIRST, keep in mind at that point Elliot had rejected him and shut down any attempts at flirting, from his POV in Wings he KNOWS that based on context Elliot has made it clear he does not want to be with Luke romantically and Luke (whose brought Elliot to a treehouse Elliot can't leave and is surrounded by a battlefield and is relying on Luke for his safety) Kisses him anyway. Now Elliot is in to it cause things work out for Luke Sunborn but let's be honest it could have ended badly.

When Serene's mother calls Elliot a slut Serene is angry but when her mother rejects Luke as her sword sister she becomes livid and argues with her. Interestingly she does not defend Elliots honor with the same enthusiasm. It's Luke she passionately defends. And after they break up she and Luke do make comments on Elliots 'loose' appearance and slut shame him. They also chat about their crushes in front of him without considering that this might bum him out. Serene only stops when she notices Luke is sad and Elliot has to explain that talking about ones love life in front of single friends is kinda crappy for them. And when Serene realizes this applied to Elliot and her face becomes distraught he immediately plays down his own feelings to comfort her. @pap3r-cr0wn refers to the Elven society in IOL as a Gynopatricarchy and I'm going to refer to it as well because it's not really a Matriarchal society ( women are in charge but toxic masculinity is still being valued and upheld, ex: repression of emotions and violence as held up). Which is why she defends Luke over Elliot because Lukes skill at arms is more societally valuable and valiant than Elliots sexual freedom to the Gynopatricarchy and the patriarchy for that matter. It's the Joan of Arc/Madonna/Artemis vs Aphrodite/Magdelene/whore thing she attributes to Golden and Luke vs Elliot. Also Luke can publicly defend himself as a warrior whereas Elliot has no way of defending the things said about him.

After Adara and Natalie basically disrespect his existence after his one night stand, he shoves aside his hurt because he learns that Adara is suffering from unrequited love and as someone who grew up in a household where unrequited love destroyed his childhood he immediately privileges Adaras hurt over his own and immediately assures her.

After his mother coldly rejects him for the second time in his life he shoves his desire to unload on Luke who has come over to complain about his mom. But when Luke is in a similar emotional state he deliberately finds Elliot to unload on him.

This is sort of a pattern of his too, when he's clearly confused over his attraction to Elliot after the play, when Elliot tells him hes interested in Myra, Luke rants about how Elliots mean and forced him to do the play (which he technically didnt) but Elliot just snarks him through this tantrum. And when he has his other tantrum in his cabin he mentions that Elliot didn't remember his name...which Luke should not get to complain about that, given his excellent memory his inability to learn names is a choice not something he can't help. I love Luke but I think in some ways he buys into his good guy persona cause when he recounts things in his cabin he deliberately leaves out the fact that he also didn't consider Elliot a friend and that he never remembers people's names and that he hasn't always been nice to Elliot either. And the burden of forcing himself to play that role causes Lukes tantrums because if he just let himself be an asshole like Elliot he'd feel better across the board.

Another thing Elliot does is become obsessed with everyone's romantic life, pairing them up and scheming to get them together. Why? Again it comes down to his mom and dad, if he takes control of everyone's romantic life they won't end up like his parents and he can exercise control over the situation unlike with his parents. He tries to help Luke get with Dale and he helps Serene with Golden. Interestingly they don't offer to reciprocate in helping with Elliots romantic life. For Serene it comes down to cultural issues and for Luke he's not good at this sort of thing. But it's also no surprise that privileged kids like Serene and Luke occupy the nurtured over nurturing position.

Now why are Luke and Serene like this?!

Well first it's privilege, both Serene and Luke occupy the top of their respective societies and they also have all the talents and abilities that are valued by their society. They are at the top of the food chain and anyone will tell you that people who are privileged have a tough time wrapping their heads around other people in a less privileged positions problems. They came from bonkers families but both of them had parents who love them and they have the love and admiration of those around them. More so Luke than Serene at the bordercamp.

The societies they grew up in are really problematic. Rachel Sunborn might be openminded but that's not the case for all of the Sunborns and Luke has ABSOLUTELY absorbed the closed minded attitude Humans have taken about OtherLand races.

This exchange basically encompasses everything wrong here:

"“Yeah,” Luke said, ignoring this byplay. “But come on, you can’t always trust dwarves.” Elliot gave him a look of withering scorn. Luke, used to it at this point, did not seem unduly affected. “You’re from the human world and maybe you don’t know,” he said. “But they’re—I mean, some of them are nice, obviously, I’ve met some very nice dwarves, but there’s a tendency to be a bit cunning? My dad says so.” “It’s true,” said Captain Briarwind, who was really young for a captain, a bit spotty, and had a distressing tendency to look heroworshipfully at Luke. “They’re a low and cunning folk.” He did not seem to be making a pun. “They’d lie, cheat, and steal for gold.” Elliot could not believe that idiots like Captain Briarwind and Captain Whiteleaf got missions while Captain Woodsinger hardly ever did. Both Luke and Captain Briarwind seemed blissfully unaware that one of Elliot’s friends from council-training course, Myra, had dwarf blood. “Don’t either of you talk to me,” said Elliot, and stormed off."

To be fair Serene said something similar earlier when she's explaining the Borderlands to Elliot about the untrustworthniess of other races in the Borderlands.

The societies that Serene and Luke grew up in uphold violence, repression of emotion and soldierly obedience. It's also Anti-intellectual, when Lakelost expresses concern that Luke reads Michael Sunborn is quick to deny it because goodness forbid!

With these values and the discouragement from learning new ideas or getting to know other races, the idea of emotional intelligence and empathy would be squashed after all, how can war thrive with emotionally openminded soldiers?

The Harpy issue was an interesting case study with their group dynamic because for once Luke was experiencing what it's like to not occupy the top spot in society and he was also wrestling with his internalized xenophobia. And he basically sulked and threw a massive tantrum. To Elliots credit he was actually more gentle with Lukes emotions than Serene was during this situation and that's cause Serene whose had to tolerate human supremecy crap at camp for years has no sympathy for Lukes sulking. She's says to Elliot "Just because he is finding adjusting to a harpy lifestyle difficult does not mean he is allowed to mistreat his friends.” and I should point out (the Dale thing aside, which for the record, may have been a crappy thing to do but let's be honest, Luke and Dale weren't dating and Luke wasnt actually interested in him anyway and What Luke said to HIM was 100000% worse). Elliot shows remarkable empathy for what Lukes going through given that on a closer look its bit absurd, he's horrified at the Harpies brutality? He's a soldier, guaranteed he's seen worse and what is worse? He helped make those corpses, who cares if they are ritualistically scattered? First he's privledging human violence over other species violence when really violence is violence and its all down to internalized zenophobia. Also he does not take it out on Serene he deliberately goes after Elliot here and as i stated this is his partern he lets his anger boil over and its Elliot who is the target but unlike every other time where Elliot soothed him and took on the blame he fights back and Luke who is put off by the argument goes in for the kill blow and Elliot snaps. I think this is cause he thought it would be a fair fight, and what he doesn't realise is that it never was equal between he and Elliot. Elliot can annoy, but Luke can harm. We see in this situation that Serene is helping to shoulder the emotional burden but she still employs weaponized incompetence (a favourite tool of the patriarchy or Gynopatricarchy here to excuse their emotional incompetence and therefore force Elliot to handle more of the burden). The Borderlands humans are also under this macho belief too, even though Rachel is a strong female in Lukes life, Sunborn women are an exception and even Luke relationship with his father is warm but they have manly silences, its not as emotionally open as one would think in a modern father son relationship. Unbelievably Luke still expects Elliot to apologize to him first and when Elliot does he accepts it but at no point does it occur to him to wonder about the WHY, why did Elliot do what he did, what was it about this situation that sent Elliot to such a dark place? He just says well the other side sucks stay with me and Serene. Which is sweet in a ditzy way but clearly he's not capable of examining the emotional landscape of what happened the way Elliot could.

Now Luke and Serene are very nice people BUT it's quite clear that like most sheltered privileged people, that niceness itself is a privilege. For Elliot hes not nice but he is KIND and his hangups and his kindness are hard-won from a life of crap. And he has to navigate different emotional landscapes over the border from an informed disadvantage. For Luke and Serene they are operating from life being generally good and when it's not they can't cope as well as Elliot can.

Now to both Luke and Serenes credit they are different from those around them because they are open to learning. Serene joining the Bordercamp and enrolling in the council course shows that she's interested in broadening her mind and growing. And Luke does read and although he's struggling with his familys expectations (not in terms of skill but the whole Sunborn boldness) he does try to keep an open mind and will allow Elliot to wield his privilege for good and he wants to be a good person. He cares about Elliot and Serene and I think as time goes by he will start self examining a bit. Like every tantrum Lukes ever had, you could tell it was building up everytime and AGAIN if he dropped the nice guy act and let himself get mad he'd be less likely to blow up.

THE GOLDEN AGE

Golden has been calling Serene out on her crap from the start and Elliot is positively gleeful watching Serene freak out over not trodding on Goldens agency. And Golden talks about sneaking in Banned books in Elf Finishing school, I like that Elliot thinks Elf Finishing school sound splendid which I think he would do pretty well there. And in the quote at the start of the essay Golden is not only offering Elliot advice he also offers emotional insight and baring his own vulnerability as well. I think that Golden joining the group shifts the power balance but also the emotional burdens. Before this Elliot put up with some things because he was not secure in his relationship with them. But after the Harpy insident he can be more direct cause he is more secure, he can actually get mad at Serene and let her know it, like when she says that Elliot should let Luke down gently and calls out that Elliot hasn't liked Luke and Elliot snaps at her. Serene finds him and apologizes. @pap3r-cr0wn has a theory that Golden gave her a lecture on the nuisance of belligerent sexual tension and also minding her business about her friends relationships lol. But I think with the addition of Golden who is Serenes spouse and Elliot dating Luke they can demand that their partners be more openminded and emotionally mature. They also have more social capital within the group and Elliot is no longer outnumbered.

