#so heteronormative

[sociallyacceptablemadness]

The feeling when you realize you're the token straight in your friend group

[aka-indulgence]

Why do they do this

[willthespy]

annabeth being piper’s sapphic awakening?? anyone???

lesbian visibility week is almost over so i had to post this draft…rip piper mclean you would’ve loved chappell roan and kissing girls

[offkilterkeys]

The world isn’t ready for my alpha kid readings.

[anonymouscheeses]

Under the sun

[beanghostprincess]

me: all sanji fics are the same! it's always sanji having a breakdown over liking a man and going into an identity crisis and a spiral of internalized homophobia-

also me every time i read a sanji fic: OH MY GOD SANJI HAVING A BREAKDOWN OVER LIKING A MAN AND GOING INTO AN IDENTITY CRISIS AND A SPIRAL OF INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA THIS IS SO GOOD AWKEBFNALKEWNFLKANELKN

[hellcatsandcars]

not to engage with top/bottom discourse in the year of our lord 2024, but how on earth are people sleeping on dom bottom viktor and sub top jayce

[scrumptiousfoxglitter]

In 7th grade our math teacher told us a story of 7th graders a few years back getting into a fistfight after arguing and when he told us one was a girl and the other was a guy one of my classmates shouted "Ooh, she was flirting 😲" and... It's just so interesting to me how some allos hear two kids getting expelled from fistfighting and come to the conclusion of there being romantic tensions between them.

[sentientsky]

words by Sylvia Plath

i will not be well tomorrow. just a general psa

[echoed-salvation]

Watching a certain subsect of manhwa-only fans reduce yoo sangah to a "love interest waifu" character is so frustrating because it literally goes against the entire point of her character. She's been trying her whole life to escape the expectations put on her just because she's a conventionally attractive woman. She went against her family's wishes for her to marry rich and got a job to become independent, only to face harassment and sexism in her male-dominated workplace. She is frequently objectified and pushed to be appealing to the male gaze. Even kim dokja initially thinks of her as less of a person and more of an archetype. Yoo sangah is a woman trying to forge her own identity within a patriarchal society that will never see her for who she truly is.

I think it says something about the way we consume media that we always assume that an attractive female character who plays a particular role in the male mc's life must be a romantic interest - that most of the fandom discussions of yoo sangah I've seen are about whether she and kdj are going to get together romantically and that so many of us complain about being "tricked" into thinking that they are when their canon relationship remains entirely platonic by the end of the novel. When yoo sangah is close to kim dokja we expect the development of a romance between the two. If a woman is close with a man then we think that's the only option for their relationship. We are taught to see female characters not as their own people, but rather mere objects for men.

[yellowdaffodils-76]

Aroace people, he/him lesbians, and polyamorous people, we are holding hands in a circle in the support group I founded called: Queer Identities Nobody Understands That Are Constantly Villainized and Harangued With Pointless Arguments Regarding their Validity.

[laterkatersays]

it can be so frustrating.

To wait for years for your ship to happen. To have a section of your own community actively hate one of your favourite characters, to call them an abuser, to hate the relationship you love with all of your heart, and to constantly claim the other character would be better off with literally anyone else.

And you wait, for the very final episode, the last chance for them to open their bruised, battered hearts to each other, to reveal themselves, to get that romantic final kiss. To get a promise of a forever, or even just a promise of a tomorrow, together.

And then. To instead get, "Can I come with you?" and then for the response to be, "I'd love that, but not yet."

To get, "I think I need you to be thoughtful about it. I think that's what I would ask, is take some time and be thoughtful... This is a thing I do not what you to jump into, even if it's just casual fucking around."

To get a possible vision of regular visits, and adventures together, but also time apart, time spent doing their own things, alone and with others. For it to be still undefined, still not sure if they are friends, or friends with benefits, or...

(That lingering or...)

It can be frustrating, not to get the romantic ending. The shiny, golden ending you can hold up and show to others, and say, "See? It was a long hard road, but they are happy and in love and together."

The ending you can hold close to your chest, while you grieve the fact that it's over, to give yourself comfort, knowing that they are happy, together, loved.

But instead, my friends, instead. We got endless possibilities.

Which only makes sense, for an apprentice fatestitcher, and a person held together by potential and probability.

[kendrysaneela]

Max “What are you talking about I don’t want a threesome I just brought you both back to my cabin and turned on sexy music after we’ve talked about threesomes multiple times for normal middle of the night platonic hang out time” Bankman is hilarious to me

[casscainmainly]

can you dive more into bruce’s dislike of cass’ femininity?

Sure!! To preface this, gender and Cass is a really nuanced topic that has a lot of interpretations, all equally valid. This is just my own interpretation, and is mainly situated in early Batgirl (2000). I also recommend reading my gender and sexuality posts for Cass' persepctive on her relationship with gender. But since I've gotten a couple questions about it, I'll cover specifically Bruce's evolving opinions on Cass' gender here.

Beginning

From Batgirl #1, Puckett establishes Bruce's view of Cass: she is like him. Both Barbara and Bruce (and Cass herself) acknowledge this, and it allows Bruce to understand Cass in a way Babs doesn't. This isn't gendered yet, but the seed (that Horrocks will pull on) is there - Bruce closely associates Cass with himself, meaning he focuses on the ways they're similar and ignores the ways they're different.

This similarity is comforting not just for Bruce, but for Cass as well. They are equals - they have similar fighting abilities, philosophies against killing, ways of expressing themselves, etc. She doesn't have to hold back, not with him. Both of them wanted her to be 'like him'.