In Goldens experience with Elven society they would be treated as second tier and is under a lot more scrutiny and experiences a lot more repression than Serene and all the other female elves Elliots met. And Elliot considers what Golden has been through and wants to learn more. But its also an acknowledgement of Elliot that he finally has an ally, cause for Golden they would have been raised to be intuitive, gentle, intelligent and emotional, now Golden, and all the other elves really dont fit neatly into the gendered expectations that their society demands but his upbrining would at least allow him to cultivate those traites that Elliot also values. The final mention of Golden in IOL has Elliot and Golden leaning their heads together over the pros and cons list Golden made about different fortresses. I think we can see that they are really close and as SRB mentioned in the Q&A that an event will make them even closer and I hope so cause Elliot deserves to have a best friend outside of the trio.

One last thing about consent being taught in the Borderlands, in TWTBD Mark talks about consent in regards to what happened to Illyria. Now he does care about treating Ladies properly but this understanding of sexual assault feels like another Elliotism that he parrots throughout the story. I think Elliot is making sure the Sex Ed taught to his students is inclusive and covers things that they need to know like consent.

[nineeyedartist]

For as long as I can remember, gender has felt ambiguous within this body. As a child I learned — from a book about bones — how the Biblical story of Adam and Eve has led some to believe that males have one fewer rib than females (on account of Eve being made from one of Adam’s ribs). This fascinated me, so I would lie awake at night trying to count my ribs to find out if I was a boy or a girl — surely the skeleton cannot lie, I thought. Invariably I always lost count, left frustrated that I would never know the truth of my gender. Beyond my own questioning, others have inquired about my gender since birth. From an ambiguous birth name to androgynous features, being asked “are you a boy or a girl?” began long before I even knew about gender variance and what it is to be transgender or third gender.

As I’ve told in Spirits We Are, I identify as part of a collective being: the product of trauma and a thread connected to our ancestors. This experience of multiplicity and ancestral connection has everything to do with our shared and individual relationships to gender and the body. As we’ve begun the process of healing within, I’ve simultaneously been on a journey to rediscover the queer history of my ancestors. My twin spirit has been my primary guide on this exploration, as they are the one tied to our ancestors most deeply. They expressed clearly our ancestral connection to persons with male genitalia who would partially or fully castrate themselves, whip their bodies to bleed, dancing ecstatically to tambourines and the clashing of knives. In time, I was able to uncover a name for these people: the Galli.

The Galli were just one of several spiritually connected gender variant peoples in the ancient Mediterranean world. Throughout the region male, female, and intersex bodied people (male-bodied being most written about) would take on the role of the opposite sex or a third gender for cultural and spiritual purposes. Only a few of these variant identities continue to exist in some form today, many having been erased with the expansion of Abrahamic religions. The Feminnielli of Naples, Italy is one such identity which traces their origins back to the Galli and the cult of Cybele.

Discovering that my ancestors have an ancient heritage of gender variance felt like opening a door I had been unable to see, but knew must exist. It was an even greater feeling of comfort to see my experience of gender reflected in people living today in the land of my ancestors — a rare vestige of an ancient cultural gender identity. Although my body’s ancestry and our ancestral connections do come, in part, from Southern Italy — because I am third generation, raised in the United States, I feel it is not my place to claim a cultural identity as Feminniello. Instead I claim an identity of third gender, as this reflects a generic cultural gender identity, something more specific than non-binary or gender variant. The cultural piece — though diasporic — is significant for me and for us as a collective. For us, gender has ceased to be an individual matter — it’s connected to ancestral spirits and to the very fabric of our spiritual beliefs. It is not so much a personal desire to be between as it is a duty to our ancestors. This life does not belong to one person. This life begs to remember for our descendants what our ancestors were forced to forget.

This month is LGBTQ+ Pride Month in the US and in sharing this I wish to express a sort of pride for a gender experience that isn’t often mentioned in the European-American cultures. Our collective roots have been cut so long ago that many have forgotten the tap root we all once shared, now that we are left with thin fibers tangled at the surface. But some of us are compelled to dive deep into the soil, to recover the withered remains of that deep wellspring of culture that recognized (imperfectly) the varied genders of humanity within Europe. Perhaps, if enough of us can twine our roots together, regrowth and renewal can come forth; opening the way for healing within and between cultures. Perhaps, in reviving our queer ancestors we can provide foundations for our queer descendants to grow upon. For this some of us must find our genders in the past — digging in the dark recesses to recover the blood an bone — while others must find them in the present or future. Many strands wound together become stronger than a single thread can ever be.

Can you imagine my excitement, then, to learn about a documentary on self-discovery and the Feminniello called Summer Within? Here is another descendant from Southern Italy, also raised in the United States, who is seeking connection to their queer ancestors and modern people whose gender exists between. Once again I felt a sense of reflection and relation. Though our paths and stories are vastly different, we share a commonality; we walk parallel to each other on the margins.

The digging into the deep recesses has felt like my/our path. As we explore our ancestral connections to spirit and gender, the distinction between “self” and “other” becomes increasingly blurred. To be trans and third gender in this life is not just about a desire to be a singular “me” — it is about being someone my great-great-great-great grandmother could not be. It’s about healing the misogyny of many generations of grandfathers. It’s about reviving ancient ways that my blood and bone hold memories of. It’s a way to honor the mother-fathers of the deep past where words no longer hold meaning. It’s about living for those who came before us and those who will come after us. It’s about the thread that ties us to the spirits of our ancestors and the old gods the once called by name. It’s about honoring this life as a gift, even when that gift is named a curse by the society we live in.

What more can we do — those of us who are queer by label or identity — than exist, live, breathe, love, and sing as we are. So that we may reflect in each other’s eyes and feel a sense of momentary belonging. There are some of us who must be seen in order to speak to the hidden ones, “you are never alone”. With such variety of human experience — of gendered experience — there must be such a kaleidoscope of bodies existing in the glorious light of day and glistening in full moon light. FROM OUR SKETCH BLOG

[justletmeon12]

Books Read in 2023 - If you're curious about any of them, please ask! I love talking about books

Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)

Introduction to American Deaf Culture (Holcomb)

The Colour of Magic (Pratchett)

The Autistic Trans Guide to Life

Luda (Morrison)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Genderqueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary

The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community

Between Two Worlds (Sinclair)

Under the Skin (Faber)

When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Portnoy’s Complaint 

Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of An Disability Rights Activist (Judith Heumann)

Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

This is Moscow Speaking (Arzhak/Yuli Markovich Daniel; tr by Stuart Hood, Harold Shukman, John Richardson)

The Call-Girls (Koestler)

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For

Homintern

A Scanner Darkly

The Trauma of Caste (Soundararajan)

Shards of Honor (Bujold)

The Origin of Virtue

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers

Dreadnought

Children of the Arbat (Rybakov; tr by Harold Shukman)

The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America

Janissaries (Jerry Pournelle)

The Disability Studies Reader (Davis)

Fat Off, Fat On: A Big Bitch Manifesto

The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth

Inseparable (de Beauvoir)

World’s End (T. Coraghessan Boyle)

American Melancholy (Joyce Carol Oates)

Transgender Children and Youth (Nealy)

Disgrace (Coetzee)

The Light Around the Body (Bly)

The Hangman’s Daughter (Pötzsch)

Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction (Goffman)

The Trouble with Tink (Thorpe)

Gender Advertisements (Goffman)

And the Band Played On

Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg

The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life

Old Norse Poems: The Most Important Non-Skaldic Verse Not Included in the Poetic Edda (tr. by Hollander)

Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations (Rich)

Ladies Almanack (Barnes)

Over the Hill (Copper)

Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand

The Poetic Edda (tr. by Bellows)

Paris Peasant (Aragon, tr. by Taylor)

Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration

Stigma (Goffman)

Rubyfruit Jungle

Fairies and the Quest for Never Land

Sight Unseen (Kleege)

The Homosexuality of Men and Women (Hirschfeld, tr. by Lombardi-Nash)

Bea Wolf

New Selected Stories (Thomas Mann, tr. by Searls)

Gay Bar (Jeremy Atherton Lin)

Patsy Walker, AKA Hellcat

Treatise on Style (Aragon, tr. by Waters)

Diana (Frederics)

The World I Live In (Keller)

Christopher and His Kind (Isherwood)

Put Out More Flags (Waugh)

Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man (Mann; tr. and introduced by Morris, Lilla, Rainey)

On Our Own (Judi Chamberlin)

All Boys Aren’t Blue

Artemis (Weir)

Goethe und die Demokratie

Dress Codes (Howey)

Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing

Forms of Talk (Goffman)

Sister Gin

The Decameron (Boccaccio; tr. by Musa and Bondanella)

Elric of Melniboné (Moorcock)

Paradiso (tr. by Hollander and Hollander)

My Mistress’ Eyes are Raven Black

Mademoiselle de Maupin (Gautier)

The Magic Mountain (Mann, tr. by Lowe-Porter)

Home to Harlem (McKay)

The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (Moorcock)

[ahleezeruinavt]

One thing I’ve noticed is that streaming as a community is very interesting in the fact that whenever women make it big, men will almost instantly find some excuse as to why or will throw a pity party. And this happens in the vtuber community a LOT! And when I say a lot, I mean a lot.

It’s the same recycled, misogynistic arguments that men used towards successful, non-vtuber streamers. Tell me if this sounds familiar to y’all:

“You can only make it if you have huge tits” “You can only make it if you sell out for sex” “It’s easier to get followers when you’re an NSFW creator” “Men have to work harder against the lewdtubers in order to get noticed” “Women have it soooo easy”

Yeah- they’re the same arguments people used against non-vtuber streamers to downplay their success. They instantly go to the “if you’re this successful it must have to do with your appearances” argument. Not their hard work, networking, and endless grinding for those followers. All they see is a model happens to have visible cleavage and they lose it. And they (men) CONSTANTLY victimize themselves when women call out the blatant sexism in streaming circles. And then women don’t feel like we can talk about ANYTHING without getting dogpiled and locking replies.

Literally just a month or so ago a post was made talking about how male streamers have a tendency to abuse their power and fame to get nudes and whatnot from other smaller creators, and that they’re more likely to be creeps the bigger they get. Instead of people nodding and understanding that the criticism and frustration didn’t apply to them SPECIFICALLY, the quotes were flooded with “not all men” and various insults regarding how the person was a woman and how women have it “so easy” in vtubing. Then a bunch of “male vtuber support” threads popped up. Instantly catering to the fact some men had hurt feelings over something that was not targeting them specifically rather than comforting the women who had insults hurled at them for addressing the gross attitude of men in the community.

And I know I’ll probably get some “well not all men 🤓” in my mentions but here’s what I have to say to like- everyone who uses that: if the post specifically does not apply to you, then simply listen. Furthermore, maybe reflect on why you feel the need to dismiss women’s concerns about a pattern they have recognized in order to make other men feel good about themselves. If you’re not the creeps the post is referring to, then maybe just shut up and raise awareness about creepy behavior in your community?? It can be annoying to see a generalization, but some of y’all need to step back and think about maybe why that generalization is being made.

For example. If I am swiping through my Short Form Video App™️ and I see a video that has a podcast of 2 guys sitting on a couch and 2 girls sitting on a couch- I almost always know it’s going to be some weird rage bait. You may be sitting there going “well- not every podcast is like that! Why scroll past every one like that?” Well yeah- but 9/10 it’s rage bait and I’m not going to waste my time seeing if it MIGHT not be rage bait or just a shitty opinion.

TLDR; It’s really saddening to see that when women call out toxic behavior that men tend to exhibit in a women-dominated field, people will almost always side with the hurt feelings of men rather than the fear and trauma that women have.

[loonyoz]

I real love the points you’ve made, interesting how deeply ingrained heteronormativity is in society (society is very vague i know). I tend to feel more comfortable engaging in stories about queer relationships because I assume it’s less likely to place characters into gender roles (which is, of course, not always the case). I can’t speak to the variety of bg3 or other fics out there, but I have definitely noticed similar stuff. It always bothers me when people decide a persons sexual preferences based off their appearance or mannerism, because 1. It often implies something weird (or stereotyped) and 2. I just think it makes no sense, in real life I don’t think you can or should determine a persons preferences based off these things. Or like sure this person tends to let others take the lead in group dynamics, that doesn’t define everything else about them. It’s like saying that because someone likes to put milk in their coffee the must like it in their tea as well.

I've also been confused about the language used for awhile now. I had always thought that top/bottom referred to who is/isn’t penetrating during sex. Yet I often see it used interchangeably with dom/sub, which has to do with a desire to explore a certain power dynamic in a relationship or sexual activity. If my understanding these definitions is correct, this honestly makes me very upset. In a generally cisnormative society the partner being penetrated is often associated with women, due to a variety of reasons, one of which being that afab people have vaginas. If bottom and sub are used synonymously it’s implying that the norm for sex is that the partner being penetrated is submissive. Furthering these gender roles in which a man is always dominant and a woman is always submissive. Which also carries over in the portrayal of some queer relationships, in which the penetrated or submissive partner is often assigned a “feminine” gender role in the relationship.

Of course people can write and read what makes them happy but as a reader and someone who cares about social issues Im going to be disappointed by something that tosses aside what makes a character an individual in favor of enjoyment of something that perpetuates an unnuanced and harmful approach to gender and sexuality. Of course I’m not saying someone can’t be, for example, stereotypically feminine, enjoy bottoming, and enjoy a submissive role. That’s obviously valid, and not a problem. The problem is how we talk about it. For example: someone saying oh this person definitely bottoms because they act so effeminate. If you find yourself saying similar remarks, I think it’s important that you reflect on why you’re saying that. Why are you make that connection? God I hate discrimination biases because it can be a lot subtler than other forms of bigotry. It can be hidden in the sociocultural environments that we are familiar with, and can be a product of systemic bigotry. It can be hard to notice in others and in yourself, and it can do so much harm.

I appreciate how you brought up that there are arguments on both sides that are harmful. I often observe arguments becoming this aggressive polarized nightmare. Nothing but more harm is caused by those types of arguments. If both sides are self reflective, able to listen, and able to explain their point of view in a non aggressive manner, that is when you can have a productive discussion. Of course things are rarely as simple as that. Which is a whole other topic in and of itself.

I also think what you brought up about sexual trauma is really important. I would need to do more research if I wanted to make a reflection on the various portrayals of sexual assault and what that means. But there can definitely be some odd take aways depending on how you depict the occurrence of sexual assault and recovery from the trauma. I think the way we view gender and sexuality definitely play a role in how sexual assault is talked about.

If you've gotten to the end of this post, I would like to say that I am by no means an expert in any of these subjects, and I am limited by the scope of my personal perception. If you feel Ive misrepresented something, or caused harm, please let me know. These are difficult and sensitive topics. I know Im taking a risk by posting it on the internet, where communication can be difficult. I am always open to constructive feedback as long as it is respectful.

People get really defensive about "writing Astarion with women" when what people are actually annoyed/upset about is that people are putting him in heteronormative relationships with women.

And it's not like, "YOU, INDIVIDUAL WOMAN, WROTE HIM WITH A WOMAN? A POX ON YOUR HOUSE!" and more like "a majority of fandom is writing him in this specific way with this specific type of character that doesn't really reflect who he is in the game and shoehorns him into a generic booktok dom daddy."

Which. Yeah. People are allowed to feel annoyed/alienated by that type of trend. I think. Maybe. I've seen several fics where Astarion being with big burly men (implied to have been penetrated) was portrayed as traumatic, while being with little virginal female Tav was "healing". And yeah, you're technically acknowledging his pansexuality ... But the implications aren't great. Ya know?

And there's a LOT of conflating domming/topping/being on top. Which ends up only highlighting the heteronormative approach to a lot of fic about him. "He gets on top > so he always tops/penetrates > so he's a dom." Because for some reason penetrating others is less traumatic to him than to be penetrated? Which is a whole bag of worms that people seem reluctant/unable to unpack.

Now, the other side of this argument are people who go "lmao those delusional wamen think this homosexual twink would top them" which is. Also not great? But in the end reflects the same type of reductive and heteronormative argument, it's just coming from the other side of the spectrum. He's flamboyant and pretty so he MUST be incapable of putting his dick into someone else. And he's MORE feminine than the women he gets paired with, so obviously that's unrealistic and he must be paired with a big strong man instead. Which is like. Well you're paired him with a man but you're still being just very heteronormative about it. Even gay relationships must have a "man" and a "woman", is your argument? And Astarion, being beautiful and a presumed bottom, is "the woman"?? Hmm. Don't like that.

Maybe. Astarion is. Pansexual. And can both bone down and be boned down. Maybe he does have a preference. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he doms, maybe he subs. Maybe he switches depending on mood/partner. Maybe he likes different sex positions where he's on top and ones where he's below. Maybe he's down for whatever as long as it's with someone he loves. Maybe he's neither "the man" nor "the woman" in a relationship and he's simply Astarion, a man in a relationship. Maybe in the end it doesn't fucking matter and putting him into rigid binaries is doing him a disservice.

Anyway. My nonbinary Tav's gonna upgrade his gender to Man+. Cis premium. They're gonna explore his gender and preferences and expression together. I think that might be fun and freeing maybe. And they're gonna take turns topping and bottoming and both will be soooooo healing because um. They're having consensual sex and are in love. So it's healing by default. Regardless of who's putting what where.

Well. Anyway. All I'm saying is. Stuff.

[princess-xeon]

today was absolute bliss! thank god.

for breakfast i made myself a traditional hawaiian breakfast of eggs rice and sausage. unfortunately i make this meal too often. i try not to. yet every time i make this struggle meal, it always reflects on my current state of being. so today it was pretty good. because i was already in that preexistent state of glee. anyways besides my struggle meals; another miracle happened. i shaved my eyebrows off! finally!!!

it has always been my destiny to shave off my eyebrows. as a makeup artist; it gives me so much more room to play! and somehow it makes me look more cunt which is very fulfilling. now im truly at one with my alien/non human self.

rediscovering authentic hyperpop and pc music was very much needed as well. its been making me feel more secure with my gender and identity as a whole. somehow unbearable music makes me feel more secure in myself as a nonbinary person. god how thrilling. i love 100 gecs. so sad i missed their show. one of the biggest regrets in my life (unfortunately) was not being able to see them live with my soulmate Cam. its okay because GFOTY and Felicita live rent free in my heart.

sadly i did think about my ex girlfriend today. not a big fan of that. unfortunately she is pretty. whatever! im blessed because i currently have a girlfriend who actually loves me for me regardless of my flaws. how magnificent. i love you my dear. my love.

alas i am slowly rediscovering that miracle. all of the living; forming bonds with companions, it's all been necessary. seeing Sky Ferreira live with my ex coworker now best friend Sadie was a god given miracle. we needed eachother. we both have our pains and differences yet somehow tumblr, glitter, sonic's fast food, and trauma brought us together.

my friends i am so blessed for each of you. where would i coexists without those who understand and struggle aside me.

I will forever live in those memories. those memories of eating at Bushes chicken talking about gay sex, laughing in the mens section at good will, and sleeping over at her house.

One miracle at a time. rebirth takes time. and god damn it rediscovery is magic in itself.

forever yours~ princess xeon

[danklefstad-blog]

Re: Your Intern Who Rejected My Book

Dear Publisher,

Many thanks for responding to my manuscript query. Even though it took 11 months, two weeks, and three days for your reply to arrive, and even though it was clearly a form email, I’m grateful that your college intern took the time to read my sample pages while watching TikTok videos and snapping Instagram images of freshly painted fingernails. Such multi-platform multitasking is perfect preparation for this new world where nouns are distilled into memes, feelings are reduced to emojis, and attention is measured in GIFs. I hope you’re paying your primary gatekeeper an adequate wage to share a studio apartment in Brooklyn with no more than three other future captains of the content creation industry formerly known as publishing.

I hate to intrude on your Facebook time, but I would like to point out a few of your junior staffer’s notes, presumably meant to help with my future submissions. Please understand I’m not trying to get anyone into trouble. I merely want to confirm whether these “edits” reflect the new industry standard for composition worthy of today’s audience.