Bruce does not want Cass being taken "away from [him]". "You want me to think she's like you," he tells David Cain in #5. His biggest fear is Cass being like someone else, and not like him.

The Threat of Stephanie Brown

This recurring motto - 'you're not like them, you're like me' - crops up again when Bruce talks about Stephanie in #38. I've discussed how this makes Cass think she lacks something in femininity, but for Bruce this is him drawing a line between Steph and Cass. Steph is a 'girl', treated like one by Bruce: incompetent, not to be taken seriously, belittled. But because Cass is 'like Bruce,' she can "never" be like Stephanie. Cass being like Stephanie challenges not only Bruce's views of both women, but also his own highly cherished belief that him and Cass are the same.

Steph's feminine presence threatens Bruce and Cass' relationship, kicking off a series of issues where Bruce desperately tries to suppress Cass' gender and sexuality.

Vacation

When Cass encounters Tai'Darshan (a boy love interest) and lets him go, Bruce agrees to send Babs and Cass on a vacation. His motivations are extremely murky: Babs implies it was a set-up to get Cass into action again (justified by a panel of Bruce evilly smirking), but a panel right after has Bruce looking sad:

From #40: "You don't really give a damn about Cassandra, do you?" The juxtaposition between these two panels - one with Bruce (sans mask) smirking, and the other with Batman brooding - suggests he does care about Cass, but he struggles with how. For the first time he's realising that Cass isn't like him, that she's a girl with all that girlhood entails, and it frightens him. The cowl (Batgirl) allows him to ignore what's underneath, but Cass is coming through more and more.

But when Babs mentions Kon, the struggle goes out the window.

Thi anger is funny in a girldad way, but it goes to show how much he cannot stand the thought of Cass exploring her sexuality. It's not just that he doesn't want his little girl to date - it's that somehow, Cass embodying her girlhood will separate her from him forever.

Loss

Babs explicitly points out Bruce's feelings in #42. Though she couches it in non-gendered terms ("school, a job"), it's no coincidence that it's specifically a gendered thing - "falling in love" (with a boy, Kon and/or Tai) - that Bruce is reacting to. So far Bruce has threatened Cass away from Stephanie (her first female friend), Tai/Kon (love interests), and has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction in Babs (Cass' mother figure). He tries to limit any relationships that allow Cass either feminine solidarity or expressions of her femininity.

Bruce sees girl!Cass as fundamentally opposed to Batgirl!Cass. Batgirl is like him - Cass is not. She's "distracted. Unfocused. Unreliable..." That last adjective is super interesting, because it frames Cass' explorations of gender as an insult against him. Cass becoming more girl-like is making her "unreliable" to Bruce, making her harder to trust.

"If you've got better things to do than being Batgirl, Cass, just say so." This can be read as an ultimatum, but also as a genuine question. He's asking if she wants to be like him (Batgirl), or go her own way (Cass). When she picks Batgirl, he tells her "no more trips to Kansas." To be like him, she must give up her explorations of gender/sexuality.

Firing

In the aftermath of a trip to Tai's hometown (during which he dies), Cass grows increasingly distant to Bruce.

Bruce finally realises that Cass is not like him - that her differences, most vitally expressed in her girlhood, means she needs something different from him. "She no longer tells us what she's doing..." Bruce still associates Cass exploring her gender as disloyalty to him and his symbol, but this time he acknowledges that maybe that disloyalty is a good thing.

Then we have maybe the most interesting part:

Bruce's "I wouldn't know" is a response to Babs' second dialogue, but it's interesting to read his words as also a response to the first. Because Bruce wouldn't know what it's like to give into hormones, to "have sex, take wild risks, misbehave". Of course he's had sex, but his life is so consumed by his mission that Bruce has limited opportunities to explore his gender. In a way, Bruce's repression of Cass' femininity reflects his repression of his own gender exploration.

The Fight

In #50, Cass and Bruce get into a fight, during which Babs questions whether Cass is trying to "kill" or "kiss" Bruce. In the broader context of their gender struggles, this fight is the culmination of Cass and Bruce figuring out their gender expressions and sexualities. I'm reading this not as a romantic kiss, but as a symbol of sexual release - of defying sexual and gendered repression.

Bruce finally explicitly asks Cass who's she loyal to, and Cass points to the Bat. For Bruce, this choice symbolises that Cass is still loyal to Batgirl/Batman, but also her own person; he finally understands how Cass is like him, but also unlike him, and that her (gender) difference doesn't make her any less able to wear the symbol.

This fight is often analysed from Cass' perspective, but it was clearly important to Bruce, too. It was the turning point in his treatment and understanding of Cass - after this point, their relationship never hits the same lows again, and Bruce starts treating her like her own person (cultiminating in the Batgirl (2008) adoption). In Gabrych's run, Bruce leaves Cass alone and doesn't stop her from searching for Shiva, a huge difference from the way he previously handled her feminine relationships and soul-searching.

Ending

So I guess to say Bruce hated Cass' femininity (which I wrote in a previous post) is an oversimplification; it's not purely misogyny (though that was a part of it), but his longing for her to be exactly like him that caused him to try to repress her gender/sexuality. Her femininity was a marker of difference, a sign she was not completely subsumed in him and his symbol. However, Horrocks' run also shows how Bruce changes and grows, learning to accept Cass as his wonderful daughter.

I hope that answers your question!!

[shesnake]

challengers (and, on some level iwtv) on the brain it really is so funny how so many people often will happily talk about polyamory as a solution to their little ships but when confronted with narratives that truly explore that it can't compute for them and they start picking teams of two.

[aweirdbugcreature]

Blue flag basically