Firstly, your intern changed all gender pronouns to they/them. While I consider myself an ally of transgender and non-binary persons, I maintain some readers might find it useful to know whether a character identifies as “he” or “she” or is biologically so. If you feel otherwise, I’ll admit this is not a hill I’m willing to die taking, as we’re only talking about pronouns.

Secondly, any reference to sexual attraction, or even intercourse, has been removed. It seems your apprentice feels my main characters would appeal more broadly to Generation Z if they identified as “ace” which, after consulting a source called Urban Dictionary, I learned means asexual. No offense to those not interested in sex but how does your intern think people arrive on this planet? Dropped by aliens? Maybe it’s time we bring back the old trope of the stork carrying a swaddled babe in its beak. For the remainder of this letter I’ll refer to the younger cohort as storks — and I don’t care if they view this as a micro-aggression. I am the one who feels attacked and I seek, nay, I demand answers as to what our industry’s standards really are.

Trigger warning: A complaint about trigger warnings is imminent. Are you in a safe place, emotionally speaking, to read my third objection? Allow me tread lightly so as not to bruise your feelings. Okay, I’ll admit this preamble is insensitive. But seriously: Where do we draw the line between a reader’s right not to re-live trauma and my right to inject realism into a story? In my case, your employee went too far when striking an entire scene in which an injured horse is euthanized by its owner. Shooting a lame steed was common practice in the 18th century, and my depiction of this act was meant to portray the owner as a sensitive and merciful man. However, this proved far too much for your stork who apparently still suffers from PTSD after a veterinarian put down a beloved “fur baby.” My lack of a warning seems to be the main reason my manuscript was declined. For your intern’s sake I’ll thank God they didn’t read the part where the man, who was starving, ate his horse so that he could survive a harsh winter.

Please understand that I deeply empathize with anyone who had to say goodbye to a beloved pet. And I would accept the inclusion of a trigger warning for this scene if it increases my odds for getting published. But what about other passages such as a battle devolving into brutal hand-to-hand combat? Or a character’s death from dysentery? Adding warnings to each of these chapters would yank the reader out of the immersive experience I carefully curated for them. I hope you’ll agree that not every chapter in a book should be filled with “happy place” things.

My final complaint focuses on your stork’s lack of knowledge, even complete disregard, for American history. Here I’ll need to burden you with another detail about my novel: It features Thomas Jefferson as a recurring character. In my story Mr. Jefferson is presented as a complex, flawed human of his time who literally owned Black Americans, some of whom he used for sex, the most famous being Sally Hemings. To my astonishment the stork you hired as the sieve for incoming manuscripts insisted I was wrong. Thomas Jefferson, she wrote in all caps, WAS A BLACK MAN. When I shouted back at these words my daughter informed me that a Black actor plays Jefferson in the original cast of Hamilton, a play she has seen numerous times on the Disney channel. My daughter’s praise for the production was drowned out by my alarm that the person you put in charge of acquisitions looked no further than a Broadway musical for fundamental facts about our nation.

Having vented enough for now I wonder if my blame is aimed at the wrong target. What if the education system is the real culprit? Or Gen Z’s parents? Regardless, I do believe you’d be well served to occasionally double-check the writing samples your intern rejects. No need to do this with mine, however. I’ve given up and am exploring other avenues to “boost awareness among content consumers” of my “creative offerings.” God, just reading those words makes me feel dead inside. Still, I’ll focus on greener pastures like my YouTube channel in which I read rejection letters and offer comments similar to what you’ve read here. So far only a dozen people have subscribed but I’m predicting thousands of writers will sign up once my social media posts get enough shares. I’m still researching the best hashtags to optimize my Google-friendliness or whatever they call it. I do find some comfort in this practice as it still involves the careful selection of words.

Would you like to increase your media profile? Join me on my channel. I’d love to get your opinion about where our industry is headed and whether books can still maintain a place in this new landscape. And if the person reading this is in fact the intern who stars in the previous paragraphs, I mean no insult. What’s more, I’ll bet you’d be a far more entertaining guest than your boss — or me, for that matter. We could talk about Hamilton, pronouns, triggers, whatever you want. You’re the future, after all. Those who write should know who you are and what content you prefer.

If, during our chat you scroll through Instagram or TikTok, all I ask is that you share your distractions with our viewers. I realize I’d risk being a bystander on my show. But I need to know if my words still have relevance. Perhaps you’d be doing me a favor by putting me out of my misery. Just do it quickly and as painlessly as possible. And be sure your rising star executes a full eclipse so my remains are shielded from sensitive eyes. Not to put too fine a point on it but don’t eat me because that would get you banned from all platforms, possibly forever.

What’s that? Of course, vegan. Please excuse my lame and inappropriate attempt at humor. And may your words succeed where mine have failed.

Author.

[fxtalitygod]

II. ~𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐥~

Pairing: Trueform!Ryomen Sukuna x Fem!Reader

Summary: You were determined to survive, longer than anyone, even if you were set to marry him.

Genre: Historical AU, angst, mature, suggestive, arranged-marriage

Warnings: Dark themes, Y/n going through trauma, slightly implied r*pe, dubcon/noncon, mentioned breeding (non-kinky), crying during sex, Implied Stockholm Syndrome, slight mentions of suicide, Pet names (Y/n called Little Flower 3-4x) mentions of murder, language/swearing, mentions of infertility, pregnancy

Word Count: 3.2k

Note: I'm sorry this took a while, I've had a bit of writer's block. Anyways, I am proud to say that this will not be a series that will be no longer than five parts I hope. Also, I have opened my asks! If you want to ask me any questions about this story or to talk about hcs, maybe even suggestions. Moving on, enjoy part two of Survival!

JJK Mlist•Taglist Rules•

• Pt.I • Pt.II • Pt.III

The rumors were indeed false, at least for you. For the women who still had a functioning mind, such as yourself, life with Ryomen Sukuna was far from luxurious.

After your first night with Sukuna, you had a second mind to end your suffering, but you knew you couldn’t do that. Despite the circumstances, you still had a family praying for your well-being, so to end it all would be selfish. To break your promise for relief would be selfish.

You sat up from the bed, turning to see that Sukuna was still there, seemingly asleep. There was a moment you thought about killing him, but you knew better. Although seemingly defenseless, you knew he wasn’t a normal man, he was most likely awake sensing your every movement.

Deciding to ignore the presence of the four-armed man, you attempted to stand up. Your attempt was futile. You collapsed almost immediately, the aching pain between your legs too great to ignore.

When you looked down, you saw the damage that Sukuna had done. There were bruises, bite marks, and scratch marks littering your body. The state of your body left you horrified. You sat there staring at yourself for almost twenty minutes until the door opened, four to five housemaids walking in to take you to the bathing room.

Leaving the room, you managed to spot out the man from last night, the one who had unwillingly watched you get violated. The two of you made eye contact for only a few seconds, both of you too ashamed and embarrassed about the situation that had occurred the other night.

You eventually ended up in the bathing room. You were scrubbed down by the housemaids, who attempted to be careful with you considering the state of your body. There were moments when they did poke at a bruise or mark, causing you to hiss a little. The reactions they gave you when you made the sound of pain caused you to pity them.

Every time you hissed or flinched, the maids would quickly pull back and cover their forms as if shielding themselves, they thought you were going to hit them. You wanted to reassure them, but you knew it wouldn't fix the past trauma they had acquired during their years of service at the temple. You decided that it was best to earn their trust over time rather than force it.

Eventually, the maids left you by yourself, trying to give you space after the events of last night. You sat there, staring at your reflection in the water. You looked at the bruises and marks covering your shoulders and neck, bringing your hand to hover over them slightly. You felt violated, completely disgusted, you wondered what you had done to receive such punishment.

A few tears, unknowingly to you, escaped your glossy eyes. You did nothing to wipe them nor tried to hide them, you just let them fall. You figured these moments when you were by yourself, would be the only moments where you could let all your emotions out, which would be often.

You sat there silently crying, losing track of time, until a few maids came in to help you out and get you clothed. Just like your wedding day, you were blanked out, everything was crashing down on you. You were trapped here for god knows how long.

"Sukuna-sama has requested for you, L/n-sama" One of the maids whispered.

Yeah, you were trapped, he wasn't going to let you go anytime soon.

You were led back to Sukuna's chambers, the trip short and silent. When you arrived at Sukuna's chambers, you noticed that he was nowhere to be seen. You turned towards the door only to see that it had already been closed, the maids heading off to attend to other matters around the temple.

You stood there for a while, waiting for the man you called husband, but there was no indication of him coming anytime soon. You were beginning to grow impatient and anxious, so to calm yourself you decided to explore the room more. There was nothing that really caught your eye until you turned to see a beautiful kanzashi on the other side of the room- it looked so out of place. Curiosity began to get the best of you and you decided to walk over to examine it, but stopped in your tracks once you felt warmth hit the back of your neck.

"Snooping around are we?"

Your soul almost left your body right then and there, but you managed to keep your heart beating at a normal rate and kept your breath from hitching.

"I apologize, I was only looking."

Through your peripheral vision, you could see Sukuna smirking, seemingly amused with your response.

You avoided making eye contact with him, deciding to stare at the wall in front of you. You could feel his fingers mess with your kimono slightly, it was only when he started fiddling with your bow did you begin to panic a little. He only smirked as he began to taunt you a little more by slightly tugging at the bow, continuing to tease you by tugging different parts of your clothing, sometimes revealing a hickey or two, before pulling his hands away.

"It's pretty isn't it?"

You took a small swallow before giving him a response, preparing your voice to avoid stuttering.

"It is, whom does it belong to?

"No one, I haven't found someone to give it to," he said with an amused tone.

You only nodded your head slightly, hoping to get the small talk over with so he would get to the point on why he sent for you.

"You're an interesting one Y/n, you haven't given me one reaction ever since you got here," he said in a teasing tone, "Are you a statue of some sort?"

You could see he was trying to provoke you in some way, but you weren't going to give him the satisfaction. You only shook your head and looked away, avoiding eye contact.

Sukuna slightly frowned at the lack of response, but before he could try to press you a bit more, the door to his chambers opened. Looking to the entrance, there was a woman dressed in a beautiful kimono. When she walked through the door she was seemingly shocked, as if something was different or out of place.

"Have I mistaken the time?" the woman asked innocently, though you could still sense the venom in her voice.

"No, this is when I would be seeing you, but we've currently found ourselves enamored with this kanzashi, right Y/n?"

You didn't dare look at the woman, you could already feel her eyes burning into your skull. You didn't fear the woman herself, but you did fear whatever delusion she had painted. It was clear that this woman had romanticized her relationship with the four-armed man.

"I suppose," you said, but not without a slight hesitance.

As much as you didn't want to deal with the woman, you were also afraid of Sukuna's displeasure of your response. Unfortunately, your life would be dictated by Sukuna, especially in terms of life and death. If he were to ever become dissatisfied with you, he could kill you at any moment.

"You can leave, you're presence is not required."

The woman was shocked once again. She seemed about ready to say something, but some unknown force had stopped her. You turned to look at Sukuna only to see that he was admiring the kanzashi.

Unknowingly to you, the woman didn't halt her words by choice. The woman had opened her mouth to give you a piece of her mind, but Sukuna had shut it down with a piercing look. It was a warning, a warning of telling her to keep her little mouth shut or be severely punished, and not in a way she would like.

It didn't take long for the woman to take her to leave, deciding on having a 'discussion' with you some other time

Focused on the woman leaving, you hardly noticed Sukuna's movements. When you turned your head to look at the kanzashi, you noticed it had disappeared, so when you felt a slight poke on your head, you were a little surprised.

Arms were placed upon your waist, turning you around. Sukuna stared at you with intensity, one you weren't familiar with. Although you've only known him for less than a day, you could already tell he was acting abnormally. Before you could figure out his peculiar behavior, he reached over and grabbed, what you had assumed to be the kanzashi, out of your hair.

He let out a hum before placing the kanzashi back in its original place. It didn't take long for him to plaster his infamous smirk onto his face.

"Well then my Little Flower, I believe you can go now."

"You didn't need me for anything?" you asked, slightly confused.

"Curious are we?"

Having a realization of what you had said or rather asked, you became a little disgusted with yourself. The way you sounded when you asked the question almost made you sound desperate, desperate for something you did not want. That wasn't the only problem, you had also questioned him. You didn't know what set Sukuna off nor how his punishments were given out, but you weren't willing to risk anything.

"No, I apologize for questioning you," you said quickly, your head bowed down.

You heard a deep chuckle, one that sent shivers down your spine. You could feel his shadow looming over you, you could feel his stare on you. You could practically see the evil grin painted on his face.

"I accept your apology, but I'm afraid you will still have to be punished; however, it will have to be at a later time, for now, you may leave."

You could clearly understand what he was hinting at, bringing fear into your soul. Your eyes widened as a vivid flashback of the night before popped into your head. Before you could process his words properly, a maid walked into the room and led you off. You managed to bow to your husband before leaving, but after that, you were mindlessly walking around the temple.

This was your life from this point forward, you would be nothing more than Sukuna's trophy wife and you had to live with that.

It had been around 9 months, almost a year, of living in the temple and you were starting to get used to it. After your one 'punishment,' you were never punished again. In the little time you were there you had started to become a little actress, acting dutifully around the temple and obeying every order given to you. As much as you wanted to kill Sukuna, especially with the many chances you got, you never did. You thought it would be better to build on his trust rather than recklessly killing him, there would be a point in time when that day came, but for now, you would be his perfect "Little Flower."

You had already befriended some of the wives, trying to at least form some good relationships so you weren't completely miserable. Some of the acquaintances that you made had been girls you had known in your village before they were sent off to be wed. The first thing you noticed upon seeing them is that they seemed somewhat drained as if something had died within themselves and you knew exactly what that something was.

Innocence.

All of Sukuna's wives, including yourself, have lost their innocence on the first night of being with the man. From the moment he lays you on his bed you are doomed, for that's where he strips you of your purity. Looking at your old friends, you could tell that is what happened.

However, some of the wives you were less familiar with didn't lose just their innocence but their sanity as well. Some of Sukuna's wives had romanticized the relationship they had with him, mixing up fear with love. The woman you had encountered on your second day was proof of that.

After your first encounter with the woman, you had run into her more often. She had tried putting you in your place by somewhat threatening you after your first day of meeting her, saying she was Sukuna's main wife; she was the favorite, and that. you. should watch your back. Unfortunately for you, she wasn't the only one to believe that. Many women believed that Sukuna had an actual relationship with them and loved them, ranking themselves amongst each other, the woman who had borderline threatened you, whose name you didn't bother to learn, being number one.

No one aside from her knew about you, but that changed quickly. After your first couple of months, after getting settled, Sukuna began requesting you to be in his chambers more often. At first, you would only stay nights and leave in the morning but, eventually, Sukuna wouldn't let you leave, forcing you to endure both the nights and mornings in his bed. It wasn't until your belongings were moved to his room did you notice the attention you were starting to get and not just from Sukuna, but the rest of the wives as well.

Women were starting to harass you, disrupting you when you were out doing tasks around the temple. Despite the harassment, you always got back up, not wanting to let those women have the pleasure of seeing you fall apart.

Ultimately, getting sick of the lack of response, the women stopped, some even starting to admire you a little. This is when you started to become the little actress; this is when you really started to climb the ranks.

If you couldn't escape the temple, you were going to make sure you survived; however, there would be some drawbacks to this little plan of yours, but you were determined.

Even if you had to get pregnant, and unknowingly to you that was what a certain someone was after.

Today, after hearing a few rumors from the staff and some of the wives, you figured out why Sukuna had started to keep you around more.

Sukuna was trying to get you pregnant.

Sukuna had grown determined to see your stomach round with his child. He would go rounds upon rounds with you, day and night, trying to get you pregnant, so much so that you had started to feel numb; you could no longer feel anything as he destroyed your body. You didn't moan, whimper, or scream in pain, you would lay there in silence, taking it like the perfect "Little Flower." You would only allow tears to roll down your face, feeling violated. There were moments you would fake a moan or whimper, trying to satisfy Sukuna to make sure he wouldn't grow bored of you and leave you out for the wolves.

The whole situation revolted you, but you were willing to flush away your dignity to survive, however, throwing away your dignity wouldn't solve all your problems.

"Y/n, are you sure you aren't infertile?"

You were shocked when you heard that question leave the lips of one of the younger spouses of Sukuna.

"Excuse me?"

"W-well, I'm only asking because most of the other women here got pregnant after their first night while it's taken you almost a year, does that not bring any suspicions or worry in the slightest?" the girl asked hesitantly, worried that she had offended you.

Your heart rate began to increase quickly. It could be a possibility that you were infertile, but you didn't want to believe that. It wasn't that you wanted to bear Sukuna's child, but if he were to ever think that you were unable to carry an heir, he would kill you on the spot, what were you to do then?

You tried to calm yourself by thinking of your bloodline. You've never heard of any pregnancy issues with any of the women throughout your family, it was quite the opposite in fact. Your family was known for carrying healthy and strong children, especially when it came to curse techniques and energy, so why would you have any issues?

You calmed yourself down a little before responding to the young lady, trying to sound as calm and collected as you possibly could.

"No, I'm confident in my bloodline's lack of infertility, so no, I don't believe I'm infertile."

The girl only nodded, feeling a little ashamed for questioning you, but quickly recovered once you rubbed her shoulder to let her know that she hadn't offended you. However, you couldn't help but look down at her swollen stomach. The sight made you worried, but you couldn't falter now, not after everything you've gone through.

"Y/n-sama, you are being requested."

Shivers went down your spine as you heard the approaching maid. You slowly got up and started to make your way towards the all-to-familiar room, but not without looking back at the young girl's round stomach.

It didn't take you long to make your way to Sukuna's quarters, memorizing how to get there without getting lost. Your hand hovered over the door, hesitant on whether you should go in or run. Coming to a decision, you ignored your instincts and opened the door.

Upon entering, you could see Sukuna hunched over, his hands held together. He raised his head to make eye contact with you, his piercing gaze going straight through your soul. The room was silent, the door shutting being the only thing that was heard.

Sukuna stood up and approached you slowly, causing your anxiety to grow. He grabbed your waist and tugged you to be closer to him, only leaving a small gap between the two of you. He began to disrobe you, pulling the bow of your kimono and watching it fall to the ground. From there he began to examine your body.

Placing his hand on your breast, he began to grope at it. Even though his touches were discomforting, you could sense something was off. Sukuna's touches had no sexual intent, but rather something else. It wasn't until he placed his hand upon your stomach did you realize what he was checking for.

"When is the last time you bled?"

You were confused with his question at first, but once you had caught understanding what he was asking, your eyes widened. Not only were you shocked by his question, but by your own answer.

"Three months ago..." you trailed off, trying to not look at Sukuna's grin.

You looked down at your stomach, your hand hovering over it. What had you done to deserve a fate like this? What sins had you committed? Even though you knew that this is what you needed to survive, you were still disgusted with not just Sukuna, but with yourself as well.

"Well, based on my observation..."

.

.

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'Don't say it.'

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"My Little Flower..."

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'Shut the fuck up.'

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"It seems that you're..."

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'You've made your point.'

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"Pregnant."

[1waywardbirdlane]

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately too. I’ve been processing my childhood trauma. It’s really messy and hard to talk about. For obvious reasons, but also it’s literally just hard for me to understand and translate my brain, emotions and thought processes to others in a way that makes sense.

I’ve tried to write more personally on posts lately but I feel like I need to filter myself. Plus I can’t stand the idea of being misunderstood or seen as selfish and whiny. BUT. I’m gunna try to just share. I’m just gunna try to spit it out. So here goes.

Growing up I knew it shouldn’t matter if people are gay. I always knew that love is the most powerful thing in our world and any god who couldn’t let people enjoy love in every form is not a god I want to follow.

Growing up I always knew it wouldn’t matter to me what my person looked like. That I wanted to look past the surface and find the beauty and love in someone, because that’s what’s most important.

What I didn’t know is that I deserved the space to express that, to celebrate that and to live that. I held my beliefs but never had the option to explore what that could really mean for me.

A few years ago I realized I’m bisexual. A couple years after that I realized pansexual is a more accurate label. I’m a cisgender woman but have been considering using terms like gender-fluid or non-binary because it’s more reflective of my attitude & beliefs towards gender.

When I was in middle school my mom told my older sister that she thought I was gay. She was worried I’d find or out realize it, and talked to my sister about how to try to put out that spark before it became a fire. She couldn’t bear the idea of me being gay.

There are a couple specific people/friendships I look back on now and wonder. My best friend in college and I could have dated and fallen in love after she confessed she had feelings for me. My post college roommate and I were propositioned for group sex twice.

I could have experienced love and pleasure in so many other ways if I had had the chance.

i wonder sometimes how life would be if i had enough chances to air out all the love in me

[honeysuckle-venom]

I’ve been scrolling through the Joss Whedon tag and other related tags to see if I can find some posts that reflect my views that I can reblog. But I eventually decided to make my own as I’m not seeing a lot that I fully agree with. There are a lot of people saying “Joss Whedon is a piece of shit, everything he ever did is trash, and it’s immoral to watch or reblog anything to do with him.” And then there are a lot of other people saying “Buffy and Angel and Firefly and Dollhouse were so important and formative for me and I love them and I’ll always love them so I’ve decided the best approach is death of the author and pretending that SMG created Buffy.” There are very few people in the middle, looking at it with nuance, and I’m frustrated by it.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer has been my favorite show for 8 years, and it still is. I still love it with all of my heart, and I probably always will. It has fantastic, nuanced characters, including some incredible portrayals of complicated women. The show does an amazing job of exploring a lot of important, difficult issues such as the effects of trauma and depression. It featured the first lesbian kiss on primetime TV. It did a lot of things with women that were very progressive for the 90s. Many wonderful, non abusive people worked on the show, and even though it was created and heavily shaped by Joss it is the product of a lot of different talented people. SMG is still proud to have her name associated with Buffy, even though she condemns Joss.

But at the same time, Joss is abusive, racist, and misogynistic. We see this very clearly in the way he’s treated Charisma Carpenter and Ray Fisher, but it also shows up in his work itself. I’ll be using Buffy as an example as it’s the show I’m most familiar with, but these issues show up in all of his work. People have rightly criticized Buffy for a long time now for being racist. There are very very few characters of color, when they do show up they’re usually walking stereotypes, and the anti-Romani racism that’s at the center of Angel’s backstory is horrific. Whedon’s misogyny is also very present in Buffy, if in slightly more subtle ways. The way the show handles consent and assault is questionable at best (look at how Xander gets away with his attempted assault in The Pack). Buffy is punished narratively for having sex in season 2, season 4, and season 6. Xander’s misogyny and fetishization of Willow and Tara is treated either as a joke or as completely acceptable throughout the show, and it’s very clear that Xander is Whedon’s self insert. Whedon’s objectification of women is present throughout all 7 seasons.

I am a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That has not changed. Part of being a fan, for me, is being able to criticize the show and acknowledge its flaws without disregarding its values and contributions. It is possible to see both, to hold both at the same time, and for me it is necessary. The only two options are not “Joss ruined everything he touched and I will never watch his shows or engage in his fandom again” or “Joss Whedon sucked so I’ll ignore his role in his creations so I can keep loving them without moral complexity.” There is a middle ground, and I encourage people to feel comfortable taking it.

[there-must-be-a-lock]

Red

Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 3680

Warnings: Kink and trauma. You know, in case you forgot whose blog you were on! Night terrors. Non-graphic flashbacks to violence, very graphic smut. Bucky’s head is just not a very fun place? References to brainwashing and torture. Kink discovery, including some hitting/slapping during sex and some power/control fantasies, all within the context of a very happy relationship. It goes down dark but there’s a distinctly soft aftertaste. 

A/N: For @cockslut-padalecki and her Decade Under The Influence challenge. My prompt was “The Crimson” by Atreyu. Thanks for always hosting the absolute best challenges, and congrats on the milestone! 

Pre-reads by @thoughtslikeaminefield @mskathywriteswords and @fangirlxwritesx67​. Inspiration from that scene where Sebastian Stan gets slapped. You know the one I mean. 

The companion fic to this will be coming soon! It’s significantly darker and way outside my wheelhouse, but please let me know if you want a tag. 

The Soldier stalks silently down the hallway to the bedroom, scanning the shadows. 

The closet. 

Something itches, deep under the ice: knowledge that closets are for hiding — 

— a small girl, giggling in the back corner of the closet — 

— ready or not, here I come — 

— but those frozen things don’t belong to the Soldier. 

He opens the door and finds the woman on the floor, trying to hide in the darkness. He picks her up by the throat. Moonlight from the open window glints off her wide eyes and the Soldier’s metal hand. She fights back, clawing at his arm uselessly. 

He waits for her to stop struggling. They always do. 

Bucky opens his eyes and bolts upright, gritting his teeth against the sweaty, shivery wave of nausea. 

It takes a moment for the numbing chill of the Soldier’s memory to fade. 

He knows it’s a memory. He lost so many things in the deep emptiness of cryo-sleep, but he couldn’t bury them forever, and now they claw their way out while he dreams. The darkness gives him back his life, one nightmare at a time. 

Sometimes he wakes up screaming. Sometimes he wakes up convinced that the bed under him is soaked with blood, and it takes a few awful seconds to realize that he just sweated through the sheets. Other times he’s paralyzed in the darkness, convinced he’s back in the cryo chamber, and he wants to punch and claw and fight his way out, wants to see the sun again, but he tried that one too many times — he learned his lesson about wanting things. 

At least he didn’t wake her this time. She makes a breathy sound as she stirs, but she’s still sound asleep, and when he inspects his hands in the glow of her night light, there’s no trace of red. 

She got the light about two months ago, when he started sleeping over. She didn’t ask him, didn’t mention it — he would’ve been embarrassed, if she asked, but it helps. She helps. 

He’s goddamn crazy about her. It hasn’t been long, but he knows this is it for him. 

Bucky curls up facing her. Her hair is a mess, and there’s a damp patch of drool on the pillow under her slack mouth, and she’s beautiful. It’s amazing that she trusts him enough to fall asleep next to him. 

He closes his eyes. This time he doesn’t dream.

The end credits of the movie start to scroll down the screen, and she makes a grumbling noise that means she doesn’t want to get up and turn the TV off. Her little apartment is full of the rich smell of whatever she’s got in the oven, and the day has been so sweetly domestic that Bucky wonders when everything will start to twist and distort and go bloody. He must be hallucinating. 

But the hallucinations always had a sort of airbrushed quality to them when they started, an inhuman perfection that felt easy, like he was floating. Right now his stomach is growling, and when she shifts, her elbow digs into his side, and she’s a heavy comforting warmth on top of him. 

The hallucinations were the product of his own brain, which might be why they came back all too quickly when he started to recover his memories. Even when he couldn’t remember his sisters’ faces, he remembered the drug-fueled torture that took place behind his closed eyelids, scenes that started like fantasies and ended like nightmares. 

Most memories from before the fall are weak and hazy, sepia-toned afterimages that overlay the living world like ghosts. Other things bleed through the decades, making it hard to keep track of whose memories he’s seeing. The Soldier’s memories are always sharp and cold, and they’re the hardest to shake off. Sometimes they’re triggered by the present, and it’s always a surprise; he’s stepping into a crosswalk and the past is washing over him like — 

The water from the hose is freezing cold as the handler rinses off the blood — 

— and he’s still staring down at the slushy puddle, but — 

— the Soldier keeps his eyes down, clenching his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering, watching the red swirl over the cold cracked tile and disappear down the drain, and — 

Bucky has to fight to hold on to the honking taxis and the Brooklyn stink, because the cryo chamber is quiet like a coffin in the last few seconds before he’s frozen into unconsciousness, and — 

— and sometimes he feels frozen even when the dreams dissolve, even when he knows they’re only dreams. 

The frigid paralysis was mental more than physical, for the Soldier, and that’s a hard thing to shake. The raw human parts of him iced over, head and heart numb while his body carried on following orders. 

She sits up and stretches, making her shirt ride up, and he notices bruises on her hips, wrapping around the side. 

“Did I do that?” he asks, voice thin. 

She looks down like she didn’t notice. “Probably.” 

He tugs the waistband of her yoga pants down a little and finds the shape of a handprint, stained purple. She twists to show him a matching set on the other side. They’re more defined on the side he was gripping with his metal hand last night. He feels cold all over. 

“Sorry.” 

“No biggie.” 

He’s too scared to meet her eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I would never hurt you.” 

“What if I asked you to?” she tosses back, playful and easy. 

Bucky doesn’t know how to react to that. He can’t let her see how badly he wants that, so he just freezes like a deer in headlights, forcing himself to go still, to shut down, to say nothing.  

“Whoa, hey, don’t do that,” she says, and she moves into his space slowly, deliberately, giving him time to tell her to stop. He blinks at her, and she smiles, soothing. 

He spent the first month of their relationship waiting for her to turn and run. It’s gotten better, but… 

“Why the hell do you trust me?” he blurts out. 

She frowns, and hesitates, and he wants to reach up and smooth out the little frown line that forms between her eyebrows, but he doesn’t. She curls up against him and kisses his jaw. 

“Would you ever choose to hurt me?” she asks. 

“No.” 

“There you go.” He feels the movement when she shrugs, as if it’s that easy. “You control your choices. That’s it.” 

“But I —” 

“No buts,” she interrupts, and her voice is firm. “I choose to trust you and you don’t get to talk me out of it.” 

Bucky lets out a huff of not-quite-laughter at that. She’s stubborn as hell when she wants to be, and he knows better than to argue. 

“Okay,” he says, and wraps his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. She settles closer, her breath a warm damp tickle against the side of his neck. 

His body used to be a weapon. 

“You can’t blame yourself for things that are out of your control,” she mumbles, as if she heard him. 

He takes a deep breath and says it again: “Okay.” 

He can see her reflection in the mirror; she bites her lip, teeth white against her bright red lipstick, trying to hold back, but the whimpers are getting louder by the second as he fucks her harder. She’s bracing herself with her forearms on the sink, her entire body shaking with each sharp thrust. 

“Shhhh,” Bucky says, half-laughing, but he doesn’t slow down. 

He’s pretty sure this was her plan all along. They barely made it an hour into the party before she tugged him into the bathroom, and usually he would protest, but he’s been half-hard since he first saw her in that damn outfit. 

She opened the door earlier looking like a pinup, complete with glossy curls and red lips and this dress: flared skirt, nipped-in waist, curves threatening to spill over the scooped-low neckline. He had just stuttered for a few seconds as a wisp of memory cast a sepia glow over her pleased smile. 

He used to have a dog-eared print of one of those calendar girls, and it was tame compared to some that were carried to war, but there was something warm in her smile that made him hold onto it. He used to daydream about her waiting at home, welcoming him at the door, when everything else was heavy and grey. He used to look at her smile when he couldn’t bear to close his eyes, knowing he’d only see blood. They took it when he was captured, of course, but he used to imagine — 

— this, he used to imagine this, the way the skirt is rucked up around her hips and she’s bent at the waist, the way she stretches open around the shiny-wet length of his cock. 

He has a flash of certainty that this is just a fantasy, something he’s imagining desperately as he fucks his own fist and tries not to make a sound, pressing his other palm to his mouth to muffle his labored breathing. He’s picturing this so vividly that when he opens his eyes and sees the stars, framed by the caved-in ceiling of another bombed-out shell of a building, he’ll have to fight back tears of disappointment. 

The sight of her face in the mirror is utterly pornographic, threatening to send him over the edge too soon, but when he looks down, he can see the way her ass bounces and jiggles as she shoves herself back to meet each thrust, and that’s goddamn obscene too. Bucky’s imagination has never been this good. 

She’s so close, too close to stay silent, and just as she lets out a high-pitched, keening moan, there are footsteps right outside the door. 

He reacts instinctively, before he can think better of it; he slaps his hand over her mouth, muffling the sound against his palm — the metal one, he realizes, a split-second too late. 

Their eyes meet in the mirror for one wild heartbeat. Her skin looks dangerously soft under silver fingers that could so easily break the fragile jawbone they grip. 

Then her eyes roll back in her head, and her orgasm blindsides both of them with its intensity. If he wasn’t silencing her, she would’ve shouted, he’s pretty sure; she spasms violently against his grip, writhing like she’s trying to shake him off, and — 

— he imagines her struggling, fighting back, until he pins her against the wall and — 

— it hits him like a gut-punch. He doubles over, curling himself around her as he comes with a rough shocked grunt, and the white-out lightning-bolt electroshock feel of it is so incredible he forgets, for a few seconds; he just buries his face in those curls and kisses the nape of her neck. 

He straightens up and realizes her lipstick is smeared over the metal hand, deep crimson red. 

“God, we’re a mess,” she laughs breathlessly. She turns to kiss him, eyes sparkling, and then they have to clean up, put themselves back together, and he brushes it off. 

It was probably a memory, a ghost whose features he confused with hers in one fevered second. Unwanted memories — 

— dreams — flashbacks — fantasies — hallucinations — 

— invade his reality every day. 

It didn’t feel like a memory, though. 

She smiles, and there’s no doubt in his mind that the smile is real, so Bucky swallows his guilt and smiles back. Her hand is warm in his. 

There’s a knife in his hand and blood on the floor. 

It’s messy, but those were his orders. Easier to frame the mistress this way. At least the carving knife was sharp. Red drips down the blade onto the metal fingers.  

He’s about to place it next to the corpse when he hears the gasp. The mistress had been asleep four minutes ago, but people are unpredictable that way. 

Messy. 

The Soldier pivots, finds her standing in the doorway, hand over her mouth, eyes wide. She’s paralyzed by fear, like a deer in headlights as he stalks closer. Usually they run. Sometimes they fight back. This one just stares. 

“I won’t say anything,” she whispers. “I didn’t see —” He grabs her wrist, and she shrieks, trying to twist away, until he pins her against the wall and holds her in place. Tears start to roll down her cheeks. “No, please, I’ll do anything you want — just don’t kill me! You can — anything, I promise, I won’t struggle! Do you want —” 

“Want” is buried deep under the ice. “Want” is for bodies that are warm and soft and human. The Soldier is a weapon.

He presses the knife into her hand and forces her fingers to close around the handle. She was supposed to be asleep. 

She’ll be blamed, one way or another, but maybe it’s better this way. Cleaner. 

No witnesses. It’s an order. 

Bucky wakes up. He’s trembling, sitting up with his hands twisted in the sheets, but it’s not as bad as it could be. She’s sitting up next to him, one gentle hand on his chest as she watches with wide sad eyes. 

“Sorry,” he chokes out. “Fuck, I hate waking you up.” 

“Almost time anyway,” she says, which is when he realizes that it’s morning. Sunlight is streaming in through the sheer curtains. He settles back against the headboard, taking it in. They’re both naked, with her big downy comforter around their waists, and the residual chill of memory thaws immediately in the cozy warmth of her bed. 

She leans in hesitantly and brushes her lips against his. He can read the worry plain on her face — she doesn’t know what he needs right now — but he tugs her onto his lap, tilts his head back, mouth opening easily under hers for slow lazy kisses that stretch like taffy and then turn deep and dirty. She swears like a sailor as she sinks down slowly onto his cock. 

Christ, she’s gorgeous. 

It must be real. He could never hallucinate something so flawed and incredible as the way she looks naked, the stretch marks under his palms, the calluses on her fingers when she cups his jaw, the way she moans when he plants his feet on the bed and fucks up into her. 

She’s flushed and dewy with sweat, moaning in the sharp bitten-off way that means he found just the right angle, and her thighs are shaking hard enough that he has to grip her hips and hold her steady. He can feel her starting to get close, clenching and flooded around him, when her alarm goes off. 

“Cocksucking motherfucker,” she snarls. 

They both look helplessly at the phone, just out of easy reach on the nightstand. Bucky’s tempted to just ignore it, but she’s already leaning over. She twists at the waist but doesn’t stop rocking her hips down against him, squeezing in little pulses like she can’t help herself, so he settles her more firmly on his lap, holding her weight and anchoring her as she reaches for it. He works his right hand down between them, an awkward angle that’s totally worth it when he can rub her clit with the pad of his thumb and feel her spasm around his cock. 

“Five more minutes,” he suggests breathlessly. 

“Not gonna need that long if you keep doing that.” She trembles and almost collapses before finally grabbing the phone, and she hits the snooze button immediately. 

He’s already rolling his hips, grinding in deep, and he must hit something just right at the same moment she starts to straighten up; it makes her twitch, jerking uncontrollably against him as she moves, and her elbow cracks across his jaw, snapping his head to the side hard enough to rattle his teeth. 

“Shit!” she hisses, and then: “I’m so sorry, I — are you —” 

But the rough throb of pain hit like a swell of heat in Bucky’s gut, making him jerk up into her and shudder with pleasure. He lets his head loll, taking a deep heaving breath and letting it out as a moan. 

It’s not until he tilts his head back to look at her stunned face that he realizes what just happened. His cheeks burn but she doesn’t look disgusted; her eyes go all heavy-lidded and she bites her lip as she starts to ride him again, swiveling her hips. 

He’s opening his mouth to make some excuse, to deny it, when she leans in for a bruising kiss: teeth scraping his lower lip, a whimper rough in her throat, cunt silky-hot and soaked, so good his head is spinning. 

Then she asks raggedly, “Do you want me to do that again?” 

Without even thinking about it, he blurts out, “Yes.” 

Her palm connects with his cheek, a sharp sting that draws a guttural sound from deep in his chest. He moves on pure primal instinct, gripping her hips to slam her down on his cock. 

From there it’s rough and frantic and desperate. He’s only dimly aware of the way she moans, bucking against him, the way they’re moving against each other like animals, the way she bites his lip so hard he tastes copper and then he’s gone, coming so hard his vision goes white with the first intense pulses of it. She shudders as she follows him, riding out the shocks of pleasure with her forehead pressed to his and her hands in his hair. 

He shivers against her, breath hitching as reality washes in like ice water. 

“I can feel you freaking out,” she mumbles. “What, they didn’t have kink in the thirties?”

It surprises Bucky enough that he lets out a huff of laughter. “No. Not exactly.” 

“Why is this freaking you out?” 

He stutters for a second before he manages, “What’s wrong with me?” 

She sits up and looks at him intently. “Fucking nothing.” 

“That should be the last thing I want,” Bucky mutters, cheeks burning. 

“That’s not how it works,” she snaps. “Sex isn’t — it doesn’t always make sense. It’s messy.” 

“I’ve had enough of hurting people for a fuckin’ lifetime.” 

There’s something vulnerable in her sheepish half-smile. “Sometimes your body likes shit it shouldn’t. You can’t control what gets you off. Believe me, sweetheart.” 

He blinks, ready to question that, and she leans in for a quick kiss. As if on cue, her alarm goes off again. 

“Fuck.” 

“I gotta go,” she says reluctantly. “But later — later we’re going to talk about some things. Okay?” 

He doesn’t say it out loud, but he thinks it very clearly in that moment: I love you. 

“Okay.” 

The Soldier pins her brutally against the wall, one hand around her wrists, the other around her throat. He doesn’t squeeze, not yet, just holds her there and savors the thrill; she’s writhing and lashing out at him like a caged animal, but he’s got her and she knows it. 

It’s beautiful, the way she snarls and tries to struggle. 

He wants —

 — so this must be a normal dream, not a memory, but — 

— he wants to fuck her just like this, up against the wall, and —

— his hips jerk and his cock throbs, and — 

— fuck, he wants her. 

“Baby?” Her voice comes out as a sleep-slurred moan. 

He tries to blink away the dream, but instead he’s rolling over and pinning her, rocking his hips down before he can stop himself. She sucks in a breath, spreading her legs to meet the next slow thrust, and she blinks dazedly up at him, mouth dropping open as they rut against each other. 

“What was it?” she asks, raspy and heated. 

He lets out a pained sound and drops his head, hunching to bury his face in the crook of her neck. He’s so goddamn hard, so close, all over a fucked-up dream, and — 

“I was holding you — up against the wall. Your wrists.” 

“Yeah?” she says, voice smoky and eager. “Remember what we talked about?” 

“Traffic lights. Red if you want me to stop.” 

“Do it.”  

Oh. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Fuck yes.” 

He snatches her wrists and crosses them over her head, watching the way her lashes flutter at the touch of metal, the way she bites her lip. She shifts under him, squirming until the length of him is slotted up against her slickness and her legs are up around his hips. 

He slides in slow, relishing every inch, her body welcoming him with living dripping heat. She arches up, and he adjusts his grip on her wrists, squeezing slightly as he braces himself. All he wants in the entire damn universe is to drive into her, piston his hips until she’s screaming, but he starts to fuck her with steady even thrusts, holding back, trying to let go of the last lingering doubts. 

“Doesn’t this scare you?” Bucky asks hoarsely. “That you’re trapped.” 

She lets out a moan that sure as hell doesn’t sound like fear. This isn’t a dream any more, but it still feels surreal. 

“Yellow,” she says.  

“Shit. What’s wrong?” He tries to pull away, but she’s got her ankles hooked, keeping him in place with her legs. He lets go of her wrists, at least, and hauls in a deep breath, trying to make sense of that fierce expression on her face. 

“Nothing. I just wanted you to see that you’re in control. You chose to stop.” 

He swallows hard. “Yeah. I did.” 

“Stop punishing your body for wanting this,” she says. 

His breath catches, and for a moment all he can do is stare. She gives him a smile so soft it threatens to rip him open.

Then he curls his fingers around her wrists again — they’re still crossed, right where he left them. He waits for her nod. 

“Green.” 

Companion fic is here. 

[theladyofbloodshed]

Yeah I always wondered about this. We literally had her blush at Rhysand first, then Mor. Why the immediate jump to her being gay? Although knowing this author, I absolutely do believe that she would make the only black woman in ACOTAR a lesbian because misogynoir, but she could be bi! And tbh, I’d love it if two canon non-white characters got together, because I lowkey hate reading YA novels or watching movies that have token diversity characters who all end up with only white people (and Amren & Varian do not count to me since Amren randomly took her form).

I lowkey used to ship Emerie and Azriel only for the sweet justice of making him fall in love with an Illyrian since he hates them so much. I think it was you who posted that snippet where Emerie called Feyre out for her wings? I imagined he fell for her right then and there lol. He could’ve flown her around since she could no longer fly, and she could cuss him out for dick riding his do-nothing leaders while people like her suffer in their culture until he forced some change. It would’ve been nice. But no…we had to pair the tortured personification of trauma to two girls whose entire character background is suffering and trauma 🙄

If anything, I do wish we could get an Illyrian ship. ANY Illyrian ship so that we don’t have to see people who are brutalized and used then ignored by the Inner Court fall in love with one of the ones okay with using them ignoring them.

I think it's literally because Rhys is the most beautiful man in existence. Even Beron blushes when he sees Rhys. The world stops turning when Rhys sees his own reflection. Too damn beautiful. (I still find the scene in ACOMAF when they go to Rita's weird because people are hitting on Rhys at the bar... like imagine me meeting King Charles and shooting my shot).

I would love an Illyrian ship. I would love a non-straight ship. I just don't think sjm will do either. She writes such graphic straight sex scenes, I can't see her doing the same for gay couples, like I can't even see her writing a kiss without doing it in some weirdly vague roundabout way. I cannot even imagine her having a character say they are a woman who likes women. *female. Or it will be Emerie fawning for the whole book over how beautiful Mor is and how she doesn't deserve her.

I still do not know Emerie's ancestry. We got a weird thought from Nesta that "oh she must be have an ancestor from the Dawn Court" that's never explored or mentioned and somehow Nesta just guesses that????

[imagining-in-the-margins]

what do you think of this take about later seasons spencer??? https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMd4XKMCW/

[Link] Synopsis: a critique that later seasons Spencer Reid had his autistic traits taken away.

First and foremost, I want to say that I don’t think there is anything wrong with the take, no hate to the creator, and a lot of people agree, so it’s certainly valid and shared among a portion of the community.

That being said, I strongly disagree. I also commented this on the post itself. I will say I don’t particularly care for any allistic (non-autistic) people speaking on this issue — neurodivergent or not (OP & I are both autistic) — but I welcome any other autistic people to talk to me about their interpretation. Doesn’t bother me at all.

I think a big part of the divide is age. This isn’t an “oh you silly kids” thing, either. It’s a matter of seeing someone representative of you and the way you behave. The younger crowd will see more of themselves in early seasons Spencer, and the older crowd will see more of themselves in later seasons.

(More below so it doesn’t clog feeds)

I grew up watching Criminal Minds. I watched as Spencer’s character slowly developed and changed as the years and traumas went by. I see a lot of myself in him, and especially in the later seasons. There is no universal autistic experience. We are all different, and we are different every year. We are still people, and people change as they grow.

I find a lot of the loudest critics of Spencer’s depiction in the later seasons didn’t even watch them. They purely base their decision on fanon. This alpha male sex God people claim was depicted… doesn’t exist. He is just something people exaggerated for fun (like all fanon!).

Spencer continues to miss social cues (ESPECIALLY in prison), becomes awkward during confrontation, is easily overwhelmed/confused, infodumps, has difficulty recognizing and parsing his own emotional responses, and is awkward with certain physical contact. The biggest difference is (1) he’s gotten better at masking and (2) he’s more comfortable around the team.

He has spent over a decade with these people. I behave significantly different around my close friends, and I think this is reflected in his different relationships, as well. At the beginning of the show he was insecure and new. At the end, he’s proven his worth and formed a family.

Lastly, this hypersexualization and overexaggeration of character traits in fanon is not unique to Spencer, nor is it unique to later seasons Spencer. Again, some of the loudest critics of later seasons Spencer HEAVILY hypersexualize and overexaggerate his autistic traits in the earlier seasons. Fanon early seasons Spencer is remarkably similar to an actual child — helpless, meek, unassuming, incapable, clueless, weak. Not to mention the feminization of autistic men, which often implies their autistic traits make them less of a man, or that their attraction to women is “fake” because it’s awkward. I could go on for days with all the weird ass ways people fetishize early seasons Spencer.

There are certainly unique ableist narratives, problems, and perceptions about Spencer’s character. They are not unique to any particular season. I have always viewed him as an autistic character, and that didn’t stop merely because he became more comfortable with the people around him, and more confident in his skills and his place in the world. Not to mention… finally got his fucking therapy 🥲

[taaroko]

Loki phenotypes headcanon

I love the Loki show but it’s very weird to me that the Loki variants don’t all look like Tom Hiddleston (or as close to Tom Hiddleston as possible while being older or younger or a woman). I mean the big monstrous-looking Loki and the weird gnome-like one in that initial set of images we saw in episode 2 could have been the result of Loki doing weird experiments on himself I guess, but the same cannot be said of Sylvie, Boastful Loki, or all of the goons who (temporarily) work for President Loki. That the only recurring Loki appearance we see is the Tom Hiddleston one, and ESPECIALLY because the Tom variants include the brief glimpse we get of Jotun Loki, is very interesting though, and I’ve come up with a theory about it. 

The Tom appearance is reflective of Loki’s actual non-shapeshifted appearance. Tom is just what that Jotun baby would grow up looking like if all he did was make himself look Aesir but didn’t get fancy. So I think the variable that determines what Loki looks like as an adult is who picks him up in the temple on Jotunheim. In most timelines, it’s Odin, but not always.

Sylvie is what that Jotun baby would look like if found by a woman like a Valkyrie or Lady Eir before Odin. However sex and gender work for Frost Giants at large, this one’s a shapeshifter and might not have a preference one way or the other (especially as a baby) except for instinctively matching the person who found them and prevented death by starvation. Like...gender presentation imprinting or something. That would also explain why Sylvie is the only Loki we’ve seen so far who presents female as her default; it was simply far more likely for baby Loki to get found by a male Aesir because there weren’t a lot of ladies involved in that war.

Similar for skin color. Boastful Loki looks the way he does because a dark-skinned Einheri or maybe even Heimdall found him before Odin. And all the other Lokis who were in President Loki’s gang might’ve been found by random other Einherjar. (I’m assuming that no matter who found him, if they were Aesir, he ended up raised by Odin and Frigga.)

Whatever you believe Odin’s reasons were for picking up baby Loki, I think he was much more likely to actually keep him and give him the food and comfort he’d been lacking than most Asgardian soldiers would be, so maybe baby Loki felt less desperate to change everything about his appearance in order to ensure he got rescued and cared for in the timelines when it was Odin who got to him first.

What I haven’t made up my mind about is what would happen to non-Tom Lokis the first time they reverted to Frost Giant form. Would they end up looking like blue Toms no matter what, or would they keep everything else about the appearances they grew up with except species? Was the existential crisis on discovering their true species, like, WAY worse for non-Tom Lokis because there was no longer anything familiar about their appearance at all?

I’m sticking to my guns on Lokigator: he either had a bad shapeshift and got stuck or had a good shapeshift and is too stubborn to change back (likely because of trauma).

This theory might not be worth as much if we get to Spider-Man: No Way Home and have three different Peters Parker not played by the same actor and from wildly different timelines all onscreen together, and I’m eager enough to see that not to care too much about the baffling implications it would have about genetics, but I still like it for now. It could be that the different Peters are from different universes, not merely different timelines, and then the theory would remain intact.